2009-A Look Back

A quote from my favorite musical, RENT:

December twenty-fourth, ten pm

Eastern standard time

I can't believe a year went by so fast

Time to see, what we have time to see

As the year 2009 steam rolls to an end, all I can say is wow! The skeptic in me looks back to see the things that I set out to accomplish this year and asks if I got anywhere close. In years past I can honestly say that goals fell by the wayside, but this year was different. Each of us took great strides to getting a little bit closer to our dreams. I thought I'd take some time to share each of our milestones.

Thomas finished his first full length novel shortly after ringing in the new year. After putting the polishing touches on it we sent out his first set of query letters only to learn how not to write a query. Even with the initial query he did have some bites on partial requests. We revamped and are hitting the next round very soon. He also accepted a position with the new professional dance school here in Omaha, where he will be teaching a wide arrange of theater classes. This of course is his first real passion.

I spent the year in a writing frenzy completing a number of short stories and screenplays, a full length screenplay and a novel. In the month of November I began my quest in NaNoWriMo; in which I failed due to time constraints, but learned a lot from anyway. To those of you who supported me through this thank you and yes I will be completing my project very soon as promised. On a lighter note it is my personal opinion that my second foot surgery is much more successful than the first and I will hopefully not be adding anymore titanium to my body anytime soon!

Cloudya our little superstar has had a number of achievements this year. In April, she signed with a top talent agency out of Chicago. In June she auditioned for her first film and later in August landed a national audition for the American Girl Doll Company. She spent the summer doing photo shoots and wondering around the neighborhood making movies with her friends. After doing a number of local things here in Omaha, she completed the year dancing once again in the Omaha Ballet's Nutcracker. Of course, if you ask her about her greatest achievement from the year she will probably tell you it was winning tickets to the Jonas Brother SoundCheck. In which she got to be among only 200 people to watch the preSoundCheck for their show. Later on that night she attended their concert!

Although our son doesn't do anything theatrical(yet) I feel bad leaving him out of this. Kaiden did do a photo shoot for a local Twilight event. He started his first year in hockey lessons, which people I'm telling you in my house is a BIG deal! He finished off his karate year earning his little dragon purple belt which means by this time next year he'll be a black belt.

Other 2009 milestones:

In January, Kevin Costner came to my Wal-mart and not only did I meet him, but spent the afternoon less than ten feet from him. Cloudya was super excited she got to meet the "mariner" from Waterworld. I really believe she is the only one I know that liked that movie.

In April, our family saw RENT while in Chicago. It starred Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal! I love those guys!

We spent a week in the summer in South Dakota. Visited Mount Rushmore, about died on a lake and spent the entire time being rained on.

So as 2010 approaches what kind of goals will you find yourself trying to obtain. Here's a few words of wisdom from us.

1)Writing what you know is good, but don't forget to think outside the box.

2)You are always auditioning!

3)Let your characters take over the story. After all it is theirs to tell.

4)Throw away the rules and you might just write something truly amazing.

5)Write everyday even if its only a sentence.

6)The last rule works for both publishing and acting. Remember the hardest person to beat out for the part is yourself.

Have a great holiday season everyone. I'm truly excited to see great things from you in 2010!

Change on the Horizon

Most reading this blog assume that I spend all my time writing and that it's been that way for a very long time. Reading back through my posts, I thought about how much I made it seem like that. The truth is I took a break for several years; blaming everything I could except for myself. The real reason-jade. That's how I describe it. I allowed someone to finally break my confidence, which is what they wanted to happen. In the end, allowing them to get inside my head. I walked away because of one person's opinion-stupid I know. Usually criticism doesn't bother me so much. Honestly, we need it to make us better at what we do. One person doesn't define who we are as artists, but I let the jade consume me.

Luckily, sometimes we get second chances. I spent a great portion of last year, helping my husband edit his novel. For the first time in a long time, I felt whole. Sure, I wasn't working on my own writing, but it was enough to revive me. This year I was finally tired of my own self-pity. I hated how incomplete I felt. I swore I'd get back into my own routine again. It was hard, I'll admit it. Sure you never forget how to ride a bicycle, but that doesn't mean its easy when you get back on for the first time.

Then something happened to remind me just how precious all that lost time was. We all have those moments that make us look back and wonder what in the world we are really doing with our life. I had mine on the middle of Lake Pactola in South Dakota this summer. On vacation with my family, we thought it would be a neat idea to rent a pontoon boat and go fishing. The day was absolutely gorgeous. It had been the clearest day we'd seen the whole time we were there. All of us were getting bites and landing fish; which is something I don't usually do, because fish hate my hook.

My husband was out back of the boat wake boarding. Something that only California boys can really do well. That's when we noticed the rain heading in our direction. So, I'm a good ole Kansas girl and my reaction was to grab the camera. How beautiful the far off rain danced off the lake. It didn't take long for that far off rain to be right up on us. We put up the awning, so we didn't get so wet.

