Another Year Older

It was my birthday a couple of days ago. On a Thursday. A workday. So, not the best day for celebration, but adult life, you know? It is what it is. 

I figured my 50th year on planet earth was going to be an exciting one. It's just one of those landmark years, you know, and here I am now, a few days on the other side. Fifty-one? Whoosh! (That's the sound of time passing at what feels like supersonic speed.)

Not today's treat, but you get the idea

The day itself, was pretty good. I let myself have a Bee One Thousand (cinnamon and honey concoction) skim latte, a country ham and cheddar biscuit, and a comic book from the Hillsborough Cup-a-Joe, even though that's a treat normally reserved for Fridays. 

I'm a great believer in small treats and pleasures as a way to keep your spirits up and getting out of bed had been a hard sell. 

When I got to school, I found that my Bulldog Buddy (a sort of year long Secret Santa) had left me a birthday bag on my chair with a beautiful cupcake on top and lots of great treats inside including a bookstore gift card! (I've got some suspicions about who my Buddy is, and some guilt because I'm not nearly as good at finding awesome things for MY Bulldog Buddy). 

Another teacher friend made sure to tell all the sixth graders that it was my birthday, so all day, kids stopped by my room and stuck notes and little pieces of art to my classroom door. Kids at their most charming and endearing :-)

This kid didn't even know how much I love frogs

After school, I picked up some fast food. It's not the meal I would have picked, but there was limited time between school and my hair appointment, and I get hangry if I don't see to those needs. 

Throughout the day, I received text and social media well wishes, and lots of silly memes and songs to make me smile. 

I spent the evening getting my locks colored and shaped at Syd's, which is a really charming hair shop in Carrboro that deals well with customers like me (middle aged ladies who want funky-colored hair and low fuss but awesome haircuts) and the younger kid (awesome but picky and prickly teenager). I've been a customer there off and on during all my time in North Carolina, and I appreciate the vibe as well as the hair expertise. 

Feeling pretty

Then I got home, finally ate that pretty cupcake and opened some gifts from my sister (extra sweet of her now that she lives further away and had to ship them to me), and caught up with my husband, dogs, and the kid still at home. 

It was a nice respite in what has felt like a whirlpool (of the Scylla and Charybdis variety) these past few weeks. 

I've been in the middle of a job hunt (leaving teaching for the corporate world for a different variety of stress, some flexibility, and more money). 

My eldest kid is about to graduate college. 

We've had some new health things to deal with as well as a home improvement project that we're still resettling the house after. 

It feels like everyone around me is facing heartache. Some friends lost their son. A student lost her father. A colleague is battling cancer. The youngest kid's best friend just lost their dog. 

So, my emotions have been seriously mixed. Celebrating my own good news can feel heartless when those around me are suffering. 

But a birthday is a natural time to look back at your life. My 50th year on planet earth was, in the scheme of things, pretty damn good. 

Personal: my health is good as in that of all my nearest and dearest, my life is stable, and I have lots of love around me. 16 years into marriage, I'm still stupidly happy. 22 years into motherhood and my kids are still the best ones in the world. Nearly a year into life with our new pups and they charm me daily. 

My family in our holiday PJs

I always tell folks that I love drama in my fiction, but I want a rather boring and serene life, and right now that's what I've got and I am grateful for that. 

Writing: It was a pretty good year for my writing life. I began my 50th year by entering the editing process on the fourth Menopausal Superhero novel, Be the Change, and seeing it through to publication.

Five of my short stories made it out there into the world, too. You can read four of them online here: 

• The Mind Plays Tricks Dark Recesses 27 April 2022
• How Does Your Garden Grow The Fantastic Other 19 February 2022 (page 14)
• Boy Chick on Apex & Abyss 1 October 2021
• Poison on Enchanted Conversations 23 August 2021

The fifth one was in an anthology and came out on my 51st birthday, so that was a nice present :-)

I wrote a lot, too. From birthday to birthday, I wrote 379,046 words. I revised 179, 611 words. For 2022, I set a goal of submitting my writing 100 times and I've already hit 56 submissions at the 1/4 of the year mark. Not too shabby! Especially when you consider that I do this with a full time day job. 

