I have read at least two dozen books on writing in my life, and own quite a few I haven’t yet read.  So far, I have found three to be well worth their salt:  The War of Art:  Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield (which I’ve read at least five times now — this is one I won’t lend out, but have purchased for friends and family); On Writing by Stephen King (which I’ve read at least three times and is currently on loan to my friend’s 13-year-old daughter, a budding author who cranks out word counts like a pro); and an old favorite, Zen in the Art of Writing:  Releasing the Creative Genius Within You by Ray Bradbury.

When I was in 11th grade, Ray Bradbury was a featured keynote speaker at a local university.  My English teacher, Mr. Brown, was kind enough to take me with him to hear Mr. Bradbury speak.  Mr. Bradbury was a big, imposing guy, with thick white hair, thick black glasses, and a booming voice.  Listening to him speak was like riding the People Mover at Disneyland through his life, watching him unfold his memories before our very eyes about dinosaurs, Ireland, catching the great white whale.  It was fascinating and exciting and exhilarating.  Mr. Brown even lent me money to purchase an audio tape of the event, which I still have to this day.

(Mr. Brown rocked as an English teacher…and it has become more apparent to me as I’ve gotten older just how awesome he really was in his understated way.)

I can listen to this tape and close my eyes and just lose myself in it.  The way Ray Bradbury speaks is the way Ray Bradbury writes and, I strongly suspect, lives his life.  There’s only one word to describe it:  love.  Everything he talks about, everything he writes about has come about from something he has fallen in love with.  Not a bad way to approach things in my humble opinion.

I was poking through one of our bookcases a few weeks ago, looking for “something good to read,” and I rediscovered my copy of Zen.  I bought Zen for my first creative writing class at a community college when I was 18.  It was inspiring then, especially fresh from the experience of having heard the same words come from the author’s lips.  But reading it again….

It’s amazing how certain things get better as you get older.  I read most of the book through a film of tears.  I’m convinced that if scientists could harness the fierceness of Ray Bradbury’s love and enthusiasm for life, wars would cease, the energy crisis would be over once and for all, and space travel would become an everyday affair in craft powered by memories.  The language, the love, the hot-damn metaphors, the oomph with which he wrote the essays in this book and his other amazing stories…how could I not be inspired?

Before I even finished reading it, I sat down and wrote a sweet little short story.  Just like that.  One sitting.  Not surprisingly, it was a story about the magic of memories and family and life.  I was pleasantly surprised.  It had been ages since I wrote a story like that.  And it started out with the simple idea of what makes sun tea taste so damn good.

When I was younger, this is how I wrote.  Catch an idea in a jar, pour it out on the page, stir it up with a pen, and see what kind of pictures came out.  As I’ve matured as a writer, my approach has become much more methodical.  There’s still enthusiastic leaping across the wilds of metaphors, catching ideas, bits of dialogue, winged what-ifs in my little specimen jar.  But once I get them home, my tendency is to remove it with tweezers, pin it to a board, and preserve it for future dissection.

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not necessarily a bad approach.  It’s yielded a lot of strong stories for me.  But it’s definitely a more technical approach.  I like to know the shape of a story.  I like to outline it.  I like to make sure that I completely mine an idea for everything it’s worth before I even start the actual writing, often resulting in very long stories.  And although I enjoy the process, at times I end up making it become more work than it needs to be…especially when it comes to editing before I’ve even set Word One on the page.  Who knows what bits of goodness have been lost because I tossed something aside for fear that it wasn’t good enough, instead of pursuing it to the end to find out for certain.  Kind of akin to not trying a new food because you’re afraid you won’t like it.

Even though this is the way I write — and it works for me — every once in a while, a story finds me, uses me, escapes from me, and I’m running hot on its heels excited to find out where we’ll end up.  I love, love, love these stories.  They’re the most fun to write.  You look up surprised at the time, surprised that you’ve missed a meal (something I never do normally <g>), surprised that you’ve arrived safely home after a day trip to the Rings of Saturn.

