Author Archives: lauraborkpower

Getting Rid of Writer’s Block

2 Replies

This is a guest post from Matthew Wasik, a member of this summer’s Online Writing Group:

Is writer’s block getting you down? Tired of staring at the screen, hoping Gunshija, Goddess of writers, will send you divine inspiration? Well, look no further! I, Matthew Wasik, am going to enlighten you on how I smash through writer’s block like the Hulk smashes through walls!

THE STEPS:

1:   Obtain the following items: a matchbox, the biggest bottle of gin you can find, and a picture of renowned pop star Taylor Swift. Set them on the table and croon softly to them.

2:   Light a match, stare at it until it burns down, and consider all the terrible choices you’ve made in life. Rinse and repeat until the matchbox is empty. Eat the empty matchbox.

3:   Smash the photograph while screaming “WHY DID YOU BETRAY ME, TAYLOR!? WHY?! I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY SOUL MATE!!!”

4:   Ignore the fact that you’ve never met Taylor Swift.

5:   Chug the bottle of gin.

6:   Curl into a ball and cry for several hours.

The tools you need to banish writer's block

The tools you need to banish writer’s block

Congratulations! You are now ready to write an award winning novel or build a robot! The world is your gin-soaked oyster! Go forth and CREATE!!!

…In all seriousness, my way of breaking through writer’s block is, oddly enough, to slide around it. If I get stuck on one project, I’ll switch to another one. Then I’ll return to the original project once my brain is reset. I don’t know if this would work for you, since I have a strange brain-mind, but feel free to try it!

 

Thanks for the tips, Matthew! Your brain-mind is amazing. (check out more from Matthew on his blog) Readers, now that you have some great writer’s block-busters, get writing!

Week Two: Online Writing Group

4 Replies

It’s the second week of the Summer 2015 Online Writing Group!

It sounds like most everyone is on track and that makes me so happy! But I’m going to be the outlier and admit that I didn’t meet my goals for week one. I could tell you that I’ve been busy rehearsing for a play (I have!) or that I’m useless if I don’t go into the office where my little pomodoro picture is hanging on the wall (I am!), but you all know that all excuses are bullshit. This week I was just a slack-dog.

Yes, the person running this group is a slack-dog. What’s a slack-dog, you ask? Here you go:

Slack-dog \ˈslak ˈdȯg, ˈdäg\ : one who does not do her weekly writing

Pictured Right–Slack-dog \ˈslak ˈdȯg, ˈdäg\ : one who does not do her weekly writing   Pictured Left–Regular-dog \ˈre-gyə-lər, ˈre-g(ə-)lər also ˈrā- ˈdȯg, ˈdäg\ : one who does do her weekly writing (if writing =  eating, sleeping, running, and pooping)

So now you know what you’ll turn into if you miss your weekly goals! It’s not really that bad; but I do hope to look like a normal human again next week once I’ve done some writing.

Here are Everyone’s Week Two Updates & New Goals:

