Job Satisfaction

I didn't use to watch TV at all. Now I watch TV while I do the exercises my physical therapist suggested for my back. (One ruptured disk, one herniated disk, one big hassle.) For any of you out there that have too much dignity, I highly recommend back exercises. Several of them make me look like I’m attempting to fly. In others I appear to be trying out for a Michael Jackson pelvic thrust dance routine. Needless to say, I do my exercises after the kids go to bed.

TV during that time slot is often interesting. The other night I watched a documentary on PBS about venomous creatures. You might not realize this, but researchers are trying to cure all sorts of medical problems using venom. Seriously—from cancer to pain relief to blood clotting agents—they’re looking to venom to find solutions. I’m imagining myself walking into a clinic with a brain tumor and then being informed that the doctor wants to inject me with snake venom. I think about that time I’d start to question my HMO.

But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. What struck me was the researches they showed collecting venom. I mean, some days being an author is the pits. Like today when I checked Amazon and saw that my first review for Ex-boyfriend was only three stars. I read the review—and it was surprisingly good review. The person said: “The main characters are cute and our heroine actually has a couple of laugh out loud funny episodes (and some of her thoughts are hilarious)” but she only gave it three stars (I assume) because it didn’t “touch her or make her think.” I would suggest she think about how hard it is to write comedy and give me five stars, but no, never mind.

Anyway, back to snakes and poisonous toads and such. In one part of the show a researcher is recorded milking the fangs of poisonous spiders. “You have to get them angry so they stand up and show you their fangs,” he said waving a pipette at a furry black spider. “Luckily it’s pretty easy to provoke them. Even a whiff of human smell makes them angry.”

Yeah, I suppose so. Being jabbed with a pipette on a daily basis would do that for you.

Another woman grabbed a brown snake from the ground—with her bare hands—and then held it aloft for the camera while she cheerfully explained that it’s responsible for the most snake deaths in Australia.

I couldn’t help but think that the death toll was about to rise by one.

We got to watch a lot of snakes being milked for venom and it really surprised me how many researches did this without any sort of gloves. This either says something about their hubris or their job satisfaction.

So even on days when being an author isn’t great, there are still things to be thankful for. Like the fact that thus far my editor hasn’t asked me to milk a snake.

Win a free book!

How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend is in stores today! If your local store doesn't have it--don't be shy, ask them at the customer service desk to order it. Really, they are more than happy to do this for you, and hopefully they will order some for the shelf too. See, you'll be doing everyone a favor.


In honor of How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend, I'm starting a Dish-out-dirt-on-your-Ex contest. We'll call it "The Good, The Bad, and The Oh So Ugly."

Write a paragraph or two or three on why your boyfriend was either 1) a total jerk or 2) a real cool guy, despite the fact that the two of you are no longer together.

Send your stories to: jrallisonfans@yahoo.com. (I may do some editing if they're too long.) Also let me know if you want your name used with the story.

After I get a sufficient quantity of stories, I'll post the best ones on my website. Then I'll choose a winner who will receive a signed copy of Ex-boyfriend, which let me tell you right now is a very cool story which includes hot guys, subterfuge, evil stepmothers, and car chases.

"Rallison keeps the reader engaged and makes it hard to put the book down. There is not one single slow spot in How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend, which makes it a perfect summer read."--BookLoons

Happy Reading,


Janette

Kitchen update/Mystery caller

Since writing the last blog I’ve spent a lot of days scrubbing down my kitchen and the surrounding walls in an effort to remove the smoke smell. This wouldn’t be so bad (at any given point in the year my kitchen needs to be scrubbed down) except that I just repainted a lot of it in an effort to impress my daughter’s boyfriend. You know how it is—guests come and for several days you have to pretend to be clean.


Anyway, after Herculean efforts on my part, and a can of Febreze that my children had way too much fun spraying, my house no longer smells like a fire happened in the kitchen. Now my house smells like a fire happened in a Febreze factory. Seriously. Even the dog smells like he just walked out of a cheap hotel.

Oh well, this too shall pass and eventually we’ll explode something in the microwave and then the kitchen will take on an entirely new fragrance.

In other news I had the most interesting phone call from a fan. Here it is in a nutshell:

My phone rings. Middle daughter answers it and gives it to me.

“Hello” I say.

“Oh my gosh, I love you!” says a young sounding voice.

