I may have never mentioned this before, but I am a huge fan of Charlie Brown.  Now, of course I love Snoopy, especially when he’s at his typewriter, but man do I love Linus.  He’s got such an amazing mind for History, Theology and Math.  He’s perfectly capable of going toe to toe with Lucy, his big sister.  He tolerates the love of Sally Brown, and holds tight to his beliefs of The Great Pumpkin.  He is able to do all of that with, possibly because of, his trusty blue blanket.  I really believe that Linus’s blanket represents a sense of self comfort and confidence.  Linus believes that so long as he’s got his blanket, he’s okay.

 

I’ve told you all of that to tell you about Project Linus.  Every year, thousands of children lose their homes, for one reason or another.  Natural disasters, fires, horrible family situations, all of these can drive a child out of their homes with nothing to call their own.  Now, there are a lot of charities that will help provide food, shelter, cloths, toiletries and all that sort of thing.  But if you are a little kid spending your first night in a strange place, it doesn’t matter that you’ve got a bed and a tooth brush.  It’s a strange bed, and a strange tooth brush.

 

That’s where Project Linus comes in.  They collect homemade blankets for children that have been driven from their home.  And you can help them.  Here’s how.

 

• If you’re crafty like me, you can knit, crochet or sew blankets.  If you’ve got kids that are learning the craft, that’s great.  They love getting blankets for kids, from kids.  I’ll include a link below for all of the info you’ll need to donate your own blanket.
• Of course, they always take money.  Everyone always takes money.
• And, you can always spread the word on your own blog or website. If you do talk about it on yours, let me know and I’ll link to it.

 

Here is a link to the website, for more ways to get involved.

 

 

On any other day, Mason would have walked home slowly. He might have stopped to chat with friends or check out one of the stores along the city streets between his school and home. On any other day, there wasn’t much waiting at home for him.

Today was different. He rushed through the streets, eager to be home. Today, the planets had aligned, the clouds had parted. Not only did his mother have the night off, his older brother’s girlfriend was out of town so he’d actually be home. For the first time since Thanksgiving, they would all be home for dinner.

He rushed up the stairs of the apartment building, giving the air an expectant sniff as he went.

That was the first sign that something was not going to go as planned. There was no scent of pot roast, or tomato sauce coming from his apartment.

He opened the door. There was George, stretched out on the couch with his textbooks, making notes on a notebook laid out on his stomach.

“Where’s Mom?” Mason asked.

“Got called into work,” George said, “Guess one of the girls didn’t show up for her shift.”

“So why did Mom have to go in?” Mason cried, tossing his bag on the chair.

“Because she’s the boss,” George said, rolling his eyes. “Man up.” He shut his notebook and stood up. “I’ve got to get this report written. Mom left some chicken in the fridge.”

“Where are you going?” Mason asked.

“To type my report,” George said. He sauntered into his room, and shut the door.

Just like that, Mason’s family dinner night was reduced to microwaved chicken and the tv for company.

Mason warmed up his food, and plopped down on the couch. “Might as well be living alone,” he muttered, turning on the tv. He flicked through the channels. Mindless cartoons, old sitcoms, reality tv show. He finally settled on a show, and dug into his dinner.

It was a stereotypical show, with a boy around his age. He caught Mason’s eye because he was wearing bright red sneakers, the same ones he’d begged his mom for on his last birthday. The boy also had black hair. Not just dark brown, like Mason’s, real true raven black.

Even so, Mason was only paying half attention. The show had a laugh track, which tended to irritate him. He changed the channel.

The new show started on a shot of nothing but an empty living room, with some background music. Then, a boy walked in. Mason thought he looked just like the boy from the last show, right down to the red sneakers.

He sat down and looked around the empty room. “Might as well be living alone,” the boy said.

“An American epidemic,” Mason replied, and changed the channel.

The next morning, Mason was awoken by George shouting from his room. Mom’s voice was right behind his.

“What’s all this yelling?” Mason asked, stumbling into his brother’s room.

