To homeschool or not to homeschool...that is the question

Lately, it seems like everywhere I go I run into friends who are choosing to homeschool. This was a phenomenon I had never even heard of until I was an adult. Now, suddenly, everyone (or at least everyone I run into lately) is discussing whether or not they're choosing to do it. And I have to say, homeschooling is starting to seem downright trendy among a certain set of moms. This is sort of surprising and sort of not. It seems like so much of our generation of moms looks at mothering as a series of choices. Breastfeeding vs. formula, working outside of the home vs. working inside, cloth diapers vs. disposable, organic vs. whatever's-on-sale, crying-it-out vs. attachment parenting.

I would argue that homeschooling vs. traditional school has made its way to that annoying list of choices we must make as mothers. How did this become the case? Is there some kind of book (or preferably short magazine article) that will explain to me why we are all suddenly trying to teach our children at home rather than send them to school?

I'm sure it's a combination of many different cultural phenomenons all intersecting at once that make homeschooling so appealing to so many. And I have to admit, I'm one of those people to whom it appeals. When I close my eyes and imagine what it would be like to homeschool, I envision this idyllic scene of my children and me sitting around the kitchen hearth, reading to each other, taking breaks occasionally to do our handwork or bake some fresh bread. Basically, I imagine something out of a scene from Little Women when I imagine homeschooling. Never mind that we don't have a fireplace. And never mind that I happen to have more Little Men than Little Women at my house.

Instead of something from Little Women, the homeschool scene at my house would play out more like a scene from Raising Arizona ("She's got more than she can handle") or that scene from Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood where all of her kids are throwing up at once. In other words, I think homeschooling at my house would be slightly chaotic and not so productive.

Emma has learned to read pretty much on her own, though. And the kids love to sit and draw and make stuff all day long. They're great at having tea parties. Maybe my homeschool could be sort of a charter school that specializes in reading, making paper airplanes and having tea parties? We would blow everyone's socks off!

After visiting Emma's new elementary school many times in the last several weeks, I am more than convinced that those people have their act way more together than I do in the school department. I am not even going to try to compete. She will be in a Spanish immersion classroom where half of her day will be in Spanish. My semester in Sevilla in college was awesome, but I'm not sure it qualifies me to teach kindergarten in Spanish. I can order a "ron y coke" like nobody's business, though.

At Emma's school there are also lots of opportunities for art and drama, a great library, a cafeteria, a big gymnasium, music room, orchestra, and two playgrounds. Not to mention hundreds of new potential friends. Again, I can't compete.

I realize that everyone is different and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to educating our children. I do question some people's interpretation of teaching at home though. I used to tutor a little girl who was "homeschooled." Basically she did a computer program by herself while her parents went to work. The program was designed for a second grader...and she was in middle school. I've also talked to another mom who bragged that homeschooling wasn't that hard because she just had her children watch videos to learn what they needed to know. I know there are tons of parents out there who are doing a great job with homeschooling and their kids are probably as smart as they come, but I think there's a good chance that with homeschooling becoming so trendy, some parents could wind up doing it because they want to be like the other parents they know who are doing it or because they believe it is the "right" thing to do, and that doesn't necessarily qualify them to be their child's only source of knowledge.

I should've reported the parents of the girl that I tutored. It has always bothered me that I didn't do more for her. Her dad fired me because I tried to get her to read books rather than do her computer program. He told me that reading wouldn't get her anywhere. He wanted her to be a vet tech.

The main reason I want my kids to go to school is because I think it will be good for them to be away from me. I'm great and all, but there is a whole world of great people out there who I believe have amazing things to offer them. Likewise, I think it will be good for me to be away from them. I am, after all, more than their mother, or so I hear. And they are more than a reflection of me.

When Emma gets on the bus on Tuesday and waves goodbye, I'm sure I'll be sad. I'll be saying goodbye to a chapter of her life where our family was pretty much her whole world. She'll be spending a lot of her waking hours away from home, learning things from someone else. Meanwhile, my own life will be freed up a tiny bit more to write and think and grow. I'm really looking forward to that. My hope is that we'll come back to each other at the end of her school day with a new appreciation for who we are and who we are becoming.

