Dan's reasonably supportive of my fiction writing project, but he keeps asking when I'm going to introduce the hero of the story, a guy he's named Stan Best.

"I'm not really sure that Stan is going to be included in the scope of this story," I keep telling him.  "I'm pretty sure Alice is going to be single at the conclusion of the arc I'm contemplating."

"But," Dan protests, "you could just write Stan in as a little vignette.  Like Alice is thinking to herself about the ideal husband, and she magically imagines Stan Best."

"Hmmm," I say.

"Clive Cussler writes himself into all of his books," Stan - I mean Dan - continues.

"He DOES?  How?"  Dan has read like seventy or eighty Clive Cussler adventure novels.

"The main characters meet a little man who helps them on their journey."

"And the man is named Clive Cussler?"

"Yes! And he describes his beard and everything."

While I hear and acknowledge Dan's desire to be represented in my writing as Stan Best, I just can't promise that's going to happen.  And we'll leave it there.

We're back from wild hockey weekend.  On Saturday, after routing their first opponents 11-0, Shef's team won their second game in sudden death overtime.  The moms were dying with anxiety.  At one point, I had to walk around because the tension was too great for sitting still.

At the conclusion of the game, when one of our kids tipped in the winning goal, the mom next to me pumped both her fists and said, "Yes! I'm SO into youth hockey!"

That was pretty much the quote of the weekend.

#NovelSnip is a tiny piece of my fiction writing project.  This week, it's the conclusion of Alice's highway walking incident.  I skipped a little dialogue from the middle when she first gets into the police car.  I'm not sure about that part, and I don't have time to edit right this moment at our hockey tournament, where I've gotten far less done than I planned. Anyway, here's #NovelSnip:

Alice was sure that there would be an investigation.  Perhaps charges of neglect.  Awkward questions.  An uncovering of a situation that Alice and Ethan knew wasn’t quite right.

“But, I didn’t practice,” Alice admitted, slumping down, steeling against the scenario she imagined.  “This is the exit,” she said, pointing.  “I knew how to get home,” she muttered, turning her face to the window.  It was as if to say, “It wasn’t that dangerous.  It was my fault.”

The officer, though, seemed uninterested in the details of her particular situation. His questions, after some head-shaking over Alice’s trek on the overpass, veered toward bland and neutral.  “Where do you go to school?” “What grade are you in?”   She sat wide-eyed in the car, which pulled benignly into the driveway of her well-kept suburban home.  Alice expected the man to cut the ignition and lumber out after her,  walk her to the door, ring the bell, and discover something about her father - the thing that Alice knew, but that other people didn’t, or alternatively pretended not to notice.

But, the officer merely turned his head to her, his belly still pointed casually toward the steering wheel.  His right hand resting nonchalantly on the center console.  “Take care,” he said.

“Thanks,” Alice mumbled, clicking open the passenger door and stepping out onto her asphalt driveway.  She stumbled numbly past the garage, not daring to look back at the car, arms tingling with what felt like a near miss and also a missed opportunity.

It's #NovelSnip!  Next week has a  jump to a time five years later, back to that trip to Florida Alice started a couple of weeks ago.

Heads up: We're at a hockey tournament.  Mac thinks it's a full on vacation, as we're staying at a Holiday Inn Express with TWO POOLS.

It is nice to be away.  I've got some school work to do in between the games, but I'm confident that I'll be able to get it done. Meanwhile, Shef's like, "Give me the key; I'm going to Tommy's room."

#Tween

This is a video made by one of my colleagues about the Humanities sustainable development project, which resulted in the cardboard art installation I've been talking about.  I used Gawker to take time-lapse video of some of the steps, which I think is cool. But, I think the video-maker is truly awesome.

In other news, Mac announced yesterday that he did indeed have writer's workshop, and that he's writing a realistic fiction story.

"What's it about?" I asked.

"Jack loses a tooth."

"Cool," I said.  "Is that the title?"

"Yeah, but the first chapter is called Loop-de-Loop because I drew a roller coaster.  So Jack loses a tooth at the Mall of America," he continued. He went on to describe the plot in a hilariously professional way.  I can't quite re-create it here because I can't remember the many twists and turns involved in this significant dental event for Jack.  Another pal was there, and Mac incorporated theme-park elements throughout.

"How did you get this idea?" I asked.

