Week End: Yes!

I am so tired I can barely stand. And yes, I stand to type. Odd, I know. I have a high-ish table that I stand at to do most of my at-home work and writing, but right now, I'm tempted to sit. Nah, I'll just keep this short.

Writing News: 

I wrote "Order Up" and submitted it to NPR's Three-Minute Fiction Contest a few weeks ago. The prompt was to write a scene that has the president in it (either the current president, a past president, or a fictional president). I went with a fictional president, forgot about the story, and then early this morning I saw it was one of the staff picks and is up at NPR's site: http://www.npr.org/2012/10/04/162330611/order-up

I'm pretty excited just to be up on the site and to know that Brad Meltzer will be even considering my piece for the win. I won't know until November, and I doubt I'll be able to forget about it again, but I'll try because this is the way to be mentally healthy--to not dwell.

Also, I wrote and revised 20 pages of one of two novels I've been toiling away at for years now. This one, the one based on my grandmother's stories, is starting to come together. The Wallace novel is too, but right now I'm in a space to put energy toward the grandmother piece.

You know, for you writers out there, having two big projects to work on--if you're intimate with your material--is wonderful. It takes the pressure off, and if your main characters are wildly different, as mine are, you have a project to suit the mood. At least this is how it works for me.

Other News:

The corporate week was incredibly long and incredibly short. That is all I'll say about that. In my "free" time, I'm revising my final coursework for the Flex II I'm teaching this term. The reason I'm overhauling the course is that we're now (at Alamo Colleges) using Canvas instead of BBV. I love it, but I didn't love the fact that I had to find the time to train and learn a new program. Ah, technology and the fleeting nature of its mastery.

I can't wait to begin teaching again. Teaching brings me so much joy, probably partially because I'm now doing it part-time, which allows me to appreciate more and not get close enough to see or get caught up in the unavoidable and often painful politics of academia. As a sort of teaser, the beautiful, sharp and ever-humble Melissa Studdard invited me to speak to her class, most of whom had read my short story collection. It was so wonderful to meet with them, virtually, and encourage them in their addictive beginning writer energy... to only glimpse that again: magical.

This weekend, I will be attending a Spiderman-themed party for a soon-to-be three-year-old (how many hyphens can I use in one sentence?); I will be eating dinner somewhere moderately fancy so as to celebrate the week; and most importantly, I will be giving my dog a bath (this is a big ordeal) and making my husband turtle fudge brownies (if my mother comes up off the recipe for me). If I get the recipe and make this happen, I'll post it. In the meantime, here's a similar recipe I found (ours adds chocolate chips and grinds up those pecans): Allrecipes.com's Caramel Turtle Brownies.

Finally, we're winding down Banned Books Week. I'll read to that, and reading is another end goal for this weekend! To me, celebrating banned books means reading what you want to read, what you connect with, not what others tell you is good. So go do that with me. And enjoy.