The Devil's Dentist - Part 2

Where Ello finds herself suddenly and surprisingly the recipient of an Unexpected Root Canal.

Previously, I had posted on my last painful experience at the evil dentist's office. To read part 1 click here.

Having vowed never to go back to the dentist ever again, or at least until next year, it was with great dismay that I noticed a nagging, throbbing pain emanating from my right bottom back molar. I ignored it, brushing and flossing my teeth extra diligently in an attempt to appease the dental gods. All to no avail, the throbbing continued - going so far as to not only be sensitive to hot and cold, but to sweet also. When my tooth hurt from taking a bite of a piece of chocolate, I knew I had fallen into one of Dante's Circles of Hell. I had no choice. I cannot survive without chocolate, I knew I had to go the the Dev, er, Dentist.

The first thing he did was give me an x-ray. I don't understand why even taking a stinking x-ray is so terribly painful. They stick a large rectangular piece of plastic in my mouth lengthwise and insist I close my mouth. This always drives me crazy. I feel like a crocodile in some bugs bunny cartoon with a stick holding my mouth wide open as I try desperately to close my jaws together, all the while the stick is digging into the soft tissue of my poor mouth. It takes several drooly attempts before he is finally able to take a picture.

"I have good news and bad news," he announced.

"Tell me the bad news first!" I demanded. I'm all for getting the bad news over with.

He ignored me. "The good news is that you don't have a cavity! But the bad news is I think you need a root canal."

He is smiling as he says this. I am not smiling. I am thinking the pain wasn't that bad. I am thinking I need to just get up and walk out before something bad happens to me. Unfortunately, I cannot move.

"So I think the nerve has died but I need to test this theory out," he said as he began a series of unorthodox tests including a searing hot piece of cotton, a tuning fork and a needle like instrument. I don't know if he is sewing or playing an instrument, but everything he does elicits sharp pangs of agony in my bad tooth. After the fifth time he hammered at my bad tooth with his tuning fork, he announced that the nerves are dead or dying and needs to come out. He then proceeded to announce to his dental technician that he will be performing a root canal immediately.

“Wait a minute,” I pleaded. “let’s talk things over first. I mean do I really need to take care of this situation right now? Right here? At this very second? I mean, can't I have some time to think it over? Give me a couple of days or months or years?”

Dr. Evil smiled down at me. "Can you live with the pain?"

My throbbing tooth said "Listen to him, fool! Before I make you crap your pants!"

I whine like a beaten dog as my tooth sends me a vicious reminder of why I was in hell in the first place.

"I know you," Dr. Evil continued. "You wouldn’t be here unless the pain was intolerable. You and your pansy husband are always ignoring my check up reminders. Last time that wuss was here, he had an abcess that smelled like it had gone bad in 2002. I assume you don't want to develop an abcess, right?"

"It’s only going to get worse so let’s take care of it now," he continued as he pulled out big needles the size of chopsticks and asked me to open wide.

We interrupt this post for a brief scuffle involving my dentist, the dental technician and my lockjaw.

After holding my nose and prying open my mouth, he injected the first chopstick full of medicine into my gumline as I shouted "Unhhhhh, ungggggggg, unhhhhhhhhhh, ga ga ga, unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, ne ne ne neeeeeeh, Unnnnnnng!" Which meant, "Oh God why have you forsaken me?" or "I hate you you miserable piece of dog excrement."

As he got ready with the second needle, I panicked and began to wail that I didn't want to do this anymore. Reaching behind me, he pulled out the laughing gas and placed it over my nose and let me breathe deeply until I began to calm down. When the nitrous oxide began to make me a little lightheaded, he asked me if I wanted the second shot now.

"No," I said. "Why would I want that?"

"Because your jaw is not completely numb yet and when I cut into the roots of your tooth to pull out the nerves you will feel it. It will hurt."

Having previously deciphered his sick code, I know that when he says:

It doesn't hurt he means It's gonna really hurt.
It might hurt means You are going to cry.
It will hurt means The pain is so bad it will give you diarrhea, possibly in your pants. This is why the chair is covered in plastic.

