This is my backyard.

All those dots?

Yesterday my four year old said, “One day I will be 91 and then I will die and then it will be my next life.”

It was so out of the blue it was hard not to feel like he was having some sort of prophetic moment. I’m not a big past life person either. I mean, I don’t really know what happens after we die, and I don’t rule it out, but it’s certainly not something he’s ever heard me talk about. I’m not sure where the idea came from at all. Unless…

“Do you remember your last life?” I asked him.

He put his hand on his chin and thought for a moment, eyes up in his head, really trying hard to recall. “That’s the one where I wore glasses,” he finally announced.

Wow. I thought. Wow. He’s only four. It could be possible that he really still has a connection to what his soul did in other bodies. I started to feel all mystical. I could hear ethereal music playing at the edges of my mind.

My twelve year old piped in. “Do you remember what your name was?”

“Calvin,” he answered. No hesitation.

Unbelievable.

Then my four year old looked at his big sister. “You’re name was Malvin.” At his big brother, “You’re name was Dalvin.”

Calvin, Malvin and Dalvin, huh?

I think I just got punked by a four year old.

Laurie Halse Anderson has an interesting post today. She received an email from a reader who plans to tattoo the word speak somewhere on her body, possibly neck, because of the tremendous impact Laurie’s book Speak had on her. Laurie then described the tattoo she has, the first word of Beowulf, a powerful statement for a storyteller.

I’ve known for a long time that I’m not likely ever to get a tattoo. That’s partly for religious reasons, but much more for personal ones. Now that sounds judgemental, but it’s not how I mean it at all. I’m actually in awe and impressed by the above two examples. Women who have such a deep certainty about some aspect of themselves that they are ready to permanantly and publicly display it on their skin.

I’m not sure that I know myself all that well yet. Everytime I’ve contemplated a tattoo (or even a vanity license plate for that matter, though I know they are not the same) I cannot think of anything that so captures the essense of me that I know it will always be true. Not a word, not an image.

Now maybe I’m over thinking it.

Maybe I’m not.

Ink or no ink, however, I do look forward to the day when I feel as though I know something about myself that clearly.

I’m taking a little break from writing ’til the kids go back to school. About a week and a half. That doesn’t seem like a long time, but it will be for me. I get very antsy when I don’t write. The writing process definitely acts as a release valve for me.

Why take a break from it, then you ask?

Well, that’s a good question. Mostly it’s because the kids are home with me all day long, and squeezing in that writing time is a bit more challenging. But it could be done, so I don’t think that’s the complete reason.

In order for my daily writing sessions to really flow, I think I also need a lot of thinking time. My mind likes to be rolling plot points and dialogue around at various times through out the day. This is why I sometimes can’t read other books when I’m writing a first draft. Not because I’m afraid of being influenced, but because then I think about those ideas rather than my own.

With my kids home and getting ready for back to school, my thinking time is mostly on them.

I think realizing that writing takes thinking time as well as BIC is an important realization for me. In the past when life got really busy and my writing time felt pained, I didn’t understand it was because of this missing thinknig time. It really helps get through the difficult writing sessions to know this.

So that’s my tip for all you teachers, getting ready for back to school. I know your schedule is jam-packed, but try to give your writers a little thinking time in addition to their writing time. You might be surprised!

Recently I was on a panel of authors at the Deerfield Public Library (pics to come) and was asked why I love writing. The first thoughts that came to my head however were all the ways that writing is hard. The enormous mental energy it takes to get started some days. The recurring bouts of insecurity. The exhausting marathon that is revision. But even with those thoughts, there was never any doubt that I do love writing, so I’ve been wondering. How can that be? Well, I’ve come to realize that there are different ways we can love things. I love chocolate almonds. My feelings about chocolate almonds however are really different from writing. One is merely an immediate pleasure. It feels good in the moment but once I’ve finished the pleasure is gone. It doesn’t sustain much longer than the time it takes to eat the snack. The pleasure from writing though, isn’t always apparent in the moment, but the satisfaction of getting to know my characters, unknotting a tricky plot point or finishing a novel can stay with me for days or weeks. Writing isn’t simply a pleasure. Its something much bigger than that.

