First published in 1979, Field’s book has been translated into 22 languages and is used in more than 400 colleges and universities across the United States. After reading an updated version, I could see why:  it is as comprehensive as a textbook.  I found I could only read one chapter at a time—any more than that and I stopped absorbing information.

While I read, I realized that though the form of storytelling changes from novel, to short story, to play, to screenplay, the principles of storytelling do not. Each form needs a protagonist (main character) with a problem (conflict) who goes about solving it (action), or at least dies trying (resolution). As Field repeats at several points throughout the text, “All drama is conflict. Without conflict, you have no action; without action, you have no character; without character, you have no story; and without story, you have no screenplay.”

Just like in publishing, Field explains industry standards for sending unsolicited submissions. He discusses not only the process of writing, rewriting, and collaboration, but also the practical issues of trying to sell your script once it’s written: from getting agents, to proper script format, to registering copyright (in the US).

My conclusion? I’m intimidated by this medium. Syd Field describes a screenplay as “a story told with pictures, in dialogue and description, and placed within the context of dramatic structure.”  After reading the book, I believe it will be much harder to master than I originally anticipated, though he insists, “it will probably be uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier.”

Hmm.  Uncomfortable? I bet! It’s one thing to enjoy movies, memorize your favourite dialogue, and analyze story structure from your armchair. It’s quite another to come up with an original idea yourself, and carry such a complex visual process through to completion.

I was also astonished that the likelihood of an unknown writer selling a screenplay is even lower than when trying to sell a novel. Movies cost significantly more than books to produce , and production companies can’t afford to bet on a loser.  (Especially in these days of movie piracy…they can’t even bet on making some of their investment back on DVD sales anymore.) He says, “Last year, more than 75,000 screenplays were registered at the Writers Guild of America, West and East. Do you know how many movies the studios and independent production companies made last year? Not that many: between 400 and 500.”

Still, I think it’s an exciting writing form and I’m going to try my hand at it—you know, a 10 minute short to start. Maybe I’ll convert the same story to a stage play just to compare the two genres.

As a writer, I need to remember why I do what I do. Do I write simply because I like doing it? Because I want to grow as a writer? Because I love the satisfaction of conquering those blank pages staring back at me, and carrying a project to completion?

These reasons must be my primary reward. If I’m writing for any other reason (like money or success or the approval of my peers), I’ll want to give up every time I get a rejection letter. And believe me, I often do.

So, this morning I got up and asked myself, “Am I a writer, or aren’t I?”

And then I got to work.

I began a series of blog posts last winter focused on the dire situation in my bedroom. (See “The best laid plans,” November 16, 2009.) I began using a local organizing company’s “Organizing the Bedroom” DVD (www.organizingconnection.com). Their six-step process was a supposed to help me transform “cluttered nightmares into sweet dreams.”  We got through steps one to four okay, but got stuck on five, “The Re-organization.”

It was a question of funding. Closet organizing systems were way out of our budget. We had figured a cost of about $350 per closet for a wood veneer, mid-quality closet system. And in the end, we didn’t feel these modular systems would fill the spatial potential of our closets anyway.

Custom cabinetry was the only solution, but we found that prospect even more expensive.

So we did nothing for five months. In that time, we still maintained our purge fairly well.

Suddenly, this July, my husband took four days out of his vacation to transform each closet using a table saw he got for Christmas. Christmas 2001, that is. It was left unopened until this project. We spent roughly $420 on plywood and materials to complete two closets and new built-in shelving for my home office.  We also replaced the overhead light fixture and installed a dimmer.

Each closet system is composed of one long shelf, six inches from the ceiling, four shelves below on the left, each one 20 inches deep, and two short rods stacked on the right.  We filled cracks and holes and covered the old, depressing mint green walls with primer and white paint. I didn’t bother to smooth the new second-grade plywood cubbies with putty and paint, although it would improve their looks…maybe before I sell the place.

Instead of a large, bulky dresser, the wall between our two closets is now taken up with built in shelving and a longer desk, fashioned from an old dining room table. My husband split the wood top in half with a skil saw and fastened it to the wall studs. We added a keyboard tray and fit a two-drawer filing cabinet underneath. Then, I painted the table legs and shelving to match the molding.

