Tis the Season by Konnie Enos

‘Tis the season for annoying commercials and the extreme commercialism that has become this holiday season. Everywhere you look there is another ad for something else you simply have to buy. One recent ad on the air here touted, repeatedly, that this was the season of getting. The entire ad never once said the word give, or at least not that I heard.

What’s the worst part of it is many people blame this get, get, get, give me, give me, give me mentality on The Spirit of Santa Clause. It’s no more The Spirit of Santa Clause than it is The Spirit of Christmas. Santa Clause is about giving, not getting.

   The Spirit of Santa Clause is about giving time and talent to make or find that exactly right gift, that special something for someone you love. It’s about family and time.

In the hustle and bustle of this world too many of us forget why we celebrate Christmas. They focus so completely on what they’d like to receive they barely even think about what they are giving. The Spirit of Santa Clause isn’t just about giving, it’s about giving the right gift.

Stop focusing on how much you’re spending, other than keeping it within your budget, and don’t worry about how many gifts there are. Think about what will really please the person you are getting those gifts for.

One year, with a really tight budget, as usual. I could only get one gift for each of my children. I skimped and saved. I planned. I tried to figure out what each of my kids would love to get, that I could afford. It wasn’t easy because I knew that one of my kids wanted a camera. But with a great deal of effort, I managed to find just the right gift for all of them, including that camera, the most expensive gift I bought that year, and probably ever.

But the right gift doesn’t have to bought, it can be made. In fact, the very best presents are from the heart, handmade especially for the recipient.

Can you draw? Then make a picture.

Do any sort of handcraft? Utilize them.

Do you have a sewing machine and know how to use it? Same thing.

Can you cook? Bake? Know anyone who is away from home this time of year? A box of homemade goodies always pleases.

My daughter does paint by number pictures and frames them for gifts, or counted cross stitch pictures. She’s also knitted baby hats and made necklaces and earrings.

I can crochet, knit, do cross stitch and other handcrafts. I can cook and I write. It’s a simple thing to plan what handcrafts you’ll use to make that one gift for that one person on your list. As a writer, there is nothing wrong with composing a story for your family as a gift. Perhaps you’ll manage to pen the next great best seller. Richard Paul Evans did and The Christmas Box was born.

I’ve made gifts for my children over the years and they still talk about them. I can think of at least twice, if not three times that I’ve written something as a gift.

Personally, I think it’d be a wonderful tradition to make at least some of your gifts each year. But I’d challenge all of you to really think about your giving and who those gifts are for. The best gift for someone who collects Nativities is one they don’t have yet. It’s not that book, movie, game or anything else you can think of that you absolutely adore but they don’t.

So in the true Spirit of Santa Clause and the true spirit of the season, the Christmas season, give from the heart.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

What’s Your Character’s Sign?

Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of different posts on Facebook about various personality traits and the Zodiac sign they were supposed to show under, and I recalled talking to several friends about creating characters and some of them mentioned using the signs of the Zodiac as part of it.

Personally, I’ve only ever read those deals for a good laugh, because I have never found one that described my personality to a T. Every single one I’ve ever read either sort of but not quite described Konnie, or sort of but not quite described me, or was just plain so ambiguous it sort of but not quite described both of us. And our mother was a Cancer too. Add her into the equation and those things never jibed with reality.

And as far as creating characters go, I don’t often even come up with a birthday for any character in my stories except when that birthday plays a vital role in the character’s personality and or the story. In fact, there’s only once when I took the time to devise exact birthday’s for more than one character in a story and that was because the story covered most of a year, and thereby had to have some birthdays during that time. Additionally, if there were, those birthdays would have some impact on the events in the story.

Then of course, there’s the fact that the story in question has since morphed into a series, and yes I have lots of character birthdays, because those birthdays could impact any future story line.

Off the top of my head, I can only think of one other time when I mention a character’s birthday, and I started that story the day before said character’s birthday, so the event played a vital role in the story line.

However, when it isn’t vital to the story, I don’t make one up. Why bother? I don’t need it and it doesn’t impact the character or the story line.

Now the other day I found an article somewhere on the internet, and I forget where, about what personality traits congregate to what states. When I saw the headline, my first thought was, “Really?”

They took the time figure this out? Why?

Then I realized the information might be a fun fact to add to a story sometime, so I read it, and I should have taken more notes, but I kind of lost it when I got to the paragraph on introverts and extroverts.

You see, the article said introverts congregate in states that include Idaho (where I live) and extroverts congregate in states that include Nevada (where Konnie lives)!

