First, I'm a snaggle tooth now. The other night I was eating a delicious chicken tinga taquito, one of many I lovingly prepared for my family, and a filling in my front tooth came out. My children noticed first. The filling is missing, and now I look worse than usual. I probably swallowed that little bit of fake tooth with the taquito, and all I can do is feel the jagged edge with the tip of my tongue.

Something else: it was supposed to be a rainy day, but instead, it just rained in the morning and now it's sunny and 70. Glorious, if you will.

A third thing: I sent some chapters of my next project to my writers' group. I hope they like them. They probably will, and they'll probably have some good ideas about how to make them better. Making them better is a primary aim of mine.

Finally, the time has come to limit caloric consumption. At first, the quarantine seemed like a weird, no-man's land free-for-all. Whatever! We're in quarantine! Eat all the carbs and drink all the wine! Now, it's been like years in here. My stomach hurts a little and some of my clothes feel not the greatest. Maybe some better choices are in order. I run, but as I learned on The Biggest Loser, you can eat your way through any amount of exercise.

I guess that's it.

I haven't written here in a while. Did you know I've been blogging once a week over at The Debutante Ball?

That's all fine and good, but it's not the same as writing here as I have for the last sixteen years. Maybe now's the time, since I can't leave my house really. And none of us can.

The times are strange and scary. Here's what I haven't been doing:

• Brushing my hair.
• Wearing tops other than sweatshirts.
• Curling my eyelashes or applying mascara.
• Cleaning the basement.
• Cutting back on carbs.
• Culling the Beanie Baby collection.

When you're a teacher, you get a school picture packet like the kids do. You don't have to pay. The picture company just sends you an envelope with a 5x7 and several wallets.

Sometimes if the picture was good, I'd send a photo of myself to my mother. Because what else are you supposed to do with multiple school-style headshots when you're a full-fledged grown-up?

Also, most years, regardless of the quality of the photo and sometimes especially if it was bad, I would cut up the wallets, sign the backs ("Stay Super Sweet!" or "BFF!") and give them out to my friends. I did this in an ironic sort of way. Like, I knew it was funny to give out school photos when I was actually 27 or 33 or 41. People laughed. My school friends would cut up their own photos, give me 2x3s, and I'd put them on the bulletin board behind my desk.

I bring this up because it occurred to me the other night that handing people copies of my novel feels sort of like handing out school photos. Except unironically, but also uncomfortably. You hand a friend a book, and you're asking, Would you like a copy of something I did? Would you like to stare at it indefinitely? Would you like to spend eight hours with it and then have to pretend that you liked it? And, should I sign my name in the front? #BFF?

I'm looking forward to feeling less awkward about this. How long do you think it will take?

A new job is a big adventure!

But, I've thought a lot about it, and there's just not much to report about my new job as a novelist that would be thrilling and hold people's attention. But, never fear! Just because I'm guaranteed to be boring, that won't stop me.

Here are the details of what I do now that my job is to be writing a novel:

First, I get up really early, but not as early as before. Now that I don't have to go to school, the wake up is more like 5:30 or 5:45 instead of 4:45. Last week, my first order of business was beta reading. Beta reading is when you peruse and comment on someone's early draft. I have a few writing partners and critique groups, and I like to beta read for these people because it's fun and inspiring, and also because then my pals will feel compelled to beta read for me.

When in my family has left the building, I set my timer and make myself write or revise for a certain interval (30 or 35 minutes, usually), and then I take a short break. I might get some tea or a snack or fold a quick load of laundry. Then, I do that--the interval of work followed by the short break--again and again and again until I can stand it no longer.

Then, I go for a run and do other writing-related tasks like Instagram and Twitter and drafting my newsletter and answering and sending work-related emails.

And after that, I might go to Target and get a couple of ingredients for dinner. Finally, I drive carpool and cook and consult on homework and walk the dog.

That's it. That's the whole of the new job. Is it as glamorous and adventurous as you imagined?

The other night, I had dinner with an author I admire and a mutual friend of ours. The meeting was a thrilling proposition, as I've read everything this author has written, and I love her so, so much.

