You’ll never believe what coolness happened to us this past winter. We had an eagle viewing. Not a spotting, but a twenty minute show! We were sitting at our kitchen table and I saw this GIANT eagle swoop down over a flock of coots and buffleheads. Not ten minutes before that Victor had said, “look at all the coots, I’ve never seen so many at once” and I said, “it’s the coot buffet” (meaning for an eagle). Anyway, in my infinitely cool way, I started shouting “AAAHH!!! AHHHH!!! EEEEHH!!!” and waving frantically at the water. The eagle continued to sweep over the coots (and geese) and everyone was diving under water and bobbing around and the geese were honking and it was crazy! Then the eagle finally decided that he needed a break so he landed IN OUR OAK TREE! Victor’s outside measuring how far that is just so I can tell you. It’s somewhere between 80 and 90 feet from our kitchen! He did that in a very scientific way. He walked in a straight line toe to heel and counted his steps.

Anyway, the eagle sat in our tree while the coots and buffleheads hauled ass to get out of there. The geese stayed however, and this is where my story and Victor’s story collide, the eagle started attacking a goose! Victor (and Herb, our neighbor) say no way, a goose is too big and it must’ve been a stray coot or some unlucky duck. But I have way better eyes than those old coots and I could see the goose it was attacking. Do you know how a goose protects itself? It waits until the eagle is just about to attack and then it puts its head down and starts flapping its wings like mad, sending water spraying up into the eagle’s face! It didn’t take long for all the other geese to circle the one under attack and then they all protected each other. This is another reason I know it was a goose. Why would the rest of the geese protect it when they just watched the eagle coot-fishing? Hmmmmm??????

Anyway, the eagle landed in our tree again for a while. And later we saw him swooping across the lake and being chased by a couple of crows (they fly right behind it so it can’t catch them) and then we had to go to town for groceries. This all took place over about an hour, but the main show was twenty minutes long. It was kind of weird because part of me was rooting for the eagle, you know, so it wouldn’t go hungry and also so I could see it fly away with something, but the other part was yelling, “DIVE DUMMIES! DIVE!” We locked the cats in the house, except Mr. Fatboy. He’s lost weight, but he still weighs 20lbs.

I stole this idea from the fabulous writer, Arthur Slade. Anyone who knows me knows that the first draft is a killer for me. I can revise until the geese come home (we don’t have cows here on the lake), but first drafts? I need to be super-glued to my chair. Thus, the timer method. Art told me (I may not have it exactly right, but it was some version of this story) that he sets the timer for forty minutes and sits in his chair, hopefully writing, but doing nothing if writing doesn’t happen until the timer goes off. When the forty minutes are up, he takes a twenty minute break. He does this four times before noon. Then he’s done for the day. Unless he wants to keep writing.

I usually have to work my way up to four forty minute sessions when I’m doing a first draft. I aim for one or two sessions a day and then add more over a ten day period or so. For a revision, I have to set the timer so that I remember to take the break! When I’m revising, I have to MAKE myself take days off. Sometimes I even have to give my computer to my husband and tell him not to give it back until the next day. One day last fall, I thought, “Gosh, I’m tired.” and that’s when it hit me I hadn’t had a do-nothing day off since May! Yes, May.

I am doing a first draft right now which means I’m very good at finding other things to keep me busy. Wish me well on my forty minutes today…I’m aiming for two sessions…

How do you get motivated to write?

Four hours later… I did one forty minute session that turned into 60 minutes (my timer’s broken) and went back and wrote another forty minutes after that. Yay! Take that, first draft!

Today’s topic is actually about grade schoolers, but I could see teens jumping on this bandwagon. At East Side Elementary School in Chattanooga, TN, the kids exceeded their reading goals and their reward (besides reading the books) was they got to throw pies at two teachers. Now that sounds like fun. I can remember a few teachers who could’ve used a pie to the face when I was in school. The best job was reserved for the overall point leader (no name in the paper, cause it’s a kid, I guess). He got to shave the student counselor’s head! And this student counselor, Mr. Shelsky, had quite a head of hair, but not anymore!