All in all, quite a good year and my 51st year is already shaping up with some exciting adventures including a change of career and some travel! Keep an eye on this spot for the details. In the meantime, may this year be your best year yet and give you many reasons for joy. 

2021, huh?

So, that was weird. 2021, I mean. 

Time is always weird, of course. But it's gotten weirder lately. 

I was looking at a family picture today because Shutterfly sent it to me as a "remember this day" ad, and I do indeed remember the day very clearly. 

It's my mother's family, all of us except for one cousin and one aunt who couldn't come. It was a fundraiser my high school band was holding and we took the opportunity to get a family photo of ALL of us. The photographer had trouble getting us all in frame…maybe in part because we ranged in height from three foot to six and a half feet, or maybe because there were just so darn many of us. But it was a fun evening. We laughed so much, which is maybe why it's actually a pretty good picture with some genuine smiles in it. 

Two of my uncles, one of my aunts, and both of my grandparents are now gone, and I'm wondering how that can be, since I can remember this day so clearly, as if it were last week instead of three-going-on-four decades ago. 

2021 felt that way, too. As I write this, there's one more day in the year, and that doesn't seem right. 2021 never really felt like it started; it was more like 2020 just kept on going. So if 2021 never started, how can it be ending? 

So, I'm looking back at the year, because that's what we do at this time of year, right? Or maybe it's because I just read Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, a book about nostalgia, at least in part. Or maybe it's because one of the things I did in 2021 was turn 50, and that's what us middle-aged ladies do. I don't know. 

But here's my year that was: 

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Teaching: I started 2021 teaching from home. My middle school had gone virtual starting in March 2020, like so many did. And we stayed that way until February 2021. 

It was a time of mixed blessings. I worried about my students, but was grateful for a way to keep teaching and still feel safe, in those pre-vaccine days. 

I had the best work-life balance I've ever had, and was really there for my family more completely than I've ever been able to manage before. Being home meant that my dog, O'Neill, who was losing a cancer battle, got to end his life with all of us at home to love him and care for him. 

I've always been a teacher who enjoys using tech tools to support my practice, but I became extra adept with learning management systems, video lesson presentation, and teaching via Zoom. Learning was different than it had been before, but it still happened, and some kids thrived on it. 

February-June 2021 were the hardest months of my teaching career (and I've been at this for 27 years in a variety of places and settings). I never considered quitting as often I did during the months where I did two jobs at the same time (as an online teacher and in-the-classroom teacher at the same time), under constant stress of uncertainty and threat of severe illness. Everyone who taught during this time should get double credit towards retirement. 

When the school year ended, everyone lost their minds panicking over "learning loss" (as if you only get one chance in life to learn 7th grade math concepts and the world will end if you didn't get it on the usual time table) and teachers were strong-armed, pressured, and bribed into working various summer programs. 

I knew how burnt-out I was, so I didn't take that work. I'm still glad I didn't, though the extra money would have been nice. Because when school started up in August, I hadn't recovered from the 2020-2021 school year yet. I was still crispy around the edges. It's rough to start a school year only a step away from burnt out. 

This school year has been strange in all new ways. So many people quit. So what felt like half the staff was new, and throughout these first four months (August-December 2021), lots more people have quit, taken early retirement, or suffered medical consequences that kept them out on leave. 

We had two teaching positions at my school that went unfilled until early December and were covered by long-term subs. Often, when a teacher was absent, there was no sub available to cover their classes, so safety precautions and policies were thrown the wind, putting two classes in together and giving up all possibility of social distancing, or taking non-teaching staff (librarians, counselors, teacher's aides, etc.) and taking them out of their own work to cover absent teachers. 

