I gives me great pains to say, but I have, it seems, been beaten by not one, but TWO contenders! *gasp* 

So congratulations to Nina and Joanne!

Here’s the shakedown:

The winner is denoted with a * and my picks are in bold.

Best Picture: “Avatar,” “The Blind Side,” “District 9,” “An Education,” * “The Hurt Locker,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Precious,” “A Serious Man,” “Up,” “Up in the Air”

 Actor: * Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”; George Clooney, “Up in the Air”; Colin Firth, “A Single Man”; Morgan Freeman, “Invictus”; Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”

 Actress: * Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”; Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”; Carey Mulligan, “An Education”; Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”; Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”

 Supporting Actor: Matt Damon, “Invictus”; Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”; Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”; Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”; *Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”

 Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, “Nine”; Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”; Maggie Gyllenhaal, “Crazy Heart”; Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”; *Mo’Nique, “Precious”

 Directing: James Cameron, “Avatar”; *Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”; Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”; Lee Daniels, “Precious”; Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air”

 Adapted Screenplay: “District 9,” “An Education,” “In the Loop,” *“Precious,” “Up in the Air”

 Original Screenplay: *“The Hurt Locker,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “The Messenger,” “A Serious Man,” “Up” (AND HOW IS IT A WRITER MISSED BOTH OF THE WRITING CATEGORIES???? I DEMAND A RECOUNT!)

 Animated Feature Film: “Coraline,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “The Princess and the Frog,” “The Secret of Kell,” *“Up”

 Original Song: Almost There, Princess & the Frog; Down in New Orleans, Princess & the Frog; Loin de Paname, Paris 36; Take it All, Nine; *The Weary Kind, Crazy Heart

 The two reigning winners only missed one and the same category—Original Song. Congratulations ladies! Enjoy the movie!

(And in an informal category, I would also like to pick Demi Moore’s blush-colored Versace dress as my favorite, and a tie between Charlize Theron’s cinnabon-breasted number and Zoe Saldana’s bizarre exploding-skirt getup as my least favs.)

Attention all you movie lovers/film buffs/moving image enthusiasts/filmophiles (is that even a word? Like bibliophile, or xenophile?) Anyway…it’s time for our version of the Super Bowl!

It’s Kali’s Oscar Pool 2010!

Here’s how it works: Give me your predictions for the top ten categories—best picture, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, directing, adapted screenplay, original screenplay, animated feature film and song. I will buy a movie ticket to the theater of choice, anywhere in the continental United States, for anyone who ties with or… gasp…beats my prediction results this year. And let me warn you, I have an EXCELLENT record. I would’ve been a champion multiple times if this were a Fantasy Football league. For nerds. (And please don’t write to tell me that I am a nerd. I already know this and find redundancy annoying.)

 You MUST make your predictions through the comment section on my blog (and sign up for said blog, if you haven’t done so already.) Entries on Facebook alone will NOT count. Just type the list of 10 nominations you’re predicting to win only, and you MUST wager on all ten. You may also send them through my email, kalivanbaale@msn.com, if you want to cast a blind ballot. Polls close Sunday, March 7th at 5pm.

The Oscar telecast is next Sunday, March 7^th and I’ll announce the results of my predictions and those of the winners, if there are any , on my blog, Monday, March 8^th. I’ll then purchase and mail tickets to the winners by Friday, March 12^th.

If no entries beat or tie with mine, then I’ll just gloat.

 For authenticity’s sake, I’ve already sent my top-secret predictions to a bookie in Wisconsin (my friend Jackie) and she has agreed to validate the results. And promises not to break anyone’s legs.

The nominations:

Best Picture: “Avatar,” “The Blind Side,” “District 9,” “An Education,” “The Hurt Locker,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Precious,” “A Serious Man,” “Up,” “Up in the Air”

Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”; George Clooney, “Up in the Air”; Colin Firth, “A Single Man”; Morgan Freeman, “Invictus”; Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”

 Actress: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”; Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”; Carey Mulligan, “An Education”; Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”; Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”

 Supporting Actor: Matt Damon, “Invictus”; Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”; Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”; Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”; Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”

 Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, “Nine”; Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”; Maggie Gyllenhaal, “Crazy Heart”; Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”; Mo’Nique, “Precious”

 Directing: James Cameron, “Avatar”; Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”; Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”; Lee Daniels, “Precious”; Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air”

 Adapted Screenplay: “District 9,” “An Education,” “In the Loop,” “Precious,” “Up in the Air”

 Original Screenplay: “The Hurt Locker,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “The Messenger,” “A Serious Man,” “Up”

 Animated Feature Film: “Coraline,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “The Princess and the Frog,” “The Secret of Kell,” “Up”

 Best Original Song: “Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog”;  “Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog”; “Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36”; “Take It All” from “Nine”; “The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”

 Good Luck, y’all! (You’re gonna need it!)

