Catching Up

Sorry for the quiet blog last week. I know it's hard to believe, but I really couldn't think of anything to say!

I wanted to write a blog titled, DON'T BE STUPID, but I thought it had too much negativity going on with the connotation of the word stupid, plus the negative of don't. This blog popped into my head when I received a generic thank-you note for judging a contest by the contest coordinator. The note was in Arial 10, while my name was in TNR 12. The whole point of that blog would have been to keep the font the same. I would have felt a little better about my judging efforts if the coordinator had taken the time to use the same font. As it is, I didn't feel appreciated or special because it was too obvious that it was generic. 

This goes for sending queries to editors/agents. Keep the font the same. 

Look, editors/agents are well aware that you are sending out mass queries. You'd be crazy not to, but have a little bit of professional in the manner you query them. 

• remember to change the addressee's name
• find out if you are querying a male or a female (Mr vs. Ms)--and yes, I have screwed this one up
• make sure you are using their LAST name instead of their first name in your query--ditto on screwage.

In other words, double check everything before hitting the send button.

On Saturday, my daughter had her first Long Course swim meet since last year. It was a mixed meet with under 12's swimming along with the seniors, which meant my daughter swam a couple of events that don't even count for her age group (50 breast and 50 back), but it's a good practice. Long course is a relatively short season, but it's intense. If you've watched the Olympics, you've seen the distance that the kids swim in Long Course. Just stand at one end of the pool and look. It's a long way to swim 50 meters, without the turn. 

She did well, qualifying for Age Groups with 100 Free and 200 Medley. Both of which were BB times. She had a good swim with the 100 Fly (a B time), but was still a few seconds from qualifying with OAG's.

The one thing I noticed with the long course swim, is that the stroke technique is pinnacle. If you swim a 50, there are no turns, just a dive and a sprint. With a 100, there is one flip turn. So if you lose time, it's due to small issues with your stroke. 

I told her to swim hard, but I don't think she swam 100% all out in all the events, maybe 80%. The indicator is how hard she's breathing when she gets out of the pool. Breathing hard = gave it her all. Not breathing hard = 80% effort. 

Just saying. 

And, I hate to say it, but I'm not surprised that the pool guys still haven't plastered our pool. I've lost track of all the times I've heard, "You're next on the list." for the last THREE weeks. With the Oklahoma wind blowing dust, pollen, and tree crap around, this is what our pool looks like now. They had to chip the plaster away from around the fixtures and the tile, along with putting holes everywhere. Believe it or not, they had acid washed this three days ago in preparation of plaster. 

Once they plaster the pool, we can't swim in it for a month. I'm starting to wonder if we will be able to swim in it at all this season! 

I'm almost finished with this next afghan. It was made from a bunch of my leftover colors, with the exception of the border, which is dark green. I'll see how it looks when I finish piecing it together and crocheting the border, but I'll probably donate this one to Brenda Novak's Auction. Since it had so many different colors, I have to put it on the floor to see if I've managed to mix it up enough. 

I try to post more this week, but I'm finally writing on the Mystic Elements stories and want to crank out as many words as possible. Another goal I have for this week is to update this blog, fixing my links, and updating the blurbs on the stories now that I know what the stories are all about! 

That's it for today. Later, Peeps!

Water Polo

My entire knowledge of water polo is based on the three minutes that is shown every four years at the Olympics. I don't know much about it, but I do know my kidlet has come home more exhausted than when she swims for the entire practice.

It's a good thing!

Now that short course season is over and spring break is next week, the coaches give the kids a break from their drills to 'play'. Yeah, that's what it is, playing.

Coach Tony is working them hard: treading water, handling a ball one-handed, swimming with ball, and trying to play 'keepaway' at the same time. His whistle chirps and tweets in a variety of patterns, telling the kids what to do. I have to admit that this is the quietest the pool has ever been!

Oh, all without goggles. It's illegal to wear goggles. Don't know why, but I guess it's a) dangerous, or b) gives an advantage.

It's also illegal to handle the ball with two hands. Kids with bigger hands have a bit of an advantage.

I know there are a ton of rules, but it's kind of fun watching the kidlet try to cheat when they put her in shallower water. I think one foot is allowed, but not two.

Short and sweet, busy day today.

Later, Peeps!

Nicknames -- The Shark

On Saturday, we drove to OKC for the Short Course Division II Championships. Sounds like a big title, but it really was a last chance for swimmers to make their times for Age Group, which is this coming weekend.

Anyhoo, my daughter's coaches have nicknames for many of the kids, but none for my kid. For example: one little girl is called The Baconator--her little sister is Bacon Bits. And yes, their last name is Bacon.

We're lucky if they even pronounce Golla correctly. It has a hard 'o' sound, people! Go-la. Simple, right? Not so simple for the majority of people it seems.

As I watched my kidlet swim, I decided she needed to be called, "The Shark". Now, I don't know if sharks have this particular behavior, but she would bide her time in an event and then during the last 25 yards, she would strike.

Da-dum . . . da-dum . . . da-dum-dum . . . da-dumdumdumdum . . . *think theme music from JAWS*

I've seen her do this in a couple of events over the last few months, usually the longer ones, and she almost always creams her victims. It makes for an exciting meet!

