The Chathams

We are here! It took 27 hours of travel time, but we finally landed on the misty isle and ran directly from plane to van in the sideways rain and slammed the door shut. It's cold and wet, but most of all, it's windy. Just as I had expected! Our room is in an old inn built in 1870, but the windows and bathroom are new--which turned out to be good, since the wind howled and screamed and tried its best to sneak in through gaps. By morning, after a good, long sleep, we woke up to...fog and wind and rain.

Yesterday, our first real day here, we went to the Kopangi Marai (the meeting house of the Moriori). I had no idea it existed until on our way here, so I was excited and nervous. We were welcomed by the only Ieriki (Chieftain and Elder), named Mana, who first welcomed us, brought us to the long post in the center of the octagonal room, and began chanting in Moriori. He welcomed us to the House of Peace, as it is called, and then spoke to the ancestors on our behalf. The entire time, I tried to imagine him as an Ieriki in the 1830s, dressed in an albatross feather cloak, singing out a welcome. Then, Mana took us to a wooden plank hung vertically in one corner and told us about himself and the building. Then he gave us a chance to speak, and I told him about why we were there (for my book, naturally). Then he took us around the room to each plank in each corner, and told us about the styles of carvings and how each represented a long-gone ancestor (and in a few cases, some ancestors yet-to-be). We spent hours there, talking. Well, actually, Jim and I were listening, Mana was speaking, and Elizabeth was running around the place with a large plastic robot she found in the toy box.

Today, we rented a car and drove around the island. We had planned to go to Te Awapatiki, the mouth of the big lagoon, but it's a 6 km trek across peat, and since it was still raining, our hosts kindly suggested we forego that idea. So we drove around and saw the island. It's easier if I list what we saw:
1. rolling green hills, polka-dotted in sheep (and nearly half were lambs)
2. black swans (not native birds)
3. a tiny Anglican church built 150 years ago or so
4. lots and lots of wetland, peat, lakes, and streams
5. wind-beaten ocean waves in turquoise and lapiz
6. doubled-over evergreen trees
7. a grove of kopi trees, and a dozen or more dendroglyphs
8. basalt colums beaten by the sea
9. Hokopoi (a crucial hill in my novel)
10. Whangaroa Harbor (where my heroine is from), nestled by cliffs and protected from the wind a bit
11. a serene beach with sky-blue waves (too bad it's a frosty day)
12. a rusting minesweeper left to rot in the inlet
13. the grave of the last Moriori and his statue

Then we rushed back to the hotel and had tea. It's called tea, but it's actually dinner, which was a bit of confusion the first night.

Tomorrow, I plan to stay inside and read read read the historical books I've found in the inn's library. (They have out-of-print books with critical anthropological and historical info that I can't find anywhere else.) Then, with Elizabeth and Jim outside, I'll sit at my desk and write write write. There are some things I've got to change, now that I know better.

Cheerio!

2,000!

I wrote 2,000 words last night! (And they weren't all that bad, either!) This may not sound like a lot to the professionals, but it was a personal record. And other good news: Jim just got a job! We'd been biting our nails, hoping he'd get something to tide us over until he starts Grad School, and finally, he got one. It's with the Navy, in Maryland somewhere. He starts in November, right after we get back from NZ. The job is temporary, and goes until the end of September of 08. We might even be able to afford some sort of part-time daycare so I can write at times other than middle of the night. Now we're off to the store to find Elizabeth some rubber-soled shoes. She's been wearing Robeez, but she needs something more weatherproof and hike-worthy for our trip to the lower hemisphere. We already got her a bright-yellow raincoat from REI. (I was surprised they had something there her size.) She refuses to wear the hood, but maybe she won't mind so much if it's actually raining.

