Tom Petty was right. The waiting is the hardest part. I have 59 more days to wait until my next picturebook (see above) comes out. I finished the artwork for it a couple of years ago. I finished the writing of it well before that. Sure, I have had little teases of what it'll be like - the proofs look ultra cool. But that's nothing compared to the real deal. Nothing at all.

I hate to wait. Waiting is boredom and anxiousness all wrapped up into a new nasty package - a package that requires opening again and again until the waiting's over. And these days it feels like it's ALL about the waiting. Waiting to see what's going to happen with our economy, our country, my city, neighborhood, family and friends - me.

I know there's a remedy to waiting. In writing, if you're waiting to hear back from an agent or editor about a project, make sure you're working on a new one. And I'm doing that, but a little lackadaisically I admit. This time the waiting feels heavier and the writing's getting bogged down with it. This is a time when I'm glad to have experience on my side. The writing will make its way up and out of the bog - eventually. It always does. But in the meantime - I wait.

So I've been watching TV and Six Feet Under has had my attention for the last few days. Really, when you think about it, it's a perfect choice - enduring waiting by watching episodes of a show that's all about waiting for the ultimate end - death. And here's the best part - I'm watching this one scene where a little girl's just had surgery and her uncle's waited all night at her bedside until she wakes up. He leaves her and goes out into the hospital corridor and finds his friend asleep in a chair. And on the walls of this corridor is my artwork - one big poster opposite of him and three more above his head.

My artwork - on Six Feet Under - surrounding a character that's.....

waiting.

Okay, in an earlier post I was going off about how as creative people we need to be adaptable. So, just how adaptable do we need to be? I'm totally willing to look at revising and tweaking style to fit a changing market - but just how far does going out on a limb for your art's sake go?

I'm throwing the glove down right here.

I will wear a bee beard for 500.00.

And here's the thing, I'm terrified of bees - yellow jackets, really. This one day, a hot day several summers ago, a friend and I are walking our dogs in a fairly rural county park. Her corgi and my mini dachshund get busy at the end of their retractable leashes sniffing at the base of a tree. And then I hear a yelp.

A cloud of yellow jackets rises up into the air and I leave my friend AND MY BELOVED LITTLE DOG to beat cheeks as fast I can. "Bee! Bee!" I scream and before long I feel like I've been hit in the back with a shotgun load of rock salt.

My friend, strangely not hating me for leaving her in my panic, yells at me to stop running. Well, shuh. My back is covered in hornets. I stop, drop and roll and then through my fear frenzy I decide it's a good idea to tear off my overalls and tee-shirt because the yellow jackets are attached to them. Good thinking, huh?

It worked. But there was one problem. I wasn't wearing anything under the overalls and tee shirt. It was hot remember? So that left one naked me, giggling uncontrollably because I'm so freaked out, one friend desperately trying to get me re-clothed and one open-mouthed family watching the whole scene.

Sure, Van Gogh cut off his ear. A LOT of artists have sacrificed things for their art. But can you honestly tell me you've ever heard of an artist willing to wear a bee beard - especially one with bee issues?

Bee beard. 500 bucks.

As a writer, an artist or even as a fairly flexible (hey! I can still touch my toes!) adult human being, there comes a time where you may need to adapt a little. As a human being, adaptability means that in this economy it's all store brands all the time and even takeout pizza's been replaced with those of the frozen starch disc variety.

As an artist it means you look for ways in addition to the gallery route to get your work out there to be seen and more importantly purchased. Take the image above for example. It's an original, one of a kind oil pastel perfect for that kitchen, breakfast nook or superhero's secret lair. But it may not be perfect for everyone's checkbook. So here's where I've adapted my art lately as well.:

http://www.paintbynumberkit.com/CoffeltGiclee.html

It's actually a pretty cool deal. Not only do you save on the cost of the art itself, but you also get rid of the cost of buying a frame and glass. And if you've framed anything lately, you know just what I'm talkin' 'bout, Willis.

Being an adaptable writer can be a bit harder. Because being adaptable usually means changing something. And to some, change is hard. Whoooo, I used to have this old doxie, Maggie, that freaked, absolutely freaked anytime there was a change around the house. Move her food dish and it would be hours of howling shrieks and frenzied pacing and tail attacking.

Good times.

