I've Created a Tumblr for my trip

that you can find here if you're curious. Between sketchy internet access (the walls are so thick, my little USB modem struggles some times for signal!) and some crazy randomness that I'm posting, I thought it might be the best way to trip blog.



Yes, this is a REAL town. Pronounced Fah-eel.

And I promise a real post with some of my favorite highlights soon!


Killing the Saudades

Saudade: A word in Portuguese that doesn't actually have a direct translation in English. The closest I can come to is a feeling of longing for something. But it's much stronger than longing. And I have saudades of this place when I'm in the States.

I'm in Portugal for my long-ish vacation (staying at my parents' house, of course. Otherwise, it would be short-ish.) Day one was about landing in Porto, seeing a two places I've never visited, and getting up and running with internet access and things that I really missed.

YUM! Hai chocolate. I luv you so very much.
I also have straciatella yogurt and Kelloggs Special K (the better tasting European version)
ready for breakfast this morning.

Most of this is family and relaxing at home, but when I go somewhere interesting, I'll be blogging and vlogging about my trip, including places like this:

Cafe Majestic in Porto

Oh-- and I vlogged about that:

And going to an AMAZING bookstore and buying this:

Look familiar?

So, now the question is... do I post it here or create a tumblr for my random pictures/musings?

You Are Stronger Than You Think

I'm talking about cadavers today. Soooo... if you get a little icked out by dead bodies, this might not be the best post for you.

My first cadaver lab was over nine years ago. Some people get broken in with one or two bodies. Me, I had a roomful of bodies, all of them over a week old. I had to walk through the lab area to get to the locker room, and, just as I stepped into the lab, the techs were rolling them out of body bags and on to the tables. I saw faces and open blank eyes. And I moved as fast as I could (without running) to get out of there.

As soon as I reached the women's locker room, I curled up on a bench and started rocking back and forth, saying, "I can't do this." And after a few minutes of having a mini breakdown and pity party, I reminded myself that I chose this career and, if I couldn't suck it up, I had to get out.

I sucked it up. As a newbie, I had the pleasure of having to remove all of the implants that the training surgeon had put in during his demonstration. And when the cadaver I was working on that day lost her arm because, well, a week of being studied meant the body couldn't handle being manipulated, I just kept going without blinking.

I took a really, really long shower afterwards.

It's been almost ten years of labs and visiting tissue banks. I've seen things that bench-rocking me would never have wanted to see. I've learned so much, and I hope that some of my work that came from these educational (and validation) labs has made a difference in people's lives. I've also learned that I can handle a lot more than younger me thought I could. I had really underestimated myself.

Oh, hai, night blooming waterlily! So pretty and unexpected!

This is one of my stories of unexpected strength. Do any of you want to share yours? I'd love to read them!

Temporary Toepick Title

I think I've confessed before on this blog about my intense fear of the ice, at least for the first few seconds after I step onto the ice surface for practice or a lesson. There's a very real moment where I'm convinced I'm an idiot and am going to break my neck. "WTF are you thinking? You're breakable. It's colder than hell* in here. Get your butt back into the lobby and go, I don't know, shopping or something."

*note: for me, hell is cold. I hate the cold so much. My office is cold. Operating rooms are cold. Cold is... sucky. And, yes, I willingly ice skate.

There are days when I have to force myself to lace up my skates and get on the ice. There are days when my leg muscles burn during warmup so much that I can't imagine pushing through for another hour-plus.

I'm trying to build back all of the muscle I lost because of my hamstring injury back in February. Months worth of physical therapy and I'm only at about two-thirds of where I had been. So, last Tuesday, I spent the entire 50 minute freestyle session feeling like I was trying to skate uphill. Sweat dripped down my back and I kept wondering why I didn't just get off of the ice. My legs were so tired, even, that I popped my loops, flubbed my salchows... and let's not even talk about spins.

My skates are dead and they'll cost from $400-$600 to replace. Lessons cost a fortune.

Unlike math, 2 + 2 doesn't always equal four. There are days when you could be doing everything right, but it just won't be a spin day or a jump day or an anything day.



An awful scratch-spin tracing from Thursday. See all of those loops?
In a good spin, they're small and in the same spot.

I'll never be an olympian. The only places I compete are at adult competitions and they're few and far between (and the only prizes, really, are bragging rights and a medal.) As an adult, I physically struggle more and learn slower than kids. A little boy or girl who starts now will probably have their double jumps by the time I finally land my lutz.