“Look!” George cried, pointing to his desk. There sat the shattered remains of his computer. Something had gone through the screen, leaving glass on the desk and a black gaping hole where the screen had been. As an added insult, if it mattered, the keyboard had been snapped in half.

Mom stood in front of the desk, still in her pajamas, arms crossed. “Mason, you didn’t by chance wander into your brother’s room and break his very expensive computer, did you?”

“Uh, no,” Mason said.

“I didn’t say he did!” George cried.

“Well, what kind of explanation do you have?” Mom cried. “Your computer’s smashed to bits, and you’ve been the only one in the room.”

“Mom, why would I break my own computer?” George asked.

“I don’t know, but that’s the only way this could have happened,” Mom said. She threw her hands up. “I don’t have time for this. We’ll talk about how you’ll be buying a new computer when I get home from work.”

“And when would that be, exactly?” George cried after her as she stormed from the room.

Mason was expecting to come home to an empty house that afternoon, and in that he wasn’t disappointed. George had already come and gone, leaving a dirty plate in the sink that Mason had every intention of leaving there.

Not wanting to catch any secondary fury when his mom came home, Mason got all of his homework done before getting into the slow cooker full of chili Mom left.

With nothing better to do, he again settled in front of the tv.

There was an old movie playing. Mason turned the volume up, and started eating.

Somehow, he was not surprised to see the raven haired, red sneakered boy had found his way into this movie as well.

George came home some hours later. “Mom not home yet?” he asked.

“Nope,” Mason said.

George plopped down on the couch with him. “What are you watching?” he asked.

“Some game show,” Mason said. “This weird kid keeps showing up, though. I think the channel’s doing some promotion or something.”

“What kid?” George asked.

“That kid with the sneakers,” Mason said, pointing.

George shook his head. “Go to bed, Man, you’re seeing things.” He got to his feet, and went to his room.

Mason was still on the couch when Mom came home awhile later. “What are you still doing up?” she asked.

“Just watching tv,” Mason said.

Mom sat down on the couch. “I’m sorry I haven’t been home much,” she said. “It’s just been so crazy. Girls just keep quitting, I don’t have anybody I can depend on there. Now the regional manager is coming into town, so we’ve got to make sure all of our shit’s in order before he gets here or I’ll get fired.”

“At least then you can be home more,” Mason said.

Mom laughed, and shuffled his hair. “Sometimes I think that would just about be the best thing to happen to me. But then the bills wouldn’t get paid, and it’s not much fun on the streets.”

She must have seen Mason’s face fall, because she said, “Tell you what. I’ll get one of the girls to work for me tomorrow night. I promise.”

Mason smiled, but he said, “You can never get them to do that.”

“Maybe it’s time they remembered who the boss lady is,” Mom said. “I’ll make it happen.”

The next day was Saturday. Mason spent the morning cleaning the apartment, so that Mom would have no excuse but to be in a good mood when she got home.

Afternoon came,and Mason waited expectantly. He didn’t even look at the tv remote. But Mom didn’t come.

George came home from wherever he’d been. “Is Mom home?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Mason said. “She said she’d be home by one.”

“Big surprise, she’s late,” George muttered.

“She’ll be here,” Mason said. Just then the phone rang. He ran to pick it up.

“Hey, Hon,” Mom said. “Listen, I’m going to be late. The regional manager just called, and he’s coming in tomorrow.”

“So you can’t come home,” Mason said. The bubble that had inflated his chest all morning popped.

“I’m sorry, Mason,” she said. “I’ll get everything finished up, and be there as soon as I can.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mason said. He hung up the phone.

“She’s not coming, is she?”

“She might still,” Mason said, “She just had to finish some things. She’ll be home.”

“No, she won’t,” George said.

Still feeling deflated, Mason went back to the couch. “Maybe she’ll let us order a pizza, and we can watch a movie.”

“That’s alright,” George said. He was already dialing his phone.

