Out There

The Book Review Club - The War Horse

2012-01-05T07:31:00.000-08:00

The War Horse
Michael Morpurgo
Middle grade

I'm coming a little late to the book review club this week. I fell into a small rip the time-space continuum descended and have been fighting my way back out ever since. Or, my kids started school on Tuesday and I have been a day behind the whole week. I like the first explanation a lot better. It's far more creative, which is the beauty of fiction, right? But because I gave you the fiction first, you'll always wonder which is really true.

The War Horse starts with the same ingenious switch up. Morpurgo blurs the lines between fiction and fact by beginning with an Author's Note (seeming reality) that reveals that the author came upon a painting in the old school now used for the village town hall of a horse. A few, very few remaining village inhabitants know the real story behind the painting of the enigmatic horse and they shared it with the author.

This sort of tool snares in a happy web of fictive reality that I seldom am ever able to truly escape. Same thing happened when I read Memoirs of a Geisha, which also begins with a prologue from the Geisha. It took me years to accept the fact that that was fiction, even though I knew the author was a man. I'd bet many other readers fall under the same spell. We want to take the leap of faith and fall headfirst into the fictive dream.

This one is well worth leaping into. The basic story line is of a boy, Albert, and his horse, Joey, and all Albert will do to be reunited with Joey when he is sold to the British military at the start of World War I. This is ultimately a book about love, but the setting is predominantly World War I. Morpurgo does an excellent job of introducing young readers to the horrors of the war without making it overwhelming. He doesn't linger on any one character for a particularly long time. The story is a collection of well-seamed vignettes of all the people who come into Joey's life during the war (spoiler alert!) and ultimately die after caring for him. Morpurgo also allows the main protagonist and the horse to live. Surrounded by so many deaths, the "love conquers all" quality of that relationship gives the book the upbeat ending necessary to balance out the morbid reality of the war setting.

If you're tempted to take young readers to see the movie version - which I did with my 10 and 12 year olds (both girls) - my only suggestion would be to read the book first. Not because the book is better - Spielberg/Curtis stay lovingly true to Morpurgo's storyline - but because the reader is bound by his/her imagination when she reads. In other words, the atrocities of World War I that happen in the story are only as scary as the reader's mind can make them. That's the wonderful safety valve of reading over film. Film relies on someone else's imagination. In this case, that of an adult's vs. a child's, which is inevitably able to go further and imagine more and more graphically than a child's. Nevertheless, Spielberg does an excellent job of walking the line between showing the horrors and showing so much it will scar a young audience. A lot of the really awful events happen off screen, behind a turning windmill (execution of two underage German soldiers who run off with Joey and another horse to escape certain death on the front), or just after a well-placed scene ending (effects of gas on Albert's friend). Nevertheless, my ten year old leaned over to me about halfway through and said, "Mom, this is film is Marley and Me a million times worse."

Still, this is a tale incredibly well-written that is worth reading and sharing. Because of the enduring love of the boy for his horse and vice versa, the reader can weather the setting and inadvertently learn something about it while falling deeply in love with Joey and Albert.

Other great New Year's reads are just a click away at Barrie Summy's website. Enjoy 2012 and all the adventures that await both real and imagined.

The Book Review Club - The Night Circus

2011-12-07T14:39:00.001-08:00

The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern
Adult/YA Crossover

From the moment I began to listen to this story on audio until I finished, I couldn't classify it. A trip to Target - serious source searching - didn't help. The book was in the bestseller category with the other adult books, but toward the bottom where some YA and middle grade were. When I finally upped my game and checked out the classification on Amazon, it's adult.

Yet, this is a book for all ages. I've encouraged my nine year old to read it because it's such a dreamlike adventure. Two magicians battle it out for their lives in a night circus that magically appears and disappears from location to location across the world.

This is the first circus I liked. I'm not crazy about clowns, or the whole circus venue in books or movies. There are exceptions, of course, Water for Elephants being one. It was more along the lines of gritty realism circus. This is dream circus without the scary factor that often seems to accompany that venue. The characters are gorgeously rich. The setting is magical. The plot is lusciously entwined.

The story is not told chronologically, which made the audio aspect to my "read" difficult. It will likely make the story difficult for a middle grade audience as well. What's more, I wasn't sure it was a necessary aspect to the story. It indicates the longevity of the challenge early on, but complicates the story's unfolding unnecessarily. The author could have revealed the backstory of the magician who had won a similar challenge earlier and thus introduced the complexity and longevity of the magical challenge in that way without complicating storytelling. However, these temporal fluctuations were not so off-putting that they derailed the circus story, just complicated it. Maybe that was the point. It's a complex plot.

