My computer called out to me last night – “Don’t you love me anymore?” I have been trying to relax and hang out with my boys and not necessarily Get Things Done (see previous blog). However, the bad part of attempting to stay calm and sane, and go with the flow of the day, and not rush around doing a million unnecessary things and go nuts over it is; I’m not really getting things done. Hmmmm. There’s the rub. One of the things I have not been getting done is writing – the blog and my novel.

Oyo… a Novel! (Such a word should be capitalized.) What a “novel” idea; a book about a new mom and the agonies and ecstasies of her day-to-day existence. Actually, if you like this blog, you’ll probably like the book I have in progress. It’s just a fictional version of what I’ve been doing for the past year. I had a conversation with someone about this a few months ago, before I started posting on blogger. I said – “Gee, I’d like to write a book.” She said, with this sort of poor-deluded-you look on her face – “I tried to do that too. I was going to write a children’s book, and have one of my in-laws illustrate it. I had so many ideas, but I got caught up in my children and never could get around to doing any writing.” She said it with a you’ll see how it’ll never get off the ground sort of tone. Maybe I wanted to prove to her that I'm special, and show I can do something good and interesting, or maybe the combination of a challenge and the desire not to have all my dreams squashed has led to taking time to write whenever I can.

I have quite a bit written for my Novel, and I took out a snippet to send to my favorite chick lit publishers, Red Dress Ink. What I did not realize is that Harlequin Romance purchased RDI, and their chick lit novel editors seem to be hidden behind the bodice ripping pseudo-historical novel editorial department. I sent the bit of my book to the email address listed on the Red Dress Ink website, and received back a form email, obviously the automatic slush pile response. I think it was entitled "How to write a Romance Novel, 101". While I appreciated the tips outlined and found some of them kind of funny, the book I have in mind ain't exactly romantic. (If I don’t write pure fiction, I might write a baby care guide/amusing life with twins anecdotes/survival guide. In that case I’d entitle it: The Survivor's Guide to Twins.)

A romance novel…although having two babies is love personified, (Eros and Cupid in diapers) my book is not going to have any Harlequin Romance style steamy, sexy, love scenes. You know what I mean- he looked deep into her eyes and breathed, "I must have you, and now." She gasped at the unfamiliar feelings that flooded her trembling body and whispered "Oh, yes..." surrendering to the fiery emotion she saw in his impossibly blue eyes... blah blah blah. Anyway, none of that rubbish. (Even though I did enjoy a lot of that rubbish in my younger years) The Survivor’s Guide would be more like – What to do when Twin A needs a diaper change, and Twin B needs to be nursed: which comes first? It is best to do the diaper change first, because if you nurse one, the other will see and want to nurse too, then you may have two sleeping babies, but one will be stinky and you should not wake him up to change him. Or, what else may happen is, the diaper change twin (Twin A) will nurse next to Twin B, then B will fall asleep and you’ll find yourself doing a diaper change with a sleeping twin on your lap. It’s possible, but not easy. Therefore, Twin B can wait the 9.8 seconds it takes to change a diaper, and, if you have been following the diaper change technique outlined in section 12/B, you might be able to change the diaper in 9.1 seconds. Of course, if Twin A rolls over onto his tummy during the afore mentioned diaper change, and Twin B crawls over and grabs the diaper, getting poop on his hands, and wiping it on the changing mat, you are going to have to employ the hold-down-the-baby-with-your-leg technique, to control Twin A to expedite the change, as outlined in Section 12/B, paragraph 6. Or, you could just yell for help. My husband generally employs the latter method.

I am going to return to the getting-out-of-bed-when-everyone-else-is-asleep trick, and then I can get a little something done. Yes, it is still a work in progress. My life, I mean…and the book.