My family tried to pretend to be excited when I told them about the opportunity, even though none of them had heard of the person I was so keen to meet. This is not super surprising, as at least one of them thinks "reading is trash."
Thanks, Shef.

"Is it like when I got to meet Cizzorz?" Mac asked, referring to a YouTuber he loves.
"Yes," I said, emphatically, at which point he nodded in a way that communicated he had my back. Thanks, Mac.

In fact, I could imagine myself losing it at the dinner -- gushing my head off and crying from happiness. But this behavior wouldn't be cool. I felt it was important to be cool. After all, I'm a professional writer now, and who wants to have dinner with someone who's gushing and crying?

"I'm just going to be myself," I told Dan, when I'd decided.
"Oh no," he said. "Definitely don't be yourself. She'll hate you."
Thanks, Dan.

I'll have you know that I'm pretty sure I behaved reasonably at the dinner. I casually mentioned that I'd read several of her books, but I didn't recount the details I remember from each and every one of them. I only choked one time on a red pepper flake, and I prudently excused myself to the restroom to cough violently. I was sweaty, but I wore multiple layers so you couldn't tell. I tried to balance speaking and listening. I don't think either of my dinner companions realized how hard I was working to look and act like a normal person.

When I got home, Dan appraised me and asked, "Were you normal, or were you yourself?" I'm not sure any of us will ever know. And thanks, Dan.

I've had a rough couple of weeks with the writing. You know how sometimes things just flow, and then how other times it feels like a massive grind just to type a sentence or two?

I've been in a grind phase now for a couple of weeks, the exact weeks, as it happens, that I've been back in school from spring break. Luckily, there are a few strategies that we can use to press ever onward:

First of all, we can remember that almost all writers hate writing from time to time. You can find any number of quotes from famous and lauded writers about how awful it can be to write. I just found one from Anne Tyler, who is inarguably brilliant and has written 22 novels: "If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all." See? Even she just has to make herself do it.

Second of all, we can set a timer and just promise to work for a very short interval. I recommend something less than twenty minutes. I go for 15 first in the morning, and then I switch to 10. In between the intervals, I can do something else like make tea or do the New York Times mini crossword. Incidentally, if you like the NYTIMES mini crossword, could you let me know? We could be leaderboard friends. You know how I love a good leaderboard.

Third of all, we can remember that the first draft is always just objectively terrible. Write the worst thing you can possibly think of. That's how it's supposed to be. Jodi Picoult, author of 25 novels, says, "I may write garbage, but you can always edit garbage. You can't edit a blank page."

I literally repeat these things to myself every morning. Things like, "Just do it," and "Write badly!" Someday soon, I hope the writing comes more smoothly again. It probably will, and then it will inevitably get worse again. Oh well.

Next year, I'm not planning to be a teacher. Instead, I'm going to be a full-time writer. This decision, while not necessarily permanent, seems relatively life-changing in all kinds of big and small ways.

For instance, I'll be able to get my haircut on a weekday. Also, I can stay home if a repair person needs to make a service call. If I get sick, it won't require hours of work and worry to miss a day of school. Dan won't have to leave his job if there's an ortho appointment or the dog needs to go to the vet. We can do our Costco run on Monday mornings instead of during the apocalyptic weekend hours. It won't be hard to make dinner or exercise.

Perhaps most importantly, I have a fighting chance at finishing my second book by the deadline of January 1, 2020. That's the real reason why I'm making this change, but the whole family is kind of fantasizing about the aforementioned other benefits. Shef raised his arms in victory when I told him the plan, and I don't think he was necessarily thinking of my glorious hours in a sunny co-working space, writing snappy dialogue and clever plot twists.

Of course, there are downsides to the pivot, as well. Most notable is the fact that I like my job. Teaching is more of an identity than a profession. I've done it for nearly 20 years, for basically all of my working life. And, I recently changed jobs from secondary to elementary teaching. The switch has revitalized me and turned me into a learner all over again. I'm sorry to leave it just as I'm getting started, especially because searching for another new teacher so soon will inconvenience my colleagues.

