Editting Life

Those of you who have been following this blog know that I have often struggled with time to write due to crazy work schedule at Wal-mart. Over the last eleven years that time struggle killed my family life. Last year, I found myself having to miss a number of activities due to the inflexible schedule. By the end of hockey season I had taken enough of the sad faces from my kids and knew it was time to make a change.

Of course this time wasn't the first time I had thought about quitting, but I knew this time I was dead serious. Over the following month I enrolled in school and begin to plot out a business venture that would allow me to manage school and the kid's schedule.

In May, we opened our own daycare-which is something I had wanted to do years. By August, I was able to turn in my notice at Wal-mart. After eleven long years I closed that door forever. Regardless of my dislike of the amount of hours away from my family, I still worked with some amazing people and they have helped build the person I am now. Hopefully if my books every get published you will see some of them grace the pages.

Now that it is November I find myself with two new hockey sons, living in a completely new(and bigger house), and running my own business. This month particularly makes me a little homesick for the Wal-mart craziness as the dreaded Black Friday approaches. The folks I've shared this with think that I am a little crazy, but honestly when you've done it that long it becomes part of you. But then I think about the coming holidays and how for the first time I will be able to enjoy them with my family. On Christmas Eve morning last year I got a call from my mother in law while I was at the store. During the conversation, I told her that I was not going through the holiday craziness next year that I couldn't take it anymore. Wal-mart is behind me and although I can't tell the future I can tell you that there is a lot of family time and writing in my future.

Veronica

Follow our family's hockey adventures!

www.deanhockey.blogspot.com

See ya at the Rink:)

Token??

Captain Kaiden turns Model...

So for years now its always been our daughter who wanted to be the actor/model. Our son Kaiden wants to be the future Captain of the Colorado Avalanche! This last year it was no surprise when Cloudya finally decided she was going to put away her ballet shoes for a hockey stick. Kaiden deciding he wanted to model like sissy now that was a big surprise. However don't expect he'll be turning in his hockey stick anytime soon:)

Our Little Film Maker

My daughter Cloudya does her film thing!!! She loves to shoot videos and has many planned for the summer!

Silence in the Big O...

We all have those moments that are deeply etched in our memories. Whenever you think about them you can see your surroundings, hear the words spoken and even smell the smells that might have been drifting in the air. Unfortunately, these events are most often laced with tragedy. During my freshmen year of college, I was taking my comp final when the school shooting in Paducah, Kentucky happened. The sounds of my mom's voice over the running shower water on September 11 are forever ingrained into me. Today my city of Omaha had such an event.

The difference in all of these is distance. I knew people affected by 9-11 and my heart went out to the students in Kentucky, but overall I remained untouched. Today was different as the incident occurred not more than half a mile from the school where my own children attend. Their very school was affected by the lock down.

I watched on TV as frantic moms went to retrieve their children. Suffered through my husband's jokes about how they would have to haul me to jail. Finally, I thanked my lucky stars that Cloudya and Kaiden were in Kansas City with grandma and that my high school hockey sons were tucked safely in their hometowns. Most of all I was thankful that they didn't have to experience it.

Tonight every place we visited in the Big O seemed to be filled with one common factor...silence. The shock sets in as something so horrible strikes so close to home. But as the amazing type of people we all are we will bond together as a community and rise above this crisis. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims and we pray that their recovery is speedy...our thoughts are with the students and other faculty as they try to deal with the events. We send peace to the family of the suspect, who in the midst of everything are dealing with something I would never want to imagine.

Parents, as you say good night to your children this evening, remind them that you love them. Remind them how amazing they are!

The People Behind My Characters!

The current project that I am working on involves two characters whose "back story" is based very closely on some close friends of mine. In fact, so close that their pictures hang above my workstation. As each of the character's arcs have been created and researched they have transitioned into their very own person.

However, the last several weeks I have found it difficult to write. Quite frankly, it hasn't been all that enjoyable. A couple days ago as I lay in bed, attempting to work out my own frustrations I realized what my hang up had been.

The female character is based off of my best friend since childhood. The male is a former boyfriend of hers who remains closely knit with our family. I realized subconsciously that I was trying to protect them. I was having issues going on, because some of the dark things from my characters past have nothing to do with my friends. With that I was trying to protect them from people putting two and two together and realizing who the story is based on.

WHAT A ROOKIE MISTAKE!

Other than a couple close friends and family, no one will have any idea. As it stands the story is most diffently loosely based on their lives. The characters stand on their own and have made desicions leading them down a completely different path than those of my friends. They were simply the base as they were meant to be, so I could build a whole different story. As writers each of us could take the same beginning and build multiple stories from it. It's what we do! We create!

Why bear it all today? First, so I can move on and second, so new writers know that even those of us who have been writing a while still make rookie mistakes!