A Review and an Accomplishment

My ROW80 update post will come tomorrow... a day late, but for good reason.

Today I participated in and finished (2:45---it's a start!) my first half marathon. My knee is screaming, but the sense of accomplishment I feel is worth every second of pain. That being said, I sure am thankful for Advil.

A special thanks to my sister, Tara, and friends, Tricia and Siobhan, for taking that journey with me!

To make this an even more special day, a fellow author reviewed Depression Cookies here. Please check it out! I always love it when readers like our book, but Shauna Kelley's review is particularly special for me because I so loved her book, Max and Menna.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Labor Day weekend.

Eye: BlogHer NaBloPoMo Challenge

The theme for BlogHer's September NaBloPoMo challenge is... EYE.

According to BlogHer (see post here)...

Eyes are said to be the windows to the soul, and what else are you doing on your blog except baring your soul by writing about your hopes and interests day after day? This month, we're going to explore what we see... and what we don't... with our eyes. We're going to think about how we build memories, and which senses we use to access them later. And in delving into our Wordsworthian "inward eye," we're going to explore how you see the world around you.

This is NaBloPoMo and we love to play with words, so as much as we're going to be examining that body part, we're also going to think about how often you use the word "I" when you write and focus on your unique point-of-view.

As a writer, the idea of evaluating and defining my "eye" really speaks to me. Not only do I need some renewed writing energy, I love the idea of some good, old-fashioned soul baring.

I hope you'll join me.

And a Happy Labor Day weekend to all my friends and family!

(I am running my first half marathon tomorrow, so please wish me luck!)

Words: Fascinating Facts Friday

As a writer, I love words. So for today's Fascinating Facts Friday I looked for interesting facts about words.

My Favorites

- The word 'set' has the most definitions among all the English language words in existence.

- The longest words without vowels are rhythm and syzygy (which means the alignment of 3 celestial bodies: the moon, the earth and the sun).
Note: Funny, I thought our English teachers always taught us that the vowels were a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y. That would lead me to believe these words in fact do have vowels.

- The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Note: Clearly it caught on with the kids, the hip word of the day!

- Uncopyrightable is the only word in the English language that doesn't repeat any letter and is 15 letters long.
Note: Funny, my spell checker flags uncopyrightable.

- Angry and Hungry are the only two meaningful words that end with 'gry'
Note: This one makes perfect sense to me, because I'm often angry when I'm hungry!

- The shortest complete sentence in the English language is "I am".
Note: And what a powerful sentence it is.

- There are no words that rhyme with month, orange, silver and purple.

- Only 4 words end in -dous: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous.

- There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, here, ere, therein, herein.

 

- The word "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles. Note: Would women boobify or vaginify?

- The letters H, I, O, and X are the only letters that look the same if you flip them upside down or view them from behind.

- The highest scoring word in the game Scrabble is "quartzy".
Note: I love Scrabble, so I was super-excited to find this fact. I know, I'm a nerd!

Which of the above was most interesting to you?

Romancing the Stone: ROW80 Update

Thanks to a full summer and an unrealistic sense of what I could accomplish with the kids home, I fell quite behind in July and August. Since I'm also training for my first half-marathon (which is Sunday, WOOT!), I compared the feeling to hitting my writing wall.

One of the reasons I so love the writing community is that they get it. As I explained here, another blogger/writer not only got it but helped me think of it in a new way... the writing forest. Instead of facing a hard wall, I could now imagine myself in a dense, dark forest. Amazing how freeing that was.

Then my imagination really took off. As a teenager, I loved the movie Romancing the Stone and was quite enamored with Jack T. Colton as played by Michael Douglas. From now on, when I'm struggling through my writing forest, I'll just imagine Jack in front of me, hacking his way through the dense forest with his machete. (Okay, I might just see myself as the sultry Kathleen Turner/Joan Wilder with my dress split up to there as well.)

For me, the trick has been getting back to a schedule. First thing, write. Why does something so simple end up being such a challenge sometimes? It really is about clearing time to sit and do nothing but write.

Since my summer was so disorganized, the "writing" time has been more about planning and getting my ducks in a row. But it's a start. Now I have a rough blog post plan, an editing calendar, a reading/book review calendar. Next, I will draft a letter to Life to honor my detailed schedule by not sending me too many bumps.