I've already had to get stitches on my chin and have gotten very good at falling.

Figure skating (freestyle) ice is hard to find in a hockey world. There are days when the ice surface is too hard (hockey ice), too bumpy, or, frankly, crappy beyond belief.

All in all, it sounds really and truly sucktastic, doesn't it?

But!

We started the choreography on my new Winter show program today. My coach and I set the Icelandic version of Never Forget (Mundu Eftir Mer) on loop and let loose. While she played with the opening, I practiced my camel spins. I did my best sit spin of the lesson to the violin solo in the middle, pulling my arm back mid-spin as if I were using a bow and screaming a "Whee!!!" as I came back up to standing. My coach kicked into a doughnut spin and I followed, then had fun on a jump combination she gave me.

I flew and spun and had an amazing time just trying to become the music. It's alchemy, making gold out of sweat and scratches and ice full of hockey player spit.

All of the problems listed before the "But" gave me this... and it's worth every painful, whiplash-filled, bruised second.

What about you? What is in your life that at face value is kind-of craptastic, but is so much more when you dig deeper?

A Fangirl-y Kind Of Love

I have a little problem.

No, I don't mean my book or sparkly makeup or yarn-buying habits (though those are problems, too.)

My problem is that I have a bad habit of falling so hard for books and their characters that I kind-of want to be them. Or I'll start taking aspects of their clothing or hobbies and try to imitate them. Or just want to steal an aspect of their wardrobe. LM Montgomery's Emily series had me seriously coveting Edwardian clothing, Jimmy-books, and Emily's shot-silk blue-green dress. The Wings series by Aprilynne Pike had me hunting for hair dangles and was the catalyst for my hair tinsel. I've crocheted shawls so that I could pretend to be mooning on foggy mornings on the moors, I've hunted high and low for fabric to match the dress description in Amy Plum's Die For Me. I've dressed in black and been ready to kick butt thanks to Divergent. Three words: butterfly costume dress from Incarnate *swoon*. The Babysitter's Club series was one fashion disaster after another for me when I tried to imitate Claudia's wardrobe and went full-on ballerina over Jessi's outfits. Trixie Belden made me want to be a teenage gumshoe and, combined with my Sherlock Holmes phase, I can tell you a million ways to pick up fingerprints. There was the post-Dracula uber-gothy phase. I was a teenager and I was dancing around my grandparents' patio, pretending to be Drina. I still want her grey and scarlet school uniform (complete with a "smart" matching cape.) I have a properly Slytherin black, silver, and green silk dress that I made for the last Harry Potter release party.



The Franklin Institute Narnia exhibit: a fangirl's dream come true.

Okay, who hasn't dreamt of slipping through the wardrobe?
Who hasn't run around their house looking for an entryway to Narnia?

 Oh, God, I'm not getting in to what the Lux series by Jennifer Armentrout is doing to me. Katy is already like us bookish types SO MUCH. I want her "My blog is better than your vlog" t-shirt and starry sleep shorts.

And fictional boys are ruining me for real boys. Tod, Daemon, Vincent, Bram, Cricket.. and those are only my recent crushes. I'm still carrying a flame for Teddy Kent, Jim Frayne, Gilbert Blythe... you get the idea.

This happens even when I'm writing my own stories. When I'm heavily immersed in my main character, I start picking up aspects of his or her personality or style and pepper them into my everyday life. Sara's a runner, so, even though I hate running, I found myself drooling over running skirts and a new pair of Nikes (teal. And they're very comfy for my skating warmups, thank you very much.) Aurora, a character in a short story I'm writing, is a bit of a girly fashionista based in Akureyri, Iceland. Hello, coveting the cute pink hoodie from 66°NORTH. Phoebe from my WIP is a book devourer and I"ve been buying a lot of... oh, wait, that's normal for me. But she's also a band geek and I've found myself digging through my piles of band music and brushing off my flute and piccolo, both of which have been languishing in their cases for AGES because apartment living= really hard to practice!*

New, pink flute and piccolo case! With a BUTTERFLY.
Yes, I'm four years old.

Thank you, authors, so much for amazing books and beautiful prose that make me want to become the characters. Thank you for the magic and covet-worthy wardrobes.

Thank you for making me go into frenzies of fan girl-y love.

*BTW, my flute playing isn't that bad. I do practice once in a while when my insane neighbors are out. We shall not discuss how 10 years of not practicing piccolo means that I sound like I'm murdering a bird.