The revision process is all about change and if you approach it ala Maggie, that's not going to earn you any points with an editor and probably won't do your manuscript any good either. I'm not saying you can't do some freaking out in private - have your best friend over so you can weep dramatically into your wine glass at the unfairness of it all, take a hot bath and sing Billy Joel songs at the top of your lungs until the neighbors threaten you with bodily harm, or better yet channel that energy into something useful like coming over and mowing my lawn.

But after you've had a private hissy then it's time to put the big girl (or big boy) pants on and get to work with the changin'. Hopefully you're starting off with some good feedback. In fact, it's vital that you have that and not the opinion of someone that just likes to take you down a few notches. My friend, Jerry Fenter, painter extrordinnaire, calls these people "poisonous playmates" and not only are they serious buzz-kills, but they're also highly unreliable in the feedback department.

The world is full of info on how to take a class or join an organization or a writing group so I'm not going to go into that here but once you do get that reliable feedback the first thing you need to do is

shut

up.

You have to do that first thing because your first instinct is to defend - to explain what you meant. So you think a reader or even before that, an editor is going to let you sit next to them the whole time they're reading your work so you can explain things? Letmethinkaboutthatno.
Nope, you're going to sit there all quiet and nice and chew a hole in the inside of your cheek. You're going to LISTEN. Oh and take notes. And then a few days later when your blood pressure's returned to normal you'll go over those comments and try to take an objective look at what was really said. What at first might seem so hideously horrible to contemplate just might look almost reasonable when you're a bit more reasonable.

In my own writing have there been times when I've fought for things to stay? You betcha. Did I win? A couple of times, but only after bending on other points. Like I said, I can still touch my toes. How flexible are you?

One of the many reasons I think my agent Edward Necarsulmer is the smartest, coolest agent in the world is that he likes House. It is cool to like House, because House is cool. He limps around all grumbly and awful. He treats everyone around him like crap and has zero sense of boundary issues. And the best part about him? He doesn't give one rat's hiney what anyone thinks about any of it.

Sure he gets all of his diagnoses wrong - at first - sending his minions scurrying about, wasting precious time as the patient slowly circles closer to that dreaded drain. But then - tada! - he has an epiphany. He knows exactly what the genius answer is and gets to limp off into the sunset once more - because he is House after all.

It's supposed to be a medical show and that's cool if you want to watch it that way. I'm all for seeing brain cases sawed in half and sitting through images of diseased innards, it's all good. But House's true and best talents would be wasted if he weren't appreciated for the hidden lessons his show contains. Because, you see, House is a master writing teacher.

No, really - it's true. He's been one of my teachers for a while now. Sadly it's only been through the show. But what I wouldn't give for a few private writing lessons from Hugh Laurie. Grrr. No, make that a double grrr.

Think about it. Here you are, slumped in front of a very blank computer screen, thinking about your story. But that story isn't what you think it is. That story is your patient and it's your job to make sure it doesn't croak. "Don't die, story!" you plead and force your fingers onto the keyboard.The qwerty race is on and you start down just about every wrong road there is. You go off on tangents, bring in unnecessary problems, distract yourself with daytime TV and drink scotch. See? Just like House!

And as far as limping around all grumbly and treating everyone around you like crap? When you're in the middle of story-life saving drama of your own you've done that. You know you have.

But the absolute beauty of House Writing 101 is that it gives you the freedom to not give a rat's hiney about what anyone thinks of your story while you're laying it all out there. You can't care. If you did, you'd be stuck in the daytime TV/scotch writing steps. Not caring frees you up to come up with all the things your story isn't. And finally realizing what it isn't lets you see what it's actually supposed to be. That's when you have your own tada moment.

But here's where you're not just like House. You don't get to limp off into the sunset at this point. You're still left with a patient that may longer be one foot in the grave but it's still a mess of tubes and wires and bodily goo. For you, it's revisions time. For House, it's scotch time. He's not down with revisions. He doesn't have to be.

He's House.

Okay, so one of my hobbies is writing short stories based on 1970's pop songs I mooned over as a kid. Here's one of them.


