Thursday's Children--Inspired by Boston

Thursday's Children is a meme where writers join together to blog about the things that inspire them. Click here to find out more and join the blog hop!

I had another post planned for this week but it's just going to have to wait because a real life villain hurt people I love on Monday afternoon. Physically everyone I know is okay. And their families are okay. But my city is wounded. People are dead. A child is dead, his family injured. And my heart goes with them.


I spent most of Monday night angry. And scared. Because that's what anger always is at its worn and broken heart. But I refuse to spend another week on the couch, staring at the news like I did on September 11, 2001. Or December 14, 2012. Not to say that I'm not horrified and scared and angry and indescribably sad. I am all of those things. But Boston, my city, is a city that fights back. We are, as a dear friend said earlier this week, the city of
Revolution.

There is so much about Boston that inspires me.

Its Unified Spirit. There are lots of jokes about Boston culture. My family pahks our cah in Havahd Yahd. But the jokes stem from the fact that there is an undeniable feel and flavor to the city and its boroughs. We're just a little bit scrappy. Like my mother always says we, "tell it like it is." There is pride in our rich history, spirit fueled by kick-ass sports teams, and fierce loyalty to the artists, athletes, etc who call themselves Bostonian. It's a wicked awesome thing to be a part of, even from a distance. Even when my characters aren't from Boston, they are sprinkled with that spirit, that strength and solidarity. The feistiness and fearlessness. The city itself is my absolute favorite character to write.

On the field at Fenway with dear friend and CP, Dawn

Those Kick-ass Sports Teams I Mentioned. I've been a Red Sox fan since before I started Kindergarten. My grandfather took me to every spring training game growing up, since the Sox trained near my family's home outside Orlando. (We left New England when I was really little.) The first time I saw a game at Fenway Park (against the Yankees no less) I cried. The first time I saw a concert at Fenway...there are no words. I picked up the Celtics while serving as a Ball Girl for the Orlando Magic in elementary school. And once I learned to like football in high school, it was pretty convenient that my school's mascot happened to be the Patriots, also. There's little opportunity to fully appreciate hockey down here in the Dirty South, but I cheer the Bruins on every year. You can take the girl out of Boston, but you can't take the Boston out of the girl. The L.I.'s in my manuscripts are almost always Boston sports fans, and as often as possible the heroines are, too.

The Music that Books Are Made Of. I make soundtracks for each of my characters as I'm brainstorming and pre-writing manuscripts, so that when I dive into the sea of drafting I can use the music to guide me back to shore, to keep me focused on the story and emotions I'm trying to convey. The anti-hero of the manuscript I'm querying is a big Dropkick Murphys fan while my protag is more of an Aerosmith kind of gal. And yes, those boys I mentioned in my first Thursday's Children post do find their way into my playlists every once in a while. But there's so much good ish on the Boston music scene.

Oh the Places We Go. People probably think of a lot of places when someone mentions Boston: The Old North Church, Harvard Yard, the Back Bay, Fenway Park. These are the famous, history-rich places to love about Boston, but there's so much more to be found in the little local spots, too. Mike's Pastry in the North End--home of the best cannolis you will find in America--is one of my favorite places to write sensory details about. The quiet, tree-adorned shops of Newbury Street inspired an entire manuscript. The Frog Pond at Boston Common is a great place to do your writing in the summer, and in the winter it is a wonderland; the stuff all things romantical are made of.

Me and my homegirl Roxi--Boston Public Garden, August 2011

It's been too long since I've been home now. Almost two years. I want to take my family there this summer, and if Jet Blue keeps harassing me by email, I just might cave in and book the flight. Until then, I'm going to write about all the things in Boston that inspire me. I'll let the wonderful, brave, heroic things about my city serve as inspiration because there is so much good there, even in the midst of one of the city's bleakest moments.

If you'd like to help those most affected by Monday's events, please visit The One Fund. This is the charity that has been set up by Boston officials to directly benefit the families who need our support. 

To the monster responsible: May you find yourself in Roxbury in a broken down convertible with the top down at two in the morning. And in the immortal words of Will Hunting and the entire cast of The Departed, "Go Fuck Yourself."

<!– start LinkyTools script –>

<!– end LinkyTools script –>

Thursday's Children: 14 Things I'm Glad I Didn't Know at 14

Thursday's Children is a Meme where writers join together to blog about the things that inspire them. Click here to find out more and join the blog hop!

