Pretzel fish are not a weapon! . . .and other bizarre things you will hear around my house

I started this blog with the purpose of talking about my books, and my writing life,and not with the intention of filling it with stories and pictures of my kids (don't worry, Mom, I'll start that blog eventually). . .but let's face it, part of my writing life is being a woman who is trying to balance momhood with building a successful writing career. There's no doubt that my daily life, including my stay-at-home-mom-ness, influences who I am as a writer--and I thought I'd share a few moments, starring KidA (my almost-3-year-old son) that definitely help inspire my sense of humor.

Lunch the other day:

Me: Hey, KidA, what do you want for lunch today?

KidA: Ketchup

Me: Um, you want some chicken nuggets with that?

KidA: Nope, just ketchup.


Breakfast a few days ago:

As I hand KidA his carnation shake, he starts giggling as little pooting noises emanate from his diaper region.

Me: KidA, are you tooting?

KidA: Nope. My butt is talking to you!


At our weekly trip to the grocery store:

Things were looking bad (or pretty much the same old, same old) with our weekly trek to the grocery before we even got out of the car. In fact, it all started when I opened the door to get KidA out of his carseat, and I was met by a pelting of tiny fished shaped pretzels right between my eyes (accompanied by a chorus of explosion noises, and little bits of spraying spit from KidA's mouth). Then he turned his barrage of flying fish on his brother, KidZ, who promptly began screaming.

Me: "Pretzel fish are not a weapon!"

KidA: "Actually, yes they are."

After I threatened to confiscate his salty pescetarian grenades, KidA finally relented on his attack and seemed relatively calm as we walked about 50 feet into the store--which is where all the calmness ended. KidZ announced that he was too big to ride in the car cart anymore, which means KidA also decided that he was too big, and was quite adamant about the subject. Neither child could be coaxed into any cart of any kind, so the next 45 minutes proceeded with me lumbering through the store, pushing one of those huge car carts (because they still insisted we get one) while the boys ran around me in circles, engaged in a Star Wars style battle of epic proportions.

How disturbing should I find it that my toddler can make perfect machine gun sound effects?

The battle continued, and the kids managed to only turn over the grocery cart once, and I finally made my way to the check-stand. . .where KidA decided he MUST incessantly push the little green button on the credit card reader, rendering it impossible for me to finish paying for our groceries.

After about the tenth button push, the cashier looked at KidA, and in all seriousness said to him: "You cannot push that button. There is a bomb in the store, and if you push that button one more time, all of Harmons, and everyone in it, will EXPLODE."

KidA's eyes got wide. He looked at the cashier. He looked at the button. He looked at me. He smiled, reached up, and . . .pushed the button.

Jack Baur, you've met your match.


The other afternoon:

I was working on my laptop when KidA announced that he "needed to go potty," and ran into the kid's bathroom. The thing about KidA "going potty" is that he doesn't actually "go." Nope. Not at all. What he does is run into the bathroom, push up the toilet-seat, stand fully-clothed in front of the potty, lift up his shirt, press on his belly-button (he has quite the "outy"), and make a "pssssss" noise with his mouth. No actual peeing happens--ever.

Hurray for potty training!

Anyway, on this particular afternoon, KidA became fascinated with the up/down action of the toilet seat, and got distracted by banging it back and forth for awhile. I kind of zoned out on this activity until a particularly loud bang was followed by a yowelling shriek from KidA. He came barreling out of the bathroom, holding out his little hand in front of him.

Me: "Oh no. Did you slam your fingers with the toilet seat?"

KidA: "Yes." Then he stuck out his germy little hand in front of my face. "Kiss it, mommy."

Me: "Um . . .can we wash your hand first?"

KidA: "KISS IT!! KISS IT!!!"

Um, yeah . . .I kissed it. Because I'm a mom, and that's what moms do.


Side note: I finally figured out why KidA always pushes on his belly-button when he "pees." I was changing his diaper the other morning when he pointed at his giblets and said, "That"s my belly." I shook my head and said "No, that's your willy." (In theory, we believe in using all the anatomically correct names for body parts. However, in practice, we mostly end up using words like willy and giblets.)

KidA shook his head, pointed at his willy and said, "No. This is my belly," then he pointed at his outy and said, "and this is my belly-button." Apparently, the belly-button must be pushed in order for the "belly" to work.


At church this afternoon:

Hubby: "So KidA's teachers asked him what song he wanted his class to sing today. Guess what he said?"

Me: "Um . . . (Part of me was hoping he was going to say Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World since I'd sung it to the kiddies the night before, but this is KidA we are talking about, so I was suddenly filled with dread. . .) what?"

Hubby: "The fart song."

Oh, and it gets better than that. Because when KidA is questioned as to how "the fart song" goes, all he does is shrug and say: "I can't sing it. Only Mommy knows that song."