My first thought is that one of my children has called me, because they’re the only people who tell me they love me over the phone. I can’t tell which of my children this is, which is not a new occurrence and something that always bothers said children. It also irks them that sometimes when I talk to them I go through an entire list of names before I hit the right one. My youngest son has on more than one occasion given me a humorless stare and said, “Mom, do you know who I am?”

Anyway, this is obviously not my middle daughter since she handed me the phone, and my youngest daughter hasn’t figured out how to call people yet . . . my sons should both be at scout camp, shouldn’t they?

“And I love your books, and I just read it’s a Mall World and I love it too!” continues the voice.

Okay, this is obviously not one of my children because my daughters are accounted for and there is no way one of my sons would call me to gush about my books. My sons have not even read my books which is why I keep telling them they will not be mentioned in my will.

My second thought is: This is a fan calling me. How very cool.

“Goodbye!” the voice chimes and hangs up before I can even say, “Why thank you, you charming young person. Would you like to be mentioned in my will?”

So anyway, I’m saying it now: Thank you, mystery phone caller. You made my day.

Smoking in the kitchen/the undomestic goddess strikes again

No, I haven't taken up cigarettes. I put a pot of ten-bean soup on the stove to boil, promptly forgot about it, and left the house for three hours. When I pulled back into the garage, my middle daughter said, "What's that smell?"

Oh no.

I ran into the house which was now billowing with smoke and learned a couple of very important things.

1) Where there's smoke, there isn't necessarily fire, there may just be a hardened mass of charcoal-like beans.

2) My smoke detector doesn't work, and yeah, I know there are easier ways to check that.

I turned off the stove, grabbed the smoldering pan, and ran it outside so it wouldn't contribute to the cloud of smoke billowing around my house. Then I yelled to my daughters to open all the windows and turn on the fans. We spent the next few minutes doing this. The cloud of smoke dispersed, the inside temperature of the house immediately rose to nearly match the outside temperature of 108 degrees, but the smell didn't go away.

My youngest daughter went outside to stare at the pan. "Look at the black mark on the grass!" she said.

Some of the grass in our yard is dead--probably due to the fact that we have a giant trampoline blocking a few of the sprinklers. I'd put the pan down on the dry part of the lawn and charred a patch of grass. So yeah, while I was unsuccessfully trying to air out my house, I nearly ignited my back yard.

I would have noticed that eventually, I suppose. You know, like when the smoke started billowing back in through the open windows.

I don't think I should be trusted to cook anymore. I should eat out from now on. It’s safer.

I've opened all the windows again and now the chocolate kisses I stashed in my closet are melting into chocolate and tinfoil blobs. I know. I've just eaten half a dozen of them.

I sent my manuscript off!

I just finished my latest manuscript (right now it's called: Last Wish) and sent it to my publisher. It's been an interesting book to write.

When I started it, Tim the mighty bow-tied one, called and told me he wanted me to dig deep. He wanted emotion. He wanted me to reach into my soul and confront my unspoken pain.

I have tried to convince Tim that I am basically a happy person, and I don't have all the angst churning around inside me that is so common with writers. This is probably the reason I write romantic comedies instead of Sylvia Plath-like stories of despair.

Tim doesn't buy my happiness. "Dig deeper," he told me. "What is under that layer of happiness?"

"Just more happiness, well unless you catch me when the kids are bickering with each other--then I yell until I hyperventilate, but I don't think teenagers really want to read about that . . ."

Still I wrote this story determined to take on a hard issue. Annika's little brother, Jeremy, has cancer and she decides to find and bring home his idol: the actor who plays Robin Hood.

It's still a funny book in a lot of places but it’s definitely more serious then my other novels.

And the weirdest thing happened while I wrote it. I swear the novel just poured out of my mind and onto the keyboard. I couldn't stop thinking about it even when I tried. Ideas and images came so fast I could hardly keep up with them. Even after I sent it off this afternoon I kept thinking about things I wanted to add.

I can't tell you the last time that happened while I wrote. While writing the last few books, it has sometime seemed like I had to wrestle words out of the air and pin them down to the computer screen.

I even cried at several points of the book. This is hard to explain when someone calls you while you're writing. Like the Boy Scout leader calls to talk about scout camp and I'm gulping out, “Yeah, we'll make sure to send in all the . . .sniff . . . permission slips."

See, this is why people think writers are strange.

