Last and First (and 100th)

It's the last day of school here, and the first day of summer. The last day of 6th grade for my daughter, the first day of being a 7th grader. I feel so old. I can't believe the tiny little bundle that once made me cry because she wouldn't stop crying long enough for me to eat dinner is half way through her standard education. Yikes!

With that note of nostalgia, on with the updates.

Last night we went bowling for Family Night. We haven't been tenpin bowling in years. For those who are unfamiliar with the bowling habits of the Mid-Atlantic Region, we have something called "Duck Pin Bowling" here, which is a lot more fun, in my opinion, than regular old bowling. Duckpins are shorter, fatter, and bouncier than tenpins, and the ball is the size of a large grapefruit. You also get three balls per frame, and a strike is exceedingly rare. It's a game of spares. A fantastic duckpin average, like for the top players in the country, is in the neighborhood of 145. So I don't feel as bad that I can't break 100 as I do when I bowl tenpins. In fact, no one has ever, in history, bowled a perfect game of duckpins.

I also think that Wii Bowling has completely ruined my form. But that's another matter entirely. Excuses, excuses. (My fingernail broke! I'm tired from donating blood still! My shoes are too slippery! Whaaa!) I was so bad, the kid nearly beat me, and she doesn't weigh much more than the ball.

Anyway, on the way home last night, we drove through some strange weather. A narrow line of horrible storms passed overhead, and quickly rinsed the whole world down in our path. We chased the clouds most of the way home, and were treated to some lovely views of the brightest rainbow I've seen in a long time.

Tomorrow is a big day for us. We're going down to the National Mall to celebrate Girl Scouts Rock the Mall, along with about 200,000 other people from around the world. It's the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouting this year, and the Guinness Book of Records people are going to be there. We're going to try to set a record for the most number of people participating in a sing-along. It should be fun.

This is also my first trip into the city in a couple of months. Last time, I wanted to go into the National Archives, but we ran out of time. I don't care what happens this time, darn it, I'm going in there. Sure, it's awesome to see the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, but part of the novel I'm querying right now takes place inside the building, and I'm eager to double-check that my memory of the place isn't faulty. It's been a couple of years since I was inside, and I just hope I wrote everything accurately. I'm pretty sure I did, but it's still something that's been bugging me. It will be a relief to just walk through the parts of the building I wrote about.

I have one more day of alarm clocks, and then I'm free for four whole weeks before I have to set another alarm. I'm very pleased about this. I am NOT a morning person. In fact, most of my writing is done late at night, and I'm really looking forward to getting a lot more done on my WIP once I don't have to wake up early every morning.

 So I suppose that's all for now. I've been so busy with the boring necessities of life for the last few days that I haven't been writing. This is probably starting to sound old. More excuses.

I think part of my problem stems from the fact that I'm now working on the third novel in a series. I'm querying the first, but the Helper Monkey thinks the second book is actually better than the first. Still, writing something than may never see the light of day is a little disheartening.  Granted, I've only sent out a few queries in the last couple of months, what with revisions, contest entries, and other things making me hold off on querying. Now so many agents are closing to submissions for the summer, I feel like I should just keep writing now, and then go back and maybe edit the whole series again when I'm done.

More circular work lies ahead.

So for now, I'll just keep writing. I don't know how to do anything else. Even if it never gets published, it's still what keeps me going. And it still makes me happy. In the end, that's what I started writing for in the first place. I never intended it to do anything else. I never wrote a single word for another person. Every last keystroke has been for my own sake, not for anyone else. If anyone decides it's worthy of publication, more power to it. Until then, I'll keep my sanity and just keep writing.