It's Earth Day

Here's my earth day resolution: It's time to break out the canvas bags. I have tons of them, but all too often I forget to take them with me. Not anymore. No more plastic bags for me.
Here's some eye opening tweets I got from C. Lee McKenzie yesterday.

• Did you know: only 1% of plastic bags are recycled? It costs more to recycle them than to make new ones.
  
• 1 person uses 24 bags/mo., 288 bags/yr., 22,176 bags/lifetime. Yuck.
  
• 8 million lbs. of plastic goes into the oceans /year (Nat'l Geographic)

Thanks for making me change my ways, Lee.
By the way, the photo is called Earthrise and was taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts.

Over the Moon

I have a copy of my book! It came in the mail last Friday. It's beautiful. The cover is indigo. Sometimes it looks blue, sometimes black, depending on the light.
The big moon on the front is shiny. If you run your hands over the cover (and everyone seems to do that) it has a slippery feel. The moon theme continues on the inside. Oh and the dedication page has a rocket on it.
I never imagined it would look this wonderful. I carry it with me pretty much everywhere I go.
Last weekend, I took it to Massapequa to show my family and friends. Check out the "Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle" book launch Easter Egg that my brother Rob made for me. I love that he was able to duplicate that deep indigo blue.
I'm trying to think of words that describe what it feels like to hold your first book. Egg-statically happy? Too corny. Over the moon? That sums it up, exactly.

Could it be Christmas?

I know it's Spring. I hear the birds. I've seen the golden buds.
But I got an email from my editor saying my book is printed and she's sending me a copy. I can't believe it's on its way!
It feels like I'm waiting for Christmas.

We Have Ways Of Making You Talk

I'm working on a new story. Here's what I've done to try to get my main character to tell me what she really wants:

• Let her ramble. She likes to talk about everything but her story. Her ramblings are getting tiresome.
• Took her for long walks. I'm exhausted. Even the dog is tired. Main character is still keeping secrets.
• Whined about her problems to friends and family. Hmm. Notice that many of them make a quick getaway whenever I mention MC's name.
• Whined about her problems to other characters. But all they want to do is talk about themselves.
• Tried meditation. Fell asleep.
• Ate chocolate. Main character is still telling very little, but hips are getting quite big.

She'll talk. Eventually. They always do.