Yeah, I laughed out loud. Found it very funny. Seems Konnie and I are living in the wrong states, if you were to believe that article. But I guess, if I’d bothered to save the article; I could have probably used it as a topic of conversation in some story.

What do you think?

Happy writing everyone! J

Picky Eaters

Recently I was reading an advice column where a mother was asking how to get her young child to eat healthy food without doctoring it with ketchup. The advice columnist simply gave the age old adages for getting young picky eaters to try new foods.

I read it and could only come up with one thought. “You’re overlooking a major cause of picky eating.”

I personally know several adults who were picky eaters as toddlers. In one case, the person falls on the autism spectrum. It’s a texture problem. In the other cases, it turned out the food the people didn’t like were foods they were actually allergic to, and those allergies got worse as they got older.

A pre-school aged child doesn’t understand everything that is going on, nor do they have the words to explain exactly what he is feeling. I know my own daughter fought me for years on chunky peanut butter. She hated it, always said it made her feel like she was choking.

Guess what? She’s allergic to peanuts. Actually now basically every type of nut there is.

She’s also never liked peas.

Guess what else now makes her very sick, as in major allergic reaction. The close cousin of peas, soy.

I could go on and on at this point about how much trouble it is to have to feed someone on any type of restricted diet. However, the point I wanted to make here, was that even young kids, who don’t have the words, or even the understanding to know what they are feeling isn’t normal, still know what they don’t like and can try to express it in some ways.

When a child won’t eat certain foods why do we just assume they are being picky and simply try to find ways to make them eat the offending food? Why can’t we first check to see if there might be a reason for them to not like that food?

My youngest daughter has always, always hated chunky peanut butter and peas.

I figured she was my picky eater. First I ignored it. Then I did a tiny bit to accommodate it. I bought some creamy peanut butter. Eventually I let her dig the peas out of her food and not eat them. Finally, as she became an adult and her allergies got worse and worse, I listened to her.

Another person I know who was a picky eater as a child still shows all the symptoms of being on the autism spectrum, though high enough not to have been institutionalized and forgotten as a child back in the era when it was still fairly common to tell parents to forget their children who would ‘never live a normal life’.

My point is, don’t assume a toddler refusing food is doing it to be a fussy kid. They might just be doing it because they are actually allergic to that food, or maybe there is another medical reason for it.

Really listen to what your child says about it. If they say it makes them feel like they are choking, think allergies. If they talk about how yucky it is or feels, think possible sensory issues, like those on the autism spectrum.

I also admit toddlers will refuse to eat. And that could just be a phase. It too shall pass. And you can help it pass by utilizing those age old adages to encourage them to try new foods, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you look at when dealing with a picky eater.

This from a mother who knows.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Writing Challenges

It is now week three of Nano, and where am I? I’m at well over 58k though I’ve had some bumps on the way, I’ve also had one dozy of day where I managed over 6k words, that’s over 25 pages, in a single day. Okay, that’s fast, and a dang lot of typing, but you should have seen the day before, my third worst effort to that point. I know the problem the other two days was I was rather busy and wasn’t able to get more done, but the day before my banner day, I just couldn’t concentrate on the story I started, the story I had.

Finally, I decided to, without starting a new file, or deleting what I had so far, write what I could of the story bothering me, then return to the story I had started. To date I’ve written over 31k on the new story and only around 27k on the one I’d planned to write this month! And at this rate, I may never finish the original story. But then I can’t predict the future, and I still like the other story, just at the moment, this one is compelling me forward to the end.

And I don’t know about anybody else, but that sometimes happens to me, just usually when the story I’m writing gets bogged down some way, and I’m not finding a solution to fix it, that just wasn’t the case this time, but oh well, eventually I’ll have two new stories! It just takes time, which is something I don’t have, since tomorrow is Thanksgiving and boy am I not ready for it! Sort of usual for me to, but I’m cutting this short so I can get some work done.

So, happy Thanksgiving everyone! J

The Tortoise and The Little Engine That Could

Last month I challenged Bonnie to see which one of us could finish our story first. Obviously hers was shorter and she hadn’t been working it as long as I had been mine, but I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Then as the month was drawing to a close, she discovered she had a glaring error in hers which needed corrected before she could move on so she conceded. I also realized I wouldn’t make the goal of finishing by the end of the month so I tried to keep her in it.

