Fiction Friday: Jane Austen Fight Club

On Procrastination

I once attended a class at church called, "Cooperating with God for a Change." During the class, the teacher said, "How many of you think procrastination is a bad thing?" Everyone raised their hand. "Not at all," he said. "Procrastination is the thing that lets us delay starting things until the right time. Without procrastination, if you woke up at 2 a.m. and realized your grass needed cutting, you'd have to get up right then and mow it." Which pretty much describes my life. You see, I was born without a procrastination gene. Many of you will reading that will say, "How lucky! Think of all she must get done!" But it's more like, "Think of all the things she gets started!" Finishing stuff requires discipline, which is a whole separate chromosomal sequence. Old Dog, on the other hand, was born with two procrastination genes. In fact, the only thing that gets him started on a project is when I initiate one and then abandon it. So, all in all, it works out.

Fiction Friday: Homage to Ray Bradbury

Note: If the "f" word, or, for that matter, nubile young schoolgirls lusting after really old men, offends you, don't watch this.

On the other hand, if your perspective is a little wider, watch it and laugh your ass off.

I did.

5 New Rules

1) If you're a vegetarian and, in addition to the dietary restrictions that imposes, there is a long list of foods you don't eat because you don't like the way they taste, or the way they smell, or their texture, or whatever, you're no longer a vegetarian, you're just a picky-ass eater. 2) If your child has come out of diapers within the last 72 hours, you may not refer to her as "potty-trained." At that point, she is merely peeing through panties rather than into a diaper. 3) If you want to attract new readers to your blog, don't visit their blog and leave comments like, "Great Blog!!!!" in response to their post on the untimely death of a loved one. 4) If you own one of those yappy-ass little hairballs that passes for a dog in some circles, when you take it to the park and you pass the nice lady with two large, actual dogs on a tandem leash, do NOT let your little rat-bait lunge at the big dogs. Even though you've spoiled "Baby" to believe he's alpha dog of the universe, he only owns that role inside your four walls. Out in the real world, although my dogs are pretty laid-back when it comes to uppitiness from dustmops-on-paws, I can't promise one of those actual dogs won't snap its silly neck. 5) People's interest in/judgment of the sex lives of others is inversely proportional to their satisfaction with their own. Whenever I see someone condeming gays, or actors, or whoever, I think to myself, "There is someone who is not having a good time in the sack." Or being one.

Fiction Friday: Wildfire Run Now on Sale

A few years back, at a writing conference in Columbus, I met a woman from Cincinnati named Dee Garretson. We were both working on romance novels and eager to learn more about the craft, and to hang out with other writers. (Who could understand our obsession.)

Unlike many novice writers, we continued to write, working on our books, honing our craft and getting nowhere, publishing-wise.

Then, a couple of summers ago, Dee dashed off a middle-grades novel, gearing it toward her 5th grade son. The novel centered around the son of the President (who happened to be the same age as Dee's son) and a couple of his friends and what would happen if these youngsters got caught inside the Camp David compound in the middle of a forest fire after all the adults had been evacuated.

I read an early draft and loved it. She soon found an agent who felt the same way.

So did HarperCollins.

It hit the bookstores on August 31st, and if you know a kid in this age range, I heartily recommend it.

(If you're interested, here's the Amazon link.)

I plan to buy several.

Rapture Insurance, Raisin Style

This insurance is designed to take care of your pets, etc. after you've been whisked away to live in the clouds. It costs $110.00 for a single pet at a single address and $15.00 for additional pets at that address.

If you're interested, you can check it out at Eternal Earthbound Pets.com.

Another alternative is to make friends with an atheist.

Of which I have a few.

I won't name them, since a recent survey showed most Americans rank atheists below homosexuals on an acceptability scale (and we hate gays so much we won't even let them get married because, I suppose, we're afraid they'll reproduce), but you atheists know who you are.

So, anonymous atheist friends, if I suddenly disappear, would you take care of Abby and Emmy, please?

(Note: Technically speaking, #5 is an agnostic view. And here's what Life of Pi says about agnostics:

"I can well imagine an atheist's last words: "White, white! L-L-Love! My God!"--and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, "Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain," and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.")

Coming Wednesday: I get grilled over at Grilled Grandmas.

The Rule of Twelve

We've all heard that the human brain can accommodate about seven pieces of data at any given time.

Well, according to Malcolm Gladwell, we're also set up to handle approximately twelve serious friendships/relationships. This is not only the number we appear to be biologically programmed for, it's also, sensibly, the number of people we can consistently spend time with.

If you doubt this, ask yourself: How many apostles were there?

Twelve.

Evidently Jesus agreed with Gladwell.

This rule of twelve seems completely reasonable to me, and it probably works pretty well for most folks.

My problem is:

1) I have 6 siblings and
2) I have 6 kids (plus a couple of really nice kids-in-law).

I'm already past the magic number, and we haven't even started on my 10 grandchildren yet. Not to mention numerous adorable nieces and nephews, cool aunts and uncles, and various friends.

After I read the Gladwell essay, I spent a little time with an Excel spreadsheet (always my favorite way to organize myself) doing a little exercise called "Who Are My Twelve?"

We won't go into who is and who isn't (because you never know who's going to be bored enough to check out my blog), but the way it worked out for me is that there are maybe 6 or 8 people who fit cleanly within my twelve and a butt-load more that should be there/could be there if only there were more hours in the day.

And what I do is take those remaining slots and peanut butter spread them across all my other loved ones. If there's a recipe for stress and guilt, I suspect it includes peanut butter.

So how about you?

Who are your twelve?