Wildfire
(With Apologies to Michael Martin Murphy)

Nancy Coffelt 2008


There had been a hoot owl howling by my window now for six nights in a row. I know most people would save the word ‘howl’ for the sound of wolves singing at the moon or what a cat says when you shut its tail in a door or step on it with your pointy-toed boots but that would be an error in this case. The word ‘hoot’ wouldn’t begin to describe the noise of the thing. It was a soul-searing howl for sure and no one’s going to change my mind a bit about that.
So that meant six nights of not sleeping because of a cacophonous waste of feathers and after a hard day of sodbustin’, only one night of it had made it seriously old. What brought me to Nebraska, this flat land of flat were things I’d worked real hard at forgetting and it was beginning to do the trick. Days of eye-ball boiling heat, skin-shriveling winds and eardrum-popping thunderstorms were making it difficult to remember anything else except the misery at hand. But what I could easily remember, especially after laying there in the dark, howling owl keeping me from at least a bit of peace, was the full-on ache of every muscle I knew and many more I just learned of. Sodbustin’ isn’t for the faint of heart or flabby of ass. Being it was just me taking care of things, I was planting from first light until it was only the dark of the moon that guided me through the new fields and to top it all an early snow had stepped right in to make sure any work I thought I had accomplished was a joke – a big, fat joke.
That’s why I found myself the next morning at the diner in town instead of on the tractor, my hind end eternally grateful for the vinyl cushion beneath it rather than the bone shattering ride of the John Deere. If my butt hadn’t already had a crack in it, I’d swear it was broken. The waitress poured me a cup of black without asking if I wanted it or not. I didn’t. Don’t like coffee much but that’s what everyone seemed to drink here so I put up with it. She’s never asked me what I wanted to eat either, just stands there, hands on pink, polyester uniformed hips, until I say what I always do.
“Two eggs. Toast. Bacon.”
“I saw her come down from Yellow Mountain, last week.” The guy at the end of the counter looks like he’s talking into his coffee cup instead of to the waitress.
“You’re full of it, Bill.” Joy, the waitress gives the counter a wipe with a cloth then tucks it back into her apron waistband.
I knew her name not because she’d ever bothered to tell me it, but by the bright blue of the embroidered letters stitched above her left bosom. After that, the word ‘joy’ for me had changed forever and the thought of singing a Christmas song like Joy to the World brought more visions of someone dough-face and sour in place of seasonal glad tidings.
“Suit yourself.” He took a drink from the cup and then held it out to her for a refill. She sighed and grabbed the pot. “But I’m telling you I saw her on that pony of hers.” He accepted the pour of coffee with a nod.
“Next you’ll be saying she had a whirlwind by her side,” Joy said, holding out the pot to me then. I put my hand over the top of my cup as a no. My guts were already tap dancing after the first onslaught of sludge and I still needed to get through breakfast.
“Whirlwind?” The distraction of the out of place word settled my threatening rumbles down a notch.
“Bill’s full of it,” Joy repeated her earlier observation as her answer to my question.
“You’ve seen her, too, Joy. Everyone in this town’s seen her.” Bill’s face settled into a scowl. “Even some folks that won’t admit it.”
“I know you seen her, Joy.” The guy at the other end of the counter sounds pissed. I know him from the service station. The embroidered patch on his shirt reads ‘Fred’. He always sounds kind of pissed, like something bad had happened in his day right before you happened to show up. “I was sitting right here in this seat when you told me.”
“You always sit in that seat,” Joy says.
“Her?” I ask. I see my order placed under the warming lights behind the waitress and I wanted her to give it to me before the toast got cold. I hate cold toast.
“She was a an odd one.” Joy looked probably as thoughtful as her dour features allowed.
“Downright nuts,” Bill says. “That pony of hers too. Bustin’ down its stall because of a frost.
“Well, it was a killing frost,” offered Fred.
I began practicing any esp skills I thought I might have. My order, Joy. Give me my order. No. Cold. Toast. Ever.
Bill snorted. “A killing frost is what my wife’s begonias need to worry about not some spooky four-legged bag of prairie grass.”
“Pony?” I’m asking the question but concentrating hard on the white plate next to Joy’s shoulder.
Toast, toast, toast, toast.
“It was the death of her, that’s for sure.” Fred’s level of pissiness seems to rise a little with every word. “She wasn’t too bad of a looker either.”
“Her or the pony?” Joy laughs. A hand reaches up to the order counter from the kitchen and slams down hard on the silver bell there. Joy jumps, startled at the sound of it next to her ear. “Jesus, Carl.” She whisks the plate out from under the warming lamps and drops it in front of me. “You could have just told me it was ready.”
I inspected my breakfast. The oil on the over-easies had coagulated to miniature shiny domes and the bacon was stiff and dry, all potential flavor leeched by the lamps. I picked up a piece of toast, soggy now but still warm so all was not lost.
“You know what I’m talking about, Joy. Don’t you say you don’t.” Fred pulled a couple of bills from his wallet and slid them down the counter at her. He stood up and pulled on his jacket. “That pretty girl loved that pony of hers and when she ran through that blizzard calling Wildfire it was the saddest sound I ever heard.”
“I thought you said it was a frost,” I said.
“First it was a frost then it was a blizzard,” said Bill. “And you’re right, Fred. Her calling that horse’s name as she ran around in a snowstorm like a crazy person was a pretty sad thing.”
“I’ve had a hoot-owl out my window now for six nights in a row,” I said after swallowing down a mouthful of bacon shaped cardboard. “It sounds pretty sad.”
All eyes were suddenly on me.
“A hoot-owl?” asked Joy. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” I felt a little unnerved by the scrutiny and I struggled a bit to hold her gaze. “It’d be a little sadder if I shot it out of the tree. Can’t sleep.”
“I told you, Joy!” Bill exploded. “I told you I seen her come down Yellow Mountain last week and you tell anyone with ears I’m full of it!”
Joy seemed to rock back on her heels at the outburst.
“Everything okay out there?” Carl’s voice came in from the kitchen.
“Yeah.” Joy took a deep breath and smoothed down the front of her apron. “Everything’s fine.”
Fred sat back down on the stool. “She’s really back then.”
“About as back as the dead can be, I guess,” said Bill, calmer sounding now.
Whoa, wait, what? “Dead?” I ask. The food in front of me might as well be a thousand miles away or that sample plastic food they display in Japanese restaurants. That’s about as interested I was in eating the rest of it right then.
“She’s coming for you.” Fred’s voice was flat and I wanted his pissed voice back, now. This tone was new and frankly, creepy.
“You’re absolutely sure it’s an owl?” Joy’s voice enunciated every word.
I nodded.
“Well, that’s that,” she said. She whisked the cloth from her waistband again and busied herself wiping nonexistent spots from the counter. “She’s coming for you.”
“On Wildfire,” added Bill, “I saw her...”
“We heard you, Bill!” Joy shouted.
Bill thrust his lower lip out in a pout.
“I gotta go.” I got up from the stool and took my meager roll of bills from my pocket.
Joy shook her head at it, moving away from the money a little like something might crawl off and get on her. “It’s on the house, honey.”
No one said goodbye to me as I zipped my coat so I didn’t bother either. I walked outside. It had gotten even colder since I had gone into the diner and the ash gray ceiling of sky looked like it wanted nothing more than to puke another load of snow on top of me, all my work, my life. My ancient truck started first try and driving home I knew it was time to get out of this place. If my old truck made it, then fine. But if what it took to get out of this land of suck was for some crazy dead chick on a ghost pony to come swooping in to carry me off than so be it. I’d worked too long to get the hard times out of my mind. It was definitely time to leave sodbustin’ behind either on the on top of four wheels or riding on the back of Wildfire. Snow began spitting onto the windshield and I switched the wipers on.
Didn’t much matter to me either way.