So he asked me again if I want the second shot. And he smiled. Again. He is always so smiley. Such a nice, smiley guy. I am not smiling. I am so far from smiling that he actually stopped smiling and looked a little nervous. After all, this is laughing gas. I should be guffawing like a demented hyena. And then I realized he wanted me to ask him for the shot. Me, the big chicken ask him for a shot. The irony hits me as I began to laugh. An Ernie laugh - you know like Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street? The one that goes kee heee heee heeee, kee heee heee heeeeeeeeeeee!

"Just give me the #$%&ing D&*% shot already! kee heeee heeeee heeeeeeeeeee!"

I don't remember much after that. I remember numbness, pain, numbness, wetness, the odor of burnt hair, a throbbing in my ear matched only by the throbbing of my head. When it was all done, my mouth refused to close after being held open for 30 minutes with a dental dam. I had to push my jaws together, like a pez dispenser that had a broken spring.

"You did great," he said. "You didn’t cry, you didn’t kick and flail your legs like usual. You didn’t slide down the chair. You were really good today."

“I believe I have soiled myself!” I said.

“No, that’s just your spit from when you missed the suction cup and drooled all over your pants.”

I vaguely remember the drooling, blubbering mouth rinsing mishap that he spoke of. Vaguely.

“Remember this is just the appetizer, the real meal comes next week, when we get to the real meat of the surgery,” he said.

I felt seriously unwell. “Why can’t you lie to me and tell me the worst is over?”

"Cause then you would be mad at me next week when you realized the truth," he replied.

"But I’m mad at you now!!!"

"And this was nothing, wait til we finish off your surgery next week."

“Curse you!”

“Thank you, and here is your bill. Since we are not quite done, you can pay half now and pay half later.”

I looked at the bill and the part of my brain that was still functioning completely shut down. This time, I’m pretty sure I have soiled myself.

Random Funny Things My Kids Say - Part 15

I like corn in my brownies. Hey don't knock it til you try it! Corn is sweet. Brownies are sweet. Corn in brownies are all sweet, with a little chewy. Not that bad. So where can you buy corn brownies? I'm not sure. I only get them in my hungry man fried chicken tv dinners. Yeah, I know the stuff is nasty, but when you are in a hurry and you're hungry the stuff tastes darn good to me! But I have yet to get one where the corn hadn't miraculously mixed into the brownie batter.

So yesterday, I made my tv dinner and set my corn brownie to the side as I ate. Youngest, who is home after lunch, came to watch me eat, eyeing my brownie.

"Can I have your brownie?" she asked.

"No, you just ate 2 cookies, remember? This is mine," I replied.

She was quiet for a moment, continuing to stare at the dark brown, corn studded treat.

"You know what it looks like?" she asked with a grin.

I stopped her immediately. "Don't say it! I don't want to hear it!" I am no dummy. I know where this is headed.

She was silent, but continued to grin slyly up at me. Just as I raised the brownie to my mouth for a big bite, she attacked.

"It looks like when you eats too much corn on the cob and chocolate cake and then you get a bad tummy ache, like you has diarrhea, and then you poops it all out and your poop is all covered in corn!" she shouted. "That's a corn poo poo brownie!"

I put down my corn poo poo brownie, the urge to eat its sweet chocolately goodness screeching to a shuddering halt.

"Thanks alot!" I glared down at the giggling monster.

"So can I has the corn poo poo brownie?" she asked with an angelic grin.

I shook my head at her as I watched her eat it down in a few bites. After licking off the last of the chocolate off her fingers, she started cracking up furiously.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"I was just thinking," she said as she howled in glee. "Later, when I goes to the bathroom, I'm gonna have a corn poo poo brownie poop!"

Oh the joys of a 4 1/2 year old's potty humor!

Awesome Agent interview over at Cindy's!

Just want everyone to head on over to Cindy's blog for an awesome interview she did with her fabulous literary agent Bill Contardi. Everything I would want to say about him is covered in her post, so the only thing I will add is that I too feel incredibly fortunate to be represented by Bill. Not only is he an excellent agent with a great reputation, but he is a really lovely man whose warm and soothing manner is incredibly calming during stressful times.