Nonetheless, if you're searching about for a cozy, by the fire, dreamlike read, search no further. The Night Circus is just the winter ticket!

For more exciting reads, click over to Barrie Summy's site!

You might be a writer if...

2011-11-28T07:14:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I've done one of these posts. Not that I haven't thought about what it means to be a writer every second of every minute of every day. It's an occupational hazard. However, this most recent revelation is just too defining to writerdom not to share.

You might be a writer if...you still carry a security blanket.

Don't get me wrong. We're not that obvious about it. We're writers. We've given them much better names, such as Mac, Notebook Pro, Laptop, or the classic, best disguise, Computer.

As if, you sneer. It's my computer. That's all.

I see. Let's run a little checklist, shall we?

1) Is "your computer" one of the last things you look at before you go to bed? And one of the first when you get up?
2) Do you lovingly clean its parts?
3) Do you start to feel nervous when you haven't spent time with "your computer"?
4) So do you take it with you everywhere you go?
5) Take it out of the car when it's cold or hot, just like a child?
6) Is it your ONE carry on, regardless?
7) Does your heart skip a beat when, say, your husband/child/insert name of person who clearly does not get how IMPORTANT this "computer" is accidentally unplugs your "computer" and the battery runs down and it won't fire up right away?
8) Do you plot revenge?
9) When there's a tornado, earthquake (we've had our share here in Oklahoma this fine fall) or other possible natural disaster, do you have an exit strategy that includes all essentials, such as your children, your husband, the pets, and your "computer"?
10) Most importantly, does it feel like an organic extension of you?

If you've answered yes to three or more of these questions, you may want to sit down. I have news. Your computer isn't just a computer. It's a security blanket.

That's not a bag thing. I mean, our livelihoods depend on these computers, don't they? We find creative expression - and, if we're really lucky, a paycheck - through its magical electrical circuits (Is that a good story idea?) It's no wonder we carry them with us wherever we go.

What was telling for me is that I didn't always feel this way about my computer. The joined-at-the-hip feeling started somewhere in the middle of my dissertation, i.e. my first official written creation. When I was six months pregnant with my first child (actual, human child), I was knee deep in the dissertation. I had six of eight chapters almost complete. I got up, went through my usual morning routine, then sat down at my computer. I opened the dissertation file, which I had backed up on two different external drives, and in individual chapters just to make sure I didn't lose anything. Stories of other grads who'd lost whole dissertations due to lazy back up methods were more than urban myths in grad schools. They were nightmares.

One that became real for me. None of the files would open.

Panic. Major, major panic. The kind that was so intense my daughter didn't move for six hours.

To make a long, painful story somewhat less painful for those of you who can imagine what it's like to lose 40,000 well-crafted words, complete with illustrations, I ended up at the computer lab at UVA. Many techs later, I was at the IT guru's desk, the last resort, the nuclear option of technical difficulties. He tried everything. Nothing worked. Then he made a call. A friend of a friend had an experimental version of the latest Word program. There were no promises but...

In that moment, I understood Faust only too well.

Fortunately, I didn't have to sell my soul...or promise my firstborn to the IT guru. And my computer was way too last month for him.

The new program worked. The files magically opened. My life was saved. I have never been so relieved in my life.

I've had a very close relationship with my computers ever since. One that has only deepened since I began writing fiction. I have all kinds of back up programs - disks, other computers, time machines, clouds, you name it. That computer is an electronic version of my imagination, an much much more organized one. I can't lose it. I can't even give up old versions of it. I may have a computer hoarding problem, I admit. But how do you get rid of a security blanket? Kevin Henkes has a few ideas on that. Owen is a braver soul than I am. My heart races just thinking about disassembling a computer. What if it hurts?

Feel the same way? You're not alone. You're a writer.

The Book Review Club - Bad Island

2011-11-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

Bad Island
Doug TenNapel
Graphic Novel

This one goes out to the one I love, Sophia. Sophia is my reluctant reader; although I say that with a big grain of salt. She has a hereditary convergence problem with her eyes, so small text is killer on her. Reading a book like, say, A Wrinkle in Time, is pure torture because the text is so small.

Not too long ago, however, we discovered graphic novels. [Cue chorus] It was as if the heavens opened and the gods of reading finally threw us a bone (along with a nice rendition of Handel's Messiah). Sophia loves graphic novels. LOVES them. She'd read TenNapel's Ghostopolis, so when I saw he had a new book out, I ordered it right away, along with a couple of others. She devoured three graphic novels in one afternoon - music to a writer mom's heart.