My heartfelt thanks to Wildacres for this amazing opportunity!

www.wildacres.org

This is the place!

I’m very excited to announce that successful, local ghostwriting entrepreneur Catherine Knepper and I have teamed up to offer a three-hour intensive seminar on the process of getting published. Intended for writers of adult fiction and non-fiction, the class will cover essential information such as crafting a knockout query letter, properly formatting your manuscript, knowing your genre, the basics of writing a synopsis (fiction) or a book proposal (nonfiction), the pros and cons of traditional publication vs. self-publishing, and finding an agent. There will even be time in class to receive feedback on your book’s pitch.

The cost of the seminar is $125, which includes a $25 non-refundable registration fee and a course packet of valuable writing resources and guides. Space is limited, so register now.

When: Saturday, February 27th, 2010. 2-5 pm

Where: Smokey Row Coffee House, 1910 Cottage Grove Ave, Des Moines, IA  www.smokeyrowcoffeehouse.com

How: Contact me at kalivanbaale@msn.com or Catherine at catherine@catherineknepper.com to register.

 Why? This would be why:

Two weeks ago, our mailbox was hit for the FIFTH time in the seven short years we’ve lived here (two incidents were in the same week and two others were by members of the same neighboring family.) The most recent was a vicious attack by a snowplow. Our poor mail receptacle, it seems, has been cursed. Everyone in our family knows the bad mojo it gives off, and we all act accordingly. Run to the box, snatch the mail out, and run away. Fast. No loitering. No dilly-dallying. Wait for the bus on the opposite side of the driveway.

Some days, especially recently, I feel like we’re being smothered by all the broken crap around our house. Like my husband is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I’m Hermey the Elf, and we’re banished to the island of misfit toys (the blizzard outside my window as I type this is a nice touch.)

The evidence of our island existence is mounting.

 RIP dishwasher. You never did live up to your true potential.

Vacuum, while you’re technically not dead, you’ve lost your power to suck. And in a house with three children, makes my life, ahem, suck.

YOU, dear snow blower, have disappointed me most of all. It’s January. IN IOWA. WT*……..????????

I may not be a dentist trapped in the body of an Elf, but I get you, Hermey. I get you…………..

 Totally appropriate quotes for the week:

“There seems to be so much more winter than we need this year.” –Kathleen Morris

“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.” –Carl Reiner

“I’m not going to vacuum ‘til Sears makes one you can ride on.” –Roseanne

The following is from the article “How to Get Unstuck” by author Dennis Cass in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Poets&Writers:

An experiment: You enter a large room that’s empty except for two pieces of string dangling from different points on the ceiling. Your instructions are to get hold of a piece of string in each hand, but after grabbing the first string you quickly learn that the other is too far away. A scientist comes into the room and hands you a pair of pliers. You try using the pliers to seize the second string, but as much as you lean and stretch, it remains just out of reach.

The solution (and there is one), you ask? Tie the pliers to the second string and give it a gentle shove, walk back to the first string, take it in hand, and wait for momentum to bring the pliers, thus the other string, to you.

Folks, at this very moment, I’m that moron in the room leaning and stretching with the pliers in my hand to reach the other string. In writing circles, this could be a metaphor for an affliction called “writer’s block.” I prefer to call it “the dumb.” As in, I can’t brain today, I have the dumb.

It’s that time of year when I’m most likely to suffer from the dumb. The holidays have sucked me mentally and emotionally dry, my kids have been cooped up with me during their school break, and I haven’t written a word in weeks. I’m cranky, tired and the writer part of my brain has gone rusty. Just today, I sat staring at the same scene of my story for twenty minutes, debating whether or not to write the dialogue of a telephone conversation or just narrate it in a few quick sentences. Dialogue or narrate. Dialogue or narrate.

Who cares. Time for some chocolate and a good Law and Order rerun on cable. 

I don’t get “writer’s block” in the traditional sense. I don’t get to the point where I can’t form a sentence or worse, completely run out of ideas to finish my story. As I said, I suffer from a condition I like to call “the dumb,” which means I’m forging sentences, composing scenes and laying out the plot, but everything just sounds utterly and completely, well, dumb. And I don’t mean dumb in the I’m-having-an-attack-of-confidence kind of way. I mean dumb as in my brain is just engaged enough to move my character from point A to point B on the page, but not engaged enough to make the journey interesting. Or even care if said character makes it to point B. I’m just going through the motions.

