As part of my goal to blog more this year, I decided to break it down month by month so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed with the idea of blogging every day of the year. So far, it’s been pretty successful–except that I haven’t actually made it an entire month with a blog post every week day yet.

And for March… Did I make it? Nope. No I did not. I missed the last day of the month. Yeah, I am not kidding here, I made it every single day up until the last, and then I couldn’t come up with something awesome… so I just didn’t blog.

Next time I’ll just post a funny video or something.

So, for the month of April–my goal still stands. I will blog every week day and throw in the occasional weekend post just to spice things up.

But enough about goals. Let’s talk about this past month. March is supposed to be one of those turning point months in the year. I believe it’s supposed to roar in and baah out, or something like that.

It mostly means we’re just standing out by our swimming pool wishing it would warm up enough for us to get in it. (FYI: Don’t attempt to jump in, because it will be the coldest experience of your life–I know this to be true.)

But, what does it mean writing wise? I finished my current novel and now I get to edit it. That’s the fun part.

I’ve got my first big writer’s conference coming up next weekend, and I get to meet my agent. I am super nervous, because I sometimes say dumb stuff in person, and she may decide that she doesn’t love me anymore.

I’ve done all sorts of reading, listening to speakers, etc. on how to act at a writing conference, but they were mostly all how not to pitch an agent in the restroom. There aren’t a lot of notes on how to act around your agent when you meet them for the first time. So, yeah–that stresses me out a bit.

Spring time means a lot of writing outside, and that makes me happy.

All in all, I didn’t have a whole lotta stuff going on in March, I got to be a part of Elana Johnson’s big author success story blogs, and that was beyond fun, but what I really want is for April to be a month of awesome.

So, let’s all cross our fingers and toes and hope for April to be the best damn month 2010′s ever seen?

K?

When I was a teenager I had the coolest best friend. We’ve since drifted apart, but she was seriously one of the neatest people I’ve ever met, and I’m the person I am today because of our friendship.*

I drove this Ford Bronco II that was adorable, but not exactly the greatest car on the planet or anything. I had to add oil like twice a week, it would overheat in the dead of summer and we’d have to drive around with the heater on… and let’s not even talk about the weird smell that came with that.

At one point we were out being all teenagery- and we decided to stop at Kmart but we didn’t really have anything we needed to buy. So, we picked up a can of SPAM. Look, neither of us was about to eat it or anything, and this was before SPAM = Viagra emails–we just thought the word was funny and we’d never actually seen the stuff.

But, we wimped out, and neither of us could open it. So we just put it up on the dashboard of my car. (In Texas, in 108 degree summer heat.)

I know what you’re thinking here. You’re thinking you know where this story is going, right?

The spam explodes and covers my car in a spray of Hormel’s pre-cooked finest.

Right?

Wrong.

That can never even so much as bulged. I kept it in my car for three years, and every time it slid across the dahsboard, everyone in my car yelled out in their most dramatic voice, “Oh no, Not the Spaaaaam!”

We always thought that can would come open, but it never did.

I wonder if my mom kept it. I think it’s probably in a plastic tub somewhere in their store room. Man, she’s going to kill me if it gets all over everything…

Now, it’s your turn–tell me something about your first car… or your best friend from high school…

*I should really look her up on facebook or something, huh? Oh, I wonder if she tweets…

**This is a repost from a year or so ago. My daughter is having some dental work today, please think good thoughts for her!**

I’ve been getting really into facebook lately, and I recently friended someone from high school that was on the drumline with me.

That’s right, I was a bona-fide band geek.

I lived for marching season, and it was straight up the most fun ever. Plus, I was pretty cute in that little green bucket hat.

Okay, now that we all know I was a complete dork. Let me tell you about my Saved By the Bell Bell Moment…

We had this drumline instructor that thought he was one cool cat. He had the long hair, he was always carrying drumsticks around in his back pocket. He’d played drums at a cool college, and now taught drums for Azle’s marching band. At the time, I didn’t realize that was probably NOT what he’d had in mind when he embarked on a career in music, and I thought he was just a hard ass. More realistically, he was probably just pissed his band never took off, and he was stuck doing the one thing he’d feared most–teaching high school band.