Anyway, I'll be interested to hear what Tim's reaction to the new, apparently less happy me is.

Oh, who am I fooling? I know very well what his reaction will be. He'll tell me he really likes the story and then he'll scribble rewrite instructions on every single page.

Why should this book be any different than the rest?

Writing the Kissing Scenes . . .

I find writing kissing scenes for YA books tricky. I mean, I love romance and apparently a lot of my teen readers like it too, but some of my readers are quite young and I always want my books to be—well, clean. It’s a fine line to walk. How much romantic language is appropriate?

Then there is the other problem. How many different ways can you descriptively write, “He leaned down and kissed her. And they kissed for awhile. Then they stopped.” See, it has to be dressed up somehow, made more literary, and made more immediate.

Not long ago I explained this problem to my husband. I asked him to kiss me like it was our first date so I could think of descriptive phrasing.

He isn't very cooperative about these sorts of requests. He gave me a humorless stare and said, “What, you want me to take you in my sinewy arms and pull you into my vice-like grip?”

I made him read a romance back in the 80s--you know, just so he would know what women expected from a man--and he's never let me live this down. In my defense it had been several years since I had read the aforementioned romance and I'd forgotten what it was like.

He walked over to me. “This is where I kiss you're welcoming mouth, right?”

I smacked him and reminded him that I write young adult fiction and there is none of the cheesy romance lingo in them.

He said, “You mean I'm not supposed to plunder your mouth?”

“How does anyone even do that?” I asked him. “Are you supposed to steal my fillings or something? Just kiss me like you don’t know me that well.”

He kissed me and I tried to arrange the description. “His unshaved beard stubble scraped across my skin . . .” Well, that just wasn't going to work.

He let go of me and rolled his eyes. ”Can't you just write about that first night I kissed you--remember Lake Braddock?” We'd gone there late one summer night after a dance and sat in the moonlight looking at the lake. “Don't you remember that?” he asked.

"All I really remember is that the ducks were sleeping."

"That's what you remember about that night?"

"Well, I'd never seen ducks sleep before. They look like they don't have heads."

"The summer night, the moonlight . . ." he supplied.

" . . .there among the headless ducks . . ."

Yeah, I never could get that memory to work for my novel. It’s a good thing I have a descriptive imagination.

Jurassic Park and my new lap top

Do you remember that scene from the first Jurassic Park movie where the founder tells the visiting scientists that he personally holds every newly hatched dinosaur so he can form a bond with them? He wants their first experience with humans to be a positive, nurturing one so they’ll grow up to be tame dinosaurs.



The lap top my husband ordered for me just arrived. It’s sitting in its box in the living room. My husband called and asked if I was going to open it.

I think not.

I carry the curse of technology-challenged, and I’m afraid if I touched it first some of the curse would transfer to the poor, harmless lap top. It would end up eternally flipping the hour glass at me.

I told my husband he’d better be the one who brings it out into the light of day. That way he can give it a positive, nurturing experience so it will grow up to be a tame computer.

Book signing at Barnes & Noble

Yikes,
I can't believe I haven't posted this on my blog yet! It may have something to do with throwing three birthday parties for my kids in the last three days. My advice to mothers: Don't give birth to three of your children within a two day period. (Not in the same year . . . although that would be a feat . . .)

Anyway I'll be at the Barnes & Noble in Scottsdale, Arizona tonight at 6:00 pm


Desert Ridge Marketplace
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
21001 N Tatum Blvd Suite 42, Phoenix AZ 85050
northeast corner of Loop 101 and Tatum.

Deep writing thoughts . . .

The Phoenix Microburst conference was great! Really, every time I teach at a writing conference I come away feeling like I’ve learned so much. David Morrell was great speaker. I could listen to him all day. In fact, I could follow him around from conference to conference like a stalker. (See last blog.)

For those of you who aren’t familiar with David’s books, he writes a lot of best sellers. He wrote First Blood, which was turned into all the Rambo movies. This is as close as I’ve gotten to Sylvester Stallone since I posed for a picture on his bed. (Long story.)

Anyway, David knows a ton about writing and promoting.
The good news: I’m now more motivated to shove all those flyers which are sitting in my family room into envelopes.
The bad news: I just realized that even if I become really famous, I will still have to shove flyers into envelopes, because David still does. He showed us some of his, in fact.