What a busy week+ coming up.
The American Jewish Libraries conference and the American Library Association conference are both in Chicago. I am very much looking forward to attending both of them. (Though I’ve never been to either before and so, truly, have no idea what to expect.)

The AJL conference will be the first time I, publically, start telling people about my next book, QUEEN OF SECRETS. This book is a modern retelling of The Book of Esther and I am starting to get really excited about it. Even though its pub date is still nearly a year away.

But a year can go very quickly, as we all know.

AT ALA I will be manning the SCBWI booth on Monday afternoon, from 1-3 p.m. Stop by and say hello!

I suppose you know you are a writer when it’s hard for you to think of anything quite as much fun as starting a new book. In a lot of ways it’s like the giddy headrush you get when you first meet a someone you are attracted to and you can tell they are attracted to you too.

Oh, I know there’ll come a point when we can’t stand eachother and if I have to look at it’s face one more time I’ll pull my eyeballs out. (Which thankfully doesn’t happen much in my people relationships.)

But right now, I just want to call in sick and hang out all day!

I’m totally in new book love.

I consider myself an intelligent person, but sometimes it feels like the world of technology is just moving too fast for me to catch up. And I don’t have time to spend playing around with each new networking site that pops up teaching myself how to use it, because by the time I’ve figured it out, everyone will be over on the next one. 🙂

The allure of twitter was hard to resist. I got myself an account and before long I had myself some followers, but I still hadn’t tweeted. I was tweet-shy. What if I tweeted wrong?

Then I heard about Tweet Camp. (It’s like a web-based version of Twitter for Dummies.) But now I feel as though I can tweet with confidence.

I’m @jennymeyerhoff if anyone wants to follow me.

And now I’m off to tweet my first tweet.

I’m so close to finishing the latest revision of the mg I’m currently working on. It’s been very slow going, like pulling teeth. I remember reading somewhere of a writer who talked about that phenomenon. They way writing sometimes pours out of your pen almost effortlessly, and then other times the process is so slow and painful you can hardly bear it. The writer’s point (and I wish I could remember who made it so I could credit him/her)was that in the finished product it was impossible to tell which was which. The slow and painful parts could be just as good (or not good) as the quick and easy parts.

Which means…
you have to keep writing, even when it feels impossible. What it feels like often bears no relation to what it is.

Only now I’m at the impatient part. The end is in sight and I want to sprint to the finish line, but with three kids beginning summer vacation, I don’t think sprinting is going to happen.

Slow and steady wins the race?

(Does anyone remember that song? C is the way it begins. H is the next letter in. I is the middle of the word and C, well you already heard. K is a kind of a hen. E now we’re nearing the N. C-H-I-C-K-E-N, that’s the way you spell Chicken.)

Recently I’ve started doing pilates with a personal trainer. (After having three kids, I had no ab strength left.) What I’ve discovered is how much nicer it is to work out with a trainer than by myself. She plans the workout I do. She cheers me on or tells me to push myself a little harder. She also tells me when I should stop, when she sees that my muscles are just too fatigued to continue. It’s taken away all the stress of overanalyzing my workouts. Did I push myself hard enough? Did I overdo it? (Or maybe I’m the only one who does this.)

It’s gotten me thinking, too. How nice would it be to have a writing trainer?

Everyday when I sat down at my computer she’d tell me exactly what I was going to work on during that writing session. She’d cheer me on whenever I started to flag. “Come on. One more paragraph! You’re almost at the end of the page.” She’d push me when I started to slack. “Close your inbox! Turn off your wireless connection. No stopping until the chapter is finished!”

And the best part, at the end of every session she’d give me a nice shoulder rub to prevent cramping!

I know I’m joking, but seriously? There are days where I really might consider paying for such a person. 🙂