San Juan Capistrano

Thanks to my Great Aunt Helen, we've got somewhere to stay until we leave next week for New Zealand. Jim is busy studying, Elizabeth is teething, and I am writing and reading like a furious monk who can't have any more beer until he'd copied the Old Testament into Swahili. (Ok, I know, I don't really drink much beer, and I don't think Swahili has much of an alphabet.) You get the idea. Although I've virtually been given the go-ahead to write my book, I still fear that I'm taking the story in the wrong direction. What if I'm wasting time? What if it's too over-the-top in certain places? What if it's not all that interesting? What if my writing isn't a good in the middle and end as it is in the begining? AHHHH!!! My husband is a dear, however, and continues to encourage me. We just went over the plot, and it was nice to have someone else go through it with me. He says it sounds exciting, but then again, he's my husband. What if the ending is horrible? Hopefully, any editor will be able to help me out there and let me know when certain sections aren't working. I'm betting that the editing process will take a bit more than a fortnight. (I read Shannon Hale's Austenland last night, so I am still breathing out Regencyese.) So speaking of good books... Yes, Austenland. I little book of chick power. I could NOT put it down. I tried. I went to the kitchen to make myself some late-night oatmeal (Ms. Sick Teether is nursing like crazy, and oatmeal helps me make more milk, in case you wanted to know...ok, maybe not, but I said it anyway). I decided to read a bit of it while eating said oatmeal, fully planning on getting back to MY story after the chapter. Jim asked when I was going to start writing. I said I would, later. Then at TWO A.M., I finished. Voila! Shannon Hale is so good at storytelling, it's scary. I have also recently read Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind, by Suzanne Fisher Staples. I had to read it because that wonderfully encouraging editor said my story reminded him of it. It is beautifully written... ;-) I was completely immersed in the Pakistani world while reading it, but I was a little disappointed at the end--it was over too soon! Ms. Staples is really good at describing things in a different sort of way, usually referring to the way the light bent at that particular moment, or sounds, like the jingling of copper bracelets. Everything became real and clean and illuminscent. I can only hope my story comes out at well! I'm printing off a chapter I wrote back in late spring, before I changed the plot, because there is a part of it I want to use in the next chapter I'm about to write. It's the point in the book when the Moriori gather at Te Awapatiki to discuss the Maori take-over. They have to make the decision if they should fight back and defend themselves or stick to their code of non-violence and try to make peace with the Maoris. Fortunately, I saved all of my work on iDisk because my lovely computer is in storage. Again, here's my ad for alphasmart: get a Dana. If you can't afford a laptop, or don't want to deal with lugging around much more than you need, a Dana is perfect. I've even found it easier to type on than my at-home keyboard.

Wow, my Aunt's printer is S L O W. I'm only trying to print off 12 pages. Ok, it's almost done... now, back to writing!

An edit

Yes, I took out the editor's name in the previous post. I was getting cold feet and started to worry that I had jinxed myself by naming him, so... voila! Name removed.

Jim, Elizabeth, and I went to dinner tonight with some friends from long ago, and although it was a buffet, we spent most of the time chasing after the roaming pink monster. She wore herself out and didn't eat much (no surprise there). At this present moment, she is passed out wearing nothing but a diaper and two hair ribbons.

Tomorrow is my last day on Air Force duty. Yay! My skin was starting to turn camouflaged from wearing my BDUs every single day.

Off to bed... I'm going to have to wake up an hour early each day to finish my book on time. Since she wakes up at 0400 and nurses for a half hour before falling asleep again, and we all get up at 0530, that's my one window. That is, IF I can keep myself awake.

Wish me luck, and pray that Elizabeth doesn't wake up between now and 4. (She usually wakes up at 1 or so, but I'd like to start skipping that one, if possible.) Someone tell me their kid did this too, please. I'm tired of hearing everyone else say, "oh, my son/daughter slept through the night when he/she was only three months old." I haven't had a SINGLE night yet where I was able to sleep the night through... If my novel turns out whacky, it's due to severe, prolonged sleep deprivation.

zzzzz

The Most Glorious Email Ever

This is a photo of me, absolutely excited (and with a horrible hair cut).

I called Jim from work this morning:
Jim: Do you know who ******* is?
Me: Yes.
Jim: He sent you an email.
Me: It's just a mass email, probably.
Jim: It looks personal.
Me: No way.
Jim: It says, "Dear Ms. Matthews"
Me: What?! (followed by yelping and shrieking)

Yes, a rather prominent editor emailed ME. I couldn't believe it! He went on to say that I was runner-up in the SCBWI Work-in-Progress Grant, and that he had been one of the judges. He also said he thought my writing was "beautiful" and would like to see the rest of the manuscript.