But how do you get to see Saturn on a regular basis?  Easy.  Ask Ray Bradbury.  Work.  Relaxation.  Don’t think.

This is what Ray Bradbury writes:  “…[write] one short story a week, Fifty-two stories a year, for five years…Quantity gives experience.  From experience alone can quality come…Work then, hard work, prepares the way for the first stages of relaxation, when one begins to approach what Orwell might call Not Think! As in learning to typewrite, a day comes when the single letters a-s-d-f and j-k-l-; give way to a flow of words.”

This is obviously truncated, but the important parts are there.  And so I have decided to take Mr. Bradbury’s sage advice and write a story each week.  I still have my carefully constructed story projects I’m working on, but once a week, I have committed to sitting down with an idea and letting it take the reins and just go along for the ride.

Last week, I drowsed beneath a kitchen table in Kauai listening to folks share sun tea and magic.  This week I’m spying on a witch who has sewn a little stuffed animal for her precious baby, a little guardian, if you will.  And next week, I’m going to visit this guy who has this recurring problem of Jesus…well, I’ll tell you next week. <g>  I’ve got dozens more stories jostling for a good place in line.  I have to write a short story a week just to be fair to everyone.

Thank you, Mr. Brown, for driving me to see Ray Bradbury.

And thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for driving me to write, and for reminding me of why I do this strange thing.  For love.

I read a lot of interviews of PUBLISHED AUTHORS.  They’ve been there, done that.  They’re doing it.  They’ve crested the hill and have seen what’s on the other side, and I want to know what it looks like, how to prepare for the journey, tips on packing, dealing with blisters, et cetera.

But one thing they all seem to cite as their No. 1 Most Asked (and Most Perplexing) Question is, “Where do you get your ideas?”

It’s a funny question really.  And I think it’s probably one that most young writers feel compelled to ask because they’re looking at The Author, and they’re looking at Their Body of Work, and they’re wondering how did they construct whole universes out of simple air molecules.

But I have a question that doesn’t seem to be asked very often:  “How do you manage all the ideas?”  Because if they’re anything like me — and I imagine that most writers are in this regard — then they’ve got loads and loads of ideas all over the house, Post-It Notes feathered across computer screens, stashed at the bottoms of purses on gum wrappers, and scrawled across the envelopes of junk mail.

When I’m on top of things — which is as often as The Great Conjunction — I have a little memo pad I carry around, and I periodically transfer my scribbles into easy-to-swallow idea tablets on the word processor.  The thing is, if I don’t do this before the expiration date, the ideas can often go stale or even bad, especially depending on how clear my scribbles were to begin with.

The other day I was snooping through my phone and discovered a whole bunch of ideas I had punched in during my daily walk when I apparently didn’t have any pen and paper.  These are way past the expiration date.  Let me give you some examples:

• Man running alongside car, scary (image)
• Bridge trolls
• Michael Newton, journey/destiny of stars (?)
• Discovery – origami program (?)
• Esquivel – El Cable (awesome song)
• Joan the mad – Juana la Loca (?)
• Skeptic’s wife the medium (character idea)
• Porcelain by Moby (another awesome song)
• When they find my fossils – Kilo (my crazy friend’s outlandish words)
• Lovers of the Arctic Circle (sounds lovely, I wonder who they are)
• Good-bye, Lenin (??)
• Earthquake: a god is being born (self-explanatory)
• Dogs in the wind (imagery)
• Stupid chicken tricks (WTF?!)
• Dialogue:  Why so mad?  It’s the reefer madness. (?)
• Coven that hosts regular tea parties
• Maceo Hernandez, Japanese drummer
• Suburban safari (I picture tourists hanging out of Land Rovers to take snapshots of the local yokels, an ugly bunch)

Now, this is not a list of my best ideas, but they were definitely ideas that at one time I thought important enough to write down before I forgot them.  And in some of the cases…well, I forgot them.  Like crazy chicken tricks.  I really wish I could remember that one.

