Defending My Manuscript

I just read this and loved it.  So I'm quoting it in its entirety:

One of the first things I've had to tell anyone I critique or anyone in any critique group I've ever been in, or when I was working my way through school as a writing tutor, was "Do not defend your manuscript."

Unless you plan to stand over the shoulder of everyone reading your book and explain to them what you meant to write, you'd be better off just writing what you meant to write. I hate it when I tell someone "This isn't working" and she comes back with five minutes explaining to me why it should work, why I'm too stupid to understand the great art she was striving to achieve, and how unenlightened I must be (and, I'd note, everyone else).

In one of my writing classes in college, the professor imposed a "cone of silence" on the person whose story was being critiqued in order to prevent exactly this because while defending, we're not listening.

It was written by Philangelus, as a comment in response to a posting on a wonderful blog written by a literary agent (which is a wonderful read in its own right.)

Yesterday I had coffee with my friend and critique partner Renee, who had in one hand the latest chapter of my manuscript, and in the other hand a stack of blank paper and a pen.  Turns out she thought my chapter needed work, and of course she was right.  I'm great at writing dialog, and not so great at writing description.  So, scene by scene, she took me through the chapter, making me close my eyes and envision the scene, and then talk to her about what I was seeing, hearing, or smelling.  Then she would make me open my eyes and write it down.

Thanks to Renee's persistence, that chapter is going to be much better.  But I'll bet it took five minutes for her to bulldoze through my defensiveness before I was ready to get down to work.  The funny thing is that at no point during that five minutes did I think she was wrong.  It's just that it's very intimidating to have to face that the chapter that I thought was pretty good needed some serious reworking. 

Then I read the excerpt that I quoted up above.  I think I may try the cone of silence the next time someone is critiquing my story, and make sure I'm really listening.  I'm curious to see whether that works.

More on Writing Love Scenes

I just read an old romance novel, something my friend Gail found in a box in her garage. It was terribly dated, which is another way of saying that it was terrible. But it was also terribly interesting, because of the glimpses it gave into life only a few decades ago.

The hero was mean and rude, and was always complaining. He also had anger-management and control issues. I'm no psychologist, but this guy had some serious, diagnosable problems. I think he was supposed to seem sexy, powerful, masterful, and attractively remote. Yeah, right.

The heroine described herself as "liberated," because she attended college, and had friends who had chosen to sleep with their boyfriends. She had not, of course. Much was made of her innocence. Then she quit college to get married without the slightest hesitation.

In the course of the story, the hero treated the heroine very badly. She reacted by apologizing, and trying to learn to be better at accepting and loving him. Eventually, an improbable set of circumstances led them to get married, despite the fact that neither of them wanted to. And then, on their wedding night, they finally consummated the relationship, in a scene that takes place entirely on a blank line.

I was incredulous. The only sex in the book was implied. The ideals for male and female behavior have clearly changed in three decades. But so, apparently, has the appetite for sex scenes in romance novels. The characters were on the bed. They kissed. Then he parted her robe. Then there was a blank line. And then it was morning. They woke up happy. They kissed a little. Then there was a blank line. Then they ate a late breakfast.

I was so envious. It would be so easy to write a sex scene if the only thing I had to do was press the Enter key twice. It almost made me wish I were back in that decade. Not really.

On Writing Love Scenes

Well, the writing is going well, which is a good thing. I've hit my stride with the novel I'm working on, and I've been steadily producing. But it means that sooner, rather than later, I'm going to have to write a sex scene. (Actually, we romance authors prefer to call them 'love scenes.') And that is terrifying.

My friend Shelly gave me a book called The Joy of Writing Sex. It's a wonderful read.  The author interviewed a whole lot of authors of literary fiction to find out their approaches to writing sex scenes. One of the questions she asked was how they dealt with the thought of critics while they wrote, particularly critics that they know, such as their grandmothers, or parents, or lovers.

One author responded that he didn't produce most of his best work until after his parents died.  Another said she asked her parents not to read one of her books. She said that her father agreed, but her mother didn't.  But her mother did agree never to speak of it.  Another said that his mother was devoutly religious, and offended by explicit sex scenes, but very supportive of him.  She read his books, but when it looked like a sex scene was approaching, she just skipped ahead. 

