Locks for Love

Cape Cod Weather Today: <the rain found us again. let's all be quiet and maybe it'll go away>

My daughter got a haircut yesterday. She had reallllly long hair, and decided it would be easier to care for at summer camp if it was short (mommy helped her come to that conclusion...)

She thought she'd get 8 inches or so taken off. She stood in front of the mirror with a ruler, measuring... I said, "I think if you go shorter you can donate it..."

We went online to www.locksoflove.org to see what the requirements are. At least 10 inches of clean, dry undamaged hair, tied in a braid or ponytail. We looked at photos of the kids who are helped by this organization. They collect hair to make wigs for children, most of whom are undergoing chemotherapy.

She decided to go for it.

That's her ponytail in the bag. We're sending it off to Florida today. She's thrilled to be helping other kids, and I'm even more thrilled that she can comb her hair by herself now (without mommy and without the tears.) A win-win all the way around.

Happy Fifth of July!

Cape Cod Weather Today: Sunny and beautiful. Yesterday was the same. Finally!

Hope everyone had a wonderful fourth of July! We celebrated by watching the hometown parade in Chatham - the biggest "small" parade ever - and then hanging out by my mother-in-law's lake all day with the O'clan.

My sister-in-law and I made Annie Ippolito's famous Sangria the day before (to let it ferment properly) and enjoyed it all afternoon in the sunshine, while watching the kids swim in the cold lake (the sun hadn't been out to warm it before yesterday, so I was more than content to lifeguard and not swim. And no one needing saving, which is even better.)

All in all, a wonderful fourth! And - even better - the sun decided to stick around another day! So we're headed out to enjoy some more of the warm sun and cool Cape breezes.

A Little Light Magic

I just finished reading A Little Light Magic by Joy Nash, from Dorchester Publishing's Leisure Book line. I'd totally recommend it to any of my friends looking for a good beach book this summer.

The book is set on the Jersey Shore, in the Margate/Atlantic City area. Not my neck of the shoreline - we used to summer in Normandy Beach, on Barnagate Bay - but the characters are all very familiar and very believable. There's one short scene on the boardwalk where I could smell the fried dough and see the neon lights of Seaside Heights playing on the movie screen in my mind.

I have to admit that I also liked this as a beach book because there were end-of-chapter scenes where it was okay to put the book back into my beach bag and call the kids out of the water to leave. Some books are impossible to put down. Those don't make good beach books because they don't last more than a day. This one lasted me 3 afternoons of swimming lessons - which was fabulous!

Joy's website is here and her blog is here.

She lists where she'll be signing her books, including in Margate itself tomorrow, where the book takes place, and also has links to her other books... which I think I'll have to check out!

A Little Light Magic just came out in June '09, so it may not be in your library yet to borrow, but it's at Borders for less than your next payment to the ice cream truck, so go out and find it!

Laundry and POV on a grey day

Cape Cod Weather Today: The sun broke through for a few hours yesterday afternoon, but the fog and clouds are back this morning. I shoulda mowed the lawn yesterday....

I woke up with a quote running through my head.

"A man may work from sun to sun but a woman's work is never done."

Who said that first? Where did it come from? Has it always been like this from the dawn of time?

Laundry is piled in my bathroom and in my garage in front of the washing machine. My daughter carried her laundry basket out of her room yesterday, saying, "Mom. Really. This is out of control."

Should I tell her it's foreshadowing of her life to come?

It's only Wednesday, only the third day of the full summer schedule, and already I'm counting the days until swimming lessons are over. The kids are at sailing in the mornings, and swimming in the afternoons, one child had karate after swimming yesterday, today we have basketball evaluations after swimming for other son... and guitar lessons start up again next week.

It's good that they're all busy. But where does my writing time fit into this whole schedule thing? Where is the mommy time?

And where, for goodness sakes, does laundry fit into this picture?

My Point Of View (POV) is slipping.... narrowing... making it hard to see outside the kids' schedules and to a bigger, more balanced picture. The frenetic pace of summer is swirling me up into it's vortex.... or something like that.

In terms of writing, I took a fresh look at the Mermaid manuscript yesterday. Chris Richman was right in his assessment, and I changed the character ages back down to twelve. I still need to send off a thank you note, since his rejection was more than perfunctory. I still need to go through and look at the different POVs running through it, and whittle them down as per more of his excellent advice.

However, I think I disagree that I can't have any adult POVs. I just finished reading Anthony Horowitz's Raven's Gate, book 1 of the Gatekeepers series. He has several adult POVs sprinkled in. Okay, he's a NYTimes bestselling author and can break any rules he wants. But I feel strongly that I need to keep my bad guy's POV and he's an adult.

I could make his second in command a teen, perhaps, and get rid of the one or two times we're in Gramma's POV. I need to revisit this, and see if I can keep it to the 3 main characters POVs, and move one of the underwater scenes to the palace so we can see it all in Kae's POV. Ooh, good idea. I'll work on that today.

After I finish the laundry. Or at least start.