Mason thought that George’s girlfriend must really like him, because she got there in record time. She barely said hello to Mason before she and George vanished into his room.

With nothing else to do, Mason turned on the tv. There was the raven haired boy, on a rerun of some cartoon. He looked right out of the tv, right at Mason. “He just couldn’t wait to be away from you, could he?” he asked.

Mason sat up, and looked hard at the screen. But the raven haired boy had already vanished into the back ground.

George’s girlfriend was still there the next morning. Mason got up after Mom left for work, so he didn’t know if she was aware of their guest or not. He did know that he’d just met the girl and he was sick to death of her. That could have had something to do with the fact that she couldn’t seem to unglue herself from George’s face.

Around noon she finally said, “I better get home. My parents will be home from church soon.”

“Aww, okay,” George said. He was wearing what was quite possibly the dumbest grin Mason had ever seen. “I’ll walk you out.”

“Bye, Mason, it was nice meeting you,” she called as they left the apartment.

“You too,” Mason replied, which he thought was generous of him. He hadn’t met her. He hadn’t even gotten her name.

Mason had just turned the tv up when he heard screaming outside. He ran to the window. George and his girlfriend were there, standing next to the remains of her car. It looked like someone had gone after it with a crowbar. The front and back windows were smashed, and each door dented in.

“Guess she won’t be coming over for awhile,” said a voice from the tv. It was the raven haired boy.

Mason went to the front of the tv. There stood the boy. “Can you, can you hear me?” he asked.

“Sure I can,” the boy replied. “I’m the only one who can, by the looks of it. No one cares about you here.”

“That’s not true,” Mason said. “Mom cares about me. She just has to work.”

The phone rang. Mason ran, to get away from the raven haired boy more than anything.

“Hey, Mason,” Mom said, “How are you doing this morning?”

“I’m fine,” Mason said, trying to forget the look of fury in the raven haired boy’s eyes.

“Good. Listen, I’m bringing someone home to dinner tonight.”

“You’ll be home for dinner?” Mason asked.

“Yep,” Mom said. “My regional manager got here last night, and he brought someone who’s training to be a manager with him. She’s going to take over a few of my shifts this week. And, then the regional guy asked me out.”

Suddenly she sounded all fluttery, like a teenage girl. “His name’s Paul, and he’s really nice. He wanted to take me out to dinner, but I hardly ever get to eat with you guys, so I invited him to our place instead.”

“That’s cool,” Mason said. He could feel his chest tightening.

“It’s the first time a man’s been interested in me in a very long time. I really hope you guys like him.”

“We will,” Mason said.

They hung up, and the raven haired boy said, “Wow, a boyfriend? You’ll never see her now.”

“She’s bringing him here,” Mason said.

“This time,” the boy said. “She won’t bother next time.”

Mason turned away from the tv, but he could still hear the boy. “What if they have another kid? How much time do you think she’ll have for you then?”

Mason walked out of the room. He grabbed the crowbar from his closet. There were still flecks of paint from the car on it. A quick glance out the window showed him that George and his girlfriend had called a tow truck, and were in the process of leaving. Good.

Mason sat down on the couch, the crowbar across his knees, and waited. On the tv, the boy with the raven hair and red sneakers winked at him.

Holy crap, my to do list just tripled!  Now, I just went through the whole thing during my plans for the month post about ten minutes ago, so I’m not going to rehash the whole thing.  I am going to give you all a quick update on my 16 before 16 list.