But are graphic novels, well, good? you ask. Are they, dare we use the word, literature?

Oh, baby.

There is some good stuff out there. Really good stuff. Bad Island is decent fair. Persepolis is more hard-hitting and memorable. Smile is a graphic novel Sophia reads over and over. But Bad Island may just become a regular in her reading diet. It has science fiction, family problems, flying stone robots, a dead snake that comes back to life, an annoying little sister, a brother who finally gets to prove himself, a ship wreck. Good, riveting stuff. The story line is solid, interweaving two believable plots. This is not pure cotton candy for the reluctant reader. It's got meat to it. And flying pink birds. What more could you ask for? Plus, it's not as unnerving as say a Neil Gaimon graphic novel, but not as gentle as Raina Telgemaier's Smile. It will capture the boy crowd and hold their attention with things like stomach acid and invisibility stones. While girls will love the pet animals that have BIG moms to protect them when older brother drop kick the cute, but deadly babies. In other words, it's got a healthy does of humor too.

Basic plot line: father takes family on boat outing. Boat sinks in mysterious storm. Family lands on strange island with all kinds of life found nowhere else on earth. Family tries to figure out what the island is, almost gets killed a few times, but finally discovers the island is a sleeping stone robot that they save and which, in turn, saves them.

If you've got an hour for a waltz on the graphic side of life, pick this one up. If you've got a reluctant boy reader, ORDER IT. They will read it again and again. And if you're thrilled to find your child reading, check out a few other graphic novels. Peppered through nonillustrated reads, such as Tiger Rising, or Holes, graphic novels can actually make reading fun.

For more an abundant supply of winter reads this blustery November, scamper over to Barrie Summy's website. She's got a treeful.

The Book Review Club - Across the Universe

2011-10-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

Across the Universe
Beth Revis
YA

Yum. Scrumpdiliicious yum. It's been a while since a book capitivated me the way this one has. I gladly bought into the fictional dream on the first page and felt as if I'd finished the best peanut buster parfait after it was over.

I know. I know. I don't usually gush about books, but this one was that enjoyable a read for me. The basic science fiction premise admittedly had me hooked from the start. I am a closet case trekkie. The kind who used to watch the original episodes before going to church each Sunday as a kid. I was looking for balance in my philosophical diet early on.

So when I saw a modern day scifi with a mystery twist, I was in hook, line and sinker. Girl gives up life on earth to be frozen for three hundred years as a spaceship, Godspeed, travels across the universe from Sol Earth to Centauri Earth. She is awoken early while the ship is still en route and almost dies. Others frozens are murdered. She tries to find the killer together with the help of the leader to be, Elder, who is the same age as she is, sixteen.

The science part of the story was just enough to make the ship believable without becoming so overwhelming that I felt as if I was sitting back in physics class. The characters were well-developed. The mystery was believable. And the darkness was an artistic kind of darkness. Not the usual sturm and angst that is so prevalent in so many dystopian YA novels these days.

The book is also told in alternating first first POV between Amy and Elder. It works well to give the reader a sense of the earth left, the ship now, and how foreign that ship would seem to an outside, i.e. Amy (the reader as well). Even the ending was believable in the sense that not everything ends happily but realistically both emotionally and plotwise.

I realize I should say something critical, some point Revis missed or didn't quite hit the mark on. After all, this is a review. So....maybe it's that I wish they wouldn't make the book into a movie because movies are never as good as the books.

For more great reads, hop over to Barrie Summy's site. She's dishing them out with whipped cream and cherries on top!

The Book Review Club - The Historian

2011-09-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

The Historian
Elizabeth Kostova

Wow, when I dared to open Blogger to post my review of Kostova's, The Historian, it had been so long since I'd posted that Blogger had a new interface site. Yeesh. Leave cyberspace for a few months and it remodels entirely. I feel old.

But not as old as the villain in Kostova's book, Dracula. I've have this thing about Dracula since my graduate years back in Kiel, Germany (which predates the vampire fad by over a decade, which really dates me), when I first met the villain in Murnau's classic silent film, Nosferatu: Eine Symfonie des Grauens.

Knowing my penchant for the Eastern European Undead, my best friend bought The Historian for me two years ago, Pre-MFA. It sat waiting for me like its villain. I resisted for two years, toiling away at that blasted MFA. As soon as it was over, this was my reward - a really really really long read with lots of twisted plots and complicated storylines and intergenerational information sharing.

Not your basic five-character-chronicle.