If you write a book review and post it as a comment here (50 words or less, please and no spoilers), I’ll put your name in the hat twice. If you send someone new to my site and they enter to win, have them include your name in their post/comment and I’ll throw your name in again too!

Last week’s winner is Olivia D. She’ll be receiving a book of her choice from my stash! Congratulations, Olivia and thanks for your email! Olivia chose The Boggart and I threw in the second one for fun. Now don’t you wish you’d entered? This week, I’ve mixed it up with a few new titles and some from last week. Here’s what’s on offer:

SOMEONE LIKE YOU/THAT SUMMER - two novels in one book by Sarah Dessen (YA)

THE MIDWIFE’S APPRENTICE - by Karen Cushman (MG)

JACOB HAVE I LOVED - by Katherine Patterson (it’s an old beat-up copy, but what the heck? It’s great and it’s free!)

SO SUPER STARRY - British chick lit by Rose Wilkins (better than most) (YA)

THE PRINCESS DIARIES Give Me Five - the fifth book in series, by Meg Cabot (new, YA)

CHILDREN OF THE RIVER - by Linda Crew (YA)

Commenting here gets you entered to win OR you can comment on any of the books I write about this week in Need To Read OR you can send me your info through the contact page. Next weekend, I’ll draw a name out of the Cubbies hat and post the winner on Monday along with the new book.

Because this website is geared towards teen readers, I have a few rules, mostly regarding internet safety.

MORE WAYS TO WIN!!!!

1. Please send only your first name or a username if you’re under 18.

2. If you are the winner, and you’re under 18, I will require your parent or guardian to send me an email with <strong>their</strong> name and address on it claiming your prize for you. No email, no book.

3. I’m footing the bill for the postage so I’ll only send the book to a U.S. or Canadian address, and it will be going slow-boat-media mail.

4. I’ll choose a title to give away each week, but if you’ve read it or it’s not your thing, I might be able to offer you an alternate pick, so go ahead and enter and if you win, just let me know then.

5. This website is geared toward teen readers and writers. Adults are welcome to enter for now, but I may limit it to the under eighteen set eventually. I reserve that right.

Wow. Yeah. Wow. This is an incredible read. I’m not really sure how to write about it without giving anything away. I will just say this though…the characters are so well-written and dimensional that you don’t just sympathize with them, you empathize with them. This novel really makes you feel. At one point I had to stop reading because the scene was so powerful I just wanted to digest it. And it was in a high point of the book where you should’ve wanted to keep going to find out what happened next. I found myself doing that more with this book than usual. In fact, it took me four days, at least, to read this book and it’s only 312 pages, so it’s not like it was WAR AND PEACE or anything. Some books you devour because they’re so good and others you savor because they’re so good. The was a savorer.

One of the great things about this novel is that it’s got this whole other world - the world of comic books and graphic novels - that you the reader get to experience. I mean, what a great thing to have in a novel because there are all the comic book kids who will really identify and yet, those of us who have never read a comic book in our lives still get it and learn something new too.

Author Tom Perrotta called it “A captivating, darkly entertaining first novel.” And yeah…that sums it up really well. It is entertaining, but it’s also dark. And for those of you who have asked that I make note of things like that here on this blog, I would say this is a book for a teen, not so much a pre-teen…unless you (the parent) read it first because you know your kids and know if they’re ready for this or not. I personally would let my kid read it (which is easy to say because I don’t have any), but like I’ve said before, my mom thought it was important to let me choose what I read and I think that’s a good move. So…yeah, it’s a little dark, but even if your comfort zone is low in regards to dark (mine is very low), this book is worth it.

Oh, and by the way, did I mention that Barry Lyga and I have the same agent ? That’s how I came across this book. He’s got a really cool site that you should check out.

