Schoooool's out for summer

School's out for summer
School's out forever
School's been blown to pieces

Last day of school. The only day of the year my children truly appreciate Alice Cooper's contribution to rock'n roll.

Yes. It's true. The kids are officially home for 68 days straight. I admit it. I'm afraid. Very afraid. Very, very, very afraid.

However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it's called MOMMY'S GOING TO NYC IN 11 MORE SLEEPS :)

Before that though, I have to survive my daughter's 14th birthday party sleepover and I have to finish going over the page proofs for The Remains of the Dead and all the while I have to keep the four kidlets from killing each other.

After that, I'm solving the problem of world peace.
How about you? What's your challenge this week?

The hardest thing ...

Paris Hilton described her brief imprisoment as "the hardest thing I have ever done".

Wow. Now I hate to jump on the Hilton bandwagon with the rest of the media but when I read this line, I gave my head a shake. Then I felt like shaking her but, hey, I'm not (except on paper) a violent person he he.

I guess the reason I found myself a tad annoyed was that we aren't talking ten years of hard time here. It appears like more of a time-out. "You've been a naughty little rich girl and now you must sit in a small room and think about what you've done".

Paris is young and rich so I will cut her a little slack. After all, she hasn't experienced a lot of what would qualify as "hard" things in her life, right?

For example, she hasn't given birth. Without pain killers. Four times.

If she had, she might change her mind and say that prison was the 5th hardest thing she's ever done.

Probably what she needed in jail was something positive to focus on. I know that a lot of writers if locked away for weeks and allowed a computer or simply a pen and paper would write the days away.

But what if that wasn't possible. Let's just say they plopped me in a cell for a few weeks. Provided me meals that I didn't even have to shop for or wash dishes after. Gave me clothes I didn't have to buy, iron or wash. And they let me sleep without someone waking me in the middle of the night because of nightmares or at the crack of dawn to say they had a sore tummy and then vomiting next to me. Sheesh, it already sounds better than home but I digress. Let's say I couldn't write but the jailers were willing to provide me the simple tools to learn a new skill, what would I choose? Hmmm...

1) I'd listen to language tapes and learn Italian
2) I'd learn to crochet or knit. (Mom tried to teach me but I was too distracted.)
3) I'd re-read all the classics.

Come to think of it, a few weeks might not even be enough.

So how about you? Given a few weeks to yourself, what would you do if you couldn't write?

A Writer's gotta do, what a writer's gotta do...

On Saturday night I was on a mission. The kids were in bed. The husband was out of town. It was late but I couldn't sleep. It was just me and my computer. There was no avoiding the scene from Hell I'd been avoiding for days.

But when I sat down to write it, nothing came. When I did find words I wrote then deleted, then wrote and deleted. Ugh! My ugly side, Inner Editor, was telling me all the reasons the scene wouldn't work. And every word I wrote seemed to prove Inner Editor right.

Now I know it's easier to fix a badly worded scene then it is to deal with a blank page. Still, I couldn't seem to write a darn thing without re-writing it seconds later. Back and forth. It was driving me crazy so I did what any self-respecting writer would do to drown out the voice of her inner editor.

I popped my cork.

Of Lindman's Shiraz that is lol. I know what you're thinking and, no, I do not usually sit around drinking myself into a stupor before I write. However, Saturday night it was either me or Inner Editor. I decided IE was going down! It took 2 1/5 glasses of wine (truthfully, I was probably good to go after 1 but I didn't want to take any chances). I sat down at my keyboard and flung out the 7 page scene in 90 minutes.

Now there are many days when I can't get 7 pages out of me all day long so I was pretty pleased with getting that scene done. Of course the draw back of writing a scene while you've had some wine is that you can pretty much guarantee there's going to be more then the usual amount of editing involved in the second draft. Oh well. Inner Editor can have her fun with the scene when the first draft is complete.

That was my excitement for the weekend. How about you?