And if you are wondering, yes, these are stressful times. Cindy mentioned that she lost weight during her submission period. Well, as you can imagine, this little piggy is having the exact opposite problem. You wouldn't know I'm stressed but for the perpetual chewing motion of my mouth and the matching twitch in my eye. At some point, I might have to put a patch over my eye and pretend to be a pirate. I am hoping and praying for good news before I gain so much weight they will have to cut the side of my house off to forklift me out.

Another Old Korean Tale

When I was 10, my mother told me this interesting old Korean folk tale. Here's how it went:

Once upon a time, there was a poor old hard working widow who had 3 rude, selfish, inconsiderate children. These nasty children never listened to their mother, who worked so hard washing laundry to put food on the table. This was long ago, before washing machines, so the mother would have to take the hanboks down to the river bank. The collars would need to be unstitched and washed and then restitched. She would bang the clothes in the freezing cold water with large stones, wringing them over and over, her back aching as she squatted by the muddy bank. After a hard days work, she would come home to find the house as dirty as when she left it. (At this point, my Mom gave me a very meaningful look. Unfortunately, at the time, I did not understand the meaning.)

Her selfish children would do the opposite of whatever she asked of them. If she said to clean the house, the house would be dirtier. If she asked them to go to the river, they'd go to the hills. If she asked them to go to the village, they would go to the woods. They never listened to her. The old widow worried about what would happen to her children who were so terribly naughty.

One day, the old widow became very ill and knew she did not have long to live. She worried about what would happen to her. After all, her children always did the opposite of what she asked, and she very much wanted to be buried in the mountains next to her husband. So she called her three children to her bedside and she said, "When I die, do not bury me in the mountain next to your father, but throw me into the river."

Then she died. The 3 selfish children began to cry and feel terribly guilty for all the grief they gave their mother while she was alive. For once, they decided, they would do exactly what she wanted. And even though they felt it was not a good idea, the 3 selfish children threw their poor mother's body into the river, where it got eaten by the fish and crabs.

"Blech! That's horrible!" I said. My Mom ignored me and continued with her story.

The 3 selfish children sat by the riverbank weeping and weeping as it began to rain. They finally realized that they had once again done the wrong thing. And as punishment for all their wrongs, they were turned into 3 little green frogs who would forever cry whenever it rained.

"So what is the moral of the story?" My Mom asked.

"The moral of the story is don't be stupid. Like the Mom. Boy was she stupid!" I said.

We now pause for a ten minute penalty break.

After ten minutes of playing "hold the broom over your head or you will get beat with it," we returned to the moral of the story.

"So what is the moral of the story?" My Mom asked again.

I rubbed my sore arms. (Hey a broom may be light, but if you have to hold it with straight arms over your head, keeping the broom absolutely straight for ten minutes, you would be sore too!) Fuming mad, I gave my Mom a nasty glare and muttered, "Stupid frogs..."

We conclude this story with a lively game of chase the sassy kid with a broom while Mom berates the heavens for sending her a naughty frog child.

The moral of the story is never say stupid to a Mom wielding a broom.

Dressing up for Wal-Mart

Copyright by Radiospike_Photography via Flickr.com

Shoot, if she has to dress up for Walmart, what the heck does she wear for Target? Full evening gown and heels? Seriously! I wanna know! Cause I may have been inappropriately dressed whilst shopping at my favorite store. The shame!

I am Severus Snape

I always knew I liked the guy.

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

Funny thing is, no matter how many times I take the Myers Briggs test, or some variation of it like this short one, I always come out INTJ. Fairly high I, mid N, nearly off the chart T, mid J. Aine over at her new blog Life is Beautiful, has been blogging about Myers Briggs, so if you are interested to learn more about this great personality test, please pop over there and tell her Ello sent you. But when you get there, scroll down so you can see where she starts the whole discussion with her part I on personality tests.

