The Road to Flowers

I haven't been writing. Or reading. Or cleaning my house. (Guess which two out of the three I miss.) No, with all my free time, I've been gardening. Setting brick edging, planting perennials, shoveling mulch.

We've owned our late-1960s house for six years, and let's just say that our backyard has been "unfinished" for all of them. We did take down a few old pines and shrubs, and put up a fence after the adoption of our rescue dog. And two summers ago I planted lilac bushes across the back because I couldn't take another spring of stealing my favorite blooms from my neighbors. But we still had (and still have, albeit less now) places that were waiting and wanting. Places where we had torn things out but ran out of time, money and energy to put things in.

Every spring, though, I would brighten the entryway and patio with annuals. Pots and planters of impatients, begonias, geraniums, coleus. Annuals are easy. Pull down the pots from the garage, fill them with potting soil, and stuff with plants. Done. In the fall, dump everything in the yard-waste barrel. No tilling, no weeding, no long-term commitment.

But this year was different. I wanted permanence. I wanted to dig deep and plant things that would sprout again next spring. (Which, if you think about it, is labor-intensive on the front-end, but having things come up by themselves next year means I don't even have to get the pots down from the shelves in order to have flowers! Kind of like teaching kids to make their own mac-and-cheese.)

So I've got no words on the page, but I've got dirt under my nails. (And mosquito bites in places I didn't think mosquitos could reach!) And when you're outside with no radio, you have time to think. For me that means mulling over my writing. Old writing, new writing, things that need editing, things that need publishing. And lately, the publishing thing has been on my mind a lot.

The agent search has been going considerably slower than I thought it would, probably because I treat each prospective agent as "The One" and spend way too much time agonizing over each query letter. Unfortunately, none of the 11 agents I've queried so far have thought I'm "The One," so it often seems like I'm back to Square One.

Then, last week, my sister sent me a note directing me to the Amazon home page, where there was an article by a successful author extolling the virtues of self-publishing. I was fascinated by her insight as both a traditionally-published and self-published author. From that article, I linked to several indie-writer websites and blogs. I won't bore you with the details, but basically, there is good stuff being self-published and money to be made doing it. Self-publishers have control over their work. But they are on their own, too. There are pros and cons to both methods of getting your stories to the masses. Just different ways of getting flowers, I guess.

I don't know what route to take, yet. And deciding won't be easy. I'll have to give it some more thought. But I've got lots of time to think -- as I sit making wire cages for all my new plants.

Damn rabbits.

FHQ

The house is silent. For the moment.

No refrigerator hum. No squeaking floor. No slamming door. I am the only one up at 9:00 on a Wednesday morning. Well, okay, Hubby is up, too, but he's at work. The Teens -- and the dog -- are all still asleep. And the house is quiet. Summer-morning quiet. Full-House Quiet.

Full-House Quiet is different from Empty-House Quiet. FHQ has potential. It has the stored energy of a firework just sitting there in its little paper box, waiting for a light.

EHQ is peaceful, no doubt. And sometimes it's all a mother could wish for: a few hours alone in her own home. A month or so ago, Hubby and I were alone on a Saturday morning. (The kids had all slept over somewhere else.) He and I got up, sat in the sunny family room, read the paper, sipped our coffee and tea. The house wasn't exactly empty, but it was still EHQ. And it was nice. For a while.

It didn't take me long to realize that while I appreciate EHQ, I actually prefer FHQ. I like knowing they're up there; that soon someone's feet will hit the floor, the stairs will creak, and a lanky, sleepy-headed body will stagger into the kitchen. I like knowing that today holds the potential for many kids (not just my own) to waft through the house like summer heat.

Yes, they will eat all the food and dirty all the dishes. If they've been playing soccer or wiffle-ball, they will be hot and sweaty and will smell bad. They will track in dirt and let in flies. They may lie for hours in front of the TV playing video games. Voices will shout, doors will smack, the dog will bark. I may wish, once again, for peace and quiet.

But it will be for Full-House Quiet.

High school -- the second time around

My 9th and 11th graders are studying for finals this week, and I'm sitting on the couch beside them, doing my best to help out keep up. When I was in high school, I don't think I learned half of what they have to know, but I'm trying my damnedest to look like I did. We can't let 'em think school is harder now than it was then! Back in the old days, life was tougher. Up-hill, both ways, in a snowstorm! You remember!

Of course kids have it easier these days. They've got computers -- an entire world of knowledge at their fingertips, not to mention in their living rooms, at 11:00 at night. We had Encyclopedia Britannica. In the LIBRARY!

Need to translate something into Spanish? There's an app for that. Gotta locate Brazzaville? Type it into Google. Didn't read the book? No need to wait for the stores to open to buy Cliffs Notes.

And have you seen their calculators? NASA launched astronauts into space with less sophisticated instruments.

So, yes, my kids have tools. Lots of them. But it also seems like they are covering subjects more thoroughly and delving deeper into topics than I ever recall doing. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm looking at that Chem text or that classic novel and trying to understand it instead of just learn it. I suppose it's because when you have to help someone, you do have to "get it" more than just "know it." So, yeah, this second shot at high school hasn't been easy. But I can't say that learning -- or relearning -- this stuff hasn't been kind of fun.

I'm just glad I don't have to take the final.