squeetus

Babies? Being cute? Yes, please.

Check out my upcoming events, including Orem & Midvale, UT signings this Saturday and Writing for Charity on March 17. If you're in Utah and you 1. Have toyed with the idea of being a writer, 2. Like writing but need a kickstart, 3. Have written aplenty but need help with the craft, 4. Have finished product you're not sure how to publish, or 5. Are just curious about writers and like hanging out with us, don't miss this 1 day workshop. We all donate our time and all $ goes to GREAT causes.

In all this talk the last two blog posts about the absence of girls, I thought I should insert a little presence.

She just kept smiling at me from her high chair. Nearly a year and a half old!

She pulled her hair thingies out, which gave her an awesome kind of horn hair action. Poor little scuffed up nose. Toddlers are beings of much action.

This represents one of the 5 social things I've done in the past several months. I'm often asked how I do it: being a mom and a writer. The answer is: that's all I do. You have to give up everything else. For many people, that wouldn't be worth it. For me it is, even if I do miss having friends...at least ones I ever see.

This was a BYOV party: Bring Your Own Vase. Two of my friends had buckets of flowers and everyone could make their own bouquet. Isn't mine gorgeous? I made it all by myself!*

*i.e. I picked out most of the flowers and Shelby fixed it. I have ZERO talent with visual arts. Truly.

Next post, per requests, let's talk about the Missing Moms.

The invisible animated girl

Returning to a familiar topic, I must rant once again about the lack of female characters in animated movies. The last time I blogged about this, some commenters questioned my analysis, so I'm going to get real technical here. Here are the  animated movies with major release in the US in 2011. I counted the male and female voice roles on imdb.com. I'm not looking at how male and female characters were portrayed, I'm just looking at the numbers.

Kung Fu Panda 2: male - 12, female - 3

Arthur Christmas: male - 9, female - 6

Tintin: male - 13, female - 1

Cars 2: male - 13, female - 2

Gnomeo & Juliet: male - 11, female - 3

Rango: male - 12, female - 3

Mars Needs Moms: male - 8, female - 7

Rio: male - 8, female - 7

Hoodwinked Too: male - 11, female - 4

Puss in Boots: male - 11, female - 4

Happy Feet Two: male - 11, female - 4

Let's break this down. In the animal kingdom, male to female ratio is almost exactly 1:1. However, in Hollywood animated movies, males outnumber females on average 13:4. Total characters from 2011 animated movies: male -130, females - 42. There are always more male characters in an animated movie than female. ALWAYS. I have not found a single animated movie made in the US in the past 20 years where that wasn't the case. And usually by a huge margin. (European-made movies generally don't have this problem. [EDIT: Or Japan, as some of you rightly pointed out!]) Props to Rio, Mars Needs Moms, and Arthur Christmas. Their main characters were male and the majority of characters were male, but at least they included a respectable number of speaking female characters. Tintin, really? You're going to give one female a voice in your entire movie? Cars 2? I generally love Pixar, but they are perennially disappointing in the numbers. Incredibles is the only one of their movies with even a decent ratio. (I don't even want to tally the numbers on my beloved Muppets.)

Animators, studios, writers - I am ashamed! I have daughters and a son. I would like them raised believing that girls are as worthy of being characters as boys. Girls matter. Girls do things. Girls have voices that deserve to be heard. That's not what your movies illustrate. I really hope that's not what you believe.

I'm not even asking for female main characters. I guess that's just too much to hope for in the 21st century. I'm not campaigning for strong or realistic female characters. We're not even ready for that yet. I'm just asking for ANY female characters. Some of this may be an accident. Most screenwriters are male, men naturally write more characters of their own gender. But some of this is on purpose. Some of this is studio execs believing that boy-heavy movies sell more tickets than girl-heavy. And for that, we parents are partly to blame. Do we take our girls to see "boy" movies but think our boys won't put up with "girl" movies so don't expose them to it? Do some people believe that if boys watch movies about girls that will make them weak and unmanly somehow? Ick. I hope not. I hope things change. But I'm not putting money on it.

