This week’s blog is over at the Pink Hearts Society, where I’m talking all about my twisty, turny path to publication. Stop by and say hello!

Boy, the Authorial Mom (that would be me, Sarah) has been working hard on updating my website. And by “working hard,” I mean I have been scratching my head and feeling lost and confused while other people tell me things I don’t understand and then take pity on me and hold my hand to walk me through the process.

It’s exhausting, I tell you. I mean, what the heck IS an FTP, anyway? I haven’t found the person who can tell me in English.

Which is why I don’t have anything else to say today. Nothing funny, anyway. The Kid has been at my folks’ house for a week, depriving me of cute Kid-isms to relate to you. The dogs just flop underneath whatever ceiling fan is going. Nothing funny there.

I’m busy working on a book that I’m calling The Lawman and the Judge, which is not going well because the hero, Tom Yellow Bird, has been in two books already being mysterious and unpredictable. Why I expected him to do anything different in his own book, I don’t know, but he’s being highly mysterious and unpredictable. It’s driving me (and a variety of loved ones and trusted friends) absolutely batty.

And it’s hot.

So There.

Tune in next week (I hope!) when I will grandly unveil my newly redesigned website!

So, we made it to New York (after passing through Newark). The RWA annual conference didn’t start for three days. You know what that meant, right? VACATION, baby!

(Luckily for you, I got my pictures off my camera!)

Here’s the trick to travelling in a large city with a small child: Plan your trip around things said child has seen in movies. Hence, the first tourist thing we did was have dinner at Sardi’s, because Kermit goes there in The Muppets Take Manhattan. I gave The Kid the camera while we were waiting for our tasty food:

So, I was gone for 10 days. What did I miss? Yes, I have to ask. My phone is not smart. Some might even call it stupid, because the only thing my phone does is (gasp!) is make telephone calls. And occasionally receive them.

Anyway. We went on vacation! I worked like a crazy lady to finish my book, The Last Honest Lawyer, before we left, meaning that for five whole days, I was really and truly not working.

Except for that whole Mom thing. And the driving. Yes, I drove to New York with the family in tow. Thus, again, one of the downsides of being married to a man who’s legally blind–on long car trips, I’m stuck behind that wheel. No naps for me! But not to worry. The Husband has a smart(ish) phone and read me my email for fun. And because we have a Prius, we entertained ourselves by feeling smug for getting 50.8 MPG on the drive out east.

The Kid was there, too–trapped in the backseat with nothing but 100 Legos, 20 books, 4 audio books, 6 movies, 4 coloring books and crayons, and 3 stuffed animals to keep him company. Poor Kid, he nearly died of boredom.

The first night was easy. We went to my in-laws’ house near Decatur after work. They cooked us food and played with The Kid. We normally are at their house for a large family event, so it was nice to hang out on the small scale for a while. The next day, we got up and headed east. When we hit Indianapolis, The Kid excitedly announced that we were in New York! This became a reoccurring theme–no matter what metropolitan area we approached, it was New York. We stopped that night in Columbus. I had lived in Columbus for two years while earning my snooty Master’s in Victorian Literature (snoot, snoot!), and my husband wanted to see where I’d lived.

It was the world’s fastest tour of Columbus. We did a quick tour of the State House, went down to say ‘hi’ to the ducks I used to see every morning (well, maybe their duck grandkids–not sure how long ducks live, and it’s been 10+ years since I graduated), stopped by the Topiary Garden where, if you stand in just the right place, all the shrubs have been trimmed and trained to look just like A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte by Georges Seraut (no, really–topiary garden!) and then we hit Schmidt’s Sausage Haus, where The Kid had an epic meltdown–the kind of meltdown where all you can do is say, “Honey, can you sob quieter? You’re bothering the other guests,” to which the sob-ee replies, “NO! I CAN”T SOB ANY QUIETER!” But the arrival of pretzel nuggets, lemonade, and a guy playing an accordion saved the day.