One rainy August morning, during band two-a-days (That’s right uber jocks, you weren’t the only ones beat down with two-a-days. We spent the first month before school started out in the blazing heat as well. I actually did it with a freaking bass drum strapped to me, so I don’t want to hear about your stupid pads and how hot they were. It sometimes got so hot in the sun that the metal actually burned me. Okay?) he had us bring our drums inside to practice, and we set up on the stage in the auditorium. He let us put our drums on stands, and that made for a pretty easy day as far as band practice was concerned.

We’d spent most of the morning goofing around and getting in trouble for it, because hey… this was band practice in the middle of our summer vacation, and that’s the sort of thing we did. Apparently we weren’t staying on tempo at all, and since that was basically our only job as a drumline, (okay there were other jobs, but you get the point.) he got the metronome. When we STILL weren’t staying on tempo… he went and got this ridiculous loud speaker and hooked it up to the metronome. It was mind piercingly annoying, and basically just a stupid form of torture, because he was so pissed about his less than rock star life.*

Anyway, after we finished our Taco Bell, and were hanging out on the stage waiting for him to get back from lunch, a few of us (read seniors and a couple of the cooler underclassmen) decided to hide the metronome and super loud speaker thing.

When Mr. Rock-Star-Wanna-Be-But-Never-Made-It came back and discovered his metronome was gone, his reaction was quite simply–priceless.

When I look back on this story. I can actually see the steam shooting out his ears.

He yelled for a while that we better give the stuff, and when we didn’t– he did what any pissed off teacher would do. He decided to torture it out of us. He made us put on our drums and forced us to play until we told him. Well, no one was saying a word. The rest of the drumline had watched us hide it, but they kept their mouth shut. Hiearchy was alive and well in the band hall, and they knew better than to piss us off.

After a good fifteen or so minutes of jamming away while the steam shot out of his ears he yelled for us to stop playing. He then informed us that he was going on a smoke break and when he returned, the metronome better be sitting back in its place.

We totally put the metronome back in its place. He was pissed, and we didn’t really want to see just how far he would go.

Well, that wasn’t good enough for him. He came back, yelled some more, and told us he wanted to know exactly WHO stole his precious metronome. What an ass. He’d promised to be cool if he got his metronome back, but apparently he’d lied.

So he made us put our drums back on and we started up again with his excruciating torture. What he didn’t realize was we were damming the man, and those drums had never felt lighter. He left the room again, this time with instructions that, when he came back, he’d be asking the perp to step up and admit to their actions, or his torture would continue.

Those of us that had actually hid the metronome convinced the rest of the drumline to go along with us, and we’d decided that we would all admit to stealing the metronome. I mean, he couldn’t kick us all off the line, right? It’s not like we were the flute section,** they needed us…

So, we scared the freshmen into siding with us decided as a group that when he asked for the metronome stealer to come forward, we’d all do it.

He came back in the room, still spitting mad, and asked one more time. “Who took the metronome?“

And we started raising our hands. One by one, the entire drumline raised their hands, confessing to our crime. I don’t know if it was the fact that the five or so of us that had actually stolen the metronome weren’t going to have to call our parents or the fact that we stood strong against an asshole teacher, but it was awesome.

He laughed, smiled, and shook his head. We were off the hook. Which was good, because Mr. Belding  surely would have given us some sort of hilariously inappropriate punishment along with months and months of after school detention. But, if Zach Morris happened to be waiting outside the principal’s office, it might have been worth it.

*Sorry, there buddy. When you chose this life, you knew there was only like a .02% chance you’d actually turn out to be a rock star. So get over it.

**Look, flutes are awesome, but they aren’t really a marching band instrument, ya know?

Well, Well… I told you guys that you could ask me anything, and you did not disappoint!

Now I have piles and miles (See, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to say miles and miles or piles and piles so I just decided to do a combo thing–did it work? Yeah, I don’t really think so, either) of wondiferous questions to answer.

So, without further adue– I give you:

Your Questions: Answered!