A lot of the time, creating a piece of art is like putting together a jig-saw puzzle. Everything needs to fit together just right or it simply doesn't work. Take the piece above for example - It has both big and little parts, and the negative spaces (the space between the objects) are as important as the koi, the cats, and the foliage. Every piece has a job and every one here is giving it their best shot. Swim on, happy koi fish. Grow peacefully, wise bamboo. Lurk away, weasel cats. And keep on, keepin' on, very important negative space - and sorry about hanging that label on you - it's just so negative.

Writing is like that too. Every single word, from the little ones like "the" need to do their job just as well as some of your fancier words like, I don't know, "gynormous". If they're not there for a reason, then maybe they don't need to be there at all. Or maybe you have pieces (words) missing. And that can be as maddening as finding the milk carton empty in the refridgerator. I mean who does that? I'll give you a hint - one of them lives in my house.

Don't you hate it when you get to the last puzzle piece in that gynormous puzzle that's been hiding your dining room table top for weeks and find that it isn't really the last piece? That 10,000 piece depiction of Paris at night or galloping Arabian horses or the sad-eyed kitten in the hobo boot still has gaps. "Aaah!" you yell or bellow depending on your particular angst expressing style. You drop to all fours scrambling among the ancient crumbs embedded in the rug beneath the table. Your fingers brush up against something but you find it's only the long-missing letter "j" from the Scrabble game. Finally, and against all hope, you do find the missing pieces. They appear to have possibly been injested by the family pet at some point, but you still hold hope they're merely a bit chewed. But you found them - and that's the most important thing because victory is now yours, baby.