A few loose ends:

۰We need some art on the walls and a DVD caddy for that pile of movies overflowing in the basket.

۰A flat screen TV on the wall would be nice, rather than a clunky 27-inch desk model.

۰A second computer in the dining room for our children’s use would alleviate the computer “traffic” in our bedroom.

The Verdict?

۰I’m amazed at the power of vertical space. Our new closets hold everything we need, without seeming overstuffed. All of our clothes sit in attractive boxes on our shelves. There’s a place for everything.

۰The room feels large again, like when I saw it empty the day we moved in.

۰I feel like I’m sleeping in the den, rather than having an office in my bedroom.

۰There’s a place for everything. The room seems divided into zones. A place to work, a place to sleep, a place to relax.

۰I’m less stressed through the day. The room used to be as cluttered as my mind…now, I actually like to sit and work at the new desk, wrought from our old table. I’m happy we were able to recycle this piece of furniture rather than leaving it to languish in the basement.

۰I can walk all the way around the bed. This is of great importance when changing linens!

۰Though my husband is not a trained carpenter, I’m pleased and impressed with his completion of such an ambitious project. Perhaps it isn’t quite as pretty as it would be if we had the money to hire a professional and use higher quality materials, but finish boards and paint cover a multitude of sins. Long live the do-it-yourselfer!

My review of Organizing Connection’s “Organizing the Bedroom” DVD

I have indeed traded my cluttered nightmare for sweet dreams, but it wasn’t an easy transition. This venture requires intestinal fortitude, imagination, and a few bucks.

Purging your closet is one thing, imagining a real renovation is something else. I think the DVD and worksheets do a good job of taking you step by step through the process of deciding what you don’t need, cleaning it out, and organizing the stuff you keep.

There’s no fairy godmother of motivation, though. It’s easy to get stalled mid-way through if you are (or you’re married to) a packrat. I wonder how many people recognize the need for marriage counseling at this point in the process?

I appreciated the worksheets, and the recommendations for children’s bedrooms and general tips. These are ideas I will be sure to use as my kids grow and change.

But in this situation, we needed to visualize a lot more than a clean closet. We needed our room to function in three important ways without feeling cluttered. Step number one (“The Dream”) is a tall order if you’re a person who’s not very visual. Some people aren’t. They can’t really tell you what they want. They only know what they want when they see it. If you’re that kind of a person, then it might be worth paying for a professional consultation before you strike out on your own.

On the other hand, if you do know your own mind, and you’re prepared to do the work, I give this DVD a buy.

With Jenny guiding us, I and a group of 12 other actors, writers and playwrights with various levels of experience spent most of the day developing characters on paper, creating dialogue together, and then sharing our work.

Just like any other artistic endeavour, creative writing can be a relaxing tool and a powerful outlet for personal expression. No matter what we spend most of our time doing, it’s beneficial to flex our creative muscles.

So I thought I would share one of Jenny’s writing exercises on character development with you, using what I came up with as an example. Try it! You might find yourself developing a new hobby.

Step 1

Hunt through magazines and other periodicals and choose a photo of one or more people who capture your eye. They could be old or young, oddly dressed or conservative. (One of the participants at Jenny’s workshop chose a photo of a man standing in front of a picture window on a sunny day, staring inside the house.  Did I mention he was buck naked? As Anne of Green Gables says, there’s a whole lot of “scope for the imagination” there…so choose a challenging picture! )

Being someone who enjoys writing for young adults and middle graders, I chose a photo of a teenage girl and a slightly older boy. She had dark, super-curly hair, was dressed in preppy clothes and had a sweet, innocent expression. The taller boy looked quite different. His expression was cool and aloof, and he struck me as a potential trouble-maker.

So, I set about imagining a back story for these two.  Are they brother and sister? Is she obedient and dependable, while he’s a bit more unpredictable…maybe worse?

Step 2

Now that you have your photo, set a timer and write for 15 minutes about your character in the third person.  Here’s my example.

