Mahna Mahna

This made me laugh as a kid and it still does so I am going to share it with you.

I Thought It Was Just Me

I thought it was just me. I thought I was the only author who had a little sort of mascot sitting by her computer to help her write.

Often, when I am at a stand still in my writing, I turn to Marge and think about my next step or ask her where I should go from here. Beside my computer I have a small figure of Marge Simpson I got from inside a Kellog's cereal box. Why Marge? Despite being a mother of 3 to a trouble maker, a genius and a baby, and the wife to an oaf of a husband, Marge always keeps it together. She always has the answer. I have two lovely children and a wonderful husband and if Marge can keep it together when things get a little rough, I can too. Am I crazy? Probably but despite that, talking about the writing issue with Marge helps me move forward and sort my thoughts. She helps keep me focused and keeps me in the world of imagination while I'm writing. Some of the best things about Marge are she won't talk back, she doesn't tells me my ideas are stupid and she never laughs at me.

I've discovered I am not the only author who has an inanimate writing buddy. Paula Yoo, author of SHINING STAR: THE ANNA MAY WONG STORY and GOOD ENOUGH, has a little writing friend named Bartlett Bear.


Which gives me comfort because either a) I'm not crazy to be talking to an inanimate object for answers or b) if I am crazy I'm not alone.

Branded? - Interesting Picture and A Writing Prompt

There is a mark on my forearm, just below my elbow joint, and I have no idea how it got there. It's perfectly round with a cross on it. It's not a scar (that I know of) or a birthmark. It's not a sticker or tattoo. It's just there. I noticed a couple of weeks ago after a game of volley ball. I thought it looked like place where you put the pin in the ball to inflate it but I haven't had a chance to look at the ball to see it it is the same. Also, the mark will not go away. If it was an imprint from the ball you would think it would have been gone by now. I could have had it before the volley ball game, I don't know.

I have licked it (hey, it looked like icing,) washed it, scrubbed it, scratched it and picked at it but tit still remains.

Have I been branded in my sleep?
Am I actually and android and it's a screw head showing up through my skin?
Is it a mark of a higher power?
Am I the chosen one? (For what, I have no clue.)

Here's a picture of it and you decided. Click on it for a larger view.



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The Other Manuscript

"Ok Auntie Flamingo, on March 27th you said you submitted another manuscript but you have only talked about the poetry book, IF MY FISH FEET . What is the other book and why haven't you talked about it?"

This is true. I have only been talking about one of the books. Like Mother Goose, Auntie Flamingo is known for her poems. Though the other unpublished book is in rhyme it will probably be published under my 'other' name and not Auntie Flamingo. However, I will talk a little about it here.

In a CANSCAIP interview by Lucy Falcone, author Arthur Slade said, "And there's no such thing as 'normal'. Even if there was, who wants to be normal anyway?" Every child, at some point, will feel abnormal about something. For me it was my height. As a child, playing house in kindergarten I was always the mother but was never allowed to play the role of the baby, I was always in the back row for class pictures and my pants were often a half inch too short. ANNALEE is a story about an unique young woman who is nowhere close to being ordinary. Many of the things she does is upside-down, backwards or just a little crazy. The town's people of Normalville tolerate her antics until the day the media arrive looking for someone to place in their magazine. Fearing ANNALEE's weirdness will ruin their chances the town's people cruelly tell her to go home on the outskirts of town. Will ANNALEE get her chance to try to impress the photographer and reporter?


Now grown, I see what a gift my height really is and I have realize how being different opens doors. This is something very difficult for a child to understand.

Comments on the story? Is there something you are/were insecure about? Isn't is nice to know that you are not the only one who feels this way?