Moms Are So 5

Sleep, glorious sleep. So you can probably tell just from my first sentence that I have not done well with that whole Getting Up Early thing. I have, however, managed to train my brain to wake up at 6, look at the clock to confirm the hour of buttcrackiness, and then go back to sleep. Yeah, I'm awesome. Don't hate me because I'm so 5.

Skye's story about her mom's wake-up tactics reminds me of my own teenage wake-up routines. My mom is a very gentle and understanding waker-upper. When she used to wake me up for school in the morning, she would gently crack the door open, whisper, "time to get up now," wait for a response (usually, "mmph") and then tiptoe back down the hall. If I failed to get up, she'd come back in five minutes and repeat the process.

My dad got wake-up duty now and then if my mom happened to be busy packing lunches or something. (Yes, my mom packed me a lunch every day of my life until I went to college. Don't hate me because I have the Best Mom Ever.) My dad was not so kind in his routine. It usually went something like stomping down the hall, busting through the door, flipping the lights rapidly on and off, all while making loud, slightly-off-key bugle noises. When you are 17 years old and have to get up at 5:30 in time to catch the bus at 6, bugle noises are not in the Top 10 Ways I Like To Wake Up. Really, I don't think there actually is a Top 10 Ways I Like To Wake Up when you're 17.

In any case, my dreams are totally not as cool as Skye's, so I don't guess I lose out on too many nuggets of wisdom when I wake myself up early. Now the trick is getting my body to get out of the bed. I'm thinking that part might be slightly more difficult.

Call For Advice From the Blogminions

Bryn definitely needs a blog nickname. But as Skye is his sister and I am... uh... not, I shall abstain from the nominating process. I totally get a vote though.

Do you hear that, thus-far-anonymous blog readers? Comment and ye shall receive fame, adulation, and a nifty blog nickname. It'll be so 5.

So, since I haven't written a single darn word anywhere that matters (well, you know, besides here) since the beginning of January, I decided today that it's time to Get Serious About Writing. I recently Got Serious about that whole running thing when Skye and I goaded each other into going on the couch to 5k program. Now it's time to goad ourselves into writing.

I, for one, am taking the advice of this blogger and getting up earlier. Sigh. I know. I can feel the urge for Metamucil and 60 Minutes growing. Wanting to get up earlier = getting old. But I am forced to admit that, after a day at work, my creative energy has been sapped by trying to imagine that I am not in a windowless basement staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day. (Oops, am I breaking the No Talking About Work rule?) Anyway, I have nothing left to give to adventurous and romantically inclined psychics and frustrated doctors-turned-artists looking for love in the Bahamas after I get home and run on the Treadmill of Pain and Suffering and eat some leftover macaroni & cheese and sneak in a few recorded episodes of Gray's Anatomy. I just can't dooo eeet. So earlier rising it will be.

I need help from our commenters: How would you motivate yourself to get up earlier? I mean, you know, besides the prospect of all that butt-in-chair time producing the Next Great American Novel. Would you promise yourself breakfast? Set the coffee maker to start making at your predetermined wake-up time? Attach alarm clock activated cattleprods to your toes? I really want to know.

Oh, And Another Thing (Or Three)

Since Skye is still off in Hawaii sitting on a beach or something while pondering away at her new year's resolutions, I'm sure, I'll just sneak in another post. She can catch up later. Neener neener. But she's not off the hook about the resolutions. I still want to hear them.

Item 1: I think I've come up with a few good nickname options for my husband Robbie. Because who really wants to use your husband's name on your blog? How boring. He must have some cute pseudonym with a corresponding highly amusing anecdote. So here are your choices thus far:

MAN GENIUS, probably shortened to MG because I'm lazy. Why? Because his favorite tongue-in-cheek (I hope) line is, "I'm a genius and everyone else is stupid." Usually I just smile and nod. I'd call him Boy Genius, but ew.