Monica is 15 years old, a grade nine student. She’ll turn 16 before she makes it to grade 10. (Age is very important to her.) She’s a straight A student and plays soccer with the community league for her age group in the summer. She likes basketball more than soccer, but she’s only 5’1”.  Monica is sensitive about her height. Her older brother teases her about it. She was pretty good at gymnastics, too. Her compact frame is suited to somersaults and balance beams.

Monica is sweet and a good rule follower. She is motivated to do everything well—not like the flashy cheerleaders, not a flirt, not a pot-smoking rebel, just an industrious girl with her head down, doing what’s expected.

Sort of invisible, in her own way. Good in school, good at sports, gets along with others, murmurs “please” and ‘thank you,” holds the door for people, even teachers.

She babysits for the next-door neighbor, who gave her 50 bucks to watch the kids on New Year’s Eve. She dresses well but not designer—frugal like her mother, she’s not opposed to diving in the dusty bins of second-stores for a bargain. She knows how to obey, how to please, which sets her parents free to concern themselves with her older brother, Seth, who does not know how to obey and doesn’t care about pleasing anybody.

Monica worries about him. He’s two years older, secretive. She’s caught him in lies occasionally when asked about where he’s been or what he’s been doing.

Pens Down!

Step 3

Now, set your timer for 15 minutes and write about this character in the second person. Here’s what I wrote for Monica:

You are 15 years old and you are so mature for your age. You’re the kind of girl who does everything well all the time, so much so that people just expect it, just take it for granted that no matter what’s going on you will be there.

You are always the one standing behind the table, organizing, representing, helping, serving. You are always dependable. You are on time, you work hard, you’re an A student, you scored the winning goal in the last soccer match, probably because you knew everyone on the team would be so disappointed if you didn’t. You are always there to hold the door for people, murmur a “please” and “thank you,” be a friend to the new kid on the block who’s lost. You sit with the unpopular girl in the cafeteria at lunchtime.

You’re the type of daughter two parents are lucky to have. And you also wish so desperately that they would say, “Thank you, Monica,” for cleaning up after your older brother. “Thank you, Monica,” for helping your little sister with her homework every night. “Thank you, Monica,” for making dinner while they were at the police station; “Thank you, Monica,” for doing the laundry and the dishes while they were out hunting for Seth every day for a whole week…but thank you never comes.

You know they don’t mean it, you know they’re doing the best they can with a bad situation, but you just feel, well, invisible.

You sometimes wonder, if you left home, just dropped everything and left it all behind, would they even notice?

Pens Down!

Step 4

Now, set your timer for another 15 minutes and write about your character in first person.  Once again, here’s my example:

Yesterday, here’s how my day went.  At six am, I got up and walked the dog. The dog my older brother Seth wanted so badly six years ago and never once fed, bathed, played with or took for a walk. I don’t think Seth even came home last night, which means my mother will be beside herself when she gets up and my father will rant about throwing him out again.

So, at 15, my first profession is dog walker. I don’t even like dogs. Seth named him Bailey, after the street we live on. Six-fifteen: five-minute shower, get dressed, stuff some toast in my mouth and then run down to the basement. I had to throw another load of laundry in because Mom forgot to do it last night. I think she was searching Seth’s room for drugs. I dunno for sure, cause I was in my bedroom with the music turned up really loud, studying for an English exam, hoping that all the other noises would just go away.

Seven am, finished writing up a science lab, and headed off to school where I had two tests and a speech before lunch. Student council meeting at lunch, science and gym in the afternoon and soccer tryouts after school. Then home to an empty house, except for the living room. There was Seth, passed out on the couch. Mom and Dad were still at work, and the dog is sleeping faithfully at his feet.

That’s the ultimate insult. Seth doesn’t do a damn thing for you, dog, yet he’s the one you like?

Yeah, thanks. I guess I’m invisible. I’ll just go to my room and disappear.

Pens Down!

Interesting exercise, huh? Did you notice your character change and develop? What I noticed is that the third and second person compositions gave information other people observe about Monica…what she does and what she says.  But in first person, we saw what Monica really thinks and feels on the inside: she was resentful, stressed, and angry, tired of always picking up the slack and not being appreciated.

This plays out later when Jenny asked us to write a scene using our own character in dialogue with another participant’s character. You could do the same if you write two or more character sketches.

