Main | Introducing me...by Michelle »

August 20, 2004

Introducing... Lani

Lani, writing from the very glamorous closet...

Okay. The basics on me. As of this writing, I'm 33, with all the cynicism of a fifty-year-old single mom and all the emotional maturity of an 18-year-old boy. Makes life very interesting for my husband and kids.

I grew up in a small town in New York's Hudson Valley. Went to Syracuse University to study television and film because... well, I like TV and movies. After SU, I went to Alaska to hurl fish for a summer because... well, I went to SU. I was broke. And I heard there was a lot of money in fish.

FYI - no real money in fish.

Not for me, anyway. I did, however, meet the man who would become my husband there, so yay me. I'll tell ya, you wanna know if a man really loves you, attract him when you haven't showered and you're covered with lil' bits of fishy. I still have no idea what he was thinking, but hey. Gift horse, mouth, ain't looking.

Then I moved to Tucson. Worked as a convenience store clerk, a nanny, did the cannery thing again (what can I say? I'm not a fast learner) and was a pyrotechnician for a short but glorious stint at Old Tucson Studios. That was possibly the most fun I've ever had professionally, with the exception of the moment a buddy and I escaped into the Mission to have a smoke, only to be notified by the very cranky Pyro Tech In Charge that just behind us was a wheelbarrow filled with 40 pounds of black powder. Bright side, we didn't go boom.

Again, yay for me.

After that, I went back to Syracuse (had a few more pesky credits to finish before technically graduating) and supervised the post-production lab while I got my final credits all sewn up. That was loads of fun. I especially enjoyed the broadcast journalism students, mostly because they identified themselves as BJ students and, well... see above re: emotional maturity of an 18-year-old boy.

Then, back to Tucson to marry my true love, henceforth to be referenced as The Fish Guy, sometimes Fish for short. (I'll be paying for that, I'm sure. "'The Fish Guy?' You can't call me the 'Goes All Night Guy' or the 'Man Who Made My Life Worth Living Guy'?") We have two lovely girls, ages 5 and almost-3 as of this writing, and whom I will refer to, respectively, as Sweetness and Light. Because all mothers, no matter how rotten their children are, always see their most wonderful qualities.

That, and I have a thing for irony.

After producing Sweetness but before having Light, we moved to Alaska. This time, no occupational fish associations. I worked in local TV doing promotions and producing commercials for insane people who somehow managed to get their businesses off the ground, and Fish worked in computers giving technical support to insane people who were incapable of wrapping their minds around the concept of user error. Together we spawned Light (as you know, it takes two) and graduated from fairly competent parents who Only Had One Child to the haggard, exhausted, cranky and sex-deprived dregs of humanity we are today.

While in Alaska, I wrote the original draft of TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR - my October release from Warner - in 25 days as part of the Nanowrimo experience. Nanowrimo = National Novel Writing Month, in which participants have the 30 days of November to write an entire frickin' novel. It's insane, but it worked. Whereas all my previous attempts at fiction died out at Chapter Five, Nano taught me the most essential lession in writing: Even if it's crap, write it anyways. Turns out, you can go back and edit crap, but a blank page will always just be a blank page.

Who knew? I mean, aside from everybody who's not me?

Not long after selling TIME OFF to Warner, Fish, Sweetness, Light and I returned to Syracuse. Many people ask me why Central New York? Didn't I get enough of the snow and ice and general grayness when I was here the first time?

My answer: Apparently not.

So now I'm still waiting for TIME OFF to release, so that I can graduate from this awkward yes-I'm-published-no-you-can't-buy-my-book-yet stage to the full-fledged hey-I'm-published-why-isn't-anyone-buying-my-book stage. We're at about T-minus six weeks as of this writing. If you want to, while you're waiting, you could go buy my book. Because, you know, Sweetness and Light? Not getting any cheaper.

So that pretty much brings you up to date on me. If you've read through this whole thing - hey, good for you. But now you owe me. You know all about me, and I know nothing about you. Totally unfair. So head to the forum, if you would, find the Lani section, and introduce yourself. I'll have Lani's Five Questions (ripped off from Craig Kilborn because I have no shame) posted to get you started talking about yourself, since I know firsthand how painful it can be. But I managed to get all this out, and all you have to do is answer the Five Questions. You're totally getting off easy.

Much love,

Lani

Posted by Lani at 9:53 AM