But, being a full-time novelist for a year or two or maybe longer? That's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, don't you think? I've got to give it shot.

I've been reading Vikki Reich's daily November blog posts, and I've been thinking: how hard could it really be to just write something here once a week?

Vikki is a humor writer I admire, and her blog is really good. So, it's not as if I'm thinking: it'd be so easy to write something like Vikki every week. No, it's just that when I read her stuff I realize blogging has a lot of value, at least to me. I love reading about other people's lives, and I like going back through the archives here and reading about my own life.

Wouldn't it be nice to chronicle a little longer? Just keep track of the mundane?

In any case, here are a couple of things:

• We've been working on volume this week in third grade. As in, noise level. Previously, we've worked on stamina and coping skills. Those things are still high on our list of priorities, but this week I felt like a lot of people were yelling all the time. We've now worked on self-awareness around yelling. I come around and gently remind people about our goals. I say, "It sounds like you're yelling." We've achieved sporadic and marginal success in lessening the frequency of yelling.

• Mac has me obsessed with this podcast called Six Minutes. It's a story about a girl mysteriously lost at sea and the family who takes her in. Also, it's about helicopters and bad guys and hoverboards. It's transformed our commute. Each episode is--shocker--six minutes long. If I can't listen to my new Spotify playlist that includes "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" and has my family engaged in a whole new round of mom-mocking, then I choose Six Minutes.

Here's a picture of me practicing for tonight's show. My lip might be curling in an unattractive way. Photo Credit: Ann Marie Photography The lip curl is obviously not her fault.

In a few hours, I'll be reading a story called "Labor and Reunion" in a show called Listen to Your Mother. I wrote the story myself. It's a true one about being an adopted person and having two mothers. It's also about giving birth and being a mother myself.

That sounds like a lot, but my part only runs 4 minutes and 45 seconds, so there's no need to panic about length. And, I included a few marginally funny jokes. If you go to the show, please laugh in the appropriate places. You'll be able to tell, I think, that I tried for humor.

Of course, I'm nervous. Here are some particular fears:

• That I'll trip on the way to the stage, need to catch myself, and shove my butt toward the audience in an awkward way.
• That I'll choke on my spit.
• That my bra strap will fall down.
• That I'll lose my spot on the page and need to tell the large audience to "hold please."
• That the audience will be weirdly silent without any laughter or reaction at all. This has happened to me before at a Back-to-School Night, and it's unpleasant.

Forget the new project for a moment, I'm in agony here over the old one.

Before I tell about the agony, I just want to say that regardless of whatever happens, I already did the thing I've always wanted to do. Which is, I wrote a book. I've got a whole story. And, if I feel like it, I can leave the whole thing there. Done and check. Bucket-list item totally kicked.

It helped me the other day to remind myself of this reality. "I actually finished this, and I don't have to do anything with it ever again to make that more true."

But, of course, that's not me. I'll revise it and perfect it and take more feeback and get it as close to 100% right and perfect as it can be. Nothing's ever just finished. I both like and despise this enduring personal quality.

But anyway, I'm starting to understand why some writers refuse to let anyone they know IRL get eyes on their manuscripts. I've had some readers - my freelance editor and my critique group, and then some friends and family.

Here's what's happening: Everyone has different ideas about how to make it better. There's no consensus in the existing feedback from people who've read it front to back. Other people haven't finished it, and I just want to say: "Ok, you don't like it. That's awkard, but it's fine. Just stop reading, and let's move forward. Maybe my next book will be better!"

I sometimes do say this, and the friend is like, "Oh no, no! I like it! I mean, you did it! You wrote a book! I'm sorry, I'm totally going to finish it!" And that just makes me feel worse. Like forcing their way through the pages is a chore they have to complete out of loyalty to me. It's like the slow clap you might muster for the last-place finisher in a fun run. The ol', "Isn't is wonderful that she's out here?"