 

1. Finish Broken Patterns.  That one’s a great big done!
2. Unpack the house.  Um, not so much.  But I planned to spend this whole coming weekend on that project.  I am sick of not knowing where my books are.
3. Make a nice holiday printable pack for all of you.  Check back with me later in the month.  It’s going to be tight.
4. Don’t drain the emergency fund for Christmas.  So far so good.
5. Buy new pillows.  That’s going to be a gift my husband and I are getting each other for Christmas.  My neck will thank him.
6. Get Days on the market.  Still waiting to see if one last story is going to be accepted, and then I am so ready to go.
7. Take advantage of the park more often.  So, that’s been a bust.  I haven’t set foot in that park once.  I can’t even blame the weather, it’s been beautiful.  I have to do better this month.
8. Schedule monthly dates with the husband.  We had a great stay in date night that included some good wine and the roast of William Shatner.  Low key, but that’s us.
9. Schedule and perform end of year review.  I have a list of though provoking questions to ask myself, and a big heart shaped sticker on my planner.
10. Plan and take one day off a month.  Totally nailed that one last month, and I will take two this month.  Christmas Eve and Day.  We’re going to bake and make crafts, and watch movies.
11. Read Yes Please.  I need to get that one on my tablet and get reading.  I’m almost done with Big Magic, which I love by the way.
12. Make and keep my doctors appointment. In all honesty, and this is really bad of me, I might not get that done this month.  I will at least make the appointments, they just might not all be this month.  I am so bad about that sort of thing, not going to lie.
13. Plan a day to make gifts for co workers at the day job.  I have great plans, that I will not share here, since some of them might read this.
14. Get a significant amount of Starting Chains done.  I am almost done with the first read through.  It’s going to be a project, but the story is solid.
15. Get a puppy.  Not yet, but pictures will follow.
16. Rethink stock building.  I’m collecting coupons and doing math to figure out how much of a thing I should have in the house at any one time.  It’s a whole thing.

 

How are your lists coming?

 

What Rocked Last Week.

 

• Thanksgiving was awesome, as always.  We had a great dinner at my mother in law’s place, watched It’s Thanksgiving Charlie Brown and listened to Alice’s Restaurant.  Perfect holiday achieved.
• We got the tree up, and I got all of my Christmas cards written.
• I got JR Tolkin’s Letters From St. Nicholas.  I’ve never read it, and I am very excited about it.
• I sent Broken Patterns to ten literary agents.  Best case scenario is ten polite rejection letters, but it’s a start.

 

What I’m Looking Forward To This Week.

 

• I am looking forward to getting all of these dumb boxes unpacked and all of this junk dealt with.  Nothing makes you hate every single thing you own like moving.
• I get to order Christmas presents this week.  I like doing that.

 

So what are you doing this week?  Any fun holiday plans?

Alright, I know that there are a ton of posts like this right now.  Every single blog I read, (and I read a lot) have had a ‘best gift guide’ in the past month.

 

Mine’s different.  This is a list of things to give creative writers, but none of them will cost you a penny.  But I bet that any writer/parent would rather have the things on this list than anything you can buy in any store.

 

1. Take the kids for a few hours.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my little monsters.  But they do not love my writing time.  They want to mess with my papers, and ask a million questions, and pester about lunch.  If anyone wants to take them out of the house for me for an hour, I love that person.
2. Offer them some constructive criticism.  I don’t know why, but everyone one says they want to read my book, but no one gives me feedback other than ‘I like it.’  Listen, if a writer is serious about their writing, they want to know the parts that made you put the book down.  Critique with honesty, please.
3. Cook them dinner.  So that we don’t have to, and can spend more time writing.  Okay, so this one I don’t have to worry about, because I don’t cook (my awesome husband is my homemaker, so I don’t cook.)  But when I was a single mommy, I would have killed for someone to cook for me so I didn’t have to.  I swear, that’s half of why I got married.
4. Help them clean, but not their office.  You might accidentally throw something important away.  Really, if anyone wants to come do my dishes, I would love that.
5. Let them talk about their WIP.  I love to talk about Woven, and sometimes I get think people get sick of hearing about of it.  I would just love it if someone besides my husband would let me just talk about my book for awhile.  Also, if you could give some honest feedback, that would be cool. (See number two.)

 

• Run some errands for them. Grab stuff from my po box.  Maybe get some milk and bread for me.  Stop and pick up some wine. (I’ll pay for it, but I live in a place where you can’t just grab some while you’re at the grocery store and State Stores are a little out of my way.)  Return my library books, please.  Anything that might have fallen through the cracks while I was working on my master work.

