I looked down at the manuscript on my lap, shuffled among the multiplication flashcards and the book on surviving any disaster. We'd just read about how to defend oneself against lowland gorillas, which I doubt we'll ever see in Missouri.

"Mama, do you ever feel like you should be doing something that you aren't?" she asked.

I laughed. Isn't that the question of the human condition?

"Yeah. I feel like I should finish this novel."

"Mama? I think when this one is done, you should take a break before starting another."

I paused. I don't have a good reason for writing stories. Except I like to.

"I am struck by the mediocrity of my finest hour," wrote Ani DiFranco. I first heard it when I was barely twenty, and now twenty years later, it still gets to me.

I want to write a sentence like that before I'm done.

My daughter is a worrier. She worries about things she doesn't want to do. She worries about things she does want to do. She worries that if she makes the wrong decision, everything will go awry. I get it. I'm a worrier by nature, too.

A while back I got advice from a professional. She said I should instigate a Worry List and some Worry Time each day. The Worry List is just that --writing the things you're worried about down on paper. My sister writes them down and puts them in a ceramic cupcake to let the cupcake do the worrying for her. My daughter prefers a whiteboard. Many times I've walked into her playroom where the whiteboard is to find the list has been revised. It's like a window into her psyche that I really appreciate, because my biggest worry is that I won't know what she is worrying about and she'll suffer in silence.

Aren't we fun?

More interesting to me than the Worry List is the scheduled Worry Time. If my daughter tries to tell me what she's worried about outside the Worry Time, I'm supposed to redirect her to table it, kid, leave it on the field, wait until Worry Time. When I first heard this idea, I thought it was ridiculous. Not being allowed to worry whenever you want seemed cruel and unusual, and also worry-inducing. But I started trying it myself, and, well, it totally works.

After spending years planning out how every scenario could turn out in increasingly horrifying ways, I'm finding it easier to bat away my fears until it gets dark. While it's not great that they come back when it gets dark, at least I get twelve hours of respite from the never-ending treadmill of anxiety I used to have. 

The other nice thing about Worry Time with kids is that you can discuss each worry and whether or not the kid can do anything about that thing she is worried about. In the case of wanting to quit ballet and not being able to until the end of the semester, she has finally figured out she can worry all she wants, but it's not changing anything. We dug in our heels hard that she finish this round before she hangs up her leotard. Over the past few months, we've gone from me stuffing her in my friend's carpool car bawling her head off to mentioning that she hates ballet on Monday and Wednesday nights at Worry Time and usually once for good measure on Tuesday and Thursday mornings while we're getting ready for school and work. In the case of being worried about the school spelling bee, there is actually something she can do about that -- she can study the words. A little bit of worry is a good thing, because it gets you off your ass. And if she doesn't tell me this stuff, I don't know she even needs to study. A fringe benefit: Her worrying alleviates my worry that she'll have a spelling bee and not be prepared and I never even knew about it in the first place.

Learning to worry at specific times is hard. Worrying makes me feel like I'm doing something about the problem, even though intellectually I understand that I'm not. My daughter and I have worked on visualizing windshield wipers to sweep problems away (works for me, not for her); taking deep breaths (works for both of us); and diverting ourselves with something else interesting, like reading a good book (works for both of us). I find it is difficult for me to read something really good and captivating and worry at the same time. I can't even worry and listen to a book on tape at the same time. (I know, I've tried.) 

What my daughter and I have learned is that Worry Time is not really so much about Worry Time as it is not worrying the rest of the time. By containing the worry, you free yourself up for the rest of the day. Sometimes, I figure out a solution in that time -- or if not a solution, at least a step I can take in the right direction toward alleviating the issue causing my worry. 

A good way to end Worry Time for us is to pray about what she's worried about, but also to be thankful for things that are going well. I've morphed in my personal beliefs to a place of thankfulness. I don't focus on what I've done wrong the way I did when I was growing up listening to sermons every week. Now I choose to focus on the grace. I do try really hard to be a good person, and it's impossible to be a perfect person. In some ways, organized religion and its emphasis on wrongdoing made me more anxious than I was even normally, and it's one of the reasons I now homeschool my religion for myself and my daughter. It is much easier for me to be kind to others when I am being kind to myself, too.

I've wrestled with myself so much in the past ten years to get myself to a place of gratitude and looking at what went well instead of looking at what went wrong. It's so much more fun to complain, really, it is. I have no idea why, but it's true. But complaining makes me feel like shit. My friend Sandee would always say, "The water is too wet, and the sky is too blue and the sand is too sandy." I say that to my daughter when I find myself complaining. Gratitude goes a long way toward staving off anxiety. A surprisingly long way.

