~~~Lara Zielin~~~

STATUS: My husband just called our kitty a dining room terrorist. I about peed my pants.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Joel McHale from the Soup introduces this video from a morning show that has a random insert of a kitty and spaghetti. Wha?

Rob’s colleague Terri recently brought us back some Wisconsin cheese after her short visit there. Which, you know I love me some Wisconsin cheese. But this cheese had an additional layer of OMG to it, because it turned out Terri brought us Wisconsin cheese … shaped like Wisconsin!

I have to admit I horded much of the dairy Dairy State for myself. Poor Rob must have had one bite for every five of mine. But in the end, I think it was worth it to have so very many little cheesy bits of my homeland in my body.

Or maybe that’s just creepy.

STATUS: All moved in and unpacked. Let the hot-tubbing begin. Yeah baby, yeah.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: A book on “Affluenza” — the epidemic of over-consumption.

One of my earliest books, HELP! I’VE BEEN CAPTURED, is a work whose title hints at scandal, intrigue, and controversy. And it might have read that way, too, had I been able to spell controversy–and not run out of paper.

My life was a normal life until this one thing accured. I was kidnapid one day!

It was Sunday untill my parents knew I was gone. [Note: My dad’s name is Chuck.]

One sunny day I found my self in the park with the robber. [Clearly the book needs a strong editorial hand. How much time had passed from one day to the next? What was daily life like with the robber?]

Then my parents went by! I started to cry and cry. They looked over. [Again, an editor could ask what their expressions were like. Were they mortified to hear a child’s cry and be reminded of their own missing offspring while they enjoyed a stroll in the park? Did they drop the hands they’d been holding, each too embarrassed to look the other in the eye and admit that they actually enjoyed life more without the kid?]

I tried to use the moris code but I didn’t know what it was. [Altogether, not a stunning plot twist, as moris code remains a mystery to this day. Morse code, on the other hand, is widely used, and could have been an effective communication device here, if implemented correctly.]

They said it did sound like me but it couldn’t. Onley it was. [The threads of a psychological thriller begin to show through. Did the parents know? Did the child know the parents knew? Oh, the mental machinations!]

So I crawled out and they saw me! [Unputdownable!]

Then the man saw me, the one that captured me. [And??]

My parents were on to some thing and so was I! [The pacing stumbles here. What happened during the moment at the park? Eds notes would definitely want the writer to clarify what, exactly, everyone thought they were on to.]

The man that captured me liked kids onley he did not have one. [A-hem. Part Two.]

So that night I went on a michon. To get a kid for him. [Moral ambiguity! Who is the kidnapper now? Do the protagonist’s altruistic motives absolve the crime? Sacre bleu, I spy Jean Valjean!]

I ran to the orphnage. [Perhaps a liberal use of stereotypes here. Are all orphans so easy to come by? Could offend adoptive parents.]

I opened the door then ring ring they thought I was a robber! [The protagonist opened the door and then rang the doorbell? Recast. And, for crying out loud, what robber rings the doorbell? The Ding Dong Bandit?]

I hid behinde a bush. [Good use of Olde English here. Evokes a sense of time and place.]

Then a man said onley a kid could get away that fast. I laughed. [And we all laughed with you, dear child. We all laughed with you.]

The end.

STATUS: In the throes of reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. This book is unputdownable. I am devouring it, yet dreading when I actually have to finish it. I haven’t read a book this good in a long while. I suppose I’ll go see the movie now, though I know it won’t live up to this amazing work.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: The U.S. men’s relay team swimming against the French at the Olympics. What a race!  

I found another lost treasure as I continued to unpack this week: The worst rejection letter ever. I have to qualify this by saying I’ve received SO MANY rejection letters in my life that I certainly know a bad one when I see it. And this one was horrific.

First, the size. This publisher probably had an intern who was told to be more environmentally conscious and, as a result, photocopied several rejection letters onto one sheet. Then they cut them so the actual rejection letter was nothing more than a skinny strip.

Then of course was the text. The same intern probably wanted to make the letter as concise as possible, so the words were few, and the text was tiny. The letter was minimalist to a degree that Barnett Newman would be proud of.

Dear Author: Your work is not right for us. Good luck placing it elsewhere.

Did I mention the font was tiny?

No name, no signature, no address — nothing. Just a strip they shoved into my SASE and sent back to me.

Classy.

The moral of the story? Rejection letters suck. The bad ones suck even harder. But they’re inevitable. If you put your stuff out there, someone’s going to hate it. And, with any luck, someone’s going to love it as well.

This afternoon, I’m going to TJ Maxx. And I’m buying a frame for the worst rejection letter ever. And I’ll use it to remind myself that the next “no” I hear just brings me that much closer to a “yes.”

STATUS: Headed over to Register.com in a moment to buy www.brettfavreisabigfatloser.com. Have fun in New York, jerkface. I hope you get mugged.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: I disagree with the creator of this video that the Pack sucks, but I agree with him that Brett sucks. Too bad about the director’s ridiculous homophobia, but it’s still worth a watch. Just to see pics where Brett looks stupid.  

Now that Rob and I have successfully painted two huge rooms in the new house and the majority of boxes are unpacked, it’s time to look ahead. And by look ahead I mean think about my next book. The next unwritten book, that is.

Not that I won’t be doing other things as well, like thinking about how to do grassroots marketing of Donut Days and how to build mailing lists, etc. But I’m a writer, and I gots to get to writin.

The question is … what?

I have a lot of ideas milling around in my head. The two best ones, however, would require a boat-load of historical research. And in my family, my dad’s the historian, not me. I’m not really sure I could write a novel that didn’t take place in present day.

My friend Ellen is a pro at this. She pens amazing historical fiction (that looks like an oxymoron on screen; I wonder if I have that phrase right?) and she knows her stuff so well that it comes across in the tiniest details. Like the color of a kitchen table or the kinds of shoes a character wears. If I were to pen a historical work, I’d want my details to be as rich and genuine, but that’s a terribly lofty goal. You can’t just wake up one day and decide to be a historian.

Except these are good book ideas, so maybe it’s worth trying.

Maybe.

I suppose I’ll unpack another box while I think about it.

STATUS: Recovering

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Susanna just signed a new writer, Rachael, who has a fab blog. Yay for cool writers who sign with cool agents!

So, July was a blur, but we made it to the finish line, which entailed:

- Rob filming and wrapping his movie, Starlight and Superfish

- Me finishing edits on Donut Days and turning them in. Yay!

- Both of us leaving Whitmore Lake and moving to Ypsilanti, home of the phallic water tower.

We are in our new house, which is dreamy. It’s cute, quiet, and the neighbors have been super friendly, introducing themselves and welcoming us to the neighborhood. Amos has a fenced-in back yard, and I have my very own office, once I get it set up, that is. Our first night in the house, Rob and I turned to each other and asked, “Are we in a hotel?” It’s just that nice.

Unfortunately, Rob and I both got sick immediately after the closing, so it’s been a slow unpacking process. We work, then rest, then sleep. I went to bed at 6:30 last night. No kidding.

Life is really good, though. We are in a great place — literally and figuratively. Now if I could just find a kitchen table …