I feel like I wanted to say so much more in this post, but wasn't able to say it the way I wanted to. I would love to hear your thoughts about school. I've probably unwittingly offended some of my friends who homeschool. I hope that's not the case. Feel free to challenge my assumptions and tell your side of the story. Happy new school year to all!

Does everyone make boef bourguignon after seeing Julie & Julia?

I saw Julie & Julia and I have to admit, most of it was too delightful for words and you would really have to be a terrible curmudgeon of a person not to like it. I was absolutely starving after I saw it. I wanted to go straight to Whole Foods and buy the ingredients to make the sumptuous boef bourguignon that they were torturing us with throughout the entire movie. Yum...

Julie came off as lovably self-absorbed...I could totally relate to her narcissism and her worries that she would never be considered to be a "writer." Although, I would say that her writing/cooking scenes just didn't really look that hard. Okay, so she had a small crappy kitchen. She should try doing all that stuff with three kids in the room. Now, that would be a real challenge. The scene where she comes home after having blogged for several months and having a New York Times piece written about her, and has 63 messages on her answering machine all from publishers and literary agent types, made publishing a book seem about as easy as hitting "enter" on blogger. And then we see Julia Child struggle for years to have her book published. Not surprisingly, Julia Child's moment of literary validation felt much more satisfying and deserved (maybe I'm just saying that because I didn't go to high school with Julia Child?)

All jealousy aside, the movie inspired and encouraged me a great deal. It made me want to come home and cook and write and get things published like crazy. Now, if kindergarten and preschool would just begin...

In the spirit of the Julie/Julia Project I thought it would be fun to blog about what we ate last night. Emma and I went school supply shopping yesterday and when I came home I had to make something for dinner, but was out of just about everything (except for school supplies). Is Sunday night like that at your house too? We are out of usual staples and just have to make something out of nothing. I kind of like those types of cooking challenges. They remind me of writing poetry, where the limitations force you to be more creative. So, anyway, I had ham and turkey and swiss cheese, bacon...and one egg. That was it (except for random veggies and fruit) in the fridge. Brandon suggested I make some monte cristo sandwiches, which is exactly what I was thinking could be made out of those ingredients. After I got over the initial shock that he knew what a monte cristo sandwich was, I agreed that would be a good plan.

We put the kids to bed (they had eaten grilled cheese sandwiches earlier) and then dug into our sandwiches. Wow! Delicious! So delicious, I have to share the recipe (or really method) for making your very own monte cristo. This sandwich pairs well with ripe peaches, a cute husband and a comfy couch. Bon apetite!

Monte Cristo Sandwich (adapted from Rachael Ray's original recipe)
4 slices bacon
1 egg (really 2 eggs would be better, but I only had one)
splash of milk
pinch of ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
tablespoon butter
4 slices of bread
Grey Poupon mustard
plum chutney (this, oddly, is what I had on hand and it was fabulous, but any good jelly/chutney type of thing would do)
deli sliced ham
deli sliced turkey

Cook bacon until done and remove to paper towels. Drain off fat.
Reheat skillet over medium heat.
Beat egg(s) with milk, nutmeg and pepper. Add butter to pan and let it melt.
Turn bread in egg batter and then place in pan.
Turn bread after it browns, 2 to 3 minutes; spread mustard on 2 slices of bread and spread chutney on other 2.
Place a slice of cheese on 2 slices of bread. Add bacon, ham and turkey to remaining 2 slices and then set tops in place and press sandwiches together. Turn a couple of times and let set a minute or two to melt cheese. Cut sandwiches from corner to corner to serve.

You can dunk them in maple syrup if you want, but Brandon balked at that, so we didn't. Yum, yum, yum.

Do not be afraid of the bacon and the butter. If you are really that worried about it, go running or something. : )

Tonight, I want to make boef bourguignon, "Julia's boef bourguignon." I'll let you know how it turns out!