The rain became the least of our worries. Hail started to pelt our swimsuit-covered bodies. We rushed to get the kids covered, but they were already screaming at the top of their lungs. The waves on the lake started to swell, making steering the boat near impossible. Thank goodness my father-in-law is not only stubborn and protective, but very knowledgeable about handling a boat in a storm.

The cold water rushed through the front of the boat where my mother-in-law and I were covered up. She realized we couldn't stay in that location. She pushed me to where my daughter was hiding from the storm. Of course, she had to do this because I was in my pre-foot surgery state and couldn't walk without a boot on my leg. When I got down there I realized my son wasn't with me daughter like I had previously thought. Panic rushed through my body as I didn't know where my son was on a boat that could possibly beat it at any moment. Not knowing where Kaiden was; what kind of mother was I? I knew Cloudya was down there and I thought I'd seen him go with her. What I'd really remembered seeing was my sister-in-law covering him up with a blanket close to her. As soon as she heard my panic and the waves settled for a second, she got him to us. Relief hit me, but we still had to get off the boat alive.

The cushions from the seats protected the children from the hail, but they were still shivering from cold and fear. As a mother I feared hypothermia and shock, so I came up with a way to keep them a little more preoccupied. Cloudya loves to be quizzed about things she knows well like Twilight and the Jonas Brothers and Kaiden likes to hear the answers so he can beat her at the next game. We do this alot on long trips. I asked Cloudya when Nick's birthday was and she screamed she didn't know. Well obviously, reasoning was out the window. Then she asked, "Can we just sing one of his songs?" So there we were, in the dark door of a near death experience and my daughter wanted to sing Jonas Brothers songs. Cloudya started to sing and than Kaiden chimed in. I took my towel off for a minute to access the sky. If there was anything I could do, it would be to see how soon till the storm cleared up. I got a clear shot of my father-in-law, he was shaking so hard from fear. It wasn't cold, I knew that, the only thing I could see on his face was solid fear. Almost everyone he cared about was on that boat, and he wanted to get them back to safety. As the kid's voices surrounded us, the sky started to look a little less bleak although the hail continued.

The hail plummeted us for nearly forty-five minutes and just as we got to the marina wouldn't you know it would stop. I learned several things about myself in those moments, but mostly about wasted time. This wasn't just about my craft, but my children and family more importantly. I knew getting off that thing that I would stop at nothing to make sure everyone of their desires came true. All the years I'd spent in my jaded state seemed stupid now. The whole thing made me remember something my grandpa had said along time ago, "An artist doesn't choose his art, but rather the art chooses the artist." I knew on that day, that I had only been wasting my talent and it was time to get over that. Shortly thereafter this blog was born and the kids got to see the Jonas Brothers in concert. Someday an art or craft will choose the two of them-of course, there's some debate on rather it already has or not-hopefully I set a good example for them and they achieve everything their little hearts desire.

Query Letters...What...What?

Getting a novel published can be a curious thing. Once Thomas had completed his project at the beginning of this year we started on the long journey to get on a bookstore's shelves. We researched how the process worked and learned that a good resource for new authors is the book entitled Writer's Market. There are several editions of this particular book for the various types of things you may pen and a couple that contain all the information. They also have a website that is updated daily.
After purchasing it we discovered that one of the first steps is to write a query letter to literary agents. There are very detailed instructions on what to include in this note for example a word count, short author bio and a good book description. The purpose of this letter is to grab the agent's attention enough that they request to see your manuscript or additional pages.
They remind you in this book that the road to becoming a published author is a brutal one full of rejections. Shortly after we mailed the first round the rejection letters started rolling in. They came in all shapes and sizes, but all had two common factors the basic rejection and the encouragement to keep submitting to others. Several people requested pages although with the quality of the project not as many as I assumed. After a month letters came for them as well.
After this last one we took a hard look at our text book style query letter. Those of you who have read the project know how good it is and how much it draws you in. Most haven't read it and are probably wondering what this person who likes vampire literature would even know. For me to read anything I have to connect with its characters they have to attack me and hold my attention. The characters come alive shortly after you open the book. Most readers want to be captured by a story and this book will succeed in doing this to pretty much anyone. So I was the one that wrote the initial query letter and its decent, but the problem is as my husband says, "You're a pretty writer." Its true. Leaving out the grit, I turned Thomas' suspense filled novel into a lovey dovey sounding piece. People don't want mushy mystery novels, but clearly that's what I was trying to sell. So we're going to rework it and I'm making Thomas write it. One of the important pieces of a query letter is so the agent sees what style you write and in this case they didn't.
Every agents has ultimately been right. Just because one doesn't like the project doesn't mean another won't. We didn't give them the chance, but we will now. The new query letters will not only grab there attention, but will leave them only wanting more.