A Day Full Of Ideas

This has been a day full of ideas and interesting conversations.

There was an interesting side conversation taking place at Agent Obscura's place today. It started out as a discussion about the definition of YA and capturing the voice. I could really relate to the topic of being young and feeling young ... and not feeling old enough to have kids.

I remember when we were first married and I would take my little niece with me to run errands on the weekends. People thought she was my daughter, and I was so embarrassed. Not because she was a bad kid. Because there was no way I could possibly be old enough to be her mom. Yes, I was quite old enough then. I was 31 when I had my first child, and I still felt too young to be a mom. Anyway, good stuff over there about what it takes to capture the young adult voice.

Meg Cabot was on a roll today too. I could have written that post today. She is embarking on a task that I recently completed--going through boxes of precious memories from her youth. There's a reason I threw away so much junk this time around. She seems to have experienced it too. Great insight about the tattoo. Gotta stop by there today, if it's not one of your regular reads.

Thank you to Anastasia and Susan for their book recommendations. I'll add those to my list. I have Kitten's First Full Moon. Would you believe I haven't read it yet? I was looking at my book shelves today and realized we have A LOT of books we haven't read. I was pleasantly surprised that our library system had a large number of the books I wanted. Frightening--they provided my PIN number over the phone without asking for any identifying information.

We went to story time in the park today. The girls preferred this to listening inside the library, but it was pretty hard to hear. The best part--the deer that crept behind the trees as story time was finishing up. We had a frog join us in the pool yesterday and a bunny in our front yard at breakfast. I'm pretty sure there's a story there!

We spent the rest of the day at the mall. HUGE deals at JCPenney and The Disney Store. I think everything I bought was 1/2 price today! I also learned that I need a little bra education. I saw lots of those cute prairie tops and camisole tops...no clue how to cover myself up with those, so I bought a more professional version of those tops. Very cute!

Anastasia's Yahoo Group had a flurry of great emails today regarding trends in Graphic Novels. I wish I could draw. It sounds like so much fun! Shari Lyle-Soffe posted a great piece about taking one's muse on vacation (and jotting quick notes in a notebook along the way) as a source of ideas. Another person responded saying she takes photos of interesting things that might spark a piece. I loved both of those ideas. We are photo people. My daughter, A, has a super eye for the unique and captures things from an interesting perspective.

Keep those PB suggestions coming!