 

1. Make a promise right now to not say, “You should use this in your book,” at all on 2016.  If I want to use it, I’ll use it.  If I don’t, I won’t.

 

• Share something of theirs on Social Media, but only if you really liked it.  I love it when my non writer friends share my posts.  I hope they liked it, and it touches me to think they wanted everyone on Facebook to know they liked that post.

 

 

If you must spend money, though, here are some things most writers would love to get.

 

• Pay for their Netflix for a month.  For, um, research.
• Make a donation to Wikipedia in their name.  I donate every year this time, and I am committed to seeing it stay ad free.
• Buy them some of their favorite writing materials.  But it has to be their favorite.  I would love some moleskins, and le pens, and some college ruled notebooks.  There are writers who would not touch that stuff, though.
• On Writing, by Stephen King.  I don’t agree with him about plotting, (he’s a filthy pantser) but On Writing inspired me.  I learned so much from it, and often come back to it for inspiration.
• Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Look, I’m about halfway through this book, and it is so inspirational.  I mean, really, I’ve already devoted myself to my kids and my writing, but it makes me feel really good about that decision.
• Get them a gift card for their favorite takeout place. I guarantee sometime in the next twelve months I will have a night where I need to order some dinner.

 

I hope you all have good luck finding the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, no matter what you’re celebrating.  After eleven years of being a mommy, I’ve learned the secret to a perfect Christmas morning; one gift to cuddle, one gift they’ll play with all year, one gift that includes time with you, and one gift they’ll appreciate later.  Happy Holidays.

 

Before I had the awesome day job I have now, I had a terrible day job as the manager of a shoe store.  From that experience I got a lot of great retail horror stories, a deep appreciation for how good my current day job is, and an introduction to this really cool charity.

One day, an older gentleman came in, and asked if we had any extra shoe boxes.  We did, we always did.  I asked the man what they were for, and he said they were for the Samaritan’s Purse drive.

So, you might have heard of this charity before, but if you haven’t, let me break it down.  You get a shoe box, and you fill it with gifts.  You can do this by age or gender.

I love this charity for a lot of reasons.  The biggest one is that it gets my monsters involved.  I let them each fill a shoe box with gifts, which is a blast for them.  It also makes them think about the child in need that will get just that box of gifts for Christmas, and how blessed they are.

If you want to help out, here’s what you can do.

• Hop over to this website to get all the details, and send a shoebox to a needy child.
• Post about Samaritan’s Purse on your own site.  Feel free to leave a link in the comment section below, so we can all check it out.

If any of you were to meet me on the street, or in a professional setting of any kind, you would never be able to guess this, but I have a really dirty mouth.  I’m fond of saying that my monsters got their advanced vocabularies from me.  That includes some four letter words we try not to say in front of Grandma anymore.  Unless the Steelers are playing, then we are reminded that my mother in law was actually a sailor.

I cannot stand to hear someone say that swearwords show a level of ignorance in a person.  I am an intelligent, professional person with a wide vocabulary who sometimes thinks that fuck is the right word for the given situation.

I’m not here to tell you that you should start swearing in your everyday life.  I’ve found that swearing is like smoking; people who do it are offended by people who don’t, and people who don’t are grossed out by people who do.  I don’t smoke, though, that’s disgusting.

I am, however, here to make the point that maybe your characters should swear.  Here’s why.

It’s honest

It is not realistic for every one of your characters to have clean mouths all of the time, because that’s not how the world works.  It’s full of people swearing at other drivers, their spouses, their bosses, strangers on the bus.  Not everyone swears, and not everyone swears all the time.  But lots of people do, and if none of your characters do, it’s not going to feel as real.

It tells us about your character

Whether or not someone choses to swear does tell us things about that person.  But you can do so much more with it than that.  When someone chooses to swear is often far more telling.  For instance, someone who swears but has the good sense to not do it in front of the boss is a far different person than the one who doesn’t.  Likewise, the character that never swears, but then tells someone to go f*%& themselves is telling us a lot.