Another author said that you can't think about the reader when you write the scenes.  You just have to write the scenes, and worry about the repercussions later.  He was an English professor who wrote a book with a particularly graphic love scene.  One day a student approached him to tell him how much she loved the book.  His first horrified thought was, "Oh my God!  She read that scene!"

My parents have sometimes been compared to Ward and June Cleaver, wonderful parents, but not people you'd easily imagine sitting down with for a frank talk about sex.  But my mother cleared the air right away.  She's excited that I'm writing a book, and she's very supportive.  She told me, "I know your book will have to have sex scenes, so go ahead and write them.  But just make sure that when the book is done, if you took those scenes out, you would still have a good story."   And you know, it really does help not to have to worry about my parents.  Now I only have to worry about the rest of the world.

I Am An Embarrassment to My Daughter (Part 1 of Thousands)

My daughter had to take a reading comprehension test at school.  She had read the book three times.  My husband and I had quizzed her on the content, and she had it down cold.  She needed to let her teacher know when she was ready to take the test, go to the library to use the computer, and take it. 

Days passed.  She didn't take the test.  She was worried she wouldn't do well.  She was worried she wouldn't remember how to log in.  She was worried that she wouldn't know what was expected of her, or how to do it.  She was worried, and the worry kept her from doing what she needed to do.

Luckily, I'm able to mortify her, already.  (She's only seven.  I thought I'd have more time.)

I gave her one more chance.  I told her that if she didn't take the test the next day, I was going to email her teacher, and ask her teacher to make sure that she got her butt down to the library to take the test.

"But you wouldn't really use the word 'butt' if you wrote to my teacher, would you?" she asked, absolutely aghast.

"Oh yes I would," I replied.

And so she took the test, finally, to avoid the horror of my using the word 'butt' with her teacher. 

(She passed.)

Let's Make a Movie!

Summer's over.  But it was a great summer.  Before the end of the school year my daughter rattled off a whole list of things she thought would be fun to do over the summer, and I jotted them down.  Whenever we needed a good idea for a project during the summer, we went back to what turned out to be a kind of summer bucket list. 

We made tie-dyed T-shirts, a pinata, cream-filled cupcakes and jam.  She had a lemonade stand.  We went camping and we went to the beach.  And, we made a movie.

This is the project that had me the most daunted originally - how to make a movie with a seven-year-old.  What's more, it couldn't be just any story - she wanted to do a Scooby-Doo movie.  Those stories tend to be long.  They include a van, a talking dog, and usually a supernatural monster villain who can fly, and who has glowing eyes.  And then luckily, one day my daughter brought home the perfect Scooby-Doo book from the library.  It was an easy-reader book, with only five scenes and four sets.  The villain was a guy who dressed up as a ghost.  It was totally doable.  I felt like a producer who'd found the perfect property.  We were in business.

So, one Saturday we had two dozen people over.  I had prepared the scripts for each scene ahead of time.  Most of them were short enough to fit on one side of a piece of paper, which was about the right length.  I thought I'd make it simple for the kids by highlighting their character's lines on the script, but the kids didn't really understand what a script was initially, or how to follow one, and thought those lines were crossed out.  So there was a little basic training required.  And I made a big grid of names to help me keep track of who played what part in each scene, or did sound effects or camera, so I could make sure to distribute those roles fairly.

Before lunch, one mom read the story out loud to everyone, while I met individually with kids to find out their preferences, for example who was too shy to have lines, and who wanted to operate the camera.  Then I split the kids into four groups to make the props and scenery.  One set of kids made the sign to hang on the Vinny's Pizza restaurant.  Another group made a treasure map.  Another group made a couple of fake pizzas.  And the last group painted big hunks of paper to magnet to someone's car for The Mystery Machine.

We ordered pizzas for lunch.  But before we ate them, we used them in the first scene that we filmed.  The kids practiced a few times, then we filmed it twice, each time with a different kid operating the camera.  The first time we ran the scene and I said "Action," absolutely nothing happened.  Turns out seven-year-olds don't know what that means.  They didn't know not to wander into scenes being filmed when they're not in it.  They didn't know not to walk in front of the camera, or to keep the camera turned on the actors.  But as we figured out what the kids didn't know, we explained it, and the kids did just great.

I had the kids switch off parts between scenes, counting on the costumes to identify the characters.   Most of the scenes were filmed at our house - the kitchen scene in the kitchen, the restaurant scene in our dining room, and the scene in front of the restaurant in front of our house.  Two scenes took place on a spooky road.  So my daughter and I scouted locations earlier in the week, and found an old alley just a block away where we filmed them.

