Any questions, comments, or compliments?

My kids all attended a public Montessori school. Overall, I would say that experience has been positive. My son is in his last year there, and then he'll move on to high school, and after fifteen years, all of my kids will be out of Montessori.

I remember when my oldest child started kindergarten that there was a lot of discussion among the teachers about how much they should or should not be embracing certain technology. There was debate about how screens as an educational tool fit into the Montessori philosophy. So watching my son do eighth grade entirely on screens has been odd in yet one more way.

There are lots of quirks to the Montessori method, some of which I find really inspired, and others feel somewhat odd because they are so different from how I experienced elementary and junior high schools. But one of the things the kids are taught to do that never ceases to amuse me, is that when they give a presentation at one of the many fairs that parents can attend (science, cultural, etc.), when they finish explaining or demonstrating at their display or table, they ask, "Do you have any questions, comments, or compliments?"

I find that so sweet and funny and weird. I get asking for questions, and maybe even comments, but the first time I heard one of my kids asking for compliments, too, made me laugh.

But why not? So in that spirit, I present to you my latest project: A new book entitled "My Violin Needs Help! A Repair Diagnostics Guide for Players and Teachers."

 

Isn't the cover pretty? My brother Barrett made it. He also helped me nitpick a bunch of things from the images to the formatting, etc. He's the one who suggested I include a references page, and because he's an entomologist, I wound up with two entries in there about bow bugs.

I think it's a nice little book. It could have been much longer, but I really wanted to keep it simple. It fills a need, because most of the books out there about violins can be overwhelmingly technical, and those of us who work with violins all the time forget that many people who use them lack really basic information. I try to educate people all the time at my shop, and this attempts to be that same sort of friendly discussion in book form.

So check it out if you can! I tried to make it a fun read, even if you're not heavily involved in the violin world. It's available to order from anywhere you buy books. (Plus at my violin shop. If you want a signed copy just ask, and I can send you one.)

And when you're done, let me know if you have any questions, comments, or compliments! (Or even better, if you liked it, leave me an Amazon or Barnes & Noble review.)

Creative Hours

I belong to a few different online groups for writers. They are filled with helpful, supportive people and are good places to ask questions, bounce around ideas, and occasionally simply vent or share success stories.

A few months ago, a writer in one of the groups was musing about how there was a book she really wanted to buy by a writer she really liked, but the price was five dollars, rather than the usual one dollar she'd become accustomed to through online promotions. She regretted that she couldn't get past the price tag and I think was looking to commiserate.

Honestly, this shocked me, along with many other writers in the group. Not because we don't know people are generally cheap and don't want to pay more for things than they have to, but because she was a fellow writer. She knows how much time and effort it takes to publish a book.

Five dollars? Five dollars is nothing compared to the hours upon hours spent creating characters and story lines and editing and editing again and suffering as your test readers have your manuscript and you have to wait an eternity wondering if your work is garbage or not. There is the struggle for the right cover design and chasing typos and formatting issues. And then there are the elusive bursts of inspiration that you have to harness while you can in order to turn them into a story worth reading. The core of what you do is dependent on something you can't even predict or rely on. It's hard. Writing is hard. (Super fun when it's going well, but still...) A fellow writer should more than understand why a book might be five dollars.

Writing Again

Last week I got to use our cottage in Michigan as a mini-writing-retreat.

I went with a talented writer friend who helped me salvage my first novel a few years ago, and she agreed to help with the second if I would keep her on task with writing her own book.  We had five straight days (plus two chatty driving days) of writing.  For the most part no internet, no schedule, no news, no responsibilities.  There were a couple of trips to the library, a few trips to pick up food, and some lovely walks here and there, but more or less we stayed in the house and wrote without interruption.

I can't emphasize enough how much I needed this.

Spring Catch Up Post

Life has been nuts.  I remember how hard running after toddlers was, and how babies suck up all of your day, but I also remember thinking something easier was just over the horizon if I could just get a little more sleep and make it there.

Yeah, no.  Bigger kids just have different issues that suck up just as much time, and complex problems that can tear at your soul.  Older kids can also be wonderful, and having real conversations with these people you made is amazing, especially when I think back to the days where we spent a lot of time just pointing to colors and that was as stimulating as things got.  I prefer playing Settlers of Catan to Candyland, there are just a lot more rules to remember.