It can help set a scene

If you have a scene in church, or an office, or a child’s birthday party, there isn’t going to be a lot of swearing.  But there are a lot of places that can be more flexible.  Take, for instance, an ER.  If your mc is walking into the ER and she hears “Son of a bitch!” well, you know it’s an ER with a problem.  People don’t generally swear for mellow, pastel feelings.  I always say that it’s a strong word to convey a strong emotion.  Use that.

Our language is so versatile.  It’s colorful, it can be very subtle or very direct.  Don’t limit yourself by declaring certain words out of bounds.

So, today is a pretty important anniversary.  Paper Beats World is officially, today, a year old.

Honestly, a year ago I didn’t have any faith in my ability to get this far.  Full disclosure, this is not my first blog.

When I was a high school kid I started a political blog, like I had any idea what the hell I was talking about.  I kept it up for about a month, and had one follower that I think must have followed literally every political blog on  the internet.  This was the early 2000’s, so it was possible.

About two years ago, I started a blog called Mad Mod Moms, a blog dedicated to modern mothers.  I blogged under the pen name Mad Hat Mom, shortened to MHM on all of my posts, and worked with my real life best friend who is also a career mom like me.  That didn’t last.  Neither of us had the time, really, and neither of us really wanted to write about parenting that much.  Maybe we would have stuck with it if we’d had any followers, but no one, it seemed, cared to hear what the Mad Mod Moms had to say.

So it was with great fear that I started Paper Beats World.  I don’t know that I would have if not for that fateful phrase my little monster said to me, over a year ago now.  For those of you who haven’t yet read my very first post, “I am a writer,” this is what she said.  “I want to write when I grow up, like as a hobby, like you.”  Thus began my year long tirade against stamp collectors.

I started because I wanted to not only make myself feel like more of a writer, but also help and inspire others to feel like writers too.

I kept going because of you.

Right from the start, you have all been so amazing, all of you who read me.  You like my posts, comment, follow me on social media.  I hope that you’re getting something good from Paper Beats World, for all the good that you have poured into my life.

Over the past year, I have learned so much.  Today, I want to share what I’ve learned with you.

People do not like it when I change themes too often.

I notice a dramatic drop anytime I change the theme of Paper Beats World.  Like crash and burn drop, for at least a week.  So I try to avoid it.  Besides, I like the theme I use now.  It showcases the posts, and that’s what you guys are here for.  I hope.

Free programs help

When I used to look at other people’s blogs, I’d get so jealous of their graphics.  I was sure they must have some intense software or mad art skills to pull that off.  I was also sure that I would never have a way to make those.  And newsletters?  No, no way, not going to happen.  Those sorts of things were for writers with way more time/money/friends with computer graphics degrees.  But then I discovered Canva and Mailchimp.  With them I, for free, make super awesome graphics and put together a really neat newsletter.  It’s just amazing what’s available to use out there.

Schedule Everything!

Because life happens.  As I am very fond of saying, we don’t write in a bubble.  I have, multiple times now, run into emergency situations that prevented me from posting.  But I didn’t miss a beat, because I had already posted everything for the week.  Now with Buffer I can do that with Twitter and Facebook.  I love it.

People in countries will read me

Hello, everyone in Russia, Australia and all the other super cool countries that read me!  You are a constant surprise and an endless source of joy.  It reminds me every day that I am a citizen of planet Earth, not just America.  I love you guys.

No one is going to click on ads on my site, and I don’t care at all

I really don’t.  My first collection of short stories will be done soon, and that’s what I want to do to make money.  Not selling adspace.

One person can make my whole life light up

Some days, I get a like on a post.  Some days, I get a retweet, or a like on Facebook.  And some days, I really need that.  So thanks, guys.  Thanks for this past year, and here’s to many more to come.

Stay tuned.