"Bought a ticket for a runaway train"*

I recently headed down to NYC for one of the SCBWI Writers of Lower Fairfield County Editor Evenings (mine is the middle grade novel...and how great is it that I'm referred to as an author?). As usual, I took the hour-and-a-half train ride into Grand Central.

I often go into the city with the girls. (Here's a kind-of-old picture of "the girls" at the Hard Rock Cafe. I'm the cute one!)

When I'm with the girls, the train rides fly by. We usually have so much catching up to do that the ride is over before we've run out of things to say. The focus is on us and not the world that streams past the windows.

However, I took this most recent trip alone. I brought a book, but the scenes through the glass grabbed my attention. It wasn't the beauty of life that interested me; it was the real scenes of life that caught my imagination. I appreciate that Metro North Railroad takes a direct route from point A to point B and doesn't try to send the train through the most picturesque areas.

My little tour of the wrong sides of the track gave me much to think and dream about. And I was able to do it from the safety of my train seat. Here are some of things I saw:

• A beat up compact car (possibly a Hyundai Accent) sits in a parking lot behind some kind of apartment complex. It's purple, and not a deep night-sky kind of purple, more of a dark lavender kind of purple (not my first choice for a car color). The back quarter panel on the passenger's side is all banged up, and the back tire on that side is flat. I wonder what story that sad little car has to tell? An adventure? A tragedy?
• A young boy hangs out with his friends at a school playground. He's waving to the train, or maybe he's waving at some other object in the same eye line. He's got a big grin on his face. Is the smile sweet? Mischievous? What do his friends think of his enthusiasm?
• Three cops cars are parked side-by-side in the back parking lot of some large store. They're hidden from the road and no other cars are near them. What are they doing there? Slacking off? Planning some big bust?

There are so many stories being told when you take a few minutes to look out the window.

*Soul Asylum

"It's all been done before"*

One problem I often run across while writing (have I mentioned that I'm a writer?) is that I feel like there's nothing new to write about. I'll be sitting with my laptop, type, type, typing away, and I'm feeling great. I think I'm brilliant! Can I possibly come up with any more awesome ideas?

Then a few days later I reread a book and think Hmmm. Why does this feel so familiar? I must be remembering the last time I read this book. No. It's not that. It reminds me of something I've read more recently. Oh, right. My moment of inspired originality. Only my writing is not nearly as good as this is. So much for having awesome ideas. This isn't even a new complaint among writers...even my lamentations are rip-offs.

To console myself I've come up with a list of expressions that are disgustingly overused right now. I narrowed the list down to just three (if I didn't cut myself off there, who knows when I would've stopped). These three in particular make me very angry; so angry in fact I think if I hear any of them one more time, I might just implode.

3. Shabby Chic--I'm all for a good oxymoron, but this is one of those terms that everybody's been using to describe everything. My car is an old junker, but I covered the seats in velour, so now it's shabby chic. (No, it's just a piece o' crap!) I'd call my style shabby chic because I decorated my house with a bunch of stuff I bought at a tag sale. (No, you're just cheap and now your house is full of a bunch o' crap that other people discarded!)

2. Dark Horse--From American Idol to NASCAR, commentators are predicting that every middle-of-the-road competitor is a dark horse. A true dark horse is racehorse, candidate, athlete, etc... that really comes from nowhere to win. By definition you can't predict a dark horse, so stop trying to do it!

1. It is what it is--This has to be the most meaningless expression ever created. It literally has no meaning. And every reality TV star that's getting his 15 minutes of fame is using it. Just typing this phrase caused me pain. The next time I hear someone say this, I won't implode. I will explode into a million bloody pieces all over the place. That way at least there will be some evidence of my extreme irritation.

*Barenaked Ladies