The thing is, almost every single note is a seed of a story, a character, a setting, an image, a metaphor.  And I’ve got thousands of them.  Literally.  In boxes.  Stacked in a corner of my dining room.  And beneath my writing desk.  (And I have a sneaking suspicion they have raucous, unprotected sex and produce even more cryptic notes for me to scratch my head over.)

Some of them have held up well with age, and finding them is like unearthing alien relics.  Others are puzzles, and well worth puzzling over.

And they’re still coming.  Every day, a new one arrives in the tray of my stroller, in the news, stuck to the bottom of my shoe, and even waving at me from the top of a church bell tower.  Some days, they arrive in mass immigration, anting across deserts over and under my borders, arriving in packed boats to my harbors, and even coyoting under my nose in huge unmarked vans.

The question is not, “Where do you get your ideas?”  It’s, “How do you make room for all that company?”

Besides the obvious, making yourself sit down on a regular basis and flesh them out enough so that they make sense — stupid chicken tricks <grumble> — there’s the other obvious solution:  write like crazy!

If you don’t, the seeds will wither, dry up, and your forgotten ideas will end up floating lost in the ether, unfulfilled and wasted.  And that’s a very, very sad thing.  So put out the welcome mat for the new ideas, and then get busy writing!  That is why we’re here, right?

I love Mondays, the first day of the month, and I really, really love New Year’s Day.  Why?  Because they all represent fresh starts.  Those are the days that I start new diets, new exercise regimens, and new resolutions to write more, dance more, knock out my to-do lists more, finally clean my house — <loud coughing>

Historically, my approach has been similar to most other folks’:  Explode in a bright blue flame, and peter out to a colorless, odorless gas.  Ppppbt.  I’m very much a student of the School of Ten Overambitious Steps Forward, Eleven Shameful Steps Back.  I do get things accomplished, but man, it’s always a long and arduous scramble up a mountain of scree with greased shoes on.

Having a baby has curbed my bright-blue-flame approach.  There’s no luxury of spending hours calculating my exit trajectory into the stratosphere, then spending entire days attempting to launch myself into said stratosphere.  Instead, it’s Ang the Turtle, a slow-and-steady approach based largely on a certain someone’s naps.

For someone who always wishes it were done yesterday, this has wreaked havoc on my warped sense of progress.  However, I must admit, this one-thing-at-a-time approach towards some of my goals has begun to yield small, bright fruit with seemingly little effort on my part.

Take walking, for instance.  I have always, in some form or another, been trying to get into shape.  Walking has always been my choice of exercise, and I have had varying degrees of success trying to cultivate a walking habit.

Well, one day in July, the baby got up pretty darn early, and there was no coaxing her back to sleep.  Exasperated, I packed her in the stroller and took her for an impromptu walk.  We had such a good time, that that impromptu walk turned into a daily event without my even realizing it.  Before I knew it, we had walked four mornings in a row.

They say you can form a habit anywhere from two weeks to 40 days of consecutive, consistent effort.  I decided, hell, let’s go for 40 days.  Just focus on doing it for 40 days.  40 days came and went.  For once in my life, I wasn’t keeping track of my progress, writing everything down, counting calories, beating myself up over missed days.  I just focused on getting up in the morning — which, incidentally, isn’t very difficult with a nine-month-old — who’d a’thunk? — getting us dressed, putting on my sneaks, and getting us out to welcome the day.

I think we’ve done, hell, (counting toes here), 68 consecutive days of morning walks, and I would estimate at least 40 evening walks, putting us conservatively at around 220 miles now.  Maybe more.  I haven’t kept track.  I just know the day we first hit the pavement.  It’s just become our habit.  If we’re home during the evening, we walk.  We always walk in the morning.  It’s just something we do.