At least I work somewhere that is trying to find a balance between safety and learning. Some of colleagues have not been as fortunate. I'd have to quit if they didn't. But they have a vaccine mandate for staff, mask requirements for everyone, and keep us stocked in air filters and disinfectant spray. So far, I've stayed healthy, despite having one to five students a week who go on isolation or quarantine.   

I've found some joy with my students in person again, even with all the restrictions we have to work within, and most of them, now that they've seen what school is when it's not in-person, are cooperative and grateful and trying hard. But it's still challenging, given that kids disappear for days and weeks at a time and information sharing is sketchy, making it hard to know when to give grace and when to push for productivity (not that it's ever easy to know). 

I haven't quit yet, but I have submitted some resumes for non-teaching jobs. We'll see what happens in 2022. 

Writing: I began 2021 with a big deadline: the fourth Menopausal Superhero Novel, Be the Change (which released on December 16, 2021), was due to my publisher on January 1, 2021. 

I missed that deadline, the first time I've missed a deadline in my writing life. I turned it in on February 1. Considering how screen-burnt I was in 2020 and how difficult it was to write during that time, I'm proud that I finished the book even CLOSE to on time. 

As soon as I turned it in, I turned my attention back to the Gothic Romance I've been working on these past two years (working title: The Architect and the Heir). I was hoping to finish it by the end of summer, before I had to put it aside to work on the fifth and final Menopausal Superheroes novel, due (under renegotiated deadline) in April 2022.

I didn't finish it in time. I've always been a slow writer, compared to many of my friends and colleagues, and that became a serious frustration in 2021. 

Now, as we finish the year, I've got 20,000 words in on that fifth (as yet untitled) novel. It's proving difficult to write. Since I intend it to the be the last, there's a lot I need to wrap up from the entire series, while still making sure the book has an individual story of its own. 

Because teaching life left me so crispy I'd be a hit at Kentucky Fried Chicken, I didn't have a burst of productivity in my writing life over the break like I usually do. I'm hoping that the rest I gave myself during these two weeks will allow me to begin seeing good progress again in January. 

Still, it was not a year to sneeze at for new words written: According to my writing tracker (I use Jamie Raintree's Writing and Revision Tracker and highly recommend it), I wrote 394,333 words in 2021 (on various projects) and revised 278,544 words. My daily writing chain is now eight years long. 

I had two short stories published in paying markets. "Poison" in Enchanted Conversation and "Boy Chick" in Apex & Abyss. I saw another novel through publication. It wasn't the kind of success that lets a girl quit her day job and write full time, but it wasn't bupkis either. 

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Getting Out Into the World: In 2020, I dug into life as a Hobbit, and came to appreciate going slower and being home. 

But in 2021, vaccinated and caffeinated, I ventured forth again, taking some opportunities for my writing life, and taking a couple of small trips. Not as many, and with more caution than before, but I got out there. 

In 2020, I attended one convention, MarsCon in January, before conventions started shutting down, cancelling, or even folding. After building up a schedule of appearances and events over the past few years, it was weird to suddenly stop doing that. 

Since my day job involved so much screen time, I wasn't thrilled about zoom events for my writing life, but I did a few. (Con-Tinual gave us all a chance to connect with readers that way, as did Strong Women, Strange Worlds. A pretty complete list of my video appearances can be found here.) Video appearances are easier in some ways--no travel, mitigates geographic distance, potential wider audience--but they are not the same as the energy of an in-person room and the kinds of connections made that way. 

On my own, I made a series of videos on Spooky Reads for October. 

In summer 2021, convention life opened up a bit again, and I attended Con-Carolinas, Con-Gregate, Galaxy Con, and a library Pop-Con. It was really good to see my writing friends again in person. I'd missed them terribly. I have become more cautious about my energy, though, and plan to do fewer conventions and more single-day events in 2022. 

I also managed a visit to Kentucky for my mother's birthday, and she and my dad managed a visit down here for mine. Sweetman took me on a trip to the mountains to celebrate my fiftieth birthday. My long-time writing critique group (which had moved to Zoom), began meeting in person again after we were all vaccinated, and we took a short retreat to Lake Gaston in the fall. 