Monica was paired up with a character named  Jean,  written by fellow participant  Kathy Mac. Jean is a stubborn old woman with ill-fitting dentures and dyed hair. Her property straddles the border between Canada and the US, but has no intention of moving from her family homestead. Instead, she drinks mint juleps with her neighbor and as a recent widow, plans to purge a lifetime of junk from her house. In this exercise, our job was to interpret not only our own character, but the other character as well.

Here’s the short scene I imagined for them:

Monica knocks at the front door, Jean answers, and her eyebrows knit together.

Monica: Hello?

Jean: Hello, can I help you?

Monica: Um, can I use the phone?

Jean: You’re not from around here.

Monica: No.

Jean: Yeah, I haven’t seen you around here before.

Monica: No, I’m from…away.

Jean: Huh.

Monica: Well, can I use the phone?

Jean: (clicks her dentures, they’re uncomfortable) Yeah, I guess so…if it works. I’ve been arguing about the bill.

Monica: (tries the phone) It’s dead.

Jean: Figures. Highway robbery. I said I wasn’t going to pay the bill til they fixed their mistake. Well, sit down, girl.

Monica: (stays standing). Do you have a cel phone?

Jean: A cel phone? Why would I have something like that? I don’t like to talk that much.

Monica: Funny, I wouldn’t have thought that.

Jean: Well, I like to talk, but not on the phone. If you want to talk to me, come and see me. That’s what I tell my kids, anyway. And do you see them here? No. Figures. What’s your name, kid? Sit down, for God’s sake.

Monica: (sits down on the edge of a dusty rose chair) Monica.

Jean: Nice to meet you Monica. I’m Jean. Well, it’s my middle name, my first name’s Margaret, but I like Jean. So how old are you?

Monica: I’m 15. I’ll be sixteen by next month.

Jean: Ah…I have a daughter-in-law named Monika. Well, not anymore. She divorced my son.

Silence for a minute.

Jean: So what are you doing here? You don’t live in Woodstock.

Monica: No, I’m from Halifax.

Jean: Kinda young to be travelling all alone, ain’t ya? D’ya want some tea? We drink tea here in the middle of the afternoon.

Monica: No, I don’t like tea. My mother drinks it, it calms her down. But I think it tastes bitter.

Jean: How about a mint julep, then? Me and the neighbor drink barrels of it.

Monica: Okay, I’ve never had one.

(Jean gets up and serves her a mint julep and sits down across from her.)

Jean: So, your mother’s nervous, is she?

Monica: She has good reason to be. My older brother is a drug addict. She’s-she’s confused.

Jean: Zat why you ran away?

(Monica looks up, eyebrows raised)

Jean: Well, why else would you show up at my door, dearie, in the middle of nowhere? What were you going to do, sneak into the US? Nothin’ there but cutthroat politics and cheap fast food.

Monica: (begins to cry) I can’t take it anymore! For the first time in my life, I failed a test. I figured if I left it on the kitchen table, somebody might notice me, might complain. Maybe somebody would say, “Monica, what’s going on? What’s the problem? You’ve never failed a test before.” But nobody did. They took Seth to detox for the fifth time. I signed my mother’s name on my own test, brought it to school, and then I realized…nobody notices you in my house unless you’re a drug addict.

The point of these exercises is not to come away with a perfect piece of writing, but to show how to develop characters. The more you spend time with them, the more they interact with others, the more they change. Whether you’re interested in writing for pleasure or for work, learning to observe others and imagine their reactions placed in a variety of situations can only improve your skills. Good luck, and have fun!

When the time came, I easily let go of the 80’s blender hair, leg-warmers and the Madonna off-the-shoulder sweater, but I couldn’t let go of MW. It’s been with me through college and job searches, my first “real” job and all the ones that followed. It faithfully served me through freelancing at home and the abuses of three young children. The red cover was the first to tear off.