Let's give em something to blog about...

For some reason whenever I can't think of anything to blog about, that Bonnie Raitt song "Let's Give 'Em Something to Talk About" always goes through my head, except in my head I sing it "Let's give 'em somethin' to blog about, a little mystery to figure out..." I can't believe I just actually wrote that out loud. I really must be desperate for material.

Here's what I want to blog about, but probably won't be able to very well because kids are constantly and literally all over me:

My very complicated feelings about the new Julie & Julia movie. Complicated? You're thinking, it's a Nora Ephron movie. What's so complicated? "Well, it's complicated," I would probably reply. This movie was made for someone like me. I love to cook, I'm a total sucker for romantic comedies, I blog (on a monthly basis). My feelings about it are complicated because I used to be friends with the Julie of the "Julie" part of the movie. Some background: the movie is about a real person named Julie who wrote a blog about cooking her way through a Julia Child cookbook. The blog became a book and the book became a movie.

Now, the whole blog-to-book-to-movie scenario is pretty much one of my favorite fantasies (in my version Jake Gyllenhall figures prominently). Until now, a movie based on a blog seemed like an impossible feat. The fact that it happened to someone I knew well in high school is weird and surreal and makes me feel very, um, er, happy for her, of course. Happy and maybe just the teensiest bit jealous, self-doubting and depressed at the same time? Does that make me a bad person? Probably.

Another thing I want to blog about is the fact that I can't get a single thing done lately. Oh, don't get me wrong. I do mountains of laundry, piles and piles of it. I just plowed through one of those big Costco-size Tide boxes in record time. I also do dishes, make beds, fold things, and clean out closets on such a continual basis that I'm wondering if it's like the lion, the witch and the wardrobe in my kids' rooms, and there is a whole other fairy tale land on the other side of their closets filled with half-man/half-deer type creatures who are secretly stashing too-small shoes and old onseies in there when no one is looking. I get that stuff done, and that stuff is important and all, but I'm really really aching to get some of my own writing done. Will this ever happen?? The baby is crying, so I'll have to report back to you on that later.

How is anyone ever going to make a movie out of my blog if I can't even finish a sentence?? The only thing tying this mess of a blog post together is my annoying use of the double question mark. What's up with that??

I actually relate to Julie's plight in the blog/book/movie. She's turning 30 and is worried that she hasn't made anything of herself, that she'll always be a lowly office temp, while her friends are making it big in New York. In my darker moments I feel the same way. I'm a very different person from Julie, but I worry sometimes that I've missed some important goal in life, that I have been so engrossed in being a mother, that I forgot to pursue other things and now I'm adrift on this mommyhood raft and can't quite figure out how to make it back to Elizabeth-land. (That's right, I said Elizabeth-land.) Every time I see a trailer of Julie & Julia it feels like this big Julia-Child-sized reminder of my own lack of accomplishment.

Today I got to go to the dentist by myself at 8:30 in the morning. It felt like such a small miracle being dressed and out of the house by myself so early in the morning. Driving to the dentist, I thought, this is what it would be like to have a job. I could just leave every morning with clean hair and a cute purse with only my stuff in it. Should I be looking for a job?? Every now and then I look for jobs online and wonder what it would be like to make money again. I've been at home so long with kids that the working world feels like another planet, like it would have a different atmosphere, different air than the air I am used to breathing. I really can't even fathom going back to work right now, but I like to fantasize sometimes. Maybe I wouldn't be getting paid to get my own writing done, but I'd be getting paid to get something done. Right??

This is what's going on in my head on bad days. On good days, I feel like I am accomplishing tons--it's just happening so slowly and so constantly that it's hard to see it. I wish someone would come do a time-elapsed video of my life with the kids for a year, so that I could see them growing and changing and getting smarter in the span of like five minutes. They could put it to a catchy song, like maybe something from an ipod commercial. Then maybe I would feel more accomplished, or at least my accomplishments would be more tangible.

Right now I have to go because my kids are fighting over an empty vitamin bottle. And everyone needs to eat. Again. And Teddy has a dirty diaper. Nora Ephron, are you reading this??