So, my dear friend Chantal Kirkland over at Eternally Confused went a little nuts with the questions. She had several… but, since I love her (and because I didn’t limit it to just one question per)–I am going to answer them all.

Question: Which is your favorite: Desperado or Once Upon a Time in Mexico? Inquiring minds are starved to know.

Answer: What are those? Westerns? Man, I don’t watch WESTERNS. Let me put it this way… does it have a Disney Channel star in it? No, then I probably haven’t seen it.

Question: Was this really the right time to do “ask me anything”, or perhaps should you have done a ‘regular’ post? ROFL

Answer: Sheesh, lady–read the whole post. I said I’d answer them any way I wanted. I kid, I kid. Seriously, though–she’s kind of right that the question post is a bit of a cop out post because I get two blog posts out of it, and really I don’t have to come up with anything on my own. Maybe I shouldn’t do any more?

Question: (Yes, still from Chantal) Can I refer to a certain Mystery-Gang of meddling kids in my manuscript? Is that cheezy? Or generally accepted as an ok thing to do? Would you?

Answer: Well, I think this has been done a lot. The way I see it is, if they did it in Wayne’s World, then you probably shouldn’t do it in your book. I think it’s time for a quick Wayne’s World Clip, don’t you?

I used to head bang to that song so hard my neck hurt the next day. I’m sure that was super safe.

Well, now that we’ve got Chantal’s eleven million and seven questions out of the way (seriously, guys–Chantal is like my favorite human on the planet that isn’t four or my husband, so I can give her hell) I can move on to some of the other questions everyone asked me!

Aimee Bartis over at Sunny in the Middle wants to know:

Since we know StorySaurus is not extinct, is he/she all alone in the world? Is there a SS family? If so, what did they have for dinner last night?

Oh Aimee, that’s a good question. We all know how much I care for that little storysaurus, but fear not–every time another story is written, another storysaurus is born! (Wow, it’s even dorkier typed out than it was in my mind…) And, as far as his dinner? Well, Storysaurus is an herbivore, he eats the pages of our manuscripts that we delete… so don’t worry because he has plenty to munch on.

Lupin Bebop wants to know: Pirates or ninjas?

Oh I did ask that question here. (Complete with informative graphic, I might add.) But, I didn’t answer it myself! The truth is, as much as I’d like to think I was a sneaky ninja, I am more a pilfer and pillage kind of girl… so I’m all Pirate.

He also wants to know if I know the Muffin Man.

Why, yes. Yes, I know the Muffin Man. He lives down on Drury Lane. You need directions?

Jeanie wants to know:

Do Tim Burton movies scare you as much as they scare me? Oh, oh, and if you could have Johnny Depp for a day, would you take him if it was in the Mad Hatter costume only?

Why yes, yes they do scare that bajeezus out of me. I still have nightmares about the Nightmare before Christmas. And Holy Crapoly, reading this made me do a youtube search for that MAKING CHRISTMAS song, and I found this: (WARNING: IT IS SCARY!!!!)

YECH!!! That gave me the heeby jeebies. I could only watch about half of it. Now as far as Johnny Depp, but only in the Hatter Costume… well, I have a soft spot for the Mad Hatter… sooooo yeah I’d take it

And finally, Mendi wants to know what the worst piece of parenting advice I ever got was.

Pretty much everything that told me to try to get my kid on some sort of schedule. You see, I am the kind of person that doesn’t really do schedules–so trying to put my kid on one just made me even more stressed out. When I finally just chilled out and started playing it by ear, being a mommy was a just SO much easier.

Now, a few of you asked about the big yellow chicken. Sorry guys–that’s a secret.

I love when bloggers leave an open ended blogging day so I can ask them anything I want, so I thought it might be fun to give it a try.

Leave your questions in the comments below. I’ll answer them as best I can in some form or another. I can’t wait to hear what you want to know!

I freakin’ love to shop. It’s ridiculous. I’m not really a fashion show/montage kind of girl or anything, but I could spend like seventy-nine bazillion hours looking at pretty things, putting them in my cart, and even occasionally buying them.

When I’m a New York Times best selling author with multiple book/movie deals and unlimited funds I have big plans to spend large portions of that in boutiques and family-owned businesses–just putting that out there in the universe.