To be honest, I just want to cry a little. Put the book down. Go back to playing violin at a 7th-grade level. Remember my hobby before was playing violin? Although, at this point, it would take me a year or so to catch back up to the 7th-graders. It'd be me and the 4th graders in group lessons, and that might feel worse than being a mediocre wannabe novelist.

At least - at least! - I'm pretty good at my day job. We've always got middle school teaching to fall back on.

What's happening now is I'm trying to write a synopsis of the novel. It's a 500-word description of everything that happens, focusing on the seven anchor scenes or the Hero's Journey or whatever.

Let me just say that next time I try to write a novel (I hope I'm going to do it again), I'll write this dastardly little document first. There will be one main character (not two, like I have now), and that main character will zip through her story, hitting every blasted one of these seven anchor scenes. It will be completely satisfying, and the whole thing will work.

There will be high stakes that I plot ahead of time. I won't find myself, for instance, standing in the gym with a colleague during recess duty trying to identify the villain after I've already written a hundred pages.

Because retro-fitting that villain was hard.

Writing the synopsis is also hard, okay?
The little paragraphs are dis-jointy.
It feels like I should have two different synopses.
I found another template that I think would work better for multiple characters.
Maybe I should start the synopsis over?
The doubt is creeping in while I write, like, one sentence per hour.
But doubtLESS, I'll have to re-write that one sentence a million times.

Luckily, this situation led me to the comfort of my blog. Maybe the blog will revive now that the novel is mostly done? That would please me. I hope that's what happens.

In the sixth-grade writers workshop, we're deep into narrative writing. Kids have accumulated lots of small moment story seeds. They've chosen a favorite one, flash-drafted it, and now we're making sure we know not just what happens, but what the stories are REALLY about.

Did you know that writers plant the seeds of those deeper meanings throughout the piece, using tools like dialogue, symbols, precise actions, and internal thinking?

Anyway, it's true.

One young man has struggled a bit with his deeper meaning in recent days. In the story he likes best, he makes an amazing play on the football field.

"So, what about football is important to you?" I prompted in a whispered conference.

"It's fun," Brian said.

"Okay, but you've written in so much detail about setting up for the game, being with your teammates, the moment you really need to leave it all on the field - why does this all mean so much to you?"

It took a little back and forth, but eventually, we teased out some deeper meanings. It turns out, it's the feeling of camaraderie that gets to Brian. It's the constancy of football in his life, the tradition of it and the values of the game.

That was yesterday, and I was feeling good about Brian's progress. Today, I encouraged him to imagine a few different story arcs and get back to it, revealing that deeper meaning every step of the way.

But Brian wasn't into it. "My story doesn't have a deeper meaning," he said, loudly, so everyone could hear.

"You have a deeper meaning," I told him, quieter, modeling the appropriate volume. "We worked it out yesterday."

"All it is is that I had a huge sack." Loud and clear.

Giggles from Brian. Giggles from the audience he'd created.

"I had a huge sack," he repeated. "I mean, I had just a major sack."

We get it with the sacks, Brian! We all know you're not talking about felling the quarterback on the snap! We know you're not engaged in a rigorous exploration of themes!

"Look, Brian," I said pointing toward the spot I was hoping he'd settle into with his Chromebook and cutting to the chase. "We talked yesterday about the love of the game. I don't want to hear anymore about your scrotum and testicles."

There. But, that was a lot for the sixth graders in my room. One kid buried his whole head behind his screen, just losing it. I ignored all of them and played it straight.

"I want you to get back to your writing," I continued, turning away from Brian and hoping for the best. "You've got this."

Sankalpa comes in January, right when I'm doing one of the hardest, most labor-intensive things I do in my job. It's writing report card comments. It takes me forever to write the 250 words on each kid, telling each individual how much and why I value them and what exactly they could do to perform even better in English or Humanities class. I could do it faster, but then I'd do it worse; and that's totally not my way.

I like writing comments best when I spread the job out over a week. I write a quota each day, and then by the due date, I'm finished with no sweaty mad-rush panic. That was my plan this time around, and I was going to write 7 comments a day beginning on Monday. That would leave a bit of a log-jam for the weekend and MLK day, but nothing I couldn't handle with deep breathing and logic.