  • Anne: This week I plan on continuing my writing at a slow pace and to FIND time for myself to write this week come hell or high water. I will begin some research for another novel in stories that has been rattling around in my brain for the past month or so. I don’t want to give too much away (in case it doesn’t work the way I planned) but it will be about a local historic hotel in my area that has been closed for some years now. This hotel is important to many people in the area and I want to show the history of this place and why it was so important. I want to at least have a rough draft of this going by the end of the eight weeks, but maybe get around five pages written, or at least get an outline written for this week. It’s mainly going to be a research week but I will try to get something written. I have decided that the novel in story format will work perfectly for this project as well. This novel in stories is going to focus more on the place and the lasting impact this hotel has had on the area residents. As for Circus Man, it’s still going along, slowly and I will be doing more research for this as well this week. *
  • Anuar: So far my writing has been going pretty good and I was able to finish all my goals. My goals for this upcoming week are the following: add at least two chapters to the book I’m writing; and write a guest post. (Anuar’s guest post will be featured next week!)
  • Bev: Continue work on spring break letter (minimum 3 pomodoros), which is taking longer than I thought it would; continue researching agents (minimum 2 pomodoros); and re-read intro to 7 Bridges and cut even more spurious content (minimum 2 pomodoros). (I’m so glad the pomodoros are working for you, Bev!)
  • Bonnie: (Bonnie is out of the country, so we’ll assume she’s met her goals and is processing her Ireland experiences for the project she’ll start when she returns.)
  • Curt: Baby steps : Write every day. Aim for 1500 words at the end of the week.**
  • Laura: Since I came woefully short of my first week goal, my second week goal is to open the story, and just start working. I’m going to analyze the first page to see if I’ve clearly answered Lisa Cron’s three questions (see below), and if not, I’ll start my work there.
  • Lisa: I will be trying to get through another five pages this week. So far, so good. 🙂
  • Mary: Week two goal is to edit my blog post. (After I finish writing it because we all know I didn’t finish. [thank you, Mary, for being an amazing slack-dog, too! I feel better])
  • Matthew: (Matthew contributed this week’s guest post [it’s going up tomorrow, so check back!], and he has met his goal for this week.)
  • Mike: Week two goal is to complete an outline of the new story, consolidating the existing drafts of the two previous stories, and the notes from the earlier workshop on one of the two stories.
  • Robert: I’m at 40,700 words, so I wrote maybe 700 – 1000 words. We are busy prepping for our vacation, so I didn’t expect to get much done. Once the vacation starts, well, I don’t think much writing will occur. That’s how it goes. When I return, then I’ll get back to the project. But I’ll be reading this blog! Keep on writing, fellow writers! (Thanks, and safe travels, Robert!)
  • Samantha: My week two goals are to begin to rewrite the first chunk of the story, as I have reread it and hate it to bits. (I told Samantha she has to hate it so that she can rewrite it and make it amazing.)
  • Steve: Draft of Mendelssohn paper by June 10.

*Anne, this sounds amazing! I have two books to recommend for you: 1. Hotel World by Ali Smith–it’s not a collection of short stories, but a collection of narratives/voices centered around a hotel. Smith is a terrific writer and it’s an interesting book. And 2. Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. Although I am confident that this is not the genre or style you’re working towards, I’m going to recommend you read Haunted for an example of a novel through short stories as well as first person [sort of] narration. Be warned, though, that Palahniuk is at his graphic best (worst?) in this book, especially with the story “Guts.” (writers, what other stories-as-novel do you recommend?)

**Curt is new to the group. His eight-week objectives are to complete at least three chapters of Book 2 (of his Legacy of the Guardians series); maybe finish one of several short stories that have been stuck in limbo for so long; send another round of query letters to agents for Book 1. Welcome to the group, Curt!

All right, so everyone (besides me) seems to be on track and getting it done–good work, writers!

This week, as part of my slack-doggedness, I started reading Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence. This book, by Lisa Cron, is a marriage of the two things I love: books on writing and books on brains.

Cron’s first chapter begins the explanation of why humans crave story and what we writers can do to create a compelling first page and first line. In large part, writers must make sure to answer the following three questions (and quick!) in order to keep the reader engaged:

  1. Whose story is it?
  2. What’s happening here?
  3. What is at stake? (Cron 19)

As readers, Cron says, “we are looking for a reason to care.” So when we write, we must make sure to begin our story with a “ball already in play” (13).

I give you, then, a job this week, writers: re-read your first line and your first page. Will your reader be able to answer Cron’s three questions? If not, revise.

And to inspire you, here are some great first lines (because after reading Cron’s first chapter, I immediately started pulling books off my library shelves to read the first lines. [this, then, led to me rereading, in its entirety, my favorite book Franny and Zooey, thus further procrastinating my writing]):

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen)

“I still get nightmares.” (House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski)

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” (Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides)

“Isserley always drove straight past a hitch-hiker when she first saw him, to give herself time to size him up.” (Under the Skin, Michel Faber)

“Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” (The Trial, Franz Kafka)

“Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.” (The Shining, Stephen King)

“The circus arrives without warning.” (The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern)

“Gerard Maines lived across the hall from a woman named Benna, who four minutes into any conversation always managed to say the word penis.” (Anagrams, Lorrie Moore)

“This was supposed to be a writers’ retreat.” (Haunted, Chuck Palahniuk)

“Never never tell, Maddy-Monkey, they warned me, it’s Death if you tell any of Them but now after so many years I am going to tell, for who’s to stop me?” (Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, Joyce Carol Oates)