Earlier this week #14me was a trending topic on Twitter--messages people would send to their teen selves or things that they wish they knew when they were fourteen. But I think that one of the best things about being a teenager is the newness of it all. The first kiss, the first love, the first time behind the wheel of a car....well, for me that happened a smidge before I was a teenager, but that's between me, my dad and the parking lot of Lake Brantley High School

The bad stuff was important, too, though. And I think the growth that occurs through learning during painful times is probably the most important part of being a teen. In the immortal words of Alanis Morissette--goddess of all things angsty and teenage--You live, you learn.

So instead of listing the things I wish I'd known, here are some things I'm glad I didn't know when I was fourteen.

1. Bullying doesn't end when you leave high school.

2. Your first love will not be your greatest love.

3. Related to #2, you will never love anyone the same way as you love your first love. Not that you will love everyone else less, just differently.

4. Look to your left. Look to your right. Ninety percent of these people will not be your friends in five years. The ones who will aren't the ones you expect, and you will be grateful for that.

5. That thing you totally know your parents are completely wrong about? Yeeeeah, they're right.

6. The dream job that inspires you to bust your ass in high school, apply for every scholarship possible, and kick ass and take names in college so you can get into a good graduate school? You will be completely burned out on that job thirteen years later and ready to move on to an entirely different career that your ass-busting in no way prepared you for.

7. Your life will not end if you don't go to that party/dance/adventure/concert with your friends. (This is a lesson I still struggle with sometimes.)

8. You think you're tired now...

9. That thing you and your friends used to do where you'd take two cassette recorders and put them face to face so you could copy a bootlegged concert for yourself? There will be far less ghetto ways to do that in the future. Too bad you will REALLY frown upon it and come to believe that it actually is stealing.

10. Everything you think you know about government and politics is wrong. Everything. No, that, too.

11. People your age are mere mortals and just as susceptible to death as your grandparents.

12. Oooh, honey. The perm and the poofy, poodle-looking bangs? It's not nearly as attractive as you think.

13. There will come a time when standing up for what you believe in will cost you a lot of friends and it will hurt like hell.Championing underdogs can sometimes make you an underdog yourself.

14. Some questions have no good answers, no matter how hard you search for them.

Random side note: I was looking for pictures of me at 14 to include with this post and decided to google my maiden name. This was the first picture that came up, which is hilarious if you know what a complete John Green fangirl I am. (And no my maiden name is not John or Green or anything remotely related to John Green.)

Of course, this image also came up...

So...yeah.

What are some things you're glad you didn't know when you were fourteen?

Here are the linky tools to join the hop!


<!– start LinkyTools script –>
Powered by Linky Tools
Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…
<!– end LinkyTools script –>
WordPress.com
<!– start LinkyTools script –>
Powered by Linky Tools
Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…
<!– end LinkyTools script –>

Writing & Motherhood

As some of you know, I celebrated Mother's Day this year by becoming a Mom.

For now Calliope is in the NICU, trying to catch her gestational age up to her actual age. I'm learning all kinds of things I never expected to have to know about preemies and trying not to be terrified of the day she comes home.

To distract myself, I've started querying (again), re-working a manuscript that's been collecting dust in my proverbial trunk (still), and also started brainstorming/plotting a new project (oy vey, another one?).

I'm not a masochist, I swear. I'm just trying to get ahead, because I know that in the months (and years) to come, my writing time will be at a premium. Especially once I go back to my day job.

So I'm looking for the advice of my wiser, more experienced writing friends. How do you balance motherhood (or fatherhood) with writing? Especially when you have to work another job to make ends meet in the meantime?

Meanwhile, does anyone have a time machine or two extra hands I can borrow?

10 Questions

Since I'll never be invited by James Lipton to interview on Inside the Actors' Studio, I decided to answer the ten questions here, for your reading and commenting pleasure:

1. What is your favorite word? My favorite made up word is "awesomesauce". My favorite real word is "basenji". My favorite made up real word is "insegrevious".

2. What is your least favorite word? Moist.

3. What turns you on? An open mind with a perspective different from my own.

4. What turns you off? Staunch liberalism and other forms of ignorance.

5. What sound or noise do you love? The sound of my husband belly laughing when he gets tickled by something on the interwebz.

