Started

You are all going to be very proud of me. I started!! I just did it. I took my lap top to work today and I meant to leave around 3 to go write until 6 but of course it didn’t work out that way. So instead I went to Kaveh Kanes coffee shop at 5 and wrote until 6ish. It was very nice. But best of all I got started. It’s so funny because I know I’m ready to go but I haven’t been able to get going. I’ve been itching to write and I have felt so ready but I haven’t had the time. All I did was make an effort to take my laptop to work and I took 1 hour to write and I feel so much better now. I’m going to start taking my lap top to work every day and I’m going to Kaveh Kanes every day for lunch. I’m going there and to the Rice Lofts lobby. Those are two places downtown that I feel inspired. Oh yeah, and the balcony at Cabo.

I was looking around at old websites I hadn’t looked at in a while and I came across something really funny and coincidental. Remember Alisa Valdes Rodrigez who wrote “The Dirty Girls Social Club?” She has a blog on this same site! Her blog is: http://alisavaldesrodriguez.blogspot.com/.

I thought that was really cool so I e-mailed and told her so. I loved her last book but I haven’t made time to read her new one, “Playing with Boys.” Of course with my life lately it’s no wonder I start books and never finish them.

I’m sitting in my dining room/office working on this blog and Rey my husband is playing football on his Xbox online with some other person somewhere else. Let me just say that there is nothing more annoying than listening to a grown man scream at a game. Okay, yes I can think of more annoying things but right now that is the most annoying one.

New Website and Writing

I used to have a cute little website on ivillage.com and I didn't post for a while and when I went back to check on it it was gone! I never e-mailed them to find out what happened because I figured I would start a new one. A real blog this time. My friend used this blog site for a while and I liked it so here I am! I just had a baby six months ago and writing has been close to impossible for a couple of reasons. One is that I have TWO kids now, I have a 3 year old daughter, and that alone makes it a huge challenge. The other is that I have a very demanding little boy. He is such a MAN already! He grunts, growls, and demands attention. He really is a good boy though, as long as he's being held and he's not in a car seat. I took him to see the play, "Las Nuevas Tamaleras" and he was such a good boy. He whimpered once when he was hungry and I gave him a bottle. Then he whimpered one more time and my sister stood up with him and he was fine. That didn't happen until the last 15 minutes of the play so it was fine. People commented afterwards on how great he had been. So my point is this. I have very little time to write. I promise I will write every day and I never do. SO from now on this is going to be my daily writing exercise. A way to force myself to write while working full time and then working when I come home taking care of 2 little ones. While I was on maternity leave for THREE whole months I was sure I would get some writing done but that was very unrealistic of me. What made me think I could nurse a newborn, sleep and write at the same time? One thing I did accomplish was to get my outline for my novel done. I tried to free style write but it's too hard when you have such little time to think. I wrote out a really good rough outline of each chapter and the family tree. My novel will be a family saga about three cousins and their mothers and other family members who influence their lives. For those of you who heard me read at the Nuestra Palabra Showcase in March, what I read was part of this same novel.

Now that I have an outline I am so excited to write it! I can't wait to start! I finally feel really ready and my hands are itching to get started. I told Rey, my husband, that I'm going to work on it today since he was gone early this morning for a few hours and left me alone with the kids. He came home and promptly fell asleep! Men! Either way, I do plan on escaping for a little while this late afternoon or evening to write. I don't have any idea yet of when I will be able to finish it but I'm sure that once I get started I'll get a better idea and I’ll let y’all know. Telling you about it will make me own up to it. So whenever you see me ask me how my writing is going.