Whenever I point this out to people, I'm most often met with a reaction of "I never noticed." Have you noticed? Does it bug you too? What can we do?

My kids play a mean kazoo

Time for photos? And some evidence of my musically-inclined offspring.

Clearly natural talents. And how lucky to have a duet partner. You should have heard their dulcet pounding playing!

Grandpa's music draws a crowd. They must have inherited their musical talents from him.

A little bit of heaven

Having a kind of crappy day, getting too upset about things I can't control, so I want to share with you the happiest, most precious thing I can.

Living with raccoons

I was flattered that Mundie Moms featured the Books of Bayern on their flashback Friday, and it was the first time I'd seen all the Alison Jay covers together. So pretty!

If you order the special edition hardcover of Forest Born from my local indie bookshop, The King's English, I will personalize and sign it. Call them or order online, and be sure to let them know who you want it personalized to! The hardcover special ed and the photograph paperback come out end of this month.

I attended the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Assoc. trade show in Denver this weekend. What a treat to be surrounded by book people. My peeps! I love them peeps! I spoke at the literacy dinner with Hillary Jordan and Christopher Moore. It's been so long since I've been to a book conference, I literally forgot about the exhibit hall with it's treasures of ARCs and free hardcovers. Yum. Happily I'd packed light and had space in my carryon for my cargo.

I was gone for 24 hours, the first time I'd left my babies (are they toddlers now that they're one?) overnight. All night, sleeping, not half-aware adn listening for babies in the next room. Wow! But I missed them all the same. So. Stinkin'. Cute. Good thing too, since they're a couple of raccoons. A friend asked me if it's harder now or when they were babies. For me, harder now. They are TWO of them. They're MOBILE and into EVERYTHING. At the same time, they're just hysterical and so animated. As long as I don't care about the state of my home and take them no where and have nothing to do besides watch them and make sure they don't hurt themselves, they are an absolute joy.

Photographic evidence of a sugar rush

Writing through the chaos

Amber asks, "Will you do a post on how you juggle writing and kids? My creative energy is completely sapped." Oh man, I am so sapped. I am a Vermont maple in winter. I've got two mobile almost-one-year-olds and a 4 yo and 7 yo and a husband, who counts as maybe a 10 yo. I'm kinda bragging, because they're cool, and I never thought I'd have such a big family, so I look around and marvel at our hugeness (relative hugeness, you mothers of eight out there), and I think, "Hey, this rocks!"

But I'm sapped too. Finding time to bathe and feed myself is an uphill battle every day. I had a couple of visitors coming over this morning, so I worked so hard to clean my kitchen and living room, trying to keep kiddos entertained for 3 hours while I cleaned non-stop between caring for their needs. And when my visitors came in, I looked around and realized that I had acheived Normal Messy, no more.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I'm in no shape to be dolling out advice. I barely survive. I'm sure you know what I mean. This marvelous, marvelous chaos. But my center is my creative time. For 2 1/2 hours four times a week, I have a babysitter, and I close my door and write. Turn off the mommy craziness, turn on Writer Woman. It's not an easy transition, but I have to do it. I just have to.

Surviving motherhood

I'm so proud of my friend Dawn Meehan, who is a contestant on Survivor this season. I've never followed the show before, but you bet I am now.

In this video, Dawn talks about being a mom, and how she involved her kids in her Survivor preparations. I get very excited encouraging other moms not to neglect themselves but to find and pursue their passion, their creative outlet. It's a balancing act for sure, and I'm constantly checking in with myself and my family to make sure my writing life isn't overwhelming my family life or vice versa. But I'm a better person and a happier mom for being a writer too.

I love that Dawn had this impossible dream, and she made it happen! Everyone's dream is different. Funny enough, being a contestant on Suvrivor is also on my to-do list, right under "Eat own eyeballs" and "Play tennis with a Blanc Mange." (Actually, the latter rates quite a bit higher still.) Rough it in the wild, go without sleep or food or bed, swim or run till you vomit, immerse yourself in a backstabbing high school environment, go without shampoo or makeup on national television? Count me OUT. But I'm so excited to see Dawn do it!

