Watched closely by the cats, occasionally removing them from boxes, we de-Christmased the house. “WHAT ALREADY???” my friend texted. But we’ve had Christmas since 11/23, when we decorated our faux tree. As much of a Crazy Christmas Lady as I am, even I am ready to face 2024 w/out blinking lights and a Santa face in mine wherever I turn.
Until Next year, Thor.
After packing up my favorite season, we’ll eat Panda Express and play Santa’s gift to us of Cards Against Humanity Family Edition.
And then we’ll drift to various parts of the house, gaming, reading, puttering, playing the piano and guitar (one of us enjoying a hot, lavender scented bath), until the ball drops.
Yours in wishing for Peace and a 2024 filled with promise,
When I close my laptop and the house isn’t stirring, not even a cat (or a teen), tiredx10 from walking the crazy girl earlier in the day, bleary-eyed from revising topics I must believe in because I keep on writing and keep on revising them, I sit before our tree decorated in memories and it reminds me to breathe.
Welcome to December! aka Revisionmas! Which has everything to do with this photo.
Yours in Christmas decorations up since Thanksgiving Day, a return to writing at night in addition to weekday dawns, and yours in the art and agony and thrill(s) of revision–and of course yours in school holidays, meaning instead of carpooling teens, I can continue revising (clarifying note: I enjoy carpooling the teens, especially when they’re feeling chatty, but even when they’re not, because these are the good old days),
Daylight Savings Time; my dad would have been 83 today; it’s 87F in my neck of the woods until maybe midweek; we are prepping for our son’s 16th birthday party–I have purchased glow-in-the-dark beachballs that can have the s*** pounded out of them by 10 teens, we have ordered pizzas with customized flavors, and crispy chicken wings, and Mr. Beast chocolate chip cookies.
And then there’s: revising, which I’ve decided is an art + bane one wears around one’s neck invisible-stole-style, comfort and needles.
Yours in a productive November and yours in sympathy and encouragement when walking dogs, like mine, that are both Bambi and Cujo,
I’ve got a pretty good rhythm going revising: 2 kidlit/eco-fiction novels and 2 women’s fiction novels. I am a morning person now–not sure I’m TRULY a 5:30a.m. morning person? But that alarm seems to work if I want to feel as if I’ve really made progress in a day packed with some form of exercise (hiking 2 miles w/Crazy-Girl dog or swimming laps), a sick teen, all the endless errands, and the needs of 6 pets (including Crazy-Girl).
I think the first thing any writer should be told by any keynote speaker, anywhere, is: revision is what writing your novel is/writing your novel is revision.
But you already know that.
And here is a coyote I saw from my bedroom windows the other morning. Clearly amply fed/watered, healthy coat, surviving well–she/he made my day. I mean, look at her/him! Could win the SoCal Coyote category Best In Show–easily.
In addition to first and foremost helping my teen weather the whatever-thing going after his stomach for the last 3 weeks, meeting kidlit contest deadlines and women’s fiction contest deadlines and revising my current kidlit stable of novels and my women’s fiction stable of novels in addition to continuing to recover from Covid (my teen continues to test negative for Covid, thank goodness), not to mention tending to the mini-zoo and Crazy Girl we love so much featured in the photo–
forgot where I was going with this (lingering Covid fog?).
Nothing like good news to keep my butt in my swivel office chair, revising.
I discovered I received 4th Place by reading Kite Tales this morning. I had been notified by email a couple of days ago, but via my gmail account, which I sometimes forget to check. Doh!!! I began reading about the winners and I was all sad and sorry for myself, although happy for the winners (their books sound amazing) and, suddenly, there was my name.
You know how so many books on creativity, or self-help books by therapists, psychologists, or self-help websites and apps advise stepping away from your work and going on an artist-date with your creative-self in order to receive fresh ideas, answers to confounding plot points or an end to writer’s block?
Recently we drove from Valencia (mountains) to Ventura (ocean!!!) on the 126 Hwy, which took us through good old Fillmore (fields, strip malls/classic train depot…). My husband and I were stunned by the number of popup fireworks booths Fillmore displayed by the highway. At least a dozen? Their canopies emblazoned in red script promising explosions.
