Jenna au naturel

The other night at house church, Jenna -- for no apparent reason -- decided to walk into the living room, grab the bottom of her nightgown and yank it up over her head to show everyone what she was wearing underneath... which was absolutely nothing. So I snatched her up and relocated her to her room, where I attempted to have a stern talk with her about keeping her private parts to herself. But it's hard to have a stern talking-to with your child when you keep cracking up, which is what I was doing. So now she thinks the whole thing is a joke and is undoubtedly planning more revelations in the near future. She does have some jammies -- the kind with feet in the them -- that zip from the feet up to her neck. That may have to become her house church uniform.

I blogged about this amazing book a while back. (You can read my previous post here.) The author, Christina Katz, teaches a series of writing classes online, and I'm into week two of "Writing and Publishing the Short Stuff." It's been great so far. My classmates are women from all over the country with a broad range of experience. For class homework, I've already submitted a couple of blurbs to a major national magazine. We'll see what happens! Go here to read more about Christina's classes.

I'm really pumped about going to the Revolve Tour in Houston this weekend. We're taking a group of teen girls plus several moms. Since my parents live in Houston, Chad and our girls are going to hang out with them. Maybe we can buy Jenna clothes that stay on.

Words

Goal for today: to get 1,500 words into the computer so I won't have to stay up half the night to make this deadline, like I had to stay up half of last night to make another deadline. After tonight, I have a break until another assignment shows up in my inbox.

I'm working on a story about El Paso, and I just saw that the city's slogan is "El Paso: You Have No Idea." Is that weird to anyone else?

I know I keep blogging about Jenna, but she's really on a roll lately. Yesterday in church, I had given her some change to put in the collection plate. When the plate went by, she put the money in but then decided she wanted it back as the plate was passed away from her. I said, "No, we're giving it to God."

She perked up.

"God's coming here? To Bible kwass?" (That's what she calls church.)

I said, "God's always here. He's with us all the time."

She sat up and started looking frantically around the room. I know she was looking for an actual physical person, so I tapped her chest and said, "God lives in your heart."

Her eyes got big and she grabbed the bottom of her dress and yanked it up, exposing her pull-up, tummy and chest for the church to see. After looking down at her tummy for a second, she looked up at me and smiled a smile that said, "I have no idea what you're talking about, but what the heck -- I'll go along with it."

So I've probably confused her forever about God. But in a cute way.

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Here's a great article from Newsweek about an agnostic who decided to spend a year following every single law in the Bible. He even got to stone an adulterer!

Cow huggers unite

A while back, Sarah, a fellow non-meat-eater, asked me how I let the world know that I went veggie and how I have handled people's reactions to my decision. I've been gathering my thoughts on this and I'll blog about it soon.

Well, we are all done traveling for the summer and school starts in just a few weeks. I've had a ton of work lately, which is always fun with both kids are home every day. Our last tiny little trip is this Saturday. We are going to Magic Springs, a theme park about 40 minutes from here, to play around and then hear Third Day in concert. I don't like much Christian music, to be honest, but I really, really like Third Day. And I sort of love Mac Powell, their lead singer.

Here's a quote from Jenna when we were coming home from Texas last week. She took her shoes off and said, "Hey! I found my feet!"

Speaking of Texas, I got to spend some time on Friday with Dr. Charlie Marler and his wife, Peggy. "Doc" was the chairman of the Journalism-Mass Communication Dept. while I was at ACU and he is still a hero to me. Any time my name appears in a byline in some publication, his name should be right next to it because he is the reason my writing is worthy to be printed. Some professors teach you how to do something, but professors like Doc teach you how to become something. He was never satisfied if his students were good at writing; he wanted us to be better than good. He taught us the power of words and to uphold truth above all else. Yes, they do actually teach that in journalism school.

Writer Mama

I've been reading, no, dissecting and studying, this book for a couple of weeks now. I've waited to blog about it, though, because I wasn't sure I could do it justice. For one thing, I'm still taking in all the words on its pages.

But I want my blog world to know about this book now because it is utterly fabulous.

It's called "Writer Mama: How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids." It's by Christina Katz and it describes, in very detailed, practical advice, how to become a published writer while being a stay-at-home mom.

I know, I know. I'm already a published writer while being a stay-at-home mom. I'm currently writing for five magazines, and the newspaper back in Baytown has a standing offer to print anything I send them.

"You could have written that book," Chad said, when I told him what it was about.

Well, not really. Although I believe writing is a skill that can always be improved upon, I have the basics down. I know when and where to use "there," "their" and "they're," and, unlike a certain boutique here in Bryant, AR, I know the word "HATS" on a store-window sign should never have an apostrophe.

But I have been completely clueless in this area: how to sell my stuff. I know about cover letters and query letters but I haven't been sure how to write them or when I should send one over the other.

That's why "Writer Mama" is so great. Katz spells out how to do all this stuff. Plus she helps you identify a market and tells you how to become an idea-generating machine amid the chaos that accompanies being at home with young children. And other extremely useful info.

Katz also has a web community of writer mamas and she offers online writing classes. I'm planning on taking one in the fall. I'm adding links to her site and other Writer Mama-type links under "Writing Links" down the side of my blog.

So, Mary Beth P., and Sarah P., and other writer-types I know, get on over to Amazon and get this book. I got mine for twelve bucks. And even if you don't have kids yet, the information in this book is unvaluable. Seriously, I wish I had it ten years ago during my pre-kids years.