Kostova's work bridges centuries, familial generations, multiple countries, you name it. She introduces so many characters I...well, I forgot one, a crucial one, when he reappeared at the end of the story, at the climax to be exact. I may need to work on my spatial reasoning for retaining complex, three-dimensional, non-kid stories.

I'd like to say there's a basic plot, but there are so many plots interwoven. Here's a go - Dracula's assassination...maybe.

If you like history, this story will pay out in spades. Kostova did an amazing amount of historical research to take her characters from the U.S. to England to Turkey, France, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy across centuries.

Like Stoker's version, this is predominantly a book of letters. That began to wear. Stoker's tale is about 200 p. long. Kostova's is 642. I had a hard time believing that the main character could read three hundred pages of her father's handwritten letters to her in one night. Plus, the form slowed down the pacing because it was a retelling within a retelling.

When the family (two of whom are Dracula's descendants) trying to kill Dracula finally catches him, his death is rather...well, quick. The resolution ultimately did not feel earned or catalytic. This may be because the story is just so long. Sheer length draws out the action and slows down tempo such that when the telling speeds up for the climax, it feels as though the author just wanted to get through it.

However, the history in this book makes it well worth the read. If you are a Dracula hobbyist, this book incorporates many of the legends about him across continents and cultures. And, Kostova can write. She does wonderful descriptive work. I want to visit Romania now!

For more great reads, hop over to Barrie Summy's site. Happy Fall reading.

The Book Review Club - A Million Miles from Boston

2011-05-03T18:21:00.000-07:00

A Million Miles from Boston
Karen Day
middle grade

This is the first book my daughter and I have reviewed together, which has been a fun experience. We read it at the same time, talked about the story, and now are collaborating on the review.

A Million Miles from Boston is a gentle summer story about a girl, Lucy, who spends her summer in Pierson Point, Maine. The emotional arc of the story deals with Lucy opening up to accept a new stepmom in her life. She also learns not everyone is as they seem. That even a bully has a reason why he acts the way he does, and that they can make good friends, when given a chance.

Stacy: I enjoyed the easy, laid-back feel of the story's flow, getting lost in long summer days, relaxing, kayaking around the coast, and the other outdoor activities Day builds into her story. The flirtation with romance is sweet. This is a great beach read that nonetheless has a gentle, literary feel to it. Not too taxing but not too sugary either. A nice balance.

The emotional arc also feels true. It's hard to open up to a new woman who threatens to"replace" a parent who has died, no matter the child's age. Reaching that arc, however, felt somewhat forced. Day drew it out across the entire summer, climaxing just before the family leaves the Point. While it fit with the timetable - i.e. summer - of the story, Lucy's continual rejection of Julia began to feel worn. There needed to be more development, more twists and turns, or the emotional climax needed to be reached faster.

Bella: Karen Day's novel, A Million Miles from Boston, is about as good as it gets in the sense of making you long for summer. It makes you want to be there with Lucy and her friends and experience all the things they are experiencing. In the book, I like that Lucy hates Ian, but in the end they practically become best friends. It gives the book a page turning curiosity, because you always want to know what will happen next between them. The part that I didn't really enjoy and that I think was made a little too strongly was that Lucy disliked Julia so much. She lost her mom when she was six and feels almost guilty about her death. However, I still think she should give Julia, or whomever her dad likes, a chance. In the end though, things begin to warm between them and life starts getting better. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good story of change, family and true friendship.

For more summer delights, stroll over to Barrie Summy's website. She's serving them up sweet and neat.

Read Across Oklahoma 2011

2011-04-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

I had one halibut of a time at the Oklahoma City Zoo on Tuesday last week. My book, Rope 'Em, was chosen as the Read Across Oklahoma Book 2011. The event is sponsored by Target, the Oklahoma City Zoo, OETA, and bunch of other really nice folks. They bought 1500 copies of my book and handed it out to kindergartnes in at risk schools across the city. Then, on Tuesday, we put on a shin dig for them at the Zoo. Spaghetti Eddie was there to sing. There was a roper, The Oklahoma Kid. And there was me, reading my book.

The weather played along, yippee! It was 70 and sunny. Perfect.

And the kids were amazing. They sang. They danced. They counted. We really had a really neat time.

Thanks Target, OETA and the Oklahoma City Zoo for picking Rope 'Em. I had such a blast. I wish I had a picture book a year coming out so I could go back next year. It's that much fun!!!

Check it out next year if you get a chance. There is a performance open to the general public, and they even had a few extra books left to give away.

