Brainstorming among the Braces

Want to know how to become an unpopular mom? Schedule both your kids for an orthodontist appointment on a day off from school :-) Hey, don't blame me for forgetting. Okay, go ahead and blame me. It was convenient and they had to get out of bed sometime, right?

Now that I'm out of braces and no longer there to whine, I actually like going to the orthodontist because I get a good half hour to sit there and write without anyone interrupting me. There's something about a busy place that gets me thinking better than when I'm at home in front of the computer. I know -- you'd think that would be counter-intuitive, but I actually work better in places like that than I do in quiet places. I just prefer the fuzzy slippers so I stay home more often ;-)

I had left a character in my book with a line of dialogue before I went to the ortho--a line that was supposed to explain everything, be an overarching theme for the story. Big stuff, this line. Big pressure to come up with something cool. I was kicking myself for putting this line in there because I thought there was no way I could come up with something that would work (but oh, if I could, it would be so cool, because it would just tie in the whole Christmas thing). [for new readers to this blog, read more behind my books on my website]

There I am in the ortho's and wham-bam, just like that, inspiration smacks me across the head and I get the lines I needed. I write really, really fast (DD was only there for a wire change, DS just for a check), and get the bulk of the scene down, enough that I can finish it today.

I told my daughter her braces were good for my writing. I can't describe the look she gave me, but if you have a teenager, I'm sure you can imagine it ;-)

Last night for dinner, we had fajitas with low-fat cheese and fat-free sour cream (my favorite is the Breakstone's). I watched the Oprah episode on Bob Greene's Best Life Diet. Seemed like a pretty slow approach to dieting, which might be okay. Then I watched the National Body Challenge marathon on Discovery Challenge, felt like a total sloth, and went to bed ;-)

Shirley