I’ve been collecting author interviews with the idea of posting one each Friday. I have a few on hold and when I went to pull one of those today, I realized all the ones I have are slated to be posted later when those authors’ books are released. That left me with two choices…interview myself again or use something else. We’ll return to The Friday Five next week, but for today, here is something fun I put together and then never did anything with it. I hope you like it.

Betsy’s house on Center Street.

Readers the world over love Maude Hart Lovelace’s series, Betsy-Tacy. Everyone from the little girl whose librarian handed her Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown yesterday, to celebrities like Bette Midler and writer Anna Quindlen sing the praises of this series. People often ask me, “What’s your favorite book of all time?” and without hesitations I answer, “All of the Betsy-Tacy books, of course.” As a writer, I’ve also learned how to write from reading about Betsy. Here are ten things Maude, Betsy, her loving family, and abundance of friend have taught me about life and writing.

1. Watch sunsets. Pay attention, enjoy life and it will make you a better writer. Nature stimulates your imagination. Betsy-Tacy, Chapter 3 – Supper on the Hill.
2. Never neglect your writing for friends, parties, or nay Sayers. Heaven To Betsy, Chapter 27 – The Essay Contest.
3. Green ribbons, scented notepaper, and adding an “e” to your name won’t make you mysterious, only miserable. Be true to yourself. Betsy in Spite of Herself, Chapter 22 – Betsye into Betsy.
4. If you’re not sure what to write, try a little of everything and see what happens. Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Chapter 5 – Everything Pudding.
5. Lists are part of being a writer. “But perhaps people who liked to write always made lists! Just for the fun of it.” Betsy Was a Junior, Chapter 24 – Growing Up.
6. Stubbornness and the inability to apologize will only bring you and others pain. Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World.
7. Procrastinating until the night before your deadline will keep you up all night and probably cause you to do poor work. Betsy Was a Junior, Chapter 22 – The Consequences of Folly (Gaston and the herbariums).
8. If something’s important enough to you, make sure you grab it and don’t wait around for someone else to provide it. Heaven To Betsy, Chapter 17 – The Brass Bowl.
9. Instead of trying to make enough writing sales to pay the housekeeper for a year, earn enough to pay her for a week. And then another week…and another…and another… Betsy’s Wedding, Chapter 8 – Of Meat Pie and Other Things.
10. Keep submitting. “Many of her manuscripts had made twenty and thirty trips” Betsy and the Great World, Chapter 2 – “Haply I May Remember”


Pick up your copy of Betsy-Tacy today. Better yet, join The Betsy-Tacy Society. Also, don’t forget to enter to win a free book! Scroll down to Monday to find out how to win. See you next week.

I got to hold a gosling last Saturday! He wasn’t too thrilled about it, and I now have one less shirt to wear, but it was still a very exciting experience. Near our house, there’s a walking trail through some very thin woods along the lake – it’s more like a park than a wilderness area – anyway, I came around a bend in the trail and there were three ducks sitting with a lone gosling. As soon as the ducks saw me, they were like, “Hey, we never saw that guy before in our lives. He sat next to us!” and they ran off in the other direction, leaving this poor little gosling all alone. Believe me, I checked for adult geese who might be with him. Trust me, you don’t want to piss off a mama or daddy goose, just ask our cats.

The coast was clear and I saw my chance. Just that morning I’d been thinking how much I’d love to hold a gosling because they’re so cute and yellow and soft looking. I tried walking after it, but it ran, ran, ran, so then I ran, ran, ran, calling out to it things like, “It’s okay! I’m going to reunite you with your family. You know me! You come to my yard every day!” But it was like he couldn’t understand English or something. He just kept going.

I have long legs. Goslings don’t. I wore him out pretty quickly and he just laid down in the grass, hoping he’d suddenly become invisible. But he hadn’t, so I picked him up and held him right up against my heart and sat on a bench so he could relax. He actually did relax pretty well - kind of like when the cats catch a chipmunk and it plays dead until the cat sets it down.