The Stone Girl Blog Tour: Mini Interview and Guest Post

I'd like to welcome Alyssa Sheinmel to my blog today and I'm really happy to share her book with you. Y'all know that I rarely (uhm... okay, really rarely) review books on here. When I do talk about books on this blog, it's because I really enjoyed them.

You'll see in a minute why I think this book should be a part of your library.

The Book:

Sethie Weiss is hungry, a mean, angry kind of hunger that feels like a piece of glass in her belly. She’s managed to get down to 111 pounds and knows that with a little more hard work—a few more meals skipped, a few more snacks vomited away—she can force the number on the scale even lower. She will work on her body the same way she worked to get her perfect grades, to finish her college applications early, to get her first kiss from Shaw, the boy she loves, the boy who isn’t quite her boyfriend.

Sethie will not allow herself one slip, not one bad day, not one break in concentration. Her body is there for her to work on when everything and everyone else—her best friend, her schoolwork, and Shaw—are gone. From critically acclaimed writer Alyssa B. Sheinmel comes an unflinching and unparalleled portrayal of one girl’s withdrawal, until she is sinking like a stone into her own illness, her own loneliness—her own self.
 (from Alyssa's website. You can read an excerpt and find out more about the book by clicking on this sentence!)

  







The Review: (Well, the part of this post where I gush about how much I liked this book)

When I was first approached by Random House to be a part of this tour... I'll be honest, I wasn't sure. Wintergirls was tough enough to read-- did I want to dive in to another book about body image and eating disorders so soon after all of the discussions I had been having with friends on and offline about my vlog post?

But then I opened Alyssa's book, read her foreword... and burst into tears. This was the book for girls like me and like many of my friends. Girls who didn't quite fit the mold when it came to textbook definitions of anorexia or bulemia. I won't write any spoilers, but there is a scene in the beginning of the book between Sethie and her friend Janey that gave me chills because one of my own friends had the same experience. Sethie is real and relateable and her story was hard to put down.

The (Mini) Interview: (Where Alyssa answers my LOOOONG questions)

1. When I received the book and read your introduction, I actually cried because you finally gave a voice to those of us who skirted the edge of the eating disorder cliff. There's so much stigma in society about body image and disordered eating as a "first world problem" and I have trouble talking about my experiences because I wasn't one of "those girls" who "really" had an eating disorder. Were there points while writing The Stone Girl where you had doubts about your story? Were these times when you thought about stopping?

Well first of all, thank you.  I wrote this book for many reasons, but one of them is certainly that I felt that there was a part of the story that is rarely, if ever, told; the girls who skate on the precipice of eating disorders – not quite sick, but certainly not well either.

And to answer your questions – Yes!  Repeatedly as I wrote the novel I doubted the story.  I wondered whether there was anything left to say about eating disorders that hadn’t been said already, and by people much more qualified than I am.  I wondered if anyone would care about Sethie’s story; the girl who skips or vomits only some of her meals, who doesn’t drop down to eighty pounds, who isn’t admitted to an eating-disorders clinic.  I stopped writing the book repeatedly, but something always kept me coming back.  Finally, I decided that I would write the book, but maybe I wouldn’t share it; maybe it was something I was writing for me, this eating disorders book that I just had to get out of my system.  But once I’d finished a draft, much to my surprise, I did want to share it.  And – also to my surprise – people seemed to believe in Sethie’s story.

 

2. The friends who opened up to me about their own experiences with body image issues and eating disorders/disordered eating have mentioned the amazing things in their lives that they wouldn't have experienced if they had continued down that path. For me, it's been skating and eating my way through a few countries. What are one or two things in your life that you have been able to enjoy because you were able to move past the need to be ultra-thin?

Oh my goodness, where do I start?  Of course, with the obvious – food.  The funny thing is, despite everything else, I’ve always been kind of an enormous foodie.  Going to new restaurants, taking trips just to try new restaurants in other cities, are some of my favorite things to do.  Thanksgiving is my single favorite day of the year, not least because it is an entire national holiday that completely revolves around a meal.  And being able to do those things I enjoy so much without the fear or guilt about food hovering over me is certainly something I would have missed out on had I not let go of my body-obsession.

