#MWFA Make Writing Fun Again was my last-ditch, total desperation, Hail Mary plan to reclaim an optimistic writer identity and get through my summer of intensive work on Book 4. The plan was to write in all the ways that make me happy: in quippy Instagram stories, in Strava posts, in my newsletter, and here on the blog. I wasn't really thinking about making other people enjoy the writing, but rather just doing writing that is fun for me. 

Guess what? It worked! Writing became sometimes more fun and always more tolerable. I definitely feel happier now than I did in June. And, I also feel more committed to being a writer now than I did in June. We'll see how this goes.

Anniversary Celebrations We had the 21st anniversary of our marriage, which I mentioned. Also, it was the 150th anniversary of my school. I both went to the school from PK-12, and now I teach there. I really, really didn't want to go to the anniversary celebration because I felt nervous, and I don't like fun. But, I had to go because of contracts and reasons. As you can probably guess, it was way more fun than I worried it wouldn't be. And, a few of my friends are in a faculty band, and they absolutely crushed their gig. I did love that part.

Running Always a standby stalwart favorite. Tomorrow we begin the high school cross country season. I'm in my second year as coach of the Bears, and guess what? I got a promotion. Last year I was an Assistant Coach. Now, I'm Associate Head Coach! This was an excellent gold star, and I'm thrilled. My own running continues, and I'm trying to just be myself, race hard, and not worry about who beats me and doesn't. This relates to my final topic.

School Year Mantras and Mottos I always have one. They help with daily function and intentionality. I need one for this year, and it's on my to-do list for this week. My first idea, which I'm not committed to just yet, is something like "Live Today." You can let me know what you think.

 I hit send on Book 4. It's off to my literary agent. Some details about that:

• It's not DONE done, but it's way done enough. It's all readable and, I think, logical, and together, my team and I can now start making it the best it can be.
• Not every agent is like this, but mine is an excellent editor, and I really like to get her take on the work first before I hand it in to my editor at Penguin.
• Sometimes, the three of us--my agent, my editor, and I--will all get on a call and troubleshoot stuff together.
• This is the time when we start to hope. We hope that the book is good, that people will like it, that it's interesting and different, that it will sell a lot of copies and enchant the masses.
• There is no harm in the hope, and it gets us through the remainder of the process, which is long and also sometimes grueling.

We've reached the moment. 

I'm finishing and handing in my book on August 9th. That's the day. It's 11 days away from now. Why the 9th, a random Wednesday more than a year-and-half after I'd hoped to complete my fourth novel?

It's because that's the day my agent is back from vacation. And sometimes you just need a hard deadline. And, if I do it, then I can maybe have a few days off before I begin major revisions, and then, you know, school starts. I'm a teacher, actually. That's my main job.

I'm trying to make writing fun again, but today it's a struggle. Everything is just a little bit harder than it should be. 

Here are 5 fun things? To try?:

1. The Barbie movie was so fun and excellent and loudly subversive and one of my highlights of the summer.
2. The people in my family do funny parodies of the song at the end of The Lorax. The one that goes, "Let it grow."
3. Bagels. But, I'm out of cream cheese. But peanut butter is good, too.
4. I ordered a funny t-shirt (it's a long story, but it says "mid runner," and I bought it to apologize for a dumb slip of the tongue I made at track practice that the kids won't let go). The kids liked it and laughed.
5. My book is going to be done. Done, but not perfect, on August 9th.

I applied for a job this spring that I really wanted, and I didn't get it.

Of course, this has happened before. Sometimes you get the job, and sometimes you don't. This is the way of the world. And, obviously, there are all kinds of reasons why you might get a job or might not, and only some of the reasons are within your control.

But, and I say this next part not out of ego, but, well, I guess totally out of ego:

I just feel like with my impeccable academic record and my 22-year career in the field of education, which includes successful and accoladed work at nearly every grade level, and the fact that I have published three well-reviewed novels with literally the world's largest publisher... well, is it crazy to think that I might be someone's first choice to teach fourteen-year-olds how to read and write?

