veterans, beam me up scotty, and happiness ....

three wishes is a lovely prompt for some writing today ... 

my first wish, today, on veteran's day, is that we had no need of more veterans ... that we could figure out how to end wars all together so that we didn't need soldiers ... maybe they could all go into other areas of civil serivice ... police, fire fighters, teachers .... and the money that we use to make war could go into other parts of life too ... as long as we do have wars, i'm grateful for those that are brave enough to fight in them ... but it would be nice to erase the need all together .... is that too big a wish? maybe, huh? i decided that this was my first wish when i read this article on veterans .... 

my second wish today, since apparently i'm wishing for big, big, big .... is that scotty could beam me up ... that my kids could be at school and go to the transporter room and just get beamed home .... that mr.e.beck.artist didn't have a commute, that he could just beam home and appear in my kitchen.... that would certainly help the whole fossil fuel problem and nuclear energy issues and such .... are dilithium crystals an easily renewable energy source? .... and if the whole molecular mix up of beaming someone to another spot is just to big a wish, i'll go for some harry pottery flew powder and we can all zip through the fireplaces from spot to spot ... or even a port key .... grab that geometry book, honey, it'll take you straight away to school .... 

and finally, i wish that all moms could feel certain in their happiness and their children's happiness ... and that they didn't have to worry about feeding them ... let alone feeding them well ... i fixate on fruit and if my children are eating enough of a healthy diet ... and how lucky is that ... i have no worries about actually getting food in them like so many do .... i was thinking about mother theresa and her untouchables in india today as i threw away halloween candy (please, don't tell my children ... i didn't throw it all away ... just the bits i thought i could throw away without them being missed) ... some of the brutally poor in india (or countless other places, like even atlanta) don't worry about the quality of their meals but the fact of where their meal will come from at all .... they don't have the luxury of wondering if their kid will eat apples instead of junk for the afternoon snack .... afternoon snack. such an under appreciated luxury .....

this last wish came from pottery class today .... it was the last class of the quarter and it was an especially happy time ..... and we all brought snacks to share ... i took chicken salad with grapes and some wheat thins to spread it on ... there were all manner of fancy and delicious snacks ... our culture thinks very little about how easy food is to come by .... the photo above is of a plate i've made ... i imagine i'll gift it to someone who will use it for cheese and crackers .... it is a cream breaking red glaze on chocolate clay ... even my pottery materials have food words ... cream and chocolate .... 

so ... i wish no wars, sci fi or fantasy transportation, and no hunger just happiness to all .... 

ok ... when do my wishes come true? 

... passion ...

secret passions? 

is that the same as favorite things? 

i'm not sure about passions that seems to be bigger than what i feel about most things ....  i am awfully enthusiastic though .... unbridled enthusiasm comes to mind .... 

here's a short list of things i'm enthusiastic about ... 

tennis .... i started playing tennis well into my forties ... and i'm making up for those forty years that i didn't play it by playing a LOT now .... in the last two weeks i've had three clinics/practices and four matches ... all the matches were with the same doubles partner ... we won three times ... this morning we were stomped on ... huge loss ... no matter ... it was super fun playing on a sunny windy cold morning amongst tall turning trees .... on monday i had three tennis events on my calendar ... a match in the morning, a lesson in the afternoon, and a round robin party in the evening ... that was a first, once a day is generally plenty ... three times a week is the norm ... i'm not even very good .... i just like it ... 

family dinners ... i don't even like to cook, but i will move heaven and earth to get my family sitting around the table together for a home cooked meal .... it is my favorite thing my family does .... and since realizing this a couple years ago, i do think my cooking has improved ... 

vacations ... i love going on trips with my family .... i love exotic fabulous vacations and i love the daytrip or weekend trip doing something simple vacations ... i like going going going .... i'm given this passion to my youngest who now wants to visit every continent .... so i went ahead and added antarctica to my bucket list for her ..... 