The big trip was a visit to New York City in October, when Broadway re-opened. I had never been and really enjoyed my few days there, though it solidified my understanding of myself as a rural girl at heart. 

We ate lots of good food, saw iconic sights, and really enjoyed the production of Six: The Musical. We haven't had that many cool travel opportunities with our youngest child, so it was great to spoil them with this trip. 

Throughout it all, I continued to walk in the woods, finding stress relief and solace in walking among the trees. 

Starting in July, two new friends joined me for those walks, when we adopted two new rescue dogs: Ghost and Pumpkin. 

They are wildly different than O'Neill was, but they have brought a great deal of joy to our lives. 

Our holidays were quiet, but lovely and we took our time away from school and work restfully and gave ourselves time to recuperate and recharge. 

So, that's my year that was. Not bad for my fiftieth one on the planet. I hope 2021 brought you joy as well, and that 2022 will give us all more reasons to smile. 

The Big Five-Oh: The Face I Deserve

I turned 50 today. 

It's very strange to consider. 

I mean, I don't feel fifty. 

Okay, well SOMETIMES I feel fifty, like when I squat to put away dishes and my hip doesn't want to let me get back up, or when I get winded climbing a big hill. I tell myself it's not the years, it's the mileage (and maybe a bit the baggage as well). It makes me feel more like Indiana Jones and less like Miss Marple. 

But mostly, I don't even feel like a real grownup yet…yet here we are. Fifty. 

Coco Chanel famously said that when we are fifty, we get the face we deserve. So, here's the face I deserve, picture taken first thing this morning when my hair was still shower-wet and I hadn't yet had any caffeine. 

So far as faces go, it's fine. Neither glamorous nor off-putting. Pleasant, and sometimes quite pretty, in the right light. 

The lines and creases don't bother me much, and any age spots just blend in with the freckles that were already there. I've started to get a little gray around the crown of my head which I confess I find a little startling when I notice, but otherwise, I still just look like me, a little rounder than I would maybe choose, given all the options, and way more like my Grandma Liz than I expected, given how much I always thought I looked more like my dad. 

So, do I deserve this face? 

When I look at this face, I see bright curiosity and a spark of adventure, a curve at the corner of the mouth that comes from laughing a lot and a squinty-ness about the eyes that comes from spending time smiling in the sun (and maybe from time behind a screen). The teeth are a little yellow from drinking lots of tea while reading and the jawline reveals a fondness for cookies. The woman in that picture looks like a lady who knows surprising things and has a kind heart. 

If I didn't know me, I think I'd be willing to talk to me, based on this face. 

It'll do. 

Six Years In: My Writing Career

Though I have been a writer all my life, I consider April 23, 2015 my birthday as a professional writer, since that's the date my debut novel was published. So, this seems like a good day for a little trip down memory lane, now that Writer Samantha is 6 years old :-)

Samantha's Professional Writing Career (So Far)

I finished my first novel on June 20, 2012. It was called His Other Mother, and is best categorized as women's issues fiction. It took me four years to write that first draft, and about another year to complete the revision to get it submission-ready. It was a dark story, and it took a lot out of me to write it, but it also proved that I could finish a novel. I'm still proud of me for getting that far. 

So far, His Other Mother is not published. It got close a few times, but no publisher took it on, and after a while, I shelved it, chalking it up as the book I wrote to learn how to write a book. Maybe I'll revisit it someday and revise it again, improving it with everything I've learned since, but right now, I'm content to leave it alone. I've got newer projects I'm more passionate about right now.

Finishing His Other Mother was hard enough that I bribed myself through the end of the process, promising myself that I could "write something fun" if I just finished this project. That's where Going Through the Change comes in--what could be more fun than Menopausal Superheroes? 

I finished the revision of that book in December 2013 which shows I got faster. From idea to submission-ready in only one year! My commitment to a daily writing habit was paying off. By August of 2014, I had signed my first book contract!

