Thank goodness this one is cleared up!

N-man had a friend over for a play date yesterday. They were playing with lightsabers, and N-man said, "I'm Darth Vader! Who are you?" His friend replied, "Anakin!"

With great exasperation, N-man said, "You can't be Anakin. Anakin and Darth Vader are the same person. Oh, you be Obi Wan."

Could I be prouder? No.

[To explain, there's something weird going on with kids today. They all love Anakin. They think he's one of the good guys, and sadly he seems to be the most recognizable Star Wars character. This is completely unacceptable to me. First of all, Han Solo is the coolest Star Wars character. Duh! Second, no matter what he did in Episodes I - III, Anakin is still Darth Vader! Why is that so hard for these 5 year olds to grasp? Anyway, I'm raising my boys right.]

Have yourself a very geeky Christmas

N-man was looking at the ornaments on our tree and said, "Mommy! This is DARK Vader!"

I told him, "Yep, but it's DARTH Vader. He's a bad guy."

N-man's answer, "I know that Mommy. I've known that since before I was born."

Proof that geekiness is part nature, part nurture.

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So, N-man calls Darth Vader "Dark Vader", which makes me giggle. But even funnier is that B-man call Yoda "Yoga". I can't wait until they're old enough to watch Star Wars!

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Green tip for the day: Add one more vegetarian meal to your week. Veggies are generally better for the environment than meat: use fewer resources to produce, create less waste, etc. This is especially true if you choose local and/or organic vegetables. Alternately, if you have a really committed carnivore in the house, start moving toward meals where meat is used sparingly. For example, I make bean and chicken quesadillas that only use 1 chicken breast for the whole family. Or a homemade pasta sauce that uses about 1/4 lb of ground meat. Or pumpkin waffles with one slice of bacon each on the side.

As an added plus, this is another green tip that should save you some money!

We interrupt this blog...

...to bring you the GREATEST television news of the year. Do you know what this Friday is? It's the premiere of DOLLHOUSE!

What is Dollhouse, you ask? It's the newest show from Joss Whedon. You know, the genius who brought us Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel, and Firefly, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.

The show sounds kind of crazy...it's about a group of women who are routinely reprogrammed to fit the needs of whoever hires them. But really, does it sound any stupider than the premise of a teenage girl who fights vampires? Or a vampire with a soul who fights demons? Or a space-western about outlaws with hearts traveling the solar system? Or a wannabe supervillain falling in love? Boy, Joss Whedon shows don't really condense well to a single sentence!

Dollhouse premieres this Friday, February 13 at 9pm on Fox. You all need to watch it. Seriously. You know how approximately half of my readers have borrowed the DVDs of Firefly from me and loved it? Yeah, well you're all still kind of in trouble for not watching it when it was on TV in the first place. Oh sure, I tried to tell you all how great it was, but did anyone listen? Judging from the ratings it got, I believe TK and I were the only people who watched it back when it was on TV!

So for all of you who missed Firefly, here's your shot at redemption. For those of you not familiar with Joss Whedon shows, they sometimes are a bit of a slow starter. Character development plays heavily in the shows, and you can't get that all out of the way in the first 10 minutes. So don't watch a few minutes and shut it off...give it an episode or two before you make your judgment.

Okay, I'm teasing, you don't *have* to watch it. It'll just make you supercool and really, isn't that what we're all aiming for? Then you can come back here and tell me about how you watched it and I'll love you forever!

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Good golly, I'm excited about this show. But if we're being honest, this blog post is spurred by my fear that like Firefly, I'm going to get totally invested and then they'll cancel it after 10 episodes. And six years later, I'll still be mourning the death of the show...

So I'm desperately trying to tell everyone about it, in the hopes it'll get awesome ratings and NOT be canceled immediately as I fear.

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As a followup to my post about Sophie Kinsella, of course the next day I got a call from the library saying my book had arrived. So, I picked it up and returned the one I bought. At least I didn't waste any money on this one! I wouldn't say it was awful, but I'll never reread it. I posted a review here, if anyone is interested.