And it’s the most consistent I’ve ever been with walking ever.

And the wonderful thing is that I do it without thinking.  Even when I’ve stayed up late writing and am running on too few hours’ sleep, I am on automatic.  Pack baby up, put shoes on, grab cell phone, et cetera.  Even when the baby’s not in the mood, I still take her out.  No matter which of us might be in a bad mood, once we turn our street corner and face the morning, we’re gold.  But mostly, we both look forward to it.  It’s part of our routine now.

I relish this time.  I’ve gotten countless story ideas, metaphors, and the like during our walks.  We see all kinds of animals that you would never expect to see in an urban area.  Once, when we were out particularly early, we had a chance encounter with a coyote who floated across our path not more than 20 feet away.  What a gift!  Something we would have missed entirely if I had insisted on making the baby go back to sleep until Momma was ready to get up.

Focusing on developing one good habit has been such a success for me that I decided that I could use this slow and deliberate approach to everything, from getting into great shape, to becoming the prolific and successful writer I so long to be.  The secret is picking one specific habit I want to cultivate and just working on it until it becomes…wait for it…that’s right…habit.

I’ve used this technique to convert myself from a mostly juice drinker to a mostly water drinker.  My next goal is to eventually develop a habit of eating five servings of fruits and veggies a day.  Notice there’s no bans on ice cream, pizza, and those delectable little White Castle cheeseburgers.  I’m just focusing on developing good habits one by one, knowing that they’ll eventually push the old ones out of the picture.  Hell, I’ve already kicked the Top Ramen habit.  (Though I still have to be careful when I go down that aisle at the grocery store.  I suspect I’ll always be a recovering addict when it comes to deep-fried noodles in a package.)

Now I’m trying to incorporate this slow-and-steady habit development approach to my writing.  It’s still difficult for me not to make ambitious lists of projects that I think I can get done in nanoseconds of time.  Just ask my friend and fellow writer/ass-kicker extraordinaire.

However, I do feel like I’m making progress.  Take this blog, for instance.  I made a commitment to post every day for seven days straight.  (I realize technically October 2nd has come and gone, but this is where I just have to forgive myself.  The baby is boss, and I have to write around her.  I didn’t arrive at the keyboard until 11:50 p.m. tonight…but I arrived.)

I’m here.  I’m typing.  I’m almost done.  And that will make two blog posts in a row for me after a summer of blog drought and famine.  38 more posts, and I’m gold.

I woke up this morning with the song “Love Remains the Same,” by Gavin Rossdale in my head.  The melody followed me into the bathroom, back to the bedroom, and into the rest of my day where I discovered that, yes, Fall is finally here.

I don’t know how it happens so quickly.  One minute, I’m caught up in the slow-motion molasses of an endless Southern Californian summer, sweat-sticky and nuclear white-bright; the next minute, I’m just starting to notice the edges of dusk are getting that peculiar shade of dusty lavender and stealing minutes from the day.  And then it happens.  All the trees have cast their summer-worn cloaks to the ground — I’ve got sticky pecan leaves plastered to the bottoms of my flip-flops — and there’s a definite bite in the air.  It even smells different.

It was chilly this morning, so I bundled up the Pup in sweatpants, a long-sleeved shirt, and socks.  She is most definitely a summer baby and finds long-sleeved shirts perplexing and socks an annoyance.  After I put on her long-sleeved shirt, she held out her arms while pinching the edges of the cuffs and just looked up at me as if to ask, “What on Earth?”  (That’s Baby for WTF?!)

This has definitely been the Endless Summer for me.  I was told recently by a lady at my dance school who just weaned her second baby, the most adorable little girl, that there’s nothing like your first baby.  I believe her.  I’ve spent the entire summer just trying to soak up every ounce of baby-ness that I can.  Already, she is starting to lose her baby fat, and I am seeing the beginnings of the toddler to come.  I’m so proud of her.  She’s come so far from her humble 3 lb.-8.4-oz. beginnings.  And yet, there is a little bit of sadness knowing that these days pass forever.  I’m trying to memorize every detail, every chubby dimple, every silly little laugh.  There’s surely magic like no other in this first baby, a true love affair.