The envelopes apparently never end, and all I can say is thank goodness for self adhesive! Ditto goes for the stamps. I would choke if I had to lick them all.

David also said some things about writers that made me think. First of all, like many authors I know, he had a lousy childhood. This really makes me wonder if all writers have something traumatic happen in their young years. (Besides Junior High, that is, which is traumatic for everyone.) It makes me wonder what I’d be doing now if my mother hadn’t died when I was six. Maybe I’d be an executive of some corporation, or a really organized room-mother who makes matching theme shirts for all the students in her kid’s class on water day. Or at least maybe I’d be dressed and showered in the morning instead of huddled over a computer trying to delve into the psyche of characters who don’t really exist.

But Ces’t la vie.

David said that he thinks every person has one driving quality about them; something that motivates their actions. As writers we often say this about our characters, but I’ve never heard anyone say it about authors. I have since been wondering, but can’t tell you, what my over-riding quality is. I asked my husband but he is no help in these matters. He is an electrical engineer and therefore doesn’t notice people’s qualities. He does, however, understand how to work the computer so I keep him around.

David asked us to ask ourselves why we write. The obvious answer is, “Because I have to.” Most of us know this and leave it at that. He asked us to take the question one step further, “Why do I have to write?”

He spent some time telling us about his life and why he has to write. I won’t try to give you a synopsis of his answer because I couldn’t do it justice and you might want to hear him speak some day. (If you have the chance, do.) But since then I’ve turned the question over in my mind. Why do I have to write? I think I know the answer to this one, but I’ll let others weigh in first. What do you have to say, writers? Why do you have to write?

Attention Arizona writers (and potential stalkers)

Hey all,
This Saturday, May 5th I'll be at the Phoenix College writing conference:

The 3 C's of Writing: Creativity, Craft, Commitment. Publishing professionals will present workshops and panels to inspire writers to express the best of their talent.

Check-in begins at 7:45 a.m. Conference hours - 8:45 a.m to 5:15 p.m.

There will be other cool authors there, in fact some that are way cooler than I am. (A hard feat, I know.) David Morrell will be there, and he wrote the book that later became the Rambo series. This guy had lunch boxes made in the likeness of his character. I will know I've arrived when kids are toting around my characters to keep their lunches company.

You can find out more information about the conference by cutting and pasting this address.

http://connieflynn.com/microburst07flyer.html

So anyone who's interested in writing, or you know, if you feel like stalking might be your chosen profession, that's where I'll be this Saturday.

Hope to see you there! (Unless of course you really are a stalker, and then keep in mind that David Morrell is the cool one.)

Romping

I'm updating my school visit flyer and I needed some quotes from Booklist, Kirkus, and School Library Journal to prove that my books are really as wonderful as I say. (And oh yes, they are that wonderful!)

So I'm flipping through reviews and I realize that about half of my reviews use the word 'romp' somewhere in them. As in, "Rallison again delivers a high school romp that will give readers plenty of fun." and "This is a witty, often hilarious romp that should appeal to young readers looking for light, enjoyable fiction."

I hadn't realized it until now, but apparently I'm very romping. I guess that's better then the other word I hear thrown around about my books--the f word. Yes, that's right, fluff.

Anyway, soon I will be sending out a gazillion flyers to media specialists in several states. Let me just tell you all now--you want to book me for a visit. I'm romping.

Tagged again

I've been tagged again.

As far as the history tag--sorry folks, I refuse to mention my birthday. I try to ignore it as much as possible. We're not even on speaking terms really.

Here are a list of things that should happen on my birthday though:

1) Pizza declared healthy.
2) The government institutes a program where anyone with more than three children receives a subsidy for a maid.
3) Spelling of all words required by law to make sense.
4) And of course: Janette Rallison day declared holiday.
5) Followed by: The Newbery committee apologizes for overlooking her all of these years.

Hey, it could happen.

As for the other tag, I'm coerced into telling the world eight more little known things about myself. (You know, for all of those avid Janette Rallison fans who are making a shrine to me in their homes.)

Here's a short list:

1) My yard--without my permission--has become a stray cat sanctuary. I used to make fun of the crazy cat ladies. Now I am one.

2) I'm addicted to chocolate. Chocolate is my happy place.

3) I can't spell. Really. And yet I'm still a writer, thus proving all of my school teachers wrong. Thank you, spell check!

4) I don't tan. It's just one more way my life isn't fair.