artsiness ... not just art, but artsiness .... i like color and whimsy and goofiness ..... like painting my own shoes .... or decorating my house with my own home mades .... 

museums ... really not all museums .. but art museums ... and especially art museums with surprises ... like, when we went to yellowstone there was a museum in jackson, the national museum of wildlife art, with picasso prints, dozens of them, of animals... they were astonishing ... and a huge surprise .... and it made me feel artsier and happier for having seem them ... and of course i just looked online for a pic for you and couldn't find one ... darn ... 

children ... i am passionate about children ... i am a teacher by trade ... my favorite volunteering things are all kid related ... sunday school, camps for inner city kids ... any discretionary donation type money i have goes to kid related stuff .... either through my kids' schools, my church, or other kid philanthropic organizations ... 

can i say i'm passionate about not getting your groceries in those stupid flimsy bags and that you should bring your own sacks EVERY time ... i'm quirky anal about that passion ... 

can i say i'm passionate about cookies? really mr.e.beck.artist is but it rubs off, ya know? this household ADORES cookies ... 

can i say i'm passionate about reality tv? survivor... american idol ... amazing race .... what ever happened to the mole? i loved that .. 

i think yesterdays post indicated my passion for color ... orange green and yellow especially ... this makes me think i should tell you about some of the trees right now .... today has been perfect tree color day .... if you've been with me today at all, i've pointed out beautiful trees to you .... 

reading ... those last few were aberrations ... this one is real ... i am very passionate about reading ... i love, love, love books ... i'm always angling for ways to make more time to read more books .. my favorite right now is to read young adult fiction that my kids' like so we can be passionate together ... 

in the comments, tell me some of your passions ... do any of yours match mine? 

... classic .... traditional ....

what a great question .... i love the assumption that no one's home is like everyone else's .... is there no typical? i guess from the outside, all those other homes look similar, typical, the same ... but since you have insider information on your own house, you know the oddball ... my friend maryann, who i asked to do nablopomo with me, blogged about this prompt and she did not EVEN mention the goats that she had in her yard for yardwork reasons ... she hired a herd of goats for yardwork ... and she didn't even mention it .... so sometimes you can tell from afar that a house is unique ... like 20ish years ago when i was new to homeownership and individuality and such, a pal loved purple and had an awesome purple front door .. totally cool .. that's not the usual house, right? you can just tell ...

so my house ... pretty normal ... we have two parents, 2.6 kids (that we rounded up to three), a dog, lots of dirty laundry,  a junky garage, a well used kitchen table, a family room that could be called the tv room, shoes under the coffee table, lots of books, an ebb and flow of full and empty fridge ... all (i think) pretty typical stuff ...

but we have some not typicalness to our home ... some stuff that seems just us ... like, my house is a little bit like a crayon box explosion .... crayon box both in color and target audience .... our house isn't mature ... i like bright and happy and whimsical .. my favorite piece of art is a fish on wheels .... my favorite furniture is a bright orange couch .... my favorite light fixtures are colored retro bubbles ... i have orange yellow green and turquoise walls ... and that's just the main floor .... my garage is painted green ..... my kitchen chairs are all different colors ... my at the moment favorite decorating item is candy .... how beautiful is a big glass jar of red hots ? ... i have an orange christmas tree (that i'll show you a photo of in less than a month ... or you can archive back to last december) .... i have a flying pig in the front yard ... and giant metal birds .... i have four welcome mats at the back door (kind of like a path of welcomeness) ...

when we took down our halloween decorations, the mantel was empty so we decorated with potato heads .... they are kind of our go to decoration for november .... between the orange joy of halloween and the (orange, ) red and green of christmas we go potato ....

the santa suit mr. potato head is upstairs still, waiting for christmas .... but the easter bunny is front and center ... right next to yoda tater and the iron man .... can you see darth tater? he's standing on the books on the right (just beneath mona lisa's orange shoes) .... one november the potato heads didn't get put away ... those with hands were just given candy canes to dress them up for christmas ....

