Here it comes. The first Mother's Day without Gogo. How different this pain is from the first Mother's Day without Grace. There is something about losing a child, something about losing your beloved mother at 86 and your beloved daughter at five. Such different but profound griefs. As my dear friend Amy said recently about losing her mother: There's just something not right. Yesterday I went to buy Mother's Day cards for my dear aunt and for my mother in law. How clever I was avoiding the entire section that said: For Mom, and lingered in the section for everyone else. This year I will spend Mother's Day in NYC with my own kids and my marvelous husband. We will go to a play and out to dinner and there will be joy and laughter and love. And Gogo will be there with us in all of our hearts.
It seems like every day I have a new form to sign or something new to get notarized or a decision to make. I've decided to do just one sad thing a day, even if that means things are getting done slowly. Although this mostly has to do with Gogo, I've extended this policy to unpleasant people I have to deal with as well. And it helps. I don't get that avalanche of grief or anger that comes with total immersion. I highly recommend this.
And now to happy news: I've finished the first draft of my new novel! Yay! But of course this means the beginning of revisions, which I'm starting on today. Stay tuned for end of this revision and beginning of next one. Beginning writers are always surprised at how many rounds of revision I do. Even this first draft has actually been revised twice already--once when I reached page 75, and then again after Michael read most of it and offered comments. So we might start the count at three already.
I am making great progress on my Turkish bed slippers:
https://www.churchmouseyarns.com/products/turkish-bed-socks-pattern
The color is the most lovely jewel blue and they are just complicated enough to make me pause and think. On the train yesterday Michael saw me staring at my little slipper hard and puzzled and was quite amused!
Things to be excited about:
SHE LOVES YOU YEAH YEAH YEAH, my new YA book is available for pre-order here or at your favorite indie bookstore:
https://www.amazon.com/She-Loves-You-Yeah/dp/1524785113
It tells the story of Trudy Mixer, the biggest Beatles fan in her school, who--along with three oddballs--sets out to meet Paul McCartney after the Beatles 1966 concert in Boston. I was happy every minute that I spent writing this book.
THE DIANA TAPES, a play by What Will the Neighbors Say, my son Sam's theatre company, is opening Off Broadway on May 27!
You can get tickets here:
http://here.org/shows/detail/1969/
After this run, they go to London!
Michael and I are taking four lovely trips in the next month. To santa Fe to visit my friends Mary and Andy. To Oaxaca to eat and walk and be romantic. To Chicago with Annabelle where Michael will work, we will all go to see HAMILTON (again for AB and me), and we will eat at Girl and the Goat, one of my favorite restaurants. And to Michael's hometown of Cleveland so that he can show Annabelle around--at her request (how happy I am that my kiddos love this man almost as much as I do), which means the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an Indians game, hopefully dinner at the Greenhouse, and all sorts of wonderful Cleveland things.
Now it's time to begin those revisions. And yes, I'm excited about that too!
It seems like every day I have a new form to sign or something new to get notarized or a decision to make. I've decided to do just one sad thing a day, even if that means things are getting done slowly. Although this mostly has to do with Gogo, I've extended this policy to unpleasant people I have to deal with as well. And it helps. I don't get that avalanche of grief or anger that comes with total immersion. I highly recommend this.
And now to happy news: I've finished the first draft of my new novel! Yay! But of course this means the beginning of revisions, which I'm starting on today. Stay tuned for end of this revision and beginning of next one. Beginning writers are always surprised at how many rounds of revision I do. Even this first draft has actually been revised twice already--once when I reached page 75, and then again after Michael read most of it and offered comments. So we might start the count at three already.
I am making great progress on my Turkish bed slippers:
https://www.churchmouseyarns.com/products/turkish-bed-socks-pattern
The color is the most lovely jewel blue and they are just complicated enough to make me pause and think. On the train yesterday Michael saw me staring at my little slipper hard and puzzled and was quite amused!
Things to be excited about:
SHE LOVES YOU YEAH YEAH YEAH, my new YA book is available for pre-order here or at your favorite indie bookstore:
https://www.amazon.com/She-Loves-You-Yeah/dp/1524785113
It tells the story of Trudy Mixer, the biggest Beatles fan in her school, who--along with three oddballs--sets out to meet Paul McCartney after the Beatles 1966 concert in Boston. I was happy every minute that I spent writing this book.
THE DIANA TAPES, a play by What Will the Neighbors Say, my son Sam's theatre company, is opening Off Broadway on May 27!
You can get tickets here:
http://here.org/shows/detail/1969/
After this run, they go to London!
Michael and I are taking four lovely trips in the next month. To santa Fe to visit my friends Mary and Andy. To Oaxaca to eat and walk and be romantic. To Chicago with Annabelle where Michael will work, we will all go to see HAMILTON (again for AB and me), and we will eat at Girl and the Goat, one of my favorite restaurants. And to Michael's hometown of Cleveland so that he can show Annabelle around--at her request (how happy I am that my kiddos love this man almost as much as I do), which means the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an Indians game, hopefully dinner at the Greenhouse, and all sorts of wonderful Cleveland things.
Now it's time to begin those revisions. And yes, I'm excited about that too!