The thing is, I have a four year old–and while she’s awesome, she’s not totally on board with my shopping lust. So, what’s a girl to do when she NEEDS to scour the aisles of stores for beautiful wares, but her child just wants to lay on the ground making dust angels?

She internet window shops!

That’s right… I open up a really killer site like Anthrolpolgie or Etsy and I fill my cart with everything I would ever even consider buying.

Heck, if it comes in multiple colors, I pick one of each. I even think of little gifts I want to buy for other people and stick them in there too…

Then, when I realize that I’ve spent at five or six hundred dollars in fake money… I CLOSE THE BROWSER.

What?

Yeah, straight up, I don’t even think about it… I just click that whole browser closed… and don’t ever think about that stuff again. Um, but a word to the wise: Sometimes sites enable cookies and keep all that stuff in your cart for you, so if you go back to that online store for real, you might want to check your cart first.

Okay, first off–Holy Crap February was short. How am I sitting here writing my monthly wrap up post?

So, let’s start with the writing. I’m still hard at work on my gamer girl book, but it’s not finished. So, writing is well, but nothing exciting to announce or anything.

Daughter is loving the new preschool. Super happy about that, and we are loving the new house. Although, I should seriously get that one room unpacked… argh.

Bloggy stuff is going really well. The storysaurus has his own store, and people are commenting on my posts!

You. Guys. Are. Actually. Commenting.

This is kind of crazy for me that people care enough about what I have to say on my little ‘ol blog to comment back. The thing is, it makes blogging like a million times more fun…

That’s the thing about blogging–a lot of times you feel like you’re just kind of talking to no one, and then you’ll be at dinner with friends and someone will say, “Oh, you know… like on your blog?”

Then I sit there in silence for a few stunned seconds thinking, “Are they talking about my blog? they can’t be.” I smile and play it off like it’s no surprise to me that they read whatever random crap I’m talking about that day, but in reality I’m all surprised and crap.

When more people are reading your blog and commenting, it makes you feel like you have to say important, interesting, entertaining things… which brings me to my next point.

I didn’t make my goal for February.

What? Leave me alone! I know that February only has 28 days and that my blogging goal was to write a post every week day, and I didn’t do it because I suck. There was this one day that I thought about things to post all day, and realized they were all super boring so
I yelled at my husband for not being interesting enough for me to write about on my blog and then I took a nap. (Yeah, I’m not sure why he’s still married to me, either.) But the thing is, I didn’t come up with anything awesome that day–and I didn’t blog.

Growl. That’s two months I didn’t make my goal, but I am really growing my blog into something fun, and I am having a good time doing it. So, at the risk of ruining myself by not making my goal three times in a row…

I will blog every weekday in March.

Ugh, I am cringing just thinking about not making that goal. Dammit. This time I’mma going to DO it!

So, yesterday I asked you guys to embarrass yourself in the comments, and you did not disappoint.

One confession in particular really stuck out for me:

I realized that if I dinged someone’s car in the parking lot , I would not leave a note. If someone dinged my car and left a note, I would not accept any money. I’d be like pfff! You seen my clunker? Repair a scratch? Ha! I think that you should expect a perfect car when it’s new, and after that, dings and dents come with the territory. If I wouldn’t pay for a dent-repair on MY car, I’m not going to offer to pay for yours either.

At first I was all like, “Sheesh, that’s not very nice.”

Then I remembered something– when I was in high school I did this.

A group of friends and I were on our way to Six Flags, and we pulled into the bank parking lot to get some money from the ATM. We were being typical teenagers, and when I pulled out of the space–I backed right into the door of someone’s car. I should have left a note.

I should have called my mom. Isn’t that why she GAVE me a cell phone in the first place?

But I didn’t… I didn’t do any of this. Instead,  I listened to the cute boy sitting in the back seat of my Bronco. When he said, “DRIVE!” I did.Plus, I really wanted to go to Six Flags, because I knew when I got scared on the big roller coasters he would hold my hand…

I drove off.

