Happy INDIE-giving!

Funny, when I signed up to join this Blogfest, I didn't think that I would have already joined the ranks of independent published authors! I expected to still be a "wanna-be." Just goes to show you can still surprise yourself sometimes.

I surprised myself yesterday, too, when I had my first ice dance lesson in twelve years. Oh, I was sore when I got off the ice, but overall? I felt AWESOME. I expected it to be so much more difficult than it turned out to be. I remembered so much more than I thought I would, and following the pattern, keeping my center, all that - challenging, but nowhere near as impossible as I was expecting. The moral of the story (to imitate the White Queen)? Never hold back from doing something just because you think it's going to be hard! If you really want it, go for it, and don't give up, and you might just be amazed at how much you are able to accomplish!

I am so thankful for this opportunity to get back to something I have loved so well for my entire life. Thankful, too, for the opportunity to publish my stories - writing is something else I have loved my entire life. I have dreamed for almost that long about being published, and to be able to achieve the first step of that dream - publishing a short story - is amazing. It is nothing I take for granted.

And neither are any of you! I am truly grateful for all the friends I have made in this little corner of the web. Writing would not be anywhere near so much fun without the community and support we all give each other.

And to show that thankfulness in a little more tangible manner, I'm offering TWO giveaways. One, my short story, naturally!

Justice's Mask: Cassandra James finds the line between right and wrong blurs when a Loyalist spy is unmasked at her eighteenth birthday party.

This story was a major departure from my usual writing genre, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would love to share it with one of you, too! Edited to add: Alex asked if this was an e-book. Yes, it is! Thanks to Smashwords, it is available in Kindle, Epub (which works for iBooks, Kobo, Nook, Sony, and more), PDF, or even just as online viewing. Thanks for bringing that point to my attention, Alex!

My other offering is a $10. Etsy gift card. I love Etsy, the global marketplace for independent artisans. This is my second year of ordering personalized ornaments for the littles through Etsy, and I think it's going to become a family tradition! Etsy is now offering gift cards for many shops, which I think makes for a fantastic gift or giveaway.

No hoops to jump through or forms to fill out for these two giveaways - just leave a comment letting me know which one you're interested in, and next Monday I'll draw one name out of a hat for each!

Thank you all for being you. You're all fantastic people, every one of you! And for more wonderful giveaways, check out the Indelibles blog!

Sometimes I Dance on Ice ...

Last week after the littles finished up their skating lessons, I had a lovely chat with one of the coaches about starting private ice dance lessons the next week. We came to a mutual agreement, and I walked out of the rink with a mixture of elation and sheer terror.

I love ice dance. It's been a passion since I was a teenager and took my first test (Dutch Waltz, in a shimmery blue dress with lace insets that I still have and wore for about half my tests, just kept changing the embellishments). From Marina Klimova & Sergei Ponomarenko to Shae-Lynn Bourne & Victor Kraatz to Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto to Meryl Davis & Charlie White and Maia & Alex Shibutani, ice dancers have been capturing my heart and firing my imagination since the early '90s. I even took up step dancing in college for no other reason than that I adored Bourne & Kraatz's "Riverdance" routine so much!

Watched this live at the '98 Worlds. Still blows my mind.

So there's the elation. The terror?

My last ice dance lesson was in 1999. I was seventeen years old. (It was the Fiesta Tango, in case you're curious, and one of the few I did not wear the blue dress for: I wore a black-and-red crushed velvet dress that I shared with three other girls that same day - we just kept spraying Febreeze into the armpits and handing it off to the next girl as soon as we were finished. Ah, the glamorous life of figure skaters!)

I've skated off and on for fun ever since then, of course. For about a year before Joy was born I was on the ice almost once a week, just public skating, but enough to remember some of my old skills - and to recognize how much I'd lost. Even that, though, was six years ago. And the difference between 24 and 30 is huge. The last time I decided to show my littles how to do a spiral, I propped my leg up on the boards as usual to stretch - and wasn't sure I'd be able to get it back down. I could barely walk the next day.

So I'm really not sure how on earth I'm going to do this. But I'm going to try anyway. I promised myself a few years ago that I would do everything in my power to take up ice dance again by the time I turned 30. Well, here I am, and here it goes.

This is my year (and week, apparently), for fulfilling promises to myself. First I published a story, and now I'm starting up skating again!

If I miss my usual Monday post, you'll know it's because I'm in too much pain from Sunday's lesson to even type.

Wish me luck!

Six years ago - the last time I was able to do a spiral without pain!

