Deanna Hoak

So my seven-year-old daughter was telling me last night about this werewolf story she wants to write, that she thinks might become a bestseller and be turned into a movie. It involves lots of blood and body parts and scary chases and deadly potions and self-serving decisions and murder. I don’t know where she gets [...]

I had Evan in my lap today when I pulled up my blog, and he pointed excitedly at my picture and said, “That’s my pretty mommy! My pretty mommy who loves me!”
I melted. :-)

My daughter’s been writing a song the past week or so, and she finally got it to the point where she was willing to put it on her blog. I know I’m a doting mom, but I think it’s incredibly damn good for a seven-year-old (I even did a Google search of the lyrics to [...]

Blaine and I spent quite a while clicking through the Batgirl pics this morning. What a fun meme! I can’t draw worth anything, myself, but Blaine (who just turned seven and has “author and illustrator” in her list of what she wants to be when she grows up–currently somewhere after “baker”) was inspired to create [...]

The sink in the kids’ bathroom wasn’t working today, so I took off the trap and discovered a two-inch bottle of lip gloss, five beads, a key chain with charms, a bottle cap, and a penny.
Yep, I guess that would do it.

My daughter is crushed that she has to go to school on Halloween. This is clearly far too important a holiday for that. She had planned on baking pumpkin pies and playing with Halloween makeup all day. :-)

While I was getting ready to go out today, my two-year-old little boy came up to me and hugged my leg and said, “Mommy cute.” He’d never used the word before, though almost every woman he meets exclaims it to him. I said, “Are you saying Mommy is cute?” He grinned hugely and said, “Yes.”
My [...]

It is always amusing when you see your kids being shaped by their environment. Blaine is so clearly the daughter of a copy editor.
Today, she was telling me a story about some little girl in her class. Blaine was quite irate at this child’s poor manners. The story went this way:
“Mom, you would not believe [...]

I’m afraid my daughter’s gotten pretty spoiled to me being on hiatus from copyediting. I’m taking part in the writers’ workshop at Wiscon, and I received the stories to look over last night. Blaine walked into the kitchen for a snack as I was taking the manuscripts out of their envelope, and she immediately stopped [...]

Oh, yeah. I meant to tell a kid story yesterday and got so tired I forgot. :-)
Blaine (4): “Mom, you look tired.”
Me: “I am. Do you know *why* I’m tired?”
Blaine: (solemn look) “Because I woke you up this morning.”
Me: “Yep.”
Blaine: (pause) “I’m really smart.”