Anyway, lately there has been little time to think, let alone write, so this is a giant catch-all post to sort through some of what we've been doing and to keep my memories anchored in time a bit better.

Cube Club

I have a cube collection--Meaning a collection of puzzles centered around Rubik's cubes.

I remember very clearly when Rubik's cubes arrived in the United States in the early 80s.  I wanted one.  It spoke to me in a way few things did.  I liked that it was colorful and compact and could fit nicely in your hands.  I liked that it was something that would take time to figure out.

I also come from a family of collectors, so in my home growing up it was accepted and even encouraged that if you liked something for you to collect and save anything related to it.  So I didn't just have a cube and a solution book, I had all the cubes and all the solution books I could find.

Luna Moth Dream

If I really wanted this blog to be entertaining I would simply write about my brothers all the time.  Either of them is an easy go-to topic for me at parties because there are endless interesting stories available, and in case I'm in a situation where the company is boring, talking about Arno or Barrett keeps me amused.  I love them and could not have asked for kinder, funnier, or more intelligent siblings.

Arno is a neuroscientist who currently works at the Child Mind Institute in New York City.  He always talks to me about his work as if I'm a knowledgeable colleague, which is flattering, but consequently I have no clear idea what he does.  The bits I can follow are fascinating, and he does important research that will improve people's lives, but don't ask me to explain any of it.

But this post relates to a project coordinated by my other brother.  The baby of the family by four minutes, Barrett is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse where he specializes in entomology and insect sleep research.  He's also a talented artist who has done lots of model making and scientific illustration, and he is particularly interested in cultural entomology which is where insects meet art.

Last year he commissioned 30 artists to make small books with the theme "Insect Dreams."  He was generous enough to invite me to participate, and despite the limits on my time there are moments when an intense little project is a good distraction from other things so I recently buckled down over a weekend and made my contribution.

Want to see?

Books Vs. Movies (Babble)

I can’t see movies made from a book I’ve read and liked.  Am I really all alone in this?  I feel like it.

I know this bugs the crap out of people sometimes when we’re trying to pick a movie everyone can agree on, and looks like some weird affectation that borders on simply being snooty.  But I’ve tried to watch films made from books and I don’t enjoy it.  I am so distracted by even small deviations from the story the way I read it that I can barely follow what’s happening on the screen sometimes.  I just start tallying up moments that are in some way or another wrong.

I love to read, and I love the experience of working with a writer’s words to create places and people in my mind.  I don’t want to see actors who don’t look like the people in my head wearing costumes that don’t match images I liked in surroundings that never resemble the pictures I’ve already chosen.  I don’t want all of that getting muddled together.

So, no, I’ve never seen an entire Harry Potter movie.  I’ve caught bits and pieces on TV and found myself muttering unhappily when I did.  I don’t want that castle in my head, I want my castle.  I don’t want those people playing the characters, I want the ones I came up with in collaboration with the author while I was reading the books.

Recently I’ve been making my way through The Hunger Games series.  I read through the first book in about a day and a half and ran out to the bookstore to grab the second and third before I was done with the last chapter because the idea of getting to the end of the first book and having to wait more than a matter of minutes to start reading the next was unbearable.  I understand the hype because the story really sucks you in and propels you forward in a way that the term ‘page turner’ was meant to describe.  It’s a fun read that doesn’t feel frivolous because of the severe subject matter.

I’m fascinated with the cognitive dissonance the book generates by setting the reader up to be appalled by a society that can’t tear itself away from watching children being forced to kill one another, while at the same time counting on us to have the same inability to stop reading about it.  We are guilty observers as we root for the hero just as everyone in the fictional audience is.  That’s interesting.  (The only element I disliked in the first book were the muttations toward the end, because what?  How?  Really?  Mutant dogs are one thing, but generated from dead people in a matter of days?  Maybe something in one of the next two books will throw me a bone on that one but I doubt it.)

Anyway, great book.  Love it.  Can totally see how it inspired a movie franchise.  But I am not seeing that movie.

I know people who already have tickets, who are counting down the days.  I know with the Harry Potter books people would read the stories then camp out at the theaters to see how they were adapted for the screen and it becomes an event.  Lots of people anymore kind of put books and their movies together like some sort of package deal to be enjoyed alongside one another like that’s how it should be.  So I sit on the sidelines with my book and hope other people have fun but I can’t join them.

