Sorry for the lack of posts, our family has been under the weather.  And by under the weather I mean fighting the Phlegm War of ‘o9.

Let’s not dwell on that.

There was either a possum or a dog ghost in the garden last night. How do I know, you ask? I let the dogs out, went back inside, and returned to the yard to check on them.  Through the dimness I watched a pale, shaggy rump root around in the bushes.  I assumed it was P.J., until he ran into the house from the other direction.  A couple of hours later he went out again and made an unholy racket, so I assume the dog ghost/possum was still lurking around.

Let’s review the possibilities.

We know it wasn’t P.J.

pj1

So, that leaves either

a) Ghost dog.
ghostdog

Or

b) Possum

terpos1

You be the judge.  For the record, I think possums should be outlawed within city limits.

I missed the SCBWI Western Washington meeting last night on revisions and social networking.  I could use some help with revisions (Boy, could I!).  But with Facebook, this here blog, and now my website and Twitter- I’m not sure I could squeeze any more social networking in.  Maybe I could have learned how to tweak my site. My husband linked the blog to it, but the links in my blogroll still open within my website, which looks a little like plagiarism.  I’m either going to have to figure out how to fix it, or take out the blogroll.

I like My Cardboard Life by Phillippa Rice.

And I want to try making my own handwriting font to with the free font program that Dan Santat blogged about.

Betsy Bird posted a fabulous list of good graphic novels by reading level.

I somehow missed the first pages blog that Editorial Anonymous started.  Behold, the Anonymati.

When you read a lot of manuscripts, you start to notice common problems.  Coe of The Longstockings points a few out.

Whenever a story comes up about racial tension between high schools (like here),  it REALLY irks me.  I went to high school in Albuquerque, where the freeway and Route 66 divide up the town into distinct quadrants of racial and socio-economic differences.  I lived in the poorest, brownest section of town and our high school rivals hailed from the richest, whitest section.  There were big differences between the schools.  We had crumbling walls and water-damaged textbooks.  They had covered parking and a food court.  You’d think they would just leave us alone and go about their business parking their fancy cars out of the sun and deciding between tacos and paninis.  But that wouldn’t be teenager-y, I guess.

The big football game between the schools seemed to be going alright, until halftime. Our cheerleaders shook their pom poms,  and their side of the stands launched tortillas like frisbees.  I’m surprised they could organizing such a massive tortilla-ing before the days of Facebook and Twitter.  The field was covered and everyone was fighting.  The newspaper reported that our students had instigated a brawl, but I think if someone throws a tortilla at you it authorizes a good smack in the chops.  I remember that a few of our students were suspended for fighting, while theirs were not.  There were more oh-so-clever-hijinks that year, but the tortilla incident is the one that still stands out.

I’ve been told my past lends me a treasure trove of rich material to tap into, but if there’s a way to write about shit like that without it reading like bad fiction, I haven’t found it.