I had an exciting eight months or so of edits, cover approval, proofreading, mood swings, marketing ploys, etc. (while I also worked on the second book in the series) And then in April of 2015, just a few days before my forty-forth birthday, my book-baby was born! 

And here I am with my first box of my own books ever. That smile says it all. 

I worked hard to get to the word out about that book, querying book bloggers, arranging for review copies, writing 26 blog posts about it for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. and planning a book release party at Flyleaf Books that still glows in my memory as one of the best days of my life. 

My family and friends were there, including my writing community in the form of critique group and other generous souls who helped me on my journey. My mother-in-law made beautiful fancy cookies for the guests. An author-friend Nathan Kotecki made the very generous offer to serve as my "Phil Donahue." He interviewed me and facilitated a question and answer session that made me feel so very famous. 

I'd had a taste of the author life I'd always dreamed of and I grabbed on with both hands! I started attending conventions (Atomacon 2015 was my very first one) and serving as a panelist and author guest. I won an award for that first book!

I worked my butt off to get books two and three in the Menopausal Superheroes series out in 2016 and 2017 and wrote a between-the-novels novella for a special collection. I suffered through the first ever bookless book-launch party for book 2.  I survived the dreaded revise-and-resubmit process for book 3. 

At the same time, I kept writing short stories and tried to squeeze in some time to work on my other ideas and projects. And then . . . I hit my first serious snag: my publisher :-(

It's an old story, especially with small publishers: things fall apart. I won't dwell on the story here, since I'm happy with where I've ended up, but you can read this details in this blog post if you're curious. 

I was so deflated . . .but I was also very lucky. I got my rights back without much trouble. Because I'd been building contacts and relationships with writing colleagues along the way, I was able to make the leap to a different publisher and get all three novels re-released with a couple of months. 

Since then, the Menopausal Superhero Universe has expanded and been re-released with gorgeous new covers. Three novels, two novellas, a set of short stories, and a collection of all those shorter works in a single volume. 

Novel number 4 (working title: Be the Change) is with the editing team now, with a planned release for late 2021. I'm contracted for a fifth novel in the series for 2022. I still LOVE this characters and have a wonderful time telling their stories. 

So six years in, I'm loving my writing life. The community, the creativity, the small-scale fame and fortune. I'm so thankful to have had the opportunities I've seen so far and can't wait to see what the future brings!

Book Birthday! Through Thick and Thin

 

Today is my book birthday! The sixth release in the Menopausal Superhero series made her debut today. Through Thick and Thin is a collection of short stories, featuring Flygirl, Fuerte, and The Lizard Woman of Springfield in both their costumed and civilian identities. We've got an impending wedding, a daring escape, superpowered rescue, and heartfelt friendship moments, all within a slender volume you could read in an afternoon. 

The older I get, the less excited I am about actual birthdays…but book birthdays? They're awesome! Projects come to fruition and out there in the world looking for an audience are WAY more exciting than merely surviving to be another year older. 

But, I still like cake, and you can be sure I celebrate each and every book birthday with chocolate :-)

Check out this back-of-the-book blurb. 

Hidden in the space between chapters lurk other stories. What came before and after, and meanwhile. The other side of the story, including the part our heroines didn’t know. This collection peeks around those corners of the Menopausal Superhero series.

Through Thick and Thin will get you up close and personal with your favorites. Fuerte wasn't always Fuerte - or male. It’s confession time in "Coming Out as Leonel." Join Patricia, the Lizard Woman, as she unravels the puzzle of Dr. Cindy Liu's disappearance in "The Right Thing," then see her softer side (and her "better half," Suzie) in "Underestimated." Get ready for a wedding, and a heroic rescue, in "Flygirl's Second Chance."

These aren’t your father’s superheroes. Whether you’re already a fan or are just meeting these characters for the first time, the menopausal superhero series explores what it means to be a hero at any age or stage of life.

If you've been meaning to check out my series, this short story collection is a great introduction to the characters and concepts as well as my writing style and the drama-dy (part drama/part comedy) tone of the books. And it's available through Kindle Unlimited if that's how you roll. Paper copies will be available in the next few days. 