SHAKE N BAKE. Why? I promise it has nothing to do with Ricky Bobby, although I admit that anything vaguely reminiscent of Will Ferrel gets some funny points just for that. No, this name is based on a conversation from this afternoon.
Him: What can I make for dinner tonight?
Me: How about Shake n Bake chicken?
Him: But I don't know how to do that.
Me: Step 1. Shake. Step 2. Bake.
Him: Shut up.
(By the way, he ended up making a lovely dinner of country fried steak and gravy and veggies, which I'm sure requires more than two steps.)

ROMEO. I promise I'm only being a little sarcastic about this one. See, Robbie is studying for his amateur radio license right now, and he's learning that military alphabet thing. R is Romeo and R is the first letter of his name, so see? This one is my personal favorite, because of the connotations (and, I admit, potential for snarkitude down the line) and also because I thought it up and went, "man, I'm a genius and everyone else is stupid."

Item 2: My New Year's Eve and New Year's Day were both so 5. We went up to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia to celebrate with TyJo (that's my sister Joanna and her boyfriend Tyler, for those of you living under a rock and unaware of the celebrity couple naming phenomenon as in TomKat and Brangelina). We went to a wine tasting and ate a lot of food and watched a lot of bizarre movies, including Ren & Stimpy, my all time favorite bizarre cartoon.

Item 3: You know, since my New Year's Resolutions are all about the writing, it's probably best if I get started. I have a self-imposed deadline of February 28 for finishing Panacea Man, my work in progress. That seems like a long time to me right now, but I realized sometime over the course of the weekend that if I am going to write about really smart futuristic geneticists, perhaps I should know something about genetics. Damn it. So my book requires research, and a-researching I will go. Wish me luck, and if any of the members of our vast readership are, indeed, geneticists, speak now and I will compensate you richly for any tidbits you can give me to make my book sound, uh, smart. And by "compensate you richly," I mean shower you with thanks, promise to acknowledge you when I'm published, and, you know, generally make you feel like you are the awesomest being on the planet.

That's all I got. Take it away, Skye...

Resolutions... For Me to POOP On

I know we're, like, sort of supposed to respond to each other's posts, but Skye leaves me with very little to work with from her last post. So I'm gonna go with her general wishes for a happy new year and talk about my writing goals & resolutions. I know, shock and awe, I'm going to talk about writing on our writing blog. I am so 5.

You'll notice some differences in this year's goals & resolutions versus last year's. A writing friend pointed out recently that goals should be things that you can control, so making a goal to sell a manuscript is Not Good because you can't control the market. So I've taken off stuff like "get 3 requests for fulls" and "sell a manuscript," in favor of making goals for stuff I can do, like sending out tons of queries.

1. Finish current manuscript, plus 2 more.
a. Finish first draft of Panacea Man by February 28.
b. Finish new manuscript first draft by May 31.
c. Finish edits of both manuscripts by June 30.
d. Finish 3rd manuscript first draft by November 30.
e. Finish edits of 3rd manuscript by December 31.
f. Write 5 days per week.

2. Get manuscripts out there!
a. Send out 10 queries for each manuscript.
b. Enter one contest (with appropriate editor/agent judges) for each manuscript.

3. Use conference to network.
a. Pitch one manuscript.
b. Attend spotlights.
c. Meet presenters after workshops.
d. Volunteer.

(I can hear Skye whining and rolling her eyes now. She complains that I, like, make her do stuff when we go to conferences. Too bad, missy. You're going to socialize at the bar with me and, by damn, you'll enjoy it. Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about.)

4. Stay present.
a. Keep website clean & updated.
b. Blog regularly. (And our vast readership rejoices. Hooray!)

5. Read! (And I just finished a good one, by the way.)

Anyone want to hear what Skye's resolutions are? No? Well then, what are yours?

Also, that "for me to POOP on" line in the title is purely to make my sister snarf whatever liquid she happens to be drinking when she reads this post. I'm an awesome sister like that. It has no bearing whatsoever on this post, besides that it makes my title less boring than "Resolutions," which was all I could come up with on my own, without drawing on other people's catchphrases and stealing their sense of humor and timing and All That Is Good right out from underneath them. Forgive me, for I have sinned. Or something.