…of which forced me to use my Mean Mom Voice before 9am.

 To top it all off, this school delay ran into a previously scheduled orthodontist appointment for kid #1, and while I was scrambling around to reschedule said appointment, a snowplow took out our mailbox. Our brand new, two-month-old mailbox.

Did I mention it was the FIRST SNOW OF THE SEASON? And did I mention this was the SIXTH time our mailbox has been hit in nine years? (Wait…yes, yes I have previously documented the dangerous life of our mail receptacle, in this blog.)

So, it’s nearly two o’clock in the afternoon and half of my day has been eaten up by this series of unfortunate events, all caused by snow that has already melted. Some days as a writer, the only words I have consist of four letters.

So it’s been a rough couple of months at my house and my writing has been on the brink. On the brink of what? Depends on the day. Of a breakthrough. Of genius. Of total collapse. This semester of grad school has pushed me harder than I’ve ever been pushed as a writer and the jury is still out as to which “brink” I’m being pushed. 

 Throughout each term, my classmates scattered around the country keep in close touch by email and Facebook. I’ve recently exchanged several whiny messages with my good writer friend Donald Quist (DQ—the first friend I made at VCFA after he offered carry my monster suitcase up three flights of stairs.) This morning DQ responded to one of my particularly whiny emails with some amazing words of encouragement and a reminder that I’m a Badass. He then sent me a link to my theme song, the awesomely Badass song “How You Like Me Now” by The Heavy:

(Listen here) 

The story behind all this started when DQ and I were walking down the street one afternoon during residency and he asked me what the hell I was thinking about because I looked and walked like I was ready to pull a knife on someone. I walked, he said, like a Badass.

Now, I should tell you that Donald is one of those people who you don’t have to know very long before he pulls out these ridiculously profound and disarming moments that completely take you by surprise and temporarily rock your world. (Like the time I was complaining to him about how tiring residencies are and how exhausting I found it to be social and witty all the time. He responded without missing a beat, “Of course you’re tired. You’re an introvert always working hard to be an extrovert. That’s exhausting.” See, disarming.) And as flattering as it was to be told I walked like a Badass, I don’t see it myself. A tired, slightly grouchy 36-year-old over-worked mother of 3 who is usually late for wherever she is going, sure. But Badass sounds way cooler.

 Anyway, his question on the street got me to admit that I often hear this song, “How You Like Me Now” in my head when I walk. Instead of telling me it was weird or I was an idiot, he said, again without missing a beat, “Why that song? Because you’re always trying to prove yourself, aren’t you?”

I HATE IT when he does that.

And I hate it because it’s true. Growing up, I was a slightly poor farm kid with bad teeth and even worse hair. I was never the smartest or prettiest or outstanding in anything I did. I was perfectly average and, I perceived, forever underestimated. As an adult, it’s developed this never-ending feeling that I’ve got to put up a fight in order to prove myself. It’s a weight that sits on my shoulder every minute of my life, especially as a writer.

Maybe everyone feels like this in some way, or maybe no one feels like this. But what Donald reminded me of this morning after my recent bout of whining, is that in the often brutal world of writing—and life in general—you’ve sometimes got to walk like a Badass and hear a killer theme song in your head to prove everyone, maybe even yourself, wrong. 

Words to live by:

“If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying ‘Here comes number seventy-one.’ ” –Richard M. Devos.

Our Ronald McDonald House

Since the first week of June, my eldest son, age 11, has been in an 8-week pediatric feeding disorders program to treat major food allergies, a throat disease, and to basically relearn how to eat. The clinic he attends is in Omaha, nearly two and a half hours away, so we’ve been staying with him at a Ronald McDonald House. 

Before this summer, I had, of course, heard of the Ronald McDonald House program and seen the little cardboard boxes to collect soda can tabs. But I’d never really given much thought to it all. In truth, I really hate McDonalds’ food. Their burgers and fries always make me desperately sick to my stomach and it annoys me that they so aggressively peddle crappy, cheap toys alongside such unhealthy food. And sometimes my liberal bleeding heart gets the best of me and I lapse into clichéd rants about how massive chains keep driving out the local businesses and how can anything else compete with dirt cheap prices and blahblahblah.