in many ways, i think our home is exactly like lots of other homes... typical, traditional ... in some ways, this colorful, bright, happy, quirky spot is like no other ... not quite typical, not exactly traditional ... but you do have to admit mr. potato head is a classic ... making my decorating style quite classic as well, right?

trauma vs. no trauma

i am participating in nablopomo ... national blog post month ... personally chosen as an alternative to nanowrimo (national novel writing month) because i just don't have a novel in my right now ... and to help with blogging frequency ......not to mention, i just like to write, and feel like i'm trying to find my voice/my style/ma raison d'etre un auteur .... so the day's prompt, above, is about trauma .... and i'm not about trauma or drama ... i'm a matter of fact kind o' gal ... well, a matter o' fact gal with a story telling streak .... so .... i pass ... 

instead, we'll go with my blog's original purpose of "here, let me show you what i painted today so you can tell me you like it, mom and allison and roberta" ... but now, more than mom and allison and roberta read my blog .... so here, everyone else, look what i painted! 

these are two wee collages that were commissioned by a pal for some new babies .... that's  a nice new baby gift, right?  every girl should grow up with a reminder of her greatness right there hanging on the wall of her room .... no trauma ... just a happy reminder of inherent goodness ....

happy landing

i recently read an article on studio moms called to balance or not to balance .... and basically the author says striving for balance isn't worth the effort cause we can't do it ... go read it ...

ok ... did you read it? i get it ... but i don't agree with it ... because sometimes i do feel balanced ... like i have all the right amounts of the different parts of my life ... no part is boxed out ... no part is taking more time and attention than i want ... that though it might not be fifty fifty balance ... or 20 20 20 20 20 truthfully, it is balanced because i am living intentionally and accomplishing what i choose to accomplish when i choose ...

and i do know that i have balance sometimes because of the startling lack of balance at the moment ... my twins have started high school and the demands on my time are extreme in comparison to last year ... so that put me off balance in that i'm driving more, parenting more, helping more, worrying more ... and that last one? worry? i never used to even have that show up much ... so now to have it really messes things up balance-tifically speaking ....

basically, i feel like i'm back to newborn twins ... sleep deprived and wondering if i'm doing this parenting thing right ... and once the sleep deprivation appears things fall like the way side ... like the menu planning that i'd just started getting good at ... but if three out of five aren't home for dinner, what's the point? and if you don't have a menu plan, the whole grocery store thing seems to be harder .... and the next thing you know, you're out of toilet paper and have to go get that instead of finishing the painting that you've been trying to finish for eons ... or what seems like eons ...

but the good news is, it's not the end of the world if the laundry is taking over the upstairs hallway ... it's not the end of the world if you have another sandwich night ... it is what it is ... and you work on figuring it out ... and you work back to feeling balanced ... which really just means liking how your life is feeling/going/playing out .... making intentional choices ...  not letting the most important things fall by the wayside and dropping the things that aren't doing it for you ....

for my kids, when things are hard, i say just make it to next week .. next week this hard thing/test/paper/tryout/audition will be over ... do your best and make it throught ... so ... unbalanced, you have the coping skill to just tell yourself to do your best and you'll make it through ... when you're balanced, you've made it through and are happy with where you've landed ....

happy landing ...

day light savings ...

are we now standard time or day light savings time? i don't know the difference .... i think we are saving light by changing the hours so i don't have to do morning carpool in the pitch black ... but it just means instead i'll be driving home from basketball practices in the dark .... either way? i was a time change failure today ...

last night when i went to bed i changed my clock ... it's a new clock that i got because i needed a reliable alarm for the new school year .... i was ok with unreliable a scant three months ago ... so it's new ... and i'm dumb ... because then at 2 am (i presume) the clock turned itself back an hour .. which means i was actually central time ... which is bad ... cause i'm eastern time zone ...