The Book Review Club - Mockingbird

2011-04-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

Mockingbird
Kathryn Erskine
middle grade/ya

Every once in a while I run across one of those stories with a main character so beyond the bounds of my everyday existence I marvel at how anyone could create her/him and do so in such a believable way.

Erskine has done so with her character, Caitlin. A fifth-grader, Caitlin has Asperger's Syndrome. She's really smart but has a really tough time understanding and expressing emotion. Maneuvering through life means learning an exhausting list of facial expressions that decode what what people are thinking and/or what they really mean. Add to that that the the person who helped her maneuver the world, her older brother, has been killed in a school shooting.

Erskine bites off a huge chunk of storytelling with her character and the external event of a school shooting. She maneuvers both phenomenally. Caitlin is one of the best characters I've read lately. I had no idea what it's like inside the mind of a child with Asperger's. Erskine gives her readers a glance. It's a glance that doesn't pity. It doesn't minimize. It is. As such, I came to both empathize and understand Caitlin. It's a phenomenal bit of writing. Add to it weaving Caitlin's story seamlessly together with the affects of a school shooting on a community and exploring how to find "closure" and this work moves from phenomenal to unforgettable.

The one aspect of this novel that I was less impressed with was that it, like When You Reach Me, relies on an outside piece of art, in this instance To Kill a Mockingbird, to carry part of the story. One day I may do this myself and kick myself for not understanding or for finding fault with this particular writer's tool at present, but when a writer can weave as well as Erskine, story doesn't need outside art to support it, or deepen the emotional resonance. It's already there. And there in spades. For me, bringing in the outside world in this way detracts from the story being told. It pulls me outside Caitlin's story. It also expects a lot from that external art and the reader. I'd hazard a guess that not many children today have seen, To Kill a Mockingbird. Thus, what effect will the film really have on the reader? Wouldn't a fictional film do the job even better by staying within story by being a created part of it?

If you're looking for a deep story about school shootings, how they affect a community, what it must be like to "feel" and perceive the world as a person with Asperger's all wrapped into a story that pulls you toward it in a gentle but insistent way, read Mockingbird. There is so much here. Much to discuss. Critique. Enjoy. Ponder. And grow from.

Read it.

For other great Spring diversions, hop over to Barrie Summy's website. She's got temptations galore!

You might be a writer if...

2011-04-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

Side effects. There are good ones and bad ones. Second hand smoke, not so good. Oxygen, good. Did you know that writers emit their own side effects? And I don't just mean books.

You might be a writer if...your family suffers from symbolismus. Analogisia. Or, the worst ever, metaphorimia.

Serious, serious ailments, believe you me.

I've been a writer for a few years now, but it wasn't until recently that one of my daughters finally erupted with a bad case analogisia.

We'd just come back from Spring Break. My daughters and I had visited their godparents in Charlottesville, VA. My husband and I had lived there for five years around the time our first was born. I would still love to move back. I love the outdoors there.

While we were there, we had a great time. We went hiking at lots of different parks. Went up to DC and got our very own DC Cupcakes. Saw the Air and Space Museum. Did the Mount Vernon and Ash Lawn thing. We were everywhere. Did tons. The girls loved it.

They loved it so much that when we came home my youngest crawled onto my lap one day after school, and started crying. Uh-oh.

"What's wrong, sweetie. Do you miss Charlottesville?" We all missed C-ville. Our friends. The works.

"Mama," she sniffled. "Charlottesville is like Dragon Wishes and home is like Rope 'Em."

I should have seen the signs right away. The word "like". The commonality of books vs. places. It was analogisia for sure.

But I'm just a writer not a critic. I nodded and came up with my surefire mom response when I had no clue, "Uh-huh."

Not exactly Shakespeare, I know.

"Gees Mom," she said with an exasperated tone. "You know, Dragon Wishes is a middle grade novel."

[my middle grade novel]

"And its gots lots of stuff in it. Rope 'Em is a picture book."

[um, yeah, my picture book]

"It's shorter. Not as many pages of things happening. That's what home is like. Do you get it now?"

Um, yeah. Got it.

I wrote it down, too. Because, as you know, good writers borrow. Great writers steal. But that's a different post.

So now I watch for the telltale signs of secondhand writing. She's already exhibited a few others. Making up her own words. Geroninball. Yeah. Gotta love that one. Editing my work. Don't love that one so much. She's tough!

So beware writers out there. Your family members may have already come down with any or all of these pesky ailments. The only thing you can do is be prepared. Keep paper and pen handy at all times. And family members, be forewarned.

The effects of writing are serious. They get under your skin. Change the way you think. The way you talk. Make you...dare I say, into a writer!