I'm supposing a lot of you figured all this out before you had to tattoo the word "now" on your forearm to remind yourself that in this moment, you are fine, just FINE, stop WORRYING. I told my daughter when I got the tattoo exactly why I needed it, and I hope by telling her that and by helping her learn to contain and combat her worries, she won't need ink when she's thirty-nine. Or at least not mood-regulating ink.

This week my friend Pauline Campos approached me about participating in her #BodyThanks Twitter party on Monday night at 8 pm CT and donating a copy of THE OBVIOUS GAME, since Diana struggles mightily with body image and anorexia in my novel. I said yes, and I'm excited for the conversation. 

Later this week, someone passed along to me a post a guy wrote about why you should date a girl with eating disorder. Chief among the reasons: Hot and a cheap date because she doesn't eat much.

You know I wrote something, right?

Here's the beginning: 

[Editor's Note: ED trigger alert]

Last week, the misogynist-troll website Return of Kings published 5 Reasons to Date a Girl with an Eating Disorder, by a writer named Tuthmosis. When I first read the post, I thought surely it was written ironically. (Of course, I also thought that the first time I heard the lyrics to Blurred Lines.) The “reasons” included hot thinness, cheapness to date, and wildness in the sack. Ugh. Understandably, the Internet freaked out. Then the site’s publisher posted a response to the freakout, including this paragraph:

I want to make it clear that we at ROK are not promoting eating disorders. These are devastating illnesses on those whom they afflict, and we wish sufferers are able to receive the treatment they need. It is unfortunate that sufferers continue to be stigmatized by society, so it surprises me that Tuthmosis’ article has been angrily received when it attempts to reduce stigma by encouraging our male readership to give women with anorexia and bulimia an opportunity for real intimacy.

I had boyfriends when I had anorexia. And they may have thought they were benefiting from some of the items on Tuthmosis' list. Yes, I was thin in a fashionable way … before I got thin in a starving-person way. Yes, I was an extremely cheap date – for dinner in high school, of course, but also for drinks in college. Someone who ate six hundred calories all day before going out gets wasted on one cocktail. Sweet, right?

Please to read the rest on BlogHer. When I finished writing it, my hands were shaking with anger. 

All I can do, though, is keep repeating that eating disorders aren't cute, they're not just for white girls and they aren't vain or a cry for attention. Eating disorders are serious psycho-social-biological maladies that can be a matter of life and death. Please join us on Twitter on Monday night with the hashtag #BodyThanks as we move into the week of Thanksgiving -- a week very triggering for some -- being thankful for our families, our friends, our lives and the bodies that carry us through them.

I do love this song. Reasons: unknown.http://youtu.be/LjMffHG1V_Q

Tomorrow the little angel has a ceremony to go to for school. She has been bugging me to iron the flounces of her skirt to make them stand out prettily, and of course I keep forgetting. This morning, she left me a note on my laptop. Mommy, please iron my skirt. I wrote it down on my work list: Iron skirt.  And I remembered! I ironed it.

I got to the second row of flounces before I started crying.

There I stood in my basement, holding an iron in my hand, thinking about how proud I am of my girl who tries so hard in school. I also thought about the worry list she wrote on her playroom whiteboard, how she's been counting down the days to know if her team won, how the combination of that looming childhood worry combined with a school spelling bee this week has her seriously spinning.

She will be fine, of course. Competition is healthy. She doesn't play sports, so this is her opportunity to learn to be a good winner or loser, to look forward to things, to be rewarded for a job well done, to celebrate or mourn with a team. Sports are great and all, but they aren't the only teams in schools. 

So I stood there, trying to get all the wrinkles out and knowing because of the way the flounces were gathered I would fail, trying to keep Kizzy from burning his little black paws on the steam he so desperately wanted to touch, thinking how fast it is going and it will be like a roller coaster that took forever and only thirty seconds between now and when I'm steaming her high school graduation gown. 

I'm doing all I can do. She was so wound up she had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night. I know tonight will be worse. We've scheduled some worry time for after ballet (not sure I wrote about how she decided two weeks into September that she can't handle the step-up to two nights during the school week, she still hates ballet, quitting at the end of the semester, and I will be very happy not hear a daily litany of how much she hates ballet after that). I'll work on PARKER CLEAVES while she's in class so I won't be sitting there at bedtime thinking how every minute ticking by is a minute I'm not writing before the 11 pm mental shutdown. I'll be fresh. I'll remind her what a good coper she is. We'll breathe deeply. And tomorrow, win or lose, we'll celebrate, of course after the ceremony and school and my trip to the blonde fairy that has already been rescheduled twice. I'd like to clear my calendar for her, but Beloved is traveling till Thursday and, well, dammit, I need my hair cut.