“A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism.” (The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx)

“When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.” (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami)

“Though brilliantly sunny, Saturday morning was overcoat weather again, not just topcoat weather, as it had been all week and as everyone had hoped it would stay for the big weekend–the weekend of the Yale game.” (Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger)

“Who’s there?” (Hamlet, William Shakespeare)

“Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway.” (White Teeth, Zadie Smith)

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson)

“When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.” (Chapter 1, The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien)

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy)

“A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.” (A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole)

“The person to whom this book is dedicated, Phoebe Hurty, is no longer among the living, as they say.” (Breakfast of Champions [Or, Goodbye Blue Monday!], Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)

“I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.” (Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace)

“I am born on a Tuesday at University Hospital/Columbus, Ohio,/USA — /a country caught/between Black and White.” (Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson)

Now, writers, go on and write, reflect, revise, and let us know how it goes. Check back tomorrow for Matthew’s amazing guest post. Good luck, and good writing!

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2012. Print.

Week One: Online Writing Group

7 Replies

Welcome to the first week of the Summer 2015 Online Writing Group!

This is week one of the inaugural online writing group. This post includes two lists of goals (everyone’s goals look fantastic!), a project management technique you can try out, and some hyperlinks you can follow and read to procrastinate starting on your first objective (you’re welcome).

At the end of the post you will find goals that each participant has submitted:

  1. A list of big picture goals–what everyone hopes to achieve by the end of our eight week session
  2. A list of first step goals–what everyone hopes to achieve by the end of our first week

I’d also like to share a quick and fun project management tip with you all. It’s called the Pomodoro Technique and was developed by Italian entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo. The technique (which is popular, so you might have either heard of it before or you might already be using it) employs a kitchen timer (preferably a tomato timer [hence, the pomodoro] set to twenty-five minutes, and a willing participant (that’s you!) to work, without distraction, for the entire timed “pomodoro.” You must set your own objective for each timed pomodoro, and once you get a handle on the pace of your work, you can identify how many pomodoros it might take you to accomplish a specific project.

I usually do a

I usually do a “warm-up” pomodoro for really big projects–I get all of my materials ready and psych myself up to start working

And in the spirit of gamification, I’ll let you know how I track my pomodoros. I made myself a little tomato picture and put it in a frame under glass. I add a hash mark each time I complete a true pomodoro (I don’t count the ones that are interrupted by students or colleagues during my student conference hours), and then I add them up at the end of each month. It’s nice to quantify the work I do, and I like to compete against myself to improve upon each month.

Pomodoro Gamification

I am the epitome of nerd.

I first learned about this technique at a professional development workshop led by a colleague of mine in the philosophy department. He talked about a number of different time and project management approaches, and this was, by far, my favorite. When it comes to project management techniques, it’s important to find one that you like and that fits with your style of working and writing. Try this one out; hopefully it will work for you!

Big Picture Goals:

  • Anne: My eight week objective is to make some sort of working draft(s) for my novel in stories that I want to eventually complete. I’m still working on The Circus Man, so I’m thinking of continuing that. I want to have at least three different chapters or stories going, one from first person p.o.v of the three main characters of my novel. And I wanted to start a draft for another novel in stories that I’m writing.
  • Anuar: Over these eight weeks I will be working on a motivational book, titled Looking for Stars in the Middle of the Darkness, that I’m planning on getting published soon. My eight week objective is to finish at least twenty chapters of that book.
  • Bev: Finish two more letters and revisions on Seven Bridges; send manuscript to at least four more agents; have lunch with Laura Power! (I can let Bev know right now that this is a totally accomplish-able goal!)
  • Bonnie: My project is to write a report for the Illinois Consortium for Studies and Programs Abroad about my term as the faculty liaison in the fall of 2014.
  • Laura: I’m going to finish a short story called “Sunshine Delay” that I started about two years ago; and I’ll begin and finish a new short story, tentatively titled “Invitation to the Funeral”.
  • Lisa: My eight week objective is to finish two chapters of the children’s chapter book I am starting. And, I would like to revise one short story.
  • Mary: I am absolutely using this as a way to force myself to keep the blog I started about a month ago up to date. So, my “big picture” is to have a consistently updated blog with at least four well-written, in depth posts.
  • Matthew: My super-awesome objective is to finish a short story that’s been sitting idle for several months, almost finished. But since that’ll take an afternoon at most, I think the primary objective should also be to finish a rough draft of a new story.
  • Mike: My eight-week goal is to complete a story called “Her Very Fabric” from many years ago. I want to integrate some notes from a workshop that completely changed the tone of the story and gave depth to several minor characters I’d underwritten in the original draft of it. I also want to combine it with a completely separate story I started about five years ago, as each story has similar main male characters and some overlapping elements. Also, new title, as the original title is no good. (I told Mike that I disagree about this…)
  • Robert: I’m working on my second novel, and have written 39,000 words so far. My goal is to finish it in 90,000 words total by December. I’ll be on vacation for a big chunk of this group’s eight weeks, so I don’t expect to get too much done. If I could manage 5,000 words in that time I’d be happy.
  • Samantha: My week-eight objective is to almost rewrite the entire [short story] and turn it into a proper story and not just one I’m writing for my friend. I need to flesh it out in some spots and completely rewrite others. This will probably take me the full eight weeks because I suck at staying on track. (that’s why we’re here, Samantha–you’re in good company!)
  • Steve: I will work on the following: 1) Paper on Mendelssohn and Resilience Theory; 2) Exam on Hasidism; 3) Exam on Midrash; 4) Review of A Natural History of Natural Theology.

First Step Goals:

  • Anne: The goal for my first week is to try and write something for either of my novel in stories, get at least thirteen pages done by the end of this week.
  • Anuar: For this first week I would like to have finished at least the prologue and two chapters of my book.
  • Bev: I’ll complete the letter started during spring break and research agents with goal of creating a list of at least twelve possible places to submit manuscript.
  • Bonnie: My first week objective by necessity be humble as I will be in Ireland next week (yay!). So, my simple first week objective is allow my return visit to be a prompt for remembering all the awesome interactions and outcomes from my experiences at Carlow College.
    (safe travels, Bonnie!)
  • Laura: This first week I’ll write the first online writing group blog post and to spend at least three hours (six – seven pomodoros) over the first week working on “Sunshine Delay”.
  • Lisa: By the end of the first week, I’d like to have five pages written–trying to stay realistic. 🙂
    (you and me, both, Lisa!)
  • Mary: My week one objective is to come up with a subject for my next post and then complete a draft by the end of the week.
  • Matthew: FINISH THAT FIRST SHORT STORY JEEZ. It’s been almost finished since the end of the semester.
  • Mike: My goal for the first week is to re-read the draft versions of both the older and newer stories, as well as read all the workshop notes (which included exercises like writing a letter from one character to another).
  • Robert: I’ll be here, before we leave for vacation, so if I can get 2,000 words done, I would be happy with that.
  • Samantha: My week-one objective is to complete the story I’ve been working on. There’s only one big scene left, and most of it is written in bits and pieces on paper on my desk.
  • Steve: A bit of everything

Didn’t I tell you they looked fantastic? I can’t wait to get started on this!

Next week, in addition to our second week goals, we’ll have a guest post from one of our participants, as well as some new project management tips. Until then, good writing, everyone!

A Summer Writing Project

2 Replies

Like many people, I need to be held accountable for my writing or I won’t finish it. I’ll just sort of think about it for minutes, hours, days, but instead of writing I’ll watch another episode of Bob’s Burgers, eat some cookies, and then take a nap. (Obviously, I’m on my way to a major book deal, fame, and fortune.)

To be honest, this blog only really works because my #1 reader, my dad (hi, Cuff!) harangues me when I haven’t updated it in a while. And when I was writing my textbook (hey, I wrote a textbook!), I had a wonderful editor and a project manager who both kept me on track with gentle email reminders and phone calls. But if I don’t have a deadline or a reader who says, “Um, every time I click on your blog, all I see is that Halloween post, but that was a while ago, and by the way, Happy New Year,” then I won’t write.

So, this summer, in an effort to help myself and my fellow writers stay on track and produce some work, I’m starting an online writing group.

The idea of the group is to join together former students, colleagues, and friends who are all working on writing projects. For eight weeks this summer, we’ll identify goals, track progress, and share our results. I’ll post writing and time management tips, ask for guest-posts from group participants, and share everyone’s status updates.