Now I'll leave you to your own writing fantasies. Whatever gets you to put your butt in the chair and write. I'm thinking there's room in my new WIP for a young Michael Douglas-esque character. Hmmmm.

*****

A Round of Words in 80 Days Update

Writing: I'm dedicating the first hour after my kids are off to school to writing. No distractions. Phone muted and wireless signal off. It's one hour. Certainly I'll go over the hour if the muse dictates, but setting a timer will keep me focused for at least that.

Editing: Then it's a small break and onto one hour of dedicated editing time. Again, I'm flexible to extend the time, but an hour is my minimum.

Reading: I'm considering using a good book as the break between writing and editing. Give the brain some time to make the switch while still accomplishing goals. I still need to read a craft book this round, too.

Blogging: I'm planning to join BlogHer's daily challenge in September to reboot my blog writing creative juices. I find writing prompts a great fall back for the fuzzy brain days.

Social Media: Finding my way back to both my favorite blogs and new ones. Now to tackle Triberr.

The groundwork has been laid down for a successful fall. Now I'm just hoping the plan trumps the unknown.

Writing Forest, Finding the Clearing

Thanks to a new visitor to the blog, I realized it wasn't a writing wall I hit. Instead, I was trapped in the writing forest.

Kelley Lynn, author of Fraction of Stone (to be released 3/2013 from Sapphire Star Publishing) and blogger extraordinaire, said the following on my Hit the Wall post...

I happen to be a runner too! I've ran in about seven half marathons and refuse to believe in 'the wall'. (Running or writing).

 

Source

A wall is something solid, hard, unyielding, something a human cannot get through with our bare hands no matter how hard we try. To me, that sounds totally depressing.

 

I prefer to think of it more as a dense forest. Sure, we can't keeping chugging along strait ahead. Now there are trees in front of us, twigs, stumps and branches below us, but we can make it through. It just takes different focus, a slightly different path and a slightly different way to attack the journey.

I SO agree. I wish I had come up with that one myself. Her last sentence really struck a chord: Focus, Path, Attack the Journey.

I know I can get through this forest, no matter how dense or dark. Thanks to some time away, I'm actually sensing light and a small clearing just up ahead. Today, I spent an hour putting together my notes on my WIP and organizing how to get back to writing.

Starting tomorrow, since today had so much catch up from my hiatus, I am going to get the kids on the bus and go straight to my laptop, set the timer for one hour, and do nothing but novel writing/planning during that time. Phone on mute, Internet connection disconnected. Wish me luck!

Thanks again to Kelley for sharing such insight. I am now following her both on Kelley Lynn: Adventures Between the Bookends and Falling Into Fiction. Take a minute to find out more about her.

Hit the Wall: ROW80 Update

It's Thursday. I haven't posted since last Friday. I've missed two A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) updates... something I've never done.

I am doing my first half marathon Labor Day weekend. While visiting my parents last week, my sister (and marathon runner) asked how my training was going. I told her I felt good, and I was ready. Then she mentioned "the wall".

She said every runner has a wall, and you won't necessarily know what your wall is until you hit it.

That night, I dreamed about running into an invisible wall during the race and collapsing. I have not written a word or blog post since.

Source

I realized... I hit my writing wall.

Every time I sat down to write, I froze. Nothing came, and the desire was simply not there.

I didn't want to have too many days without a post, so I'm writing this post without a well-developed answer for...

1) Why I hit the wall.
2) What I'm going to do about it.

For now, I'm taking a blog/writing vacation until Monday when my kids go back to school. I'm going to focus on them (and other things) and stop putting pressure on myself for a couple of days.

Wish me luck, and stick with me. I'll be back!

Teenagers: Fascinating Facts Fridays

The bargain bin at Barnes & Noble can be a great place to find little treasures, let's call it a dock in a sea of worthy reading options. Sometimes I can't find good material with all the choices. I know people who swear by clothing stores like TJ Maxx. I walk in and see chaos. I don't know where to start.

In a bookstore, I have my favorite sections, but that only means I'm missing opportunities in other areas. The bargain bin gives me a chance to see some options.