Can't wait to bring you more of these characters in 2021, but for now, please check out the series, and if you've read them, leave a review! Reviews are even better than cake. 

COVID-19 Birthdays

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My youngest daughter and I both have April birthdays.

The last time I had a birthday party, I turned forty-two. She's still in the party-every-year phase of life.

I had a Douglas Adams themed birthday party, including petunia and whale related art, and had friends over to play games with us. Some wouldn't have considered it a real party because no one got drunk and it was overall pretty quiet, but it was exactly the kind of celebration I wanted. Good food and good fun with good friends.

It's been a few years since then, and I've been fine without another party in the intervening years, so clearly I'm not anyone's definition of a party animal.

I didn't plan to have a birthday party this year. Forty-nine didn't feel like a milestone or anything. I am hoping to celebrate bigger next year, when I hit the big five-oh. But still, knowing that I *couldn't* have a party felt strange. Knowing I couldn't invite my parents down for their usual visit made me feel cut off, even though I'm introverted enough to not really feel that sting as hard as some.

But my daughter . . .well, she turned thirteen and that was a rough one to spend in solitude. It should have been a big sleepover extravaganza with so much giggling. Dad and I should have woken up the next morning bleary eyed and grumpy, but happy that our girl had a great time.

Lots of us are celebrating different milestones in quarantine: important birthdays, anniversaries, big moments of life like retirement or publishing a book. It's harder to make those moments shine when a lot of our go-to celebration ideas are just not available to us.

So, here's what we did for our special days:

My girl was allowed to "skip" school on her birthday and sleep until lunch.

Lunch was the takeout of her choice (Chik-fil-a). Dinner was the mom-and-dad-prepped meal of her choice (pot roast, mashed potatoes, and broccoli).

She helped make her own birthday cake because she likes baking almost as much as she likes eating sweets: Mexican chocolate cake with cinnamon frosting.

We wrote out a treasure hunt set of clues and followed her around the house while she figured out where her presents were, and then built her a fabulous pillow fort from which she watched Wall-e with the dog (Mom and Dad watched from the couch). 

I can't describe how much it lifted our hearts that our baby turned thirteen and wanted a treasure hunt, a pillow fort, and an animated film for her celebratory activities.

We still plan to give her that sleepover with her friends, in a few months, when it's safe to do so. And Grandma has promised her a pet snake and the apparatus to take care of it, too. But she said she felt pretty spoiled, and I believe her.

As for me, I also chose skipping school--a personal day spent to just ignore my teaching responsibilities for a day.

I spent the evening before my birthday dying my own hair pink (I used Overtone and it went pretty well!). Usually, I get a salon day around my birthday and get a cool color for convention season, and this was my substitute.

Sweetman made me breakfast and left me to eat in alone in my quiet office watching sunlight on my plant and glass window and daydreaming. I usually have to hit the ground running, even on quarantine--schoolwork happens early--so taking the morning slow was a treat.

Then, we went for a walk in my current favorite wooded area, picking up some supersweet coffee treats on the way. The weather was perfect: neither hot nor cold, neither cloudy nor sunny. I laid on a fallen tree trunk for a while, watching clouds and enjoying the sound of wind through the leaves and my girl talking about the bugs she was tracking.

My chosen lunch was takeout from Tacos Los Altos, a local taco truck/restaurant with nice people and awesome food. I splurged on a Mexican coke to go with my tacos. A FaceTime call with my sister so she could see me open her gifts, left for me on a touchless drop off.

Then the hubby and the girl went upstairs to do her school from home activities and let me have the "big TV" to watch the Miss Fisher movie on Acorn, which was fabulous!

Another walk in the late afternoon, a shorter one this time, so I could take the elderly dog with us, this time riverside. Then some writing time while Sweetman fetched my Turkish dinner from Talulla's in downtown Chapel Hill (a favorite date and special occasion restaurant for us), enjoyed with ANOTHER movie (two in one day? what!) with my family and then my raspberry chocolate cake from Weaver Street.