Now, it’s yellowed and has that musty-aged smell. The dog-eared pages, including the explanatory notes at the front of the book, keep ripping away. It starts at page nine, now. The “population of places in the United States,” S through Z (that’s pronounced zed, by the way, as in King Lear: “You are a zed! An unnecessary letter!”), on page 841 is hanging by a thread, too. MW split open between pages 262 and 263: fast/fatuity on the left, and fatuous/feather on the right. It’s ironic that page 263 also carries the word fealty (n, pl -ties: loyalty, allegiance).

I suppose it’s a sign.  My old dictionary is hopelessly behind the times, a little like myself. It doesn’t list words like “Facebook” and it doesn’t offer the option of using the word “text” or “Google” as a verb (i.e., “I’ll Google it and then text you the information”).  There’s no mention of phone service alongside the adjective “cellular.” But, at least it had the decency to list both Canadian and American spellings as correct.

So, what should I buy to replace it? I’m willing to entertain recommendations from my writer friends. A new dictionary won’t be as warm and comforting a pal as MW has been over the years and I doubt it will have the same feel. It won’t trigger the same memories.  The pen marks dragged across the top edge, for example, the result of one particularly boring political science class.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s just a dictionary!

But I don’t think I can bring myself to throw it out. It would be like throwing out the memory of who I was then. Maybe I’ll just put it on the bookshelf and let it collect dust for awhile, until I decide who I am now.

While giving the couple’s bored 13-year-old son a guided tour of my beloved salt-water beach, I was stung by a jellyfish, a plentiful resident of the Northumberland Strait. As I scraped away the tentacles and rubbed my burning leg, “Junior” convinced me that the offender was actually a poisonous Portuguese Man o’ War.  I didn’t know that the Man o’ War is very large and a telltale blue color. The purplish-red jellyfish I normally saw were tiny by comparison. In fact, the Man o’ War only finds its way as far north as the south shore of Nova Scotia on rare occasions, thanks to the Atlantic Gulf Stream.

Nevertheless, my mother slipped Junior an irritated look when I bolted into the cottage and told the surprised adults between racking sobs that I had just been stung by the fearsome invertebrate and I was about to die. It took her a few exasperating hours to convince me that the chubby, pimply-faced teen was a big, fat liar.

All weekend, I ran to Mom for protection against Junior’s constant picking, teasing and lying, but she did her best to remain carefully upbeat in front of his oblivious parents. My gullibility and paranoia never failed to delight Junior and frustrate my mother. We spent Saturday afternoon digging a bucket of soft-shell clams to steam and eat at dinner time with melted garlic butter. But it became impossible for me to chew and swallow as Junior gleefully described the contents of the little mollusks, with their lumpy gray intestines and tough, shiny black heads.  I’ve never been able to eat clams, oysters or mussels since, a great heresy to seafood-loving Maritimers.

When they finally left on Sunday evening, Mom’s delighted relief proved the old adage, “all visitors bring happiness—some by coming, some by going.” My father was never allowed to invite them back, and more than 30 years later, I still steer clear of jellyfish. You just never know.

It’s a buttery-popcorn night at my house when I can watch the angst arising from shallow relationships and wicked step-sister plots transform into joyful self-awareness and dream-fulfillment.

This includes Good Ugly Girl landing the object of her affection, Handsome Boy. He usually has the happy task of dumping Snotty Mean Girl after he realizes he’s an alpha male who wants a richer, more thoughtful relationship.

The actress is never really ugly, by the way. To quote the timeless wisdom of character Helen Morehouse on The Simpsons, “I wanted Mary Ann on ‘Gilligan’s Island’ ugly, not Cornelius on ‘Planet of the Apes’ ugly. TV ugly, not … ugly-ugly….”

In every feel-good movie, Good Ugly Girl becomes The Swan. She sheds the paunchy clothes and the bad hairdo, exposing the shining beauty we always knew was underneath. She overcomes, she succeeds.  She extends a hand of friendship to Snotty Mean Girl, who generally rejects it and ends up with pimples.

There’s a reason people relate to this story. I doubt a single person exists in the world who doesn’t feel insecure about at least one area of her life. (If you’re out there, Totally Secure Person, please let me know. I would love to interview you.)

Recently, I read the testimony of a professional in my industry who I shall call Has It Made.  Has It Made built an enviable resume in journalism despite a lack of education in that field. When investigating the possibility of pursuing a degree later on, a professor of journalism said, “At this point, there’s nothing more we could possibly teach you.”