Are you a camp person?

I love this article about camp and what your feelings toward it say about you. My experience in summer camp was strikingly similar to the author's. I remember using our daily rest time (my favorite camp activity) to write letters to my parents detailing the many ways I was suffering. The three weeks I was away felt like three decades or three generations maybe--each one containing its own unique personal battles that I fought bravely.

Week one was dedicated to meeting new people...also to sleeping, showering, eating, sailing, horseback riding, and eating ice cream out of a huge trough with no utensils with said new people. For someone who needs their alone time, all this togetherness made me feel starved for my bedroom at home where I could sit for hours with a book with no one but my stuffed animals to talk to.

Week two was devoted to cultivating a best friend relationship with one specific girl from my cabin. This girl was usually a trusted confidante who was even more uncomfortable in the camp world than I was. We would discuss how the camp soap was giving her eczema or how she thought we should all be wearing helmets while playing field hockey. If anyone was having a worse time at camp than I was, it was my camp best friend.

Week three was all about getting annoyed with my camp best friend and realizing that her own neuroses were really getting in the way of my becoming a better water skier.

The last day of camp was Parents' Day, and to me, it was the whole reason camp existed in the first place. This deprivation of the things one took for granted in their everyday life--things like parents, watching TV by yourself, taking a shower without wearing a bathing suit--made normal life transcend its normal life-ness. When I saw my parent's station wagon pull into the gravel parking lot on the last day of camp, I practically ran to them with my arms open like Laura Ingalls Wilder running to Pa in the opening credits of Little House on the Prairie. Surely, my parents thought camp had paid for itself in that brief, shining moment of utter devotion to them.

I remember one parents' day in particular...I was doing a twirl routine to the theme song from Beverly Hills Cop. As I twirled and flipped the baton expertly, I imagined that my parents were thinking, "who is this master of the baton and what has she done with our daughter?" Did I look different to them? Sure there were the superficial changes: the leaner, stronger physique--a pleasant bi-product of all the never-ending activity we were forced to do. I was tanner and had smooth legs (everyone shaves their legs at camp). But surely they could see beyond the cosmetic stuff and see that I was tougher in some way, perhaps a tad more mature? While I had not necessarily thrived at summer camp, I had survived. And I was stronger for it.

While my own feelings about camp are complicated, I would definitely encourage my own children to go. I have a feeling they will be more successful campers than I, but even if they aren't, parents' day will be awesome.

Happy 4th of July! And happy camp to all!

Summer Word Picture

Yesterday we made our weekly visit to the farm to pick up our CSA box. Great Country Farms is located in Bluemont, Va, a beautfiul town that sits on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Being members of the CSA means that we get a box of produce each week and we get to pick our own produce too. Yesterday, was an exceptionally perfect day, weather-wise. For some people, it might've been a little warm, but for a Texan like me, 85 degrees and sunny is about as good as it gets in June.


As we were walking across a gravel road to the section of the farm dedicated to cherry trees, grapevines and raspberry bushes, we passed under a wooden awning that marks the entrance to the farm. As you're walking along the path, the A-shaped awning creates a frame around a stunning view of rolling hills, with a patchwork of crops growing on the steep slant of the hillside. It looks as though someone went to the top of a small mountain and shook out a big quilt, so that it covers all the foothills below. I told Emma that I had forgotten my camera, so she needed to take a picture of this scene with her imagination's camera and paint it later when we got home. She got really excited by that idea and told me that she was going to need lots of black and red paint so that she could paint the black raspberries we were about to pick. I told her she had a deal.

To get to the black raspberries, you have to pass by the sour cherry trees. If you've ever played the game "Hi Ho Cherry-o," then you can imagine what these cherry trees look like. Cherries really do grow on little stems and dangle down from tree branches just like in the game. Last week we picked the sour cherries and I was surprised by their ripeness, and how they almost disintegrated in my fingers as soon as I picked them. I tried one out just to see the level of sourness we were talking about. Pretty sour. Then I asked another mom who was picking cherries near us if these were indeed the sour cherry trees and not some other deadly, poisonous type of tree masquerading as a cherry tree, and she said they were. She showed me how to hold the low branches down so that my kids could reach up and pick the cherries and put them in their containers. We quickly learned which cherries would burst as soon as we picked them and which ones were firm just by looking at them.


