Trip to England--Part One

It was a windy night when we got ready to fly to England via Germany. Here's Elizabeth, preparing for lift off.


After an hour or so of flying, she finally nodded off. We were on a C-17 cargo plane, sitting on canvas jump-seats. In a way, it was nicer than flying commercial b/c no one minded her crying--they couldn't hear it over the plane itself!


It got very cold, so we tucked her in and then laid several blankets on the metal floor so that we could take a nap.


Jim woke me up by putting Elizabeth on my lap. I was soooo tired! (And shivering.)


We arrived in Germany on Sunday morning, and Elizabeth promptly found a clover patch of flowers.


We tried to go off base and "see Germany," but we happened to be in the country, and there wasn't anything near the base at all, except cows and corn. We did walk off, but there weren't any sidewalks and the stroller was in the path of too many fast cars, so we reluctantly turned back and had to eat at the German restaurant on base. (I think we were the only non-Germans in there b/c we got stared at quite a bit.) Jim got a good beer, which I tasted. Yum!

Monday afternoon we caught the flight to Mildenhall, England. It was only an hour, and Elizabeth slept the whole way. My friend picked us up and on the way to her house I tried to shake off the jet-lag and open my eyes wide to the passing scenery, which was hard since it passed by so quickly. After getting acquainted with her cat, we settled down and prepared for our real trip, England.

I'll post those pictures tomorrow. Which, by the way, is also the day we find out what the baby's gender is.

England

I'll write more later, but Jim, Elizabeth,and I finally arrived a few nights ago, via Germany. We took a military hop--it took us three days of travel to get here, but the flights were free. :) Now we're staying with a friend of mine and getting to know the region she lives in. Taking lots of pictures... so when we get back to Maryland, whenever that may be, I'll post everything and show you what we did!

Starting over--with a disaster!

It's a good thing. No, really. The past several weeks I've been sinking lower and lower, wondering if I could still write anything that wasn't wholly bad. Not only could I not get myself to sit down and write, I couldn't even think past the first chapter while I was housecleaning (which is when I do an awful large percentage of my plot-planning).

But Emily saved me. Or, rather, L.M. Montgomery did. Reading the Emily books brought me back to myself and what I always believed I could achieve. Emily writes a lot, and I wasn't writing anything, so I felt just a bit ashamed. When I finished the third book yesterday (I could not put it down), I could feel my new story growing beneath my consciousness. It was a wonderful feeling. Not quite the "flash" that Emily gets (I don't think I've ever had one of those), but a faint scent of something brewing in my soul, something that I could write out, something I could make live.

So after I dropped Elizabeth off at her once-weekly day-care, I sauntered into the library. First, I browsed the kid's section, as always. The librarian there was happy to see me because the poster is out about my teen writing workshop I'm doing in August. (More info--and a picture--on that later.) It was just so cool to see my name on a huge poster calling on teens to submit their stories and sign up for the class. I think, perhaps, it just helped a bit because after that I sat down in the much-quieter adult section at a desk that faced outside. And I wrote. But more than that, I jumped in. Any of you who write know what that means. I found the voice, I found the beginning, I found out who Ali is and what he wants and what he accidentally does (that's the "disaster"). Suddenly, I was a writer again and I was seeing, in my mind and soul, a story that is true.

Now the challenge is to write it out, so wish me luck and perseverance.

my name

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 3 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Hmm, only 3 is good. I wonder if the others pronounce the surname the same. It rhymes with "dough."

If I hadn't given up my maiden name, though, I'd be sharing it with 135 other people!

Procrastination or Doubt?

Instead of thinking and writing in this world:


I've been mentally absorbed in this world:


What if I never am able to climb out? I'm afraid the only way is to sell the first book and get on with it, and THEN write the next.
But I can't wait for that. I must press on with Yemen and leave New Zealand behind... even if I am increasingly concerned about what the editor may say when he eventually calls or writes to me.