What I enjoy better is pairing things that complement each other.  I took a film and literature class in college that did a clever job of picking books and movies that had obvious parallels and it was amazing.  We read The Phantom Tollbooth and watched The Wizard of Oz (which I know is also a book, but not one I read until last year), A Rose for Emily paired with Psycho, and Heart of Darkness along with Apocalypse Now.  That was fun.  But a movie drawing inspiration from a book is different from a movie trying to be the book.  I don’t enjoy that at all.

Maybe I have too much attachment to my imagination and should be able to see other people’s interpretations without them obscuring my own.  Or maybe I cling to more details than the average person and they aren’t seeing the little discrepancies that needle me all through a movie adaptation.

All I know is I watched part of one trailer for The Hunger Games and in it the main character is giving her sister a mockingjay pin and telling her it will keep her safe and my brain started screaming, “But that’s not what happened!  It was from the mayor’s daughter to Katniss after she volunteered!  Aaaargh!”  So no, that movie would be no fun for me at all.

Which is too bad because it’s probably a good movie.  Like Hugo which I don’t want to see and people think that’s stupid of me.  But the last time I tried to see a movie based on a book I liked was Pride and Prejudice.  I figured it had been a long time since I’d read the story and maybe I didn’t remember everything and it would be okay.  But then they changed the ending.  And at that point I officially gave up.

A friend once asked me what I would do if someone made a movie out of one of the books I’ve written.  This is as ridiculous as asking me what I would wear to meet the queen because it’s not going to happen.  I’m still doing the crushing work of simply trying to find an agent who could even just make my book into a book.  But in that mythical universe that wants to turn my book into a movie, no, I probably don’t want to see it.  (My friend doesn’t believe me, but unless that mythical universe also lets me eat nothing but donuts and cereal without ruining my health, it’s not a different enough universe that I am likely to have a change of heart.)

I’ve decided I’m done apologizing for not wanting to see movie adaptations of books I’ve enjoyed.  I don’t care anymore if I’m the only one this bothers.

Maybe this is the same part of my brain that can’t relate to what people see in watching professional sports, or who enjoy drinking, or any number of other things I don’t find entertaining that so many people can’t imagine a life without.  That’s okay.  I’m not telling anyone else what they should or shouldn’t enjoy.  Have a blast at the movies!  I’ll eat my Junior Mints out here with my book.

This picture has nothing to do with anything at all.  It’s a drawing Quinn did on the white board back when he was still four and I have nothing to use it with but I love it and wanted to share his little solar system just because I’m his mom.  (It’s a parenting website after all, so I’m allowed a random ‘look what my kid did!’ moment I think.)

Odds, Ends, and a Hopeless Challenge (Babble)

Did you have a good Thanksgiving?  I hope so.  We had a lovely time here with friends over and lots of food and it was great.

But first thing the next morning I drove to Detroit to visit my parents.  My dad has been back in the hospital, and it was hard to decide what to do.  I felt I should go out there but didn’t know if bringing the kids would be too much, and I didn’t want to be apart from them during Thanksgiving (or a birthday).  I finally decided it made more sense to go alone right after turkey day.

I always try to take a picture of my kids right before I leave for a trip by myself, and this was Friday’s:

They are all in the glow of the computer because Mona didn’t want to stop the game she was in the middle of, so rather than have her quit I had Quinn and Aden pose on either side and told Mona she had to look at me when I counted to three.


Anyway, my dad’s health problems are posing all kinds of difficulties for my parents at the moment, mostly because his mobility is limited.  But we played Scrabble and I read to him a little, showed him photos of the kids and pictures of our new porch, and talked about our new dog.  It was a nice visit.

However, I’m still feeling out of sorts after the long drive there and back and frazzled about Mona’s upcoming party and a concert I have to play this week and about a million other things that are making it hard to focus on one coherent blog post, so here is a hodgepodge of things for your consideration.

Let’s start with a couple of Mona Creations.  The first is a Firebird that I actually convinced her to let me keep so it doesn’t get destroyed.  She offered me shared custody for about a week, but then recently told me I could just have it.

Then there is this Squid, which is just cool.  My kid can make a squid.  I am beyond proud.