 

But there is so much more, of course.  I don’t know exactly when or how I gave up my body-obsession, but I do know this: my life became infinitely better once body-obsession wasn’t a part of it.  I became better at my job, I made better friends, I began practicing yoga, I started dating the boy I would later marry, I got my wonderful, sweet, funny dog.  I can’t tell you exactly how it happened – Did I finally get to have these good things because I let go of my body-obsession and was able to concentrate on more important things?  Or was I able to let go of my body-obsession because my life was newly filled with these good things?  Or was it simply that these good things demanded the energy I used to spend on my body-obsession?  I honestly don’t know; what I do know is that the things I wanted most shifted.  There was a time when the thing I wanted most in the world was to be thinner.  Now, of course, I still have days when I feel fat, days when I wish I could change something about my body or myself.  But those thoughts are relatively fleeting.  Now, there are just so many other things that I want more.

The Guest Post:

A few weeks ago, I was sick – some kind of stomach bug or food poisoning.  I was out of town, and spent my vacation miserably holed up in my hotel room.  I pretty much couldn’t eat anything.  And here’s the thing – it was oddly familiar, walking into the market of the hotel, seeing foods that I loved and wanted to eat, and having to remind myself, No, you can’t eat those things.  It was a bizarre kind of flashback to the way that I used to live.  It only lasted a few days, but suddenly food was the stuff of longing, the stuff of bargaining, the stuff of promises.  What a strange thing, after all this time, to find myself promising that if I just made it through one more day of being “good” I could have whatever I wanted later.  Rationalizing that I could have one bite of the donuts from my favorite restaurant, but only one, even though I was hungry enough for two, or three, or four.  It made me sad for the girl I used to be, the one who spent so much of her energy thinking about food, feeling guilty about food, fearing food.  I was relieved when the vacation was over and I recovered, relieved when I could go back to normal.  I was so uncomfortable living like that for just a few days; I can’t imagine how I spent a few years that way.

Of course, even when my body-obsession was at its worst, I didn’t live like that every single day.  Sometimes, food was a source of joy or pleasure or simply nourishment, as it should be.  Sometimes, I could go weeks without trying to skip a meal, months without vomiting.  I never even dropped down to an unhealthy weight. 

Your questions got me thinking; with the publication of The Stone Girl fewer than two weeks away, I’ve been talking so much about the book, and about eating disorders lately.  I’ve written and spoken about my personal experiences with food and body-obsession quite a bit over the past few months, more than I had in years, more perhaps than I ever had.  I wrote this book thinking about those of us who – as you beautifully said – “skirted the edge of the eating disorder cliff,” and even now, I find that I check myself when I’m writing about my own life; I’ll delete the words eating disorder, anorexic or bulimic and replace them with the words body-obsession.  Even now, sometimes I still don’t believe I deserve to call whatever it was that I had an eating disorder. 

I don’t remember the last time I made myself throw up, the last meal I skipped in an effort to drop a few pounds.  It’s been, I think, fewer than ten years, but more than seven or eight.  I may still dance around the semantics of it, but this much is true: I was sick then, and I am better now.



What if...? I Twisted a Fairy Tale?

This post was technically supposed to go up tomorrow, but Mondays are always crazy for me (and I don't trust blogger's post scheduling utility.) That means that I may, possibly, be the first person in this blogfest to post. :)

While stalking reading Morgan Shamy's blog, I came upon her announcement for the "What If? Fairytale Madness Blogfest," hosted by Morgan, Leigh Covington, Mark Koopmans, and Cassie Mae, and automatically had to sign up. I LOVE fairy tales, and love playing with these familiar characters.

WHAT IF?
Fairytale Madness BlogFest!
AUGUST 13th – 17th

Have you noticed that by changing one detail; one event, one character trait, one thought...you can completely alter the rest of the story?

Check out the links above for the rules.

Of course, thanks to hanging with so many romance writers, I just HAD to pick:

I was going to work with one of the obscure fairy tales, but then an idea popped into my head and I'm changing a tiny detail in one of my favorite fairy tales of all time, Beauty and the Beast. Note that I didn't use the Disneyfied version!

As the Beast raged on outside, I collapsed to the floor of my new prison and cried for the first time that night. I was trapped here. Forever.

I cried and felt the gentle arms of the wind wrap around me, pushing back the loose strands of my hair and drying my tears.

***

Time had no meaning here except when it came to him. It passed in breaths, not hours. He began to speak to me, now and again breaking the rules and his silence. First, a whisper in my sleep.  A word of support as homesickness took hold. When the Beast was in a particular mood, my wind would be at my side, offering tendrils of supportive words.

As my friendship grew with the Beast, different feelings began to form in me for my wind, my silent footman.