Throughout the day, I responded to texts and social media birthday wishes. At some point my publisher sent me my latest book cover which definitely felt like another present! (The book comes out in May!)

It's the first day in many a moon that I can remember entirely setting the pace myself, based only on what I wanted to do.

My older daughter is quarantined separately, so I'll see her tomorrow for a six-feet-apart walk and talk.

Were these the birthdays we would have had in a non-COVID world? Not a bit.

But were they still good? Definitely.

There are joys in quiet pleasures, too, and at the end of the day, I am relaxed and pleased to have a day that was all my own.  What's working for you when you have something to celebrate in quarantine? How are still making these moments feel special?

Milestones: #45

April and May are milestone months in the Bryant family. Three of us have birthdays (me, the youngest child, and the pup). Both our dating and wedding anniversary fall in this span, not to mention Mother's Day. And, starting last year, April became book launch month. I've launched one two Aprils in a row, choosing that date as a birthday gift to myself, and I'm hoping to keep it going as long as I can.

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Different people set goals at different times of the year. For some, it's New Year's, whenever your tradition celebrates that. For others, it's the starts of school years. For me, it's birthdays. That flip forward on my personal timeline is always a time for reflection and goal setting for me.

So here are my thoughts on #45.

Writing Life: When I was turning 42, I decided to finally commit to taking writing seriously and giving it a real chance. I'm a hard worker and when I commit to something, I see it through. It's been a great run at that life goal.

When I was 43, I signed my first book contract, and when I was 44, I saw my first book in print. Now, at 45, I have two books of my own, and have my work included in three anthologies, which allowed me to take this picture at my book launch party. See that grin? That's pride and joy and gratitude for the chance to follow this dream.

Looking forward, I still have plenty of dreams to pursue here. I'd like to fund a great vacation for my family from the money earned from my words. I want to finish all the books I've started, then start some totally new ones. I want to win awards and try not to brag about them too much. I want to be famous enough to be invited as the featured guest author at a con, but not so famous as to be recognized on the street by strangers. Pie in the sky would be complaining to my writer friends about how the television adaptation changed my stories and characters, but what can you do? 

Family: When I was 34, I thought my life had fallen apart and I'd never be able to put it together again. My first marriage ended. I was in financial straits that demanded that my daughter and I move back in with my parents. Then, on top of it all, I got sick and was practically invalided for an entire quarter of school, and was treated badly by my school district and my insurance company in the classic "kick a girl while she's down move." 

But, when I was still 34, I re-met Sweetman, a man who had been my friend for many years. Timing

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is everything, and for once the girl who is always early and the man who was always late had the right timing. Here I am twelve years later celebrating the first decade of my marriage to Sweetman and I still know how lucky I am. As I write this, I'm finishing a lovely quiet mother's day full of pictures and sunshine, and looking forward to a week in which I'll see my eldest daughter sing at a concert and finish another book with my youngest, and a weekend with an anniversary date to see Civil War! Lucky girl, indeed.

My family and writing career goals are all wrapped up in each other. I want flexibility and time to be able to be there for my girls, my husband, and my dog in the ways they need me. 

Teaching Career: This is my twentieth year of teaching. I've taught in small places and large places,

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kids from grade six through college and adults. On a day to day basis in the classroom, I still love this. Children inspire you to be the best you that you can be. There's something about being there when they understand something for the first time, whether that "something" is irregular verb conjugation or how to organize their folder or why that one kid behaves so strangely. It's like watching the world be born again, six periods a day.

That said, it's also exhausting and repetitive and it can be hard to hold on to your positive outlook when it feels like the state of North Carolina and the United States government is out to crucify you daily to hide their own failings. Being scapegoated can make you bitter and strange. It's hard not to feel frustrated knowing that, had you chosen any other career path, you'd be making double the money or more after twenty years and that your prestige factor would have grown rather than faded.