"We had to have ideas," he said.

"But how did you come up with it?"

"If I didn't have an idea, I would have to push-ups."

"Really?!" I laughed, once again in awe of the genius that is Mac's teacher, Ms. J.

"Yes," he said.  "If you don't have an idea, you have to do push-ups."

My students are excellent idea generators this year. Now I know I can attribute this to what might be a full lower school practice of requiring push-ups until one thinks of an idea.  Let's just get the writing started.

Shef's reading a series now called The 39 Clues.  It's a mystery adventure type thing, and it keeps us turning the pages. When he finished the first book and procured the second, I noticed it had a different author.  Turns out there are like eleven different well-known children's authors who write books in the series.  It starts with Rick Riordan.

How does that work, do you think?  Do the people at Scholastic decide the story arc, and then just tell the individual book author what happens in his/her section of the story?  I met an author once who worked like this on a couple of things.  It seemed kind of fun to me.  Maybe that's what the authors think, too?

This leads me to a reading update.  I'm up to 3 books of 52 Books Plus in 2015.  The best so far?  And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini.  Believe it or not, this was my first Khaled Hosseini book.  The guy is a genius who speaks multiple languages and writes like a dream.  I'm a fan.

After fifteen or twenty minutes of determined striding, she reached the on-ramp to the stretch of highway over the Mississippi - maybe a three quarters of a mile - that would lead her to her neighborhood. Alice wasn’t sure of the rules regarding highways.  Was there a sidewalk on the bridge?  She couldn't remember one. There was a sign on the right side of the ramp that said “No pedestrians.”  But this was the way home.  She didn’t know about any alternate routes.

At the top of the ramp, she tried to walk with one foot in front of the other on the white concrete that bordered the asphalt, without letting even a fraction of her shoe touch the black.  She smashed her right calf against the steel cable that lined the road.  Alice had been right - there was no sidewalk over the bridge, only a chest-high guardrail. She turned her head toward the water below, shutting out the traffic that blasted past, a foot beyond her left shoulder. Tempted to run, she willed her legs not to - to stay connected to the steel cable.  When she’d made it halfway, her eyes re-focused on the grassy bank that spread out toward the river next to the exit she'd take to safety, a police cruiser abruptly pulled up beside her.  She looked tentatively at the door, and then grabbed the handle and pulled it open.

That's #NovelSnip!  Why not?!

Work: I'm slightly swamped, but feeling pumped about having finished report card comments.  As you may know from listening to Teach Times Two, the sixth graders started new lit circle books this week Also, we've gotten some positive responses about the sustainable development art installation.  One tough critic said, "It looks a lot better than I thought it would."

Violin: I passed my review of Suzuki Book Four.  "Do all of the adult students in your studio have to memorize the whole book?" I asked my teacher, quizzically.  I've been suspicious about this.  Sure enough, she hemmed and hawed in a way that indicated that her expectations do indeed vary by student.  She did not, however, waive the requirement that I, myself, play from memory.

Fashion: After KonMari-ing my clothes, I discovered that it's been awhile since I've updated my wardrobe.  I signed up for this thing called Stitch Fix. You fill out this style questionaire, and then a stylist sends you five things in the mail that fall within your designated price range.  They also send a pre-paid envelope to return anything you don't want. It's cool.  I made a Pinterest board of things I like, and they looked at it and sent me stuff that matched.  Thrilling.

Old Journal Reading: Tomorrow is #NovelSnip.  Sometimes when I work on the project, I glance at old journals from my late teens.  It's painful.  Today, I read like seven sentences and then had to stop because I was so disgusted by my former self.  I don't recommend keeping or reading old journals unless you someday plan to write a fictional character based on your former, irritating self.  Even then, it's wise to think twice.

We use a great little video about empathy with the sixth graders.  Here it is.  You don't have to watch it, but you might want to.

I've been dragging like crazy this week.  We're writing report card comments, interviewing candidates for teaching positions, zooming in toward a yearbook deadline, starting a new curricular unit on human rights...

A week ago, I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and I organized my clothes, books, and half of my papers.  The central principle of the book is that you hold each of your belongings and ask yourself, "Does this spark joy?"  If not, you thank the item for the role it's played in your life and respectfully say good bye.