Finished for Friday--my novel (first draft)

Oh boy, oh boy! Three Under Two over at Lit and Laundry hosts this one, and I'm so excited to play along this week.

What did I finish this week? The first draft of my novel! Yes, I know, those few of you who stuck with me through November got endless updates about NaNoWriMo, and know that I hit 50k words before Thanksgiving. That was enough to win NaNo, but not enough to finish my novel. I've been plugging away, and on Wednesday of this week, I reached the end.

So I'm celebrating this week. Maybe this weekend I'll do my first read-through, fix up all the glaring grammar/spelling errors (I have a wicked bad habit to never add ends of words. I get the main word, but forget about any -s or -ed or -ing that's supposed to be at the end. Weird, huh?) I'm curious to see how it turned out.

I'll include here a brief back-cover-type blurb about my novel:

In an alternate Earth, chaos reigns. Civilization as we know it has collapsed, fueled in part by a drug called Frantic. In our world, Kara, a single mother, and Erik, her teenaged son, are given a cure for Frantic. Will Kara and Erik be able to face the dangers before them, and will their efforts to spread the cure be enough to save a dying world?

I'm not sure yet what the title is going to be. I've considered Frantic or Hope for Frantic. But I don't love either.

Well, that's it. Now the hard work begins.

One of the great things about NaNoWriMo is that throughout the month, they send out emails from published authors to cheer you on. Some are really helpful, and we were sent an especially great one a few days ago from Kelley Armstrong. In it, she talks about how what you get out of NaNo might be the realization that your story isn't novel-worthy. And that it's okay if that's the result, that you still got a month of writing practice, a month of trying out a new idea. This was important for me to hear, because last year, my NaNo novel crashed and burned. Oh yeah, I have 50k words from 2007 (actually a lot more than 50k). It's a novel. A stinky novel, SOOO not worth editing or rewriting. But I've felt like it was a cheat, that I did the easy, fun part of creating the novel, and then wimped out on the less fun, more difficult editing.

But I really needed to read that pep talk from Kelley Armstrong. Because this year's novel has left me with such a different feeling than 2007. Sure, my novel this year is still rough. Really rough. But it's worth revisiting. And I'm glad someone has said that the piece of crap I wrote last year wasn't a complete waste of time, even if I never look at it again. So thank you, Kelley Armstrong. I'll have to look for one of her books. If her advice is so helpful, it's worth trying one of her novels.

And 2007 wasn't a total waste. In the process of researching a fairly minor plot point, I stumbled upon all the "eat local" stuff in a big way. I had already been on the CSA bandwagon, but researching more fully about the eat local movement really changed the way I think about food: what we eat, how we buy it, how it is produced. So maybe I didn't get a good novel out of 2007, but I did get a revamped outlook on eating.

But I hope what I get out of 2008 will be a novel. Even if it's never published, even if it's never worthy of sending out, I hope it's still a novel. We'll see. For now, I'm FINISHED FOR FRIDAY!

Boring, boring, boring!

Where have I been? Nowhere. What have I been doing? Nothing. Well, nothing that interesting. I've been busy with Mothers of Twins stuff. I've been getting Halloween stuff done. We've been mildly sick. Our water heater broke. We mopped A LOT until it was fixed. Then our gas pipes broke.

See, nothing exciting. I haven't even been that busy, certainly not too busy to post on my blog. I've just been....boring.

But now here I am, all full of excitement. Bask in it. Why am I full of excitement? Because NaNoWriMo starts on Saturday!

That's part of what's been eating at my time. I'm trying to decide on which story to write. Trying to decide which world, which characters I want to spend wrapped up in for the next month. I was going to try to do some plain ol' fiction, but I think I have to face up that I'm a total geek. I'm writing fantasy this year. Or maybe I'll gloss it up with a sci-fi coating, but let's face it, it'll be fantasy.