Has It Made reasoned this was because of natural ability, drive, and a lifetime of experience. Her conclusion was, when it comes to writing, “you either have it or you don’t.”

When I read those words, I felt I had just been blown off by Simon Cowell. Has It Made might as well have said (in a posh British accent), “Shut up and go home. The only place you should be singing is in the shower…and only if you’re all alone.”

I, Good Ugly Girl, had just been slighted by Snotty Mean Girl/Simon Cowell. And she didn’t even know it.

Is this person right? Are all areas of creative endeavour like singing—you   either have “it” or you don’t? Is there no range of ability between tone deaf and Celine Dion? Painting, writing, acting, music…do all these artistic pursuits depend solely on talent?

I hope not. Over the years, I’ve heard many instructors say in writing workshops, courses and seminars: “Keep writing, keep submitting, and someday you’ll succeed.” If they were lying, I’ve been wasting my time.

I’ve come to realize that natural talent does make the journey easier. People like Has It Made will always be with us, but our perception of their rise to the top may not be accurate. If you ask them, they might say they’ve struggled, too. However I perceive them, it’s not an excuse for me to stop trying. The real battle is won through hard work and the determination not to give up.

Snotty Mean Girl has often whispered in my ear, “Get outta here, kid…you ain’t got no future.” When I was 15, her voice was so familiar I thought it was my own, and I listened. Today, when I hear her speak, I choose to blow her off. How about you?

The Giant Monster (TGM) is a set of bunk beds we purchased eight years ago for our two daughters. The bottom is separate from the top bunk and it boasts a large lighted desk, generous shelving and a set of five drawers (it’s in excellent condition, if you’re interested).

Lately my teen daughter’s feet have begun to dangle off the end, and we decided it was time to spring for some new beds.

My husband and I were at a big box store last week and spied some Queen-sized mattress sets on sale. A big sale. A sale for suckers. On impulse, we decided to buy two sets, and sell TGM online. Impulses can prove to be  expensive.

We were quite a sight, driving down the road with both sets stacked in precarious fashion on top of a full-sized van. We drove with much fear and trembling and got the mattresses upstairs without too much difficulty.

The box springs, however, were too rigid to bend around the wall of our enclosed stairway. Silly us. We didn’t measure before we made such an impulsive purchase. If we had only bought doubles…

“Oh, well,” we said to one another. “We’ll find a solution later. Let’s just get TGM apart and put it in the basement until we sell it.”

Around 9 pm, I managed to help my husband get the heaviest piece from the second floor to the basement, but not before I felt something pull in my back.

At 4 am, I woke up in excruciating pain, but needed to pee, as all women do in the middle of the night. It hurt so much when I stood up, I passed out. When I passed out, I hit my head. When I hit my head, I triggered a dizzy spell (I have chronic vertigo).

A trip to the emergency room earned me some very effective morphine mixed with muscle relaxant and lots of sympathy, sprinkled with bits of “what in the @!#!* were you thinking?” I have not fully recovered from this incident, but I’m improving, thanks.

But, what to do with the box springs? Should we try and return the sets? The kids were already sleeping on the mattresses and loving them. Should we try ordering queen-sized box springs that come in two pieces? They would be outrageously expensive.

No, we made our beds, so to speak, so now we had to lie in them. One way or another, those box springs were getting upstairs!

“We just need a couple of inches,” we said to each other.

“Maybe if we remove one of the stair treads…?” suggested a recruit.

While I watched from the sidelines with my injured back and my whirling head, my husband took off one wooden stair tread, and then another, then another.

It wasn’t enough. The box spring was wedged in the stairway. I mean, wedged.

“What if we just bang off a little of the plaster on the ceiling?” someone suggested.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

After cracking a big hole in the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and hammering off the corner of the ceiling in two places at the bottom landing, and tearing off each stair tread AND riser, we finally got the box springs upstairs. A week later, we’re still in the process of repairing the drywall, fixing the stairs and painting. But we were committed to the mattresses, by dinghy.

When we sell our house, the buyer inherits a couple of Queen-sized beds.