My plan was to walk him back to our house and wait for the families to come like they do almost every afternoon. We got almost all the way home (about 1/8 of a mile) before he let loose all over my shirt…blech! But he was so cute, I forgave him. If someone as big as I am, picked me up, I bet I’d go all over her too!

When we got to our house, I took him inside and put him in my bathroom while I wrestled one of those collapsible cardboard pet carriers together. Then I plunked him inside and took him outside to wait (oh, I’d also changed my shirt). I threw little bits of hamburger bun in the carrier, but he was too upset to eat them.

I went out to the edge of the lake and believe it or not, there were several geese families swimming along! It was almost time for me to be a hero. Except they were swimming towards the opposite shore. I yelled at them and threw bits of hamburger bun into the lake. And then, because I was running out of bun, I pretended to throw it, but they totally ignored me. Apparently they have their own schedule and I wasn’t on it that afternoon. They landed across the lake and disappeared from view.

I went back to tell my new friend it might be a while so he should just get comfortable, but when I peered into the breathing holes, he was standing rigid with bread and poop lying around him. This is where I got duped by his cute-osity. I was taken in by someone with a brain the size of a peanut. He looked so helpless, so fragile. I’d felt his heart beating against my chest. We’d bonded. Surely if I just let him out and set him on the grass then he would hang out with me, spend the afternoon pecking around our yard, maybe even become friends with Mr. Fatboy (our cat) who wouldn’t hurt a flea (in fact, fleas love him and he doesn’t do a thing to get rid of them).

So I was suckered in by his cuteness and I opened the box so we could become lifelong pals. I knew he was too little to jump off the retaining wall into the water, heck, he couldn’t even jump out of the box on his own so I lifted him out and set him on the grass.

Let’s just say if there were gosling Olympics, he’d be a gold medallist for sure. He ran so fast across the yard, he almost could’ve taken flight on those stubby little wings. When he got to the wall…he looked down at the water for about half a second…a two foot jump…and then the little buglet leapt in and swam away! I was heartbroken that I didn’t get to reunite them, especially since he swam in the wrong direction!

I ran out to the retaining wall and watched him dive under the water, to get the goose poop off of him. He couldn’t possibly be trying to rid himself of the scent of his new mommy. For about two seconds I entertained the idea of plopping the canoe in the water and going after him, but by then he was half way across the lake. Besides, I could just see me chasing a gosling in a canoe. Now that would’ve been funny!

I sat on the retaining wall, clutching half a hamburger bun and tried to keep him in my sight as he paddled away. Mr. Fatboy nibbled on the hamburger bun, hoping to make me feel better. Eventually I consoled myself with the idea that he wasn’t any worse off AND I got to hold a gosling. So there you go! How fun was that?

But wait, the story doesn’t end here. There’s good news! The next morning, when the geese families swam towards our yard, I noticed that in one of the families, the mama had the trail of goslings behind her, and the daddy was swimming off on his own with ONE GOSLING trailing behind him! Sure enough, when they arrived, their family of 6 had grown to 7! And I know it was him because he recognized me and ran away squealing…no not really, he acted all indifferent, like he didn’t even know me. It was like dating all over again.

I’ve decided to make a little change on my website because I want to be funny. Everyone else is funny, why not me? Actually, here’s the deal…we have a lot of funny things happen here, mostly to do with animals, often to do with our cats, and I write these little essays about these incidents. I’ve decided that I’m going to combine My Writing and Your Writing and have that be the topic for Wednesdays, and use Thursdays to indulge myself and post these essays. They won’t all be about my cats or other wildlife around here, sometimes I’ll write about my favorite funny subject, my husband! I just thought it would be nice to have a little sample of my writing each week that wasn’t anything I could really market and sell anywhere. Although, if you’re an editor, and you want to buy any of these pieces, please contact me!

My first story is all about how I got to hold a gosling.
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