so ... i woke up and my clock said 6.02 ... and my mind went ... ah ... it could be 7.02, but instead, i'm going back to sleep ... well ... it was 7.02... and should have felt like 8.02 ... but i haven't slept that late in eons ... so i never could have guessed that ...

i went back to sleep ... and woke up at 7 ... which was really 8 ... and should have felt like nine ... and i thought i had ALL the time in the world before i had to get ready for church .... so, i grabbed my book and went and got in sophie's bed to read .... cause i knew she'd be awake and reading .... and we read and chatted and i asked her what time her clock said and she said 10.30... and i said THAT"S CRAZY ... so is it 9.30? even that's crazy ... it must be 8.30 and you changed your clock the wrong way .... so now we're running late for church let's get moving ... and i did ... and not long  after she came running into my room ... i was shampoooooooing ... MOOOOOOOM it is almost ten and you have to get out ... and ... i didn't believe her ... and continued to shower at my leisure .. and then andy came in and explained how four different clocks had four different times and no one knew what time it was ... oh dear .... so i'll just put the conditioner in while you two run around like lunatics who don't know how to tell time ....

cell phones change times without help .. all the cell phones say it is ten o'clock ... and you, MOMMY, are supposed to be at sunday school at 10 ...

ok then .... good thing church is a one minute speed walk from my closet where i was quickly grabbing church clothes ....

so ... instead on an extra hour of sleep, i accidentally tried to get two ... and ended up with none, and late, late, late .. just like i am every spring when we change the clocks ....

so why do we change the clocks? it really bugs me ...

... oops ...

i just got home from a party ... after a long day of being out ALL DAY ... i am tired .... boy.beck.artist asked me to watch a show with him ... i get an extra hour of sleep tonight (so do you) so i decided i should watch the show ... cause i like to say yes to him ... cause i say no a lot ... saying yes feels nicer ... he and i get along better when i find reasons to say yes ...... so, if i'm going to watch a show with him (chuck on dvr) i can check my email, which i've not checked ALL day ... and in that roundabout way that happens with a laptop i ended up browsing the internet and OOPS ... it is the fifth day of blog every day month and i haven't blogged .... but now i have ...

on the art front, today i worked in the theater arts ... backstage at a tech rehearsal ... show opens thursday ...

and the party i went to was an auction/dinner dance ... i had donated two pieces of pottery and three collages ... which is good, cause i fear i'll die at 102, a little old lady with no cats, but with thousands of paintings in her basement .... as fears go, it's a small one at least ....

squinting to see the good stuff ...

i've been a bit discombobulated lately .... but i'm trying hard to get recombobulated ... to get my ducks in a row .. to see my glass as half full ... or squint and see it as more than half full .... and then? today was awesome ... there were bumps, but again, squint and you can avoid seeing the bumps ... why talk about the bumps when there's much more important good stuff ... 

today, for a wide variety of reasons that weren't exactly out of my control, but were more just bad planning on my part (ducks not in a row) , i was late to pottery class ... i knew i wasn't going to be able to get there til noon ... and class started at 10 ... bummer!! ... i was just going to skip ... and told my pal that ... and she said she was going to miss me ... and i thought about it, and i only ever see this happy friend on fridays at pottery, and i decided i'd just go late ... ya know what, i'll come at 12 just to see you ... and she said, if you come at 12 just to see me, i'll bring you lunch ... oh! beat that! my friend is going to feed me .... yay ... all this was done by text when i realized that i was calendarly challenged ... 

so at noon today i got to pottery and saw my pottery pal and we acted all gleeful like we hadn't seen each other in five years even though it had been exactly one week minus one hour ago .... and we did a little pottery work ... and chatted about our non pottery things ... and then she fed me ... she pulled out a bag o' picnic .... turkey sandwiches, fancy chips,  tiny little clementines, cinnamon apples, chocolate covered coffee beans, butterfingers for dessert, and raspberry iced tea .... how lucky am i? everyone should be so lucky as to have a friend that takes care of you this well .... let's just talk about those cinnamon apples ... there's a new taste sensation for me ... she cut up an apple, put it in a baggie, sprinkled in cinnamon, and gave it a shake ... so, so , so , so delicious! 