5) I'm a romantic at heart and

6) I hate sad endings. This is the reason I refuse to watch both Romeo and Juliet and Titanic. Who needs to see people die? Did I mention that I hated the movie The Prestige? Well, it bears repeating.

7) I hate sirens. When I hear them I always have to quell the urge to call my family to make sure they're okay.

8) As a child I learned my numbers (and addition, subtraction, etc.) by assigning personalities to the numbers. I sort of thought that everyone did this, and it wasn't until I was working with my fourth child and said things like, "You can remember the nine because he's the sneaky one," that I realized that no, the rest of you don't do this.

It really explains so much about me, doesn't it?

I hate The Prestige

No, this blog isn't about how hard it is to be famous. (Like I'd know--although lately Brad and Angelina don't look too happy on the cover of the tabloids, so it's probably true.)

This blog is about the movie I just watched: The Prestige. I hated it. I know this has nothing to do with writing and I'll probably take this blog off tomorrow but I just had to vent.

The problem with the movie is that it was well written. It's not like other bad movies which you can spot after five minutes and therefore spare yourself the pain of having to sit through them. Oh no, this movie had an interesting premise. It was well acted. You watch it captivated, to see if it will end the way you're guessing. But here is my advice: Don't watch it. It doesn't end the way you expect, it ends much, much worse.

I have been walking around the house for the last half an hour repeating, "What a horrible movie! Who wrote that movie? Is Stephen King in the credits?"

However if you're into movies where you get to watch revenge destroy people, then yeah, you might like it. For all of you people who want to be happy: Go read one of my books.

Now I will try, pointlessly, to get some sleep.

Why you need an agent

I'm often asked by aspiring authors if they need agents. If you want to write for the national market, the answer is yes. And it's not because an agent--who actually schmoozes with editors--will know where to send your manuscript. It's not because an editor will actually read an agented manuscript, as opposed to the unagented ones which stack up inside of the office to henceforth be used as free insulation. No, you need an agent my friend, because agents are the only ones in the business who can decipher royalty statements.

Royalty statements, by the way, are misnamed. They don't make you feel like royalty; they make you feel like an idiot, because you can't figure them out. I just got my last royalty statement from Walker, and I'm not kidding, it was 15 pages long. They publish books that are shorter than that.

None of it made sense, but it came through my agent, so I can just file it somewhere. See how nice that is? Trust me. If you want to be a writer, you need an agent. You also need a cheerleading section and a housekeeper, but that is the subject for another blog.

The conference/ Janette confesses

The LDStorymakers conference is always a ton of fun. This is mostly because so many of the LDStorymakers are incurable hams. (As opposed to cured ham, which is something completely different.) In costume, they get up in front of a hundred strangers and perform skits and songs. Honestly, someone should send Tristi Pinkston to American Idol. James Dashner, our fearless MC was also a hoot—and the odd thing is that neither one of these people write comedies. James writes fantasy and Tristi writes tear-jerking historicals with names like: Strength to Endure. I will not go on with a complete rundown of the group as there are too many of them, but the next time you are reading one of Josi Kilpack, Shirley Bahlmann, or Julie Wright’s books think of them on stage wearing tiaras.


Perhaps the most memorable class for me was the one on public speaking—because I realized I’d been doing everything wrong. See, apparently you are never supposed to say the word, “Um” in front of a crowd.

I had to teach the next hour. Do you know what the quickest way to derail your entire presentation is? Catch yourself saying the word “Um” and then try and stop yourself from saying it again. My class got to watch me having an “Um” nervous break down for the first ten minutes until I finally convinced myself to stop paying attention to what I was saying and just teach the class.

It is also always fun for me to hang out with fellow writer, Bill Gardner, (AKA Willard) who grew up with me in the small town of Pullman, Washington. I find it interesting that both of us had this common hobby/talent/obsession of writing and yet we never knew it about each other until we were adults, living in different states, and happened to join the same writers group.


Although I guess it isn’t too surprising that we never connected since he was older and too cool to talk to me. He denies this by the way, and insists he was shy, but really, how many of the cool, popular kids are actually shy? Yeah, I didn’t buy that excuse either.

So there was this one really tense moment when I was about to give a presentation to the entire conference and James, who was introducing me, said, “Since Bill and Janette grew up together, I asked him to give me an embarrassing story about her.”