In every post since she conceded, when she mentioned it, she said I won merely because she faced an obstacle and wasn’t going to finish before the end of last month. I pointed out I wouldn’t finish in October either. Between family obligations and figuring out I needed a couple of scenes I hadn’t considered, and one event I had planned took seven chapters to cover it, so it took more than I’d thought I’d need when I made the challenge.

Then her last post she wrote about the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race. And I thought, the tortoise wasn’t only slow and steady, he DID NOT GIVE UP. No matter how many time he trudged past the dawdling hare, or it zoomed past him afterwards, the tortoise kept going.

Be the tortoise, and the little engine that could.

I started my opus, the story I was working on for this challenge, in November of 2008. It was a dream I had and I worked like a mad woman that month trying to get it all on paper before I forgot any of it. By the end of the month I had somewhere between 65 and 70K words, so if I’d entered the NANO that year, I would have won. It was in a nut shell a sci-fi romance with two POV characters, though I could easily see the other stories in it.

Shortly after that I started writing another “companion” story, then another. As I started the third one I realized they all ran concurrently and needed to be told in the same story, especially since they ended up in the same place and time. Thus my opus was born, with a full seven POV’s.

Now, this month, a full seven years after I started, I finally reached ‘The End’. Or at least got back to where the first story ended. My opus now has 150 chapters, 1644 pages, and over 405,000 words and still covers the same time span.

I didn’t give up. I kept plodding along. I kept trying. Several times I had to backtrack and redo scenes because they just weren’t working, or I got a detail wrong, or I didn’t put in something that was needed. I can’t tell you how many times over the course of the last seven years I had to go back to the beginning and change details of my story because I decided something wasn’t going to work the way I had it.

But I didn’t give up. And I’m not giving up. Now I’m ready for the fun and torture of editing.

But before I start that, I’m going to make sure my fantasy is finished. The one I started back in high school, about 33 years ago, as a short story.

The race goes to the tortoise and the little engine that could.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

The Tortoise And The Hare

I am now well into the second week of National Novel Writer’s Month, more commonly known as NaNo, http://nanowrimo.org which is a challenge to write 50,000 new words of a novel during November.

This will be my thirteenth year of doing this, and if you think the outcome is in question, I can tell you, not where I’m concerned. In all the years I’ve done this, there is only once when I didn’t get my word count verified as a win, and that year I had technical issues with my phone line which didn’t get solved until after the first of December. Back then, I had a dial-up, so that was a hindrance.

At any rate, I always manage to finish this challenge.

How I manage is another issue. And I will admit I do have tons of time to write, since I don’t work, but let’s face it, I need it. A good illustration of why I need so much spare time is what happened this Saturday at a local write-in.

For starters, write-ins are when local people who all signed up for the NaNo get together at some designated time and place and write. I am aware that there are not “in real world” meetings and groups for NaNo everywhere, but they do exist, and my local group is pretty cool.

At any rate, I did attend a write-in on Saturday, and other than writing, and a bit of chatting, one thing we do at these events is have what is termed either word wars or word sprints. These are timed events, usually for anything from five minutes to as much as a half hour, but in our group, we usually go for fifteen minutes.

The goal of these word wars is to type as many words as you can during that time. Obviously, the person with the highest number wins.

Saturday we did this twice, and just before we started the second one, I predicted I’d lose again. The fact is I usually lose these things, and Saturday was no exception. Everyone else managed to get at least twice as many words as I did, but you see, of all the people in attendance Saturday, I was the one with the highest overall word count.

In the end of the second sprint, one person in our group got nearly nine hundred words, an impressive total for just fifteen minutes, while I didn’t even manage four hundred. And yet, each year this lady usually ends up typing like a mad woman on the last day of month, frantically trying to finish before the time is up, and generally making it at the last minute, last year she didn’t even manage that much.

Now, I admit she has a lot of other things she’s doing during the month. She’s one busy woman. She honestly would never finish this challenge in time if she couldn’t type at the speed she does.

I, on the other hand, don’t have anywhere near as much on my calendar, and I can manage to write nearly every day for several hours straight, each time. And I finish the challenge long before the month is out. Last year I actually managed just over 63k words total for the month and at the rate I’m going I may well do the same this year.

After all, today is only the 11^th of the month, and in order to make 50k words by the last day of month, you will need to have written 18,333 words by the end of today. I made that last Saturday, and then some. At this moment, I’m set to exceed 25k today, and that is the number you’d need to reach by this coming Sunday.

In other words, I’m the Tortoise, and my friend is the Hare. Slow and steady wins the race. Aesop knew what he was talking about.

Happy writing everyone. J