The entire door of that car was all crushed in, and I just drove off and left it. We’re not talking a little baby ding here–we’re talking those people probably had to go get a new door for their car.

And it was my fault. Just writing this blog post I feel bad about it. I feel like I am going to get caught, too. I feel like the police have been looking for the girl who smashed in that door on that old beat up car for the last 15 years and now they are going to come to my house and take me away.

Now, that’s the kind of emotion I am scared to write about.

Those feelings, the way that made me feel that day to be such an asshole of a person. Now, when I think back–I can kind of rationalize it. You see, teenagers are impulsive and they do things without thinking… this was obviously one of those moments for me.

But let’s be clear here… I knew leaving was wrong, and I did it anyway because I didn’t want to face the consequences. The thing is–I didn’t have to, either.

Well, that’s not entirely true–I’ve spent the last fifteen years knowing I wrecked someone’s car and feeling like a jackass about it.

The thing about writers is, until we figure out that we’re actually supposed to spend our lives living in make believe lands and telling pretend stories–we are a little lost. So, we work some pretty interesting jobs. What’s so great about those experiences, though is that they give us a chance to see and learn new things… and that just makes for better stories. So, really we do this for our readers.

Yeah, that’s what I’m going to go with.

I thought maybe today I’d talk a little about some of my old pre-writer professions.

Receptionist at the International Language Building of my College- This was a crazy job, because all the students there were learning English. Yeah, so that means that none of them actually spoke the same language as me. They’d show up, try to explain to me what they wanted with words like dog, cat, and here while I mostly just smiled and nodded. This went both ways. I’d ask them to give me their ID or something and they’d hand me a stick of gum.

Camp Counselor- As far as summer jobs go, this one was the best. I learned to shoot a bow, build a fire, and throw a pot. It was free room and board in the middle of the mountains, and we had a gourmet chef. Of course, I also got a concussion, dysentary and like nine different kinds of poison ivy/oak/whatever. I’m probably going to set my next book there, though–so it wasn’t all that bad.

Phone Sales- Okay, so I can’t really count this one because I only lasted one day. I went in, sat at the little desk they provided me and tried to convince some people to buy coupon books. It was horrible. The boss smelled weird, he yelled a lot that no one was selling the impossible to sell coupons, and the people there made me sad. I went outside for my break and just didn’t go back. That was probably my favorite part.

Video Store Clerk- I got this job because I babysat for the owner of the stores. Well, this just really pissed off the manager, because he didn’t get to hire me himself. He HATED me. I mean seriously, I once caught him in the back of the store telling someone how much he wanted me to just quit. Asshole. I went home sick one day and he called the store owner to tell him he caught me at McDonalds! Ugh, I want to call that guy and call him names right now.

Kmart Floor Associate- Let me be clear that this was one of my favorite jobs ever. I worked here during high school, and I loved it. My favorite part? Um, duh….

Yeah, I got to announce to an entire store that socks and panties were just ten cents each. I loved talking on that intercom. Truth is, if I have a cocktail or two, you can convince me to do this on pretty much any microphone anywhere.

I never should have admitted that.

Now, pray tell–what awesome jobs have you worked? Would they make a good story?

Okay, for starters. I love the word gross. I appreciate how it’s just one of those words that sounds like what it means.

Gross. It rolls around in your mouth almost like you’re gonna yak right there.

Love it.

Earlier today, we were running errands and my four year old ended up scoring us some free lollipops with her cuteness.* So, I was standing in the parking lot talking to a friend while we were both eating our suckers and it dawned on me: Lollipops are straight up the most germ infested, funky candy ever.

Seriously. We stick those things in our mouth, and then we pull them out. They’re all covered in our spit and whatever else is in the mouth. (I can only assume it’s those tiny bugs on my artist’s rendering above.)  At one point, I actually caught myself enunciating my point with my cherry sucker. How nasty is that?

Why are we eating these things? Why are we handing them to our little children. Have you ever seen what a kid does witha  lollipop? One time I caught my daughter sharing hers with my Pomeranian.

The thing is, I kinda like em.

*If you don’t have a cute 4 year old, I highly suggest getting one because they score free stuff like there’s no tomorrow.