I'm Back, Baby! (WRITING CONTEST)

The hiatus is over and I'm ready to party! In honor of my re-immersion into bloggerdom I'm hosting my first ever writing contest. Tantalized? Read on, my friend.

The welcoming of hoodlet number 3 into my life has made me feel somewhat introspective and I find all my writey-thoughts simmering in the non-fiction area of my brain.

In general I'm not drawn to books biographical in nature. I think that's mainly due to the fact that so many of them read like textbooks. I'm not engaged.

My favorite non-fiction book, however, is just as enjoyable to read as good fiction. It is a memoir by Haven Kimmel called A Girl Named Zippy. It's always one of the first books I recommend to someone looking for something to read. The way Miss Kimmel writes about her childhood in rural Indiana is so sly, witty and poignant. Perky.



SO - In order to generate some excitement here in Hoodie-land, clear away some cobwebs and string up some cyber-crepe paper the contest rules are as follows-

Write a flash memoir of 250 words or less. Submit your entry to hoodiewriter(at)yahoo(dot)com by midnight Thursday April 9. The content can be anything as long as you are writing from personal experience and judging will be based simply on how engaging I find it. Basically if I like it a lot, you win. Pretty scientific, huh? Entries will be posted on this blog and comments are encouraged. And since I'm all about expanding the personal library, the winner will receive a new copy of Haven Kimmel's A Girl Named Zippy. I'll also choose 2 Honorable Mentions who, sadly, won't receive a prize, but will have that warm, honorable feeling about being mentioned.

There is a catch, however - There must be at least 15 entries for there to be a winner. Also, for every additional 10 entries above the minimum I will choose an additional winner. So, 25 entries or more equals 2 winners, 35 or more will produce 3, etc. So you see, it is in your best interest to get the word out.

Oh yeah, and in honor of my sweet, new, little thing, your entry must contain in it, somewhere, the word "baby."




Contest starts NOW!

On Your Mark... Get Set..

Okay my dear friends. I've been away too long.

The hoodlet is nearly 8 weeks old and I'm itching for some interaction and some brain-exercise. So as I sit on the cusp of a full return I'm making plans for the blog. I hope to regenerate some activity and perhaps even expand my circle of associates.

Consider yourself warned.

I'll be back very soon.

Romance - The Dying Art

At least it's dead in my sphere. Not that I think it can't be revived, mind you, but, in general, as a relationship's teeth get longer the wick of the flame seems to get shorter.

Probably anyone who reads this will do so after Valentine's Day, but keeping in the spirit of romance I thought I'd share what I consider my most romantic experience. Alas, this didn't happen with my husband. He falls more on the side of sweet and considerate than the traditional romantic, which is okay by me. Though romantic isn't necessarily the first word I use to describe him getting up with the baby in the night, I'll take it over flowers and chocolate any day. I usually find most romantic overtures cheesy, but everyone needs at least one good romantic memory.

Anyway, when I was nearly 17 I had a big crush on a very good-looking boy. We seemed to have developed a nice friendship, but I wasn't really catching any signals that he wanted it to go any further than that. One evening he showed up at my house unannounced. He asked if I would go for a drive with him. This seemed an odd request seeing as how it was snowing very hard and the roads looked covered with a thick layer of white frosting. Of course any potential danger was completely outweighed by the fact that cute guy wanted me to hang out with him. I grabbed my coat.

As it turns out we didn't drive far. He took me to a middle school parking lot and asked me to get out. Umm, okay. The snow was sifting through a purple sky in giant puffy flakes. I remember being amazed at that silent purple sky. It felt like a magical place. Cute boy opened the trunk of his car to reveal a giant speaker, then he turned on a tape he'd made for the occasion, walked up to me hand outstretched and asked me to dance. I felt breathless as he put his arms around me, the cold air urging us closer. We didn't speak. We danced, his warm breath on my neck. After two songs we got back in the car. He held my hand for a moment but didn't say anything. He just looked at me. He just looked at me. And then he took me home.

I thought something would happen between us after that. When I hinted to him about that being a turning point in our relationship he gave me a very cryptic answer that hinted towards his real feelings for me but told me that, for now, friendship was all I was getting. And that's all I ever did get.

But I will never be able to hear this song or this song without seeing that beautiful purple sky.

What was your most romantic moment?

Woot!

About three years ago I decided I was ready to take a big step. I wanted to more fully pursue writing, learn more, try harder and, for the first time, share with others.

Before that time I had kept everything I'd ever written pretty close.

