More Dad-Style

So, after I posted the Dad-Style blog post, I started noticing other Dad-Style things about our family.

• Cleaning, Dad-Style - I'm the stay-at-home one (the SAHD), so it goes without saying that I clean more than my wife does. It's a matter of logistics... but it's also our personalities.  My wife is one of those cleaners who start cleaning the kitchen, put away a dish, realize the cabinet needs to be reorganized, and 30 minutes later, we have one organized cabinet, but still a sink full of dishes. When you have four kids, this kind of ADD Cleaning style can be debilitating. And overwhelming.  I don't clean like this. I have the opposite cleaning style - hyperdrive. It's speedy, efficient, and sometimes innocent things get wiped away in the process. If I'm picking up the living room, your half of a cup of lemonade is sometimes going to get tossed, even if you just poured it for yourself. Or, that "important" pile of papers might get thrown in the trash, so you better put it somewhere else!

Katie took a picture of this pile of "important" papers.

• Movie Night, Dad-Style - It's going to be a Tolkien movie, or some kind of adventure fantasy.  When they're just with my wife, it's something like an American Girl movie, or The Parent Trap, or something like that. There's enough femininity in my family as it is. When I'm home and watching a movie, someone or something has to be in peril... and it can't be emotions.

This particular night was The Neverending Story

• Grocery Shopping, Dad-Style - I like to get in, grab what I need for that moment, and run out. The whole shopping for a week or two is not for me. More than 20 minutes in a Super Walmart is way, way too long. Unless you're making a business deal inside there's no need for it to take that long. In fact, if I were the main grocery buyer in our house, the convenient store would be where I would shop. Though it's ten times more expensive, you save valuable minutes. Time is money... or something like that.

This outfit works for grocery shopping.

• Decorating, Dad-Style - I collect Lord of the Rings and Hobbit Lego sets.  What else do you need? 

A Character is No Small Thing (A Guest Post)

(My wife, Liz, is guest posting today and musing about her favorite book characters...)

Lately, Scott and I have had some interesting conversations about the main characters of some of the books we're reading.  We've both decided that a likable main character is a must-have for us in order to really love a novel. 

Me, reading.

I like to read, and when I was a kid, I was a crazy reader. If I got into a book, I would totally spend all day (and sometimes night) reading it. One time, in college, I got really into this historical Christian fiction series - I'm sort of embarrassed to admit this because they were kind of romance-y, which is not really like me, but whatever. I'm not afraid to air some slightly dirty laundry.* :) - but ANYWAY, the point is, I got really into this series and I would take the books to my classes and read them there. During the lecture. Sometimes in plain sight. It's a good thing that my theatre professors liked me.  They just let it go. (I'm sure they thought I was having some sort of crisis. I probably was - it was college, after all.)

I could probably write an entire blog series on my reading exploits when I was younger, but I'll stick to the topic at hand... some of my favorite characters and what it is that makes them likable for me. I figured out that the common thread with all of them was that even though they weren’t perfect, they all tried their best to do what was right, and even though bad things happened to them, they didn’t remain bitter. So, here’s a rundown of a few of them and why I like them:

I love this retro cover!

Jane in Jane Eyre:  For a while in college, my little mantra was “Be like Jane!” She had passion, but as she matured, she realized that she couldn’t allow her life to be ruled by it. She made honorable choices, even though it seemingly destined her for sorrow and loneliness. Sidenote - the newest movie adaptation is awesome - I highly recommend it. It's actually on Netflix right now, so you should check it out. I think it's the best adaptation out there.

Danny from Danny the Champion of the World:  This kid was awesome! If you haven't read this book, go immediately to your nearest library and check it out!  (Or buy it... you won't regret it). This book was written by Roald Dahl (who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and it is a perfect book. I'm not going to tell the plot, but Danny was my hero when I was a kid. He's treated horribly by his teacher, he and his father are very poor, and his mother is dead, but he manages to carry out an ingenious plan that is a joy to read about!

Anne in Anne of Green Gables:  She had a temper! And she could hold a grudge like no other! (Remember that feud with Gilbert?) But, she always strove to live a life of honesty and integrity. Also, she always appreciated her friends and looked for beauty and goodness in everything. And, THANKFULLY, L.M. Montgomery didn't just stop at one book. There are 8 all together in the series.  I read this series about once a year.

Jean Valjean in Les Miserables:  Yes, it took me 2 years to read this. (I kept getting bogged down in the LONG digressions about various French Revolution battles, a history of the development of the sewer system of Paris, etc.) Valjean was a bitter ex-con who is offered a chance at a new life and then spends the rest of it doing good deeds and protecting and providing for a little orphan girl he promised to care for. The musical is good, but people, the book is better.  I honestly think that, even though it took me so long to get through it.

Harry in the Harry Potter series:  Orphaned as a baby, raised by his cruel aunt and uncle, and then hunted by the evil-est of all evil wizards, he had a hard life. And despite a few times of losing his temper (and that one book where he was really, really angst-y, which was kind of annoying), he expressed complete loyalty to his friends, eventually laying his life down for them (literally).

There have been so many great characters written throughout the ages, who have I left out? What are some of your favorite characters?

*The series was the Voice of the Wind series (or something like that) by Francine Rivers... yes, it was romance-y-ish, but I remember really liking those books... I haven't read them since (it's been about 15 years) so I don't really remember the plot or the characters or anything, though, so I wonder how I would feel about it now...

When Words Fail

Have you ever struggled to find the words to say? This can be a good thing at times, especially when silence is the best thing that could be said. However, if you are a writer, these can be the most frustrating times (at least in my opinion).

They have a word for it. Well, actually two: writer’s block.

Writer’s block is one of the most difficult experiences someone can go through when writing a book, or anything for that matter.

There are times when I will just sit at the table (usually in Starbucks) and stare at something. It can be anything: the window, a tree limb outside, a customer buying a latte, the computer screen, or a sock I’m wearing. I will stare at that something and just think (though I try to avert my eyes if it’s a person so I don’t come across as creepy), running the plot and characters over and over in my head, trying to find the hole, the thing that’s not working. If it’s a thick writer’s block, I will watch a movie, play a game, or just not write for a day or two. 

Perhaps this small child is wrestling with writer's block.

That is how I deal with it – I obsess over it; I let it utterly consume me. Unfortunately, for my wife, this can put me in a pretty horrible mood at times. I even find myself withdrawing and getting irritable.

While the reaction to writer’s block is always the same, the breakthrough never is.

There is no secret way to resolve this creative inactivity. For me, it will just happen. I will think of the situation or problem again and the answer will unexpectedly come, and it will make sense too. So much sense that I’m surprised I didn’t think of it before.

Writer's block seems to come for me mostly when either an unexpected problem arises with the plot or when there just seems to be a hole in the story.

Holes... not good in your back yard, or in your story.

I didn't really seem to have as much writer's block with the last book I wrote, and I think it's because I felt like I knew the story more. I had thought about the characters and the plot for a few years in a couple of different forms, even in drafts for different novels. 

All that writing seemed kind of wasted at the time as I ended up shelving those ideas --each story had a unique problem I could never work out. But because of it, I knew what I wanted, and the fleshing out of the eventual book came easier. 

Pre-planning, plotting, outlining... before I sit down to write, I like to do a bit of this. Not too much, because I really do feel like a story is alive, in a way.  I like to have a goal to shoot for, but I don't want it to be a blueprint (to be followed exactly) because I want my characters and the plot to live and breathe and be free to do the unexpected.