Yeah, I SWEAR that I do not know how that song goes. . .but I am happy to report that at least it wasn't my kid at church who kept licking the bottom of his own shoe. . .

My job made easy

For the last few days, I've been wanting to post a little bit more about how the whole "getting an agent/getting your book published" process works. But a couple of cool kids decided to do the leg work for me . . .so I'll just sit back and delegate from here . . .You know, instead of trying to come up with my own witty remarks on the matter, or actually having to formulate an entire, well-rounded, blog post.

First off is a contribution from my sister-author Brodi Ashton: In one of my very first posts when I started this blog, I compared getting an agent to getting into the top three on American Idol. Yesterday, Brodi decided to take this metaphor and run with it--complete with pictures. So head over there and read her witty comments on the matter and pretend that I wrote them. Thanks for doing all the work, Bro!

Second, the clever folks at Macmillan Publishing decided to put together an insider's video on how a novel goes from the typewriter to the bookstore. (And, yes, I did take this video from Nathan Bransford's blog--but it's not stealing, it's delegating.) Watch. Enjoy. Be educated.




Oh, and just in case you didn't figure it out, that video was totally tongue-in-cheek. I mean, everybody knows that your agent would never staple your manuscript.

Putting a little "x" on life's dream checklist

Seeing my very own book-deal announced in Publisher's Marketplace has been a life dream of mine for the past several years. Basically, Publisher's Marketplace is the authority on the publishing world. They gather news about the industry, report book deals, track sales trends, have a forum for editors and agents to post what they are looking for, etc, etc. Each day they put out a report of recent books deals, and each day I read the list, imagining that my very own book is listed with all the other bright, shiny deals from all the bright, shiny authors. So you can imagine my delight this afternoon when I clicked on the PM deals page and saw this little announcement to the entire publishing world:

January 15, 2009
		Children's: Young Adult		Bree Despain's THE DARK DIVINE, a modern exploration of the Prodigal Son parable with a paranormal twist, to Regina Griffin at Egmont, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Ted Malawer at Firebrand Literary (NA). ted@firebrandliterary.com

How cool is that?!! I'm one of those bright, shiny authors who deserves space on the glistening webpages of the Publishers Marketplace. Wow, this is all really happening! I can barely believe it.

Sorry, just had to bask in the coolness for a bit.

p.s. FYI, not every book deal gets listed in PM. Just the one's by the "cool" people. j/k

p.p.s. The other thing that is really cool about getting listed in PM (other than official bragging rights, and proof that your book deal isn't just a figment of you imagination) is that occasionally movie producers will go trolling through PM, looking for new project ideas. Not that I'm saying that will happen to me . . .it's just cool to think about the possibility, don't ya think?

The Complete Dark Divine Playlist/Soundtrack . . .and an awesome birthday

As promised, I've embedded the complete soundtrack as a permanent fixture on the blog. It's right over there to the left, down a little . . .see it? Okay, push play to make sure it works. You can even change what song you want to listen to. Neat, eh?

I hope you all enjoyed the music. And I really hope it made you want to read the book :). Perhaps I'll re-post all of the entries just before the book is released.

On another note: I just have to say that I have the best husband in the world! Sorry, ladies, but best man is already taken. He pulled off an awesome surprise party for me--complete with an egg/dairy/wheat free cake that he baked himself (and it tasted pretty darn good!) Thank you to everyone who turned out for the party!! I'm happy to know that I have so many friends who would come all the way out here to the boonies for me. And thanks for all the great gifts! The awesome party, and all the great loot, made turning 30 totally worth it.

Emily, the Royal Secret will especially be cherished!

Since the party was a total surprise, I didn't have my camera. So if any of you took pictures, will you please email them to me? I'll post some pics as soon as I have them.

Have fun listening to the play-list! I'm off to finish celebrating the last minutes of my b-day.

The Dark Divine soundtrack: song #16

NOTE: IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT, CLICK HERE!

Alas, I am capping off the last day of my 20s, and the end of The Dark Divine Play-list/Soundtrack, with the perfectly bittersweet song Love You More by Alexi Murdoch. I didn't realize until I started listening to it while writing this post that this song only has 4 simple lines:

"Love you more than anyone
Love you more than anyone
Love you more in time to come
Love you more"

The line that resonates the most with me at this moment is: "Love you more in time to come." For me, this song symbolizes the sadness that comes with the end of something that is practically a part of who you are--but also the sweetness that comes with the beginning of something completely new. This is the way my characters feel at the end of the book--and hopefully how the reader will feel also. I know it's the way I felt when I finished writing it.

And it's definitely how I feel looking toward tomorrow. It's the end of a wonderful decade--but the beginning of a new one. And who can complain too much about turning the big 3-0 when kicking off the year with a two-book deal in her pocket?

Here's to a whole new year, a whole new decade, and a whole new adventure . . .

Love You More - Alexi Murdoch