Back in the olden days...

Entirely by accident, I just came across the notebook where I had put pen to paper for the first time ever for THE FAKE MCCOY.   It was July 14, 2006.  I scribbled two and a half pages of notes, figuring it was the only way I could get this kid out of my head and get back to what I was supposed to be working on.  

Back then, I described this potential project to myself (which I never expected to actually write) as "The story of a social reject who falls in love with a somewhat popular girl."  

It would be fun to type up the whole mess so those who have read the story can see how even though most of the details changed once I started in on it a couple of months later, in some ways, it is still the story I first thought up.  Sadly, it's all so silly and embarrassing that I get tears in my eyes when I read it to myself.  The idea of letting someone else take a look makes me very uncomfortable indeed.

But!  Here are the first words I ever wrote for the character who turned out to be Seth (weird punctuation, missing words, and all):

I saw her crying:  Great gulping sobs, tears dripping down her face and plopping on her white blouse.  Her face was bright red and screwed into a mask of misery.  She was very ugly when she cried -- which made her even more beautiful to me.

So, this doesn't sound anything like Seth, and I didn't end up using this -- nor did I ever write the scene I meant for this to be included in -- but I do have something about Rosetta's "ugly cry-face" in the story.  It's one of my favorite lines, for some reason.  Maybe because I know it came from those minutes when I was first imagining it all.

Twins AND half-sisters.

While planning and brainstorming for MEOW SISTERS, there are details I'm trying to work out (always!) that are giving me pause. 

I've pretty much decided this will be a story about sisters with the same mother, but different fathers.  They were raised separately, but are well aware of the other's existence. And, in fact, they spent a fair amount of time together when they were younger.

Recently, I've been frustrated with some of the backstory and the ages of the girls.  I know that there is a certain amount of leeway here, and that if I can present the motivations either clearly or vaguely enough, it won't be a problem for readers.  And yet, it bothers the hell out of me not to know the answers.

One idea I came up with is having the girls be twins.  Twins AND half-sisters!  When I was taking science classes from elementary school on, we weren't taught about this type of situation.  Twins were either identical or they were fraternal.  And in extremely rare cases, twins might be cojoined.   End of.   I'm certain this wasn't considered fact by science as a whole, since there was research being done in recent decades.  But the textbooks and teachers I had weren't discussing these things.  In fact, I remember being really confused about how it could be possible for a cat to give birth to a litter of kittens all having different fathers sometimes, but that the same couldn't be true for humans.  If it's possible to have fraternal twins (and it is, of course!) it always seemed to me that half-sibling twins could result.  You know, if the situation were such to make it possible.

A couple of years ago, I watched an episode of GREY'S ANATOMY where a woman had two uteruses and was carrying fetuses of different fathers.  That prompted me to read more about twins and discover that there are more variations on twins than I had ever known.  The one that intrigues me most -- and that might work really well in the context of my story -- is heteropaternal superfecundation.     This is where one egg is fertilized by the sperm of one male, and another egg is fertilized by the sperm of another male.  The fetuses are the result of one pregnancy, thus giving them the classification of "twins."  But, genetically, they are, in fact, half-siblings.   There are a few different ways this can happen, and they don't seem require a woman to have two uterusus either!

I don't know.  Maybe this idea will make writing this story more difficult than it needs to be.  Maybe I'll find that it won't work after all.  But I am intrigued at the moment.  I'm trying to decide whether this will strengthen the story I'm already putting together.  One thing I really need to figure out is how much knowlege doctors and labs had of this twin stuff during the early-90s when my characters would have been born.  Paternity tests are so common these days that you can buy them at Rite-Aid, mail in your cheek swabs to a lab, and get results quickly.  But what would it have been like sixteen years ago? 

Has anyone seen the concept of heteropaternal superfecundation come up in YA fiction?  Or in any modern fiction other than daytime television?  I'm very curious!
 

Oh, dear!

I've just made an embarassing discovery: 

courtneywrites

 is not the same Courtney who moderates on the Blue Boards.

Right?  I think I'm right.

I also think I've combined many of their comments in my mind so that right now I'm not entirely sure who said/thinks/feels what.  This is one of the problems with me not being able to view profiles on that board...