 and then we did a little more pottery ... i glazed six pieces .. that's a picture of five of them .... how cool is that loooooong skinny one? if you put snacks in a long line on that they'd look like art, huh?
so there you go .... a happy pottery day for me even though it was way shortened by my poor calendar skills ... and saved by a dear friend with a picnic ... when's the last time you picnicked?

 NAtional BLOg POst MOnth ... nablopomo wants to know about my writing preference ... short answer: when i am writing to be a grown up writer with a purpose, i adore my computer .. and can't imagine doing it long hand with a pen ... however, i LOVE to write ... i love pens .... i love colored felt tip markers ... i love fine sharpies ... i love fat sharpies .... i love colored pencils ... i love handwriting ... i love letters ... i love making elaborate beautiful lists ... i love goofy little grocery lists that never get to the grocery store with me ... i love to write notes to my family ... i love to write love notes to my family ... i love to write things on notes and hang them randomly around my house because no one sees a note and doesn't read it ... being a note makes it noteworthy ... around my computer spot on the kitchen bar i have care bear notes and angel notes and these thick brown recycled paper notes .... i love writing notes ... now, if i had read all those notes to myself, i wouldn't have had the calendar issue this morning .... but then i wouldn't have gotten to have a picnic ... nice how it all works out ....

... learning ...

i think we all learn new things every day ... but we don't always know it since we aren't really paying attention ... we are not being intentional about learning our "one thing" so sometimes when we learn it, we forget to revel in the moment ....

for instance, and this is completely off topic to this blog post, but, for instance, today i learned that my little.e.beck.artist is much more of a ham and a performer than i ever would have suspected.... she is in a puppet show ... in a drama showcase ... and she is the princess .. THE princess as she told me ... and as they wrote the puppet show, the group named the princess gloria ... cue my daughter singing the 1982 (billboard #2 spot) disco anthem gloria, gloria by laura branigan ... and then, because the puppet princess has long locks she breaks into "i whip my hair back and forth, i whip my hair back and forth" ... a la willow smith, 2011 .... not sure if it's on top of any chart ..... i also just learned that disco branigan died in 2004 ...

so ... learn something every day ... at my last pottery class, my lovely teacher brought in a sculptural piece of ceramics ... it looked like this ... please go look at it ... i didn't want to steal the image from the smithsonian ... and here's another similar one .... the cermamicist was brad miller ... and carol had taken a class from him long ago ... and had bought a piece similar to the two in the smithsonian ... hers did not have as many pieces .. nor has she ever untied the string for fear of never getting it back together ....

I LOVE IT .. i loved it ... i badly wanted to untie the string and touch the separate pieces ... and put it back together just so ... and then she taught me to make it .... yes she did ... that was my something new that day ... learned about the artist brad miller .. and learned about using flour, yes flour, in my pottery ... to keep the pieces perfectly formed to each other but not stuck to each other ... it was totally cool ... i was so excited to learn about it that i was finishing her sentences trying to figure it out myself rather than just sitting politely and learning ....

i floured my clay and made my artsy little lump ... the one that i saw was so sensual and sleek and organic ... it looked so vegetable it was hard to believe it was mineral .... mine ... well ... it looked like a tall doughnut... or wheat bread ... or ginger snap dough ..... but, i'm just learning ...

