Ready, Aim, Fire

This weekend I became a certified archery instructor!

 My first time firing the Genesis bow

Mr. Bales and me with our certification cards

The class was in Wheatland, CA, which is about a seven and-a-half hour drive from where I live (eight hours plus if you figure in stops for gas and food). Clint and I, along with a teaching colleague of mine, Mr. Bales, left right after work on Friday, arrived to our motel around midnight, and started the training the next morning. 

The class was awesome. I came into the class being a tiny bit familiar with archery, but my experience was limited to the compound bow with a peep sight and scope, set at about 42 lbs. The bows we're required to use for NASP (National Archery in the Schools Program) are Genesis bows, which are also compound, but have no peep sight, no scope, and are only set to 11 to 20 lbs. So in addition to having to learn how to set up and run an archery range (including all of the safety rules/regulations), I had to learn the techniques for shooting a bow that I'm completely unfamiliar with. Did you know there are ELEVEN steps to shooting a bow? Here was the nemonic device I made up so I could remember all of the steps for the test: 

Sassy naked damsels boast proudly during an afternoon salsa routine Friday.™

Seriously, I need to trademark that baby. ;) It stands for: Stance, nock arrow, draw handset, bow handset, pre-draw, draw, anchor, aim, release, follow-through. Someone was paid the big bucks to make all that up. If I was in charge over at NASP, I'd have three steps: 

Ready. Aim. Fire.

Anyway, we were also required to learn all of the different parts of a bow, and how to do common bow repairs. It was total information overload...by the end of the training my brain felt numb. But I also came out of it on a high, because I feel like I learned SO much (I ended up scoring a 96% on my practicals, and man did it take everything out of me). At this point, I honestly think I could set up an entire archery range and run an event with confidence.

While all of this was going on, my son was participating in the Monopoly Championship Tournament eight hours away, which resulted in me doing a lot of hyperventilating, squealing, and screaming while trying to shoot targets and memorize that the top cam of the bow is called the "idler wheel." I'm dying to write more about this whole Monopoly thing on this post, but it's way too cool and special, so I think I'll save it for the next one.

Cross your fingers for me now that our grant through NASP goes through, because I really, really want to get this archery program going for the new school year!

Medieval Days & Snakes at School

I need to write a post! It's been such a loooooong time (actually, I just looked at my last post to check, and it's been eleven days, which isn't too terrible, so I took off one of the o's in looooooong).

I don't have anything particular to write about, so I'll just talk about this past week. Let's see...on Friday, a production group called the Kingdom of Esperance visited our school and led seventh graders in a Medieval Festival, complete with tent encampments, archery demos, period-art, and a tournament of knights with real armor and swords. It was pretty awesome. Our city's newspaper was supposed to send a reporter to cover the event, but the reporter cancelled at the last minute, so I was asked to cover the event instead. It was so, so fun. I got to run around, interviewing the workers and taking pictures.

Even during the archery demos, no one batted an eye when I trespassed over the caution tape to get close-ups. At one point, one of the more "official" looking people asked me if I was trying to get action shots.  I honestly thought that he was going to tell me to step back. But instead, he escorted me closer and told the workers to wait until I was ready before shooting their next set. Sadly, those pictures ended up with a glare on them, so I was unable to send them to the press.

For the record, I'm awful at taking pictures. I have no finesse for it at all. Kind of ironic that I ended up being the "reporter" for this event.

Anyway, I sent my photos and story to the newspaper, and it came out on Tuesday morning.

The only thing that grated on my nerves was the paper used my entire story, but labeled the byline "Photos courtesy of Jodi Perkins." Um...photos?? What about the article? I mean, it's small, but still. Grrrrr. I almost called them to complain, but then decided it wouldn't accomplish anything.

On Saturday I was paid $400 to be a presenter for THIS. 

I have to say, I am ridiculously proud of my district for pulling off this little trailer. It's like your five year old running up to you with a drawing that actually looks half-decent. Anyway, I was asked to give a 45 minute presentation/workshop, and OH MY GOODNESS was it fun.

After the presentation, I went skating with Shan and all the kids. My parents showed up to drop off a late birthday present for my nephew, and we all decided to go out to dinner. Usually we only get together for special occasions, so that was pretty awesome.

A snake showed up in the girl's restroom on Wednesday. Tom, our maintenance guy, heard a girl scream in the bathroom, came running, and found the snake. He then brought the snake to me, because somehow I'm the unofficial animal care person on our campus. I let him know the snake was harmless and I would take him home with me and put him in our garden (great for keeping down the pest population when you're trying to grow stuff). But then my principal got wind of the snake and said there was no way I was allowed to keep him in my classroom (to her credit, she was very calm. I think I must give her a mini-heart-attack every week). Tom went to transport the snake to our outdoor lunch patio where I was going to pick him up at the end of the day. But when he arrived, the snake was GONE. We discovered a small gap beneath the handle of the carrier where the snake managed to escape. Of course this all happened AFTER my principal had told us "Don't you let that snake get loose on campus!" I really didn't feel particularly inspired to tell her that a snake was now roaming free somewhere between the cafeteria and room 405, so me and Tom kept it quiet that afternoon. The next day, Tom found our creepy little buddy in front of the snack bar. This time I didn't mess around. I picked him up (yes, with my bare hands. I ain't scared--or particularly bright) and put him in a giant glass vase and sealed a lid with air holes over the top. Our computer specialist asked if she could take the snake home because her daughter loves them, so I ended up handing him over to her, and the rest is history.

This has turned into a long post considering I had nothing of consequence to write about.