I can't help it. It's where my mind goes. I just read Empire Falls by Richard Russo. It was a beautifully done book about a small town on the decline. Does it make me a bad person that I kept hoping that there'd be some evil curse on the town that was causing the decline? Or that Mrs. Whiting, the rich lady who owned and controlled much of the town turned out to be a vampire? Or that Miles' daughter would find out she had some kind of superpower? None of those things happened, and I really didn't expect them to. But I have to face facts: I probably would have enjoyed the book more if they had.

So I'm writing fantasy. I'm pretty sure. I reserve the right to change my mind any time in the next three days. Or really, any time in November though it'd probably be pretty difficult for me to keep any non-fantasy-writing promise. I'd end up sending someone through a wardrobe, or have a Death Star open up an attack. But maybe, just maybe, it could all be just a dream...that's some good plotting.

In the spirit of lazy writing, anyone want to share some character names with me? I hate picking character names! I'm looking for recognizably normal but not so common that they feel anonymous. I'm not down with the whole made-up-fantasy-names, though feel free to give me some joke names filled with consonants and apostrophes (gosh, I'm not even sure if any of my readers are geeky enough to get that joke! Please, tell me I'm not the only sci-fi/fantasy geek in the room!) If I use a name you suggest, I'll give you lots of air kisses. I'll be your best friend. Oh heck, I guess you don't get anything but my eternal gratitude!

And I'll be around. Hopefully posting. I'm still considering NaBloPoMo, though I feel bad about doing it as I bet I'm not going to be the best blog-commenter during November! Last year my arms and hands hurt from all the typing I was doing on my novel. Yes, I wrote so much it burned!

This is rambling. I'll sign off now! Adios, glad to be back!

Okay, who's watching Heroes??

Wow, how awesome was that last night? Although please tell me that other people were vaguely confused. I have faith in the writers, though, that it will eventually make sense. Probably after it comes out on DVD and I get to watch it two or three more times!

Anyway, I'm not going to do Heroes recaps, but I just had to give a brief WOW. And comment for a moment about how much I love whoever casts the show. I mean, really. They have the greatest cast. Who did they add this week? Francis Capra! I was totally in love with Francis Capra as Weevil in Veronica Mars (please, oh please, tell me there are other Veronica Mars fans here. I'll think you're the super coolest!)

And who else did they add to the cast of Heroes? Bruce Boxleitner! Yes, we're talking about John Sheridan, from one of the greatest sci-fi shows ever, Babylon 5. I mean, just yesterday my post title was a quote from Babylon 5 (yes, I regularly sprinkle my entries with random sci-fi references I highly doubt anyone would notice. I'm a total geek.) How awesome is the casting for Heroes?

Okay, Heroes love fest officially over. For now.

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Replies to comments on And So It Begins....:

Gio, LauraC, Nancy, KCRSummertime, Jules, and Melodie, thank you for giving me some guidance on the "when to send to school" issue. Hopefully they'll be well enough to go tomorrow, especially since I have a dentist appointment scheduled while they're in school!

Nancy: That's interesting that you found the first episode of Firefly slow. It actually wasn't shown by Fox until they canceled the series, so TK and I didn't see that episode until after we'd seen most of the rest of the series. Of course we were interested in the characters and backstory by then! Glad you stuck through it!

Ronnica: Thanks! I'll email you!

One ring to rule them all...

B-man has started making this disturbingly hideous noise. It sounds exactly like the ringwraiths from the Lord of the Rings movies. I don't know why he does this. He does it when he's happy...running around the kitchen or jumping on the couch or chasing along behind N-man. It's grating and, well, weird. Plus, now I'm left with two disturbing options for where he learned to make this noise:

1) He's been sneaking down in the middle of the night, scaling the television to get up to the DVD player, and putting in The Lord of the Rings. Hey, those were pretty good movies, so I guess I understand the draw.

Or, 2) He's channeling ringwraiths, which begs the question, where did TK get my engagement ring???