The Book Review Club - Twisted

2011-03-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

Twisted
Laurie Halse Anderson
young adult

It's not brand-spanking new like Wintergirls, but Twisted is definitely worth a read. First, it is not a girl book. I'm very into boy books these days since I'm working on one. Go figure! And it's a real gem to find a boy book that deals with boy emotions from a boy perspective BUT is written by a woman.

A woman's approach to a male character and the result is all way in the forefront of my conscious writing after listening to Mike Sullivan speak at a conference I was speaking at last weekend. He drove home the point that we "girls" like connection and peaceful resolutions to problems. We're internally driven. Boys need to make connection. They need to experience tactile-y how something feels, works, and affects them. That's why they drive their bikes off of cliffs and that kind of extreme sports stuff. Sure, there are girls who do it too, and Sullivan says that both boy and girl readers who are reluctant readers share this hands-on approach to life. They need to experience.

Having said that, as a woman, I felt like Anderson did a great job with bringing her boy character home. Granted in this story of the dweeb turned bad boy, there is the Anderson element of darkness. Tyler does ultimately consider suicide. He also considers blowing up his school. Hurting his peers. Shooting his father. Yet, in the end, he decides to make a turn. To man up and face up to his dad. To win respect with guts rather than guns.

In all that, I can't help wondering if that's a woman's take or a man' reality. Trouble male teens don't all blow up schools or shoot themselves or hurt others. But, is the journey to manning up grittier and more experiential than even Anderson gives us? Compare her work to Walter Dean Myers' Monster. Myer's novel is rawer. It made me feel physically ill with worry as the character told his story. The emotion I came away with from Myers' work was uncomfortable. Unfamiliar. Unfemale.

Can we women portray Myers' type of gritty male? Absolutely. If we're willing to understand it. Which may or may not take actually experiencing it like a man might choose to.

What do you think? I'd really love some input on this. I'm trying to understand the male mojo. Not an easy feat. But doable, right?

For more great reads, hop over to Barrie Summy's site. You're sure to Spring into something fun!

The Book Review Club - Moon over Manifest

2011-02-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

Moon over Manifest
Clare Venderpool
middle grade

When a book wins an award as prestigious as the Newbery, I am burning with curiosity to read it. Can I learn something new? Any tricks of the trade hidden amongst the pages? Character development done in a new way? And what didn't work? Because we writers are all human and we make mistakes, but how does an award-winner make mistakes and make the piece still work?

With great anticipation, I downloaded Moon over Manifest to my new iPad. Yes, the virgin iPad read was a Newbery.

Basic plot summary - Abilene Tucker is sent to the town of Manifest by her father to live indefinitely while he works the railroad during the Great Depression. There, she learns the town's past, as well as her father's, which redeems Abilene and her father's relationship, heals old wounds, and rejuvenates a tired town.

There is a lot to like and to learn from in this book. Vanderpool does an amazing job of weaving multiple different storytelling patterns together to create her story. There is Abilene's narrative, the Hungarian woman's, and letters from Ned to Jinx, and the newspaper clippings. If a writer has to skip back and forth in time, this method of using multiple perspectives to fill in backstory is pretty creative and works well because it keeps the process of storytelling fresh.

There were a few things I wasn't so sure about. First, this is the first book I've read that I found myself editing as I went along. Now, this may be a side effect of an intensive MFA program, but I found this piece, while well-crafted, nevertheless hastily edited. There were extra words, poorly worded phrases, whole sentences that needed to be honed. I wondered if this is a sign of the increasingly crunched time of editors, or my better-trained internal ear, or both. Either way, the result was that these spots pulled me out of story and made me stumble in my reading.

Second, the character of Jinx gave me some trouble. He is in the 1918 story the Hungarian woman tells Abilene about the town of Manifest. We learn early on that Abilene hopes it is her father. As the reader, we are pretty certain it is her father. By taking away this element of surprise, the flashback story deflates. It is still interesting to read but then it just becomes a way for Abilene to learn more about her dad.

Finally, Abilene's internal growth seems fairly limited. True, she has to do physical labor for the Hungarian woman to learn the story of her father, but her processing of what she learns seems pretty minimal. I wanted her to have to struggle more, to grow internally. For me, she feels like much the same kid at the end of the story as she was at the beginning, just with more information about her dad. She didn't feel too damaged when she arrived, and she integrated herself well into the town while she was there. She didn't make any enemies. She made friends. She helped various characters. She realized what was her father's shortcoming and how to fix it, but that isn't the same as internal growth that the character herself needs.

