Back in the saddle...

Am trying to get back into the swing of things, but it's difficult. We still have the wee ones, but I think the state is going to make a decision about that this week. I am finding it challenging to keep my mind on my writing. Not fiction... I managed to finish the revisions on my YA proposal last week, so both DASH and LIPS are out. YAY! But non fiction is another story and since that's where the money comes from... You get the picture! Am having trouble with a source, but can't move ahead without them. Need to get to work on my other articles as well. My editors have been more than patient and I need to reward them back by getting this stuff done.

Which brings me to the next challenge. I've been very dissatisfied with my writing as of late. My nonfiction is boring and my fiction lacks depth. I am thinking both these things stem from the same writing weakness. My lack of patience. I write my nonfiction like newspaper stories... I get in fast and get out. There is no...style to it. This is troubling me. I feel my fiction is the same way. It just feels like it is lacking...something. Without nuances perhaps. And my lack of grammatical knowledge is really concerning me. I have always been one to spout developing an "ear" but lately, I have wanted to understand they whys and wherefores.

I really don't have a lot of time to worry about this right now, but would like to get some ideas on how I can change it. How can I, at 42, pack a whole bunch more knowledge into my lazy little brain?

Now that we know...

Lung cancer. My mom has lung cancer. And she quit smoking over 28 years ago.

Well, crap.

That really pisses me off. All the trouble of depriving yourself for 28 years and you get lung cancer anyway? I would just like to say here-- NOT FAIR!

They can't see the tumor yet, but know it's there and is already sending out mean little cancer tumors. There may be one in her thyroid too. So two weeks of radiation then a round of chemo. It will kill her eventually. The question is...how long. No one knows.

My biological father died two years ago of lung cancer. How much you wanna bet that no one will give me a life insurance policy? I feel like a damn time bomb.

My parents will be moving up here to be near me and OHSU. I'm happy about that. I'd hate for them to be five hours away where I can't help them.

So that's the final word. I think I'll be done blogging about it for a while. I'm depressing myself here. I just want to blog about my writing life. I still actually have one. Finished an article yesterday and my editor loved it. I sent out the DASH partial and hope that HQ editors loves it. Got two critiques on my LIPS revision and need to get that out next week. Need to catch up on my articles. That sort of thing. I like blogging about stuff like that.

Rocking On

Actually been getting some work done. Half an article (which I would finish but missing some information that I'm waiting) on and got some valuable feedback from my CP on my synopsis. Even posted LIPS for my other group of CP's to look over. So I just keep on rocking on.

Been trying to keep up with reading everyone's blogs even if I'm not commenting much. You all rock too:)Thanks for the support!

Bummed it's not breast cancer

After my mom and I left the women's imaging center, I had to tell her. "You know things are bad when you are actually bummed that it's not breast cancer!"

We laughed so hard I thought I was going to have to pull off the road. But it's true. It would have been easier if the results had come back positive for breast cancer... at least then we would have known! Still getting the run around on the most important test, the PET scan. Hope to get that done soon so we know what we are dealing with.

Still working on the synopsis from hell. Almost finished with it and then I can fling it to my Cp's to help me fix and get that requested partial out. Then work on LIPS. I have a lot done on it, but still have a lot to do.

You know, I almost wish I had done it from someone else's POV. It might have been an easier sell. I think people are afraid to have a deaf heroine when the writer isn't deaf because, even though I know a lot because of my deaf neice, I am a hearing person... how much can I actually know? Hindsight is always 20/20.

Oh, well. Onward and upward!

Heath and writing update...

Mom is home with me and doing well. We know we have a long road ahead of us, but are sure that all will be well. That's how you have to go into a fight, knowing you will win, no matter what kind of fight it is!

Am writing the synopsis from hell so I can get my partial out to the editor who requested it. Not going well. The book is so different from the first synopsis I wrote that it needs a complete overhaul. Hope to finish it today while the kids are at daycare. I still have to finish revamping the first three chapters of LIPS for that editor who requested it.

Need to figure out where I'm at with my nonfiction, too. My to do list is so long, I'm not even going to include it!

Must rush off... live well everyone!

The Big C

I arrived at the hospital yesterday and find my mom talking to another doctor. Yep. An oncologist. The tumor was not only cancerous it had come from another source. They ran a CT scan on her and her lungs and stomch were clear but she did have some swollen Lymph glands near her broncial tubes. Since the preliminary stains from the tumor suggested lung cancer they are very supicious of her bronchial tubes. If they can't find the source... which occasionally happens, they will do a broad based round of Chemo. On top of the four weeks of brain radiation she already has to have.