And I, for one, will be honest about my own procrastination and when I forgo writing to watch Roo sleep.

(It’s super distracting, right??)

The group begins June 1 and runs until July 24. If you’re interested in participating, send me an email or Facebook message, or leave a comment on this post, and I’ll add you to the list!

Young Women Power

Leave a reply

I was just about to title this post “Girl Power” but thought otherwise, because the students I’m about to write about aren’t girls. They are smart, capable young women.

They are sass dragons.

I gave some of them this title after a few of them in my creative writing class…

Sass Dragons

These five…

…started to get…well…sassy.

Every day when I walk into that class, I greet everyone by calling them some silly name: “good morning, my little dew drops!” (or “pea pods” or “noodle necks”). I don’t know why I do this. It’s likely because I enjoy this class–my creative writing class this semester–so much and am excited to see them. Although, thinking through it now, I do this with all of my classes. If I’m being honest with myself, I am a geeky teacher and really like my job.

Anyway. One day, I’d greeted the creative writing students with some silliness or other, but the above-pictured five were being particularly…energetic, and I called them sass dragons.

This is a nickname I came up with in 2009 at my friend Sarah’s barbecue; Sarah, her friend Mika, and I were being silly and cheeky, and sass dragons just seemed to fit us. And when it came out of my mouth in class this semester, the students adopted it to describe themselves. And it’s pretty perfect.

My other class this semester–a cohort of students who have gone through the same series of classes together all year long–is also full of excellent young women. And although “full of” implies that there are a lot of them, there are really just two:

Me, my co-teacher, and our two amazing students

Me, my co-teacher, and our two amazing students

Because this year-long cohort is a pilot program, the enrollment was small to begin with–only about a dozen students. Now, after two semesters–eight classes and twenty-five credits–we’re down to a couple of students. The others have drifted away for any number of reasons, and what initially seemed stressful to me and my co-teacher–tailoring our classes for two students instead of twenty or thirty–was a real win.

With just two students, we’ve been able to get specific with our instruction and feedback. We can give them all of our attention and answer every question. The two young women have also become each others support and have gotten close, which is great to see. Plus, they’re pretty solid students and total sass dragons.

You might notice the odd little cupcakes we’re all holding in the picture. I teach students to analyze their rhetorical situation for each piece of writing by using the acronym POGAC (purpose, occasion, genre, audience, and context); and a POGAC is a little monster who loves to pogo-stick. Because…well, it just is, okay? Go with it.

For last year’s cohort, I made a POGAC cake:

Last year’s POGAC cake (just the monster head: no pogo-stick)

But this time, because we have such a small group, I did cupcakes:

One POGAC

My trial POGAC

A Blue Base

A Blue Base

POGAC

Add some fangs

Add some fangs

Finished POGACs!

Finished POGACs!

And, really, the POGAC could also be a sass dragon; so it all fits nicely.

This is the last week of classes, and I will miss all of the sass dragons I’ve met this semester. I’ll see some of them in my Fall classes or around campus, and I know the rest of them will be out in the world, being fantastic, and that alone is enough.

It’s Warm!

Leave a reply

Things are warming up here at Camp Crystal Lake, and this is how we’re celebrating:

Playing ping pong!

I got Trevor a ping pong table for his birthday, and we are planning on becoming Olympic-level master table tennis players. We’ll let you know how that turns out.

IMG_6122 Ping Pong Paddles

 

Watching the sandhill cranes hang out in our neighborhood!

They’re back and better than before (I don’t know if this is true, but I’m assuming it is)!

Waiting for the lake to be warm enough for swimming!

 

Roo is also waiting.

 

Planting!

This year I’m going to garden the hell out of this place. I started with a few seeds this weekend.

Planting

Wearing t-shirts!

My favorite summer outfit (also, my favorite home outfit [also, my favorite outfit, period]) is jeans and a t-shirt. I am currently wearing one of my best shirts right now. It’s one of my best because I got my dad a matching one for Christmas and I’m imagining that he’s got his on right now, too.

Lennie Briscoe

Lennie Briscoe Zinged Me And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt

What are you doing now that the weather is nice?

Holding Out For a Hero(ine)

1 Reply

Why are the best YA heroines in fantasy books?