The next day, we drove to Hershey, PA, land of chocolate and singing cows. I will say, the singing cows were cheesy–but they were PERFECT for The Kid, who loved the animatronic show so much that we rode the little Chocolate World ride twice. We also did a chocolate tasting–and are now certified chocolate tasters–and (of course) bought and ate chocolate.

The next day we drove to my cousins’ house in New Jersey. I hadn’t been to New Jersey since they got married a whopping 17 years ago. In case you hadn’t noticed this, one of the key ways of knowing your getting old is to visit relatives and have a lovely young woman open the door and realize that you held that lovely young woman when she was 6 months old. That, my friends, is how you know you’re getting old.

After visiting and feeling old, my cousin took us to the train. This is also known as being cheap: my wonderful relatives watched our car for the week and took us to the train. More money for mini Statue of Liberty figurines, really.

So we’re on the train, and the conductor people kept mentioning Newark–“Next stop, Newark,” and the like. And every single time, The Kid jumped up and down and got very, very excited because we were in New York! Which lead to a ‘Who’s on First’ conversation: Conductor: Newark. The Kid: NEW YORK! Authorial Mom: No, Newark. The Kid: That’s what I said–New York!! Authorial Mom: No, no, we’re in Newark. The Kid: YIPPEE! We’re in NEW YORK!

Seriously, this went on for some time. Lucky that Kid is cute, because other passengers were giggling instead of threatening us with bodily harm.

Finally, we make it to the real New York.  But that’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax. Hopefully, by next week, I’ll have located the cords for my camera (yes, my camera still requires cords. It also does not make phone calls. So shoot me.) So stay tuned for more thrilling travel adventures with the Authorial Mom!

Authorial Mom: Please help me welcome Genevieve Graham to the Authorial Moms blog! Tell us a little about yourself. How many kids do you have? How old are they?

Author Genevieve Graham

Genevieve Graham: Thank you, Sarah! I’m honoured to be here – oops, did I spell that wrong? Nope. That little ‘u’ is in there because I’m up in Canada, and I still use British spelling.  🙂

So, I heard back from ‘the agent’ and she said she was seriously considering representing my story, Baltimore Heat. Then came the ‘but’. She said it needed some fine tuning and recommended getting more critiques.

I asked some author friends, and four critiques have since landed in my inbox in the past three weeks… Then I sat on them.

Why?

Well, I could give you a list of reasons that include: sick children, sick mother, other projects I wanted to wrap up, etc.

But when I did a ‘gut check’ the real reasons felt more like: fear of failure and fear of success. What if my friends hated the book and tore it to pieces in their critiques? What if I no longer liked the book when I read it with fresh eyes? Or worse, what if the agent liked it and asked for what I have finished next? What if I can’t ever write another one?

Do you know how to avoid such fears?

Lay on a really comfy couch and read historical romances for about five days in a row. Whenever anyone asks ‘how’s the writing going?’ Say you’re doing research. It doesn’t matter that you don’t write historical, all romance is research, right?

So, during that ‘gut check’, I also asked myself what I needed to do to get back to work because sitting on my couch staring at my laptop and the pile of critiques on my coffee table wasn’t getting it done. I decided I needed to change my environment. Getting out of my house and parking my butt in a coffee shop or the library would put me in the mind frame that I was ready to work. The only problem is that I’ve been stuck at home with a sick kid all week. Poor puppy has had a fever for 5 days! And that’s even with antibiotics.

Anyhoo! I looked over at my unused dining room and saw ‘coffee shop’! As soon as I got home from taking kid #2 to the bus stop, I dusted the table, the buffet, and even the chandelier (call it procrastination, I’ll call it setting the mood). I made a pot of decaf hazelnut coffee, lit a candle, wheeled in my comfy office chair (one of the perks of a ‘home coffee shop’) and stuck in my headphones. Instant change of scenery.

I was upright, focused and ready to get to business. And I had a really productive day. I didn’t get past the first three chapters, but I spent a lot of time with chapter one, making it shiny, sparkly, polished. Then after dinner I was able to knock off chapter four.