Check in with me at this very moment, though, and I’m singing a different tune. In the six weeks we’ve lived in the Omaha Ronald McDonald House, I’ve been astonished—and humbled—by how much this organization does. First, it’s an enormous and very nice building we’re staying in, generously constructed by a local builder fifteen years ago. Guests have bedrooms with comfortable linens, television, phone and a fully stocked private bathroom. There are large entertainment areas offering stereos, DVD players, and video game systems. Toy rooms, laundry rooms, outdoor playgrounds. Computer rooms, lending libraries, daily newspapers, and a pantry of toiletries and dried goods. We’re free to use the enormous kitchen area whenever we need, although rotating community volunteers provide full dinners every night.

Every. Single. Night.

And the price for all these services? Nothing. All the Ronald McDonald House asks is that you do a meager chore once a day and donate whatever, if anything, you feel you can financially afford. Astonishing.

Right now there are approximately 20 families with hospitalized children staying in the facility. Our family has grown particularly close to one little girl, Jana, a 3-year-old from Saudi Arabia, who had a full pancreas, liver and intestinal transplant when she was an infant. She recently returned to Omaha when her health began to fail—her body rejecting an organ is an ever-present threat.

We visit with her father and aunt (her mother is back home with the other children) as much as we can with the language barrier. But when I saw Jana’s father at dinner tonight, at the end of another long day spent at the hospital, no translation was necessary to understand the expressions on his face. Worry. Exhaustion. Fear. But also gratitude for a hot meal, a place to rest, and company. 

My point is that despite all the faults of a giant chain like a McDonald’s or a Wal-Mart or a Walgreen’s, I have to grudgingly admit that these companies do help communities. Local businesses, for all the wonderful smaller-scale services they provide, would never be capable of building a small hotel to house and feed 20 families with sick children, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

So the next time you drink a soda or a beer and unconsciously pop the tab off, save it. Drop it into one of those little cardboard houses that are located in many schools, churches, libraries, gas stations, and of course, McDonald’s restaurants. 

Those little tabs are doing far more than you’ll ever realize. I promise.

Jana, our new friend.

A few weeks ago there was a big dustup in the writing world over a writer who responded to a negative online review of her book. You can read the review and thread of comments in all its cringe-worthy glory here: http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html (Dear Lord, I do love a good public implosion.) Anyway, it got the members of my critique group talking about peronsal experiences with online reader reviews–getting a 2 star rating from someone before the book is even released in any form by the publisher, stupid review titles, complaints that the font is too small in the book–and I had to admit that browsing through Amazon.com reader’s reviews is a bit of a twisted hobby for me. Hey, at least I’m not surfing porn.

Every published author has had to suffer through a bad review with a measly one or two star rating. As an author, I hate seeing those particularly brutal reviews whether they’re for me or someone else. We’re all in the same boat of suffering as far as I’m concerned. But every once in a while, I’ll come across a review in particular that is just downright funny. I thought I’d share some of my favorites (and note, I have not altered a SINGLE word of them):

Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell

Reader review from G.M: This is without a doubt the most retarted book I have ever had the misfortune of reading, it was picked for our book club and the Lady that picked this book could not say how sorry she was enough. Eight out of eight did NOT like it. How it made the list of top books to read is beyond me.              

Response from A.M. O’Reilly: “retarted?”  Thanks for posting perhaps the least helpful “review” I’ve ever seen here. No, really, *thank you* .

Response from C.L.: Maybe your book club should improve their spelling skills. Retarted? While your “club” improves their spelling & reading level, try a book written for children.

Wow. Note to self: ALWAYS spell check Amazon reviews. 