I swear I saw my entire life flash before my eyes, well at least the embarrassing stuff anyway, which is a considerable chunk.

As it turns out, there is one advantage to the fact that Bill was too cool to talk to me, and that is that he didn’t know any of my many embarrassing moments. Hurrah for being overlooked!

Afterwards I was standing around with a group of people, including Bill and my college-aged daughter. I said, “When James announced he was going to tell an embarrassing story about me all I could think about was the *** incident.”

I am not telling you, my blog reader, what the *** incident was, because it turns out the *** incident was illegal. I did not realize this as a teenager. Really. I wouldn’t have done it, had I known that the police along with several other city personnel would show up in my neighborhood with their lights flashing looking for the perpetrator of the *** incident. Or that it would be in the newspaper, and the teachers at school would all talk about the reckless behavior of certain unknown teenagers. Oh, and did I mention that I was the daughter of a Pastor?

Anyway, I didn’t turn myself in and they never caught me. Even though the statute of limitations is up, I’m still not telling. Maybe some day I will do penance and turn myself into the mayor of Pullman (who may in the near future be a guy who I went to prom with, so I’m hoping he’d give me a pardon) but not yet.

Right now it is my deep, dark secret, except for that as soon as I uttered the words, “When James announced he was going to tell an embarrassing story about me all I could think about was the *** incident.” Bill said, “THAT WAS YOU?!!”

Then he went on for some time about how the *** incident had become legend in the Pullman Police Department—and Bill worked for the Pullman Police Department for awhile so he would know.

See, I was really more interesting as a teenager than Bill gave me credit for.

My writing trip, part 1

I am long past due writing about my trip to Utah. The end of March I went up to teach a couple of writing classes at the LDStorymakers conference, do a school visit (Brockbank Junior High Rocks!) and in general hang out with writers. (Thus validating that I’m not odd, I’m just artistic.)

Shannon Hale put together a lunch with some of the Utah children’s writers. Shannon is tres cool, by the way. She is so cool that Mattel wanted to make Barbie dolls out of some of her book characters. Forget the New York Times bestseller list. I will know I’ve succeeded in life when they make a Barbie doll in my image.


Anyway, I finally got to meet Mike Tunnell at the lunch, whose book Wishing Moon, I’d just read. For those of you who want YA novels without any content which could someday get it banned, this is a good one.

I also got a real kick out of meeting Nathan Hale, and not just because his picture book, The Devil You Know, is going to be turned into a really fun movie which may put him on the Barbie speed dial. No, I liked talking to Nathan because he shares an editor with me—the mighty bow-tied one. So we sat around talking about editor woes.

“Does Tim ever return your emails?” Nathan asked me.

“He answers most of them,” I said, “but I don’t think he reads them through all of the way.”

I did not share any examples with Nathan, as he didn’t seem to need proof, but I will share with you, my loyal blog readers, a prime example.

Last Christmas I happened upon the perfect gift for my editor at Walker and since I didn’t want to play favorites, I bought something for Tim (who is now my Putnam editor) too. I bought it from a catalog so I knew it would just show up at his office without explanation. Since this was a gift that really needed a preface, I wrote him an email about it. This is an actual excerpt:

Hi Tim . . . I found something for you to wear to all of those writers' conferences where you are basically treated like some sort of Elvis in a roomful of adoring groupies. But you'd better print out this email and put it somewhere you can see it or when you get my package you'll be like, "Why in the heck did Janette send this to me?"

Now given the email instructions you would think with he would at least remember that there was something a little different or odd or that he needed to remember about my gift. But no. A week later when he received the T-shirt that read: Your Dreams Have Been Answered—I’m here, he called me up. He said, “Soooo Janette . . .” in this hesitant, unsure, are-you-crazy sort of voice, “I got your gift . . . I’m just calling to see if I understand why you sent it . . .”

It would have served him right if I had said, “Well Tim, this is my subtle was of telling you I’m in love with you, and I hope you can support me and my five children.”

But that would have made the rest of the phone conversation really awkward, so instead I let out a disgruntled sigh and said, “Don’t you ever read my emails?”

On the bright side, I bet he’ll read any emails I send him before next Christmas.

Happy Birthday, theoretically speaking

I'm celebrating a birthday soon--although of course when you get to my age you don't actually celebrate them. You dread them, you try to dodge them, you sigh with that same it-can't-be-here-again-already expression you get when the dentist informs you it's time for another check up. (Ditto for the OB.)