I knew he felt the same. In the dark of the night when he must have thought I was sleeping, I could have sworn I heard the faintest of whispers—nothing more than a breath—say, “I love you” as it lingered across my cheek and over my brow. I smiled. Perhaps he guessed. But we didn’t speak of it.

Until I learned about the curse.

“But we can’t be together. You need to break the spell.” His voice barely made it to my ears but I could still hear the anguish tangled in it.

I slid my hands up invisible arms to his neck and pulled his head down toward mine. “Right now, I don’t care about breaking spells. All I care about is you.” Even though I couldn’t see him, I could feel the brush of his breath on my lips, the electric tingle of proximity. “I love you,” I whispered, and then there was no more distance between us.

Want to read more? Go here and click on some more of the participants' links!

Another SCBWIPA Poconos Post- Revision

"Because revision is actually the best part."

 

Finally another SCBWIPA Poconos post! I think I have one or two more after this one (I have to break down my notes and see how they fall as individual post-age.) I just have to keep reminding myself that posting my memories and notes from a conference back in April(!) helps to refresh my memories of all that I learned that weekend. It's so easy to go to a conference, learn so much, get fired up... and then, a few weeks later, go back to status quo. These posts are my occasional reminders that I really need to put these tips into practice.

 

Also, a quick update! Remember that writing prompt exercise from my recap of this workshop? 12K in and it's been the anchor for the MC in the contemporary I'm working on right now. I discovered an aspect of my MC's voice that I hadn't known. Even better, I still smile while working on passages for this character. So, try goofy writing prompts. You never know what you might get.

 

Back to today's post. If you haven't guessed from my title or my picture (SQUEE!!), I'm recapping Laurie Halse Anderson's workshop on Revision.

 "Revision is taking the earlier explosion of inspiration and crafting it so that the reader can see the same world."

 

I not only signed up for this workshop because L.H.A. is a wealth of writing knowledge, but because *whispers the next part* revision makes me cringe. Especially the first of three truths about revision that she presented to us:

• (first): Everything is on the table for potential change. Everything is on the table for a potential cut- even the main character.
• Uhm, whoa. LHA was kidding, right? My beloved MC? You should have seen the looks we gave her on that one. But if the story is better suited for a different narrator, well... we need to be open to that change.
• It doesn't matter if it really happened. All that matters is that you write the story that serves the purposes of the story you're trying to tell.

and, finally:

• You can always make it better.

And then, when she was done, we all went up to her and sobbed all over her. Even those of us who said we'd never cry. And Laurie wrote that wonderful note in my copy of Wintergirls.  I'm still wary about the "best part" thing, but I have to admit I enjoyed this workshop and loved my last round of revisions on "D." It wasn't like the painful, plodding first fourish passes through the MS. Instead, it felt like I was infusing magic into the story.

Maybe Laurie Halse Anderson is right. Maybe ;)

A Little Love Note

I didn't realize how many people would see the Wintergirls post and I am so, so touched by all of the comments and reactions that I've received as a result of that vlog. I didn't cry when I was making the video, but I cried when I read your comments. I love all of you.

I was telling a friend the other day all about the post and my surprise at its reception in the blogosphere, about how I loved it, but how I didn't want to be labeled as "that blogger who had the eating disorder." She then confessed to me that she had been a wintergirl, too, back in college, and how our stories need to get out. "If that helped one girl, it was worth it." I sort-of, kind-of cried again. It wasn't pretty. But it was wonderful, too.

I blame all of you. ALL of you.

A little over a year ago, I made the decision that I was going to put all of my fears aside and try to write this story that had been in my head for ages. I stepped into this world of tweeting, blogging, #1k1hrs, and conferences with no idea about what I was getting into.  I now giggle about then-me. She was soooooo cute with her wide-eyes and giant expectations! But, though I haven't achieved the totally unrealistic dreams that 1-year-ago-me had expected to achieve by this date, I've gained so much more than I'd ever anticipated.

I'm a Philly-area girl. Of COURSE I'd have these coasters!

Whether or not I ever publish, I'm so thankful for what this journey has given me. Without writing, I wouldn't have joined SCBWI and met some of the most wonderful people on the planet. Without this journey, I wouldn't have:

1. Twitter. I joined twitter for three reasons:

• To fangirl my favorite authors
• To follow book bloggers I liked and to get their recommendations on what to read/not to read
• To learn more about the publishing industry
• And I can't forget that I also made sure to follow my knitting friends! Yarn forever.

