Pitchapalooza ends tomorrow...

...just a few hours left to vote for Katherine Parker Richmond and The Door to Yesterday.

2015 may just be the Best. Year. Ever. (so far)

I admit it: I've been so busy writing fiction, I've ignored my poetry--to the extent that I didn't realize one of my poems got published over a year ago.

Back in 2012, I submitted "Lacuna" to the LDS women's magazine Segullah, and they accepted it for their last print issue. What I didn't realize is that they added it to their e-zine in February 2014. Check my sidebar for the link.

In other, even more fabulous news, my pitch for The Door to Yesterday was selected for NaNoWriMo's 2015 Pitchapalooza. If I win, I get a free 1-hour consultation with the Book Doctors, to help me hone my pitch to perfection as I begin my epic quest for a literary agent, which is slated for this spring. Please stop by Pitchapalooza 2015 and vote for my pitch. Then, you can say you knew me before I was famous.

Thanks in advance!

A late valentine

Mostly, I've been working like crazy on the latest round of revisions to The Door to Yesterday. My second group of readers got their comments to me at the end of January, and I've been incorporating their suggestions: a herculean task which has absorbed most of my creative attention for the last month...but here and there, other muses creep in and leave an offering.


Kiss

My lips against you
the crush of skin to skin
mine yielding to yours
as yours yields to mine.

A single act
becomes a metaphor:
we press together
in paradox
stronger as we
both give way.

A kiss is
love in a nutshell.

Winds of change

I've been quiet for too long, but I promise: I've been busy. Back in April I finished my first draft of The Door to Yesterday. Early in July, I had a second draft sufficiently ready to give to my initial bevy of beta-readers. While waiting for their feedback, I've been keeping myself busy by polishing my query letter and yes, migrating all book-related posts to my new blog.

Over the years I've grown too attached to this blog to give up on it just yet; if I post any poetry, it will be here, so don't give up on chicklegirl--not just yet.

School's out!

This school year has been one of the most challenging I can remember. Two years ago, when Jimmy was in second grade, it was particularly tough because I had two miscarriages between November and June, which laid me flat both physically and emotionally for a lot of months. But with Audrey starting Kindergarten, this was the first year with two kids at the school table, and wow, it was a big adjustment for all of us.

Thankfully, I've reached a place where I feel completely confident in both my teaching and organizational abilities, and so it gave me the chance to focus on stepping up my game and really engaging with my children on a new level.

When I gave Jimmy his last journal assignment for the school year, I asked him to write about his four favorite things he learned this year. I'm giving myself the same assignment, so in no particular order, here's what I learned during 2012-2013:

1) Old dogs can (and should) learn new tricks. All year long, I've been coming up against the realization that for so many reasons, I need to stop yelling at my kids. So, with a little help from an amazing gal known as Orange Rhino, I'm doing just that. I still struggle, I still yell, but I'm only a couple months into this new trick and already I'm yelling less. It's making a huge difference for me and my kids. Even better, I dialogue with them about why I'm doing what I'm doing and they're helping me while they see me modeling this willingness to change.

2) I'm the expert on my kids. I'm sure you're thinking, well, duh. But starting out with a virtual academy--while it's been lovely having someone to give us guidance and hold us accountable--has allowed me to defer to others as knowing better what my kids might need or what curriculum might be best or what learning plan we should follow. Over the past couple of years, I've been putting the pieces together and finally feeling like if we had to fly solo (which we may have to do because of legislation in Olympia that will reform alternative learning experiences like CVA), I could do it. I could do it because I know what areas my kids are strong in, what they struggle with, how they learn, and how to teach them.

3) Kids are spiritual creatures. This year I've shifted some of my focus to providing a spiritual touchstone as an integral part of our learning day. For us this means we have a devotional each morning before we start school work. Doing this helps me and the kids to be more calm and centered before we dive into doing stuff that challenges us and trying to get along with each other while everyone is working at the table together. We also created an art area and did a fine arts course as part of our curriculum this year. It was amazing: seeing art, learning about it, creating it. Art feeds the soul.

4) I love my children. I already knew this, but I found I need to keep learning it all over again, every day. Sometimes I get so focused in on what needs to be done--the lessons we need to get through--that I lose sight of the why. And then things get adversarial: when I'm focused on checking off the subjects on our list, instead of tuning in my children's needs and how I can meet them, it's me against them instead of us learning together. If I go on autopilot and forget to be mindful of that overarching feeling of love, it all falls apart. I fall apart.

