Solar eclipses don't have anything on Oklahoma storm clouds. We went from bright sunshine to darkness that requires a light to read all the the space of an hour. It has just started raining just a few minutes ago and the smell has overtaken the honeysuckle scent that has drenched the air for the past couple days. The cottonwood fluffies started sailing toward the south instead of the north before the rain started. In the past hour it has gone from the low 80s to 66 degrees. I think we had a cold front blow through.

It's been amazing to watch them pinpoint streets where the core of these storms had settled, and then watch it update every 10 seconds.

Okay I'm running out of "the moment" stuff. There, just turned down the sound on the soap opera that came on at an intense volume level after the last weather update. Without that distraction I can hear the thunder rumbling. There are a few die-hard birds whistling from the trees, but it's very quiet compared wth what it is in the mornings. Our attic fan is running quietly, just the sound of air hissing over the paddles as it turns; the motor sound is almost soothing and easily ignored.

I'm checking on todays prompt. This is boring me to tears.

Prompt: Choose one item from your procrastination list (from May 3rd) and write about it as if the project were already successfully finished. (If you didn't do the May 3rd prompt, start with it today and wind up with this one.)

I'm procrastinating on the procrastination exercise. I have totally blown this week, but that's okay, because I allow myself one blow-able week a month. I usually try to make it the last because I have to get the website updated and I use that week to do it. I guess this month I will be mailing manuscripts and prompts at the same time.

What am I procrastinating about when it comes to writing? Editing Widow's Peak. Getting my filing system in order. (If there was ever a never-ending story, that is it--out of order files.) I'm procrastinating about cleaning out the school room and turning it into a writing room. I'm procrastinating about finishing a ByLine query and I shouldn't be--wonder what the lead time is for stories there. Write that down. I'm having a terrible time recording things. I guess I really need the calendar going when I start on e-mail and such so that I remind myself of all the things I want to do "later." (Translation: all the things I'm procrastinating about now.) I want to have a system for sending out things that have come home to roost. Manuscripts come back and they get too comfortable here when they should be out working. (Thank goodness they aren't grown children!) I am procrastinating about trying my hand at a novella, and then my critic pipes up--"Do you really need to be starting something new when there's so much finished or half-finished stuff lying around here? Don't you need to work on getting stuff sold--showing that you're not wasting time?"

I'm supposed to choose one of these things to start on. It would be the first.

Well, enough is enough. Widow's Peak is as good as it will get. The flavor of the place has been built in and the characters have been deepened. I love both Sara and Stan like they were the super children of a cherished friend. They are good solid kids, but real kids with ideas that are not adult and attachments that are firmly rooted in their hearts. The action scenes have been built into real cliff hangers. And guess what? I found the most wonderful source on lighthouses who fed me all the details I needed for historical accuracy. That was the part I'd dreaded most. I shouldn't have. It was another one of those instances when I met a unique and inspiring individual whose heart is with lighthouses and the sea just like mine.

I've stretched the book to the desired 150 pages and the manuscript is ready to send to some of the manjor houses that have contests that provide an opening for unagented children's writers to submit. I'm proud of this work and I will continue to send it out until it lands where it belongs.

*****************

Prompt: Use as many of the following words as you can in today's writing practice. Any form of the word will do:

preview, vending, instant, directory, hospitality, ballpark, portrait, survival, portion, instruction

The survival portion of the instruction has nothing to do with hospitality. It has more to do with selfishness and greed, which would be the signature qualities of my ex's personality portrait. It's so not me. I'd be offering to share every last crumb, every last drop of water with whoever might be in the long haul with me. I think.

At any rate, I can't believe I've landed myself in this group that's about to trek across some rather intimidating countryside. I can tell you that I'm thoroughly tired of the instant mentality of my world, along with the vending machine distribution of "happiness" and "success." Inject enough coins and you'll be rewarded? I think not.

One morning in May, I was feeling particularly out of sorts and decided to run through it. I jogged countless laps around the park, past the empty ballpark, past the empty swimming pool, past the empty playground and I found myself thinking, This is a preview of my future. I'm heading to world that is empty. I'm too busy to hold a marriage together, too busy to fill my world with a true family, too busy to think beyond having my name in some prestigious directory of up-and-coming business people.

So I decided to do something outrageous, to shake up my entire life. I took two weeks vacation and arrived here on the recommendation of someone I barely know (another story in itself), and well--I'm out of my league. I'm beginning to believe I make a much better hostess than survivalist. But it's too late to back out now. I have to walk in and walk out. Unless they carry me out on a stretcher.

I think I'd better get my head back to focusing on this survival information.

n Prompt: Have a heart-to-heart talk with your inner critic. On paper. As you speak to him/her remember to speak as you would like to be spoken to.


"I wonder if you're getting a bit sneaky on me."

"Me? Sneaky? In what way?"

"Well, we've come a long way. You don't hinder my work like you used to. Oh ocassionally you stomp and storm or whine and moan (who doesn't) but I think we've achieved a good partnership for the most part."

"That's what I was thinking, too. But you're hedging. Why do you think I'm getting sneaky?"

"Well, there are still some times when I avoid writing, and I wonder if you're using a quieter way to distract or deter me."

"A quieter way?"

