Category Archives: movies

An Autism Literary Journey

Posted on by authorcarriecox

It’s no secret that my oldest child is on the autism spectrum (check out posts under the “Autism” category) but this summer we passed a milestone: a READING benchmark.

Call me a bad parent, but one of my only questions for the neurologist who “helped” diagnosis my son with PDD-NOS was “Will he ever learn to read?”  My sweet son didn’t sit still long enough for me to read more than a page or two of a picture book—he was more interested in lining up his video cassettes.

Thankfully, he did learn to read and in the past year he’s been reading for pleasure. Every night, he’d read aloud to himself from The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter or the Curious George cannon. Over and over. I was happy to see him reading, and had to brush tears from my cheeks the first few times I caught his little brother and sister huddled around him in bed after lights out to listen to the stories, but I didn’t want him stimming on the same stories.

When his fourteenth birthday approached this July, I decided to formerly introduce him to my bookshelves which he passed dozens of times a day. I pointed out a section of middle grade novels and let him pick one of the E.B. White books since he was familiar with the characters from their movie reincarnations. He went through Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan the first week. He plowed through the complete Bunnicula series by James Howe and several Newbery books like Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Shiloh, The Whipping Boy, and Sarah, Plain and Tall. He even read Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.

SIXTY books in two months! I gave him a journal when he began his novel reading journey and in it he draws the cover of each book he completes. Now, I need to go back to the bookstore and buy another journal.

I’ve always had a major children’s book collection happening but last week I started fearing for my home library. He’d moved from the lower middle grade novel—typically for 7-10 year olds—bookshelves to my personal favorites—the ten and up category.

So, we began this week with a trip to our local library branch like a good homeschool family. Usually, my guy would only look at the DVDs and a book or two if pressed. This time, I showed him the children’s fiction section and he started putting Roald Dahl and Beverly Cleary books in our bag. I’m majorly excited but a little sad that he’s got dibs on Lair & Spy by Rebecca Stead before me.

Of Books, Movies and Music

Posted on by authorcarriecox
Haven’t done much writing lately, but my WIP, Corroded, is over 38000 words now—131 double spaced pages. It only took a couple years to get to where I am, but I’m here! To think I used to push out complete drafts of novels (200-300 pages) in less than a year—but that was B.C. Before Children. That’s still slow to some people’s standards, but I will say that I was a full time student at the time. Now I’m a mommy working over-time, every day.
The books I’ve been reading the past few weeks:

The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart
Very funny, with a few vavoom moments. I received an ARC of it last year, and have loaned it out, but finally got to reading it myself. Enjoyed it. Makes me want to venture into more “adult books”, but oh, I’m missing my kid/YA lit. Especially since my next read was another adult book. (I’m almost finished!)

All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg
Rick Bragg spoke at one of the local library branches the beginning of the month. I usually don’t seek out writer events when I’m not familiar with their works, but everyone in my critique group raved about him. So glad I went! And, obviously, his wit and charm made me want to read one of his books.
Two books in as many weeks: you can tell I’m reading out of my comfort zone! To compensate, I’ve been watching more movies than usual—thanks to my parents’ Netflix account and a stash of movies I’m borrowing from my oldest sister.

Juno Enjoyed it more than I expected to. Very witty dialog.

The Last Song I’ve never seen more than a minute or so of Miss Cyrus in action before this movie. I was slightly impressed. The thing that bothered me the most was her speaking voice. Sounds like an older DJ’s voice–bit on the smoker’s side. Odd.

Alex and Emma
I enjoy plots with a story within a story, and when writers are involved it’s an added bonus. My favorite example of this is the book/movie Holes–brilliant.
And while I was on the classic name kick, I tried out the newest BBC version of
Emma

I do love the Paltrow version—much more glorious to the eyes than the old BBC version—but this one stole my heart. Or was it Mr. Knightly? No, it was Emma! The actress looked so familiar, and her mannerisms reminded me of Drew Barrymore in Ever After (LOVE IT!) I waited until after seeing the whole mini-series to check what other movies she’s been in, and by golly, she’s been in several movies I adore.
Viewing Emma in all her glory led me to want to watch this modernized version.

Clueless
I forgot how funny this movie is. And “my bad” is used. I wonder if that is the earliest use of it in the media… The dialog is hilarious and the clothing snazzy.

