All right... Before we get to the good stuff, I just have to say how much I despise Halloween. I don't think I would hate it so much if Americans actually took other holidays as seriously as they do Halloween. But they don't. So why do we have to celebrate spookiness? Why give it the same space in stores as Christmas which represents the Savior of the world coming to "SAVE THE WORLD!" Or Yom Kippur, the day Jewish people turn from their sins and cleanse themselves for a new beginning. That's something to acknowledge. Thanksgiving? We give thanks to Almighty God for allowing us to have fellowship with the native Americans who could have just as easily killed us but instead allowed us to live in sweet harmony with freedom to worship. That's cool. 

But ghosts and goblins?

Feel free to disagree with me -- because God gave us this great country in which we can disagree -- which is awesome!

But I still say it's a materialistic holiday. I would much rather go door to door collecting money for the men, women, and children who are being terrorized in Darfur.

Yours -- for better or for worse,

Megan Elizabeth

Ahhhh!

I figured out how to edit and delete posts. So now for those juicy bits I spoke of earlier!

Hmmmm... This will require some thought. Catcha later...

The Elusive Yes...

The problem with taking people's advice is that they are limited to their own personal experience when they give it. I mean, THEY think it's good advice because based on their limited life experience, it appears to them to be the best thing you should do. But someone else's life experience might lead them to advise me differently. Then what should I do? For example, I was told to move into this amazing fixer-upper home in a fantastic part of town. I was told that the house would be worth sooooo much more than we were paying that we could borrow against the equity to fix up the house. I said, "Our income doesn't support that high a payment." I was told, "That doesn't matter because they base it on the house's value, not your income." Two problems with that sentence -- both of them pronouns. "They" means the mortgage companies, those illustrious folks who just got their hands slapped for handing out too much money to people like us whose income didn't support their loans and who are now defaulting on said loans. "It" is more elusive to define. They base "it" on the house's value -- that must mean the loan, right? Or maybe they base your "qualifying" for the loan on the home's new value? Either way, the elusive "they" have based the elusive "it" on our elusive income, (Can someone please hear me say I told you so?), and we still don't have our loan. Our fixer-upper is not finished. But I think we may be!

So say a prayer for those crazy Hoyts who always leap before they look. This time the "Uh-oh!" may just do us in. Funny how my mind works. When I wrote "do us in," this vision of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady trying to make small talk about her auntie who was "done in" by someone flew into my head. Much more pleasant to think of Audrey Hepburn at a time like this. 

Yours -- for richer or for poorer,

Holly Go Lightly

(alias -- or alien or judging by how I feel today, maybe I'm that girl Sigourney Weaver found in the cave whose body was being used as an incubator by those many-tendriled creatures from outer space and who, when she finally was found by Sigourney Weaver could only manage to whisper, "kill me!" -- Megan Elizabeth)

Okay, seriously irritating...

I forgot to put a question mark at the end of my first sentence in my last entry. And I can't figure out how to go back and edit it once it's been posted. I feel like that elderly woman in the old commercial. "I've fallen, and I can't get up!"

Wow, I am really loving this...

So do I actually have to tell anyone this blog exists. I mean, I could totally expose my deepest longings onto the computer screen and be the only one to see them. Something about the idea of seeing my life in print is comforting to me. And yet, knowing that you all might eventually find it before I figure out how to edit the juicy bits is a scary thought.

Writing, writing, writing...

I have started about ten manuscripts -- no, wait -- more than that. I have started 10 midgrade novels, one young adult novel that will probably never make it to print because I would blush every time I read excerpts from it, and a certain select group of people just might sue me, although they would never win because everything I said would be absolutely, 100% true, so help me God! I've written seven picture book manuscripts, several of which were so bad that I blush in shame (What is it with me and blushing!?) at the thought that I once submitted one of them to an editor in its present, deplorable condition and another to a writing friend from write4kids.com who has been published 50 times over and who very delicately and kindly rebuked me for ever thinking it was ready for submission (I do mean kindly. When I laid it aside for a few months and reread what I sent her... well, again... blushing!).

Embarrassment aside, I AM satisfied with my flourishing freelance career. It seems I am much better at writing marketing materials, web copy, direct mail appeals, and magazine articles than I am at writing children's books. So if you ever find yourself in need of a solid marketing campaign or something equally left-brained, I am your man (woman, child, puppy dog, martian... whatever!)

Now let's see if I can get a photo or two uploaded...

Yours -- in sickness and in health,

Megan Elizabeth