This week we walked past the cherries to the rows of raspberry bushes. It was a long walk, uphill in the bright sun. Last week we were supposed to pick the raspberries, but as we were walking up the hill, past the cherry trees, the sky opened up and we were drenched. Charlie and Teddy were crying as we headed back downhill to the farm for shelter. Emma and I kind of enjoyed the drama of the situation. Ten minutes later we were eating ice cream in the bright sunshine again and wanting to go out and pick raspberries, but, alas, Charlie was no longer in the mood.


Yesterday there was no sign of rain, but there were many signs that Charlie was flagging. I'm wondering if maybe he thought we were climbing up the entire small mountain that lay ahead of us? Sometimes I have to remind myself that kids have very little perception of how far away things are and I think the raspberry bushes just seemed impossibly far to Charlie. We made it eventually, though, and I told Charlie I would wait with him while he rested in the grass. I encouraged Emma to go pick the raspberries without us. She was more than happy to oblige. She is a quick study and soon learned to look for just the right shade of deep, almost black, purple that would signal a sweet, tangy black raspberry. Raspberry bushes have thorns. "Just like roses, Mommy," Emma informed me. When did she learn about roses having thorns? Emma got stuck a few times by the thorns, but didn't cry or complain. Now that she's five-and-a-half, she's learning to put things into perspective. She's figuring out that some things are worth a little pain.

We headed back to the farm and took the hayride out to pick peas next. I am 34 years old and I've never seen English peas in their natural state. I knew they didn't come into this world in Birds Eye packages in the frozen food section, but that was about the extent of my pea knowledge until yesterday. Peas come in just about the cutest packaging you've ever seen in your life. It's a shame the Birds Eye people don't make more of this. They grow on these sweet little vines with curly tendrils spiraling out everywhere. And the pod itself is this beautiful green color, just stuffed with round, cherubic peas. At the top of the pod is a little hat-looking thing that is just too cute for words. No wonder there are so many baby/pea metaphors out there: Pea in the Pod, sweet pea, etc. You can't help but think of a baby all swaddled up with a hat on its head when you look at these adorable little legumes.

It is an understatement to say that the kids had fun picking peas. I'm pretty sure they were some of the most enthusiastic pea-pickers ever. You have to look closely and even lift the pea plant up a little to see the bounty hiding below. The best pea pods seemed to be hiding just out of sight, and you could really only see them if you took the time to look. At one point the kids sat down on the ground in front of a particularly fertile plant and harvested handfuls of pea pods.

Sitting in the dirt among the dainty peas in their sweet pods, the kids were in their element. I wanted to take a picture of it, to somehow preserve the pureness of our moment under the sun and the clouds, our brown bag so full of green peas that we could hardly join the edges together to carry it. It's hard to imagine now, but I know there is a time in our future when my kids' joy will be more complicated. It happened to me...I'm sure it will happen to them too. I wish I had had my camera with me. But sometimes even a camera is not enough to capture what I want to capture.

And the winner is....

Please excuse the sideways-ness of this video...and the messiness of our playroom.

Congratulations to the big winner!!! She will receive a copy of Tilmon County Fire by Pamela Ehrenberg. Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments on my interview with Pam! Thank you especially to Pam for enduring my many many questions, and for chiming in in the comments as well. For those of you who didn't win the big prize this time, please go out and grab a copy of Pam's book from Amazon (click on the link above). It's a fast, engrossing read. You'll love it!