6. What sound or noise do you hate? The sound of a parent half-assedly intervening in his/her child's bad behavior. (i.e. a father droning behind his iPhone as his kid wails and screeches and runs around Hawthorne Pizza like the McDonalds playground, "Billy, don't make me come over there or we're not going to Pinkberry." Yes, because that's a child that needs sugar. Poor Pinkberry customers.)

7. What is your favorite curse word? The f-word in all its glorious forms, including but not limited to, "frex" and my father's favorite "fripping"

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Writing. I'd like to be paid for it.

9. What profession would you not like to do? Middle school math teacher. There seems to be a lot of screaming involved.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear G-d say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Turn around. You're not done yet.






What would your answers be??

25 Random Things About Me

I originally posted this on Facebook, but since most of it is still true, I thought I'd re-post it here. Enjoy!

Originally posted on: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 8:04pm

Rules: Once you've been tagged, OR have been tagged 2.8 million times, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.(To do this, go to “Notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

Ok,fix yourself a cup of coffee cuz I'm long winded...here goes...

1. I speak four languages, but none of them particularly well. You would think I could speak English rather well, however my husband would disagree with you. Also, I don't consider English my first language. Really your first language should be the first language in which you learned to say the F word, in which case my first language is Italian.

2. I hate being thirty. HATE it with the fury of 1000 suns. The phrase "act your age" has taken on a whole new meaning in the past couple weeks. And for the record, I fully intend on regressing as much as possible for the next 350 odd days.

3. My awesomest memory of high school was the time I spent attending Trinity Preparatory School. No, really, just ask Ryan...or Taylor... Actually, ask him when he's drunk. Taylor is much more adamant about my being a student at Trinity when he's inebriated. And by the way I went to Lake Brantley for all four years.

4. Someone from high school asked me recently what I did for a living and without missing a beat or even really thinking about it at all, I told him I was a writer. For the record, I think about thirty people have bought my book. (although, ahem, some of you have ordered copies and have not paid for them! ahem). I've made very little profit from my novel. I make my living as a drug prevention program coordinator and a therapist. But I am a published author with a real ISBN and everything. That must count for something right? More days than not, I wish I could quit my job and just write and write and write. As it is, even when I'm doing my "real" job, I am writing in my head all day long. I love it. It makes me feel more alive than most things. Unfortunately that does not mean I'm any good at it.

5. Somewhere along the lines while dancing throughout my entire childhood, acting in high school and captaining the IE squad of the debate team in college, I became an introvert. I'm not really sure how that happened and I kind of hate it. As part of my year long regression I fully intend to become an extrovert again.

6. I am a die-hard, orange and blue bleeding, fiercely obnoxious member of the Gator nation. I believe in FOCUS! My favorite thing about my job is that my boss is a Gator, too. During football season, we have Gator Mondays where we play the fight song and talk boisterously about the game and how much better we are than everyone else at work are because we're Gators. During football season, everyone in the office hates us. One of our co-workers, Ryan, actually initiated an intervention. Money was collected. We used it to buy a Gators desk calendar with trivia or facts for each day. I regularly tape them to Ryan's cubicle. When interviewing candidates for my new secretary, I asked if they had any problem with the Gators or if they were fans of FSU or Tennessee. My new secretary considers herself an honorary gator since she was hired on the day we won the national championship...AGAIN.

7. The only "thing" I love more than the Gators is the New Kids on the Block. I can't really explain it...Actually I can, but it's just not that interesting...it's just an enormous part of who I am and has been since I was nine years old. I'm so glad I met Jen M here in Charlotte because she understands...kind of. She does think I'm crazy, but that's okay, because I know it's true. I'm going to meet them next month...again. I'm petitioning my husband to let me kiss Donnie Wahlberg. Anyone who wants to sign, just let me know. Or let him know. Put it on Bruce's Facebook wall, he'll love it. Every wife needs one freebie and I want Donnie to be mine. I mean, come on, I've loved the man for twenty years.

8. I've kind of always known but really, really embraced recently that I don't do shades of gray terribly well. I kind of polarize (to steal Susan's observation) things, see them as black or white.

9. I'm completely and totally fascinated by illicit substances and the people who use them. I'd pay some of my drug addicted clients so that I could counsel them. There are two that I've been counseling for over three years now for free because really, I get so much more out of the experience than they do. I just love the way their minds work and the way they manipulate themselves.

