~~~Lara Zielin~~~

STATUS: More in touch with my chicken-friendly side, thanks to my husband who really loves chickens. I just got him a little plastic replica of a chicken coop. You’d think I’d presented him with a Rolex.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Who knew? There exists a condiment packet museum. I swear, I seriously love the interwebs some days.

My friend Patti turned me on to a show that ran for a little bit but was ultimately canceled before its time (like many good shows are. See: Deadwood; Arrested Development; Veronica Mars; etc.) called Wonderfalls. Apparently they pulled it off the air because it was competing, on the same network, with a “similar” show called Joan of Arcadia. Instead of pulling Joan they pulled Wonderfalls. Big mistake. This show totally rules.

The premise of Wonderfalls is that inanimate animals talk to Jaye, the 24-year-old slacker protagonist, and tell her to do things. The writing is totally solid, Jaye is a fabulous character, and the premise somehow works, even though it sounds a little bit one-note. The one season of the show that aired is totally out on DVD if you want to pick it up, and there’s also a video on Youtube of the theme song. Which is the best theme song ever. I totally thought it was just me until Kat came over last night and professed her love of said theme song as well. We popped in the DVD, cranked the theme song, and totally grooved. So here’s the theme song on Youtube (the long version), which will have you dancing in your living room in no time. I just bet.

STATUS: Fighting the urge to go back to Bill. Darn his charismatic, alluring powers!

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Alex posted this one on her Facebook page and I’m stealing it from her. It’s a 1980s dance fight, which, unlike “Beat It,” doesn’t quite achieve that same level of menace vis a vis song. But then again, “Beat It” was never this awesomely awful.

In the latest draft of my new novel, I have been guilty of a lot of over-writing. Like, why say it in one sentence when you can say it in three pages? I am working on editing and tightening, and I am blessed with people around me who are helping me spot the blah-blah-blahing.

Looking for areas to trim is also a good reminder of a lesson Stephen King gave in his book On Writing. Which, if you’re a writer and you haven’t read this book, pick it up. The memoir portion of the book is pretty gritty, and King doesn’t hesitate to talk about things like how tough times were before he sold Carrie, for example. But the writing lessons are even better. My favorite was where King goes on a rant about adverbs, those pesky “ly” words — like quickly, quietly, softly, fully. King thought they were pretty much crap and writers didn’t need them.

For example: “I’ve always loved you,” Bill said softly.

King would argue here that you don’t need the softly. That if you set the scene well, the softly is a “dur.” And for a sentence like “Bill ran quickly,” King might say there are better ways to craft it. Like, “Bill pounded down the sidewalk until the trees began to blur.”

I am pulling a lot of this from memory because my neighbor has my copy of On Writing and hasn’t given it back. She also has the first season of 24 and a galley of Keeping the House. So if I’m not spot-on with the examples, you can post a comment to that end. But I think I’ve got the gist of it down — and it’ll have to do until I walk across the street and get my shizzle back.

STATUS: My status today is going to be the entire blog. Because I am officially rescinding my crush on Bill Clinton.

I know, I know — it’s big news. And my three readers might be shaking their heads at this very moment asking, “Why now? He has a good shot at being the first First Husband, and he’s getting so much more dignified with age.” To this I would say, yes, I agree. But it’s time to move on because as much as I love Bill Clinton for all his flaws, I had actually believed, in my heart of hearts, that he’d learned from his mistakes and changed. And  that’s totally why I crushed on him. Anyone can ignore their flaws — but someone who is brave enough to not only look at them, but then try to become a better person because of them, well, that’s crazy brave if you ask me.

And then I saw this article. Turns out Bill helped broker a lucrative mining deal in Kazakhstan, which, normally I’d be like, whatever, big deal. But I met a graduate student who was studying Kazakhstan and she explained to me how awful mining is for the people of Kazakhstan. Not only does it pollute the earth and the water and make people sick, but with all the corruption in the country, only a handful of people ever see the profits. (She also explained to me that Kazakhstan is rich in oil, but you’d never know that from the poverty in the country and the fact that the money stays in only a few hands).

So, Bill apparently helped broker this shady deal because the mine dude gave a crapload of money to Bill’s foundation. Which, I’ve read Bill’s book Giving and, up until recently, I believed in what Bill was doing, foundation and all. I really did. I wanted Hillary to be President just because of Bill. But now I just think I’ve been snowed over like everyone else.

Bill hasn’t changed — he’s just found a way to make it look like he’s changed. Like he’s this new, humble humanitarian dude. But he’s the same guy, with the same talent he’s always had — making us believe in him, even when we shouldn’t.