Well, I better run for now...my fishing out the fireman hat from the dress-up box (for the above video) has really opened a whole can of worms dress-up-wise (if worms could dress up as firemen/doctors and pirates/dentists). I'm hoping I can pretend to be a patient/victim and maybe catch a few zzzzz's on the couch.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Author Pamela Ehrenberg discusses her new book

I first met Pam in the apartment of my dear friend Robin when we moved to Washington, D.C. Pam had a super cute baby girl strapped to her in a Baby Bjorn and a novel she was shopping around to publishers (and another she was writing). I thought to myself, "this is someone I want to know better." I still feel that way about Pam. We have been through a lot together since that day in Robin's apartment: writing group, playgroup, we've babysat each other's kids while the other one tried to squeeze in a few minutes of writing time, we've had babies within a week of each other (twice), I've flushed Spiderman underpants down her toilet, the list goes on and on.

Pam's latest book is called Tilmon County Fire. Here's the blurb from the back of the book:

"In Tiny Tilmon County, where it seems like nothing ever happens and the most
serious crimes are vandalism and bar brawls, a mysterious fire rocks the lives
of the teenagers who live there. As the story unfolds, the lines between
truth and fiction, motive and happenstance, guilt and innocence blur. This
novel-in-stories is told in the voices of its disparate cast of characters,
including a frustrated adoptee, a gay teenager, a big-city kid who is new in
town and wishes he were back in Manhattan, a pregnant store clerk, and a boy
with autism, who is more at the center of events than he imagines."

I highly recommend this book. If you start it, you won't be able to stop. Seriously. It's one of those books that calls to you from the nightstand, saying "read me....read me..."

So, without further ado...here's my interview with Pam! As usual Pam has amazing things to say about writing and motherhood. Don't forget to leave a comment/question for Pam. I'll put all the comments in a (fireman) hat and the winner will receive a copy of Tilmon County Fire!!! Woo hoo!!!

For the sake of clarity and to look cool, my questions have an MT in front of them and Pam's answers have a PE.

MT: You have managed to publish two novels and have two children in the past four years…First of all, WOW. Second of all, do you find motherhood to be compatible with writing? Why or why not?

PE: You're very kind. I guess I haven't found it compatible in the way I first imagined it would be, when I began my extended "maternity leave" with dreams of long, blissful hours away from a 9-5 job where I could write and write while baby cooed and played. I definitely haven't found it possible to write and parent in the same moment. But in a larger sense, I think for our kids to grow up knowing that we're people first and mothers second--and that being "people" may include being a writer--I think in that way, writing and motherhood are very compatible.

MT: Where do you get your ideas for stories? Are your stories already formed when you sit down to write them, or are you generally staring at a blank page, trying to make these people get up and walk around (like I am)?

PE: It's hard to know where ideas come from . . . I guess I'd say the stories are already formed but not yet known to me--like the characters are up walking around in their own parallel universe already, and my job is to learn what they're doing and find the words to communicate that. I haven't had much success in making my characters do anything they weren't going to do anyway (a bit like parenting sometimes, come to think of it!). I've had better luck with my characters when I stand off to the sidelines and observe them long enough that they forget I'm there.

MT: Are there some ways you have set up your life so that writing gets done? Can you share some of your tips, please?

PE: Well, when Talia was a baby, I promised myself that her morning nap would be devoted to writing, sacred time not to be used for catching-up the way afternoon nap could be. That, of course, doesn't work at all with a second child. But some other things have helped: our regular childcare/writing-time exchange was invaluable, especially knowing that if someone else (you!) was going to the trouble of caring for my child, I'd darn well do what I said I was going to do with that time. There's also the accountability built into our 7-person writing group, the knowledge that 6 people will arrive at your house one evening, possibly carrying cookies, and that someone is going to ask, "So, what have you written this month?" For a while when I was working on this book, I also had a more structured exchange with a friend from college: every other month, we'd each send each other a chunk of what we'd been working on, and in the alternating months we'd send feedback. At the moment, I'm experimenting with Twitter as a motivating force: every time the word count on my new manuscript goes up or down, I get to Tweet about it.

MT: Do you think of yourself as a writer at this point? A stay-at-home mom? A professional laundress? Short order cook? How do you identify yourself?