One thing I’ve noticed during my foray into house improvement is that one project usually spawns another.  When you move stuff, it needs a place to go. The linens and blankets moved from my closet are now piled in a large wooden crate, waiting for a home in a different room. This will require a third closet system, and when those things are purged, sorted and moved, where will I put them?

Since I can’t afford to make the desired changes to my bedroom (and now a second bedroom) all at once, my pet project is turning out to be a long-term patience-builder.

Which brings me to tonight’s activity. The owner of the third bedroom closet is a very messy girl indeed. Unfortunately, she stores items in much the same way as her parents. We decided we could not wait for her to clean up any longer and dove in shortly after dinner while she was at an event.

We viewed the dirty socks, stuffed animals, blankets, pillows, school-books and a hundred other items piled on the floor, and giggled at some of the bits filling up her desk:  a mini-Tinkerbell fairy with one wing and no feet; several bits and pieces of broken jewelry,  scattered irritated notes to her older sister complaining of various injustices;  broken crayons and dried-out markers; several dozen half-used scribblers, notebooks and journals (scrawled with the warning, “Do not read! Private!”); tens of tiny containers filled with treasures, including a small square ring box containing…what? A ring? No, silly…two small plastic lion cubs.

As we chatted about how our daughter would feel about us throwing out her stuff, my husband laughed and said, “Well, she’s not here, so she won’t know any better.” When he saw the look I gave him, he pointed at me and said, “No, it’s not the same thing at all.”

I wish I’d used that reasoning when I was cleaning out his closet.

Held in the atrium of a lovely office building, this evening networking opportunity is important to the salespeople who are manning tables set up by local businesses. While they sell their services, there are plates of shrimp, vegetables, cheese and hot dip for members-only to enjoy.

And then there’s me. A nervous first-timer thinking perhaps she should take a deep breath and dive in.  “I really need to get out there and network,” I think, “if I want to sell my writing services to businesses.”

(Frankly, the process of walking up to total strangers, offering my business card and saying, “Hi, I’m Rhonda. I’m a great writer…do you need a great writer? I thought so!” terrifies me. But, my mother used to say, “the only way around is through,”  so I went anyway.)

I arrive a few minutes early, and I ease myself into the process by visiting an empty sponsor table on the far end, manned by a bored girl who looks like she has to be here.

She is friendly and chatty and asks about my background…I mention I’m also a writer of children’s fiction and that I’m seeking a publisher for a novel, and she asks me a few more questions. I’m nervous, and the more I explain, the more I use my hands.

That’s when the unthinkable happens. I sweep my hand to the left, and smack a lovely glass bowl filled with red sparkly decorations on her display table against a brick pillar.  As if in horrible slow motion, I watch the bowl spill its contents to the floor, then smash to smithereens.

It was a very enthusiastic point I was making.

“I’m so sorry! Oh, I’m so clumsy!” I cry. My hands jump to cover my beet-red face, and my peripheral vision picks up the curious looks from people who are just beginning to trickle in. I wonder what they’re thinking? Oh, wait, I know: “Thank God that wasn’t me!”

“Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it all,” she says, attempting to soothe my embarrassment while she hastily cleans up the mess. But of course, it doesn’t. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s looking gauche.

The next time I go play with the grownups, remind me not to talk with my hands.

For those of you who’ve been following my foray into the world of bedroom organization, I thought you may appreciate this short video produced by “Lava Lamp Productions,” (a video production company consisting  of my husband, a hand-held Panasonic video camera, our kids, editing software, and an amazing sense of humour).  My angst-filled blog posts regarding closet purging (specifically,  ‘The Big Fork and Spoon‘) have gained me nothing but my children making fun of me…but at least it’s funny.

…And you’ll be interested (pleased, aghast?) to know The Fork and Spoon have finally found their place on the dining room wall. As Mark Knopfler says, “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.”

By the way, since lamenting the cost of wood laminate closet systems in my last blog a few weeks ago , we measured and drew pictures and measured some more, finally settling on a much cheaper  wire component system. More on that in the New Year, as well as our floor plan. In the meantime, enjoy a wonderful holiday season and my best to you for 2010.