<p>I am free Fri. and Sat. late afternoon (teach until 12 + driving time to Westchester 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Long Island can house folks – big 5 bedroom house and hm, it seems some inhabitants are away.</p>
<p>Hmmm - getting a fatal error when I try to get to the next page. Let’s see what happens if I try to respond here.</p>
<p>A great place for me to meet anybody would be at Juilliard on Friday early evening. 
PM me for details! H and I arrive Thursday afternoon, D arrives Thursday night, and S arrives on Friday. S2 says don’t expect to see much of him - rather busy. We don’t have any definite plans (outside of a couple concerts), but hope to do some cheap sight-seeing. </p>
<p>Mythmom - I understand perfectly the feeling that we might “disappoint” someone when our real life image doesn’t match how we hope people picture us in the cyberworld. Our comments about being young and glamorous were fabricated to prolong my fantasy image. I really am not hung up about appearances, and actually love the variety of people in both cyber and real worlds!</p>
<p>I also want to congratulate you on your novel. I, too, write in my spare time, and have finished two books. Have not gotten up the nerve to send them anywhere, though. Like you, I have only been published a couple dozen times, and mostly essays and other short things. [That’s a completely different subject, but my parents’ refusal to finance my education if I majored in writing led to my complete and total insistence that my kids be allowed to study whatever they wanted, no matter how impractical. Which is why I have an economist and two music majors! :)]</p>
<p>I’m getting the fastal error thing too. Most annoying!</p>
<p>binx: It’s amazing how much we CC’ers have in common! We should form a collective and send each other’s stuff out.</p>
<p>Yes, something is definitely wrong with the site. Tried many times just to get here. I feel like someone shipwrecked whose finally found shore.</p>
<p>binx: I know. I didn’t study writing either, but I do teach creative writing at times! (See any face you think appropriate here.) I tried to take a creative writing course freshman year in college, but the teacher, an Ghanaian writer with no sympathy for American women, brutally made fun of my writing and said I wrote like the Brontes. Now-a-days I would profusely thank him, but in those pre-feminist days I was shamed and humiliated (oh I guess those are the same things, different emotional valence I think) and it has taken me all this time to recover. Although others have added their notes of disapproval, and some famous. Though other famous writers have praised. Got to detach from all that. So…</p>
<p>Better late than never. And I have enjoyed my life as a mommy and academic. It takes such emotional fortitude to write. No wonder so many are alcoholics. Avoiding that.</p>
<p>I’ve never met any parent CCers. I happen to have met a couple of the students from my college who post on CC, but that’s it for me. At least thus far.</p>
<p>Mythmom and Binx, I am so impressed that you guys have written novels! I’ve had teachers try to push me in that direction, but just the thought is overwhelming. You go girls. </p>
<p>
I’m used to it, so it doesn’t seem that strange to me, of course. I have a sister who is two years older than me, and my oldest siblings are all half-siblings who are close in age to each other, so it’s as if my parents raised two “sets” of children. My parents also raised the older kids (my mom stepping into the picture around adolescence), and I have memories of them living at home for periods of time when I was young. I’m quite close and similar to my sister who is two years older than me, and I have less in common with my older siblings, who I only see once or twice a year, if that. I guess it’s a little strange.</p>
<p>corranged - it’s nice that you have a sister who is close in age. I am alway surprised when I hear of such big age gaps because in my family, my parents had 4 kids within 5 years…lol. My husband’s family is larger, but with similar distance between each child. By the way, your teachers are right to push you towards writing - you do write very well. I agree that it’s an overwhelming task, but probably quite rewarding, once you have the finished product.</p>
<p>Oh, and mythmom, I may be younger than many of the other moms here - that’s because my kids are still not in hs - but I am certainly not young, thin and glamorous…lol.</p>
<p>A Westchester get together might work for me. Though next Saturday we’re having dinner with friends.</p>
<p>corranged</p>
<p>I think the idea of writing a page a day works for me. In a year you have a novel.</p>
<p>bethie: That’s real patience! I write five pages a day, but the real trick is not hating it too much!</p>
<p>Past five pages or two hours, whichever comes first, I totally burn out. That’s it; sometimes I do internet research in that time span. How did anyone write anything without the internet?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Several years ago I was introduced to this model of the writing process; I’ve found it to be extremely useful for many different kinds of projects.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[The</a> Writers’ Trust Workshop Blog: Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge](<a href=“http://writerstrust.blogspot.com/2006/12/madman-architect-carpenter-judge.html]The”>The Writers' Trust Workshop Blog: Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge)</p>
<p>Oh I didn’t mean the actual writing. That I love. I meant the critic, in my case carping critic, who jumps into the driver’s seat after I finish writing. Writing I love, hence all these posts on CC!</p>
<p>mathmom-
We are looking at Feb23, not next weekend.</p>
<p>I’ll pencil it in and try to make it. Yay!</p>
<p>I have a robotics tournament on the 23rd, but have fun anyway!</p>
<p>Washdad-
Maybe your robotics project can be to design something that whisks you from the west to the east coast in mere minutes?!!?</p>
<p>While you’re at it, make it capable of whooshing down in the midwest to pick up a few passengers en route. Your gathering sounds great fun. </p>
<p>And all this talk of writing is making me think about writing. Something, sometime. Besides more posts and email. You’re all quite inspirational.</p>
<p>
I think I’m just terrified by the concept of fiction. I’m fine with essays–I whipped out one of my college essays in thirty minutes before dinner one day and sent it in that night–but just the thought of naming a character sends me running in the opposite direction! Luckily, I’m in college, and there are classes on these sorts of things. :)</p>
<p>Actually I think the memoir is the “in” genre at the moment. Don’t worry about fiction unless it your thing.</p>
<p>great lakes mom: I know you have fabulous stories to tell. I must say though, keeping up the confidence is daunting, and that’s before publication even comes into the picture (see as horrified face as you can.)</p>
<p>Some time we’ll all be together, and I think it’s pretty amazing how much we have in common and how rewarding it is to share ideas here. And there are other wonderful goals – all the travels, artists, musicians who are here, too. (As well as you architects, scientists, lawyers, engineers and nurturers, psychologists, teachers, horticulturalists and dreamers, too. You all inspire me.</p>
<p>Somebody wrote a very funny essay once (on that last page of the New York Times Book Review) about how they could never write their memoirs because unlike most memoir writers they couldn’t remember anything. That’s the way I feel - especially my childhood - there are whole swathes that are gone. Second grade? Never happened! I can’t remember anything about my teacher - though it’s possible that some of my third grade memories actually happened in second grade…</p>
<p>My bad. February 23rd should work. Not the 22nd though - we’re going to see Patrick Stewart in Macbeth. Swoon…</p>