The secret reason behind why I didn't post yesterday.

You may or may not have noticed that I didn't post yesterday. Unannounced. For the first time ever. Rest assured, there was a good reason.

You see, early Sunday morning I got a call from a dear friend who had tickets to the Red Carpet at the Oscars. When an unfortunate incident happened involving a sick cat, a disgruntled doorman, and an angry mother-in-law, she could no longer use her ticket, so she gave it to me.

Which, of course, I gladly accepted! I hopped on the next plane to LA and headed straight for the Red Carpet. I didn't bother to change first, because there really wasn't much time. Plus, red: timeless. It's not like people are going to be looking at these pics years from now, thinking about how red is SO out.

I was TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY EXCITED to be at the Oscars! I couldn't help but let my excitement show!

(Except then they corralled me and stuck me in a seat, until they could figure out why some dude was sitting in the seat I was supposed to be in.) Oh, my gosh. You wouldn't believe how fascinating those Oscar statues are! They sparkle like a vampire in sunlight. No, more like someone spilled glitter on them.

Eventually, I started rubbing myself against the statue, so I could sparkle, too. And that's when they moved me closer to my seat. I was sure they'd figure out the seating thing soon. In the mean time, though, I had to admit: I had a great view of the red carpet. (I don't care what they say about your dress looking a tad matronly, Sarah Hyland. I think it looks fabulous.)

It was nice, and all, sitting right there. But not as much fun as I had when I was out in the mix of things. Plus, those actors can really strike a pose! I decided to try my hand at it.

I only got in one pose, though, before they worked out the seating thing. The seat was great and all, except for the wall between me and the actors, of course. But the person sitting next to me was FASCINATING! I chatted a lot.

And then you wouldn't believe who I saw! That one guy from Napoleon Dynamite! I swear, he's right over there. I am staring at him right now!

Man, I sure wish the cameraman would've gotten the two of us together in the same picture. That would've been awesome.

So, as you can see, between the jet lag and the flash photography sickness, there was really no way I could post yesterday.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.







And many thanks to Erin Summerill Photography for convincing me to into the variety of poses so conducive to photo bombing, in the same photo shoot that not only netted me my profile picture, but the spread of family pictures hanging on the wall in my home.

Quotes and Cookies: Fail.

I just got the Kreativ Blogger award! (Don't you just love how creative that spelling is? :)) Thank you so much, Commutinggirl!

"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign
you're not doing anything very innovative."

~Woody Allen

Failed at anything lately? Good for you!! Give yourself a pat on the back, grab a cookie (make sure you do it in that order, lest ye get powdered sugar on your back), and go out and try something else innovative.

Photo Credit and Recipe Link from Secret Life of a Chef's Wife

Have a fabulous Friday and an amazing weekend, everyone!

I've Got a Theory: The Need for Stories

It's Tuesday, which means I've got a theory! Funny how that always happens on Tuesdays...

So here's my theory:

EVERYONE has a need for stories.

I work at an elementary school, and a particular group of sixth graders from three years ago were especially memorable.

One group of girls, determined to kill off a section of grass by year's end, sat in a circle in the exact same spot each recess and chatted. Every so often, I'd wander near and eavesdrop. I'd catch things like "You are NOT going to believe what he did!" and "Are you serious? That's CRAZY! So what did you do?"

A second group of kids always played a game that seemed equal parts Dungeons & Dragons, and every fantasy book they'd ever read. They would decide what kind of character they were going to play, what special abilities they'd have, what the epic good-versus-evil fight would be, and then they'd act it all out.

One group traipsed to the ends of the playgrounds and fields and back, while the other sat unmoving. They both did the exact same thing, though. They created stories.

At a writers' conference a couple years ago, Tracy Hickman talked about this same thing. About how, when we see something with an incomplete story, we fill in the gaps. And it's true! If we walk into our favorite grocery store and see someone sitting on the sidewalk with their back against the building, face tear-stained, clothes nice but mud-crusted and torn, our minds start forming a story as to what happened.

(Right? Did you start making up what had happened to this person?)(And if you thought of something interesting, I want to hear about it in the comments!)

Tracy Hickman even took it one step further. He asked us to imagine a world where there were no stories. [Pause... pause...] Then he said, "In your head, you just started writing the story of the place with no stories, didn't you?"

BUT.

Think of the story you thought of with the person at the grocery store. And about the world with no stories. Those girls killing the grass weren't talking about the square root of pi. And the D&D kids weren't talking about elves skipping through the forest. So the REAL theory is:

Everyone has a need for DRAMATIC stories.

Some people definitely have a greater need than others. (Writers probably have the greatest need of all!) But we don't want those stories to be things we experience all the time. We want stories outside our range of normal. We want them to be the things we either don't experience often, or the things we'd never experience on our own.

People NEED stories. So how freaking cool is it to be a writer?

Just Jump

Have I mentioned before that my brothers were crazy daredevils?

So on Friday nights when my parents went on dates, we'd party down. Because that's what you're supposed to do when you're parents are gone, right? We lived in a split-level house. (If you're unfamiliar with a split-level, you walk in the front door and are immediately faced with a half-flight of stairs leading up, and a half-flight of stairs leading down.) One of our favorite things to do was to gather every couch cushion and pillow from the whole house (with eight of us, it amassed to a decent amount), and pile them at the bottom of the lower flight of stairs.

We didn't have a railing between the upper flight of stairs and the lower--- instead, we had a half-height wall. And lemme tell you, that wall was way easier to climb on top of than any railing would've been. (I think my parents might've planned on our eventual antics when they designed the house. That's as good as permission, isn't it?)

So, with an easy to climb half-wall, we had no choice. We had to climb on it. And we had to jump ten feet down to the huge pile of pillows.

Just because we grew up in a family of daredevils didn't make that first jump each week easy, though. Every single time it was scary. It was SO HIGH. And it was hard to tell if we had fluffed and stacked and prepared the pillows well enough. And there was the possibility of not landing on our feet and getting hurt. (And actually, there was the possibility that if we sat crouched on the wall long enough, contemplating the jump, someone would "help" us make the decision to jump.) And there was the heart-clenching fear when we free-fell to the bottom.

And yes, there was the exhilaration of it all.

Because do you know what? Our ordinary life was just ordinary. Sure, things happened all the time like they do to everyone, but our Friday night jumps were something WE controlled. A craziness to our life that we chose (except in instances where we were "helped" to choose).

Jumping off that wall is kind of like jumping into a huge story line. Jumping into that larger-than-life, huge conflict / consequences story is scary every single time. You prepare by practicing and reading all about plotting, but you never know if you prepared enough until you jump in. Sometimes you may not want the huge story line, but your characters themselves will "help" you make the decision to jump. After all, they like to be in control of the jump! There will be heart-clenching fear. And there's a possibility that you'll not land on your feet. You might get hurt.

But do you know what? Without that hugeness to your plot, your story is just ordinary.

And along with the huge story line comes the exhilaration of it all. For you and your readers.

And that's what it's really all about.

I'll admit. Of all the things that require bravery that I mentioned on Monday, this one might be my hardest. I have to amp up my conflict with each round of revisions, because it is never huge enough at the beginning. Do you ever have that problem? If you don't, how do you push beyond the limits to come up with a huge storyline from the beginning?
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