How You Spend Your Days Is How You Spend Your Life

Like most people I know, I work for money. The work/life balance blurs when I get greedy.

Last week, I was offered a big freelance writing job with an incentive. The job became bigger after I agreed to do it. Days blurred together with me fixed at the computer, working on this increasingly big project with a very tight deadline.

I do regular work for this company, and I enjoy it very much, but I do it in much smaller doses. At first, the increased intensity was inspiring, even refreshing. The first day or two, I had a few hundred words left at the end of the night to add to my novel in progress. My income potential was rising. I had underestimated myself.

But things were sliding. My house was a mess. I wasn’t spending time with my kids or husband. I wasn’t reading outside of research reports and statistics. I wasn’t seeing my friends. By day three and four, I had a headache by noon and it was getting harder to get through it.

I talked to other people who took crazy jobs for extra money. One friend was turning in a project that day, trying to beat a snowstorm to get it off her hands so she never had to think about it again. The project paid for her daughter’s dance lessons, but she wasn’t sure it was worth the hassle.  Another told me about a job delivering phone books. She thought she could do it after work to make some extra money for Christmas. It turned into a kerfluffle that may have ended up costing her more than she made from the job because of childcare costs and gasoline to haul around heavy phone books.

By day six, the work had grown again and it looked like internal editing would make it a nailbiter to hit deadline. On that day, I woke up with a headache. While the end was in sight, I had to get through the day, and the day after that, and they both looked dismal.

A saying I probably read on Facebook popped into my head: How you spend your days is you spend your life. If this was true, I wasn’t too happy with how I was spending my life. I was living for the days on the other side of this project, but the days I was living were miserable.

I did my best for this project, and fulfilled my promise. Like my friend delivering her side project in a snowstorm, I questioned if it was worth it.  Dance lessons, or in my case, piano lessons, do need to be paid for, but I don’t have to earn the money in seven days. 

Book Review: The One and Only Ivan

"The One and Only Ivan," by Katherine Applegate is the winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal, and it deserves it. This book is charming, heartbreaking and courageous as Ivan, the mighty Silverback gorilla speaks from his domain in the Big Top Mall and Video Arcade.

Except it isn’t a domain, it is a cage, and a small and dirty one at that.

Short sentences in short chapters, because gorillas don’t waste words like humans do, tell a rich story on friendship, family and home. The one and only Ivan does the impossible, in more ways than one. First, he fulfilled a promise from inside a cage. Second, he hooked my kids from the first page. They couldn’t stop reading until the story was done.

You won’t be able to either. This is a book to buy, because you will be proud to have it on your shelves. 

A Book Signing

Last weekend was my very first book signing. I thought I would be nervous, but it was exciting to connect with readers. My favorite guest was a young girl who was about 8 or 9 years old. With eyes wide with wonder, she asked if I was the writer, then asked if I was famous. Not yet, but that didn't convince her, judging by the expression on her face when I caught her watching me. I wonder if she will grow up to be a writer someday.

Many thanks to my good friends Caroline and Lora for making this book signing a success! They are fantastic coordinators. Any organization would be lucky to have them on their board;)

They set a great mood with balloons....

and cake. It looks like a book!

I did a reading, and really wished I had a podium.

People did some reading of their own.

I had plenty of books to sign, with a cheat sheet of phrases I wrote down earlier in the week in case I got writer's block.

Did I mention the cake? It was the icing on a really great day! Look at me, having my cake and eating it too!

Book Club Questions for Divided Moon

I am in several book clubs, and love it when I can find a suggested list of discussion questions about a title. As a service to my readers, I have compiled a such a list for Divided Moon. 

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Divided Moon – Book Club Questions

1. Moon faces an arranged marriage in Divided Moon. What are your thoughts on arranged marriage? Do you see any benefits to arranged marriage? What do you see as the problems? Where do you think arranged marriage most often takes place, and why?

2. A Hmong saying is “to be with a family is to be happy. To be without a family is to be lost.” Moon fears losing her family if she refuses to marry. Do you think this adage is true? How do you think American culture values family?

3. Moon’s parents want to keep their cultural and family traditions. Why do you think this is important to them? Does your family or cultural heritage have any traditions you would like to see continue from generation to generation? Are there traditions that have been lost that you wish to see again? Are there traditions that stopped that you are glad to see go?

4. Jen wishes her parents would treat her more like an adult. Why do you think she feels this way? Do you think other teenagers feel this way? How is this different than Moon’s problem?

5. Adolescence is the transitional period between puberty and adulthood. What do you think is important about adolescence? Do you think this is an unnecessary step? What do people learn during adolescence that helps them in their adult lives?

6. Moon’s parents arrange her marriage to secure her future. What are some other ways parents can help their child enter adulthood?

7. What do you think will happen with Mai?  Do you think she will be happy about this?

8. In both Hmong households, Moon encounters roles associated with female and male family members. Are chores assigned according to gender in your family? Do you think males and females are treated the same or differently in American culture?

9. Moon says she and Ze are on the same side. What did she mean by that? Was she right?

10. Can you imagine another way this story could have gone?

Book Review: Flipped

The beauty of this story is how the perspective shifts over the course of the book. The reader is aware of it while it is happening, but like falling in love, she may want to go back and recount what happened to get the characters to this place.

In “Flipped,” by Wendelin Van Draanen, Juli moves into Bryce’s neighborhood and instantly develops a crush on him that lasts for years. Over time, she starts to see what is beneath those beautiful blue eyes, and it isn’t so great. Meanwhile, Bryce thinks Juli is very annoying, until she isn’t.

This is the perfect encapsulation of boy meets girl, girl chases boy, until boy catches girl.

Are You Sleeping?

I enjoy a good sleep. I am a frequent dreamer. My dreams often make sense of whatever I am dealing with in my waking life, with much less effort, because, hey, I am sleeping! I work out story problems, remember where I left my keys, find the right words for a difficult situation....all while fast asleep in my cozy bed. 

It turns out I am not insane, at least when it comes to sleep. Research states the restorative benefits of sleep help the mind process what it takes in during waking hours. A recent article that appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal claimed it is better to take a nap after a lecture than it is to pull an all nighter to study. The rest allows your brain to process the information you learned more efficiently than hitting the books.

I have been sleeping more than usual lately. This seems to be a trend for me in January. I have blamed exhaustion after the holidays, the cold days, longer nights that are actually getting shorter.

Perhaps I am just processing new knowledge. 

Operation Read It

A new goal for a new year. I plan to read every book in this stack this year, with the exception of the Wisconsin Blue Book. I already read that.

In order to accomplish this, I will have to avoid the library. A book on borrowed time always takes precedence over one I own. This is a stack of books I have owned and not read for an embarrassingly long time.

Next year, I may tackle what's on my Kindle.