Under Pressha

"Is the stew done?" my sister Michelle said, peeking around the corner of the kitchen. "The pressure cooker stopped hissing. That means it's done, right?"

"Pretty sure," her twin Heather replied. "And Mom didn't leave any money for pizza. That means we get stew."

"And I'm hungry," my other sister Beth replied. "How much longer?"

The four sisters stood together in front of the silent pressure cooker, frowning. "Well, who's going to open it?"

A quick note on pressure cookers. The whole "pressure" part is not just a clever name, it's the whole way the meal is cooked. Under hot, steaming pressure in a pot that literally locks on the top. It's a prehistoric way to cook stew but by all that was holy, the stew that came out of Mom's pressure cooker was blessed by the stew GODS. It was better than pizza. It was better than Burger King plus a Lion King toy.

But Michelle was right, it had stopped hissing. Maybe it was ready.

Things we did not know about Mom's special pressure cooker: it was a natural release cooker, not a quick release cooker. Natural release meant waiting 15 minutes before opening to avoid a huge explosion.

Things we also did not know at the time: only thirteen minutes had passed since it stopped hissing.

"Yeah, let's go ahead and open it," Heather said. Michelle, Beth and I took cover in a doorway.

Three months later, we were STILL finding bits of potato on top of the picture frames and slivers of stew sodden carrots on the underside of the cabinets.

Like all good after school specials, there was a moral in our disaster. Sometimes things need to simmer a bit before breaking them out to the world. Emotions, decisions, (ahem) MANUSCRIPTS...(I'm ahemming to myself, naturally), etc. Despite what we think, very few major decisions in this world are harmed by a few more minutes of waiting and pondering.

Here's to sitting and waiting, my hungry friends. The stew's TOTALLY gonna be worth it.

Unless we all splode first. Which I really hope doesn't happen.

CORRECTION: My sister Heather just reminded me that it was BETH that told her to open the pressure cooker. Not her. Just so it's clear. 

If These Walls Could Talk, They Might Only Scream (With Joy?)

As I write this, I'm sitting in my newly-Christmas'ed-out house, sipping a mug of hot chocolate and curling up under every blanket we own because it's San Diego, it's not supposed to get this cold, darnit. I'm also typing up a blog post. Uh, well I guess that last part was probably pretty obvious.

Yesterday, I got to play keeper to some lowland nyala, which are these creatures.Then I got to help one of our keepers clear another exhibit which held some scary gigantic birds (which I totally love, by the way). Then I got to play with our rats, and played trainer with one of our trainers.

Today, I go to my new volunteer place, where I'll get to play with anything from hedgehogs to porcupines to wallabies to macaws to marmosets to foxes to rabbits to--

Sorry. I got carried away. I think you get the idea.Then I'll get to hang out with some cheetahs (though I won't be playing any games with them... haha... cheetah... get it?)

I get to work with a lot of animals.

This is quite literally a dream come true. 

Sometimes it feels like I'm chasing a forever dream-- you know, the kind you can't wake up from. The kind that never ends. The kind that just keeps going and going.

Lately, I've been feeling kind of frustrated because things aren't happening fast enough for me. I had always thought that by this stage in my life, I'd be well established in a solid career. It didn't seem like such a big deal when I was 25. But now, for some reason, it feels like I'm approaching doomsday. (Yes, I'm an overachiever. And dramatic).

But today, I realized--really, really realized, not just thought it-- that I have it pretty darn good where I am. And while I'm not giving up on my lofty goals, I should be more okay being where I am until things happen. Especially because, while I hate to think it, there's always the chance that they won't happen. And even more especially because, where I am is pretty awesome!

We'll see how long my new-found pragmatism lasts. Here's hoping it's a while.

Tell me: a crazy dream you have, or a pragmatic one!

Loss, Rejection and Keeping your Head Up, Dangit.

So, the great and thoughtful Natalie Whipple has a two part post on rejection, loss, waiting, "The Year of Suck" and all the other heart draining things that come with this fickle writing business. If you have not read it yet, drop everything and head over HERE and HERE. She is eloquent and lovely in word and deed and her thoughts (and the succeeding outpour of "we feel it too!" in the comments) are worth the time. Go read it.

I'll wait.

JUST KIDDING I WON'T I HAVE THE PATIENCE OF A FLEA.

As writers, we wait. We wait for inspiration to strike us right, we wait for the baby to go down so we can write, we wait for feedback from friends and crit partners, we wait for agents to give us the Roman emporic thumbs up or thumbs down, we wait on submission with baited breath, we wait, we wait, we wait.

If we don't have the patience to do so, we will learn it quickly or we will perish.

When I first called my mom to tell her the news that an amazing agent had called me just to TALK about my work (two and a half years ago), the message got tangled up by my scatterbrained intercepting aunt. When Mom called back to congratulate me, she said, "Jean tells me that your book got published! Is it at Target yet?"

Urp.

We wait patiently for the market to turn in our direction, to nod to our clever/romantic/boy-friendly/girl-friendly/action-packed/fairy-tale-retelling/steam-cyber-gas-wood-native-faery-punked manuscript. We wait patiently. We sob quietly into our pillows and not so quietly into our blogs; but it doesn't erase the fact that we still must wait.

In the meantime, we continue to write and hone our craft, read those who do it so much better and those who are still learning like us. What else? What else to do to prepare us for the windfall and blessed call that must come/will come/has surely got to come soon?

No really, I'm asking you. The waiting is getting to me. Like I said, patience of a flea and all that.

What do you do to calm the wandering brain and brave the pain of patience? Read, write, garden, punch things, patch things? As a new/seasoned/repped/published/dabbling/obsessive author, how do you keep going in the downtimes?

Me? I like to use up all the ////s in my post so there aren't any left over for the rest of the blogs that day. Other than that, I'm totally open to suggestions.