Mermaid Mania -- Robin

Yes, I have Mermaid Mania. It’s getting a little out of control, really. I’ll tell you what happened. It’s a sweet story about three very good friends. It’s also a story about me being a dork.

A few days ago, I needed help. My agent and I decided it would be best if I switched gears for a while and revisited the young adult novel I’d been working on. We decided on a deadline to revise the novel, after which I would happily get back to my middle grade book. It sounded like a reasonable idea.

But my YA has been sitting in a drawer (I think that sounds more interesting than “in an electronic file on my laptop”) and I haven’t looked at it in almost a year. When I did, I realized…I needed help.

Enter the Mermaids. We held an emergency meeting at our favorite coffee shop and problem-solved my novel for almost three hours. We added storylines, took out storylines, changed family dynamics, and strengthened the characters’ motivations. We also drank a lot of coffee and made a lot of crude attempts at humor. I’ll never look at the paintings in that coffee shop the same way again.

Later that night, we all e-mailed each other to say thank you and to summarize what we’d learned (in a Doogie Howser sort of way). My husband rolled his eyes and told me to go to bed. But when I put on my pajamas, I didn’t realize that I had put on my Disco Mermaid t-shirt (the one with the Don Tate designed logo…I love that shirt!).

I started to change into another shirt, but my husband told me not to take it off…that he’s come to accept that this is who I am. A dork.

(Hey! He married me! Now who’s the dork? Eh?)

- Robin


Bonus Post:
I saw the best bumper sticker today. It said…

Wag More
Bark Less