Month: April 2009

Oh, the drama

So, I was doing some promo work tonight, writing a serious email to Darcy (okay, only semi-serious), trying to figure out all the contest stuff for Geek Girl (win books! win books!), when I hear this from the other room:

“Sister, I’m being absorbed. Use the blue monkey! He’ll help you.”
“Brother, I’ll miss you!”
“I’ll miss you too. You must carry on!”

There was much more, in the same vein, but I was laughing too hard to transcribe it.

April Fool’s and Mr. Darcy

Yesterday, the marvelous Miss B played the following April Fool’s Day jokes on me:

  • Mommy, I’m stuck in the toilet! (She wasn’t.)
  • There’s a mummy in your closet! (There wasn’t.)
  • There’s a salmon fish on your head! (Again, there wasn’t, but she wouldn’t say, “April Fools!” until I actually reached up and patted my head.)

Then she went and short-sheeted Andrew’s bed.

In other news, Darcy and I may end up the biggest April Fools. Over on the Geek Girl site, we’ve taken on Twilight, in the epic battle of Mr. Darcy versus Edward Cullen. In haiku. I know. We’re living on the edge.

Writing is hard

This was Andrew’s conclusion last night. More precisely, it was: Writing a short story is hard. But he did it.

To cap off the mythology unit in English, his teacher had everyone write their own original myth (emphasis on original–apparently, she’s read many a variation on Harry Potter, Star Wars, and so on).

Andrew came up with: The Adventures of Gulix.

It has prophecy, an orphan hero, a wise old mentor/sage, fiery death, sword battles, skeleton armies, river journey, wolves with diamond teeth (now that’s original), and romance.

All in 1,250 words.

He was proud, but realistic, said to me, “You can tell a kid wrote it, can’t you?”

And I told him it was a really good story for a kid. And he knows to do things I’ve seen many an adult writer not know or understand. His writing has really improved this year (and yes, I’ll be sending his English teacher a thank you note).

Plus, his story contained lots of terrific action verbs. Andrew is all about the verbs. Of course, with all that fiery death, sword battles, how could he not be?

But you want to know about the romance, right? After the epic battle with Hades, Gulix comes to and sees the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen before. He asks her name (it’s Persephone). Apparently satisfied with this answer, he goes back to sleep.

I’m going to have to figure out how to work that scenario into one of my stories (minus all the fiery death and skeleton armies, of course).