Enough kids like Scooby Doo that we did all right with costumes.  Two girls had Daphne costumes from Halloween.  One dad had been Shaggy, so we used his costume, and one mom had been Velma.  For Freddy, someone brought a blue and white striped polo shirt, and we found a red scarf.  Scooby was tricky.  One little sister had a Scooby costume, but started crying when someone else put it on, and had to be taken home.  Her mom would have left the costume, except that another little girl tugged on my sleeve and told me she had a Scooby costume along.  Turns out it was just a brown shirt and brown pants.  But we did have a T-shirt here that had Scooby's face on it, so we used that as the Scooby costume in some of the scenes.

It took us four hours to make the props and scenery, and to film the five scenes, which is an hour less than I had planned for, and an hour more than the kids really had patience for.  But they stuck it out, did a good job, and had a really great time.  I've finished editing it now, and here are the first couple of scenes.

It Takes Me Back

Yesterday I heard the old Chicago song "Colour My World."  It took me back to the summer after 7th grade.  I was 12 years old, and I had my first slow dance with a boy.

I remember that he was cute, and he was nice, and his name was Patrick (probably.)  I don't remember him talking to me at all before our dance, or even much after it.  We hardly touched at all, dancing an arms length away from each other.  My hands were on his shoulders.  He had a death grip on my waist.  It was the most romantic moment of my life up til then.  And given the sweetness of the memory, I guess it still ranks way up there.

The Birds, But Not the Bees... Yet

It seems like it's when I'm on long drives with my daughter that she asks the tough questions.  I try to give kind of low-key, but also honest and factual, but also age-appropriate answers, because I'm hoping to instill trust.  I'm hoping that she'll always feel like she can come to me with her questions.  The problem is that she does.  And some of them are tough ones.

So tonight, the conversation started with her asking me how old a girl has to be to have a baby.  She guessed 18.  Earlier this summer we'd had our first rudimentary conversation about menstruation.  So I was able to reference that conversation, and to remind her that when that starts, that's how you know your body is ready to be able to make a baby.  But then, in a rudimentary, age-appropriate way of suggesting she not get knocked up as a teenager, I told her that, even though her body will be ready in her teens, most girls wait until they're in their twenties to have babies.

But that raised the question of how they wait.  That one's kind of a stumper, when you're talking to a seven-year-old.  So I said, "Well, first they have to fall in love with someone.  You have to have a daddy and a mommy both, to make a baby."

So then she asked, "Is that because you have to mix the two together somehow?"  And I said yes, dying quietly inside, waiting for the next question, the big one.

And then, in a wonderful, unexpected, miraculous reprieve, my daughter quickly jumped in and said, "Don't tell me about that, though.  I don't want to know."

"No problem," I told her.

Whew.

My Daughter is Gifted

My daughter competed in a talent show at day camp.  She played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a kazoo, and sweetly, naively, hoped she would win.  Thankfully the camp counselors gave little plastic gold medals to all the participants, and so my daughter, unclear on who actually won, was happy.  She's not a talented little girl, at least in the traditional sense.

But she does have more obscure talents.  The girl can talk.  And talk.  And talk.  When she went for a haircut, and chattered on and on through the entire appointment, the hairstylist finally said to her, "I think you woke up with a whole lot of words in your body today."  Even when we shush her in exasperation when we're trying to talk on the phone, for example, or sleep, she can talk and talk about how quiet she is being.  We think talking may be her super power.

And she can contain her puke.  When she got car sick in the rental car on the second day of our vacation, we discovered this talent.  We truly appreciated it.  It was a summer vacation in a hot climate.  She held her puke in her mouth until I was able to get a spare jacket arranged in her lap for her to spew into.  (Having a spare jacket along at all times is actually my super power.)

It may be a reach to say that she is gifted.  But lots of times parents of small children will extrapolate from their children's behavior to future success in some high-gain career.  Shrewd negotiating to get their own way over their parents' objections means children are destined to be lawyers.  Bossing around their little friends means children are destined to be president.  By this reasoning, my child is destined to be a lawyer and the president.  Funny how watching children dance around the house naked, refusing to get dressed, rarely makes parents speculate that their children will grow up to be strippers.  But if it did, our daughter would definitely do that too.  She is clearly destined to be a smooth-talking, puke-holding, exotic dancing president, if she doesn't first become a ballerina, cowgirl, scientist, or professional kazoo player.