Next, the dog went to the groomer and came back looking like a different (if equally cute) dog.  It’s hard to get a good picture of the dog because he just comes out a black blur most of the time.  I got the most satisfying crazy happy greeting from the dog when I returned from Detroit.  It’s ridiculous how much I love this dog after only two weeks.

And now a challenge!  My dad asked me when I was visiting if I would please go out into the library and get his Escher book.  It was in the shelves on the wall on the right side of the room.  Which looks like this:

Yeah.

My dad said it wouldn’t be hard because it was all in alphabetical order.  I don’t know what alphabet he’s using but it’s not one with which I’m familiar.  So the book on Escher is supposedly in this section, so if you spot it let me know:

And that’s about all I have time for because I am already late for a rehearsal.  Take care and enjoy your leftovers!

Books in Production (Babble)

Aden and a friend of hers have been working on a series of small books.  I think it’s an adventure story about bunnies….  No, wait, one of them was about the cat that was stuck in our deck.  I’m not sure.  I hear so many bits and fragments of ideas for projects that it’s hard to keep them straight.  Anyway, Aden asked the other day, “Mom?  How do you get a book published?” and I burst out laughing thinking about the pile of unpublished novels I’ve written tucked away upstairs and said, “Honey, you are asking the wrong person!  I have no idea!”  Luckily I just write because I like to write and if those books never see any readers beyond my family and friends that’s okay.  And luckily for Aden I don’t mind helping her produce her books on her own.

We’ve actually been in heavy book production mode here lately.  We were trying to figure out what to get my niece for her birthday, and settled on making her some books.  Ellora is the most avid fan of books in the under ten crowd I’ve ever known, and it’s hard to buy things for her that she hasn’t already read.  So to sidestep that problem we decided to make our own.

Quinn’s was finished first.  It’s a book about a butterfly birthday.

He was actually feeling out of sorts the other day so I kept him home from school and we spent all morning deciding on the exact wording of the text and making pictures to go with them.  When we got it all done to Quinn’s liking we took it to Kinko’s to have the pages laminated and bound while we ate lunch across the street.  It was a really pleasant day and totally worth having him miss a day of kindergarten for, especially since he went back refreshed and happy to be there the next day.  (Even kindergarteners need a mental health day from time to time.)  Check out a few of my favorite pages:

Didn’t it come out cute?  I think his cousin will like it.

Mona’s book is almost ready for binding.  She did a counting book inspired by a book she really likes.  We still have to do some editing for things like backwards numbers and a few odd words, but she really wanted to do all the text herself so I’m proud of her.  Spelling is not her strong suit at the moment, but I like that she’s fearless about putting stuff down on the page anyway.  Over the summer I’m going to focus on spelling and writing with Mona.  Look how adorable these sheep are, though!

I don’t mind the word ‘sheep’ spread out over two lines, but I’m going to help her remove the extra ‘the’ that somehow found its way into that sentence.  I like the way Mona draws squirrels

Aden, of course, is making something complicated.  She is doing something like an I Spy book, but it involves challenges and stories and games….  I told her we’re on a deadline and maybe we could do all of that for Christmas and take our time, but no, she’s barreling ahead.  I’m getting worried about her getting it all done but I admire her ambition.  I just hope we don’t end up with a mess of tears and frustration to take to her cousin instead of a book.  We’ll see.  I have faith in Aden to come up with something, even if at the moment all she has done is an enhanced checker board:

I’m pleased with how seriously the kids have buckled down to produce these books.  They have so many of their own projects that they are working on at any given moment that I wasn’t sure they could focus on getting something specific done on time, but they’re really trying. 

In fact today they got up at 5:30 in the morning to get in some time on them before school.  It had me really confused because Ian got up with them and they all went downstairs and left me to sleep, but then I woke up at 6:30 to Quinn standing by my bed asking me to help adjust something about his shirt.  I got it in my head it was 7:30 and couldn’t understand why he hadn’t left for school.  I didn’t figure it out until I went downstairs and found the girls busily working at the dining room table and Ian still in his robe.  I am not a morning person, so all of that industriousness that early in the day kind of threw me for a loop.  Or maybe I just need to review how to read a clock.  Either way book production continues!  (Maybe I should just laminate my novels and bind them at Kinko’s too.  Because that looks professional!)