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Reader review from Kim: The Road’ is a silly book. It tries to be serious. It tries to examine weighty themes. It fails. The setting is ridiculous. Nothing makes any sense. It rains and snows all the time, but the ash won’t wash away. Something has killed all plants, insects, and animals, but left large numbers of people alive. The main characters have supposedly survived for years since the apocalypse, yet behave like people who have rarely been outside, let-alone learned how to survive. The main character wears jeans… JEANS! Has Cormac McCarthy ever even been camping?!  The writing frequently wallows, and is peppered with lame similes. If he’d taken it any further, he would have been in BlackAdder territory (the stickiest situation since Mr Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun). The behaviour of the characters is absurd, especially the ‘bad guys’. They’re silly straw-men, similar to the zombies in computer games from the early 1980s.
It’s full of post apocalyptic clichés. The journey to the coast. The saved (i.e. the good guys) and the damned (the cannibals). Corpses that haven’t degraded. Babies on spit-roasts and limb-by-limb cannibalism… puh-leeze! I expected zombies to appear at any moment. The ending is a bad joke. It’s almost as bad as ‘they woke up and it was all a bad dream’. Perhaps I’m missing something, and it’s a clever satire about consumer culture, about the idea of ‘man separated from nature’. However, I don’t think I am. To be fair, it’s not a completely awful book. There are some nice individual passages. But this thing won a Pulitzer! The mind boggles. 

Dear Kim: The Road is “silly”? Ummmm, I think you may have missed a HUGE point of the book.

Reader review from Paul: This book is science fiction so I shouldn’t be too hard on it but the premise is weak. I love a good post-apocalyptic story but this wasn’t very satisfying. The world has been dead for at least 4 or 5 years but yet there are still people wandering around it occasionally eating each other. A nameless father and son team survives day to day by somehow finding food in places where they are always found by others (so why didn’t the others find the food first?). The man tries to convince himself that they are the good guys, but in the end, while not cold blooded murders, they are strictly out for themselves. The extremes are too obvious, the setting too unrealistic and unexplained, and finally the ending too inconsistent with everything else in the book.
Luckily this book is a very quick read and I’m glad I didn’t spend the money to rush out and see the movie.             

Oh, how much money would I pay to get Cormac McCarthy’s reaction to his book being called “science fiction”…

The Help by Katherine Stockett

Reader review from Mark: I went to a discussion of this book via a group of [mainly] aging white women, better known as the AAUW. I had not read it; pre-reading was not required. All present were handed copies of various pages of the book to read through and chat about, a la consciousness-raising exercises from the sixties/seventies. Oh my, getting past the dialogue/language without groaning, writhing in pure discomfort and embarrassment was impossible. Left, came home and decided to look at the customer reviews here as I could not understand why something that seemed so poorly written could have been taken up with such gusto [I am an aging white woman as well] by a group of women who had been there [been "fully growed] during the sixties, a group of women who presumably had had reasonably good experience with readin’. Am grateful to those who rated this book with one star and took the time to post why. Am equally delighted that all I invested was gas money and a bit of time.           

Mark, methinks that if you haven’t EVEN READ THE BOOK, then you should very politely and respectfully shut up.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Reader review from Ellen: This book has a decent cover though the papers are low grade and uneven at the edges. I would think that for a celebration of 50 years they could do better. I bought this for my Mom’s book collection.                

Response from Turner: Its the content of the book you are meant to be reviewing…not the quality of the print or post service…sigh….how do some people make it through one day in this world…???                 

Reviews about the paper quality of said book or shipping speed are my favorites. Seriously.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Reader review from Arizona Phil: I am old enough to know within a few pages that a book is not worth my precious time. This one dragged me along to page 24 before I said, “No more.” It’s absolutely ponderous, poorly written, distracting in its lack of quotation marks, and just plain silly. Drudgery.
I think McCourt fictionalized his life to the max and had a good laugh on the gullible American reading public, all the way to the bank.

Again with the “silly.” I’m still scratching my head…

Reader review from Philomena: I could not believe how fast I received this book. Great Seller and good book. Thank you!     

Oh, Philomena and your review on shipping, pure entertainment!           

 Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Reader review from Cristine: THIS BOOK WAS THE MOST RECENT PICK FOR MY BOOK CLUB. THE FIRST FEW CHAPTERS I WAS HOPEFUL AND EXCITED THAT THIS WAS GOING TO BE A GREAT READ. HOWEVER, A FEW MORE CHAPTERS INTO THE BOOK AND I BECAME FRUSTRATED. THE BOOK JUMPS AROUND A LOT AND WHILE I UNDERSTAND THE APPROACH THE AUTHOR WAS TAKING- IT WAS DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW. THE BOOK REVOLVES AROUND THE UNIFYING (MAIN) CHARACTER, OLIVE K, AND SPANS SEVERAL DECADES OF INDIVIDUALS COMING IN AND OUT OF HER LIFE. HOWEVER, THERE IS LITTLE DEPTH, OR CONTINUITY TO EACH OF THE STORY LINES. MOREOVER, THE CHARACTERS AREN’T ESPECIALLY LIKABLE. THUS, I FOUND MYSELF MORE AND MORE FRUSTRATED AS THE BOOK PROGRESSED. ULTIMATELY, THE LEAST LIKABLE CHARACTER OF ALL WAS OLIVE HERSELF. THE BOOK DID NOT TIE-UP MANY OF THE PLOT LINE LOOSE-ENDS EITHER. DISAPPOINTING!
ON A POSITIVE NOTE… I ENJOYED THE DESCRIPTIVE WRITING STYLE OF THE AUTHOR.               

AND SO DISAPPOINTED AND FRUSTRATED WAS CRISTINE THAT SHE WAS COMPELLED TO WRITE HER ENTIRE REVIEW IN CAPS!

Reader review from Jan: I am unable to read it as it is not available on Kindle.! How many other books am I going to find that are not available on Kindle?     

And alas, Jan, who represents the new generation of confused reviewers. We’ve moved on from paper quality and shipping…to the Kindle.

Happy reviews, everyone!

In her latest response letter to my writing, my grad school advisor, a fantastically gifted author and teacher named Joshilyn Jackson, wrote this:

“Here is a central ‘finding your identity as a writer’ question I now think I should ask everyone…WHO DO YOU WRITE FOR? For yourself? Probably you do, at least a little, write for yourself…I think it’s a good practice to know, who, externally, exactly, are you writing for? Because this imaginary audience influences you. Who are you writing for? A real person? An imagined one? An imagined group? How much power do you give them over you? And does this audience hold YOU and YOUR PURPOSE and YOUR TALENT and YOUR BOOK’S INTENT in the greatest of esteem? Do they work for you or thwart and silence you?”

 Wowza. Talk about a question that sets you back on your heels and makes you take stock. I read the above and was incredulous that I’d never been forced to answer this very question before.

 A year ago, I would’ve provided my answer like a knee-jerk response. But some serious external forces have been at work in my professional life for the past twelve or so months, and have led me astray from this answer. First, my second book has struggled to find an editor and publisher because of its dark nature and less-than-likable main character. I’ve gone through countless revisions with my agent, trying to find a balance between staying true to my vision for the story while not preventing readers from connecting to the character. I’ve also started working on a master’s degree in creative writing, so my stories are now getting the academia treatment—an environment I’m very new to as a writer, and admittedly, a bit intimidated by. Combine all that with the never-ending rejection process and you’ve got an identity crisis on your hands. Joshilyn’s question couldn’t have come a more critical time in my career.

 I totally agree that every writer does write, in part, for themselves. I write because I genuinely love storytelling and writing seems to satisfy my curious urge to always want to kick the hornet’s nest, just to see what comes flying out. But, as Joshilyn said, I also want my words to be read. Hence, WHO do I write for? Moment of truth. Despite my withering confidence over the last year, I have an answer.

 I’m blessed with a seriously great critique group—a pool of smart, talented, and successful fellow authors. I look to them for guidance, support and honesty, which they supply without fail. But within my tight circle of writer friends, one stands out as my ultimate answer. She’s my ideal reader. My audience. Who I write for. Her name is Jackie.

 Jackie and I met at a bookstore critique group some eleven years ago. She’s closer to my mom’s age than mine, writes hilarious limericks in shorthand on napkins, and is most comfortable staying on the fringes of anything. She’s the type of person who will give her age, but won’t cough up her birthday (because birthdays attract attention, is my theory). In fact, she’ll hate this blog and that I’m shining a spotlight on her. But here I am, doing it anyway.

 Jackie is my audience for many reasons. First, she’s brilliant. Plain and simple. Not only is she a gifted writer and editor–I deeply respect and admire her work–but she’s also a prolific, fast reader and reads anything and everything—literary, humor, mysteries, classics, chick-lit, nonfiction, you name it. And she knows how to discuss literature and writing, how to break it down and articulate what did and didn’t work. She can spot a beautifully crafted sentence or passage, or the most minor grammatical error. I feel like if I’m writing for Jackie, then I’m writing for a high standard of readers everywhere.

