I remember saying those words aloud as my mother applied a thirty-seventh coat of self-tanner to my bare back.

She didn’t disagree.

Tanning bed visits hadn’t toasted me to the right crisp for the ballroom competition that was set to begin early the next morning. Apparently the other girls on my team were absorbing the ultraviolet light more often than I was. Twice each week just wasn’t enough to turn me Latina-esque.

At fifteen I was overly concerned about blending in with the other girls.

At almost thirty (yikes), I’m having the same issue: I’m just not dark enough.

My worry now has nothing to do with the depth of my tan, but the tone of my writing.

I spent a couple of hours last night perusing YA literature on Amazon. Using the “peek inside” button I read several chapters of some of the top sellers. And I came to one conclusion: my personality doesn’t lend itself to the gloom and doom that is popular among teen readers. I sound way more like Polly Anna then I do Elvira.

The question now is: Do I really want to get darker? To get published, am I going to have to depart from my personality, my writing style, my voice?

Personally, I’d take Mary Poppins over the Adams Family any day. But I guess I’m among the minority.

Jennifer Wegner is pretty much my idol.

If you’re reading this, Jen, don’t get all embarrassed or humble because what I’m about to say is totally true! She’s creative and thoughtful and kind to everyone. Jen is also SO organized. I want to be her for just one day, so that I can see how she gets everything done and is a wonderful wife and mother. If you don’t believe me, check out her blog One Project a Day. She actually does a project everyday. What? How?

(Jen: Do you not sleep? I know you clean and cook good meals and love your kids. So I’m guessing it must be the no-sleep thing…except you’re always pretty happy. I don’t do “happy mommy” with less than six hours.)

Or maybe Jen (and other moms) are just faster than me? Do I take to long to get stuff done?

Somebody out there help me figure out what to cut out or speed up. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Total hours in a week: 168
Total already used: 149.5 (it’s a rough estimate)

• 49 hrs sleeping
• 2.5 hrs studying scriptures
• 5.25 hrs working out (I did give this up for a while…bad results)
• 7 hrs getting ready (I know it’s hard to believe. Maybe I should stop shaving my legs or washing my hair?)
• 3.5 hrs getting kids ready (partially why it takes me so long to get ready)
• 5 hrs shopping (it’s a LONG drive to the good and cheap grocery store; also includes Target/Costco trips)
• 3.5 hrs driving to and from Gavin’s school (another LONG drive)
• 20 hrs for Primary related work (some weeks it’s way more)
• 2 hours for “Journaling” (includes both blogs)
• 11 hrs cleaning (It’s not as crazy as it sounds. It takes me 4 hours to clean my house top to bottom with floors mopped. And I figure I spend 7+ hours doing dishes, picking up, cleaning disasters, etc.)
• 4.75 hrs reading to my kids
• 10.5 hrs preparing meals (For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some days more, some less, a good average)
• 5 hrs doing laundry (ironing Jamie’s shirts and work clothes bite. However, 4 hours of this is done in front of television 🙂
• 3.5 hrs emailing or checking stuff out online (I could cut down a little here)
• 6 hrs in church meetings
• 2.5 hrs gardening (watering, weeding, etc.)
• 2 hrs at soccer games
• 3 hrs at the park (sometimes more)
• 3.5 hrs convincing Gavin to nap (then I get 2 uninterrupted hours in the afternoon)

If my formula is correct, I should have 2.64 hour each day to do the “stuff” that I want to do.

I need more time than that. I would love to have 4 hours each day devoted to writing.

Can someone please help me figure this out?

I read an awesome blog post called “Writing is Vomiting: An Extended Analogy by Dr. Chris Crowe“ and laughed my butt off.

Dr. Crowe lists ten different classifications of vomit and how each specifically relate to writers. Here are a few of my favorites:

“Closed-mouth Swallowers: people who write often and well but refuse to stop rewriting or to submit their work

Dry-heavers: writers who write lots of first lines or first pages but nothing else (most of us at one time or another)

Nauseated Non-emitters: people who constantly feel like writing but never get around to doing it (most of us at one time or another)

Projectile Vomiters: writers whose books make a very loud and a very big splash (James Dashner, Shannon Hale, Stephenie Meyer, JK Rowling, Sara Zarr)”

Vomiting doesn’t come easy to me, and sometimes writing doesn’t either. Dr. Crowe did include bulimics in his list, which is my personal classification. I force myself to vomit (up words) at least once a day, I hide my addiction from others and then I flush it all away.

The scariest part is that it’s the voices in my head that make me do it. This is the schizophrenic part of my diagnosis.

A whole cast of characters from at least four potential manuscripts keep me awake at night.

Emmalynn whines and whines that I’m not giving her enough attention, “Why won’t you let me out? I’m the most important person in here!”

Caellen just chuckles (with that deep, throaty, make-your-toes curl laugh) that unless I get out of bed he’ll take over my dreams.

Then there’s Stalker. His whisper is pervasive; it makes me look over my shoulder when I’m alone. “Let me out,” he hisses. “Let me out and I might leave you alone.” He threatens and teases. Stalker is the star of my nightmares.

If I want to get any sleep I have to force the voices out of my head (although Stalker is currently in a minimum security prison until I finish my other two novels. It’s much too easy for him to escape).

Sadly even after I’ve written, the voices still taunt me. “You know that’s not right,” they chastise. “Get up and start over.”

I’m afraid that if I ever get all my writing done a whole new cast of characters will take their place.

Will I ever rest in peace?