It's not like I'm trying to be something super prestigious like a writer in residence at an Ivy League institution or a Hollywood showrunner. It's ninth-grade English! And we're in the middle of a nationwide teacher shortage!

I'd laugh, except-- okay, I am laughing. Maybe I'm just dreaming too damn big. Multi-book, six-figure deals with renowned publishers?! Check! A job you want with stinky teenagers? Better luck next time!

I'd like to stop thinking about this now since I got rejected in March, and now it's July. But this is one of those things that just keeps coming back. I know you understand.

I got good feedback on my last newsletter about the five things I listed about my new book. 

So, here are five things about our vacation to Oregon:

• Before we went to Oregon, my brother Noah told me that everyone in Oregon was super weird. I felt skeptical. How could an entire state be weird? And Noah himself likes stuff that I think is weird, like knives and dirty-looking t-shirts. But sure enough, there is definitely a markedly higher percentage of weirdos just walking around on the streets in Oregon than I've seen in other places. As Dan said, "Every place here feels like you have to leave fast or else get serial murdered." 
• I really like big rocks that stick up out of the ocean. I guess the geological features to which I'm referring are called sea stacks and are caused by headland erosion. There are really cool ones on the Oregon coast. And there is mist that flows out by them and then also jutting points and cliffs and such. The whole effect is very majestic and mysterious, and I almost never felt I was going to get serial murdered on the beaches we visited. 
• I have a tendency to save money by renting sub-par vehicles. This time I rented a Kia Sportage that did get great gas mileage, but had no automatic locks. Did you know that cars without fobs still exist? The Kia also lacked USB ports for charging. Still, It was not the worst car I've ever rented because now we have a family rule that I'm only allowed to secure automobiles from major-brand car rental companies.
• Track is the best sport. We spent two days watching the pros at Hayward Field, and omg, up close they're even more impressive. My favorite event was the women's 1500, which was physical and a nail-biter and generally epic. Our seats were just post-finish line, and I loved watching the athletes process their results. We also had prime seats for high-fives and selfies. Not many middle-aged women went trackside to take advantage of this benefit, but I was not too proud.
• Our five-day vacation is over now, and though I worked a little most days, it was nice to take a break. Now, I have no choice but to go back to SARAH JONES every day, many hours per day. I guess it's okay. This is what novelists sometimes have to do.

My one blog reader, Lee, asked about whether I'm turning in pages of my new novel (currently called THE ONE AND ONLY SARAH JONES) on the regular. 

She asked this because I wrote in my last MWFA blog post that I "finish" my 8000 words and then hand them in. Lee knows this is not SOP for novel writing. Usually, novelists just write their stuff and deal with their own cadre of critique partners and freelance editors (I have them), and then turn in a "finished" version of the whole thing to their official editor and/or agent. 

My agent, Joanna, is highly editorial, so I do always give her a whole thing. Most often this happens before we send it to my official editor at Berkley. We do some of the work before Kerry, the editor, has to see it. It makes me seem smarter and lower maintenance than I actually am. The plan seemed to be working fine because Berkley bought four of my books.

But this time, for the fourth one when I'm supposed to be more experienced and competent, I'm handing in pages on the regular.

Here's what that's all about: I "finish" like 6000-8000 words and then send those pages to Joanna in a document on their own. It's like an accountability thing, but no one's making me do it except myself. Joanna doesn't even read the pages. It's just like a little checkmark, as assurance for everyone that I'm writing the book. 

This book has been hella hard to write. There have been many stops and starts. Two ideas got killed by my publisher before we landed on this one. This one got torn apart by an agency editor before I doubled-down on it and figured out how to make it go.

There has been a lot of crying and despair, hence MWFA. And also, hence the accountability gold-star hand-in-pages email check.