I'm not writing this for you all, I'm writing this for me, you see that right? I just realized it myself.

I can do this. I can stand by her through this excitement and anxiety all by myself sandwiched between two ballet sessions she hates and amidst taking out the garbage and carpooling and scheduling things ahead for Thanksgiving at work and laundry and cooking and writing. I will not let my own anxiety about managing my job and my kid and the house alone affect my ability to teach her to cope, because the better I cope, the better she will cope. 

Fucking hell, being a good example is SO HARD. 

As I sit on my front stoop every weekday morning with my girl, waiting for the school bus, I check out the fashion statements of today's children. Our bus stop has swelled to eleven kids from three in one year, thanks to some large families moving in. That's a lot of shoes.

Something seemed odd about those shoes for the longest time. Then I realized what it was -- they rotated.

I don't remember which grade I was in, but one year I had burgandy Kangaroos with Velcro AND THE POCKET. God, I was so cool. When I got a little older, I had a pair of white Nikes (NIKE! SQUEE!) with white pinstrips on the nylon. White on white, dude. I thought I was the queen of Sheba with those white-on-white pinstriped Nikes.

I don't remember wearing other shoes to school until I hit at least middle school. Elementary school was tennies, unless you were tromping around the halls in your moon boot liners in the dead of winter.

You had to choose your tennies carefully and with an eye to all outfit possibilities. All my outfit possibilities were jeans, because I also don't remember ever wearing a skirt to school on a normal day. Maybe cords, but those would also go with my tennies. My mother will read this and maybe be able to inform me if I actually wore more than one pair of shoes at a time to school in elementary, but I really don't think I did. In fact, this line of reasoning has continued on well into adulthood. Every season, I tend to buy a pair of black whatevers or a pair of brown whatevers. Maybe I'll add something cute if I see them at TJ Maxx or the rich people Goodwill, but the fact I don't buy shoes has less to do with my ability to afford them and more to do with my mindset of the One Pair of Shoes.

I realized this yesterday when I pulled out my black booties for the seventh time in a row since it got cold. I'm a shoe child of habit. A fashion nightmare. I keep wearing the same pair of shoes over and over like I'm twelve.

But these children! They have awesome shoes! Ballet flats and Converse that lace all the way up to their knees and Uggs with GLITTER. And some tennies, of course, but only on P.E. days. My own daughter alternates between tennies, purple tall Bearpaws, cowgirl boots and hot pink patent leather ballet flats. She puts me to shame.

She is nine.

I think I'm still searching for those white-on-white-pinstriped Nikes that went with everything, were comfortable and yet still made me feel refined, if there is such a thing as a refined Nike. I wasn't the only one who wore the same pair of shoes all the time -- it seemed everyone did. The standards were so much lower then.

It was easier with lower fashion standards. Bring back the one pair of shoes, people.

Thanksgiving posts have taken over the internet, and everywhere I look I am confronted with pictures of food. 

When I was anorexic, Thanksgiving was my least favorite holiday. My extended family got together, and someone always made pie that not only had half the calories of my daily self-imposed limit, but also came attached with happy childhood memories and the knowledge it was made by someone I loved very much.

Holidays can be hard for any number of reasons, but for anorexics and their people, they contain so many potential landmines. If the anorexic has been hiding out under baggy clothes, her condition might not be noticed as much by those who are with her every day, but it will be glaring to someone who hasn't seen her in six months or a year. When an entire holiday is about eating too much, not eating or eating very little makes everyone else sit up and pay attention. Someone not eating can make someone who has overeating problems feel doubly defensive. Plus, family. Just family. It doesn't take much to set people off who have been forced to leave their own houses and spend an afternoon crowded together being thankful.

Then there's being thankful. It's hard to be thankful when you're depressed or in the grips of anxiety or OCD or an eating disorder. My head was extremely crowded in those years, mostly thinking about food I wouldn't let myself eat. 

I'm thankful every day that those painful Thanksgivings are behind me now. This is the first Thanksgiving I've had something to offer besides a blog post for those who are anorexic or those who are going to find themselves sitting across the table from a very thin person and worrying this holiday season. For less than the price of a turkey, I can offer my novel. 

I haven't done a lot of promotion in the past six months here, but I wanted to share the background of my book again for anyone new. 

“Everyone trusted me back then. Good old, dependable Diana. Which is why most people didn’t notice at first.”

"Your shirt is yellow."

"Your eyes are blue."

"You have to stop running away from your problems." 

"You're too skinny."