Why do I bring this up? Because personalities are so fascinating. As an INTJ, I know that it is my I (introvert) that makes me anti-social. I hate parties. I dislike talking on the phone, I much prefer emails where I can respond at my convenience and can be as short as I need to be. I hate phone calls because I'm always trying to get off in the middle of the other person trying to tell me something really important like "the number you have dialed has been changed, the new number is..." Seriously, what is wrong with people? Can't you see I don't want to talk to you?

My N (intuitive) is what keeps me always looking at the big picture. So when all 3 of the girls start fighting and arguing about who started it, my big picture trait rises to the occasion and I say, "I don't care who started it, I'm ending it right now!" I am notorious for punishing all 3 kids regardless of who was at fault.

My T (thinking) is what keeps me rational and gives me my thick and shiny rhino hide like skin. This skin is what protects me from rejection and coldly analyzes the logic behind any decision. It has no room for emotion. Crying just irritates me. Like yesterday when Angus started crying hysterically and I said, "Stop crying this instant! I told you if you kept burping like that you would throw up! Serves you right."

And my J (judging) is what keeps me organized against the tides of chaos that is my world. No coddling in my house, that's for sure. If my kid says, "I'm tired, can I do my homework later?" I respond. "You can rest for 15 minutes and then do your homework for 30 minutes. Then practice piano for 15 minutes. Then read for 20 minutes. Then finish off your homework for another 30 minutes. And everything must be done before dinner."

But all joking aside, ultimately, the Myers Brigg Personality Preference Indicator only tells us what we prefer. It doesn't measure how well we can adapt to differences. Like for instance, learning empathy for my children's sake. Handling irrational, illogical behavior from Da Man. Rolling with constant scheduling conflicts and changes for the kids. I think being able to adapt to our environment, regardless of our preference type, is the best measure of someone's personality.

A little bit about Korea's Violent History

One of my beta readers asked me why my young adult book has so much violence. Well, the answer really goes straight back into Korea's history. Violence is the backbone of much of its history and resulted in much grief to the Korean people. In the past, Korea had been coveted by many raiding forces, from ancient Chinese dynasties, the Mongols, the Russians and the Japanese. Korean history is filled with tragedy - which explains why so many of Korean films and soap operas tend to be terribly tragic. So I thought a little bit of background into Korea's history might be interesting.

This is an icon of a Korean pavilion drawn by my talented illustrator friend, Virginia Alyn.Below is a picture of a real Korean pavilion - part of the Gyongbok palace in Seoul, Korea.

Images copyright by usag.yongsan available via flickr.com and creative commons

Gyongbok means shining happiness, and the palace was built in 1395 by King Taejo, the first king of the Chosun Dynasty. Taejo was an admiral in the Koryo Army when he marched on the capital and seized power, and crowned himself the new king. Despite the fact that he overthrew the old government in a military coup, he is admired as a revolutionary who saved Korea from encroaching foreign forces (like the Mongols and the Yuan and Ming Dynasties of China) and got rid of an inept and corrupt government. While the MC in my book is also named Taejo, he is not named after this one. In fact there were three King Taejo's in Korean history and my MC is not based on any of them. He is actually based on the great King Gwangeotto of Koguryo, but Gwangeotto was not a name that rolls off the tongue very well so I went with Taejo. Anyway, I digress.

The palace didn't fare as well historically. It was destroyed during the Japanese invasion in 1592 and it wasn't until 1867 that it was restored to its former glory. It then was crime scene for the very public assassination of Queen Min by Japanese soldiers in disguise, who then ransacked the palace. Queen Min was a powerful leader, more so than her weak husband, King Gojong. She was the leading opponent keeping foreign forces from Korea, most specifically Japan. She even promoted stronger ties with Russia in an attempt to block Japanese influence in the government that had begun to spread. The Japanese saw her as one of their largest obstacles to their expansion plans.

In the early morning of October 8th, 1895, sword bearing assassins dressed in "peculiar robes" and under orders by the Japanese Minister to Korea, broke into the Queen's quarters. The palace itself was swarming with Japanese troops, holding the Korean guards back from the assassination that then occurred. The assassins killed three court ladies. Confirming that one of the women was indeed the Queen, they dragged her body into the pine forest in front of the palace's large complex and burned her body and scattered her ashes. Queen Min was only 43.