Posing

On the ice with baby Joy - you can see she was tremendously impressed (HA!). I'm expecting something of that same expression when the littles watch me this Sunday!

Bonus points to anyone who recognizes the song I borrowed this post's title from.

Lessons From a Pig

picture from kristiyamaguchi.com

When I first heard that one of my long-time heroes, Kristi Yamaguchi, was writing a picture book, I was both excited and nervous. Excited because for one thing, there aren't enough books out there for kids that feature figure skating. Ballet, yes. Skating, no. Also excited because it was Kristi! I was nervous, though, because excellence in one area doesn't always translate to excellence in another. Not all figure skaters make great writers, and as a writer myself, I knew I would be hyper-critical.

I shouldn't have worried. Dream Big, Little Pig is a fantastic book! Instead of what I would arrogantly call typical inspirational tripe, gallant little Poppy taught an important lesson. You aren't going to magically be good at something and have everything handed to you on a silver platter just because you dreamed it - but if you love something, you should work hard and pursue it despite what other people say, and in that very pursuit there will be satisfaction. Awesome. My sister bought the book for my Joy when Joy just started skating, and I loved being able to read to her about how Poppy kept getting up every time she fell, and how eventually, she started falling less.

So when we heard that Kristi was writing a sequel titled It's a Big World, Little Pig, we were thrilled. And rightly so, because the sequel is just as charming as the first book. Aunt Lis and Uncle David bought this one for Joy to help celebrate her completion of her first season of skating lessons, and again, it is a fun story (with great illustrations) with an non-sterotypical message behind it. Poppy gets to go to a big international competition, and she's nervous, but soon discovers that all the competitors, despite being different animals from different countries, participating in different sports, they "all smile in the same language." I half-listened as Carl read it to Joy and Grace the first time, and I asked when he finished "But did Poppy win?" All three rolled their eyes at me. "It doesn't say," Carl said. "That is not the point."

Oh. Oops.

Not every athlete or actor can turn to writing stories, especially stories for kids, well, but Kristi certainly does. She inspires me to look at my own stories, and make sure I'm not falling into the trap of writing expected tropes, but instead pursue messages I would want my own girls to believe.

And to be perfectly honest, Poppy is a good inspiration to me, too - to not expect magical success, or to expect success to look like wild popularity or medals, but to work hard at what I love, just because I love it.

My big dreamer at her very first ice show (she's the one in front)

Disclaimer: I am not being compensated in any way for this review, and the opinions therein are solely my own. And my children's, so far as they have communicated them to me. :-)

Lessons

WARNING: This post has nothing to do with writing. It is, in fact, mostly bragging on my kid. Because along with being a writer, I'm a MOM, and occasional bragging on my kid goes with the territory.

These two pictures were taken the first time Joy was on the ice. She made either me or my sister carry her the ENTIRE time. Granted, she was a tiny three-year-old at the time, but still, we were SORE the next morning. She has loved watching ice skating with me ever since she was a little baby, but the reality of stepping on the ice scared her to death.

This was her third time on the ice. She didn't even want to hold my hand by then! She also insisted I show her how to bunny hop. No fear at all, and even the few times she fell, she laughed.

photo by lis hurlbut

First time on single-bladed skates, showing her sister how it's done.

And THIS is from her first day of Snowplow Sam (that's the lowest level of skating classes from the United States Figure Skating Association, by the way) in January.

And THIS is last Sunday, when she brought home a certificate stating that she'd passed all of Snowplow Sam, and is ready to start Basic 1 in the fall!

Not bad, for a little over a year. Her first-ever skating show is this Sunday, and my parents, Carl's mom, my sister and brother-in-law, and possibly Carl's sister are all coming out to watch and cheer her on. It's not just about the skating, it's about finding something she loves, overcoming her fears about it, and excelling at it.

Hmm, maybe there really IS something in here applicable to writing after all ...

Hey, have you entered the giveaway yet? If not, go, enter! What are you waiting for?

Sacred Joy

On the second-to-last night of 2011, I unexpectedly got the best gift of the year - two free tickets to see Stars on Ice, my favorite show in the world, in Lake Placid, my favorite village in the world. My mother-in-law, already planning on visiting for the holiday, came out a day early so she could baby-sit the littles; the friend who gave us the free tickets had two others she gave to my mother and sister, so Carl and I met Mom and Lis in the village, had dinner together (served by the Slavic version of Basil Fawlty, though he was more harried than rude, but still - Carl was the first to come up with the comparison and it was so apt), and then went to the SHOW.

It was to flip over.