I have a book update today, too, for those of you (Lee) who like to know how the sausage gets made. 

I'm going to whisper it: 

I had to go review all those chunks I've sent Joanna because it's time to fill some plot holes. (I have a helper for that who can do his job much more easily if I do some prep). And, I've discovered while I've re-read them that the chapters I've written are... 

...good. The book is funny. It's interesting. There are some holes, yes,  but they are going to get filled. 

Yesterday was a good, good day.

MWFA: As a review for everyone, that's Make Writing Fun Again, my plan for the summer. And guess what? It's working! Every day, I think about ways to make writing fun and do those things. What I've noticed is this: doing the fun little snippets make the work writing easier. There was even one day when the work writing was the most fun writing I did. Amazing. It's happening. The fog is lifting and the fun is coming in. Also, the book is getting much closer to done. Speaking of...

The Book: I am working on it a lot, and it's getting written. On drafting days, my goal is to average two thousand words. That's a lot. It's like six or seven pages. Every time I get to 8000 words, I "finish" those chapters and hand them in. "Finish" is in quotation marks because we all know they're not actually finished. They're just readable and reasonable. The word count goes from 8000 to about 6000 at this point, but the words are much better. And then, when all 90,000 words of the book are in that shape, we can revise it all again. And then again and again, but with help. It's happening. Did I say that already? It's happening. It's happening.

Running: I trained really hard and well from December of 2022 until a couple of weeks ago. My plan was for my big finale of this training cycle to be a half marathon. But, when the week came, I just didn't feel like doing it. The race I picked was small and not super well-supported. The weather was hot and humid. I was overwhelmed by the task of writing my book. I just decided to bag it. I think it's fine. I'm taking a month of very easy running, and then I'll start back again to some regular training. I'm running a fall marathon, and I probably won't bag that. It'll be marathon #10.

Driving: Mac got his permit. He's permitted to drive. I'll begin his instruction thusly.

Here's the problem: I feel terribly miffed about not going to the Taylor Swift Eras tour. Even though it can't be actually true, it feels like everyone has gone to the show and had the best time of their lives. Everyone except me. 

And while everyone was at the show, they got to do one or more of the following: wear a sparkly jumpsuit, put glitter on their faces, make and trade cool friendship bracelets with Tay-themed messages on them, and cry with joy and fulfillment.

Meanwhile, I'm sure my life has meaning, but I'm not sure what it is now that I've missed out on this iconic experience.

The whole impetus for the MWFA project is to enjoy my writing more. 

Because it's hard, and it sucks, right? And it makes me feel bad about myself? 

But not blog writing. Blog writing is fun and makes me feel like, hey! I have so many years of stuff I've written and collected all right here, right on this website!

And do you know what else is fun, even about writing novels? 

It's fun to color in boxes to show how much you've written and then give yourself a sticker when you've reached your target. I met my target every day of the week this week, so I got five stickers. 

FIVE STICKERS!

The stickers have an oceanic theme. They include a shrimp, a stingray, a couple of sharks, and an octopus. They are printed in whimsical colors and with cartoonish eyeballs. If I saw these animals in real life in the ocean, I would not be thrilled. But in my little bullet-ish journal? They're frickin' thrilling.

The next step is editing these 8000 new words and that seems hard and sad to me right now, but I have a policy that works in a metaphorical sense for this situation. 

The policy is ONE BOX AT A TIME.

Editing these 8000 words is in tomorrow's boxes.

I have a few problems, and one of them is that I have three dogs. I don't think I've explained this reality, as I've hardly written anything here in the last few years. This is what happened:

We had one dog, Teddy, a perennial puppy whose vertical jump measures at least four feet, whom we welcomed into our family in 2015.

Next, it seemed like an excellent idea to get a pandemic pup in 2020. Though it was embarrassing to procure a cashier's check for "Cockapoo of Excellence" as the world shut down, I stand by that decision. Two dogs is great.

