hello gorgeous

Long time, no talky. Yeah, it has been a busy one. So I'll recap my life quickly (for posterity) and then move on to the current swirl in my head. [warning: my recap is wordy and probably boring. I'd send you to a youtube video if I knew of a funny right now. But I don't. Sorry.]

NCWC
Two weeks ago I went to the NCW Writing Conference in Fort Collins. And thank you mom for surviving my kids while I went. The conference was very educational and in some ways surprising. Being that this was my first conference I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I dreaded a Gentlemen Bronco experience and was delighted that only two of the many sessions had pontificating authors and no suggestions for naming your characters...although I need help with that one. Naming characters can actually suck... a lot.

Pitching The Faster Shoes to Joe Monti was an eye opener. He liked my characters and dissected my plot to make it more literary than adventure which surprised me. But my ten minutes with him gave me lots of direction. And then I went to his class on Writing for Boys. Sucker. I pitched the wrong book. My Puddlejump adventure is exactly what he's looking for. But my puddlejumpers lack character. So I've decided to rework them and my first chapters and then query Joe. Hopefully, he'll still remember me (a little).

What surprised me most about the conference was how many older people were there. At least 2/3 of the attendees were 65+. Most all of them writing memoirs. And the majority of the writers were not as far along in becoming a better writer. This is subjective of course. But after hearing the slush pile, I walked away more confident about my writing. I still have a ton of work to do, but I recognise what I need to do and I feel myself inching closer to becoming published. Oh and I did meet two great girls that are about my speed as far as understanding the biz and the craft. I need to email them.

Spring Break
So the conference ended on Saturday. Mom flew home Sunday. And then Tuesday we packed up for a long week in Utah. Aaron worked the entire time but it was fun to hang out with family. On a crappy note. My cell phone's battery died on Wed and I had forgotten my charger. So I had no way of calling friends I intended to see. That sucked.

April Fools
So of course it was April Fools. I did a few standbys on the kids--although toothpaste Oreos backfired because they just thought they were mint. But for my parents. I rescued a kitten from the animal shelter and gave it to them. I thought my mom wanted one. She didn't. So it was funny until we had to find it a real home. And Aaron being the sucker for animals wanted to bring it home. Luckily my parents' neighbors wanted the little guy otherwise it would have come home with us to Denver. Bullet dodged. I'm not quite ready to scoop litter.

Easter
Saturday between conference sessions, Amb and Sun and families came over and we played games, ate, and did a big game for the kids. Good times. Sunday, the kids were higher than kites when we drove home. We thought for sure that Morgan would throw up but she didn't. Shew.

Monday
We detoxed.

Today
I cleaned the house, we played with friends, and now I'm about to go run. I'm doing a long run on Saturday with a bunch of friends...hopefully it won't be too cold. I'm a wimp when it comes to wind.