It’s like that scene from the movie A League of Their Own where Geena Davis is the catcher of a female baseball team and she goes out to talk to the struggling pitcher during a bad inning. Tom Hanks, who plays the coach, joins the discussion and asks Geena Davis point blank if the pitcher should be pulled. Geena finally relents and says, “She’s toast. She’s throwing grapefruit.”

Yep. That’s how it feels. I’m throwing grapefruit.

A young writer friend of mine came up with a genius recipe for those of us who suffer from The Dumb.

You’ll need:

3 good books

1 piece of paper

2 liters of Coke

1 pillow

1 pencil

3 Hershey bars

1 2X4

Step 1:  Read your first book from cover to cover.

Step 2:  If Step 1 fails, repeat with the other two books.

Step 3:  If Steps 1-2 fails, take the pencil and write every plausible (and implausible) idea that comes into your head on the piece of paper.

Step 4:  If Steps 1-3 fails, eat your Hershey bars and drink at least 1 liter of Coke.

Step 5:  If Steps 1-4 fails, beat yourself in the head with the 2X4.  Repeat until successful.

Step 6:  If all else fails, bury your face in the pillow and scream. 

Sage words, Nathan. Should get my pair of pliers swinging any day now.

Happy New Year All!

My New Year’s Resolution: No more grapefruit! 

Cross mechanical pencils and Bic Atlantis pens

Bright colored post-its and good critiques from friends

Composing a sentence that absolutely sings

These are a few of my favorite things

Cream-colored journals and dark chocolate toffee

Notebooks and datebooks and French vanilla coffee

Royalty checks that fly with the moon on their wings

These are a few of my favorite things

Editors in white dresses with “I LOVE IT!” satin sashes

Good reviews that stay on my nose and eyelashes

Productive white winters that write into spring

These are a few of my favorite things

When the rejections come

When the critiques sting

When I’m feeling bad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don’t feeeeeeeeeeel soooooo baaaaaad!

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!

            My personal station KFKD comes and goes with some level of predictability. For instance, when I first get an idea for a story, an I’m-on-to-something-big-idea, the right speaker is playing, telling me things like, “Good gravy, you’re so freaking smart! How has no one else ever thought of this before? It will be brilliant. It will be GENIUS! The Pulitzer committee won’t be able to get the prize into your hands fast enough!”

            Then I start actually writing on said story. By page 50, the left speaker has taken over, saying things like, “Good gravy, this story is so stupid. You’re already stuck on chapter seven with no idea what to say next. Your characters are sketchy. Your plot is convoluted. Your prose is stale and unoriginal. You write too slowly. You’ll finally be exposed as talent-less. AND your hair looks like crap today.”

            Then I finish the first draft and set it aside for a mandatory breathing period, in which the right speaker returns for the honeymoon, saying things like, “Well, you saved that runaway train before it crashed into the station! Really pulled it altogether in the eleventh hour! Only a writer with true, raw talent could bring this story to fruition. There may have been some rough patches along the way, but true brilliance such as yours ALWAYS TRIUMPHS!”

            Said mandatory breathing period ends. I return to the manuscript to start revisions. Hello, left speaker, the honeymoon is o-v-e-r. “Oh. My. God. THIS is what I just spent the last year and a half of my life writing?!!! Total drivel? Incoherent, inconsequential, coma-inducing garbage? A monkey could’ve wiped his butt, smeared it on the computer screen and come up with something better than this! AND your hair looks like crap today.”

            This would be the point where I’ve learned not only to switch channels, but shut the radio off altogether. A total survival tactic so I don’t give up and quit writing altogether. I often turn to the wise words of much more talented writers than myself. Some of my favorites:

“When asked, ‘How do you write?’ I invariably answer, ‘One word at a time.’”

—Stephen King

“For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.”—Ernest Hemingway

“When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me and I know I can never do it. This happens every time. Then gradually I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all I can permit myself to contemplate and I eliminate the possibility of never finishing.”

–John Steinbeck

If giants like King, Hemingway and Steinbeck have listened to station KFKD, then maybe there’s hope for a peasant like myself. In writing and even in life, I can switch the channel or turn the radio off, bravely face the steaming pile of poo that is my story, and take it one word, one page, then one chapter at a time. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find some of that Hemingway luck and write better than I actually can.

