Learning from my son

Authors are always comparing the differences between men and women in hopes of providing a more realistic hero or heroine. Well, I think I'm going to model my next hero after my son. He's a great person over all; helpful when you need a strong arm, polite, knowledgeable when it comes to any type of machinery and a lot of common sense. But - yeah, there's a but - he is sorely lacking in the ability to communicate. I think it's a man thing as I remember my husband being the same way when we were first married. In fact, husband number one was also bad about this. Yeah, it's a guy thing but I do believe it's one of those guy things that can be changed over time.

So - the other morning, my son gets up as early as I do, which is not the norm. I ask why he's up so early and he replies, "I'm waiting on Jed." (I changed the name to protect the innocent - grin) I nod and think nothing more about this. When I got to leave, though, my son is no where to be found and his car is still in the driveway. My husband's already gone to work so I consider what I should do about the door. Well, I figure Jed picked him up in his car and drove him to a coffee shop or something so I go ahead and lock the door. Thirty minutes later, I get a text from my missing son. "Thanks for locking me out of the house." Of course, my response, "Thanks for letting me know your plans." Duh. Seems he and Jed went bike riding. Oh, and my son is 23 by the way. He moved back into the house this past summer to help with his expenses while he finishes the last year of school.

Today, I decided to fix chili omelets. As I finish the last one, I ask my son to let my husband know that breakfast is ready. I put food on the table and wait. No hubby. I asked my boy if he'd relayed the message. "Yes, mom." Still we wait and then I figure the man's just busy so we eat without him. He comes in later and says, "El son came out to the garage and asked if I wanted an omelet. I said yes. I didn't realize he was telling me the omelet was done and ready to be eaten."

Yeah, I've decided my duty to my future daughter-in-law will be to help train my son to communicate a bit better. On the other hand, I figure this is good research for my next hero. Maybe, I'll just let the boy continue to give me examples of how not to communicate.

SAT words?

Lately, I've been doing more reading than writing; mainly because September is so busy I don't have concentration time. I love to write but it still requires a clear head and space to be able to reason out the scenes.

As a reader, there are a lot of words I just plain take for granted. I assume everyone else knows them also, but I was teaching the other day and I evidently used words my students had never encountered. They accused me of prepping them for the SAT so now, when I throw out a word they don't know we use it as a teaching moment and call them our SAT words.  But seriously, I'm very surprised in some of the words they don't know. Here are just a few.

Conscientious (they even accused me of making this one up)
procrastinate
lethargic
negate
postulate
pretentious

Oh, and I don't teach English. I teach art so I think I must surprise them with this knowledge. Could it also be that the use of simpler words and acronyms that folks use when texting is helping us lose some of these words? It does make one ponder.

My son's a trooper

Nope, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth - yet. Just been very busy with the start of school but I'm trying to find my writing groove again. So - here's the latest update. My newest western is ready to go but I'm waiting until I have my other four previously published pieces reworked and polished for re-release. Be patient. They'll be up hopefully before Christmas. Actually, if I can get the first one polished, I'll go ahead and self publish it and the new one, Texas Forged. Of course, I just have to share the cover I came up with. My son posed! Of course, I took creative liberties in that his hair has never ever been that long.

And yes, I painted it. I'm actually pretty proud of my efforts. Would love to know what you think. Now I've got four more covers to paint.

Look for Texas Forged to come out late September or early October. I want to do one more read through before I call it ready.