Lemonade Stand

Yesterday my daughter and her friend had their first lemonade stand. I'd like to give a shout-out to the people who stopped and bought some lemonade. The kids were absolutely thrilled.

A couple of years ago my friend Kathy informed me that I'm obligated to stop at every lemonade stand I see, now that I'm a parent. I don't think I had ever stopped at one before. Really, who wants an overfilled, lidless plastic cup of tepid Kool-Aid? But, of course she was right.

So yesterday, on my way home from the grocery store in a car filled with melting frozen lemonade, I passed a little lemonade stand a block from my house. And I realized I had to stop, even though I was about to have more lemonade in my house than I knew what to do with. So, I backed up to the stand and bought a cup. The little girl was so thrilled that she actually jumped up and down, shrieking to her little brother, "I sold one! I sold one!" It was kind of wonderful to experience that much joy, and for only twenty-five cents.

So, I went home and helped my daughter and her friend set up their stand, and it was the same thing. It was a hot day, and there wasn't much traffic. In the two hours they sat there, they had only nine customers, and my husband was two of them. But they were thrilled with every sale they made, ecstatic every time a car slowed down. So, thanks to all you people who get it, and who stopped and made my little girl's day.

Two Schedules

Last night my husband and I went out to dinner, and hired a babysitter to stay with our daughter. This was a new babysitter, so I made out a little schedule for the evening so she would know how we do things. It was simple enough:

Eat dinner
Play
Read
Brush teeth and put on pajamas
Bedtime

What I didn't know is that my daughter also anticipated the need for an evening schedule, and made one of her own. When I gave my list to the babysitter, my daughter popped into the room to give the babysitter her list too. Its focus is delightfully different:

Jump rope
Hide and seke
Eat Smartys
Draw picshrs
Play camping
Eat dinner
Play on the cumputer
Wach TV

Looks like I'd missed a few crucial things.

Life's A Beach

We're on vacation in Los Angeles. We've made an itinerary. Going to the beach is on there for the second day. But it's funny how the ocean draws you. We're staying in a hotel in Santa Monica, a few blocks from the beach, and a few blocks from the Third Street Promenade, a trendy shopping and restaurant district where we used to hang out when we were dating. That's where we planned to meander the first afternoon, after we'd checked in. But we wound up walking right past, and on down to the water.

Our daughter immediately shed her shoes and went wading in, which was fine, as long as she didn't get her clothes wet. Then she fell, trying to outrun a wave to shore, and got her bottom wet, which was fine, as long as she didn't get any wetter. Then she sat down in the sand to dig, and got swamped by a wave. She was soaked, head to foot. Then she rolled around in the sand, so she was covered with sand too. And really, what did we expect? And really, what more could we have hoped for? What a great way to spend a beautiful afternoon.

Summer Reading Program

Here's a shout-out to Half Price Books. They have a really cool summer reading program for kids. If a child reads 15 minutes a night every night for a week (at least that's what we tell our daughter, it's really only 5 out of 7 nights required) then at the end of the week, Half Price will give the child a $3 gift card. Kids can do it every week until the end of July.

During the school year, my daughter had to read 10 minutes a night, four nights a week. It was a struggle to get her to do it. We'd wondered how hard the fight would be to keep it going during the summer. Now, she's reading more, and she's really motivated to do it. Way to go Half Price Books!

I Guess I Need a Job

My seven-year-old daughter just handed me a help wanted ad that she tore out of the paper.

Huh.

Day Count: 12

Soul Mates

I just finished reading a good book - Knit in Comfort, by Isabel Sharpe (my new favorite author) - in which there's a group of women who get together periodically to knit. One character always shakes up the group by asking a very personal question that everyone has to answer.

In real life, that character is my friend Holly. Whenever a group of our co-workers get together, she will interrupt the ordinary chitchat at some point, and ask a provocative question. Once it was to share the most useful advice someone gave you before you married. Once it was to tell about a woman in your life who was an important role model and why.

