BONSAI!!!!

I am doing it. I am going to write a novel in 30 days. Hannah Moskowitz made me do it. And my life made me do it, too. I have three ideas for another book and I'm the kind of writer that needs to be threatened, whipped, cajoled, shamed, dared, challenged, tricked, peer pressured etc. into producing words. I think I would be more productive if I would stop self editing at every opportunity and use the bonsai approach- just vomit out 50,000 words and then prune, trim, hack away until I like the deformed little tree that remains.

I have mocked the NaNoWriMo in the past as a gimmicky exercise in futility but have seen the light. I need to get started. I'm going to just write my guts out: EVERY DAY. For one month straight. Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted. I think I'm going to try and expand my favorite and most successful short story "Buying the Farm" into a novel ala the great Meg Mullins.

I'm getting my literacy charity links together and they are good ones. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

Geek Alert

There is this company called Outofprintclothing that sells t-shirts with vintage book covers on them. For each shirt they sell, one book is donated to a community in need through their partner Books For Africa.

I wanted to buy, oh, all of them but I ended up getting To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, and The Master and Margarita. Three of my all time favorites and what better to wear to a promotional event for AND THEN THINGS FALL APART than a Young Adult classic under a cozy boyfriend sweater?

And this way I can write them off for tax purposes. Because I can't believe I spent almost $100 on t-shirts. But they have sexy lady tees too so check them out.

At the end of your purchase, they flash an image of these happy African children in school uniforms reading books. And all guilt was miraculously gone.

SHOP SHOP SHOP! they have all kinds of badassery for sale...

I should think about linking some donation buttons to literacy charities. I don't know about you, but this blogging seems pretty narcissistic. To me anyway. Next post will be all about my headshots.

Oh I DO crack myself up!

I Am Alive...

Just been a little crazy. My most favorite thing I've done since we last spoke was obey my horoscope entirely (thank you Susan Miller at Astrologyzone.com). She said that I would get an opportunity to volunteer for something and I should just say yes and not question it. And so when my neighborhood Harvest Festival put a call out for facepainters I did as instructed and said "Yes!"

Now, I have never facepainted before but I'm an artist and a master of disguise and I love kids who love to get painted and dear reader, it was: AMAZING.

I brought my own brushes and used the lead painter, Donetta's, paints. I began at 1:30 and stopped at 5:00. I painted about one kid every 2-5 minutes so that's about 2,000 children.

I was sore. I was tired. But I was inspired and so into it! The kids were great and fearless. I did fairy princesses, harlequin masks on two cool 6th graders, pirates, Spidermen, dogs and cats and leopards. My favorites were the scary ones. One girl wanted to be a Vampire Princess. Two older boys didn't know what they wanted to be but I made them Day of the Dead skulls and they loved it. I did a Rainbow Tiger with a large glittering jewel on her forehead. I made an 18 month old a stubbled and scarred wayfarer on the high seas.

It was like the universe gave me a big kiss and a glass of wine.

Awe.

Some.

I also started throwing pottery again and oh mysterious 30th follower- when the stuff emerges from the kiln, I'll send it out!

This is what I do whilst taking a month long vacation from writing...