The search for those missing and needed words can be just as frustrating. But searching is all part of what writing is. On lucky days, your quest is short and easy - a literary joyride. Other days you'll consider Frodo a big fat whiner for complaining about his journey, because compared to you, Hobbit don't know from journeys, man. So good luck on fitting all of your creative pieces together. And may all your puzzles totally rule.

Oh, and the artwork at the top of this post? You can buy it from me if you want. I have that technology.

I love what I do - really, really truly. But these days, and I know I'm speakin' to the choir here, just trying to keep on keepin' on takes its toll. My mantra for the day? Art is is important. Literature is important. Education is important. Dreams are important.

Repeat as necessary.

Peace out.

Hey, look it's a Nancy Coffelt original! And it's for sale, you say? Oh my, I better get right on that. Let me see, all I have to do is contact Nancy Coffelt (see sidebar) and she'll tell me just how this meticulously rendered whimsical world of happiness can be mine. And it will bring me luck and rainbows and clear skin, too? Thank you, Nancy Coffelt!

I'll now return you to our scheduled programing...

I'm actually supposed to be coloring right now, but it's been such a week of all-over-the-map of awful and wonderful, it's almost impossible to concentrate. I'm going to spare you the details of that diabolical map, though. Trust me, it definitely falls into the dreaded category of Too Much Information.

You know what I'm talking about. How many times have you squirmed through an elderly relative's lovingly and very carefully described medical procedure? And bonus points for you if it included the digestive track. Or what about that someone you don't even really know confiding in you about a particularly vexing problem in marital intimacy-land? Ew. Yep, you've just been a victim of TMI.

But TMI can come up in other areas too - your writing for one. I write and I teach writing. I also read but don't teach that, I suspect that's a harder job than teaching writing. I'm working with first graders this week and - see? It's very easy to be that guy (or that gal) that gives out way too much information.

So how do you avoid doing it? I know that in my own writing, if I'm boring myself, I'm probably doing it. But I can't catch all of it. That's one of the reasons I rely on having both readers and my writers' groups to point out all the places in my story that make their eyeballs bleed. Luckily it's a lot easier to spot it in others' work. By becoming a discerning reader you can educate yourself to better spot TMI. And that can definitely help you with your own decision making as to what needs to stay in your own project and what needs to go.

Take picture books for example - usually on the shorter side - many of them hover around the 500 word count so every word needs to count. When my agent sold my first novel, someone said to me that it must feel good to graduate to writing "real" books as opposed to "little kid" books. Wow. Let me make this absolutely clear. Writing picture books is hard. And one of the very reasons it is hard is that they require such an economy of language. TMI is a killer of that economy. I mean does your reader need to know it was a fine day in March? I guess if it was a story about St. Patrick's day it might be important. Or why would we need to know a character's pants were red if it had nothing to do with the story. If it was what the story was about, like getting teased about loving red pants, or that the character's dream was to be a stop sign, then the red pants reference stays. If not, thanks for playing. Come to think of it, a story about a kid standing in the middle of traffic willing it to stop is not, I repeat, not a good idea.

This sort of extra information doesn't help a longer work either. If what you've presented does NOTHING to move your story forward, then come on, why is it there? "But I love that part!" you cry. And I believe you, really. So here's what you do. You copy and paste that beloved passage, print it out, run down to Frames Plus Mega Warehouse and get yourself a little gold number, slap those words into it and - voila! They'll be with you forever. But they won't be in your story anymore distracting your reader from what you're really trying to say.

Okay, I'm off now, got a million things to do like going to the store and the dog's nails probably need trimming and the dishwasher has this funny smell and - see? TMI.

The other day I was doing a lot of thinking about what to do when you're confronted with a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day (thank you Judith Viorst). And I stand by my statement that it's wisest to see the gift of finding a dead fish even though a dead rat was your heart's desire. Heart's desires are funny things. And by funny I mean not funny.

Sure, they're all sparkly and glisten-y and whisper seductive little nothings in your ear until you're shaking like a crazed chihuahua drooling over a piece of cheese just out of its reach. But none of a heart's desire's glamor is designed to make you feel good at all.