(I know, groan, but come on, you don't expect me to get a picture of Ryan Bradley mid-back-flip and not come up with an excuse to use it and make a lame pun with.)

Our seats were in the bleachers, but when they did the retakes for tv after the show we were able to sneak down and take the seats of four people who had left. I pulled my camera out of my bag and just started clicking. Kurt Browning was gracious enough to do the majority of his retakes right in front of where we were sitting. My sister and I might have fan-girl squee-ed just a little.

It was a two+ hour drive back to Albany after the show - the weather was hovering between rain and ice through most of the Adirondacks, which meant we had to drive slowly. So what do two people do to keep each other awake on a late-night long drive back home? Well, my sister and I might have done more squee-ing over the likes of Kurt, Ryan, Todd Eldredge, etc, but since it was Carl and I, of course we started talking philosophy.

Philosophy of figure skating? Why, of course! 

Way back in college, I wrote a paper on the debate as to whether figure skating was sport or art. My stupid, stupid English professor gave me a C, not because it was poorly written, but because he didn't think it was a real issue (note: at the beginning of the semester he told us anything was acceptable as a topic, and cited one of his favorite papers from the previous year, on "Why Blondes Have More Fun). I looked at him and said, "I am a figure skater: trust me, it is an issue."

He refused to believe me; that is the one and only C I have ever received on any assignment in an English class. And yes, it was close to ten years ago, but IT STILL RANKLES.

Anyway. Carl was asking me about my thoughts on it, and being wiser now, I wasn't so quick to jump to the defense of figure skating as sport. I told him that I couldn't really be objective on the matter, because figure skating was so much more to me than anything I could describe.

You see, when I am on the ice, just as when I am writing, I feel I am coming closer to the me I am meant to be (I know this all sounds a little "woo-woo." Sorry about that), back to the core of who I am, the Louise God intended me to be with all the baggage stripped away. Only skating and writing do that for me - nothing else. It is too close to my heart; I cannot speak objectively about it. Even when I am not skating myself, watching pure, good skating gives me an echo of that. It satisfies me in a way nothing else does, the same way that reading a brilliantly-written book satisfies me even when I am not writing myself.

And I am not a great skater, but when I am on the ice I feel like I am great. I am always pretty sure I look like this:

Joannie Rochette and Sasha Cohen)

Or this:

I want to be Katia Gordeeva when I grow up

And I really look like this:

True story - I got done with this spiral and told my friend who was holding the camera "That was great! My leg was really up there, my head was high, it was an awesome spiral!" She said, "uh-huh," and handed me the camera. I was shocked to see I had only achieved a straight line - but I suppose I should be thankful at least my head was up and my leg was straight. I don't always even accomplish that.

Or this:

SELL that final pose, girl!

But that doesn't matter. Not really. I do my best skating when I am all alone in a rink, with no one around to make me self-conscious. It's not a solitary act for most, but like writing, it is for me.

And that - because it is almost sacred to me - is why it brings me such joy to watch it done well. Oh sure, the eye candy is nice, too, but skating is unique and special and wondrous simply because, for me, it is an act of worship.

As is writing.

It's kind of a nice way to end the year, isn't it, making those connections and getting an unexpected chance to experience that again?

It makes me want to write more, too, and to remember more of what my writing is - not just a hobby or career, but an essential part of me, one of those elements that makes me me, and something that brings me closer to my best, my purest version of myself.

And that is the last bit of philosophizing you will hear from me until next year. 

Happy New Year's, friends!

Christmas is Almost Here

I wasn't going to post again before Christmas, but I saw this tonight, and it brought back happy Christmas memories for me, and it made me laugh. How could I not share it with all of you?

Besides, you know, Kurt Browning. When I want my kids to know what amazing skating is really like, I have them watch Brian Boitano, Kristi Yamaguchi, Scott Hamilton, and Kurt Browning. They don't get any better than this.

Merry Christmas, my friends!

Friend and Brother

I don't often do this, but yesterday I started thinking about a new Narnia one-shot, and today I took advantage of staying home from church with the teething toddler to write it out. I rarely, rarely move this quickly on a fic, but somehow the world of Narnia inspires me to write, and write fast.

I also think, oddly enough, that figure skating helps to inspire me to write Narnia fic, because the last time I wrote something this quickly was last year during the Nationals, and last night I was up late watching the ladies' free skate from this year's Nationals.

Whatever the cause of this burst of creativity, I am very pleased to be able to offer you:

Friend and Brother

Featuring two of my favorites Narnian characters, Eustace Clarence Scrubb and King Caspian X. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!