Today, I am back in my ‘home coffee shop’. The coffee is brewed, the candle is lit, the music is playing in my ears, the sick kid is parked in front of the TV, and my fingers are itching to make those revisions.

Do you ever find a change of scenery helpful when you are battling those common fears of authorship?

How exactly does one sum up a trip? Okay. Clarification. Not trip — vacation. My first true vacation in three years. Just me and my hubby. Likely the last one of it’s kind for a while as the pod (baby), now affectionately called Blue, will make his debut at the end of July.
We hadn’t even left for London (our vacation destination) when I got the ever lovely and encouraging news that I had a total Golden Hearts fail. After a minor meltdown and threats of throwing in the towel with writing all together, I managed to get myself under control enough to pack.
After an all night flight, wandering through a HUGE airport (where it is small marathon to get from the gate to customs; let alone baggage claim); a trip on the London underground with luggage and a three block walk to the hotel; I remembered what drunk felt like even though it’s been 10 years since I had a drink.
SIDE BAR: I don’t know if this happened to you when you were growing up, but: My parents had friends who were world travelers and they loved to take pictures of where they went. Rather, they loved to take slides (for those of you too young to know what a slide is — NOT the ones on the playground — go look it up on wikipedia while I take pain medication for my sciatica — oi!). Anyway, my family, who didn’t travel, was always “treated” to an evening of travel slides with the travelers commentary.
To prevent you from having to walk through my vacation and politely laugh at my antidotes, I will sum up:
Star sighting: we saw Cillian Murphy waiting in the “fast track” lane in customs. Don’t know who Cillian Murhpy is? Go to IMDB.
Words that seemed to come up a lot — even in advertisements: Darling – euphemism for EVERYONE, but especially women and children. Proper – we even bought dog biscuits that tell us they are “proper dog biscuits.” Apparently Milk Bones are just too vulgar.
I realized that we, in the states, really are a nation of SUPER SIZE. Now, I live in an expensive city, where you pay a ridiculous amount of money for not a lot of space. I’ve also spent some time in New York, where you get even less space for even more money. I knew going to London that hotel rooms were tiny. EVERY freakin’ blog tells you so. However, nothing could prepare me for the elevator, our room or the shower. Again to save you from every detail, I will say that at one point, I had to have my husband come in the closet… er … bathroom… and pick up the soap I dropped in the shower because I couldn’t bend over to get it. Oh, and the bathroom sink was about the size of the average american dinner plate. Even the produce was smaller.
While we’re on the subject of food… Coke was in a weird label and the bottle shape was strange — more cylindrical that our hour glass shape. The candy, though it was the same Twix, Snickers and Hershey’s as here, ALL had different packaging as to be almost unrecognizable — though a jonesing pregnant woman can always find what she needs … unless it’s Benedryl in the pharmacy in London… but that’s a whole different story for another time.
If you have to go potty in London, you better know how to hover over a toilet because A LOT of the public restrooms don’t have toilet seats. Also, they don’t believe in paper towels … at all. Only air blowers to dry the mitts.
I keep getting told that I would have to go to the countryside to experience the famous English politeness, which must be true. All I can say is that London was no different than any American city I’ve been in. People are pushy, self-serving and generally in a hurry. The only difference is that when someone bumps you in San Francisco, they don’t apologize or mumble anything to you; they just keep on walking. In London, they mutter unenthusiastically that they are sorry, but they don’t make eye contact and often times you miss the apology ‘cause they are already walking away.
We did have to ask seven different employees, from seven different shops, not including two security officers and a ticket agent, where the Paddington Bear kiosk was in Paddington Station.
The best moment hands down though, was finding that Londoners can watch an hour of Judge Judy every morning from 8am – 9am. Now, I hate to admit that Judge Judy is my secret little television vice — we all have one, I’m just admitting to mine — so I was thrilled to find Judge Judy in a foreign land. Then, I realized that THIS was one of the shows that represented the US to the UK. I was torn between amused and sad.
One of the biggest reason that we chose London was the history. I felt that I could glean a decent story out of the place. At the very least, some sort of idea for a character or an essence for a place. I was getting really bummed when, by our last day, I just had sore feet from walking, a bad back from the extra firm bed in our hotel and a really bad cold I caught from my husband. All that and no inspiration. The hubby, as a painter, really wanted to go to the Tate Modern and he’d been nice enough to indulge all my London fantasies, so we went to the Tate. Modern art is hard for me. Often times I just don’t get it and that only serves to frustrate me and make me feel inadequate in some way. It doesn’t help that everyone in my life have been artists and I feel obliged to at least act like I get it. Anyway, wandering through the halls of work, I stumbled upon a series of painting that sledgehammered my brain and gave me hope that story ideas weren’t totally lost in the nether-sphere of writers block. Who would have thought, I a center of epic world history, I find inspiration in the modern art museum. Typical.
So, as a writer, the trip wasn’t a total wash. As a wife and soon to be mother, the trip was a good break from reality – though I could do without the lingering cold and cough. Now, I have to channel that energy into something worth mentioning… like another story … maybe one that won’t be a contest fail or added to my wall of rejection shame.
Here’s hopin’.