Nope - and doesn't that totally bite? That heart's desire is designed to make you feel oh-so-bad about yourself as long as you can't reach its splediforous magnificence with your grubby little fingers. And a terrible, awful, no good, very bad day just seems to create yet one more chasm to try and cross to grab that prize with said grubby fingers.

So what do you do? Ignore it? I don't know about you, but I think a life led without dreams feels like a pretty dismal prospect. Try harder? I'm all for hard work. I like hard work, partly because it was drilled in my head, probably while I was still inutero, that hard work makes you good. So the logical assumption any child (and adult, too that refuses to do the phychological slog-fest to escape the demons of their youth) would leap to is if you're NOT working hard enough to cause yourself physical, emotional, and spiritual pain - then you're - I don't know - BAD.
I have to say, too, that a lot of my work is coloring - and working very hard at coloring pretty much rocks - and rocking while working is the point I'm trying to make here.

Yes, if you truly believe in your heart's desire then you must work toward it, of course you must. A dream without work is nothing but a big, fat waste of time. But here's the deal - you've got some reframing to do. First of all, you've got to knock that high and mighty and probably super stuck-up heart's desire clean off its pedestal, and then take a baseball bat and play whack-a-mole against that pedestal until it's gone bye-bye. Now, look! You're now on the exact same level as that heart's desire - but look again - it's not all shiny any more. In fact, it's almost kind of - ordinary.

No, no, wait. This is a good thing! Your heart's desire still exists but its glamor is gone. Now it's showing its true and attainable face - work. And not the crazy making, "I'm dancing as fast as I can" work, but the one foot in front of the other type. And the best part is that, instead of being a winking, teasing light, your heart's desire is now your companion in that work. And you want to know the really best, super secret part ? - you've taken that first step in seeing your work as your heart's desire. Cool, right?

It's going to take some adjusting, I know. You might actually have to do something now instead of just talking about someday doing something. But flipping your perspective can offer you a view of ideas you might never have known even existed. Who knows? You might even catch a glimpse of a new heart's desire. The canine crooner at the top of this post is fully aware that his song sounds different now that he's flipped his perspective. But then again, he may just learn to love the new melody more than he imagined.

Rock on, crooner dog. Rock on.

Have you ever had a day like this? Like everything is crashing and burning all around you? Of course you have - everyone has. So when it does happen, what do you do?

The sad, hard truth is that you've just got to put on those big-girl pants (or big-boy) and figure out what to do next. Yeah, right. But when you think about it, "figuring out" is the purest form of creativity. It's all about making something from pretty much nothing. Sure, artists and writers have tools to help them - paints, clay, laptops - wine. But tools exist to help figure what to do in life, too.

Experience: This is a great tool. The good thing about getting older is that you've seen more situations. You've already, by now, figured out lots of ways to move on from life's little and not so little catastrophes. What you learned from those lovely little life lessons may just come in handy.

Friends: And that includes family as well. No one's really alone and you never know if by opening up to someone else, you may benefit from their experiences - thereby increasing you own knowledge base.

Courage: Or you could call it spirit, backbone, or plain old bull-headedness. Quitting is not an option. Other options may be an option but quitting's not one of them. This little kitty has found a tasty dead fish treat even in the midst of trouble. Maybe in the past he's found oases of positives in the deserts of negative - using that experience to help him. Maybe a friend pointed him toward a likely spot to find a dead fish. And maybe, just maybe, this kitty just kept at it - didn't give up - until he found something. Maybe what he really wanted was a dead rat, but being the creative sort that he is, he figured out how to make do.

So go out there today - and be the kitty.

So the kids are back to school and that means I'm right there with them. Well maybe not right there with them and thank the stars, the moon and every square inch of both the known and the unknown universe for that small mercy. It's hard to be a kid. For one thing, your default setting is WORRY. Worry over your hair, your clothes, if you're going to say something seriously embarrassing - if you're going to do something seriously embarrassing. The one good thing about getting old is you just don't have to care about all that stuff anymore.

As far as my own hair, I do admit to waging an epic war against the creeping (or more accurately galloping) onset of gray with an impressive force of dye. But as far the actual style of my hair? I really don't have one other than - not gray. I've shown up to more than a few tennis practices with a major case of bed head and haven't cared one bit. It's not like I have to look at it. And if my teammates don't like it, they don't have to look either.

Clothes, hmm. Are all body parts that should be covered hidden from view? If so, then my work is done.