PE: Ha! You know, the only one of those labels that's always kind of made my neck itch was "stay-at-home mom"--I always felt like I should put a little asterisk by it that I was home for a while trying to launch this writing thing but that I knew from the beginning I would never be very good at castle birthday cakes or so many of the other things that seem to come much more naturally to people who embrace the term "stay-at-home mom." Just recently I've started to identify publicly as a writer--and still with a lot of hesitation, like, "I guess I'm allowed to call myself a writer now?"

MT: I get the hesitation, but I think you're definitely allowed to call yourself a writer. I still hesitate when I say it. I don't mind the stay-at-home mom label, though. Except it sort of sounds like I'm a shut-in. What about motherhood has surprised you most? How does this affect your writing?

PE: When I was pregnant with Talia, someone asked me what I was looking forward to about motherhood, and I said I was looking forward to the excuse to slow down, to stop and really enjoy the dandelions. What's surprised me over the past four years is how much harder I've found it to slow down enough to enjoy those moments--not always be rushing ahead to dinner, bath, bed, whatever the next thing on the kid-genda might be. (You seem to be much better than I am at this, and one of the reasons I read Mommytown is to try to absorb these lessons through osmosis. But if you ever wanted to try a step-by-step for those of us who need remediation in this area, I'd be grateful!) Anyway, I think it's the same kind of slowing down that's needed for writing--needing to know what a dandelion feels like brushing against your cheek or squished between your fingers. Learning to slow down would benefit me in all areas of life!

MT: The trick to slowing down is staying in your jammies for as long as possible every morning. : ) Can you give us a one or two sentence synopsis of what you think Tilmon County Fire is about? I have my own ideas, but I’d rather hear your version.

PE: I think it's about being part of a community, how the stories that belong to each of us really belong to all of us. Cait says at one point, "It's my life, but it's their life too. We're in this together, however we might feel about each other at any particular moment." I think community-building is what you do such an amazing job of here on Mommytown, bringing together moms who sometimes see the world through very different lenses but nonetheless are all in this parenting thing together. (Oops, that was three sentences--four, now.) : )

MT: What are your goals for Tilmon County Fire? Are you hoping to ruffle a few feathers with this book? Maybe take some people out of their comfort zone a little? Do you think it’s too edgy to be read in a high school English class? I would hope that’s not the case, but what do you think (being a former teacher and all)?

PE: Gosh, you know, it's only in the past few days that I've let myself start wondering if enough people might notice the book that someone might get their feathers ruffled. I don't think it had occurred to me that any grown-ups other than my writing group pals and a few hip librarians would ever even hear about it. Hopefully we're beyond the point where gay teens, inter-racial dating, or National Public Radio are feather-ruffling topics for many people--but if these things are in fact outside some people's comfort zones, then I guess, yeah, having identified some feathers in need of ruffling, I'd be honored to accept that as a goal. And I would love for the book to be read in English classes--the publisher is working on a discussion guide that will hopefully be helpful to teachers and other educators who'd like to use the book.

MT: Emma has a question for you: “How do you make a book real?” (She has a butterfly book she’s looking to pitch.)

PE: Hi, Emma! Thanks so much for joining in. Do you mean "real" like make people believe your story really happened? If so, my advice is to know that butterfly so well--the colors on its wings, how it looks when it sits and flies--that you can describe it so readers feel like they're seeing it too. If you mean "real" like "published," the first thing I'd say is that your story is already real--it doesn't become more real when it gets published, it just means more people have a chance to read it. But you might have fun checking into some publishing opportunities for kids--maybe Highlights magazine?

MT: Highlights! I'll have to look into that. Although if Emma gets published before me, I might just give up. Got any books you’re dying to read this summer (in all your spare time)?