Although I haven’t posted for an eternity, I have been writing.  In some ways, I’ve made significant progress; in other ways, I have found myself run against both new and familiar challenges.  My hat’s off to mothers of several children.  How they get anything done is beyond me.  I read recently about a woman — bestselling author, thank you very much — who wrote her novel series while raising her five — yes, that’s right, one, two, three, four, five — children.  Wow.  On my knees genuflecting.

But the work does progress, trickling towards completion in the wee hours of night and during naps.  It’s funny, but in a way, I feel like I sometimes get more done because my free time is short.  I’ve got a couple of short stories done.  Still working on the rewrite of the novella, but have finally figured out solutions to some very major problems with it.  Also discovered the solution to the rewrite of another long story while on my morning walk.  Turns out it was sitting on top of a local church all this time.

I’ve also enrolled in a creative writing class.  Yep, I’m back at school.  And I don’t even have the decency to be ashamed of my aged self.  (Okay, I swear, this is the last time I mention age in a negative way…well, until my birthday.)

So I’m sitting in class next to people who graduated high school last year, who actually had the same teacher I had back in…well, when I graduated.  Kind of cool…until she said, “Wow!  I didn’t know he’s been there that long.”  Yep.  He’s been there since I was in school, back when campus was overrun with those pesky little dinosaurs, the ones the size of chickens who had a vicious peck.  Thank God, they finally rounded those guys up.  But then the seagulls came and…well, that’s a story for another time.  How seagulls end up wintering in a high school baseball field in the middle of the desert is a mystery to me though.

In all seriousness, this class has just been a boon for me.  My biggest problem has been keeping up with all the ideas.  It’s unleashed a frantic flurry of ideas.  They’re like a viral cloud, following me everywhere, even peeking in my bedroom window.  I’m terrified to be anywhere without pen and paper.

I signed up originally to finish my continuing education credits for my professional certifications (“I can take creative writing?  Cool beans!”), but it’s become a real joy for me.

At first, I was a little grumpy when I saw the syllabus.  “We’ve got to do *&@!ing poetry?!  Can you just hold my pencil and push it firmly into my eye, please?  Yeah, like that.”  But the instructor became kin when she looked at me and said in comrade-like fashion, “You know, we who are queer for language.”  Yes!  That’s me.  I’ve found my tribe, a mismatched band of second cousins and inbred neighbors, but my tribe nonetheless.

And can I make a confession?  (Looks around, then leans forward conspiratorially.)

I thinking I’m starting to fall a little bit in love with poetry.

(“Shut up!”)  Yes, it’s true.  But don’t tell anyone.  It’s still new, and I don’t want to ruin it.

On top of that, my lovely, lovely high school friend and writing cohort came over today, and we exchanged written lists of writing commitments.  Then we lit candles and drew symbols in chalk on the floor, sacrificed a newt, and made a solemn pact to kick each other’s ass all over the place if we didn’t get our shit done.  Actually, we ate pizza and had a very nice visit…but the ceremony and ass-kicking was definitely implied.  You just had to read between the lines. <g>

So we’ve made a partnership of solemn encouragement, outlined by very specific goals.  Here’s to our success!

In other news, yesterday Fat Cat was sworn into the U.S. Army.  That’s right.  I am officially an Army wife.  It’s such a huge concept to wrap my mind around still, but there’s time.  He doesn’t leave for Basic until March.  It wasn’t an easy decision, but it feels right for us.  And I just want to say, I am proud of my Fat Cat.