so, usually, i make pottery in class and i leave it there to dry and it eventually goes to the bisque kiln .. but not this one ... i brought it home to babysit ... and put it in my studio and promptly forgot i'd brought it home .... so much for babying it ... but yesterday i happened upon it and my heart sang ... i had a clay lump with flour coating and it looked cool ... and i picked it up .. and it was a titch stuck together, but without much effort i got my bits separated ... yay .... and then i put them back together ... yay ... and then i separated them ... yay ... and then, yes, i put them back together ... once i was sure i could do that, i worked on smoothing it .. buffing it ... burnishing it .... the artist brad miller put his pieces in a softly lined rock tumbler ... a tiny cement mixer sorta thing .... i'm pretty sure i don't have the spare pocket money required for that investment! ... so burnishing it will be ...

anyway, i don't know if this one will turn out REALLY how i want it ... there are already things i would have done differently ... change the clay color, make it bigger, more pieces ..... but, for now, i think it's a groovy experiment ... it's been sitting on my kitchen counter now for 24 hours ... and my family has one by one marveled at it ... just 2 minutes ago, mr.e.beck.artist, just back from a trip (loudly)said WHAT's that? .... i smirked .... no really, what is it .. he said he thought it was clay but that it kinda looks like squashed together cinnamon sticks .... oh, it's just art, honey .... and he asked, is it supposed to be a pepper ... no, not exactly ....

and tomorrow i'll go to pottery ... and get it bisque fired ... and glaze some other pieces .... and maybe make a new one, right? bigger? more pieces? squashier? we'll see ...

 i do not listen to music while i write .... but i do have gloria earworming me ... at least it isn't the whip my hair song ....

... food for thought ... well ... not really ... but it sounds good ....

 if i knew that whatever i ate next would be my last meal, i would want it to be ...
     -at the kitchen table
     -with my family
     -cooked by someone other than me

that's what i strive for every night ... but generally, i get two out of three .... at the kitchen table, with my family, but, alas, i am the primary cook these days ....

i'm pretty sure the question is meant to get a food response, but i don't care much ... pizza if we want it to be boy.beck.artist's favorite ... tacos for girl.beck.artist .... pasta for mini me, little.e.beck.artist ... maybe salmon for mr.e.beck.artist ... but me? i'm not ever sure i have a favorite .... i'd pick bagels ... or raspberries ... or watermelon ... or ice cream .... those are my favorite foods ...

favorite meals?
-when mr.e.beck.artist makes scallops (i've never cooked scallops, if we have them, he does it)
-when little.e.beck.artist gets the waffle irons out and makes multiple shapes of waffles for all of us ....
-when boy.beck.artist does chicken or tilapia with potatoes ...
and then there's girl.beck.artist ... i don't think she has a go to meal .... she's more like me ... perfectly helpful and fine in the kitchen ... but wouldn't choose it ..... if i can't cook, she's the last one i ask to make dinner for the family ....

what's your favorite meal? do you like to cook? love to cook? prefer to be cooked for?

so ... the nablopomo is funny ... it makes me think about questions i wouldn't normally think about ... or normally write about on this blog ...

so let me update you on my artsy life ...
i just donated pottery and paintings to an auction at my church ...
i'm partially done with a commission piece ....
i have pottery waiting at the pottery studio to be glazed ....
and today i won my first tennis match in a long time  .... it might not seem like that's artsy, but in general, when i don't get my daily art done, it's because i played too much tennis ... ha ...
tomorrow? no tennis ... definitely madly need to get some art done ... so i shall ...

trick or treat to ho,ho,ho

 halloween is over .... so it's either time to sneak all the snicker's out of the kid's halloween treats, or it is time to move on to the next thing .... my next thing is pottery ... and actually christmas too .... i have recently brought home eight ceramic pieces that i've made in the last few weeks .... varying sizes ... you can see the dime in each picture to give you some perspective ... the bigger the dime looks, the smaller the piece ... and i think each of these will be christmas gifts .... but, lest i misguide you into thinking i'm all organized girl, two of the pieces are not going to be christmas gifts, they are wedding gifts .... a very, very, very late wedding gift for very dear friends .. who have been married so long i'm pretty sure they don't expect any more wedding gifts .... oh well .. i hope to have it to them by christmas ....