Daily conversation for the two weeks preceding Spring Break.

Matthew: I wish we were going somewhere for Spring Break.
Me: I do, too.

Finally, on the last day of school before break started, he offered a solution.

Matthew: I wish we could at least go somewhere and do something fun for a day, like Michigan Adventure’s water park.
Me: Matthew, this is Michigan in April. It’s 40 degrees outside and the water park is closed.

(I said he offered a solution. I didn’t say it was a good one.)

Me: In the past, we’ve gone to Crazy Bounce. Do you want to go there again?
Matthew: No, they never get any new ones.
Me: And you always get bored before the hour is over.
Matthew: What about Great Wolf Lodge? Sarah is trying to talk her parents into taking her there.
Me: That’s a long drive that requires an overnight stay.
Matthew: Oh. (Bottom lip sticks out in small pout.)
Me: What about going to a movie? We can splurge and get sodas and popcorn.
Matthew: And refills?
Me: Yep.
Matthew: Yay!

So, the “Spring Break that was no fun” crisis was averted. On Monday, I took my three boys to see the movie, Hop. (Very good for a kid movie. Kept this Mom entertained as well as the kids.) I even went so far as to stop at the gas station to let the boys each pick out candy to go with their soda and popcorn.

On the way to the theater, I had a thought.

Me: Has anyone eaten lunch?
Threeboys: Nope!
Me: Whoohoo! I guess it’s popcorn, candy and soda for lunch today. Happy Spring Break!

So, by now you’re probably asking yourself, what does this have to do with being an Authorial Mom? Well, when I got home at 1:30 pm, I was so full of popcorn, Twizzlers and Diet Coke that I was able to sit down at my desk and write until 5:30 pm without even once needing to stop for a snack break for me or the boys. And that’s a miracle!

P.S. The downside of this miracle is that all the caffeine (which I don’t usually drink) kept me awake half the night. Hopefully, it won’t diminish my productivity today. 🙁

Sarah here, and here’s my question: Where are we? (To be said in what I think of as the ‘Lost’ tone of voice.)

I really don’t know where we are. Here’s what I do know:

I know that I downloaded some photos my husband took on his recent business trip, and found a treasure trove of photos The Kid took . . . somewhere. At some point. Pictures like this:

Do you know where we are?

Where are we?

Because, clearly, we are somewhere. 

I’ll say this, though–that boy of mine is really developing an eye for photography, considering especially that all of these photos were taken from the back of a moving vehicle . . .

Would ya look at that. Gas is only $2.86. How old are these photos?? Anyone? Anyone? (Bueller? Bueller?)

Tell you something else I know:

Wherever The Kid was, Pooh Bear was with him.