The third dog, we couldn't have predicted. Skip was my late brother Kevin's constant companion and loyal pal. When Kevin died suddenly in April 2021, the only right thing to do was to add Skip to what could loosely be called a pack. Skip is a weird little guy and behaves not a ton like a dog, so "pack" seems like a stretch. 

Anyway, Skip is one of us now, and I think is about 13 years old. His eyesight and hearing are going fast.

Ok, and also, all three dogs need regular haircuts. They're those kinds of dogs. Megan, the best groomer, books out months in advance, and I can never call on time. So, sometimes, I have to clip them. It's harder than it looks.

Here are some of the comments I've received before, during, or after trying to groom the dogs:

• "Oh, KC, please don't."
• "Mom, you did them dirty."
• "Let's leave it to the professionals."
• "It looks like they're diseased."

• "Do they have mange?"

I had an epiphany on my run today, and it was that I should have FUN writing every day.

Making Writing Fun Again (MWFA) is my idea to counteract the deep insecurity and sadness I feel when I try to write novels, which I've been trying to do (and doing) for like six years. 

Quite simply, in the time that I've been a professional writer, I've come to mostly hate writing. Or, to be more precise, I hate the way it makes me feel.

Because I'm a good problem solver, I tried to brainstorm ways that writing could be fun for me once again, as it was in the days of yore. And, I thought of this blog. And, I thought of captions on Strava, the exercise app. And, I thought of Instagram stories.

First, to MWFA, I wrote a long thing on Strava about how writing makes me feel. I wrote about my deep insecurities and fears. I felt good when I hit "Update." And then an hour later, I realized I sounded like an overly emo psycho in that "piece." My hope is that not too many people saw it.

My whole brand is pretending to be normal, right? I need to be a little more surreptitious about my actual neuroses. 

So next, I did a little draft of an Instagram story about MWFA. Unfortunately, on review it seemed a little disturbed, so I deleted it.

And then, finally, I came here, and I wrote this entry. 

The blog is defunct, so I think it's okay. It can stay. If you read this, maybe be careful about letting me know. It's like a journal that's online, but that like no one reads.

 My fourth book has a weird plot. 

What happened was that I wrote three books about suburban motherhood. Each one had a different take and a different setting and a different world with a different set of rules. I like each of those projects a lot, and sometimes, I can't believe I even wrote them. It seems so bizarre and hard to produce a book. Still, even after I've done it a few times.

And, when I finished with Home or Away, I just didn't have anything else to say about suburban motherhood. It took a while to figure out what the pivot was going to be, especially because my editor and publisher get to collaborate on that. Collaboration always takes longer, but experience tells me it's generally worth it.

We all went pretty far on two different ideas before bagging them and going back to the drawing board for my real fourth novel, my first (pretty-please) non-pandemic release. One of those discarded ideas I'm running right back to when I finish Book 4. It's going to be Book 5. But in the meantime, I'm immersed in a funny-yet-poignant, quirky-but-believable, high-concepty story about mistaken identity, deception, and--this part came as a real shock to me--grief.

Least surprising surprise ever, right, since my own brother died eighteen months ago? Every main character has a powerful grief wellspring hanging out in their motivations for every damn thing. Figuring that out (it took 200 pages or so) gives me some ideas about how to move forward.

Moving forward is happening. This Thursday, I'm printing all the pages and taking stock.

I just zipped over to ALittleLeeway, a blog I have loved for lo these 18ish years. It inspired me to write here. Blogging has changed a lot for me in the last several years, obviously. I won't recount the reasons here, and instead, I'll just give a Status Report. This blog is known for those.

Fitness Training: I didn't write about it, but I ran a pretty good marathon in the first week of October. It was Twin Cities Marathon, and I ran my second-fastest time ever for that distance. I had a new running coach this last year, and she really had me in tip-top shape. Now, she says I have to get stronger in terms of my muscles. That's how we get to the next level.