King Gojong was so overcome by his wife's murder, he went into seclusion for weeks and when he emerged, he signed a treaty with the Japanese, essentially giving them immense power over Korea. But the one thing he would not agree to was the Japanese insistence that Queen Min be stripped of her title and status and lowered to a commoner status. The King was purported to state that he would rather slit his wrists rather than disgrace his wife. It was his one act of defiance, but it came too late. Korea was no longer a free country as the Japanese occupation was only a few years away. The Japanese occupation officially began in 1910, but in reality, they were already usurping power with the Queen's death. The palace itself was majorly destroyed during the occupation with most of the 200 buildings torn down by the Japanese.

Her murder marked a period of cultural genocide, war crimes and horrors that many Koreans can never forget. While the book Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang, brought to the world's attention the horrors that the Japanese army visited on the people of Nanking, not as much world attention has focused on the plight of Korea during the occupation. Over 5 million Koreans were conscripted into the army while millions more were shipped off to Japan to work as slave laborers or comfort women (sex slaves). And even far worse, Koreans were also used as human experimentation for the Japanese army. At the time, the Japanese viewed Koreans as a sub-species of human. Lower than dogs, was what they were taught in school. To the Japanese of the time, Koreans were not human.

The Japanese government tried its best to destroy Korean culture. Japanese was the only language allowed to be spoken and taught in Korea. Anyone found speaking Korean was severely punished, if not killed. All Koreans were forced to give up their Korean names and legally take on Japanese names. Korean cultural landmarks and public monuments were defaced to extoll the virtues of the Japanese Emperor. Korean history book were confiscated and burned. Priceless Korean artifacts were stolen and shipped to Japan. In one of the terrible ironies of war, more than half of Korea's priceless cultural artifacts are not actually in Korea, but are held in Japanese museum and private collections, the victims of the rape of Korea's culture. Tombs of ancient Korean monarchs were plundered and stolen and now can be found in the private collections of Japanese collectors. In recent years, many private collectors have graciously returned some of Korea's heritage back to Korean museums, but still much more remains in Japanese hands as other so called "collectors" have donated their priceless Korean artifacts to Japanese museums.

One other remaining remnant of the Japanese occupation occurs in many maps that one finds even to this day. Look at a map, and you will see that the body of water between Korea and Japan is still referred to as the Sea of Japan. However, its true name is the East Sea. The Sea of Japan was claimed by the Japanese during its occupation period. To allow it to remain on modern day maps continues to be a terrible reminder to Korea of their dark period of foreign occupation. That's why it was so important for me to include in my map of Korea, the true historical name of the East Sea. Perhaps one day, all history books and maps will once again reestablish its true name.

Note - Please know that none of this is meant as Japan bashing but as a discussion of past historical issues only.

My Website is Up!!!

Thanks to Virginia Allyn, the incredibly talented illustrator extraordinaire, who illustrated my beautiful map and icons of the Seven Kingdoms. If you want to see how incredible her work is click here. I love her moon and star painting.

Thanks also to Cindy Pon, my agency sister, who showed me the way to designing a beautiful website. Unfortunately because I am not as tech savvy as she is, it took me a ridiculous number of hours to get my website ready.

So please pop by when you have a moment. www.ellenoh.com

And then click back to my blog and leave me your thoughts, comments, questions, improvements, etc.

Thanks for giving it a look!

An interesting issue

I'm going to have a roll out of my new website in the next day or two, so please watch out for that. In the meantime, I have come up for air enough to generate what I think is a very interesting post. There is a wonderful resource for children's writers and illustrators which is hosted by the marvelous author Verla Kay and is known as the blueboards. If you are writing for children or young adults, this is the site for you.

Recently there was a very interesting discussion on the boards about one of the blueboarders who had what they thought was a terrible experience with a published author they admired. Since specific details of issues raised on the boards should not be discussed off the boards, I will discuss this issue generally and hypothetically. The fan met the author they admired at a conference and went to speak to the author afterwards. Because the fan was excited about their own writing project and because the author writes in the genre the fan is working on their exciting new writing project, the fan in an admiring gush tells the author all about their exciting new project. The fan is then crushed when the author provides a lukewarm response and seems to even question if the fan knows what they are doing. Upset, the fan thinks this was a horrible experience.