Yep.  If you inhale deeply, you can smell the change in the air.  Even the daylight looks different.  After a blissful summer of morning walks and baby milestones, of countless barbecues and countless mosquito bites, Fall is here.  Lots of changes ahead of us.  There’s a chill in the air, but I welcome it.  I’ve got my sweater.

I have avoided posting here because I so wanted to report that I had finished the revision of my sci-fi novella.  I kept saying, “Tonight, tonight is the night.”  Unfortunately, I’m not done with the rewrite — and yes, it has turned into a rewrite — however, in my search for the answer to a grammar question, I came across this.  I couldn’t resist sharing.

(I have a character named “Boots” in my story, and I couldn’t decide what is the correct possessive spelling.)

I find myself desperately wanting to form possessives of names ending in “s” the same way I do with any other names. E.g., just as I would write “Plato’s idea” I want to write “Socrates’s idea.” That’s even how it sounds, motherfuckers!

This sent me into fits of sniggles.  Finally, a grammar geek who speaks like I do (I was a raucous sailor in a past life), and who tells it like it is.  I raise my can of Coca-Cola to “Chris” — who coincidentally shares the same name as my protagonist — for giving me a good laugh.

Ah, me.  The English language befuddles and be-chuckles.

Okay.  Back to writing.

I have a short story idea in the queue waiting for its turn to be given flesh and soul. It’s has to do with the alarming number of cats in our neighborhood.

I hear them outside now. It’s 3-WTF-something in the morning. I wish they sounded as lovely as these cats look. Unfortunately, instead of spats and straw hats, I have a feeling they’re engaging in rabbit kicks and noogies, while yowling as if a buffalo were trodding across their tails repeatedly.

Ah, the sounds of Spring. I may have to go out and get the hose.  Either that, or wait until tomorrow afternoon when they’re all drowsing in the afternoon sun and exact my revenge with my automatic umbrella.  Heh-heh.  That’s always fun.

(Postscript: I have an admission: we own — as much as one can own an outdoor cat — three of the cats, at least one of which is undoubtedly engaging in this morning’s raucous gang behavior. But in our defense, they were the result of a neighbor’s cat repeatedly gifting us with kittens. Once those kittens started having kittens, I screamed, “Uncle!” and took them down to the vet and had them fixed. So I guess they’re mine. Whee.)

i.  At a wedding I attended recently, the pastor declared marriage between two people as “the most intimate relationship between two people.” But mothers know differently. As my wise friend Kellie recently wrote me, “The greatest love affairs of our lives are with our children.”

ii.  My mom has always told me the story of how when I was born, she sat down and wrote a letter to her mom. She never told me exactly what it was she wrote, but I always understood it was a letter of deep appreciation. I understand now it was a love letter.

This is my letter to my mom.

Dear Mom,

I have been meaning to write you this letter for some time now.

When Leia was born, I was so scared. I was overwhelmed by feelings of love, fear, and gratitude as I looked at my little baby behind plexiglass. I was so scared of all the things that might go bad. I was so excited about all the things that might go right. I spent all my time with her watching each breath, watching her sleep, noting each improvement, savoring the days I was allowed to hold her. And when I got to press her against my chest, it was like a warm piece of myself, of love, of family, of you. She was a source of wonder to me, of magic. I couldn’t believe she was real. I was afraid to take my eyes off of her in case she might disappear.

I feel that way still. I hover over her constantly in her sleep, a loving shadow monitoring her dreams. I worry about different things now, less darker things. But those things are always there, the fear that Something might happen. I thought perhaps I worry too much, but now I realize it’s something that comes with the territory of motherhood. Our sense of survival is extended through to our children. My child is my most tender, most vulnerable piece of me, my soft underbelly, my Achilles heel. And I understand that I will always protect her to the death.

I recognize myself in her, flesh and blood. It’s something I understand more these days than I ever did. It’s a sense, a feeling, more than a concept. It’s why other babies fascinate me, their different details like hands and feet. They’re unfamiliar, unfamilial.

