Okay, Now it Really is National Tooth Fairy Day

February 28th is National Tooth Fairy Day. Although according to some, it may also be August 22nd. What a lucky fairy. She gets two national days! I still think, though, she should have her own month (see my post from February 3rd).

I'm way past the tooth-shedding stage, but I can still remember getting a quarter under my pillow when I lost a tooth. Just last week in the dental office where I work, a little boy told me he'd gotten ten dollars under his pillow. Ten dollars! It seems inflation has even hit "mythical" characters. How do they make ends meet? Poor things. They don't get paid for their services, yet have to somehow come up with the necessary funds for gap-toothed little kids. Guess I'm lucky I get paid for cleaning those teeth before they fall out.

So be kind to fairies. They have feelings too. Just because you don't see them, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Not Your Average Interview

Click on the link below to read my answers to Marianne Arkin's funny questions :)

http://reading-writing.blogspot.com/2010/02/welcome-to-ruth-j-hartman.html

We Are Lazy, Yes We Are!

All right, so I'm including myself in that statement. Some days, my writing takes a nap. And it's not always a refreshing, positive thing. Yes, I may be sitting a my laptop, but instead of writing, I'm checking Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and several other sites. Not that any of these are wrong. In fact, I've come to believe they are all positive, helpful sites when used properly. But I often get caught up in them for too long at one time. My writing time is squandered. and there's only so much of it to go around, you know? I'm thinking it's time for me to enforce an ugly word: schedule. The time has come. No more laziness! (Well, at least not as much.) Let me try again: Not as much laziness! There now doesn't that feel better?

If I Were a Salmon Windsock

What do you write about when you don't know what to write about? This is one of the perplexing questions writers face every so often. You're stuck, stalled, dry. Nothing is happening on your laptop because nothing new is flashing across your brain. In my case, some of that may be due to looking out my window and seeing more of what we've been seeing for weeks now. Snow. And on top of that...snow. The world looks bleak and devoid of color.

However, there is one item outside my window that is colorful. I brought home a pink and green salmon-shaped windsock from my trip to Alaska last summer. He gleefully floats in the breeze on mild days, and thwacks my picture window with ice-covered streamers on cold ones. Mr. Salmon sees all. He keeps one large fishy eye on the finches at the feeder to his right, while staring at me through my picture window with his other eye. As I watched him, my strange imagination took over. Besides the birds outside, and the people/cats inside, what does he see? How can a fishy piece of polyester help me get unstuck from my current work-in-progress romance novel?

As I pictured Mr. Salmon floating from a high pole in my fictional love story aboard a yacht, I tried to focus on occurrences from his viewpoint. What does he hear? The breeze? Ocean birds squawking? Does he see the secret glances the hero and heroine slide one another when they think they're hidden? Obviously in my story, the windsock won't have a voice, literal or otherwise, but just imaging him on the yacht, taking in the scenery and listening to the interactions of my characters, my mind felt freed and refreshed.

Next time you're stuck in a writing rut, just be a windsock for a day.

June is National Tooth Fairy Month (not really...)

The tentative date for the release of "Pillow Talk" is set for June 2010. Between now and then, I've got a lot of work to do promoting and planning for the final product. But it will be a joy to do!

I know the title of this blog is a little silly (but then, so am I), but honestly, who would a person contact to suggest a new National Month? I mean, we've got National Dental Health Month, and National Dental Hygiene Month. But what about the tooth fairies? Don't they deserve respect? Don't they deserve a least a month's worth of recognition? They spend their nights sneaking up on little kids in their beds, hoping they won't wake up, only to be ignored by the general population as figments of their imaginations. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be considered anyone's figment. Of anything!

So the next time your little one is about to exfoliate a tooth, have a heart. Give a shout out to your friendly neighborhood tooth fairy!!!