I thought this was a great topic to discuss and the posts it generated ranged from "So sorry you had to deal with such a jerk!" to "Perhaps the author was having a bad day." But the one post that stuck in my head was by a multi-published author who said it was not fair on the author to have other writers topics shoved at them. For example, an author is working on a certain specific topic and is pitched the same topic at a conference by an attendee. The author then feels they must scratch that idea so that they are not accused of stealing the idea. I thought, wow, isn't that a sad statement of what our society has come to that we are so litigious that writers might be afraid to work on something in fear of a lawsuit? It reminds me of my OB-GYN, the most wonderful doctor in the whole world who delivered all 3 of my girls and is now no longer delivering babies because he can't afford the insurance coverage due to high litigious that practice area has become. Wow this country needs some serious tort law reform, and fast!

But I digress. This was a very interesting point for me because having worked in productions, I know that most production companies will not accept any unsolicited materials unless it comes with a signed submission release form. I have always been surprised that agents don't use these forms either but let me stay on topic. The submission release form is basically an agreement that a writer signs agreeing that the production company may or may not already have similar ideas in development. It essentially releases the production company from the claim of stealing ideas. However, I have known of cases where less reputable companies have deliberately taken ideas from submitted materials and claimed they had already had these ideas in development.

To give you an idea of what you sign when submitting to production companies, here is the introduction to MTV's submission release form.

MTV NETWORKS POLICY CONCERNING SUBMISSION OF IDEAS AND OTHER MATERIALS

MTV NETWORKS wishes to acquaint all those who have been kind enough to submit
materials, including ideas, proposals, marketing or promotional plans, program formats, literary material, artwork, video and musical compositions, with the problem that faces us in reviewing, investigating, inspecting and evaluating these materials. Much of the material that is now being submitted embodies materials, suggestions or ideas substantially similar or identical to those which have been developed by our staff or which have been submitted by others. Further, we may begin using material similar or identical to yours which we received after the date of your submission. Accordingly, we feel that we can receive and review materials only if it is left up to us to determine whether we have in fact used these ideas and to decide what compensation should be paid in event of use.

Because of this, it is our policy to require the signing of the enclosed release before considering any solicited or unsolicited material, ideas, proposals, marketing or promotional plans, program formats, literary material, videos and musical compositions. (MTV.com)

Now an author can't go around asking people to sign this type of release form before they talk to them about their ideas, but the lawyer part in me thinks that it is a good idea to have a policy NOT to discuss another writer's ideas when approached randomly and publicly. Exceptions of course for friends, families and critique groups. Although recently I heard of an allegation of idea theft which arose within an online critique group so nothing seems to be sacred.

There is a reason why many of the high profile authors have a no manuscript review policy. While an idea is not copyrightable, given the wide access of the internet, an accusation of theft of an idea can be just as damaging to an author even without an accompanying lawsuit. So what can be done about it? I'm not sure. And I'm not saying that the original author was right. How can I without knowing all the specifics? But I am saying that there is alot to think about and worry about. And I can't help but wonder what if the author had a similar project he was working on and was taken aback by the fan's excited discussion of their own project. Who knows what the real story is. But given the fact that individual authors don't have the protection of submission release forms like the big companies do, is it any wonder that people are a little leery? Thoughts anyone?

Oldest thanks each and everyone of you

So Oldest spent quite a lot of time responding to every single person who left her a comment. I told her, "Why don't you just respond to everyone in one comment?" To which she responded, "But that would not be very nice and polite! I need to respond to each and every comment so that they know I read their note." She's a nice kid, not like her lame Mommy. But she got a great big kick from seeing everyone's kind notes so I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for commenting. She said "Is this what it feels like to have fans?" I said, "Sort of." To which she ran around the house screaming "I'm famous!!!!!"

And clearly she is a funny kid. My favorite comment she made was in response to Steve Malley who wrote:

"You make parenting seem like it might not suck!" :-)

Oldest responded as follows:

"Dear Steve, Kids are nice if you give them candy."