My goals here are to find a way to keep working with young people, but in a new way that inspires me to new height and offers a little flexibility that will help me with my family and writing goals. I've got my hat in a new ring on that one, so wish me luck!

So, the TL; DR version:

In my 45th year, my goals include: finding inspiration and flexibility in my paid work, making more money off my writing so it can become my paid work, and writing yet more!

The Fifteenth Year Begins

I don't remember what the weather was like on her first day. After all, I spent it (and several of the ensuing days) in the hospital being grateful for modern medical care.

But, today, on the first day of her fifteenth year, the weather is dreary--rainy and chilly. It doesn't matter though, she has always been able to make her own sunshine.

My daughter is fifteen today.

Whew! I've been practicing saying that out loud. It can be hard to get the words out around the lump in my throat. See, in my mind, she still looks like this:

 helping chaperone as a baby

Or maybe like this:

Me, age 31; Her, age 3

But these days, she looks like this:

See, what I mean? She's amazing. Strong, smart, beautiful, funny, and talented. But she's also my baby, and she's growing up much too fast.

Grownup Birthday Parties

When I was a kid, I knew exactly what to do on my birthday: have a party!  There were two kind of parties: homemade and store-bought.

A home-made party was at your house. Your mom made stuff you loved to eat and decorated a cake. Balloons and streamers and banners covered whatever part of the house you were going to be allowed to mess up. Your friends came over and ran around like crazy monkeys until your Dad was sent to tell you what it was time for: games, presents, food, cake, etc.  A couple of hours later, the kids were given small party-themed bags full of candy and useless plastic toys and sent home to start their exhausted sugar comas.

A store-bought party was at a place, like a bowling alley or bouncey house or zoo or amusement park or whatever.  The format was the same, but your Mom looked less harried because she wrote a check and let someone else do all the running. I always thought that having this kind of party meant that the birthday kid was rich, though, as an adult, I've realized you can spend just as much at an at-home party. 

I can count the number of birthday parties I've had after turning 21: one. When I was 33.  My now-husband and I were newly dating. So, we had a birthday party for me, largely so his friends could meet me.  My five-year-old daughter was thrilled!  She picked out a Hobbit-themed cake for me. I talked her out of $50 worth of balloons, though,  claiming they wouldn't let us have them at the bowling alley.

While that party was a really great day, full of happy little moments, I haven't minded not having a party since. Once you become an adult, parties are a lot of work. Even if you have it somewhere-not-your-home and just buy the food/cake/entertainment, there's still planning, coordinating, decision-making.  And your mom doesn't usually just take care of it for you. Especially if your mom, like mine, lives twelve hours away.

Our youngest has a hard time understanding why Mommy and Daddy don't necessarily want what she thinks of as a birthday party. 

We had one for T recently. It wasn't really his birthday.  Because his birthday falls right on top of Christmas, Chanukah, and our oldest girl's birthday, we have T's birthday, observed, and hold it two months late.  There were some trappings of a birthday party: food, guests, games and cake.  But no one sang "Happy Birthday" and no gifts were given.  Several of our guests probably didn't even know that T's birthday was why we were having a party.

T was happy with that. He's not a center-of-attention sort of fella (yet another reason he's awesome).  He appreciated the gift of the time to just play games with out friends, ignoring other responsibilities for a day.  He even, quite willingly, took on a goodly portion of the prep work to make it happen.  It's a really different idea of what make a good birthday party than our children have.

Our littlest had a good time playing with our guests, but she really didn't understand why we didn't decorate or put candles in the cake.  I think she was worried that, if that's what we think a party is, that hers will be like that, too. (She'll be 5 this year: she's so excited about her party!)

We're having a store-bought party this year.  She wants Chuck E. Cheese (shudder).  It sounds terrible to me, but I love her and it's what she wants.  I'm sure the kids will have a good time, and the parents will be nice about it. We'll do the same for whatever their kids ask for. 

I guess that's what a birthday party is really all about: celebrating the way you want to.