uh oh .... something new to try .....

why do all the cool things happen in november ....
like ... thanksgiving.... third thursday of november ....
like ... eat all the reese's out of your kids' treat bags ... nov. 1 ...
like ... eat all the snickers ... nov. 2 ....
like ... fine i'll eat the whoppers on nov. 12th ...
like nanowrimo ... do you remember nanowrimo? i thrilled you with my escapades ...
here's where i'm getting ready to write a novel in november 09 ...
here's where i am CLEARLY delusional about the writing adventure ....
and the half way point of nanowrimo ....
and the post where i declare i CAN do it ....
and my I DID IT post ....
and then... if you keep going to newer posts (because you are so anxious to catch up on what my december 2009 was like) you can see all the commenters asking when that book will be published (soon, right?) ... well ... hope you weren't holding your breath on that one ... the book , which was (is?) titled all i want, is still languishing on multiple computers (so as not to be lost) ... i go through editing frenzies ... i really love chapter 1,2,3 .. and maybe four ... but my ending is week ... my story ark is flat ... i love it ... and want it to be good and publishable ... but try as i might, you can wish something to fully edited ... you actually have to edit it ... and edit it ... and edit it ... and my sporadic stirred in with some crabbiness just isn't getting the job done ... last year for nanowrimo, i considered participating again cause i really truly DID enjoy it .... everyone should have one year of national novel writing month .... it's a pull yourself up by your boot straps kinda thing .... but this year, i got the email, oh november is almost here, and it never crossed my mind to do it ... i need to either fully commit to the last one getting edited and done ... or fully commit to ditching it ... quitting it ... leaving it ... and i'm not ready ... i still like those characters and i really want them to have a better story ark( ... arc ... i think ark fits better but i know it's arc ... ) ...
so ... no oddly syllabled frenzy for me this month ... until ... i catch word ON NOVEMBER FIRST about the existence of another writing todo ... a hooo ha ... a grand hoo ha ... a grand hoo ha of multi syllabic oddness ... yup .. nablopomo ... i spent a bit of time this afternoon looking at the website ... oddly intrigued ... and yep ... i can do that ... i had a big blog lull ... and i've just gotten back into it ... but (BIG.BIG.BIG.CONFESSION.here) i've been cheating ... i sit down and write five or six or TEN blog posts and schedule them forward .. so they post at lovely perfect intervals .... without me having to write every day .... is that cheating? maybe .... in fact, the other post today? i wrote it a week ago ... pretending that i knew what the day after halloween would feel like .... uh huh ... tomorrow's too ... all posted up ... and here goes nablopomo messing up the schedule ...

but i'm in ... all in ... cause i like to write .. and i like to have it so i have to write ... for instance, if i HAD to write every day and edit that last novel, i would be done ... but, don't have to, so i don't ... it's hard, so i don't ... no one's paying attention, so i don't ...

but this? hopefully my pal maryann is paying attention ... i think she's doing a post a day with me ...
less pressure than a novel ... and i'm not giving up on what i've already written .... she too has a novel in the works .. she nanowrimo'd with me ...

so ... just to be official ... what's my favorite thing about writing, day 1question ...
well ...
1.when i talk, someone talks back (except when i'm talking to the dog)  ... writing is much more forgiving ... you can delete and rewrite and edit and get it just so .... so, in some ways, easier than talking ....
2. i have lots to say
3. i love how it feels to be sitting at my computer and thinking stuff up ... i don't think i'd be as good a writer if i were in the olden days with a pen ...
4. three was a lie ... i journal ... and write with a pen all the time ... but it's different writing ... more doodley and more private ....
5.so, if i don't really answer the question, do i get in trouble? i'm guessing not ...

welcome to november ... where once again i say, i think i want to be a writer when i grow up ....