Birthday meditation

 I woke up yesterday morning, on my birthday, thinking, hmmm:

I am 36.
Wow.
36.
6x6.

I don't particularly FEEL 36, but then I've never particularly felt any age. Like when I was a kid and turned 7, or 8, or 9, and people asked how it felt to be a 7 (or 8- or 9-)year-old and I honestly didn't feel any different so I didn't know how to answer. "It feels fine," I'd usually say, and adults would laugh. I had learned by about age 5 that saying something like "it feels fine" with a raised eyebrow led most adults to laugh and think I was smart and ironic instead of just baffled.

36, I mused, my eyes still closed, yesterday morning. Well, that's not so old. I'm cool with being 36. I'm 36, I repeated in my mind, trying it on for size. Thirty-six. Wait a second. 36? How can I be 36? My kids are about to turn 13 and 18. I had them when I was 28 and 33. I'm no math scholar but I can not be 36.

Hold on.

I'm 46.

Ooops.

My eyes opened.

46.

I am 46. Wow. Forty-frigging-six???

Well, okay. 46. And how does that feel?

It feels fine.

Kisses -- and a poem

Here's a poem I just came across on facebook that I really like: Monet Refuses the Operation

And here, for a different kind of fun, is a link to Storycrush where I am the guest-blogger today -- about the All-Time Great Kisses Ever. WITH LINKS. Warning: lots of kisses. LOTS.

Come and comment -- add, debate, argue, agree. Of all the stuff being debated these days, won't it be good to argue about which kisses are actually even more wonderful than which other kisses?

Love and kisses,
Rachel Vail

Writing Lying Down

Here's what happened:

On July 1st, my husband and I were planting two new small trees, given to us for our birthdays by my parents. Crepe Myrtles. We each dug a hole. I was faster than my husband, and proud of how perfect my hole looked. In fact, while he went to get the bag of fertilizer stuff to put in the bottoms of the holes before the trees were placed inside, I decided I was such a primo hole-digger, I'd held him out with his hole, show him how it's done.

Second shovel in, I hit rock. My foot slipped off the shovel and into the hole. And something in my back went pop.


Hubris. Gave me a big oh, yeah? You think you are so awesome, do ya? As hubris always frigging does.

I will not go into the horrible details, mostly because I am sitting up, here on July 17, a thing I can only do for very short stretches, still, before I have to go lie flat again. Suffice it to say that when my husband carried me into the house it would have been wayyyyy more romantic an event if he had been a linebacker, I had been a ballerina, and mostly if I hadn't been screaming my head off in pain.

Much better now. Can actually walk around a bit. Though when I walked out to the drug store yesterday, a block away, it took about half an hour and I almost had to stop to cry on the way back.

And I LOVE SUMMER. I love running in the heat and boating and biking and kyaking and way planning to (re)learn to waterski this summer. Also I have BOOKS to write. And friends to meet at outdoor cafes where we should be drinking cool white wine and laughing! Also, picnics! Yoga classes! And jumping on the trampoline with my little guy. And just wandering around in cute platform sandals.

And sitting up when I type for an HOUR at a time. Or even standing!

Hubris, you really suck.

Still, that hole I dug was sweet.

JUST KIDDING.

I am SOOO going to get in great shape when I can. My core muscles will be SOLID, so my back won't be tempted to go all zig-zaggy ever again. Meanwhile I spent some time compiling my list of best kisses in books, movies, plays, etc. -- for a great blog called STORYCRUSH. I'll link to it as soon as it's up. And speaking of kisses... there are some fun contests going on where you can win a free ARC of my upcoming sequel to IF WE KISS. It's called KISS ME AGAIN and it's coming out this winter. Here's the link!

And in all the excitement, I have not yet gotten to celebrate the publication of my newest picture book! It's a sequel to my book SOMETIMES I'M BOMBALOO -- this one is called FLABBERSMASHED ABOUT YOU and it's about your old pal Katie Honors on the day her best friend chooses somebody else, not Katie, to play with. Which makes Katie feel quite flabbersmashed. See it, and reviews, here.

As soon as I am up and about, I promise to run some kind of giveaway for FLABBERSMASHED -- but if you go out and get a copy before then, will you let me know? Send photos and I'll post them! Same with if you get a JUSTIN CASE book (starred reviews of the first and second JUSTIN CASE books, and a Q & A about writing JUSTIN here) -- I've gotten some really adorable shots of kids reading the JUSTIN books and have some ideas for putting something cute together... send more!

Okay, though -- back to the floor for more of my rug imitation, for now. Send me lovely pictures of your glorious summer...

Love,
Rachel Vail

Help with the writing process

Today I went to #Teach21c and spoke with a room full of teachers about writing, rewriting, technology, kids, reading, and listening. It was lots of fun.

What I didn't mention is who REALLY writes my books.

I'm coming clean; here's how it really happens:

prom!?

My big guy is at the prom.

I'm gonna leave the piles of laundry and editing and dishes where they are and take the little one out for an ice cream, quick while I can.

Tempus so fugits.

4 PM

Sometimes the day just gets away from me.

I think I've got it well in my grasp and then, wham. How the heck is it 4PM already? And June? And my kids are all big and stuff?

I was just sitting there making stuff up for a bit, and when I got up to refill my tea cup, I realized the world had gotten way spinnier.

Trying that whole giveaway thing again...

So here's what happened:

The day JUSTIN CASE: Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom came out, my sweet husband brought home roses and cava, to celebrate. My older son had his laptop on the counter, and was choosing good music to play. A fantastic celebration was starting, just the four of us, laughing, dancing around the apartment, catching our breath in the midst of the busiest year of our lives to CELEBRATE -- and that's when we knocked over a glass of cava right onto my son's keyboard.


The thing clicked off instantly. BAD SIGN.


I will not bore you or torture myself with the details of what happened after that, for the next 3 weeks of phone calls and trips around Manhattan and stress. Suffice it to say that my son, who handled the situation with so much more grace than I would have mustered had the situation been reversed, is in 11th grade. May of 11th grade. He had papers he'd written on that computer -- and half-written. Applications that were due for stuff at school next year. Plays he'd written and was revising. Hundreds of songs. Thousands of photos. Some backed up; most not.


Plus -- no computer on which to communicate with all his friends and co-workers on multiple projects; no way to write all his papers and other stuff except to borrow mine -- less than ideal.


It was, as a cousin of mine says, Not Good.


So I suspended the book give-away contest that was supposed to happen mid-celebration, since the celebration was abruptly halted. 


Until today. Because:


The good news: everything from my son's cava-soaked hard drive has been rescued!
The bad news: the computer itself is in the trash. 
The necessity: New computer has been purchased.
The upshot: a sad goodbye to so many dollars.
The celebration: the book giveaway is back on track! 



So here it is!


The JUSTIN CASE contest:


Win a free copy of JUSTIN CASE: Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom!
All you have to do is type JUSTIN CASE in the comments below. Share this link to be entered 5 times -- and have a donation made in your honor to First Book!
Winners chosen at random Sunday night sometime... so enter asap.


You can go here to get more info on the book, and buy it from Amazon here or Bank Street Bookstore here.

But whatever else you do today, take these two pieces of advice:
1. back up your stuff.
2. keep your cava away from your (and your kids') computer

okay, and,

3. enter to win a free book!

Love,
Rachel Vail