PE: You know, it's only in the past month or two that I've been able to read fiction again. After my husband died last summer, there was some part of my brain that closed off and couldn't let any imaginary worlds in for about 7 or 8 months, which is the longest I've gone without fiction since I learned how to read. But slowly that's opened up again, and I'm currently reading a terrific new novel called I Do Not Come to You by Chance (by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani) about Nigerian email scams. : ) Next up I want to read Dara Horn's new book, All Other Nights. I've just learned how to reserve library books online and have them sent over from other branches--I think the library has had this capacity for a while, but it's new for me and feels very liberating. Almost as easy as ordering from Amazon, and it's free!

MT: I am in love with the library right now. I might want to marry it. Except sometimes I get sad when I can't remember what books I've read because they were library books and I can't look at them on my shelves. I spend a lot of time looking at the books on my shelves. They inspire me. Do you have any words of wisdom for moms who have the desire to be creative?

PE: Every mom I know is creative, whether it turns up in her artistic pursuits, her kids' birthday cakes, or her ability to create an ad hoc burp cloth out of conference notes. In terms of moms who ware wanting to use their creativity in some kind of "official" pursuit (in the arts, or setting up a business, or whatever), at the moment I'm all about "social networking"--not just in the sense of Lightning Question #4 below, but in the old-fashioned sense of talking to your friends' friends' friends--it's amazing how enough of these conversations invariably seem to lead to people who can be role models, mentors, and allies. And with enough practice at telling people about your project, eventually you just might start believing it yourself.

MT: Okay, Pam. Here’s the lightning round. Answer the first thing that pops into your head. Ready? Set? Go! Which would you rather achieve in a day: write five pages or have your whole house clean at once?

PE: Write five pages. (Because I can actually imagine that one--the other choice is too far outside my realm of consciousness.)

MT: How do you celebrate when you finish a draft? Champagne, marshmallows, more writing?

PE: I'm not sure I've ever managed to identify the moment when I've finished a draft. More often, I realize that this thing I'm working on has morphed significantly since I started calling it "Draft 2" and so perhaps it's actually "Draft 3" that I've now been working on. I like your suggestions, though!

MT: If you weren’t a writer, what other profession would you pursue?

PE: I keep getting stuck on this one. Is there a profession where I could get paid to travel but not have to write about my experiences or spend any time in conference rooms?

MT: Facebook or Twitter?

PE: Both! Also MySpace, LinkedIn, and GoodReads. Web 2.0 was *made* for introverts like me who are too shy to pick up the phone and call someone.

MT: Box mac ‘n cheese or homemade?

PE: Homemade. (This question is about preference, not frequency, right?)

MT: Which do you prefer writing: dialogue or description?

PE: Dialogue. Fills the page much quicker when my goal is a certain number of pages per day.

MT:
When you’re blocked, do you
A) Write garbage and then delete
B) Stare at a blank screen
C) Other

PE: A & C. Flip to a section that doesn't repulse me at that moment, and write garbage there. That's why I like novels more than short stories--less likely that the whole project will repulse me at the same time.

MT: Sleep training or personal training—which would be more useful to you at this point?

PE: Sorry--what was that? You lost me after the word "sleep."

MT: Which is harder: Revising a novel for the billionth time or potty training?

PE: Well, with potty training you kind of know from the beginning what the end result is, and it's usually clear whether what's happening at that moment is progressing toward the goal. And you've got people reminding you that no one goes to college in diapers, that everyone meets the goal eventually. Whereas there are lots more unrevised/unfinished/never-really-got-started novels out there (by which I mean on my hard drive) than I like to think about. Though that doesn't really answer the question, does it? Which--by the way--just might be my favorite question I've ever been asked. : )

MT: Would you want your babies to grow up to be writers?

PE: Only if they can't help it. Wait, that didn't sound right. What I meant was, I want them to find whatever it is they can't help being, then not try to fight against being that thing (as I did for so long about being a writer).

MT: Whew! Okay, that may have been the longest interview in history! I just couldn't help myself...I love talking to Pam! If you're still reading, then you should definitely leave a comment because you're obviously quite the reader and you would LOVE Pam's book! Pam will be reading the comments and questions, so feel free to address things to her or me. Thank you!!!

P.S. Please leave a comment! (even if you're not the comment-leaving type. You know who are.) : )