The trouble is that I'm not what we'd call a brave soldier when it comes to doing sit-ups and push-ups. Still, I'm doing them. Because a couple of things I am very good at are following directions and seeking external approval and needing gold stars to feel worthy as a human being.

Book Writing: I'm not going to lie: writing the fourth book has been a bear. A big scary grizzly bear straight out of hibernation. But now, I'm kind of rolling on it. There are words hitting the page. The whole thing is a mess, but I am optimistic that someday, it won't be. And there are some really good parts. That's all we need for now.

Christmas: Today is Christmas Eve. Generally, this is a very hard time of year for me; but today, I'm feeling happy and generally cheerful. We're taking it and running with it. Stuffing it in our pockets and rolling it around between our fingers. That's the plan.

Continuing on with several milestone moments over here.

I'm writing this from the tiny but charming Burlington International Airport in Vermont. Dan and I are leaving our firstborn child in this lovely state while we jet home.

He's staying here for college, a fact I can't believe.

Here are some things that happened on this quick trip:

• We discovered again that Shef's college campus is gorgeous and sprawling. There are mountains and valleys and lots of lush greenery. It's Middlebury College.
• Kids from his new cross country team met us at the dorm and helped us carry his stuff to the second and top floor. Then, when we didn't have the code for entering the dorm room, they made multiple phone calls to figure it out and toured us around to kill the time while we waited. This was great because we visited Middlebury for the first (and only other) time during Covid and didn't get to see much of anything. 
• Shef's dorm itself is in shocking disrepair. I'm not kidding. I mean, it's pretty much a shithole. There's a big brown water stain on the ceiling in his room, the hallways smell like mildew and urine, and the carpet is the very definition of threadbare. Dan remarked on entry, "Wow! It's like you're in prison!"
• Despite the conditions, the board is still quite expensive.
• Despite the conditions, Shef is happy and excited and all the cross country runners seemed awesome. Some of them had previously lived in that same dorm (which will be destroyed, perhaps by fire, next summer) and have lived to tell the tale.
• We left him there about five hours ago, and he has not texted me. When will he text me?

I won't beat around the bush: I think I'm ready to write and rewrite the first act of my new book. I have a bunch of out-of-order vignettes of what I'm calling The One and Only Sadie Jones at the moment, but as of this morning, I also have an outline for the first act of the book.

It's important for everyone to know that the outline will change, and the beginning will change. It's an inevitability. 

But, I'm pretty excited to get to work on a chunk--50 pages-ish?--that people can actually read. I think I've got most of the pieces already drafted, which is even more thrilling. This means that I get to use Revision Color One (red, probably), and the differences between the first crappy version and the second will astound me and make me feel productive and worthy.

I know from my outline that there are a couple of few new scenes I know I have to draft. One or two of these involve rodents. I used to think the mice were just there and menacing and designed to make us feel like Sadie is in over her head in her new apartment, but now I think they're a neighbor's escaped pet rats. This makes it so she can have a friend who doesn't have her same name. And the neighbor will be quirky and confounding because she has rats.

Is that confusing? Well. Just wait. We'll write it, and then it will be clear.

I've been working hard, but I've also been resting hard this summer. I think it's good. I'll confess: I've taken at least one nap on each day of the summer so far. I close my eyes, and most of the time, I fall asleep for 20-40 minutes.

Part of this is just a middle-aged willingness to accept my limitations. Part of it is that we finally got a new bed that I find to be irresistible. Part of it is that I have been running quite a lot, and then resting is a natural counterpart to that. I just like napping, as it turns out.

I hoping the naps have been reducing my cortisol. They've definitely been improving my mood, as I've been generally quite cheerful even though I've experienced a couple of setbacks.

I'm not sure that daily naps are sustainable all year long, but perhaps I can prioritize them in the school year. I'm already quite good at Saturday and Sunday afternoon naps. I'd give my napping ability at solid 10/10.