And as if my brain wasn’t fed—all though most might be considered junk food—enough, I’ve been listening to my iPod as much as possible, which isn’t a whole lot. Mainly it’s in the car since I can’t plug my ears while watching the kids, though it does sound like a lovely idea. I’m borrowing one of those cassette tape adapters, with the tape that goes into the car stereo that has a wire hanging out of it to plug into the iPod. Yes, my car as a cassette player! It’s a 1996, a year older than our original car which we had to replace last summer. But it only has 60K miles on it and has leather seats and power windows, a big step up from the ol’ Neon.
Back to the iPod… I love listening to it on shuffle. From the time I was a teenager, I used to want a jukebox so I could put all my CDs into it and let them play randomly. So, I’m loving the portable jukebox. The 8GB doesn’t hold all my music, but a decent percentage of it. My musical taste is eclectic. I know what I like and it’s spans to genres.
Example of what pops up if you are fortunate enough to ride in my vehicle: Chesney Hawkes, Midlake, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, Tyketto, Tchaikovsky, Ottmar Liebert, Firehouse, Patsy Cline, Joey Tempest, Diamond Rio, Mitch Malloy, Martina McBride, Rainbow, Dee-Lite, Alice in Wonderland (animated soundtrack), Sibelius, and REO Speedwagon.
Can you beat that? Do you even know who half those singers/groups/composers are?

The Dreaded Year-end Blog

Posted on by authorcarriecox
Or shall we call it “The New Beginnings Blog”? Yes, that’s much better. See, barely a year older and already wiser.
Speaking of birthdays, here’s a picture of my most awesome gift.

I’d get frustrated with it but it’s too much fun. Whoever created this is an evil genius.

Since I changed my New Year’s resolutions into birthday goals, I pulled out the dusty list and decided what was mastered, what needed continual coverage, and what had to be ditched. Here’s the latest line-up.
For my “physical” goal, I dumped the “get below ___” and have set in place actual monthly mile goals, as well as how many times a month, to chart my exercise. Life is too short to live by numbers, whether it’s counting calories or trying to get those last five (or twenty, or more…) pounds off before you can feel totally happy with yourself. Just give me jeans that don’t create a muffin-top effect and a shirt that doesn’t make me look six months pregnant and I feel great. But I must admit, it’s getting harder to find those clothes…
“Mental” was difficult to keep (no snide remarks, please!)—reading one non-fiction book a month. Some months I read more than one and other months I was lucky to keep up with my scripture studies and my few magazine/newsletter subscriptions (which are non-fiction). So, I’m keeping it simple: Keep learning!
“Spiritual” is a keeper. I still need to improve the quality of my prayers. It’s just too easy to whisper a quick “thank you” and snuggle into bed at night. Or keep hitting snooze until all the kids are running around and I forget to start the day on my knees.
For the “emotional” aspect of life I’ve broadened my goal to include more things but removed the actual time constraints. So, instead of completing an emotional inventory once a month (I only got around to doing two this past year) I’ll “keep track of my emotional state by regular (how’s that for a cop out?) journal keeping, testing, and meditation.” In case you were wondering, I do the Beck Depression Inventory and Burns Anxiety Inventory tests to track my ups and downs, as suggested by a great counselor many years ago. But that’s another entry…
“Social”: I totally suck with all things social. I’m keeping my dinky goal of having one date with my husband a month because I really need to work on spending quality time with my man. And I’m too much of a wallflower to attempt weekly/monthly social gatherings.
I think “Family” is the only goal I excelled at. We are in the habit of weekly Family Home Evenings so I’m upping the goal to have daily devotionals. Just a mini something, beyond the reading of a verse or two of scriptures before bed I already do with the kids. I’ll be homeschooling my oldest next school year (yet another future entry) so the daily devotionals would work well into a schooling schedule.
“Financial” is tough. Didn’t meet the goal but I’m thinking positively and increasing—actually decreasing—the numbers. Oh, those pesky numbers again! Didn’t I just write something about life being too short to live by numbers. Might need to rethink this one…
I came close to meeting my “professional” goal. I wanted to complete the first draft—I’m about two-thirds of the way through—of Corroded, my WIP (work in progress). My new goal is to have Corroded polished in time for the 2011 submission deadline for the Delacorte contest. Hopefully the publishing company will keep that contest going, but if not, I’ll look for an agent or submit elsewhere. Delacorte offers a yearly prize for the best contemporary teen book for a first time novelist. The winner is published with an advance as the prize money. Since that goal will actually extend beyond my next birthday—submission is in the fall—I’ve also added to begin my historical fiction novel, which I’ve been researching/thinking/planning/etc on for the past couple years. Plus, I will be open to submitting short pieces for publication or contests when the opportunities arise, but I don’t want to add in a goal for those. Less stress.
Feel free to urge me along with these goals. Keep me on task by asking me how something is going. I do much better at staying focused when I have someone checking on me. That’s why my BFF (Blog Free February) was so successful—I felt I had to answer to Laurie Halse Anderson.
On to other things…
I’ve read several interesting books in the past month.
The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry kept me as interested in the story as The Lace Reader, her first book. It always helps when Hawthorne references are thrown in but the mental issues driving the story were well crafted by themselves. The fact that I visited Salem two years ago makes her books that much easier to visualize while reading. Brunonia’s books are two out of maybe six “adult” fiction books I’ve read in the past year or more. They aren’t squeaky clean, so reader beware.
From the local library I borrowed The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction by James Alexander Thom. His actual novels are now on my to read list. The book is a great source of information and easily digested. I even read it before bed several times instead of my usual fluffy reading.

