Truth

I'm tackling Friday Fiction again. It's stunning how much of an effort it is for me to just WRITE. The negative voices have been on a rampage inside my head lately. I wrote something in my novel every day last week, then this week - ZIPPO. It's as if the inner critic decided I was getting too full of myself and needed to be taken down a peg. So...no novel writing this week but at least I tackled Madison Wood's fabulous project. To see some awesome 100 word interpretations on the picture above, check out this site. Oh - to my fellow writers - I welcome constructive criticism. (Hmmm. Perhaps I should define "constructive criticism" for my inner critic. All of you seem to get it...)

Truth

Sara's entire career centered around the craft of finding perfect words for difficult situations. But as she sat on the bed with Alan, her words sounded trite and stilted. Pointless. She was essentially monosyllabic and completely unconvincing. She failed to communicate with her husband just as completely as she'd failed to hide her duplicity.

Alan's jaw twitched. "I'm finished," he whispered "with this mess."

"Wait...you don't understand..."

"Oh  yes I do, Sara. Your web unraveled, didn't it?"

My Biggest Failure

I do a lot of things right as a mom. I'm usually quite patient, I read aloud to my family, and - yes - I make tiny little homemade apple pies for my children. 

Here's how I fail miserably: I don't expose my kids to the political process. You see, I'm so busy running away from all the animosity in our country and I feel so hopeless about the future, that I never turned on either one of the national conventions. That's not how I was raised. Politics were part and parcel of my life growing up. My mother yelled at the opposing party's convention just as loudly as she yelled at her alma mater's football team every fall weekend. I remember appreciating the inspirational speeches and having long discussions at the family table about social issues. 

My mom, however, is made of stouter stuff than I when it comes to handling the judgment and ridicule of others. In our culture today, if you speak your mind politically - you will be ridiculed and possibly condemned. 

I hate fighting. I mean...I really, really hate fighting. I care about a lot of people in this world. Some of them think the way I think and some of them don't. 

Running away from it all doesn't help me and it certainly doesn't prepare my children to be useful citizens in the world. Don't get me wrong...my kids know where I stand. More or less...

But I can't get away from the nagging feeling that what they're really learning from me is to run away when it gets uncomfortable and avoid all confrontation. That's not the legacy I want to leave in their lives. 

Accomplishments

Tonight I baked little miniature apple pies for my kids' lunches. This sounds impressive (and they tasted yummy - we had four after dinner) but I really only did it because I'm a cheapskate. You see, I bought a new kind of organic apple because I couldn't find the Pink Ladies. This new kind of apple had a nasty, mealy texture.

Gross.

I only buy organic apples. These cost real money. Plus I'm cheap. (Did I already mention that fact?) At any rate...I couldn't let the apples go to waste. They had a nice TASTE, just a bad texture...so I figured what the heck - maybe they'd be ok if they got all baked with cinnamon, cloves, butter, and maple syrup. Guess what?

Yum.

I don't make homemade pie crust. So it took me all of 10 minutes to unroll the pre-made pie crust, cut up the apples, and toss the ingredients in the cupcake pan. The longest part of the entire process (other than the actual baking) was defrosting the pie crust in the microwave. I was determined to do it right this time...no more cooking the pie crust in the microwave before I unroll it in the pie pan because I'm overeager to get going with my bakeshop. I've learned that lesson the hard way. (Three different times.)

Oh. I almost forgot.

I also wrote in my novel.

For two nights in a row.

The only thing better than smelling cinnamon and butter baking in your kitchen is writing your 33,883rd word after four months of writing nothing.