I love her little hands. I love imagining what they may do one day; shape clay, save lives, brush back the hair of her own little one. I love reveling in her potential. I’m here with her at her beginning. The future is a glowing horizon of potential, and I want to make sure I’m there to hold her hand to meet it, to help her and guide her, and to eventually let go.

At night, she sleeps in our bed, between my husband and me. We’re curved around her like protective parentheses. But she’s curled always towards me, head tucked into my chest. I love it. My dreams are vivid and colorful, constantly breathing her in, tasting the air she breathes out, sleeping belly to belly.

She’s holding her head steady these days, pushing herself up on chubby, tense arms. I walk her around the block every day, sometimes two or three times. She always looks so serious. I love watching her blue eyes taking it all in, watching the ground pass beneath our feet, gazing at the wide expanse of sky. Already she is growing up. Already she fits differently in my arms.

But I’m not sad. Because I know that one day soon, her fists will relax, and she will wrap her arms around my neck in baby hugs. I know that one day not far from now, she will wrap her arms around my legs in little kid hugs. And I know one day distant from now, she will wrap her arms around me with arms as long as my own, more robust than my own.

Yesterday, I sat out in the backyard with pen and paper, and the lyrics to a song came unbidden to me as I sat thinking about my baby, my mom, writing this letter. This is what I wrote:

You’re the love that I taste in my honey,
You’re the blue that I see in my sky,
You’re the life that I breathe in my air,
You’re the flesh that I feel in my skin,
You’re the blood that pounds in my ears,
You’re the salt that runs in my veins.

Mom, although this seems like a letter to my own little girl, I’m writing this because I now understand this must be how you felt when I was born. I’m getting an inkling of just how much you’ve loved me throughout my life.  I’m tasting water from a stream that trickles into a wide, deep river that runs into a vast, endless ocean. And for that, I am deeply humbled and grateful that I was lucky enough to have you for my mom.

So you see, this is really a letter to you.

I love you.  Happy Mother’s Day.  And thank you.

Love,

Angel

In an effort to write a short story worthy of submission to last year’s Clarion workshop, I ended up going over their limit of 6,000 words and writing a novelette. As I was writing it, I knew it was going to be long. But the story had its hooks in me, and I was reluctant to leave off in favor of a shorter story idea.

And I’m glad. It’s one of the first stories I’ve ever written that could be classified as true science fiction, and I enjoyed every minute of writing it. It’s basically a what-if story based on the potential of nanotechnology and how far perhaps we humans might take it.

Since writing it, I had gotten feedback from a good friend and fellow writer; however, I didn’t really know how to address some very important points she had brought up. Somehow, the story worked its way off of my desk and into a manila folder beneath other manila folders. Fat Cat suspects it’s where my stories go to molder, but I like to call this the ripening process.

After so many months away from it, reading it again is like a first encounter. I’m seeing things I hadn’t noticed before. I’m appreciating bits I had forgotten about. Solutions are revealing themselves to me in spangled AHA! moments.

So this is what I’m working on. I hope to have a final revision completed by the end of the week, and then it’s off to my workshop and a couple of readers for feedback. Then I’ll take it down to the post office and send it out into the bright, cold world to find its destiny.

The picture above was downloaded from deviantART.com. The artist is George Grie.

Not only is it a beautiful piece, it’s an astonishingly perfect rendition of a scene from the story where Chris, my brave, brave protagonist, has plunged himself into travels unexpected…which are really the best travels one can have.

I remember being transported by Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle In Time,” when I was younger, to the gray planet of Ixchel, along with the main character young Meg, and being dumbfounded alongside her at the prospect of explaining the concept of sight to blind Aunt Beast.

How do you explain something like sight to someone who doesn’t have eyes? How would you explain sound to someone who can’t hear? Or smell to the olfactory-challenged? Taste to the tongueless?