What I’m reading right now: Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow

Words that make me laugh: “It’s a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.” –Erle Stanley Gardner

My favorite Thanksgiving quote: “What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets.  I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?” –Erma Bombeck

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I’m often asked what made us decide to adopt, and moreover, adopt internationally. I never feel like I’ve got a straight, easy answer. Every family’s decision and journey to adoption is different. Ours was certainly filled with plenty of twists and turns. The summer of 2005, with two healthy biological boys, my husband and I decided to try for a third. Boy or girl, we didn’t care. We just knew we wanted one more to properly fill out the craziness of our household.

Alas, heartbreak and disappointment abounded with two miscarriages, my third overall. It was an agonizing decision, but I couldn’t go through it again. I was done trying. We’d be a family of four. Only…we didn’t feel like a family of four. It was a nagging sense, like an unfinished sentence about our lives. After a time, my husband and I started to talk about how, in the early days of our marriage, we’d both mentioned how much we’d like to adopt a child. I generally don’t like to discuss our three lost babies, but I did, in that moment, have a strange sense that maybe we’d suffered those losses in order to find the child we were meant to have, wherever he or she was.

We quickly settled on international adoption, attracted to the idea of bringing another culture into our family, and simply followed our gut when we chose India. A year later, we had a referral for a little girl in an orphanage in Pune, a city where my husband’s company just happened to have an office. And this little girl just so happened to have the name Gauri—as in Goddess Gauri—a nurturing form of the Goddess Kali. And if that weren’t enough, it just so happened that our Gauri was born July 16, 2005, five days before I lost the second baby, and she was relinquished by her birth mother in mid-September, five days before I lost the third baby. This wasn’t answering a call; it was practically a shovel whack over our heads. And here we are, two years later. As a writer, I sometimes can’t find the words to express what adopting Gauri has been like. Wonderful. Amazing. Frustrating. Fun. Hard. Scary.

But…oh, so worth it. 

In the spirit of National Adoption Month, I recently read two really sweet books about adoption. The first, Red in the Flower Bed: An Illustrated Children’s Story About Interracial Adoption by Andrea Nepa, is a beautifully illustrated picture book about a seed that drops from a poppy flower onto ground too hard for it to grow. Soon the wind and change of seasons carries the seed to a garden where it is planted and soon blooms into a brilliant red poppy—the missing color to finally complete the garden family’s rainbow. (Short intermission as I dab my eyes.) The poetry of Red in the Flower Bed is simple but charming, and an easy way to introduce the concept of family diversity to a little one. An added bonus—a portion of each sale benefits Paul’s Kids Vietnam Children’s Charity.

The next book, Second Chance: How Adoption Save a Boy With Autism and His Shelter Dog by Sandra J. Gerencher, is told through the eyes of Chance, a rescued Rottweiler German Shepherd mix, and the bond he forms with Ryan, an adopted special needs boy who befriends him. Sensitively written with softly blended watercolor photos of the author’s loved ones, the story shows the positive effects of a stable, compassionate and loving home. An added bonus for pet lovers—a portion of each sale benefits the Human Society. Both paperbacks from Tribute Books retail for $12.95 and can be purchased on Amazon.com, and make great gifts for any newly adoptive family.

So here’s three cheers for National Adoption Month—whether you’re in the process of doing it, have done it, are thinking about it, or just plain think it’s great!

And here’s one extra cheer for my little red poppy.

“I got more children than I can rightly take care of, but I ain’t got more than I can love.”

 –Ossie Guffy

Observe, Exhibit A:

That’s me, front row on the right in the orange dress at my aunt and uncle’s wedding. Apparently, I’m not only deeply disturbed by my sherbert-colored attire, but also by my little Amish-boy hairstyle. A classic late bloomer, even my HAIR was slow to develop.

Exibit B:

This is sometime in the mid-80’s, as you can see by my proper feathering technique.

 Exhibit C:

This would be a “take-no-prisoners” kind of look–big hair, big hoops and big braces.

Exhibit D:

My senior picture and the general style I wore for most of high school–the brown, curly football helmut.

Exhibit E:

Full, frizzy and fat with child. Perhaps my theory was that bigger body=bigger hair?

Exhibit F:

My Sinead stint. It was a dare. And believe it or not, my husband was the one who shaved it. (But how cute, I match my kid!)

Exhibit G:

Still growing it out from the shaving incident. I’d just had a baby and apparently, some really bad highlights (and possible case of the flu by the looks of it?)

Exhibit H:

Okay, not really my hair, but still a funny picture.

Exhibit I:

Whoa. Step AWAY from the flat iron before somebody gets hurt.

And last, a picture of my hair today: 

As you can see, it was, um, taken from a really good angle.  Happy hair day to all!

Words to think about: “If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in a library?” –Lily Tomlin

What I’m reading right now: A Country Called Home by Kim Barnes