A Work in Progress

My oldest son just graduated from middle school. Which means, naturally that I have a high-schooler now.  Really amazing to see how fast time flies and how much my little boy has turned into a man. Because I'm his mom, I get to tell you how handsome he is. Isn't he? Okay. Speaking of boys, just had another article printed on Mamalode and it has to do with boys! My boys. Which is perfect timing. Go here ◄ to read it. And this time? Mamalode editors left every word in tact, the way I originally wrote it. The article is titled, Better with Boys. Graduating son? Original non-edited and printed writing?  Perfect way to end the week. Have a wonderful weekend friends.

The way I start a story is rarely how I finish it. And writing is pretty much always this way. Which is a good thing. No, it's a fantastic thing. The first draft of anything should never, ever see the light of day. Or anyone's eyes. But yours of course, the first time around. Then said eyes need to watch yourself retyping a great deal of it. And this is for any writer. Pro or amateur. As Hemingway once said, and I'm going to paraphrase, "All first drafts are crap." Clearly, he didn't say "crap." That wasn't the word he used. That wasn't Hemingway. But, I digress. Here's the thing. He's right. First drafts are garbage. Always. They must be rewritten. Now, sometimes when articles and things getting printed, what you think will be printed won't always be the case. I know this first hand. I've written many things that have been edited sharply. Things I wrote, that turned out nothing like what I submitted. That's the fre

A friend of mine recently told me about a parenting magazine called Mamalode.   And after checking them out, I've come to the conclusion that Mamalode is a darn cool magazine. They have both an online and print magazine, dealing with mom life, parenting and everything that falls in between those two categories.Which is great for me. Because that's my life! The photography in the print version is incredible.  Apparently, Mamalode is quite well known. The blogger and creator of BlogHer, Lisa Stone, calls Mamalode "The best parenting magazine out there." That's saying something coming from a parent and writer, herself. My friend suggested I start submitting to them, as I needed fresh markets to submit material. I felt like I was in a writing rut. So, I submitted a poem. They took it and it was online last week. It's rather appropriate they printed this first, considering April is poetry month. The poem is called Harvesting the Oranges before Spring