Win, win...

October 31st was a big day for me.

It had nothing to do with Halloween, although E made a pretty cute Hermione Granger. She pulled together a school girl outfit with a skirt, tee and sweater, and though she doesn't own Mary Janes, the gold and silver stars on her black ankle boots were fitting enough. And thanks to our neighbors, who tend to do Halloween in a big way and keep a box of costumes in the attic, she had an actual Gryffindor robe, complete with embroidered Hogwarts crest. 

She also had a pretty cool-looking wand, magically fashioned once upon a time of chopstick and hot glue, which her brother had brought home years ago from a Harry-Potter-themed birthday party (at the same neighbors' house). With the magic of Hairstory's Powder and Undressed, it was not at all hard to give her some adorably wild hair, and we have a resulting video of her saying (in a convincingly snooty voice), "It's levi-OH-sa, not levio-SAH. And by the way, you have some dirt on your nose, did you know? Just there."

But more important to me even than E's glee was the fact that L and I had at (long, long) last completed and submitted his application to NC State. 

THIS IS BIG, PEOPLE. 

The Common App is not for the faint of heart, especially if you homeschool. My hat is off to school counselors everywhere, because in addition to all their normal, daily activities, they eat, sleep and breathe the Common App for their seniors during application season (which really means all the way from August through May). Well, guess what. In addition to all my normal, daily activities, I got to eat, sleep and breathe the Common App for my own senior. The difference between me and actual school counselors, is that they know what they're doing, because they've been eating, etc., all that stuff for (assuredly) multiple kids for (most probably) multiple years.

There is a truly WONDERFUL woman out there, somewhere, who currently gets most of the credit for my beautifully intact sanity. Her name is Lisa Davis (although I'm ashamed to tell you I had to look that up, just now, never mind that I've been referencing her site almost daily for the past 8 weeks), and she has a blog called "Fearless Homeschoolers," which is an absolute treasure trove of information about the Common App and the college application process. If you homeschool, you need this info. Don't wait until your oldest is a rising senior, go check it out! Fortunately, I have been keeping detailed course descriptions for Liam's entire high school curriculum, but I still had to do a lot of tweaking and polishing. If I had "met" Lisa Davis a few years ago, this process would have been much more efficient.

L has applied Early Action to the NC State College of Engineering. He is "Aerospace Intended," but one of the things he loves about NCSU is that their required E101 course compels you to get a good working knowledge of all the different engineering disciplines, so you can be sure you're on the right path before you commit. Some fairly high percentage of "intended" freshmen end up changing their minds, thanks to the departmental workshops.

So. L worked his rear off to get his application neatly polished, and I worked mine off to get all the necessary school counselor stuff neatly polished, and we are both relieved that it's over. 

But I have even greater cause for celebration, because D has finally finished my book! 

His time is limited, and diving into an ongoing project with a draft in a constant state of flux seemed pretty daunting; so though he was highly supportive and very interested, he had never actually read any of it. 

Things worked out perfectly, because I was able to hand him the complete Revision 3. I was fairly confident, by that point, that I had told the story about as well as I could possibly tell it, and I had cut out a lot of unnecessary parts to reduce word count. So for all practical purposes, he got to experience it as a finished book (though he's an excellent copy editor, and he found all kinds of typos for me). 

His response: He loved it, and it was highly satisfying, and he wouldn't change a thing. 

Actually, thanks to a conversation we had when he was about 2/3 through it, I put back in a deleted scene. Sadly, this took the word count back above 300k words, but D agreed that what the scene added was worth it to the reader.

My dad said it is one of the best written books he's ever read. Yeah, he's my dad, but he's also a thinker who values good writing, and he's not going to compliment the book just because I'm his progeny. In fact, like Lizzy in Pride and Prejudice, his "good opinion is rarely bestowed and therefore more worth the earning." I think he gives it about an 8 or 9 out of 10. He didn't officially rate it; what he did was tell me what it would take for him to make it a 10. I get why he wants what he wants, but I don't think there's realistically a way to give it to him. In fact, both L and D agree that it's better the way it is, and it's ok for that particular aspect to be left only partially explained. 

So. I think know it's time to get a content editor to review it. Because all my readers so far have loved it, but all my readers so far know me quite well. An editor who is coming at it from the point of view of readers who don't care two figs about me as a person and simply want a good book is necessarily going to bring a different perspective.

I'm looking into that.

Oh, and my author website is live (www.kittrzebunia.com)! 😃

Also, so is L's (www.liamtrzebunia.com), and it dwarfs mine the way the scope and grandeur of his novel dwarfs my own. That is as it should be, no doubt. Aren't your kids supposed to be smarter and more creative than you, and go farther, and make a bigger splash in life?