She can't do this in hermiston where she has no one to help her. So she is going to have to do it here. Which means... yeah. But my dad can't stay here. No room. So...

Sigh. Have tons of decisions to make in the next couple of days.

But think of the research I will have done if one of my characters is ever sick!

Mom and GE

Mom came through the surgery fine yesterday. She can see and they got all the tumor they could see. Not sure yet if is cancerous, but they think that it probably isn't a non cancerous tumor. Mine was a menganoma (sp?) and they knew right away that it wasn't cancerous, so we will have to wait to find out what it is.

On the good news front... Dash of Desire took first in the Great expectations short and long contemporary category:) And I got a request for a partial. The score sheet was awesome... got 128 out of 130. Now I have to call my agent and let her know:)

Have an early hospital visit, so have to run.

My tumor's bigger than your tumor...

Actually it's not. Mom's got me beat. And it's far more dangerous than mine was. She has a tumor about the size of a small egg in the occipital lobe of her brain. It's hidden behind the main arteries that feed her brain. They brought in the big guns for the operation, the head Oregon State Hospital University's neurology department is performing the surgery, which is scheduled for Weds.

They let her out of the hospital yesterday because they got the brain swelling down which was causing all the speech and memory problems. We ran around all day yesterday and everytime we forgot something, we would joke about our brain tumors...mine is a dead mass in my head, though, while hers is... well, we won't know till the operation what hers is.

Today my brother and his family came up from the coast and another brother and grandaughter came from the other side of Portland to have Easter dinner with us. Yes, I managed to make Easter dinner. My friend Ann took the babies for the weekend and we picked them up today... poor things have been shuffled around enough. My dh is staying home from work for the next couple of days so he can watch them while I focus on my folks. She will take them again on weds while I'm at the hospital. Almost as worried about my 91 year old dad as I am my mom.

I'm sort of in the twilight zone of my life... Haven't felt like this since preparing for my own surgery.

Prayers and good thoughts

I was told yesterday that my mom has a mass in the back of her brain. She's currently in this little podunk town in Eastern Oregon. They're moving her to Portland today, Thank the Lord. She'll be only about 25 minutes from me. She's 71 and my dad is 91. Friends are picking him up and bringing him to my place. My blessed best friend is taking the girls for a few days so I can concentrate on my parents. My editors are awesome and have rearranged the editorial schedule so I can work without pressure.

HOT and DASH will have to wait. If I thought I was drowning yesterday morning that is nothing compared to how I'm feeling now... Sorta like I'm on the Titantic.

ACK!

Glub.
Glub.
Glub.

That's the sound of me drowning.

Too much to do, too little time!

I have nine articles due this month, the revisions on LIPS and the edits on DASH.

No time.

Even getting up at 4:30 am isn't helping. Two days of daycare isn't going to be enough this month. My house is gross and my teens are melting down. I'm pretty ticked off right now that the state told me they were going to give me daycare then backed out of it. I'm furious off that my SIL told me she would do respite for one weekend a month and then backed out.

All these things would have kept us going and my own family and my career intact. Now I'm just swimming along and going under!

On a good note, the edits on LIPS are going well. We'll see what my agent thinks. I hoped to have it to her by the weekend. Now, prolly not. Oh, well. Maybe next week.

On a better note, Zoe's preschool teacher offered to help out and take the girls for a whole day once a month. That won't help me career wise because I really need to use it to spend time with my own family. But it's still a very good thing.

Off to try to work while I only have one baby. The other one is at preschool!

Teens and teen lit

My life begs the question: Who are these people and what the H&%* are they doing in my house?

That's the question I asked as my dh and I sat out on the curb last night sharing a Sam Adams lager. It was actually nice, to be sitting out on the curb with the man I married. Sort of like we had been transported back to 1989 when we first fell in love. But the problems were real. TEENS!

Don't get me wrong, I have comparatively GREAT teens. We are extraordinarily close and they don't drink, do drugs, lie or skip school. I am grateful for them. Sorta. Because they are not grateful toward us in the least. No, we are the idiots who stop them from having fun and expect things from them. I remember being a teen. I understand. That doesn't mean I don't get to say who are these people and why do they eat all our food, spend all our money and tell us we suck?????

And why are teen girls so flipping dramatic?? Like I said before, "too old to spank and too young to bitch slap."

Ahem.

Oh, and I started my first Scott Westerfield this weekend. Uglies. All I have to say is: Oh. My Gawd.

He is blowing my freaking mind. I've read three new books since the beginning of the year. All by talented authors. But not one of them did to me what this book has done. The voice is so fresh. The story so freaking compelling. It's all I think about. If it weren't for having the wee ones I would be done already, deadlines be damned. It's that good.

Go buy it and read it!