Alfred E. Neuman had it absolutely right when he said, "What, me worry?" I can't remember the last time I was concerned about doing or saying something embarrassing. If I was worried about that kind of thing, I sure wouldn't be doing art. There's no way I'd be a writer. And I certainly wouldn't be able to navigate my way through a sixth grade classroom.

Case in point: sixth grade boy, face glowing with that "I'm here to make your life as difficult as possible" adorableness, calls me over for help in drawing a camel. I look and see that he's got the humps finished all right, the legs look good, needs some tweaking on the neck and ears - but wait, there's an extra bonus on that camel's underside - and glory be if it isn't the most carefully rendered part of his camel so far and more than a little bit larger than even the most virile of camels would sport. I look at the camel's nether region. The sixth grade boy waits, looking back and forth between the other boys at the table group. He stifles a giggle.

"That's a penis, right?" I ask.

There's a collective gasp from the table group at the mention of the "p" word.

"Well, for one thing, if you take a closer look at your reference photo you'll see your camel's penis is pointed in the wrong direction."

The table group is quiet. There is a rustle of uncomfortable shuffling in their seats at the repeated "p" word.

"He'd be urinating on his back legs. Why don't you double check with your teacher on that?"
I walk away, then turn back. "Good work on the humps though."

He doesn't answer - too busy erasing. My oldness triumphed once again. But you know, short of creating overly-anatomically correct quadrupeds, channeling a part of that kid's creative spirit's not a bad a idea. He drew something and then put it out there for a response. Of course he folded right away - the kid's twelve or something - but he bucked against the confinement of embarrassment for even a short while. I have high hopes for that kid - he's going places.

I'm not embarrassed either and that's why I feel very comfortable in showing you how I spend my free time - taking lots of pictures of my dog, Dutch, cutest boy in the world. Here he is demonstrating his good taste in reading material. And yes, it is an oversize book. Dutch is small but not that small.

I've never been one to make New Year's resolutions. I mean most of them aren't even fun. How many years in a row can you promise to eat better and exercise more?
Sorry, but in my book, that = boring. I can come up with a LOT better resolutions than that. How about attaining the power to burp rainbows to bring joy to all the children of the world? Or how about being able to transform into a skeleton at will to scare said children when they displease me?

"Now that's just plain silly," you say. "So unrealistic." Oh yeah? How realistic is your resolution to eat better and exercise more, hmmm?

But I have made a sort of resolution for 2009 and it involves the very thing you're reading. The last time I posted on my blog was in 2006. That was ages ago! I mean we must have flying cars by now, right? Right? So it's about time I venture from my office/studio, known as "The Troll Hole" or on some of my more challenging days, "The Pain Cave" and let everyone know what's going on with my new books, art, and the out of control biker bar that runs my brain. I can't believe the world has actually still kept spinning not being privy to this information. A lucky break I guess.

So what IS new? My most favorite agent in the world, Edward Necarsulmer IV has made sure I'm still writing children's books. I will have forthcoming titles out with both Little Brown and Simon and Schuster in the next couple of years - more on that later.

This March, "Big, Bigger, Biggest" is coming out with Henry Holt -yay! I'm a total word freak, and if you are too you might want to look it up. How many chances do you get to see the word "lackadasical" in print? Not enough, I assure you.

And this fall, I have broken my string of books under 800 words with my first Y/A novel out with WestSide Books - yay, again!

Now because I've been successfully unemployed since 1984 (and by "successful" I mean I'm still somehow alive) I still do other things to keep that honorable designation. Teaching has taken up more of my time - shameless plug coming - Teachers, I'm a joy to have in your class, just ask my mom. My school visit info's on the sidebar. Thanks!
And of course I still color. In fact, here's the first installment of:

"Hey, Look! It's a Nancy Coffelt original!"

This holiday season, Portland, Oregon, my hometown, had an epic (for us anyway) snow "event". I love that term, it seems somehow more clinical and more dire all at the same time. By the time we were all able to leave our homes we were feeling pretty batty after having to talk to only our family members for days at a time. The snow scene depicted here may seem at its surface to be a light-hearted diplay of canine holiday cheer, when in reality it is a dark look at the animalistic violence that bursts forth from our souls after too many meals of canned goods and endless games of Scrabble because of some stupid snow "event". And the best part is it's for sale! Contact me for price and size info.

So I did it. A kind of resolution. I'll try to do it again because a resolution really isn't a thing in itself. It's simply a step toward attaining an end goal. Good luck to all of you with your steps. I'll try to take another one soon!