I wasn't quite sure where to start, but I figured I'd go online and search around a bit. I found a forum for writers that seemed pretty friendly and supportive. Unfortunately it was also pretty dead. Not a lot of action.

There was one guy on there, however, who noticed my newbieness, welcomed me and let me know about an online writing contest that was happening that week.

It was at this site called "Clarity of Night." I looked at it and found that the deadline to the contest was that evening. With shaky nerves I typed up an entry and sent it within the hour. I was nervous to know I might receive feedback from other writers, but eager for it. It was a giant step for me. I knew I was a novice writer, but I was ready to put myself out there. I wasn't growing keeping everything to myself.

I was astounded and shocked when I was awarded fourth place in that contest. I can still remember the euphoria and validation. Because of this I was confident enough to begin interacting with some of the other writers, so many of whom just floored me with their talent. I watched for an entry from the kind soul who had notified me about the contest, but he never entered.

He had, however, won the previous contest.

I followed his sinfully clever blog, commenting now and then. It was thrilling to follow his writing process as he worked on his first novel and then became published.

I'm sure you're all familiar with Jamie. He's a wrecking ball force in the blogosphere community of writers I like to think I'm a part of now. This is a big congrats to him and a "thank you" for introducing me to Jason and, subsequently, pretty much all the other writers I blog with. I finished the book yesterday and give it my most high praise. It is simply beautiful.

To those of you who have yet to read it, go to the bookstore right now. You won't regret it.

Hoodlet

I FINALLY had my baby on Monday. What a long road. She definitely made me work for it. I delivered at 39 weeks on the dot and she weighed 9lbs, 6 oz, measuring a whopping 23.5 inches. She's adorable and healthy and sleeps better than my other babies did. Now I'm just trying to regain my balance before I step back into regular life. All is well. I'm discovering that the hardest part about number 3 is trying to figure out what to do with numbers 1 and 2.

I feel terribly that I missed Jason's contest. I wanted so badly to enter, but I was coming up with nothing. At that point the only thing on my mind was the fact that I couldn't sleep, I couldn't breathe, I could barely walk and PUPPP is the one of the suckiest ailments ever. For those of you uniformed that's a rash common in pregnancy that itches like crazy. Still waiting for that one to go away.

For those of you who entered, way to go. I'm sure I'll get around to reading your entries eventually.

Until later...

Turn, Turn, Turn...

Yes, to everything there is a season. A time to laugh, a time to cry-

A time to write, a time to be so thoroughly exhausted by the nothingness of everyday that all you can think about is sitting down and closing your eyes for a moment and maybe if you stop breathing through your nose the poopy diaper that needs to be changed will just go away.

NaNoWriMo came to an abrupt stop for me when my husband left the country for the last half of the month of November. We shifted into pure survival mode (and when I say survival mode I mean eating and drinking enough to stay alive. Everything else fell away). I got to about 12,000 words, which is painfully shy of where I thought I'd end up, but 4,000 more words than I got to last year. And the idea developed much more this time. It is a project I will revisit.

Anyway, I've got about as much creativity in my brain as.... see, I can't even think of a good analogy. No creativity.

So I'm not going to pretend anymore. Instead of leaving all 2 of my faithful readers with the impression that I just might update the blog, I will officially go on hiatus until after this baby is born and I'm sleeping more than 3 hours a night. I will be sure to post when the blessed event occurs, just to keep y'all in my loop. Expect that in January.

When I do return, hoodie donned and rarin' to go, you can expect me to become an active part of the community again, like the good old days.

Until then, my friends, this is not goodbye. Just "until we meet again."

And for those of you morbid enough to care, I leave you with a photo of my current state-

Slow and steady.... what does it do again?

Well, here we are almost two weeks into NaNoWriMo. The bad news is that I'm almost hopelessly behind at just over 10k words. The good news, I'm sticking to it and making whatever progress I can. And, amazingly, I haven't given up that I can still make the final word count. I'll just have to write like a crazy person a few days to get caught up. We'll see.

In the comment section of my last post Beth said she can't imagine anything I write sucking. While I find that a thrilling compliment, I can assure you that not only can I write stuff that sucks, I'm quite adept at it. I'm not kidding. There was one point where I honestly wasn't sure what the main character should do next and I was exhausted. So the MC watched Oprah, ate cold cereal and took a nap. BORING. But it got me to the word count I wanted that day.

However, I've written at least one scene that gets me excited, so WOOT for that.

A famous author once wrote that you have at least a million words of garbage to write before anything truly wonderful comes out. I don't know if that's entirely true, but I get what he's saying. 990,000 to go! :)