"Yes. You're not telling me that the work is outrageously bad anymore. Not even on the first draft when it is--"

"That's because you acknowlegde it, you know. If you ever go back to thinking that the first time the words hit the page their perfect, I'll become unbearable."

"I have no doubt! At any rate, the thing that seems to plague me now is that I still procrastinate. Are you the one disguising the unnecessary as critical?"

"Give me an example."

"Well, fifteen minutes out of an entire day is nothing. But sometimes, that fifteen minutes seems more precious than gold and better spent elsewhere."

"You don't want people mad at you, do you?"

"No."

"And when you say you'll start supper at 4:30 and it gets to be 4:31--and I haven't been managing your time, you have!--what do you expect me to do? Let you get yourself in a tizzy because you're late?"

"Why not?"

"Why????? You know you hate the stress. Why not leave the writing till later?"

"Because later never comes! You know what I wanted to accomplish this month and thanks to 'later' not much of it is getting done."

"Are you trying to do too much?"

"Oh, I don't know! It's so hard to decide sometimes. The writing is important though because I get so horribly cranky when I don't get the time to do it."

"Don't make the time to do it, you mean."

"Right, you're right. So what's the deal?"

"As I see it, it's all a matter of choices. Life is always like that. And on some days the urgent is going to crowd out the less urgent until the less urgent becomes urgent--"

"STOP! You're making me dizzy."

"You're making me laugh! You know all this stuff. I've told you over and over and over."

"Yes, but are you telling me right? If I'd listened to you 8 minutes ago, we wouldn't have come this far."

"This far? Where have we gotten? I'm not sure it's anywhere."

"Oh, we've gotten somewhere. The writing has moved us along. We're not standing in the same old place we were when we started. Someday I'll be re-reading this and something will click."

"Like 'do the writing first and then the e-mail'?"

"Come on, that was workshop stuff. It needed to go out today."

"Like workshop stuff was all the e-mail you did!"

"Okay, you win that one. The writing should come first."

"The rocks go in the jar, then the pebbles."

"I know, I know! There are rocks in my life other than writing, you know."

"Maybe we should start us a rock collection."

"Really?"

"Why not? You already have some pebbles back there, don't you? You should have a jar. And rocks. And you should empty the jar every day, and then start with the large rocks. It sounds kinda fun, doesn't it?"

"Like playing with blocks."

"Remember when I used to have a problem with you playing?"

"Boy do I! We have come a long way together, haven't we?"

"Yes, but you're fifteen minutes into cooking supper time now and you've done your writing, haven't you?"

"Okay, I'm outta here!"

I was offline all weekend. Sowwy about that. I did write, I am happy to report. Just not here. It wasn't much--just a requisite 10 to 15 minutes a day, but it got done.

I had a very fulfilling weekend. It was more satisfying than the weekend at the writer's convention. I shudder to think I almost talked myself out of the drive to Denton Texas and how close I came to not finding a hotel room to stay. All in all it worked out for the best. In so many ways.

It was my privilege to meet a woman that I will think about for a long time to come, and I met her through my oldest son, who continues to surprise me with the depth of his heart and his love for people. He is very gregarious, a true extrovert. But his interest in people doesn't start and stop with his peers and for this fact I am grateful. Don't get me wrong, he has great friends his age; kids I'm not constantly worried about what kind of influence they're providing. Very good kids.

But there is so much richness to be gained beyond our age mates. There is the curiosity and excitement that you find in the company of a three-year-old, and the wisdom and grace that comes with the age of an 80 year old. To miss out on either because a young one only associates with peers--how sad!

As some may know, my boys and I have been learning American Sign language for a little more than a year now. This weekend we went to a convention that was largely conducted in ASL. There were some talks that were interpreted. Up in the front of the auditorium was a second for tactile signing and there were two women there who are both blind and deaf. As we were getting ready to "sing" our last song of the day, my oldest son hopped up and headed toward the front of the auditorium and my jaw was on the floor as I watched him sign the song for one of the two ladies. I didn't know he had any interest in tactile signing, much less the ability. But with him, there isn't anything that's "impossible" and he truly believes that the learning is in the doing. At any rate, I honestly had to work up the nerve to take myself up there and I hung around the periphery of the people gathered and watched him interpret conversations for people who wanted to meet this woman but needed his help to translate. Finally he looked over at me and asked me if I wanted to meet her. How could I say no?

What an experience. Let me tell you Janice is an amazing lady. She has three grown children, a daughter living in Lafayette, LA and a daughter and son in New York City. They are all deaf. Her son is graduating from college in two weeks and she's flying there to be on hand for the occasion. She lives in Lafayette as well. We told her about our family and how we got involved in sign language even though we're hearing. At the end of about 20 minutes of conversation I had one of the most inspiring friends I think I'll ever have.

When I stopped to really think about how small and still her world could be, I am all the more convinced that life really is what you make of it. I can still see her graceful easy smile. And her patience while she "listened" again and again until she was sure she had understood correctly. Attitude and determination has so much to do with the quality of our time here. From my son's "jump-in-and-try" attitude to Janice's not taking silent or dark for an answer to life, I find I need to start being more brave. I have nothing--comparatively speaking--that's holding me back.

I will always have the picture in my mind of Janice and my son walking arm in arm toward the back of the auditorium, "talking" 90 to nothing the entire time. What an amazing pair, and how much less rich his life would be had he never met her. Mine as well.