Ha! That cracked me up!

And Aerin just reminded me of another great comment. Stuart Neville, aka Conduit, said:

"Ms. Haworth is very lucky to have such an excellent fan to spread the word. And yours is a wise policy about kissing boys. In fact, I would go one further and say you should never kiss boys at all. Ever. Thay have cooties."

To which Oldest rsponded:

"Dear Conduit, You should know that since 3rd grade I now realize cooties do not exist. But boys are stinky! But you can't catch stinky. Thanks for your nice comments."

So since Oldest has gotten a taste of blogging, she is seriously thinking of the next blog post she can guest author for me. I best be watching out or one day soon this blog will no longer be under my domain!

Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning

Hi! My Mom is Ello and she asked me to do a blog post on my favorite book because she is very busy. I am 9 years old and I am in fourth grade. I love reading. It is one of my favorite hobbies. I try to encourage people to read more books instead of playing on electronics, which I learned from my Mom. I hope that there will be many more authors in the world who will write good books that I can read. Including my Mom.My Mom is always encouraging me to read and loves to buy me lots of books. She was excited to buy Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning because she says she was blogging friends with the author. She wanted to read it first but I beat her to it. I wanted to be the first to read it, but it took a little longer because I had to finish the Golden Compass first. My Mom has a rule that you must finish one book before you can start a new one. My sister, Skye, does not like this rule. She is always trying to read many books at the same time.

Anyway, I loved this book. Let me tell you about it.

Violet Raines is a regular 11 year old girl with a best friend named Lottie. They are fine until a new girl Melissa, starts hanging around with Lottie a bit too much. This is no fun for Violet. But it gets worse. Lottie’s house gets struck by lightning so she and her sisters stay with Melissa and then weird stuff happens because Lottie starts watching lots of TV and starts talking about boys. Will Violet change Lottie back and be friends with Melissa or will she have an enemy forever?I loved this book. It was very funny and I was smiling whenever I read it. I really liked the part when Melissa dared Violet to kiss Eddie. Violet pushed Eddie down onto the bench after she kissed him. He was so shocked he ran away. She chased him but he was too fast and she couldn’t catch him. The next day she tries to apologize but he runs away again. This was really funny! I can’t believe a girl would kiss a boy like that! I would never kiss a boy just because someone dared me to so I thought this was so funny. I also liked the part when Violet, Lottie, Eddie and Melissa saw a crocodile and everyone ran away except Eddie, he just stood there and watched the crocodile with amazement. It was so funny that everyone was screaming and running away.

My favorite part of the book was Violet. I liked Violet a lot. I would want to be friends with someone like her because she’s funny and a very responsible friend. She is loyal and brave. She is a good friend.

My mother always encouraged me to read more and always would buy me books. Her encouraging me has made me really love books and reading and I am so glad I read this book. It is my favorite and I am Ms. Danette Haworth’s biggest fan. I wrote an author letter at my school and I signed my letter – Sincerely, Your Biggest Fan! I hope Ms. Haworth gets my letter. I hope she will write more books about Violet. I want to read more books like this one. I hope that other authors (like my mom) will write great books like Ms. Haworth.

I really want to read more funny books about Violet. I really wonder what Ms. Haworth’s next book will be about. I really hope it is like this one.

(Note from Ello - Oldest read the first 2 paragraphs of my novel, said "I don't get it!" and walked away. Sigh. At least she loved Danette's book!)

I miss all of you...

I really do! And I'm sorry I'm not here with funny stories and outrageous situations but I am a revising fiend right now and I just need to focus! Awesome Agent Bill wants me submission ready asap. Which means I've just gone off the deep end!

But I miss all of you! I miss reading everyone's blogs. I miss everyone's comments. So please don't forget me! I will be back hopefully by next week, when I have another excerpt of my story and hopefully I will get to show you a beautifully illustrated map of my Seven Kingdoms fantasy world that the most talented illustrator in the world created for me. It is absolutely amazing... so come back next week, ok?

Peace,

E

PS - had to leave you with a funny to watch for the week...