So sorry, Courtney!   If I've ever left you any comments that didn't make sense, now you know why!

A spending money day!

I was going to write an outline today, but I had to get my hair cut at 10:45 am. You see, I've been growing my hair out with the intention of having it get super, super long. I haven't had it trimmed since that time the power went out at my house (and therefore my computer was out of service) in November or something. The problem is that my hair is really fine, and has no damage from chemicals. It's very, very healthy. Which means it just hangs there looking stupid and ugly! I have never been so tired of having to look at a person as I have been of myself lately. Before my appointment, I needed to pick up a print job from FedEx/Kinkos, deposit a check at the bank, return a DVD to a video store all the way on Aurora(!), and take some packages to the post office for mailing. The first two things went without a hitch. Then I got to the video store and realized I'd brought only an empty case. The DVD was still at home in the machine. I yelled, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Then I drove home to get it. My next stop was the post office. Once there, I realized I'd brought along my big pre-addressed envelope, an SASE, and the printed manuscript (still in the car from the print shop trip, naturally), but I had no cover letter. Not only that, I hadn't even typed the letter. Oops. So, I went back home and did that. By then, I had only ten minutes until my appointment, so I had to rush over.

I got only an inch or two taken off the length of my hair overall, but she added a bunch of layers around my face for more movement and less ugliness. A few pieces are now chin-length. The longest part in the back hits just under the band of my bra. I bought some Product and cocoa conditioner. Oh, and some older lady in the salon came over while my hair was being styled and said, "Your hair is beautiful. I've been watching her comb it out and it's just gorgeous." Hooray!

Since I was feeling so much less ugly, I went to Nordstrom in a fine mood and looked at Privo shoes. Then I bought, er, two pair. I would love to link you to a picture, but I can't find them online. Oh, wait! I have a camera!

This is my entire Privo collection. Someday, I would like to have many, many more. I'm not really a shoe person AT ALL, but I bought those brown and black ones for my birthday last year and I adore them. I'm hooked on Privos. Looking at photos of them online is like my version of looking at porn. Well, sort of. So, the two newest ones are the white pair and the stone pair. Same style, slightly different colors. I'm not sure that I totally needed both, but they were on sale ($50 instead of the usual $80), so it seemed crazy NOT to get them. You know? And I'll definitely be getting some use out of them.

Then I went to Clinique and had the girl put makeup on me. The stipulation I gave her was that she couldn't use anything like what I usually wear (which I described to her - I'm all about neutrals in my Regular Life). In the end, I didn't look drastically different, but I do have purple eyeshadow and liner and new shiny lip gloss. And she gave me a sample of green eyeshadow for free!

After all that, I did finally drop off the DVD and send my stuff off at the post office. I got zero work done on my outline today, but somehow I feel great anyway. Every once in a while it is nice to treat myself out of the blue.

Here's me, standing in front of my shower curtain, making a weird face so you can see my eye makeup:

And here I am making a weird face just because I am getting less photogenic as I get older:

My hair is much longer than these photos would have you believe. That's the problem with having to take pictures of myself with a crappy camera.

Bonus Meow Pic! Niña sleeping with all my Privos...

Cool! And... weird.

l just e-queried and received a full request from an agent I met at the conference in April!  HOORAY!  

But, um.  I'm a little confused about her response:

hi mindi,

i do remember liesa introducing us! will be pleased to have a look. send two ways: one as a word doc attachment; the other, hardcopy w/SASE to address below.

Then her signature line with the address follow.   Since it doesn't say "send one of these two ways," I'm thinking she truly wants it in both formats.  

Do you suppose this is true?  I've never had an agent ask for it both ways before.  (I know; I can just ask for clarification when I e-mail the Word attachment.  I probably will do so.  But I just wanted to get an idea of whether I'm way off on my assumption and will sound silly asking that!)

Edit:  I found a post on the Blue Boards where someone was wondering this exact thing about this agent.  I PM'd her to see if she ever got clarification. 

Edit #2:  The person I PM'd says, yes, she asked the agent for clarification.  The agent did want it in both formats.  I guess I get to place another order to FedEx/Kinkos!