That said, we only made time in one event to qualify for OAG (Oklahoma Age Group), but it wasn't from lack of trying. As I mentioned, they made almost all the girl's times really tough to make--they were so fast--but she did qualify for the 200 Freestyle during this last meet. She also made 100 Fly, and 50 Back times from previous meets. She would have made the time for the 100 Medley, but she texted me that she messed up her turn from Breast stroke to Backstroke and drank some water. If her turn had been good, she would have qualified. She was that close.

She also swam the 200 Free Relay and had her fastest time of 31 seconds for a 50 yard swim. She was the lead-off on this event and kept pace with the big dogs. Their team was fourth out of nine teams.

Here's a breakdown of Saturday's meet, the times are 'unofficial', since I wrote them down from the scoreboard and didn't get them off the swim site:

100 IM -- 1:17.58 -- missed qualifying by 0.74 seconds
200 Free -- 2:30.79 qualified--this was the shark race. She paced herself right on her teammate's pace and then, *snap* ate her during the last 25 yards. It was an AWESOME race!
50 Free -- 31:72 -- shaved two seconds off her time, but missed qualifying by 1:32 seconds
100 Breast -- 1:32.0 -- shaved 12:25 seconds off her time, missed qualifying by 0.86 seconds--Wowzers!

Though Age Groups are next week, she already has a plan for next year--Aim for the 13-14 year old times. This makes perfect sense since she'll age up in November will will have to make those times to qualify.

All I can say is how proud this momma is of her Shark Baby!

Later, Peeps!

Long Course Season

This last weekend we attended a Long Course swim meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas . . .

What was that? You want to know what Long Course is?

Oh, of course, I can explain . . . I think.

Swimming has no 'official' season, unlike football, basketball, soccer, baseball, etc. Swimming is all year round with a week break between long course and short course. That's it, only a couple of weeks off each year for swimmers.

So, long course is basically the longer pools of 50 meters, whereas short course takes place on pools of 25 meters distant. Olympic pools are 50 meters and most school pools are shorter at 25 meters. I won't get into the 25 yards vs 25 meters thing because I really don't understand it myself other than some pools are measured in yards instead of meters. It isn't much, but here's the conversion:

25 meters = 27.3 yards 

When kids go from short course to long course, they are used to relatively short swimming distances before they hit the wall to turn. It doesn't seem to take as much out of them. When they start long course, there is double the length they are used to swimming before they turn.

In other words, it messes with their minds. Rightfully so, it looks intimidating.

Anyhoo, we drove the two hours to Fayetteville, and I must say that I would NOT have a problem with my kidlet attending college there. It's a beautiful campus in the middle of rolling hills, not far from some state parks and the mountains.

FYI: We're talking Oklahoma/Arkansas mountains, not the Colorado Rockies.

This was the University of Arkansas's pool.

--in fact, her old swim teacher graduated from UA and I texted her with updates after each swim.

We sat up in the upper deck of the bleachers, so the view was wonderful. Right about where it drops off for the high dive and turns deeper blue. The only problem was that the second timer board wasn't working, so we timed the kidlet with our Ipad.

Her coach signed her up for:

100 m freestyle
200 m IM (individual medley)
100 m breast stroke
50 m butterfly

Since she had never swum this length before, she was untimed (NT). Considering it was her first time to do this distance, she did pretty well for her age. She didn't quite make the 'B' standards for any of these events, but she was only a few seconds off that criteria which would put her in the middle of the pack when she's seeded for her next event.

As her old coach said, "Good position to improve time with future races and keep motivated."

So . . . we signed her up for another meet in two weeks. We would have waited longer until the meet here in Tulsa, but she's camping that weekend.

Later, Peeps!

Summer Fun!

I knew when Rachel got out of school I could say good-bye to any writing time other than little short spurts.

I hate it when I'm right. Sometimes it is better to be pessimistic and pleasantly surprised than too optimistic and disappointed.

This week I did manage to edit the same eleven pages that I edited last week. I deepened the scene a little, caught a couple of present tense boo-boos, caught an incorrect plural pronoun (they instead of we, since I changed point of view to first person). But it's slow progress. I hope once I progress into the story that it will speed up a little--but I have my doubts. See--there's that pessimistic side of me again.

The first couple of chapters are always the toughest: setting the stage, getting into the character without adding backstory that doesn't add to the story, plus I have to rewrite the first two chapters in a different POV. I had written the first two chapters in the mother's POV, while it can be done for a middle grade book, it really isn't acceptable since the story is about the kid and you are trying to get kids of the same age to relate. Bryn, the mom, is also privvy to certain circumstances that Rhee wouldn't be aware of--financial issues. Her emotions about the death of her husband are very different from the way an eleven year old would think about the death of her father.

So during the first two weeks of summer vacation, we did doctor's appointments, hair appointments (got mine cut yesterday and it's too cute--I NEED to update my photo!), dentist appointments. I planted three flats of impatiens, a flat of verbena, two hanging baskets, four pots for the front porch, swam and played in the pool, helped Rachel with her third grade workbook, etc.

Next week I will get down to the business of editing MOGG. Rachel is at an all day soccer camp so once I dump her off at Tulsa University, the day is mine until I have to fight traffic to pick her up. Until then, I'll plod along with my edits, tweak a query letter to send to Query Shark blog, and get my life tidied up for my writing stint next week.

Oh, and I need to start thinking about a plot for book #2 in my middle grade series.

Write on!