road trip mix

Of course, I've got an Ipod, but I still can't find a way to get the sound quality to match a good old-fashioned cd mix. Here's what we're listening to. How about you?

Think Of Me-Rosi Golan

Hear Me Out-Frou Frou

Blue Beard-Band Of Horses

Dilly-Band Of Horses

Everlasting Light-The Black Keys

Howlin' For You-The Black Keys

The Boy With The Arab Strap-Belle & Sebastian

Heart Skipped A Beat-Xx

Islands-Xx

World Spins Madly On-The Weepies

Square Peg Round Hole-Wakey!wakey!

Almost Everything-Wakey!wakey!

Drowning Men-Fanfarlo

Finish Line-Fanfarlo

Fire Escape-Fanfarlo

Swing Tree-Discovery

Take A Bow-Glee Cast

If I Had Eyes-Jack Johnson

Aisle 13-Built To Spill

Supermassive Black Hole-Muse

See ya.

We are leaving tomorrow for our annual Summer Sabbatical. So I stole some pictures from my sisters' blogs to show you what I'm looking forward to, since I am busy washing every article of clothing we have and doing all the things I've procrastinated doing all summer and clearly don't have time to take my own pictures.

We are headed to:

1.) The Sin Capital of the World

2.) The Avocado Capital of the World

3.) The Kidnapping Capital of the United States (debatable)

4.) The Jewel of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation

I will offer a souvenir from my trip to the first person who guesses all 4 places correctly. It will be totally rad. You'll have to trust me on that. Family: you cannot vote. Which could be bad since I don't know if anyone else is reading this blog during the summer.

I can't wait to see everyone.

On becoming a writer

[print by Merrick Angle]

I've read somewhere that to be a successful writer you have to have a wicked stubborn streak. My mother and Mr. Coleman know best of all how well-qualified I must be.

I am still hard at work on my first novel, reworking a second draft which I can actually show people. Of course, the writing happens in between the rest of life. In between cutting up vegetables and breaking up fights and deadheading flowers and reading bedtime stories.

When I want to quit because it's hard, I think about this article about Junot Díaz. Somehow I've found the will to keep going all this time. (Which, incidentally, is the core of what my story is about.) Here's a snippet from his essay:

"Because, in truth, I didn't become a writer the first time I put pen to paper or when I finished my first book (easy) or my second one (hard). You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway. Wasn't until that night when I was faced with all those lousy pages that I realized, really realized, what it was exactly that I am."

Junot Díaz's novel THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSACR WAO (Riverhead) won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008.