She and Evelyn had decided it was something she “should” do.  Should was common in Alice and Evelyn’s lexicon.  We should sit at the table and do some reading.  We should take Ethan to a movie.  We should try to eat more vegetables.  And you should, Alice, visit your father.

She’d stepped off the plane in Florida, feeling the ambient heat and breathing deeply as she traversed the jetway. At the end of the tunnel, she glimpsed Frank, mustached with a coarse gray toupee. Next to him stood Dorothy, his mother, her lips pinched and her eyes searching. 

Alice twisted her lips into a smile, and Dorothy matched her.

That's #NovelSnip this week.  More next Sunday.

I meant to start a new feature on Sunday, and then I forgot because it was back-to-school.  So, I'm starting today and then will put #NovelSnip back on Sundays where it belongs.  The gist is this: my New Year's Resolution is to work on writing this year.  Like, writing a book.  Of fiction.  Finishing or publishing the book is not part of the resolution.  It's just the WRITING that we're working on, and I'm starting small.  Yesterday, I wrote three sentences, and I thought that was satisfactory.

I came home from running an errand last night to find Shef ready to send a letter to our U.S. Representative Keith Ellison about his opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline.  What an odd leisure activity, I thought to myself.  Although, as I'm writing this blog at 6am and on Monday night I spent two hours watching the worst show on television, I'm not one to throw stones.

So anyway, we heard a story about the pipeline on the radio on the way home, and then Dan found an article to augment Shef's understanding.  And then he googled Keith and found a way to email him.  Luckily, his fab teacher has been teaching him about persuasive writing.  So, here's what he said.

Dear Representative Ellison,

My Name is Shef W. and I am 10 years old. I live in Minneapolis MN. I'm sending you this e-mail because I don't agree with the proposal to build the Keystone XL pipeline through the country. One of the reasons why I don't agree with this proposal is that, if this pipeline is made there will be much more pollution. If there is more pollution the world will not be a better place. Also, it will make it harder for living things like plants and animals to stay healthy. Another reason why this pipeline shouldn't be built is that it's pretty much the dirtiest kind of oil extracted from tar sands. Also, we have shown that we can't clean the oil up. So if that oil spills then it would be very bad. Plus, the current Keystone XL pipeline has leaked multiple times in its first year of operation. So why build another? In conclusion, we should not build the oil pipeline.

Sincerely,
Shef W.

Now, he's obsessively checking his email to see if Keith will write back.  I explained that it might take some time, but the checking continues.

His Birthday. By Mac. 2/1/13
Once upon a time,  there was a boy and he couldn't wait until he had his birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese.  And his birthday was March 31st. His home was very big because it was a mansion. He had a pet bird named Billy.  Someone shot down his house.  - The End

I'm so proud.

It's a hockey weekend here.

Last night, Shef's team beat their first tournament opponents by a margin of 9 goals.  That's a big margin in hockey, and we were all pleased.

Later today, The Storm will face the St. Paul Capitals in their second effort.  Meanwhile, I'll be with Mac at his Chill practice.  From there, we'll zip to the rink and check out the second half.  We'll probably say, "Go Storm!"

On Sunday, there will be two more hockey events - one practice for the Chill, one final tournament game for the Storm.

You might interpret this as complaining, but it's not complaining.  You know what I do?  I bring a book, fleece blanket, hat and mittens; and I pay intermittent attention during practices.  During games, I chat affably with the other moms while also watching.  It's perfectly pleasant in every way, and I also earn Mother of the Year credits.  I'm trying to stock up early in 2015.

Well, besides being awesome, he's also pretty high strung.  When multiple visitors come to our house - or any kids that don't live here - he has to go to the attic in his crate, where he barks incessantly and feels terrible.  I know he feels terrible because he quivers and makes low noises and appears to be generally agitated.

It's time for another year on the blog.  A highlight of last year was that I posted more than I ever have.  It turns out it's not that hard to post (almost) every day if you just do it.  So, that was a revelation I came to at the end of September.  I might as well keep it up in 2015, as I have for the last TEN years.

Last night, we had a few great pals over for dinner.  At one point in the evening, I said, "Okay, who has regrets or resolutions?"

No one answered, except Dan.  He said, "Stop being so weird."  It wasn't a resolution; it was a directive for me.

It's business as usual in our household, I think we can all agree.  Happy 2015!