Katniss Everdeen, arguably the strongest female character in contemporary young adult fiction, acts: she volunteers, she sacrifices, she fights. She is such a strong character–some might say a masculine character–that NPR blogger Linda Holmes asked, What Really Makes Katniss Stand Out? Peeta, Her Movie Girlfriend.

And in YA fantasy there are others, of course. Famously, there’s Lyra Belacqua of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, and a newer arrival (1998) is the interesting character Ti-Jeanne from Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring, who I mention because Ti-Jeanne is not only a young woman of color but she is also a young mother, so Hopkinson has brought a really interesting heroine to the table.

Photo credit Melanie Lamaga

But in much of the contemporary literary YA fiction I’ve read recently, the young women are mired in romance, not action, and they always have the wherewithal to be eloquent and insightful. They’re supposed to be “normal” teenagers, but, frankly, normal teenagers are rarely eloquent or insightful. In fact, I’d hazard to say that they’re only eloquent or insightful 2% of the time. And that’s being generous.

Normal teenagers fumble their way through things. They aren’t quip-y or witty at every step of the way. But too often, writers of YA literary fiction, especially those books with female protagonists, write their young women this way. And it’s a mistake. Even Hazel Grace in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars was just too poetic for a teenager. Yes, she was sometimes strikingly honest, and it was refreshing to read about a young woman fighting for her life in a real world instead of a post-apocalyptic one. But it wasn’t enough.

Is there too much pressure on authors to write young women as smart, as paramours of wit? Must they be so clearly, so smartly beautiful on the inside so that when the young Prince Charming comes along and realizes that they are beautiful outside as well, we readers are satisfied?

I want stronger contemporary YA heroines. I want them to screw up, to fumble, to not say perfect things. I want them to screw up and maybe, just maybe, not get the guy in the end, because that’s what happens. We usually don’t get the guy. And not getting the guy makes a better story. In fact, I don’t even want there to be a guy. But that might be too much to ask.

I want a female Charlie in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I want an awkward, uncomfortable, fractured kid who finds a place and finds himself. Herself.

Have I just not read this book, this heroine? I haven’t read every YA book out there, and I might be deficient in a number of books that feature this very young woman I’m looking for. I don’t want a Katniss. I love Katniss, but she doesn’t live in my world. I want a Perks girl. Where is she?

Trevor Has a New Job

Leave a reply

Trevor has a new job! Yahoo!

He’s the new studio manager and producer at Callie Lipkin Photography, a one-woman studio on the north side of Chicago. He’ll manage the day-to-day operations of the studio, organize locations, stylists, and talent for photo shoots, handle files and invoices, and get hands-on with a bit of assisting. It’s the perfect job for him, and we’re so happy.

The only issue is that there’s a taqueria near the studio and he’s able to get delicious fish tacos, burritos, and tortas whenever he wants to. So, I’m really jealous of this.

Otherwise, it’s perfect.

Callie got Trevor to smile in a picture! She's my hero.

Callie got Trevor to smile in a picture! She’s my hero.

Cakes and Contemplation

Leave a reply

The weather at Camp Crystal Lake has been a pain in the butt: cold, warm, rainy, sunny, depending on the minute. It’s been boots and scarves one day and bare legs the next.

The rain and mud doesn’t stop Roo from running around like the three-legged maniac that she is, but it does stop me from letting her run wild like the three-legged maniac that she is. Instead, I take her on a lot of short walks and then make her towel off. She spends the rest of the afternoon staring out the window, thinking about chasing bunnies in the rain.

Roo, Day Dreaming of Bunnies

Bunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunniesbunnies

I also baked a cake for Easter. Last year I made a cake and decorated it like a lamb face:

IMG_3915

But this year, I figured I’d do a chick–simpler but tastier because I didn’t use a box cake but did a Better Homes & Gardens vanilla cake recipe. And I loaded on the frosting, which didn’t hurt.

Lemons

These are the lemons I used for my lemon frosting

Batter

Pre-baked beauties: vanilla cakes from the Better Homes & Gardens recipe

A couplea cakes

Perfect!

Frosted

Assembled…

Decorated

…and decorated! Peep!

Happy belated Easter–hope you all got a lot of cake for yourselves!