Writing and Kids

I’m starting the revisions to my novel. I’m calling it The Waste for now although I’m not fond of that title.

I’ve read through the first 3 chapters making notes on everything that isn’t working and any place I have contradicted myself.

This is not a pretty process. In fact, after the last chapter I decided to take a snuggle break with Josh just to soothe my soul a bit. This is a seriously flawed novel but I am encouraged to find bits of my characters’ personalities shining through.

7 more chapters to go and the last one is very short so I’m planning to do 3 more today and the last 4 tomorrow. I think it’s best to get it done quickly so I can hold on to the feeling that it can all be fixed up.

Today the kids got a glass goblet with pencils, glow sticks, candy and gum for Valentine’s Day. I made one for me as well, since I don’t think I’ll be getting much from anyone else.

Last year, Paul and I were at Boskone and he managed to hide cards for me all over the place. It was very sweet. I think this year he’s been too busy to orchestrate anything like that. He is, however, making dinner so I can hide myself away and work on revising my novel all day.

This week we finally got our new phones. Mine is the same as Zach’s and I couldn’t let that stand. I don’t want to read the nasty pre-pubescent text messages he sends and receives and, hey, I’m the Mom and I get to have something special.

Scout Shabbat is Friday, February 12th at 7:30 at Temple Emanu-el in Haverhill.

If you will attend Scout Shabbat leave me a comment and I’ll make sure your scouts get a patch. Scout Shabbat is open to all scouters (Girl Scouts, Venturers and Cub/Boy Scouts) so please let me know how many scouts will be attending.

You can find directions to the temple here:

Temple Emanu-el

See you there!

Today in Astronomy class, the kids learned the moon will eventually escape the earth’s gravitational pull. I suggested it would be cool if Mars was in exactly the right place to capture the moon so it would be a sharing thing.

Ben says that would be wrong because it would be like your brother dating your ex-girlfriend.

Ben has decided he will have a Bar Mitzvah.

Yes, he’s already 13 but was very resistant to the entire idea until now. Now he thinks it should just be a low-keyed event, with a minimum of people attending.

Yeah, right.

First off, we have a lot of family members. Secondly, I don’t think I’ll resist the urge to invite everyone I ever knew to see him.

Ben and Paul are meeting tonight with the Rabbi to go over some details.

Yay!

It must be since I overslept until 9:30 this morning. Two kids aren’t feeling well so the other two will start doing the work they do on their own after lunch. Right now they’re tidying up the million games out on the living room floor.

Got my story posted to OWW this morning. I think it’s a really great story but as a writer I’m at the point where I can’t see the flaws in my writing so I’m relying on others to point them out to me. Either that or I’m as brilliant as I think I am.

It’s Friday so I need to get ready for Shabbat tonight. This involves cleaning the house, baking challah and making a special meal. The house isn’t in bad shape, but it needs to go from functional to pretty (must remember to buy flowers for the table). Challah is easy to make and I’m going to have to come up with something impressive to eat.

So far, I’ve got chicken soup that I’m making this morning, salad, broccoli and cauliflower. I think I’ll go with herb rubbed chicken and rice pilaf. No dessert because we’ll be rushing out of the house to get to Cub Scouts on time.

Tomorrow, I promise, is a rest day.

I can’t believe I got this up and running in one day. I was prepared for a massive seige, with a great deal of IMing back and forth with the husband and much frustration.

Also today I managed to fix up the short story I wrote in October with the exception of one thing I have to sleep on. Tomorrow (the rest day) it goes onto OWW to be critiqued.

Also coming up tomorrow is Cub Scouts and Shabbat dinner.