Why I Need a Live-in Copy Editor

As you can tell by my last post, I was involved in an internet game of telling five things people don't know about me and then tagging five other bloggers. So after I'd written my post I went to my friend, Jennifer J Stewart's blog. I meant to tell her, "Tag, you're it!" But what I actually said was, "Tag your it!" Which sounds vaguely obscene and probably made several people on the grammar police look for their billy clubs. (Lynne Truss is safely in England, isn't she?)

So yeah, I think I need a live-in copy editor. If she also did laundry and dishes and occasionally drove a kid to soccer, I would be even happier. Whatever happened to Alice from the Brady Bunch? Does anyone recall how her grammar was? If anyone knows her, tell her I'm desperately seeking Alice.

Five things you didn’t know about me

I was just tagged in some sort of internet game. I’m supposed to tell five things you didn’t know about me and then tag five more unsuspecting bloggers. Sort of like a chain letter but without the attached curses or promises of wealth.

Most of the stuff that you don’t know about me, you either don’t want to know, or I don’t want to tell, but here goes. These are a list of firsts.

1) My first crush was on Captain Kirk. Of course I grew out of that quickly and moved in to more serious relationships . . . Luke Skywalker and Apollo.

2) My first kiss was onstage in a play rehearsal. The play was never put on, but this had nothing to do with my uncontrollable blushing. (Hello Blake Limburg, if you’re out there . . .)

3) To the great surprise of my family and much of the population of Pullman, Washington, I passed my driver’s license test on the first try.

4) The first time I met my husband, I couldn’t get his name right. (We were at a dance in front of loud speakers and I couldn’t hear him.) This was perhaps the first clue that I wouldn’t be able to keep my kids' names straight. (Hey, there are five of them, give me a break.)

5) The first time I met my editor, I walked right past him in the hotel lobby without recognizing him. (In my defense he looked nothing like the picture the conference had published of him.) This may be one reason (and now that I think of it, I’ve given him many,) that he seems to think I’m totally dingy. But I'm not. Really.

Now I'm tagging Shannon Hale, Jennifer J Stewart, The Intern, Janni Simner, and anyone else who reads this and wants to spill five things.

New year's writing resolutions

1) I resolve to not be upset because I’m not wildly famous, or actually even mildly famous. This just means that—unlike some people—I can get out of a limo half dressed, and the paparazzi don’t snap my picture, and put it up on the internet for millions of people to see. Forget the fact that I don’t ride in limos or go out in public without my underwear—still it’s a plus that unfamous people don’t have to worry about such things.

2) I resolve to make and mail out the 2,000 flyers my editor wants me to send to teachers, asking them to "invite Janette Rallison to your school for a writer visit!”

Do they make envelopes with chocolate flavored adhesive? Note to self: Buy the self sealing kind.

3) I resolve to occasionally get dressed before I’ve made myself fulfill my writing quota for the day. As I was writing this, a salesman came to the door, and I look like a homeless person in bright red reindeer pajamas. Note to self: Start sleeping in jeans.

4) I resolve to cook dinner before I’ve made myself fulfill my writing quota for the day. Note to self, buy more Hamburger Helper.

5) I resolve to come up with more original tag lines for my novels. I think my characters are getting tired of drawing their eyebrows together.

6) I resolve to thoroughly learn how to use a comma so my copy editor will stop pulling her hair out--ha, ha, like that will ever happen!

6) I resolve to become wildly famous. I can handle it. I know where to keep my underwear.

It's Official: I'm Old/ Aleeta's Wedding

My daughter's friend, Aleeta, just got married. (And yes all you savvy readers, I did use the name Aleeta in my book It's A Mall World After All. I habitually stick my children's friends' names in my novels.) Anyway, so Aleeta is now officially a Mrs.

My daughter is nineteen. Aleeta is twenty. When my daughter first told me Aleeta was engaged, I gasped and said, "But she's so young! What's the rush?"

My daughter then reminded me that I was twenty when I got married. In fact, I was younger than Aleeta because my wedding happened about a week after my twentieth birthday.

Details. Details. Twenty-years-old was older back when I was twenty.

So although the reception was lovely and beautiful and everything a reception should be, it was a little weird because I kept thinking that my daughter--my baby--could be next.
I realized I should start paying attention to reception details because who knows when I'll be put in charge of arranging one.

The conversation between my daughter and I went like this:

Me: I know, why don't you get married on December 26th? That way we can rummage through the Christmas tree lots for discarded evergreens. Wouldn't that make for nice decorations? We could set up rows of Christmas trees in the church's gymnasium.

My daughter: No.

Me: And all the Christmas candy will be fifty percent off--think refreshment table.

My daughter: I'm going to elope.

Well, I hope not for awhile, anyway.