 But most importantly, as a reader, she’s a genuine fan of my stories. She’s read every word I’ve ever produced, some of it multiple times, and I have never doubted for a second that her only intention is to see me get to the best story possible.   

 So thank you, Joshilyn, for reminding that, amid this year of turmoil and self-doubt, I am writing for a real person who holds me and my purpose and my talent and book’s intent in the greatest of esteem. For reminding who it is I write for.

I recently read a novel by Louise Erdrich called Shadow Tag. While I can’t say I liked the book, it did have one of “those” lines in it. You know, a line in a book that makes you re-read it, uttering “Holy s**t, that’s brilliant!” and then dog-ear the page and maybe even mark the line with a pencil and later add it to your collection of great lines you keep in a designer notebook. And the line in Shadow Tag?

“…alone…there was no demand on her nakedness, not from her husband, whose reaction to her nakedness was much too complex, nor from her babies, who when they were toddlers thought her nakedness a happy joke, or even from the mirror, which demanded that she assess her nakedness as a woman does, through the eyes of others.”

Damn, that’s good.

Other lines that make me swoon:

“There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about, and if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it.”     Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

“If it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.” Another from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

“Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.” Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen

“But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.” The Ballad of the Sad Cafe: and Other Stories by Carson McCullers

“Then I doze off, too, and it’s like heaven, but sometimes only twenty minutes later he wakes up and begins to make his gritchy rodent noises, scanning the room wildly. I look blearily over at him in the bassinet, and think with great hostility, Oh, God, he’s raising his loathsome reptilian head again.” Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott

“Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want.”  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

But my all time favorite line from a book goes something like this:

I’m determined but I’m not sure I’m strong, and I’m starting to recognize there might be a difference.

I say “something like this” because I’m about 90% positive I read it in the Jonathan Safran Foer novel mentioned above, but for whatever reason, I failed to mark the page and have been forced to go off memory all these years. Short of re-reading the entire book, for which I don’t have the time, I’ve never been able to find the line by skimming. (If it rings a bell with anyone, please speak up!)

So, let’s hear it. What’s your favorite line from literature?

My classes of the undergraduate era were subjects like Western Civilization I, Psychology of Adjustment, Public Administration, Macroeconomics, and my favorite, Dramatic Techniques in the Elementary Classroom (it was as stupid as it sounds.)

Today as a college student, I’m strictly studying creative writing, my name commits the highest abuse of vowels, and my daily worries range from sick children to mortgage payments to what the heck I’m going to cook for supper tonight. And, my i.d. is so painfully legit.

A sampling of lectures from my recent MFA residency: “Honesty, Movement and Circulatory Systems in Fiction,” “How Can a Character Establish Authority with the Reader?” and “Plot: Pursuit and Counter pursuit.” (And not a dramatic technique in the classroom to be found. Thank God.)

Below are two photos, me as an undergraduate at age 20 (Hi Jenni!) and me as I am today as a grad student at age…not 20.

I’m so curious to know what on earth these two very different women, were they ever to cross paths, would have to say to each other. Welcome to my time warp.

“No man is ever old enough to know better.” –Holbrook Jackson

In seemingly perfect harmony with September’s national Be Kind to Editors and Writers Month, I’m proud to announce the launch of the Modern Dickens Project.

THE WHAT:

Inspired by Charles Dickens’s serial novels of industrial London a century before (OLIVER TWIST, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, you may have heard of them…), The Modern Dickens Project is a serial novel contest designed to showcase untold Iowa stories by undiscovered Iowa writers. The novel itself is being written by a series of one-chapter contests held for 12 consecutive months.

 THE HOW: 

At midnight of Sept. 1, 2010, an opening chapter, written by our guest Iowa author John Domini, was posted on The Modern Dickens Project website. Any writer who is an Iowa resident or has a strong connection to or interest in Iowa, is then challenged to continue the current story. Participants have until midnight of Oct. 21 to write and submit a chapter draft that builds on the previous chapter. (The Editorial Board is allowing extra time for the first contest.)