I am lousy at these kinds of questions, and generally wait until close to the end, to give myself time to think of a reasonable answer. But in the meantime, there are funny answers, and poignant answers, and we all wind up being terribly moved, sometimes even teary, and feeling closer to one another by the time we're done. The questions are simple, on the face of it.  But they draw the conversations into new territory, thoughtful territory.  These wind up being the best get-togethers. (Although there is one woman who stopped coming to these parties, because she just hates being put on the spot that way. So there's the down side.)

But it doesn't always work. I just heard this story from my friend Kathy, who came back from a weekend up north. She was sitting around a campfire with her husband and kids and the extended family of some friends of theirs, when an older aunt asked everyone whether they're married to their soulmates. And all those poor souls had to go around the circle, in front of their spouses and kids, and answer the question.

Kathy said that one of the most common answers was "sometimes," which is as close to a safe answer as that question will let you get. That's what her husband answered. Kathy managed to get out of answering at all, which is a skill I would like to learn from her. But then she thought about it more that night and came up with her answer. She said that her husband is like her right arm. Most of the time she doesn't give it much thought at all, although when she thinks about it, she knows it's important. But if she were ever to lose it, she would miss it just terribly.

After close to 20 years of marriage, that's really not a bad way to think of your husband.

Day Count: 11

Writing from the Middle

I've discovered that I like to start writing a story in the middle. I'll start with some compelling, strongly emotional scene. (And that's not a euphemism for love scene.) Then I'll start pushing at the edges of it to figure out what would happen next, or what would happen before this to bring the characters to this scene. Once I start thinking about those things, I start to see the characters more clearly. And then the entire story arc starts to form.

When I've tried to write a story from the beginning, I've gotten bogged down. Too many background details. Too much slogging through introductory stuff to get to the interesting stuff. Of course, that's bad for the reader too. But I'm finding that when I start in the middle, then it's easier to go back and create an interesting beginning.

I was just talking to my friend Gaby, who's an artist, who says she approaches paintings in the same way. I found that interesting, and surprising, because I'd never seen a similarity between writing and painting before.

Day Count: 8

Writing Routine

I'm trying to establish a writing routine.

This morning I read a scene in The Ghost Writer, by Philip Roth, where a character who is a famous author describes his writing routine:

"I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning."

OK, so I don't want that routine.

Writers I admire put in 8 hours days of writing. I don't seem to be able to do that. I goof around for a while before I get started. Then, once I start, I can write about 2500 words in one sitting, or one scene, or about two to three hours. But then I trail off. I have a hard time getting started in another scene on the same day.

The good news is that I've started planning other things I'll get done in a day, so I'm not wasting my non-writing hours staring at the screen wishing I were writing, or screwing around on the Internet. I hope it's like working out, that I'll start to be able to do more in a day as I work at it.

Day Count: 4

Mad at My Husband

I was ticked off at my husband this morning. Turns out it was unjustified. I had set something down, carefully, last night, and it wasn't there this morning. I was annoyed that he had moved it, and annoyed in anticipation of finding it carelessly disturbed, expecting it would take some work to fix it. Typical.

And then I found it someplace else, in the place where I had actually carefully set it down last night, unmoved and undisturbed. And I wondered how often I get irritated with my husband when he hasn't actually done anything irritating. And I wonder how that colors our relationship. Seems like we'd both be happier if I could stop it.

Fairy Party

My daughter lost a tooth on Saturday. Very big stuff when you're seven. But she prefers to keep her teeth, rather than giving them over to the tooth fairy. This is also very big stuff when you're seven. It takes a lot of soul searching to reach this decision. My husband and I helped out by offering to give her a dollar out of our own pockets. We even offered to slip it under her pillow, the way the tooth fairy would have. Although she found it hilarious to try to imagine us trying to pretend to be the tooth fairy, she accepted our offer.

But there is another problem. She doesn't want to hurt the tooth fairy's feelings. So instead of leaving the tooth, she thought maybe she could leave a present for the tooth fairy, maybe a necklace or a bracelet. One thing led do another, and she ended up planning an entire party for the tooth fairy and all of her friends.

So we dragged a little pink and yellow doll house into the living room last night. She set up an array of Polly Pocket ball gowns and shoes for dancing. She set out some troll clothes she thought might be suitable as soccer uniforms, and made a soccer ball out of modeling clay. She set out some small boxes of raisins for refreshments, and filled the little plastic doll house refrigerator with diced up bits of Twizzlers. She made a trampoline out of a plastic bag, and made a sign cautioning that no more than 19 fairies should be on it at a time, for safety's sake. She even set out a little white plastic bin, and marked it as the "potty." She figured that would be especially important if any of the fairies brought children to the party.