10. I hate Facebook (see, it's that whole no shades of gray thing?) but I'm really glad I broke down and got one and that I actually use it because I'm having more contact with my cousins on my dad's side now than I ever have before. This is super important to me because I felt rather shunned and disliked by them growing up. Our parents' relationships were always kind of complicated and I'm about ten years younger than my closest in age cousin so this is a whole new experience and I love it.

11. Related to number 10, I miss my grandmother every day. Both of them, actually, even though my mom's mom has been dead since I was 6. This summer was the most awfully painful and spiritually awakening, growing experience I have ever had as a Malo. I hope I got good things from them and I can see some: female strength without feminism, awareness of the importance of family and heritage, and the ability give a damn striking evil eye are amongst the things I inherited that I know about.

12. Unlike Christy, I do consider myself a mother to my creatures. Anyone who doubts that has not spent much time with my Maggiecat. She is only about 10% cat and about 90% human infant.

13. I miss Frankerdoodledoo every day, too. It's still very hard to see Zoe without him.

14. I am a Disney Princess. For real. I have pictures to prove it.

15. I went to see Rent last week and was super excited about meeting Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp even though I barely said two words to them. When they sang Seasons of Love I cried like a baby. I didn't realize why until later that day. It was the first time I'd seen the show since losing Andy.

16. I miss debate. I miss extemp boxes and suits with sneakers and waiting for finals postings and stupid spaceship-shaped trophies and that weird, pacman-looking hand signal people give you when you have thirty seconds left and marathon rides in the minivans and practicing for FIFA at three in the morning in Rolfs Hall. I miss my teammates.

17. There are few sounds I love more than Bruce belly-laughing at random shit on YouTube

18. We are not at all related, but I consider Nathan my baby brother and Nadine my favorite sister. Whoever hurts them needs to be forewarned that they're gonna get cut.

19. Although I've loved all my friends and families weddings, hands down the best wedding I've attended other than my own has been Marie and Elysa's.

20. I have kept Kosher on and off for the last four years. I'm doing it again now and I feel 1000 times healthier even though I'm still eating all kinds of unhealthy crap. I intend to stick with it for good this time.

21.(Bruce you're gonna wanna skip this one or your eyes are gonna get stuck to the top of your sockets from you rolling them so much). I want to go back to Russia and bring home a baby. I really believe in my core that it's the reason I did study abroad in the first place. Seriously, of all the places I could have gone to study, Russia? I don't believe in coincidences. My biological clock is screaming but does not include in any way shape or form the desire to get pregnant or give birth. I want to genetically engineer a baby delivering stork.

22. I think that mental illness cuts both ways. There are some serious strengths to so-called disordered thinking. Three of the most important people in my life are chronically mentally ill. I am one of them..and not because I want to go back to Russia to bring home a baby.

23.Although, I don't watch a lot of television in general there are few inherent truths I subscribe to: I firmly believe that The Office is, hands down, the funniest television show ever. I don't care how many times I've seen the episode, if To Catch a Predator is on, I will watch it. My favorite part of Superbowl weekend is the Animal Planet Puppy Bowl.

24. I don't cook. I can cook. In fact I think I cook better than the average person. But I don't like cooking.

25. I would rather eat cake batter than actual cake.

Why I Write.

I write in order to breathe, not the other way around. When asked what I do for a living, my first instinct is to say that I'm an author. I've made very little money writing thus far. I have two advanced degrees in human services. That's what I do for a living. For now.

I have an amazing, nontraditional family. My husband is one of the two bravest, strongest men I know, the other being Jonathan R. Knight. Bruce is an incredible partner, the most kind hearted man I've ever met, and he supports me, for better AND for worse, in ways I never imagined possible. We have five children, each of whom has four legs. Whoever said that animals make great kids because they don't talk back, hasn't met Snoel.

I write about things I know, but not necessarily things I've experienced. For example, I write about illicit drug use a lot. I love writing about things I'd never imagine myself actually doing. Vicariousness is a pretty awesome thing. I tend to think I have a pretty unique perspective on life. I try to take the road less travelled because I'm not particularly fond of following others.

I admire and envy teenagers. I wish I had enjoyed being a teenager more. I think a lack of adolescence comes with being an only child. You live with adults, adulthood is what you experience, even if you are only twelve. Thankfully this wistfulness gives me a lot of ammo to work with on paper.