A reality check

In March 2008 I received the following email from an Anne:

So, I’m writing today to tell you how your books have impacted me in the last month.  On February 5th my life changed when I was diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma.  I was stunned.  I have three little girls, a wonderful husband and a beautiful life.  I was devastated.  I dropped everything that was extra in my life—including my own writing.  But I did turn to reading—it was just about the only thing I could do, or wanted to do, besides hold my little girls.  I needed something to take me away.  People gave me religious books and books about healing and inspirational stories of overcoming cancer, but nothing sounded good until my copy of A Book of a Thousand Days came in the mail.  I devoured it, and lost myself in a beautiful story, so masterfully told.  After I was finished I found Goose Girl in my little girl’s room (she loves to play Goose Girl—my mom even made her a goose girl costume to wear—she’s 6) and read it all the way through.  I read Princess Academy and cried when I was finished.  I got Austenland out today, maybe just so I could think about Colin Firth for a second.  I can't wait to read it again. Anyway, my point is that there is nothing that has been able to take me away this month, except your books and my little family.
 
I know this must seem like a strange email, but I thought you might want to know that your books have given me an escape—or a release, or whatever you might call it.  I’m grateful for the way you tell stories.  I’m grateful I found your books.  I feel like you’re an old friend and I hope that you’re never discouraged over your writing, because it inspires me in so many ways.

____

I tucked it away somewhere and just happened across it yesterday while working on my computer on the Austenland movie set. I think I replied to her at the time, but I'm ashamed I hadn't thought of her in years. I sent out a query across facebook and twitter and heard back from her cousin that Anne passed away a couple of years ago. I sit here, a stranger, two years too late, crying for Anne and her family. I didn't know Anne, but I wrote books that she liked--that forms some kind of bond, doesn't it? Doesn't that make us kindred spirits? I think another Anne with an "e" would have said so.

The struggle of Jane's story in Austenland is what's real and what's fantasy. Movie making is great fun, but it's fantasy. Family is real. Sending loving thoughts and prayers to Anne's children and husband. Going to go squeeze my babies now.

Babes in Austenland

From the heart of the twister

I feel so busy. How can I be so busy when I never go anywhere or do anything? Yeah, I'm a mom, but I've been a mom for eight years, so that's not news. How is it that I'm lucky to get two showers a week? Or have one sit-down meal a day? Or gaze out my window at the lost cause that is my plant bed/weed garden? Then I do some calculations:

20 times a day I feed a baby

10 times a day I change a baby

6 times a day I put a baby down to sleep

100s of times a day I pick a baby up, talk to a baby, kiss a baby, calm a baby, rock a baby, read to a baby, play with a baby...

There are a lot of babies.

And then of course I also have two other children (three if you count Dean, which of course I do). At least the weather is lovely.

I miss having time to read books. I miss sleep. I don't miss my life pre-babies, not for a minute. I love them completely and perhaps irrationally. They are undeniably AWESOME. But never let my endless singing of my awesome babies make you think I'm some kind of super mom who never has a down day and can do it all with a sparkling smile. Some days the extra pressure of writing books and all the other business stuff that goes with it feels like too much, and I wonder if I wasn't too hasty, if waiting until kids were grown up a bit wouldn't have been a better time to start my writing career. But then I take it back. Writing helps keep me sane, helps balance my life, keeps me from tipping over. I am so grateful for a creative outlet, for a chance to keep using my mind in the eye of this perfect storm.

My life at the moment...

...is chaos. Sweet, sweet chaos.

Elder children's heads cut off for privacy. NOTE: I only cut off their heads in the photo, not in real life. I haven't gotten that frustrated with the chaos.

Another awesome thing about two babies? When you hold them, they completely cover up your postpartum belly. Fitting.

PS. If anyone would like to cross their fingers or say prayers on behalf of my Super Secret Project, such offerings would be gladly accepted. And I may have news any day. Maybe. Hopefully. AAH!