All questions aside, if you are looking for a Katherine Paterson-like read, pick up Moon over Manifest. You won't cry (this is not something I consider a bad thing. I get weary of books that make me cry). You will enjoy the historical flashback and multi-layered storytelling technique that weave together a story about healing a father-daughter relationship.

And for more great reads, hop over to Barrie Summy's website. It's chalked full with winter wonders!

You might be a writer if...

2011-01-25T15:18:00.000-08:00

Have you ever asked the question, "Yes, but...what do they really mean?"

Everybody has asked that at least once, right?

But, do you find yourself asking it a lot? Wondering what the true meaning is behind any conversation? Certain there must be a hidden meaning, if only you could find it?

You might be a writer if...you think everyone speaks in code.

At first, I thought this side effect of writing stemmed from the hazardous amount of rejection we writers expose ourselves to. Example: promising rejection letters that include a phrase or two about how the writer could make the manuscript better. They are so heartening. They mean, we are sooooooo close. But then, how close? And how could I really make it better? And why, suddenly, do the well-meaning editor's words seem like a code?

And then I'm off on a tangent dissecting, resectioning, imbueing, inferring, laboring without pause to get to what the editor really meant. Because it's hidden in there somewhere. It can't possibly be on the surface for all to see.

Because what my characters say never is. How could it be. Readers would never stand for it. They don't want idle chitchat. Fillers. Uh's and um's. Beating around the bush. They want code. They want puzzles. They want to get lost in a story and have to do some deciphering. They want a little fun! So we authors stylize, hide, weigh, infer, encode. We encode! Because everyone is doing it.

I think.

Maybe.

Oh, what do they really mean?

The Book Review Club - The Hero with a Thousand Faces

2011-01-05T06:31:00.000-08:00

The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell
Craft

I never thought I'd see the day I would review a craft book over a work of fiction or nonfiction. But here it is! Never say never. It's not that I don't read craft pieces. Or that they cause me undo pain (okay, maybe some). It's just that until now that I hadn't been moved so profoundly by one that I felt the urge to share.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces changed all of that. Reading Campbell's book was more than an experience. It made me rethink the way I view literature, storytelling, the role of storytelling within humanity, religion, society, thinking. At one point, Campbell had exposed so much of what storytelling does so profoundly, I said to my husband, "All I've got left is Cogito ergo sum. That's it!" (And yes, even Aquinas appears in Campbell's work).

Campbell's look at how storytelling affects us mortals alters one's perceptions on so many levels. In investigating the greatest stories of all times, predominantly those focused on creation, god, gods, the universe - those deeply moving issues we all struggle to comprehend and understand - Campbell shows so evocatively how important storytelling is, what role it plays, and ultimately, creates guideposts for today's writers. Why does a hero have to refuse the call to adventure? Why does he have to walk through fire? What is, ultimately, so important about experiencing the hero suffer?

I will readily admit, I don't always get things the first time around. And all of this stuff may be old hat for a lot of writers, but having it laid out, discussed, chewed, dissected, analyzed, evidenced and described really helped me to see how critically important each stage of the hero's journey is not so much to the hero, or to me, but to the reader, to her emotional experience of the story I am trying to tell.

In case you're like me and need a picture to understand it all better, Campbell gives one, laying out story in its circular nature, each part labeled meticulously so that the reader can also go to the section of the book that then describes that stage.

Reading this book made me rethink not only my writing style but the way I perceive the role of story within our existence. True, talking about religious stories can do that since religions try to answer the big, huge questions, but seeing that they all try in very similar ways and how all of their stories evoke emotions in similar ways by going through similar stages was nothing short of revelatory for me as a writer.

I know. I know. Revelatory? I'm getting carried away. But here is some fact to balance out my swooning. George Lucas used Campbell's work to craft Star Wars. Star Wars! Can anyone say amazingly successful story?

I'll stop there. I promise. But if you're up for rethinking your whole concept of story, writing, the importance of storytelling to our existence, grab this book! Go for it. It is so incredibly worth it.

For more great reads to put some skip in your 2011, hop over to Barrie Summy's website. You won't be disappointed!

You might be a writer if...

2010-12-15T06:24:00.000-08:00

The end of year nears, and all publishers, fingers crossed, are watching what consumers will do. How will the last quarter of 2010 round itself out? Will sales be up? Down? Even us writers get a little involved. It is, after all, an indication as to how we will all start out 2011 - with a prayer at selling another book, or austerity measures that will drive even the most creative toward writing what sells. Awful state to be in for everybody, but there we have it. Nevertheless, while biting my nails and praying to the gods of book sales, I can't help but wonder, you might be a writer if...