On Monday, I started, just as I planned, right after school. It was then that I remembered exactly how hard is is to start. The rhythm wasn't coming, and I remembered that in order to really do the job well, I had to look up work artifacts and discuss them specifically. Each comment was taking upwards of 15 minutes. After an hour (4 comments), I gave up for the day.

Not to worry! On Tuesday, I'd get back at it! Things would be easier! I'd cut the time per comment down to 12 minutes. Except on Tuesday, both of my co-teachers were absent and the spoken-word artist I'm hosting in 7th grade missed our class because she was stuck in traffic. I had two meetings, dinner to make, I had to wash my hair, and Shef had his choir concert.

I wrote zero report-card comments.

So, now I'm in the hole. The hole, however, is not that deep. I'm going to be open-hearted (It's a stretch, I know, to apply my Sankalpa to this situation) to the change in schedule. I'm going to take a deep breath and try again to get in the comment-writing zone.

You know what? This isn't that big of a deal. I think I can do it. I've done it before, and it was totally fine.

Looks like, every year at this time of year, I write about report-card comments.

Bragging as an inspirational work strategy. I'll try this today.

I'm not the only one in the household producing lots of text this month. Mac is also hard at it, especially now that, after about 45 minutes of frustration, I've managed to set up our home printer. I think we can agree, there's nothing like seeing your work in actual print.

"Oh, my, god, !!!!!!"
"What happens if we mess up when stopping a speeding bullet." I said with a worried voice.
"Well... you will die."
WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see, it's got a lot of adventure.

Mac's other project is writing magazines called Nature News. He and some of his pals produce these at school, and the librarian keeps them in a little periodical holder near a reading nook. Bless her heart.

So anyway, a couple of  nights ago Mac wrote what he thought was to be Nature News, Volume 8.  When I picked him up yesterday, though, be broke the bad news that all of his work was for naught.

"Someone else was already doing Volume 8," he told me.

"Oh, well," I said. "Hey, why don't you just go on your document and make yours Volume 12? Or a higher number?"

This solution hadn't occurred to him, and I was pleased that he found it to be favorable. Sure enough, I'm looking at Volume 12 right now. Here's a tidbit: "If you think that snakes are mammals than you are wrong, snakes are reptiles!!!!!"

Good to know.

Mac's fiction reached #1 on the library circulation list.

Two of Mac's movie reviews.

Second Quarter Review, featuring Mac's television recommendations.

Today begins National Novel Writing Month. That's a real thing. You go online and pledge to write 50,000 words in the month of November.

Obviously, I can't write 50,000 words in the month of November. That would be insane. That would be 1667 words per day.

But you know what? I can write 17500 words in the month of November, and that's what I've pledged to do, both here and on the NaNoWriMo website. That's just 500 words per day. Not even two paperback pages! That seems totally do-able.

This week, I moved my project to a book-writing software called Scrivener, which calculates paperback pages for you. Want to know how many I have right now? It's 94. #headedtowardhalfway

At the end of the month, I'll have 152 pages, which is definitely halfway and 50% more than I have right now. That's going to feel amazing. Once I get to that point, it would just be easier to finish the whole book because 152 pages?! Whose ever heard of abandoning a project after you've gotten that far.

Of course, now that I'm thinking about it, I myself have considered dropping out of marathons at mile 22 before. But you know what? I didn't do it. I hauled myself across the finish line in every single one of those marathons. And that's what I'm doing with this book. The book is - mark my words - getting written.

It's not an official challenge or anything, but in November I'm going to write here about writing. Like a little meta thing.  It'll probably be fun, and even if not, I'll be writing words. Practicing.

• "If I have too much going on in my outer life, there's no internal space to dream." This seems obvious, right?  But, sometimes I just take on more things without truly considering my priorities as a writer.  If I really want to finish my books, I have to stop that.
• On priorities, then: "If writing is a priority in your life, if you are truly committed to writing your book, you need to find enough inner stillness to capture original ideas."