Fifteen-year-old Diana Keller accidentally begins teaching The Obvious Game to new kid Jesse on his sixteenth birthday. As she buries her shock about her mother's fresh cancer diagnosis in cookbooks, peach schnapps and Buns of Steel workouts, Diana both seduces athlete Jesse and shoves him away under the guise of her carefully constructed sentences. As their relationship deepens, Diana avoids Jesse's past with her own secrets -- which she'll protect at any cost. Will Diana and Jesse's love survive his wrestling obsession and the Keller family's chaos, or will all their important details stay buried beneath a game? 

Praise for The Obvious Game:

"Lovely, evocative, painful and joyful all  in one ... much like high school." --Jenny Lawson, author of LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED 

“I couldn’t put down THE OBVIOUS GAME. Arens perfectly captures the hunger, pain and uncertainty of adolescence.” -- Ann Napolitano, author of A GOOD HARD LOOK and WITHIN ARM'S REACH

"THE OBVIOUS GAME is a fearless, honest, and intense look into the psychology of anorexia. The characters—especially Diana--are so natural and emotionally authentic that you’ll find yourself yelling at the page even as you’re compelled to turn it." -- Coert Voorhees, author of LUCKY FOOLS and THE BROTHERS TORRES

"Let’s be clear about one thing: there’s nothing obvious about THE OBVIOUS GAME. Arens has written a moving, sometimes heart-breaking story about one girl’s attempt to control the uncontrollable. You can’t help but relate to Diana and her struggles as you delve into this gem of a novel." -- Risa Green, author of THE SECRET SOCIETY OF THE PINK CRYSTAL BALL

"THE OBVIOUS GAME explores the chasms between conformity and independence, faith and fear, discoveries and secrets, first times and last chances, hunger and satisfaction. The tortured teenage experience is captured triumphantly within the pages of this unflinching, yet utterly relatable, novel. -Erica Rivera, author of INSATIABLE: A YOUNG MOTHER’S STRUGGLE WITH ANOREXIA 

Book Information:

Publisher: Inkspell Publishing

Release Date: Feb 7th, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-9856562-7-0 (ebook), 978-0-9856562-8-7 (Paperback)

Paperback Price: $13.99

Kindle: $4.99

• THE OBVIOUS GAME on AMAZON
• THE OBVIOUS GAME on BARNES & NOBLE
• THE OBVIOUS GAME on INDIEBOUND

Thanksgiving is a time when things start coming to a head for Diana, who started out "normal." The novel follows her thoughts and feelings into the abyss ... and back out. If you're a family member or friend who wants to throttle their anorexic loved one, this book can help you understand the psychology of suffering from this condition. If you're full-blown anorexic yourself, I'm so sorry. This book contains the sentences that helped me break out of the mind-space that could have killed me. If you just have a weird relationship with food, you might find yourself examining why you initiated your set of rules that determine when you can eat, why, with whom and how much. And if you just like contemporary young adult novels that ask really hard questions about growing up, you might like it as a read.

The next few weeks are going to be really hard for a lot of people who struggle with their relationship with food. For some, it's never "just a doughnut." If you're anorexic, taking one bite more than you planned can feel like bungee jumping off a bridge. I remember wondering why these people who loved me kept asking me to put myself through that. So be kind if you see someone staring in misery at her plate on Thanksgiving. Eating disorders are nobody's fault, and recovery takes a village. Take care of each other.

So yesterday I got up on my high horse and rode about not having word count goals. Today, I finally finished transcribing all the handwritten changes I did to THE BIRTHRIGHT OF PARKER CLEAVES after my first round of beta feedback and thought I'd have buried the 40k mark I was at before.

Two hours ago, I exported to Word. 39,879, bitches.

WHAT THE HELL?

I cut a lot, but I added a lot, too. Well, now I have 39,879 better words, but I'm still about 20k short for new adult. Or maybe it's young adult. It's hard to say, because the protagonist is 18/19 and it's not all sexy-sex -- is there new adult non-romance? We'll see. The jury remains out on genre. 

Regardless, as it stands? It's a novella. I don't want a novella. I want to give my second round of beta readers a NOVEL. I want to get feedback on what is close to the end game, not a second version of a rough draft.

*silently raging*

It appears rather than adding Juliet balconies to the house I've created, I need to add a new wing. Perhaps a subplot. Perhaps fill in some plot holes I haven't really explored. Not sure. I'll tell you, though, I'm glad I didn't know how many words I was cutting and filling back in when I made these changes, because if I'd known, I would've cried.

The book is better now. It needs to be better -- and longer -- yet, but we'll get there, one scene at a time.

*breathes into paper bag*

*prints another draft*

*notes need more ink cartridges*

One of these days, I'll learn to turn the phone sideways.