I kept telling myself that, but my list of "following" grew and grew until it became something more than any of the three above. Through twitter, I met new friends (both online and now off, too... including a twittertwin who makes me grin on my toughest days *hug*), Team Kilt!!!!, my new CP/fellow Team Kilter/real life SCBWI friend, and all of the amazing authors and editors and agents who tweet some of the best stuff ever. Honestly, I'd still follow everyone I follow (well, except maybe GoslingLitAgent, but that's because he'd just break my heart) even if I wasn't trying to write anymore, because the YA/kidlit community is just so, so awesome.

2. SCBWI and all of my friends *BIG SMOOSHY HUG*

I'm a nerdy, geeky, bookish girl. I never really felt like I fit in anywhere... and believe me, I tried.(uhm, Star Trek meetups, anyone? Not the conventions or the online RPG forums, just meeting with Star Trek fans monthly at the local diner. It was... interesting. I lasted about two meetups) We shall not speak about my awkward forays into "just getting out there and meeting people." But SCBWI automatically felt like home. And the Poconos conference? I'm still so thankful that Kim talked me into going. Because I fell into a family of awesomeness and found my "tribe."

3. An enormous TBR pile. And a smaller bank account.

Uh, yeah, that might be a downside.

4. All of you who follow this blog and whose blogs I follow.

Your comments make me grin (and made me cry.) Your posts give me something to read when I'm procrastinating on my WIP. I love hearing about your journeys and can't wait to hold some of your books in my hands when you do get published. I fangirl so hard over all of you.

Miss Phoebe-cat (a bit blurry! Sorry, she kept moving!) says she loves you, too!

Up next: I might try a post with content and not just gushing. *blows kisses at everyone*

Bits and Pieces

Years ago, when I had been skating for about a year and a half, I decided to enter an adult only figure skating competition (competing at the "Pre Bronze" level) I had my waltz jump, toe loop, salchow (all incredibly tiny, but recognizable) and one foot spins, so, of course I was ready.

Since adult-only competitions are about as common as unicorns (okay, not counting regionals and nationals-- yes, those do exist!,) I decided to take advantage of its diversity and signed up for three events-- my freestyle, an artistic interpretive (where you're judged about how your program and "emoting" fit the music. Aka: I got to skate to music with lyrics,) and an improv.

My freestyle dress and program at another competition for my "Harry in Winter" program

Freestyle and Artistic were both choreographed by my coach and I had practiced them enough that I could skate them in my sleep. In fact, I loved my "Harry in Winter*" program so much that people commented on the joy they saw on my face when I skated it (rather than the terror, determination, focus, or pasted-on smiles that many skaters usually show during competition.)

But Improv was a completely different animal. I actually had to improvise. And when put under pressure...

I did three-turns (a basic footwork component) and a jump or two in a circle for the entire, excruciating rap song they had presented to me. Because, while I had bits and pieces in my mental repetoire, I lacked the three things I really needed to make them work-- Experience, phrases, and music that fit me:

1. Experience-- this one is self-explanatory.

2. Phrases-- Over time, you collect more of these bits and pieces of dialogue until you can build an entire conversation. The phrases build in your muscles so that you only need to pull them out of your mental library and go.

3. The right music-- Rap just wasn't something that resonated with me. If I had been given symphonic metal, a pop ballad, or, heck, broadway, I might have been slightly better off, despite my lack of experience and tiny library of phrases. But, instead, I was trying to create in a genre that didn't fit me.

Fast forward to now. I'm slowly growing. I've had six years of experience on the ice. My coach and I have built a collection of footwork and jump combinations that I can start pulling out as needed. And, while I'm not a great improv choreographer, I love playing around on the ice when some of my favorite songs come over the speakers. I'm (mostly) ready for another shot at improv.

I think conferences, critique partners, and just writing practice are the writing equivalent of learning how to choreograph. All three help to build my toolbox of skills so that, when combined with the right inspiration, my fingers get to fly.

There are days when I still wonder if I'm doing the writing equivalent of three turns. At least, they're better three turns than where I was a year, two years, ten years ago, and I know that they'll be even better six years from now. And when I'm in the moment and writing something that makes me smile, it feels just as wonderful as when I'm hopping around the ice surface to "Call Me Maybe."

*Yes, THAT Harry. The song is on the Goblet of Fire soundtrack and is gorgeous. You can hear the first love in it as Harry trudges through the snow and I thought of first loves when I skated to it.

So... do you have non-writing "improv prep" moments?