Fillmore is in Ventura County and unlike Los Angeles County has NOT banned the sale of fireworks, despite the 1 gigantic fire hazard spreading from Valencia to Fillmore to Santa Paula to the coast. Citrus orchards, but also dry fields. Dry mountains. Tumbleweeds.
Because of Ventura County’s short-sightedness, Fillmore is a fireworks purchasing hub for Los Angeles County and beyond–certainly for those in my little Valencian neighborhood intent on 4th of July mischief.
This 4th of July falls in the middle of an ongoing heatwave (but when doesn’t it). As we lounged on one of our favorite beaches, my husband and I went over our 4th list: veggie hot dogs, lemonade, frozen watermelon chunks, de-crimped garden hoses and backup hoses, fire dept/sheriff on speed dial.
Check.
Last year, partying neighbors a few doors down set off a Roman candle in the street around 11pm. The hissing/spitting candle was a couple of stories tall and so wide an approaching car had to stop and wait for it to die before proceeding safely along the street. Most of my other neighbors barged out of their houses shouting, WTH. When I yelled: Okay, no more! at the offending neighbors (new neighbors) breaking the law, the reply was: I don’t like your tone!
Happy safe 4th of July.
Yours in an abundant supply of garden hoses and yours in lovely beaches that say shhhhh,
As June comes to a close, my son paused by my computer, touched my shoulder, whispered with dread: Mom–what’s the date today?
I told him: Dude, it’s only barely almost July.
He was clearly relieved the summer was still before him–to be honest, so was I. He headed to the community pool to meet a friend and I carried on writing/revising with a lunch of frozen watermelon chunks and a glass of cold lemonade.
We. Love. Summer.
And may need to see a family therapist come the first week of August for end-of-summer-vacation coping skills.
Yours in (what else but!) endless summer vacation (and revising),
School’s out for summer & we’re living on a timetable, this helmet-of-grey-clouds-June crammed with little trips here/there + revising revising revising my work + swimming laps 4-7 days/week+ reading Demon Copperhead. I’LL TAKE IT!
Not a monster, but a Pteranodon (framed photo), and has everything to do with the novel I’m currently revising, which has everything to do with monsters–human, animal, extinct, imagined and otherwise. As I may have mentioned.
Dropping this pic here as I revise my current novels as at this moment, this picture describes my writing life. Layered, themed, complicated/not complicated, weirdly satisfying, a constant work-in-progress.
Revision is hard, right? But also gratifying.
Long live the Mojave/Mitchell Caverns (see this post).
The SCBWI-LA booth was busy on Sunday 4/23! Wonderful for the authors signing books. So many parents and kids visited our booth, it couldn’t have just been the bubble machine attracting everyone–I mean, even meandering teens lingered. Zeena M. Pliska, Maureen Charles, Christine Van Zandt, Lori Polydoros–thank you for the time you took to chat with me. AND it’s always a delight to hang with author Robert Mellette.
I’m going. Are you? Sunday I’m helping out at the SCBWI booth. Both days have a great lineup of kidlit authors signing books. Poetry tent will be quietly rockin’. Lots to explore, as usual. See you there!
After you fix the broken picture frame with wood staples and wire, take the glass rectangle to the kitchen and turn on the tap, hold it beneath and watch the water slide down through the dust. Balance that expanse on the divider between the two sinks, tempting gravity, while you squirt a blue sponge with soap. Scrub at the emptiness. Feel how solid it is against your fingers. Dry the glass with a paper towel, rub the pane until it sings, then bring the damp cloth to your face, cooling your flesh, your blood. Pick up the little invisible door and place it back in its frame, press your dead mother against it which is where she belongs, under glass like a specimen. Her eyes forever open, her lies sealed shut.
Mitchell Caverns viewpoint, Mojave National Preserve,Providence Mountains
Last year I thought we’d spend this year’s spring break in Costa Rica, but Rte 66 and the Mojave National Preserve were shall we say more 2023 practical: I hate you Covid.