And now, I'm off to make another list... of things to do over the summer!

NaPoWriMo #11: april

Spring Stream

Susurrating voice
water singing through stones will
coax the tender leaves.

NaPoWriMo #9: un-love poem

I needed a little inspiration this morning, so I headed over to Napowrimo.net again and found a prompt to write an un-love poem. A few days ago, I had started rolling ideas around in my head for a love poem (see the previous post), and I had to get that out of my system before I could write its opposite.


Untitled Un-love Poem

You are the barn cat
who steals into the house
just to leave her mark
who allows her kittens to suckle
only as she lies sleeping
who catches no mice
but expects to be fed
who bears litter after litter
after litter
who is no more or less to blame
than those who let you keep on
doing what you do.

NaPoWriMo #8: love poem

Your Hands

I love
how your hands
are you
nails trimmed close
but not bitten to the quick
skin firm over tendons, muscles
palms and fingers calloused but gentle
a splash of freckles that would be
invisible on skin less pale
boyish on hands less capable

how they make
a meal, a poem, a home
how they fix
a book, a bike, a skinned knee
how they smell like soap
or sawdust
or sometimes
vanilla

how they tear apart, strip away
and create something better than before
how they throw a child into the air
and cradle him back to earth
how they fix what is broken
and wait for what cannot be fixed

how they are always moving
holding, healing
touching, teaching

how they warm me when I am cold
lift me when I have fallen
and open a jar of pickles
when my own hands fail me.

NaPoWriMo #6-7: valediction

I've been sick for over a week now, and while I soldiered bravely on for the first few days, I finally ran out of poetic steam. I just needed a few less things to worry about, so I could rest up and recoup. Today I'm feeling about 75-80%, which is progress enough to put me back in the saddle.

That, and after reading the prompt from the good folks at Napowrimo.net, I had to get the images out of my head that kept me up last night a little longer than I would have liked. See, the prompt was "valediction", and when I had a chance to sit with it and allow images and ideas to unfold, the place it took me was a memory from last year, when Jim and I took the kids to Spokane for the day.

As we were driving home, we saw a mother duck trying to lead her ducklings across the freeway. I have no idea how she had gotten them to the other side, but by the time we saw them, most of her babies had already been hit by passing cars. In the moment we witnessed it, Jim and I made a mute agreement not to call the kids' attention to the scene. This was something they would not be ready to see. One of our favorite bedtime books has been Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey, a charming tale of a duck family who takes up residence in Boston. In one scene, the mother duck leads her little ones to safety under the watchful protection of police officers, who keep the cars at bay while the ducks cross the road to their home.

No, this was something my children would not be ready to see.

So, I went at this poem from two different directions: first, a tanka; then, free verse. For now, both are untitled.

***

Mother duck: a brown
buoy bobs in a sea of cars with
no way to guide her
small fleet to safety in the
tempest of rush-hour traffic.

***

She waits on the left shoulder
her fuzzy brood still strung across the median
then, when they have caught up
she darts out into the roadway
and one
             by one
                        the ducklings
                                              follow her
within seconds, the first two are crushed
by rush-hour traffic
suddenly, the mother duck
seems aware of the danger
when it is already too late
when five more downy, flightless babies
have already followed her
another down
then another.

The cars in front of us slow, briefly
and as if in slow motion
I see it unfolding:
dappled brown wings flapping in panic
and a scattered row of small bodies
flattened into the asphalt
feathers ruffled by the breezy wake
of passing cars
I grab my husband’s arm
and he swerves
to miss the last three ducklings.

For the rest of the ride, I’m stricken
tears falling uncontrollably
for the mother
now standing back beside the road
unable to leave her fallen babies
unable to lead the ones who still live
back to her nest.

NaPoWriMo #5: insomnia

Sleepless

Memories tinctured with moonlight
their silver-gilt edges curled, spindled
dog-eared pages of life’s volume
long forgotten on a shelf
until a pale beam falls across its spine
and sleepless, I recollect scenes
that seem no more than dreams
grown too faded to compete
with the shiny present’s noise and brilliance,
but in this place between waking and sleep
the past is now
and I remember.