A winner will be selected and notified on Nov. 1st, and they will receive a $100 honorarium and an author spotlight on the MDP website. A lightly edited version of their winning chapter will be posted to the website on midnight of the same day and the contest will open again for Chapter 3, (with the standard 21 days to write and submit for the remainder of the contest) and so on and so forth, chapter by chapter, month by month, for twelve months, resulting in a collective thirteen chapter novel. Complete submission dates are outlined on the homepage of the website: www.moderndickens.org

 Any winning author who is interested and/or able is invited, but not required, to read portions of their winning chapter at various Des Moines bookstores and coffee shops, scheduled and hosted by the MDP team.

 There is no entry fee. I repeat, NO ENTRY FEE. We wanted this contest to be open to anyone with a vested interest in our state, without financial limitations or constraints.

After the yearlong project concludes, the Modern Dickens editors will work with the winner of each chapter to polish the pieces, with a release date for the completed novel December 2011. The team is currently working with several interested local publishers and also plans to release it first as an e-book.

THE WHO:

The MDP is the true brainchild of creator Chris Draper, a Van Meter native and Des Moines businessman. Our editorial board is comprised of a very lovely and brilliant group of ladies who bring a wide-range of experiences and taste to the judging table. (And they work for free! But that’s not why I called them lovely…) First, we have Rachel Vogel, a recent Drake University grad from the journalism/magazines program. She is our Managing Editor and handles our day-to-day correspondences, questions, fires, etc…Tracey Kelley and Murl Pace round out our board, both of whom bring extensive editing and fiction writing backgrounds to the table when selecting a winning submission each month.

Chris will also read submissions and give input throughout the process, and the five of us have worked collectively on our aggressive project timeline, marketing, promotion and other odds and ends. I serve as Editorial Advisor and did most of my work leading up to the open of the contest.

Chris’s end goal of this project all along has been to eliminate the need for anyone to ask the question, “Why Iowa?” He believes that our product is our community’s ability to pull together, and his hope is for us to be one of those projects that embraces re-looking at how we think of things. And I speak from experience here, the man’s enthusiasm and vision is contagious.

THE WHERE: The opening chapter is an all-Iowa flavored whodunit with a mix of current social issues tailored to our state. The story opens in the Iowa State Capitol where a young female Iraq war veteran receives a death threat via text message. She’s in town for a controversial gay wedding of an acquaintance, and carries more than her share of baggage from her past. Right on the heels of the threat, she’s pulled into a murder in the East Village area. Where it goes from there is up to you undiscovered writers out there!

 As John Domini so perfectly said: “This is a mystery, but it’s not just a mystery. One hopes it’s somehow funny and a discovery on a level other than whodunit. The good mysteries all have that.”

 John’s opening chapter and complete submission guidelines can be found at www.moderndickens.org. 

Email any questions to Rachel Vogel, Managing Editor rachel@moderndickens.org

                                                                        or

                                     Chris Draper, Executive Director  chris@moderndickens.org

This project supported in part by

 Ah, my dear sweet, noisy little urchin. I appreciate you brining this awkward moment to the attention of the dozen or more shoppers around us.

 Humble pie is just a part of publishing. I know this. I accept this. I just wish the servings weren’t quite so big.

 Other humble pie questions I’ve frequently eaten:

 “Are you going to be on Oprah?” (This would be the most popular pie flavor.)

“You won a National Book Award?!” (No, an American Book Award. A National Book Award is a sibling of the Pulitzer. An American Book Award is a second cousin twice removed.)

“You’re from Iowa? Did you attend the Iowa Writer’s Workshop?”

“Where can I buy your new book? (Um, as soon as my agent sells it to a publisher, I’ll letcha know.)

 “How much money have you made?”

 Which inevitably leads to…

 “Maybe you should write something like those Twilight books?”

 Which inevitably leads to…

 “Do you think your book will be made into a movie?”

 And lest I forget my favorite humble pie conversation of all time. I was in Florida for a writer’s workshop with a highly acclaimed, much-lauded author. At one point, my recent American Book Award was brought up in the following conversation:

 Instructor: “So you won an American Book Award?”

 Me: “Yes. Last month.”

 Instructor: “I was once nominated for an American Book Award.”

 Me: “Oh, really?”

 Instructor: “I didn’t win.”

 Me: “Umm, oh.”

 Instructor: “But I did win a National Book Award.”

 Can I at least get my slices á la mode?

 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