STATUS: Officially addicted to HGTV. What IS my house worth?

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Gawker’s sister site, jezebel.com. Specifically when they rip apart popular women’s magazines. 

I am a fan of agents and, let’s be honest, I’m a fan of anyone who makes my life easier. Cleaning ladies, masseuses, you name it. Not that my agent is in that same “service” category, mind you, I’m just saying I’m all about outsourcing things when it makes sense. I’m also a fan of doing heavy lifting when the time calls for it.

Case in point: I was talking to a friend today who wanted to learn more about publishers who might be interested in little kids’ books, and this person indicated that in addition to soliciting my input, they’d soon be walking down the street to go research the shelves at Borders. Tres smart mon amie, said moi! 

I did loads of this when I was trying to get my book(s) published. I wanted to know who the major writers were in the genre, what publishers had a handle on what I was trying to get into the market, and who the agents were who were representing these writers. Hint: most writers thank their agents in the notes at the beginning of the book and list them by name. When writing query letters to the aforementioned agents, it’s always helpful to say things like, “Because you represented X book, I think my novel would be a great fit with your agency.”

Before DONUT DAYS was purchased, I gave my $.02 on who I hoped would pick up the book. I’d done my homework and I had a few ideas. I thought that Hyperion would be a good fit because they’d published a fabulously wonderful book my Melissa Schorr titled Goy Crazy. It was about a girl struggling with her faith and with boys (my kind of plot, y’all!) but without alienating the people reading it who might not be Jewish. Like me, for example. Anyway, I thought that I might be their kind of writer, too. Even though DONUT DAYS found a home elsewhere, it was empowering to be knowledgeable about what else was out there and where I might fit into the picture.

Easter was a blast this year.

All the animals had such a good time.

Some more than others.

Thank you, Easter bunny! Brawk brawk!

STATUS: Wish you were here.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Just in time for Easter, more peeps.

Rob and I recently bought a new coffee maker. It’s ceramic and from Starbucks, which is beyond cool for me, the girl who’s owned cheap little Mr. Coffee’s for much of her life. Well, actually that’s not totally true. I had a Senseo for a little bit, but it was weird and felt like I was cheating on Mr. Coffee, so I came back to what I knew and was comfortable with. Anyway, the coffee maker has a timer, which is a coffee-maker feature that definitely is new to me. I love waking up to the smell of coffee — in addition to the cat kneading my stomach, but that’s another story.

The coffee-maker timer got me thinking about what else is brand new for me in 2008. What have I done so far this year that I haven’t done in years past? Let me tell you, the list is long and fascinating. Utterly riveting. Take a look:

Play video games. Technically, I suppose I play computer games, but whatever. It all boils down to me playing a game in front of screen — be it a computer or a television screen — for a while. I’m not an addict playing for, like, 30 hours a week; I’m more like a dabbler, and my games are pretty simple. But don’t let that fool you — this is still fun, and somewhat addictive, stuff. See Peggle if you don’t believe me. For anyone who has ever played Snood before, Peggle is like Snood on mushrooms. It’s cray-zee. And fun. And a nice distraction when you don’t want to write and you’re sick of blogging. I’m just sayin.

Eat 100-calorie snack packs. See? I told you this list was riveting. I know they’re kind of devoid of nutritional value, but I’m an after-dinner “sweets” fan, and these fit the bill without expanding my waistline. I’d never had one until just recently, but now I’m hooked. One pack, if you eat it slowly, can get you through almost the first half-hour of the Biggest Loser. If you love that show like I do, that is.

Buy a metro parks pass. Turns out this area of Michigan has acres and acres of beautiful land with scenic trails (which are paved and always clean) running through them, and for $20 you get access to all of them whenever you want. Oh, and did I mention they allow dogs? They do, which for us is beyond fabulous. I am so in love with this kind of land management. The more I see big-box stores and strip malls, the more thankful I am that back in 1942, state leaders had the foresight to set something like this up.

So, okay, if you count the coffee maker, that’s four things I’ve done for the first time in 2008, which is more than one new thing a month if you’re keeping track. Oh, I forgot to count Scrabulous! I have never really been a Scrabble player, but I love Scrabulous. There is actually another Lara Z. out there who writes YA books (I know! Isn’t that wild? And both our middle initials are M!), and we play together. The best part is that Scrabulous can’t tell us apart, because we’re both Lara Zs, so it always gives us both the points on any given play. It’s awesome.

Okay, that’s five things. I’m done now.

