Forced here by tree rats.

I am coming out of a cold induced coma, and for the first time in a week I am motivated to do more than blow my nose and lay in the bed moaning about how my ear hurts. My entire family has had an ear infection (yes, all four of us) and we've all been jacked up on antibiotics and nasal decongestant and the last thing on my mind has been writing, to be honest. I'm feeling a lot better today, so I think I'm on the road to recovery. I'm pretty sure the other moms at Abi's preschool think I've been regularly hitting the bong in my free time, because for the past few days my eyes have been all kinds of pink and unpleasant and crack-whorish. Hitting the bong sounds a lot more pleasant than what I've really been up to, which is wading through the river of snot that's coming out of my nose. Seriously, where does it all come from? WHERE?!

I have a lot of people to thank for getting my big diseased a** back on this blog. Mainly, Jon, who organized "Happy Bring Back Dena Daw Day," in an effort to get me back in the practice room, or even just back to daily (or semi-daily) blogging. I'm sorry I've been so MIA. As far as writing goes, I actually sat down a couple of weeks ago and randomly wrote a picture book, which I ended up hating, but I really enjoyed the process. It made me sit back and think...why am I not doing this every day? Why is my book 15K (more or less) away from being finished, and has been about 15K away for months? Why can I not get my butt in gear and motivate myself? This kick in the butt from Jon (and all the wonderful writer friends that participated in sending me sweet and slightly threatening emails) was what I needed. It reminded me that I wrote 40K words this past summer for the first time in my life because I had support from people- people that believed I could do it, and people that are doing it too. I guess I thought that you guys would have forgotten about me, and it means a lot to me that you haven't. You're not just letting me quit, and you're not letting be a casualty of writer's block or simple laziness. I am inspired yet again!!! I WILL FINISH THIS BOOK!! YES! YES I WILL!

I think one of the thing that has been discouraging me (that I haven't really told anyone about) is just receiving all the rejections from my picture book Sally Circle. Stupid, I know, since rejections are part of this whole process of becoming a writer. I know this, yet I've let it get me down and second guess myself. It was the first time I'd ever submitted anything, and I always said that I'd never do it for fear of being rejected...but hey, I've been rejected many times, I've come to the end of it, and here I am, ready to start this bitch all over again! Ha Ha!!!!!! (I left out the bwa this time, for fear that it might be getting old).

Anyhow, I'd like to leave you with a menacing message that has been sent to me in an effort to get me re-join the writing ranks, just for your amusement (despite my personal discomfort).

Although I do think that using someone's deepest fear against them is decidedly low....(AHEM MARISA)...

anyway, enjoy

*Special thanks to Amy, Jon, Heather, Tina, and Marisa.