This morning she was dazzled to see evidence that the fairies came to her party. Dresses and shoes and soccer uniforms were all moved, apparently discarded where the fairies had left them. The Twizzlers were mostly gone, and a box of raisins had been opened. She checked the potty, but there was no fairy waste, so she's not sure what to make of that. But we were all relieved not to have to clean up any fairy poop.

Naturally, the party isn't over. She has written a sign, letting the fairies know they can come back all week. This time she specifically invited children, and drew their attention to the potty. She is making some fairy-sized dishes, so she can leave some juice for them tonight. So, if you know any fairies, let them know the party is at our house!

Starting to Write a Novel

I've decided to write a romance novel. It's not something I'd ever aspired to. But I went back to school for a couple of years, had a long commute and a couple of very boring classes, and then one day, I realized I had an entire book in my mind.

This actually happened once before, a year ago, and I never did anything about it, and then I forgot the story line. So this time, I decided to see what would happen if I wrote some of it down.

What happened is that I had a wonderful time. What came out on paper was very much like what I had in my head. And then I discovered that I would rather write my schlocky romance novel than finish my school projects. So I set the novel aside for a few months to finish school. But I graduated on Saturday. And now it's time to pick up the book again.

Of course, I lost track of where I was, and the characters aren't so lively in my mind as they once were. I'm hoping it will come back to me once I pick up writing again.

And I have a plan. I went to a conference put on by the Wisconsin chapter of Romance Writers of America. Great conference. And someone told me about a club called the 100 x 100 club. Members commit to writing at least 100 words a day, for 100 days. If you miss a day, you have to start your day count over. Of course, I would rather write several thousand words a day, and I imagine I will. But I can see now the value in not ever missing a day. So here I go.

Day Count: 0

Religious Candid Camera

On the way home from a family party the other day, my daughter was asking me about Jesus. She started out easily enough, asking, "Are there 2 gods? Jesus, and then God the father too?" And I said, "Yes. That's what we believe."

And then she asked, "And Jesus died, but he's supposed to come back again, right?" And I said, yes to that too.

Then she asked, "Wouldn't it be cool if he came back soon?" And so I said, "Yes, that would be really cool."

And then she asked, "If he comes back, can he stay with us?" What could I say? So, of course I said, "Yes." Because really, if Jesus needs a place to crash, we'd be happy to put him up.

Then she asked, "Shouldn't we get a room ready for him?" It started to feel like being on an episode of religious Candid Camera. What was I supposed to say? I remember sermons and bible verses that say we should always be ready for Jesus to show up. I don't want to be quoted as saying no to being ready for Jesus. But on the other hand, I really don't want to give up a room to the possibility. Nor do I want to be quoted as saying that if he would actually show up, he could sleep on the couch.

Instead, in a moment of insight, I said, "I suppose we could. Maybe we can turn your play room into a guest room for Jesus." And that was pretty much the end of that religious discussion.

Just for the record, if Jesus comes to the door, my husband and I would probably let him have our room. I'd even change the sheets.

Tombstone Purchase

In the locker room this morning, I overheard a woman telling a friend that her husband just purchased a tombstone. She was upset, in part, because he didn't consult her about it at all. But it's easy to imagine being upset for all sorts of reasons. Why would he think, after a lifetime together, that he should do it without any input from her? I suppose it also involves considering what will become of his, and her, remains after they die, something they maybe should talk over. And what would prompt a husband to decide, suddenly, that purchasing a tombstone is urgent? And how do you even choose a tombstone - what are the criteria? And how do you know if you got a good one?

Ick.

Honesty

I love the talks I have with my daughter, after her lights go out and before I leave her room.

Tonight she was asking if it is OK sometimes for her to have secrets. I told her that was OK. I realize that she's old enough to start wanting to keep some of her thoughts private. I told her it isn't OK to lie to people, but it is OK not to tell them everything.

Then she pressed the point about lying. She argued that sometimes it's OK to lie, or at least to stretch the truth. I agreed, that it's OK to stretch the truth, or even to lie a little bit, but only when it's to protect someone's feelings. She agreed that it's OK in that situation, but also to protect unicorns. And I had to agree. It's also OK to lie a little to protect unicorns.