I was shocked, full of glee, and shaking. Someone likes my book! And not just someone, but an editor! I sat in on a discussion of his at the LA conference this past August and kept thinking that he and his staff were exactly the kind of people I want to work with to make my book a great one. I just didn't know how it would ever happen...

And to think that yesterday I was this close to volunteering to go to Iraq for some financial security. (Not that selling a book will solve our money issues, but it would take me longer to finish it if I were away and working all the time.)

Of course, I didn't focus well at work today, and I couldn't wait to tell my mom. ("See? Writing isn't a lost cause...")

Woohoo! I'm not insane to think I can do this!

Still Kickin'

No, I'm not dead. I actually wrote a blog message on Friday, but Jim's laptop and my Dana aren't working well together. (If I could convince him to buy a new computer, like a Mac, we'd be in business).

I've been working seven days a week, and it has been draining me. I feel guilty about being such a wimp, though. There are millions of people world-wide in much worse conditions than I am in, working seven days a week for years on end, and here I am, complaining about a few weeks of it.

I miss spending all day with my daughter, though.

Friday night was "Parents' Night Out" so Elizabeth spent the evening at daycare while Jim and I went out to dinner. We debated about seeing a movie, but decided it would be more fun if we went to the bookstore to write/study. I loved it - we got to sit down, together, throughout an entire meal. We got to browse the bookstore without running after Ms. Toddlypants. I got to sit down and write an entire scene in Rohana's tale.

Sunday was depressing because I spent eight hours in a building attacked in 1941, presumably full of ghosts of men who had been sleeping in their beds that fateful Sunday morning, ALL BY MYSELF. I didn't see a single soul the entire time I was in there. (Maybe that's a good thing: No souls = no ghosts.) Anyhow, today was much better as there were other people living and breathing nearby, with tinkling brains.

Only one week left. We leave next Tuesday for San Diego, and then Jim will brave the Physics GRE. I know he will do fantastically well on it. :-)

Aloha

Yes, yes, I've been away. I have been insanely busy. I mean that literally - I have gone insane...

Just before we left San Diego, Elizabeth swallowed a penny. That alone took an entire day. We sat in the ER for a few hours, then got x-rays, then sat in the ER for another few hours. Then she had surgery. There were 20 people there for it - all of the pediatric surgeons, the ear-eyes-nose-throat surgeons, the anaestheticians, and their residents. The scariest part was when I had to hold her down while they gassed her. Part of me thought, when she passed out instantly, that it'd be nice to have one of those at home for those non-napping days, but most of me just cried. It was horrible lifting her limp body and placing her on the surgery table. The docs quickly ushered me out to join Jim, and within twenty minutes, she was out of surgery and completely fine. By the time we got home, we were all exhausted - but not so tired that we didn't scan the area to make sure there weren't any other items she could suck down.

Then, on Sunday, we left our house. It was empty, too - everything had been put in storage. We jumped on the plane and flew to San Fran and then to Honolulu, and have been here since. I started my Air Force Reserves job on Monday, which was quite a shock to my system after a year of being home with Elizabeth. By Friday, we had gotten into the swing of things. Jim has been taking care of her all day, but starting this Monday, she will be going to day care for four hours a day (he needs to study for his GREs). I've been trying to finish up my homework during lunch hour, but I haven't managed it yet.

And writing? No. Nada. Nothing. I haven't even looked at my manuscript in over a week. I have, however, been thinking about it. As soon as I've got a free minute with more than 5% energy level, I'll write again. Maybe next weekend, during my lunch break. (I have to work 7-days-a-week after next Friday or the USAF won't pay for the hotel.)

We are here until the end of September, when we return to San Diego for a few weeks prior to our New Zealand trip.

Oh, and I may have to go on Active Duty in November for 6+ months. I just found out that I'm highly vulnerable to another deployment to Iraq, even though I've already been. (The only people who are free from getting called up are those who have been involuntarily told to go before, so my voluntary deployment doesn't get me out of the hot water.) I'm trying to see if I can just stay here for six months (they need people here, too), and get a waiver of some sort to keep me from going back to Iraq. It's not that I'm afraid of going - I just don't want to leave my family. If I didn't have a child, I might have volunteered again just to get it out of the way.

*Sigh* I am looking forward to a change in the Administration...