The other day, I picked up Dough Lennox's The Little Book of Answers. First, I'm an inquisitive person by nature. Second, I figured it would help me with my Fun Facts Fridays (now renamed Fascinating Facts Fridays, because I realized all my facts weren't "fun"). Third, books like these make perfect bathroom reading. For those that don't quite get that last statement, maybe my house was the only one in the universe that was always stocked with books and magazines.

I opened up to a random page, and what did I see...

How did teenagers become a separate culture?

Source

I write about teenagers, I have one and two more on the way, and I was once a teenager not that long ago. Yeah, a Friday topic with some meat. Let's call it character research.

Teenagers

According to The Little Book of Answers: The word teenager first appeared in 1941... Until then, there was only childhood and adulthood. At the age of thirteen, a girl became a woman and could marry or enter the workforce and a boy became a man. Today, teenagers are treated as children with suppressed adult urges.

(My personal opinion: a lot of teenagers are really treated as adults with suppressed child urges. I want my teens to embrace youthful exuberance for as long as they can without too many adult situations ruining it.)

Most countries have an age of majority, ranging in age from 12 to 21, where "minors cease to legally be considered children." (I'd love to be on the committee trying to determine a magic age where a person is capable of adult decisions. I think, instead, there should be a basic adult skills test that should be passed. Okay, I say that tongue in cheek. Mostly.)

Some statistics

Percentage of teenagers 13-17 who can name the city where the US Constitution was written (Philadelphia): 25. Percentage of teenagers 13-17 who know where you find the zip code 90210 (Beverly Hills): 75 ( Survey conducted by the National Constitution Center (NCC), Philadelphia, 1998.) Source

Media
According to the Center for a New American Dream, children and teens are exposed to over 25,000 ads in a year, and companies spend over $17 billion a year on marketing toward children and teens. Source

Body Image
In Depression Cookies, two characters suffer with anorexia, a chronic mental illness that affects many teenagers and has deeply touched my life.

• The body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females.3
• 47% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures.12
• 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape.13
• 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner (Collins, 1991).
• 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat (Mellin et al., 1991).
(Source)

The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females 15-24 years old. Source

2007 National Endowment of the Arts Reading Study Findings

Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier. Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of non-readers doubled over a 20-year period, from nine percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004.

On average, Americans ages 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading.

Teen Reading Trends
(2012, from Sarah Flowers, President of the Young Adult Library Services Association, Source)
"I think dystopias and post-apocalypse books will continue to be popular, especially with the Hunger Games movie coming out in March. There are several trilogies that are still just on the first book, like Divergent, by Veronica Roth, and Ashes, by Ilsa Bick (which has the added benefit of zombie-like creatures!). And I would expect to continue to see steampunk. Paranormal romance is still somewhat popular, but vampires are definitely fading, from what I’m hearing."

Social Media
More than 90% of teenagers are connected to the Internet. About 68% of teens regularly text, 51% visit Facebook and about 11% send or receive tweets every day. Many teens, 41%, admit they’re “addicted” to their devices. Around 36% of teens who responded said they wish “they could go back to a time when there was no Facebook.” (Source)

Understanding Teenagers

Teen Slang
During my research, I found a great site, Love to Know Teens. There I learned some of the following (for a full list, click here):

* Cray cray - Something is really crazy, no cool
* Hater - Someone who is jealous or out to ruin a good time (they spew haterade)
* Mackin - To put on your game (example, flirting with more than one girl to flirt versus actually getting the girl)
* Swagg - individuality and coolness
Note: One of my daughters used swagg recently, and I wondered what kind of free gifts they were talking about. Once they explained it, it made sense... short for swagger.

Whatever happened to, "Gag me with a spoon"?

Teen Text Terms
From Time, I found a list of 92 Teen Text Terms. A sampling:

* 2Day - Today (really? Because To is so much harder to type than 2.)
* BOL - Be on Later
* DWBH - Don't Worry, Be Happy
* HAK - Hugs and Kisses
* JSYK - Just So You Know

I'm exhausted. OMG, BOL.

My gut tells me this is just post one of Fascinating Facts Friday focusing on teenagers.

What fascinates you most about teens?