The Mother's Day House

When my Perfect Grandson was just a little guy (instead of the grown up seven years he is now), he had a Mother’s Day House.  In his Mother’s Day House, there was a swimming pool and an amusement park where he rode scary roller coasters.  He produced movies in his Mother’s Day House, thrilling, adventurous movies in which he starred, performing deeds of daring do.  He could push a button in his Mother’s Day House, and it would transform into all sorts of glorious things like a giant robot or a space ship, things particularly useful for an alien.  [He still insists he is an alien, one from the planet Pieroid, continuing his long-held fascination with pie. (See my Blog post of August 5, 2010, when he was two:  Pumpkin and The Pie Boy.)]  There was a lot of candy in his Mother’s Day House, but here were no rules and no bedtimes.  The only person allowed to join him was his sister until he realized there was no on to cook for and take care of him.  He then conceded that his mother would be allowed to come  perform those tasks.

 A few years ago, his mother (my daughter) and I began to talk about -- no, not psychiatric help for the boy; he’s charming --but about escaping for a week together, perhaps in the city, perhaps at the shore, perhaps at a dude ranch, you know, wherever.  We acknowledged that a full week was unlikely to happen but thought we might clear a weekend.  We tried date after date, but she had conferences and children’s activities not to mention the actual, time-consuming children.  Steve and I went on vacation.  We had ballet tickets and dinner dates.  The eleven hour travel time between us was daunting.  Even scaling our fantasy back to an overnight began to seem extravagant.

Planning for our getaway, though, became an entertaining game in itself.  We might go to shows and museums.  There would be extensive shopping.  We would go hiking, heck, maybe even horseback riding.  A gourmet dinner would be followed by two, maybe even three drinks and there would be endless talking giggling.  All right, we already talk and giggle pretty endlessly on the phone, but this time we would be doing so in person!

Time passed.  We began to yearningly call our little vacation, our Mother’s Day House, a beautiful but perhaps unachievable dream.  But we are nothing if not tenacious, and, hey, they’d be here for the holidays anyway.  Our men corralled the children, and a couple of weeks after our birthdays, we drove off to the Ritz Carlton hotel, aka our Mother’s Day House.  

While ambitious planning had been exciting, here is our actual agenda.  We:
     had lunch,

     went shopping for an hour, couldn’t find anything, got bored and went back to our hotel,

     took a nap,

     got massages and drank a leisurely cup of tea,

     returned to our room to find a complemetary birthday surprise of a fat piece of chocolate cake and a full bottle of iced champagne,

     walked around the pricey mall in which the hotel is located and gasped and laughed at the prices,

     had dinner including a martini each after which we conceded we couldn’t drink any more,

     went back to the room, ate the cake and packed up the champagne to take home to the men,

     watched two hours of The Big Bang Theory,

     went to sleep in the most amazing Mother's Day House beds.

During  that 24 hours, no one interrupted us, no one needed anything from us, and everyone around us strove to please us.  We didn’t do anything electrifying, but we did exactly as we pleased, and that is the beauty of a Mother’s Day House. 

If you don’t hear from me for a while, you will know that I am in my own Mother’s Day House.  I’ll be on the balcony with a martini in my hand overlooking a pastoral landscape on Planet Pieroid, or I’ll step out one of the back doors onto a raft and head down (or is it up?) a windy river, shooting rapids through exotic canyon land. Possibly I’ll be having a candlelight dinner with my husband at a place very much like the Inn at Little Washington where the chef will create amazing dishes just for us, or I’ll actually finish the red and white queen-sized quilt.  Yeah, that WILL be in my Mother’s Day House! 

And I hope, friend, that you find a beautiful Mother’s Day House of your own and that sometimes it becomes real.  

How She Does It (Tracy Falbe finds time to write)

Some time ago (how long? I don't remember.  Time is a human construct anyway.) I wrote about the obsession of writing.  I believe the words "I have to write or my head will explode" were used.  I'm not alone.  Tracy Falbe has the same obsession.  She is the mother of two and yet still finds -- needs to find -- the time to write.  She is author of the Rys Rising series and shares with how she does it.



Rys Rising: Book I is the first novel I wrote after becoming a mother in 2004. I finally published it on August 1, 2011. It's been a bumpy road, but I'm still a novelist even after having kids.

I wrote four novels before I started a family. I had lots of time to myself then. I would go to my job all day and then every evening devote one to two hours to writing. Oh, those were the days!

When I had my first child, I was deeply worried about how I would continue to write novels. For the first few months I did not write at all, which was very hurtful to me. Not being able to make time for what I loved to do most left me empty and resentful.

This situation could not continue. I had a whole new fantasy series in my head and I needed to start writing it. I can't just live my life without writing novels!

So I began small by spending 20 to 30 minutes in the morning before work with some writing. Then despite my exhaustion, I wrote two or three evenings a week after putting the baby to bed. Rys Rising: Book I was starting to emerge, and I was so relieved to see that I could write despite motherhood and all its attendant burdens.

But then progress starting slipping with the birth of my second child in 2006. Having two children seems to quadruple a mother's workload instead of just doubling it. Also at this point in order to make some money I took on freelance writing work. For about the next year I had to give up fiction writing to focus on clients. Adjusting those priorities was difficult, but at least I was writing.

Then I reached a point in late 2007 when I was able to focus solely on my fiction writing and my publishing business. My writing really took off then, and Rys Rising: Book I came together nicely and I was quite happy with it. I immediately dove into writing the second book and then the third. Right now I am halfway through writing the fourth novel of the series. I plan to have them all published over the course of the next twelve months.

Being a novelist always requires carving out time from your schedule no matter what the demands of your life are. Despite having the normal responsibilities that any mother has to deal with, I have remained devoted to my writing. When those kids go to bed at night, I start writing. During the day, especially when they are at school, I write. Life still always tries to get in the way of my writing, but because I insist that writing be part of my life I get the life I want and need.

About Rys Rising: Book I
An outlaw rises to become a dreaded warlord, the terror of kings. He takes the name Amar and seeks to join the Kez, the fiercest mercenary society in the tribal kingdoms of Gyhwen. His fearless ambition is inspired by Onja, a mysterious rys female whose magic has shaped Amar into a loyal friend. He zealously pursues her every command and hopes to join her in her mythic homeland of Jingten. But he knows little about the challenges confronting Onja. She and all rys are the reviled creations of the tabre of Nufal, and Onja longs to expel her hated masters. To liberate the rys, she knows that she will need more than Amar's help. Onja sees her best hope for an ally in Dacian, a prodigy among rys, but he is loyal to the ruling tabre order and dreams of winning equality for the rys nonviolently. He holds tenaciously to his ideals even as the tabre brutally subjugate him. Will he endure more dark abuses for the sake of peace or reach out to Onja? And what fate is Amar blindly embracing as he kills for her? Like a tree crashing in a storm, all civilizations will crack when hit by the force of the rys rising.

Rys Rising: Book I is available for free worldwide at my website. I invite readers to download it. http://www.falbepublishing.com/braveluck/free-fantasy-ebook-rys-rising.html

It is also available for 99 cents at:

Kindle US http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FYSSSC Kindle UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005FYSSSC

Kindle Germany https://www.amazon.de/dp/B005FYSSSC

Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/79722

It will soon be appearing at other major ebook retailers.