Teeth & monsters with teeth. See what I mean?
Mitchell Caverns. Calico Ghost Town. The Jenny Rose sign featured on Sheryl Crow’s first album. Peggy Sue’s Diner. Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch. You’ve probably already written travel guides on this part of my home state, but I was oblivious to Rte 66’s fascinating oddities and the national treasure that is the Mojave, a vast, intricate eco-system requiring ogling. As I drove us to Mitchell Caverns, the van swerved as I two-second-gawped at scenery on either side of us.
At Mitchell Caverns we gazed at the desert views, discussing the difference between a butte and a mesa. We still don’t know.
The cavern tour was a couple of hours. Although most people saw waterfalls and stage curtains in the plunging stalag/stalac formations, I saw the alien’s teeth from the ALIEN movie franchise and monsters from my teen’s Xbox games. My teen told me he saw simple waterfalls and boring stage curtains when I checked in with him, but pretty sure he gave the I-am-rebelling-against-Mom-talking-to-me-like-Mom-knows-me-in-front-of-all-these-strangers answer. I’m pretty sure he hated what he saw.
I’m pretty sure he, too, saw the aliens from ALIENS.
Wandering Calico Ghost Town, we ran into my cousin Ned, the miner (stiff as ever). The Jenny Rose sign is impossible to miss and reminded me I want to introduce my son to Sheryl Crow’s songs. Peggy Sue’s tuna melts are tasty, but best of all is the ‘dinersaur park’ in back of the restaurant. No–best of all, best out of our entire road trip, was Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch. Teen approved, mesmerizing all of us. Elmer passed away in 2019. We would have loved to have met him. A true desert creative. We appreciated his style.
CA’s high desert is stuffed in imaginative and natural wonders and unforgettable views–i.e. poetry. And although there were no Costa Rican sloths, we did stand before a massive cavern where thousands of years ago a 9ft long Shasta ground sloth used to sleep, sheltered from desert heat.
Now that the Feb (me) and March (spouse) event-packed birthdays are over, it’s back to work. I purposefully let my MG synopsis and first 10 pages of the manuscript marinate while I ate cake and socialized with my people. Grateful to still feel positive after revising former revisions today.
Also: It’s handy being married to a former professional proofreader who doesn’t mind going over my work. Pisces helping Pisces in this school of 2 + a Scorpio + a mini-zoo filled with drama-loving, unapologetically vocal Leos.
I’m 1/2 way through T. Kingfisher’s THE WIZARD’S GUIDE TO DEFENSIVE BAKING–will never look at sourdough bread the same way again–in fact, might never eat sourdough bread again. Or gingerbread men cookies. Fun, witty read so far.
Yours in continuing to write/revise/submit and keep reading books,
SoCal rainstorms, SNOW!!!, and my (feels-like-95th) birthday have distracted me from completing important tasks since Valentine’s Day (also a distraction), such as wiping puppy noseprints from windows, or filling in gopher holes.
However, I’m not distracted from my creativity–writing, submitting, feeding my brain new books (literary bon bons–see The Library tab).
I discovered Chris The Story Reading Ape’s Blog, which you might already subscribe to as I’m late to most parties. Chris’ links have given me authors I’m eager to follow via links to writing tips, writing-thought, writing-writers, etc.
As March arrives, I feel as if I’m honoring my 2023 writing goals, mostly remembering to slip exercise into most every day.
A good feeling, right?
Yours in cherished family members who put your puppy on your birthday cake,
Took me a while to finish this novel, but not because it’s not riveting.
I was savoring each chapter.
Maggie O’Farrell’s ability to introduce multiple characters on a page and pull out their souls for the reader to examine? A review quote from ‘The Washington Times’ calls the author ‘impressive’ and ‘perhaps masterly’. Please trust me. Maggie O’Farrell is beyond masterly. There is no perhaps. None.
From Ireland to London to Hollywood–from the 1970’s (and far earlier) to the 21st century, I relished this read/ride and will miss and continue to think about the characters. As I do with the extraordinary ‘Hamnet’.
PB Rippey Writes 
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