Speaking of fluff, my last nighttime read was the type of novel I’d usually skip. But since I was lucky enough to get an advanced reader’s copy (which I also got for The Map of True Places) I tried it out. One of those upper class high school novels… it’s called She’s So Dead to Us, written by Kieran Scott. It’s better than I expected—stayed up three nights in a row, way past my usual lights out, to read. But even though the ending was more of a beginning (sequel/series in the works, I’m sure) it’s not something I’ll seek out again.
Tonight I’ll start When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead because Newbery winners seldom disappoint. Another library selection.
A few other things of interest that happened in April:

I saw my first 3-D movie since Captain Eoo at Disneyland in the mid 1980s. Alice in Wonderland was great! The technology and the story were a great match. I loved the older Alice and how the movie started and ended. Still not my favorite Johnny Depp performance, though. That goes to Benny and Joon.

Took a day trip to New Orleans to spend a few hours with my awesome cousin who was down south from out west on business. We hadn’t seen each other since a reunion in 1994, I think it was. I’d have to check the cow shirt to be sure…
The family spent “A Day Out with Thomas” one rainy Saturday afternoon. The kids LOVED all the trains, especially the ride on Thomas the Tank Engine, even though he was terribly SLOW.
Spent a dozen collective hours at the Little League park.
And all the kids went to the dentist for cleanings, the youngest for the first time. We’ll be dealing with a cavity-filling appointment in the future. Gag.

No, they aren’t that bad on the little princess’s teeth. This pictures makes me feel a little better, though.
Wow! It looks like I need to return to blogging more often. This blog is huge!

New Year, Better Me

Posted on by authorcarriecox
I skipped last week. And I don’t want to muddle through any hum-drum excuses or anything. (Cough. Cough.)
All the blogs I read have posts wrapping up the blogger’s 2009 thoughts so I figured I’ll actually go along with a trend.
I’ve enjoyed a year of raising kids and appreciating the differences between boys and girls, now that I finally have a girl.
Read lots of books, as usual. Too many to name, but Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson was the most haunting. I’ll try to start mentioning what I’m reading with each post.
Writing—yes!!! I joined the local Writer’s Guild and was honored in being extended a spot in a small critique group.
I actually went to the movie theater TWICE. Of course both movies were for books (in two different series) I enjoy. Can you guess which ones?
I’ve improved my health and am sticking with regular exercise.
My life-list for bird watching is now at seventy-six species I’ve identified.
I’ve been able to complete numerous knitting projects and feel like I might be ready to advance to more varied patterns.
My husband and I celebrated thirteen years together a few weeks ago.
And… a bunch of other things. You can go back and read my previous posts if you really want to know more.
Love and best wishes for a productive 2010 to all—especially to Katherine Paterson as she takes over the position as the National Ambassador for Children’s Literature.