I wouldn't mind birthdays so much if they didn't involve so much reflecting--not reflecting about life. That part is okay. That part is really great, actually. It's all that reflecting in the mirror.

Where did those wrinkles come from? And is it just my imagination or are my eyebrows migrating down my face? We will not even discuss other areas of my body as this blog is read by teens and I wouldn't want to frighten them about what life has in store.

But take my advice. Wear sunscreen.

Janette gets lost

Some of us weren’t blessed with a sense of direction. The fairy responsible for bestowing that gift on me at birth—in Sleeping Beauty like fashion—obviously got lost somewhere and never made it to my cradle.

I take heart that I’m not alone in this affliction. One of my icons, comedy writer Patrick McManus, used to write essays about his experiences getting lost camping. (Hey look! The sun is setting in the south!)

Last week when I was vacationing at Rocky Point, Mexico with my family, I left our building and walked across the sprawling pool area to talk to the concierge in the lobby. I wanted to know where I could rent ATVs for my son and husband. It turned out I couldn’t do that at my hotel, Las Palmas, but the concierge told me in broken English how I could get to one a few miles away that had them.

Well, I knew that was a doomed venture from the start, so I got a map for the concierge and he highlighted the way there. Problem solved. (As long as my husband drove and not me. The map-reading fairy similarly did not show up to bestow a gift on me as a child.)

I walked back across the pool area to my building. I took the elevator to the 7th floor and went to my room—701.

The key wouldn’t turn in the lock.

We’d had a little trouble with the dead bolt earlier, so I kept trying, but had no luck. I wondered with frustration why my children, who were all parked in the living room watching DVDs didn’t just come and open the door for me. Finally I pounded on the door.

Nothing.

The little ingrates. I pounded again, and then when that didn’t produce results I stood on my tiptoes to peer through the pane of glass over the door.

Not only were my children not in the room, but the room was completely different than the one I’d left.

I looked at the door. Yes, it was 701, which is what my key read.

This was one of those moments when I almost expected a black and white visage of Rod Serling to appear around the corner and with his trademark smirk say, “For your consideration—Janette thought she’d taken a get away to Mexico but now finds herself vacationing in The Twilight Zone!”

Then I noticed the key said 701 G.

As it turns out there was more than one building at Las Palmas. In fact, my husband pointed out that there were four identical buildings. He informed me of this with a sort of how-could-you-not-notice-four-identical-buildings expression on his face.

To say I’m unobservant isn’t quite accurate. I was observing the buildings. I was observing how the sunlight hit them and trying to find the right descriptive word in case I ever used this place in a novel. There are so many stretching buildings; bright, crisp, and vibrant against the sunshine. But that doesn’t really describe it. I never could find the right word.

Description, like direction, isn’t my strong point.

Edit Your Novel Month

I heard on the radio that March is the official edit-your-novel-month. Which of course begs the question: Are other authors only editing their novels one month out of the year? How do I get that gig? I'm editing all of the time. Well, when I'm actually writing and not doing all of that promotion my editors have instructed me to do.

Side note: the bow-tied one called two days ago and asked how the latest novel was coming along.

"I haven't written anything in weeks," I told him. "I've been working on all that promotion stuff you wanted me to do."

"Stop promoting and get back to writing," he told me.

The man just refuses to be happy.

Anyway, so March is edit your novel month. The radio people also listed some other things March is, including caffeine awareness month, frozen foods month, and national peanut butter month.

Coincidence? I think not. What do you think authors are eating while they're editing their novels?

Am I Smarter than a Fifth Grader . . .

I have fifth grade twins so I'm doubly qualified to answer this question.

I was trying to help my daughter with her math the other night. It was something about probability. Like, if you have a coin and you flip it three times, what are the chances of it landing heads, tails, heads.

My first response, of course, was wondering why the teacher needed to know this information. Is there a job out there somewhere that requires people to flip coins in a certain order?

I told her that you have a fifty-fifty chance each time you flip a coin of getting it to be what you want it to be, unless you happen to have telekinetic powers. I'm still working on that skill, by the way. Sometimes I stare at the clutter in my house and chant, "Be gone!"

Apparently that was the wrong answer so I have to report that no, I'm not smarter than a fifth grader.

But in my defense I have never needed to know anything about the probability of coin tosses so I'm still okay.