Tour de France:

It's happening, and I've been watching it. It's weird to me that everyone in cycling, at least in the past, has just been a convicted doper, and now it's sort of just accepted and fine. I did watch that Lance Armstrong documentary during Covid, and I sort of felt like, well, if everyone is using drugs and Lance is still the best, then do we really care? If no one was doping, he might also still be the best. I did some cursory googling about this issue, and it seems like now the doping is just more on an individual and micro-dosing level, rather than team sponsored. I mean, okay.

Book Work:

I have written 10, 250 words of the Sophie Jones book since Mac has been at camp. I've also emailed a synopsis to my agent. We can agree this is excellent progress.

Running:

In a momentary lapse of judgment and self-preservation, I have agreed to race a mile on Sunday. Lucky for me, Shef volunteered to be my pace buddy, so now it won't be as bad as it might have been if he hadn't done that.

Today's the day Mac leaves us for three weeks at camp. He's very excited, can't wait to get on the bus, and claims he won't miss us at all. He resisted purchasing the required camp supply of stationery because he claims he won't be writing to us at all ever. I reminded him that the camp staff will require him to write once per week. We bought the stationery.

It's hard for me to imagine a better place for a fourteen-year-old boy than camp. He'll have a ton of autonomy in a youth-centered community. He'll have opportunities to create real and lasting relationships. There are wholesome mentors and thoughtful scaffolding for both physical and emotional growth.

I'm a camp enthusiast, and I'm happy for Mac. But I'd also like for him to write me some letters and pretend to miss me just a little bit.

We're in the Salt Lake City airport returning from a very pleasant trip to Park City, Utah. While we were on vacation, we engaged in various mountain adventures.

One highlight was a tour of Utah Olympic Park, site of the 2002 Olympic Ski Jumping, Bobsledding, and Luge Competitions. Our guide was two-time Olympian Casey Larson. He told us he is 5'10 and 135 pounds. These stats were relevant to our tour because ski jumpers are better if they're very small. The minimum BMI for men is 18.5, which is not a very big BMI. I wanted to ask, but did not, about the prevalence of eating disorders among ski jumpers.

In addition to these facts about jumping, I discovered that luge is the most dangerous of the winter sports. Conversely, Casey claims that ski jumping has the lowest rate of injury. I specifically asked about regular cross country skiing, as I was skeptical of the safety of launching oneself off a ramp into the air. But Casey said that even though they're going fast down that very steep jumping ramp, they're not that high above the ground in their flying squirrel positions. He also said that the regular nordic skiiers are more prone to overuse injuries.

Later, I got to ride a tube down the ski jump hill (not the ramp part, but the part you land on out of the air). It was extremely steep and scary, and I screamed the whole way down. I had to wear a helmet to do that, so it seemed plenty dangerous to me.

Now that I'm finished with vacation, I'm committing to writing 20 thousand words in the next three weeks on my fourth novel. So, there will likely be a whole lot of blogging along with that.

Second week of summer, ready set go.

Time to get serious about all manner of things, including Sophie and George, the main characters of my fourth novel. I mean, I hope it's my fourth novel. It's iteration #3 of novel four, so this is manuscript 4.3, I guess.

Except that I wrote another partial book before Minor Dramas, so maybe it's 5.3? Whatever, I think it's best not to think too hard about the numbering system.

I have a good feeling about Sophie and George, anyway. I think they're going to have a good story and fall in love while solving a crime together. Doesn't that sound utterly delightful? There will be some bumps along the way and plenty of quirks.

One of the quirks is that Sophie strongly believes in fate and omens. I have a running list of omens that will appear in the book. I'm excited about those. I'm writing with my crystals by my side, after all.

To be honest, I wish we could fast forward a little bit to the part where I have most of the details worked out and I could just be cranking out chapters in some sort of more-or-less order, but we're not there. We're never going to get there. We just have do things organically as we always have and that's that.

Onward.