Valentine's Day Rogues

Best Valentine's Day EVER. Last night I got back from the So Cal Writers' Conference in San Diego, and wow. What a ride. I drove down there with Clint and the kids on Friday morning. Since Clint wasn't attending the conference himself, he decided to take advantage of my already-paid room at the Crown Royal by having a mini-vacation with the kids. So while I was conferencing, they were visiting the San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, the Natural History Museum, and so on.

My first workshop started on Friday at 2:00, so I didn't have much downtime once we arrived in San Diego. I went to two workshops that night, then reunited with Clint and the kids for dinner. We went to Shakespeare's Pub & Grill:

It was actually night time when we went (this picture came from their website), so green rope lights lined the patio, and tall propane heaters kept outdoor patrons warm. There was plenty of seating inside the restaurant, but we chose to sit outside because it was such a gorgeous night, and I personally love the ambience of downtown San Diego. It was an awesome dinner. The food was delicious, the beer tasted great (I had hard cider) and we had a great view. The green you see beneath the patio is MUCH taller in real life--we were at least two stories up from the street, above an entire wall of vines.

Saturday was my busiest day. I woke up early that morning to start my workshops; six hours of classes, with a lunch break from 12:10 to 1:00. I found this awesome spot to sneak off to eat my lunch:

This oasis was situated right between my hotel room and the conference center, so I was "forced" to walk past it every morning. It seemed to be a hidden gem, because no one else was ever there. I ate my lunch at the table shown above, working on my manuscript right next to a stream and a rock fountain. Such a beautiful, serene setting...I need to get one of these babies installed into my house (in dreamy sparkle-lala land, of course).

Quick selfie while there was no witnesses

My workshops ended at 4:20 on Saturday, and I went back to my room and got dressed for the writers' banquet. The banquet was a ton of fun. I sat down at a table with some acquaintances I had made during the workshops, and we never stopped laughing. Best-selling author Laurence O'Bryan, who had flown to the conference all the way from Ireland, asked if he could join us. He was the instructor for one of the workshops I had attended earlier that day, so it was great to hang out in a more upbeat, social setting. It turned out that he was also the special guest speaker for our dinner that night; a fact I didn't realize until they called him up. He gave an endearing speech about his journey to becoming a best-selling author, although I'll admit--even a mediocre speech would have come out great with that awesome Irish accent. 

The banquet ended shortly after 9:00, at which point I headed straight upstairs for my "Rogue Read and Critique" workshop. Rogue workshops are a purely optional choice for the writing die-hards, beginning at 9:00 p.m. and ending whenever the participants can't take anymore. When I entered my particular workshop, I knew I had chosen the perfect group when I saw this message scrawled on the whiteboard: "Anything less than 3 a.m. is weakness." Our workshop that night was run by author Linda Taylor. We selected five pages from our manuscript (most people start with the very beginning of their books, since the beginning is both the most challenging and everything), and Linda read our pages out loud to the entire group. Then she went around the room, allowing everyone a chance to give feedback on what they heard. Finally, she herself gave feedback on the piece. 

If you've never done one of these before, it is terrifying the first time the author takes your work into her hands. Holy cow. Can't even describe. But once you hear the way your words sound rolling off the lips of someone else, and everyone in the room is listening to your story, it is exhilarating.

We took a ten minute break at midnight. Somehow our group ended up doing really bad yoga while discussing theology. I think this was the threshold by which we were starting to get tired. 

By 1:00 a.m. our little conference room was freezing, so we moved downstairs in front of the main conference room and pushed some tables together. At this point there were only seven of us left. That's when a correspondent from NBC News showed up. NBC had heard some "rogues" were still up at the Writer's Conference, and they wanted to air some footage. Wes, the director of SCWC, was with us when NBC showed up, and he was able to do a quick interview to go along with the footage that was taken. Someone must have fetched Michael (the executive director of SCWC, also an author/screenwriter), because he showed up shortly after, as well, and did an interview. The rest of us were filmed doing our "normal thing." That was hilarious. The reporter told us to be natural, and here I'm smack-dab in the middle of a sentence when a camera is shoved right under my nose. It took all of my willpower to keep talking and not laugh (we did end up collapsing into hysteria once the camera moved elsewhere).

Here's Mark, our camera guy:

  
He was a really good sport.

Five still standing (er--sitting, but it still counts)

At 2:00 a.m. we realized we were STARVED (it had been seven hours since dinner), so we all pulled out every snack we could dig up from our bags and put them in the middle of the table to share. We ended up with a buffet of peanuts, Cheetos, Girl Scout cookies, M&Ms, and rice cakes. The fact that some of these snacks were already opened/half-eaten was irrelevant.

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, we all trudged back to our rooms. I remember my mind was still buzzing when I went to bed, and I felt like liquid all over.

I slept for a few hours before it was time to wake up for my morning workshops. I might have let myself skip at least one to sleep in, but the sessions I scheduled for Sunday were the ones I wanted to attend the most. My fellow rogues obviously felt the same way, because they were all there at my first session. I had four total workshops on Sunday (with a lunch in-between), and they were worth being sleep-deprived for. The most valuable sessions I attended were: How to Write a Killer Query (led by author Maralys Wills) and "Your Book is Finished - Now What?" (by author/editor Robert Yehling). I absorbed more information from these two workshops than I have in months of internet research. After Yehling's session, I stayed after for a few minutes and he showed me how to format my pre-chapter quotes in my manuscript, along with the various song lyrics and text messages that appear in my novel.

Once my last workshop ended, we drove home, and the rest is history. Overall this Valentine's Day weekend ROCKED. I will definitely be hiding away nickels and dimes now, hoping to save up for next year's SCWC. Who needs roses and chocolate when you can have Cheetos and rice cakes in the company of delirious writers? Romance shmo-mance.