Out of all the wonders in Ms. L’Engle’s book, this was the one thing that dug into me, leaving me appreciative and humbled by the small miracles of our senses.

Now that I have become a mother (still new and amazing to me, for I feel I have slipped into a parallel dimension, one that is a little newer and a little brighter with the added new future of my little one), I have another deep-reaching question: How would you explain sense of humor to a being who didn’t laugh? Hell, how would you explain laughter? (Of course, the very idea of a creature who doesn’t laugh is…well, laughable. I mean, even dogs laugh.)

So how do you explain the concept of laughter? It’s an odd mix of joy, really. It’s difficult to explain without using the word “humor.”

The reason I ask is this: Puppy is starting to laugh.

Since she was born premature, most of her time in the hospital was spent sleeping, her parents’ faces watchful ovals behind plexiglass, hopeful to catch a glimpse of those random crooked smiles.

However, in the last few days, she’s been smiling with purpose, responding to my silly faces and dramatic story-tellings. But it’s still a new thing for her, something that has been gaining momentum these past several weeks.

It snowballs into tiny baby giggles at night, when she’s asleep, nestled in her spot between my husband and me. In the soft orange glow of the night light, I can see her. Although her eyes are closed, her lashes curved into dark crescents of sleep, her face is alight with a smile so radiant I can’t help but reflect it back with my own smile. It’s like smiling at the sun; it brings tears to my eyes.

And she’s giggling. In her sleep. Little titters and chuckles. I shake my husband’s shoulder, but by the time he pulls himself from the depths of slumber into semi-consciousness, the moment’s gone.

I wonder, what on earth could this tiny child, in her seemingly limited life experience, be dreaming about that she finds so funny? If she could tell me, would I understand? Maybe baby humor is different than adult humor.

Having a preemie lends itself to a lot of worry over whether or not things are developing right. The doctors have been diligent about testing her reflexes, her sight, her hearing, all of that. But they don’t have a test to give a newborn for her sense of humor.

This is one of our most crucial senses, one which can determine whether a child will grow up to succeed in the world, recognize happiness in her life, overcome hardships, make long-lasting friendships.

So in wrestling with the question of humor and how to explain its complexities, I haven’t come any closer to a satisfactory answer. But I bear eager and humble witness to the flowering of my daughter’s own sense of humor. And like any parent, I hope that hers will be big and robust, strong and healthy, complex and smart.

As I walked from the parking lot into the store the other day, a small compact passenger vehicle cruised past me before pulling into an empty slot. The car groaned low on its tires from the weight of five full grown men, elbows sticking out of their respective windows, singing together at the top of their lungs along to some country western song. It made me smile.

Apparently, they haven’t been paying close attention to the news recently. Don’t they know that there’s a swine flu out there (that we’re apparently not supposed to refer to as swine flu anymore)? That people are losing their jobs? That the stock market is still floating belly-up in uncertainty?

I guess not. And if they do, it didn’t seem to really matter at that moment. And I’m glad. Because seeing those five goofballs singing for the sheer fun of singing together made my morning. It’s good to see grownups having fun publicly.

It also makes me feel better knowing there are others out there like me.

I love to play air drum in the car, music bumping, windows down, wind blasting my hair as I scream down the freeway acting anything but my age. But like most decent folks, once I pull into a parking lot, I surreptitiously lower the volume, stop headbanging against the steering wheel, and pull on my grownup face. Dignified, yes, I suppose. But it makes me wonder, is everyone faking it in public? Are we all twisting down the volume control as we pull into the lot?

My girlfriend has a trampoline in her backyard. I’m a little jealous. Okay, a lot. Fat Cat won’t let me have one because he’s afraid I’ll embarrass the neighbors. (I, myself, can’t think of anything funnier than seeing my neighbors’ faces as I bounce in and out of view.) My friend says it’s for the kids, but I know better. She’s invited me over though. I can’t wait.

In the meantime, however, I’ve got Rock Band.