STATUS: Stupidly excited that I made Pancake a lolcat. See below. And if you lurve it and think it’s funny, please go to the lolcat site and give it a high cheezburger rating. (It’s kind of dark here and hard to see here so, really, just go to the lolcat site).

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Uh, yeah. So the part where Pancake’s a lolcat? Go there.

I found the following in the pages of my What on Earth catalog yesterday, and I couldn’t help but think, who would wear this? I had a post up earlier that hinted that maybe a pedophile might really enjoy this, but I’m revising it because that’s just plain wrong. So funny I want to laugh out loud and blog about it, but still wrong.

STATUS: If I told you, then I’d have to kill you. Just kidding — I’m actually just writing and editing a lot.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Lord of the Peeps. It’s like Lord of the Rings with, you guessed it, Peeps. This one came from Chong, who shared it through her gmail link. How totally perfect for Easter.

I’m so glad I took time off to write in a top-secret undisclosed location. And no, it’s not the Best Western up the road because that would be gross.

Making time to write is cool … now if I could just take some time off to clean up the back porch and clean out my car, we’d be all good.

So, speaking of cleaning, Rob cleaned off his desktop recently and found some pics from last summer when a group of us crashed a local Elvis Fest. Rob is, of course, my hunka-hunka burnin’ love, but the snarl in this photo takes it to the next level.

Sorry for the short post — it’s time to get back to my manuscript!

STATUS: Super excited to be taking off Friday and Monday to write.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: This one came from Jess, and it’s all about stuff white people like.

When I started this blog, my goal was to document the journey of going from an unpublished, little-known writer to a published, little-known writer. I had no guarantees that would happen, but I knew I could at least write about the process and be honest about what I was experiencing.

The part about where I’ve been honest is the part that makes this blog a little problematic. At least to some people. In the beginning, I talked about the agents I was sending manuscripts to and, if I got a rejection from them (which, for a while there, happened a lot), I wrote about it and I usually mentioned the agent by name. I know this made some readers — most of them other writers — cringe for a number of reasons. First, what if the agent saw it and read what I was writing about them? Secondly, if I revised the manuscript and wanted re-send it to them, they might be disinclined to take a look because they could go to my website and see my list of rejections. And let me tell you, there were lots there.

I understand those arguments, but they don’t fly — at least for me.  I never, ever said anything bad about an agent on my blog, and I would have no reason to. It wasn’t their fault if my writing sucked. And yes, it did suck for a bit. That’s why writers re-write. Or, at least the ones who get published do. And the other thing is that rejections happen all the time, even to really good books.

The point of this whole blog (or at least a majority of the entries) is to be totally, brutally honest about what I’m going through as a first-time writer. Now, instead of writing about agents who have said “thanks but no thanks,” I’m writing about how my editor is saying “close but no cigar.” I’m writing about delays, contracts, and whether or not having a MySpace page is a good use of my time. I don’t know of another writer who is putting it all out there like I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop. This is how it is. This is what’s happening for real. I’m not sugar coating it. And in the end, maybe it will help someone who is thinking that because the process is hard sometimes, they shouldn’t stick with it. But everything that’s worthwhile is hard at times. That’s why you burst into tears when someone finally says “I want to represent you” or “I’m excited about your book” — and then you close your office door and sob like a five-year-old kid until you can lift your head long enough to wipe the snot off your face. And that is the total truth, no holds barred.

STATUS: Ready for a vacation to someplace that’s not grey and snowy.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Garfield minus Garfield. The comic strip gets infinitely more funny — and sad — when the orange cat is taken away.

Last night was the first meeting of the young adult book club that some friends/colleagues and I started. We’d decided to read The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing to kick things off and, I gotta say, that book is like The Patriot meets Roots meets …. what’s the most depressing movie ever? Boys Don’t Cry? Maybe. So mix all those things together and you’ve got Octavian — and an urge to hurl yourself off a building. I’ll probably take some crap for this because a lot of people loved this book. None of them, however, attended book group last night.

I also felt my age last night because I was schooled in the meaning of “pwn3d” — pronounced “poned.” It basically means getting embarassed or shown up. Which takes on a layer of irony because I was pwn3d when I didn’t know what pwn3d was. D’oh.

Yesterday, I also got another lesson in pop culture, which apparently has been around since 2006 but I’ve been too busy working and writing young adult novels to notice. It’s lolcats, and below I’ve pasted the original lolcat, which not only makes me laugh so hard I want to cry, but it also looks exactly like my own cat, Pancake.