You think the publishing industry needs an OPEC moment.

Whoever thought you'd see publishing and OPEC in the same sentence. One of the most successful industries coupled with one struggling enormously. Bear with me, though. I promise, it will all make sense. Imagine what gasoline prices would be like if there were no OPEC. The countries an producers of oil aren't exactly buddy buddy. They could seriously undercut each other until they would be selling oil at a price well below what it costs to produce, just to get that sale. Sound familiar, publishing execs? The margin of profit on book sales is dangerously close to what it costs just to produce them. Hop back to oil and what do you see? For all the turmoil that abounds amongst Middle Eastern states and oil producers, they are able to agree on one thing, the price of oil. Their allegiance in this one area keeps the consumers locked into a fixed price of gas has made the oil industry very very successful.

So why is it the publishing industry hasn't gotten on that bandwagon? Returns are killing the industry. That is what common opinion has determined. It affects all aspects of publishing, especially writers. How can publishers take a risk on something new unless they are absolutely certain a book will sell? It's an awful predicament to be in. A few low sellers, and an editor's career is in serious jeopardy.

Why?

Because publishers carry all of the risk when it comes to selling books. Returns were started during the 1920s Depression to get wary booksellers to stock shelves when they were fearful they would be unable to sell the stock they purchased and thus go out of business. Publishers offered sellers a novel return policy: if you don't sell it, we'll take it back. It was the opening of Pandora's box. An offer they were unable to ever renig. Today, booksellers carry no risk. All books, regardless of the state they are in, are returnable. Publishers carry the risk. In that sense, there is no difference between big box bookstores and indies. They are consignment shops.

If, however, publishers were to band together, like OPEC, on this one point and abolish the returns policy, making their goods as sold as, say, textile or toy producers products, they would create a little more breathing room for creativity for both their editors and their writers. Maybe. Even I have to admit books, although as important to me as oil, as not as necessary as oil to our everyday lives. Consumers need not buy books.

Still, I can't help thinking that maybe leveling the playing field, sharing the risk amongst booksellers and publishers, might aid the industry overall. If nothing else, it would be an experiment that would get a sluggish industry thinking in novel directions.

Another Semester Completed!

2010-12-08T09:19:00.000-08:00

Yippeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have finished my third semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts. This one was more challenging than the first two because it was the critical thesis semester. I really got into my topic - the illustrious objective correlative. So much so, I applied higher math to literature. Yes, this is what weeks of researching a topic will do to you, collide the left and right halves of your brain until you're combing math and words. Craziness...it's all part of the graduate school experience.

After I honed an cut, crafted and styled my thesis, I spent the rest of the semester sculpting the beginnings of a new piece. It was all about layering this time around. Coming up with the basic foundation, i.e. character and problem. Layering scene on top of that. Then external plot. Emotional plot. It was like creating a painting very painstakingly from the canvas up, hyperaware of each layer and the role it plays in the final perception of color and composition.

So, all in all, a successful semester. And only one left!

What this graduate experience has thus far taught me is that even if Socrates was a little glib when he said, "I know that I know nothing"...I know that I know nothing. There is so much to learn about any field--any craft--and writing is no exception. I will spend the rest of my life learning about it, glorying and despairing in the nuances of the written word and my ability to use it (hopefully glorying a little more than despairing!).

The critical work has imparted the same lesson it did during my PhD, structure, analysis, description and interpretation. It helps me to be able to organize the parts to story and know how they work together, what tools are available, which one I want to tinker with, and how other writers have done so in the past. I need that kind of direction in my writing.

Next semester it is all creative, all the time. I am curious to see, what I learn then?

The Book Review Club - This Book is not Good for You

2010-11-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

This Book is not Good for You
by Pseudonymous Bosch
middle grade

I wanted to like this book. Who wouldn't? It's about chocolate. Delicious, tempting chocolate. Any writer whose been stuck in writer's block h*** has likely turned to the sweet temptress for relief now and again, right?

Which made it so hard to find that the bitter aftertaste of the main protagonist, Cass, made it hard to swallow all of this book.

So why review it?

Because it was a hit with my 9 year old. Granted, the age range for this middle grade may be pretty slim because my 11 year old was not so thrilled. She too thought the main protagonist, Cass, was, in her words "sassy" and "thought she was better than everyone." And here's my favorite part. She thought the writer - who had periodic monologues - talked way too much.

I thought the basic plot idea - kid has to save her mom from an evil society that is trying to make a chocolate that lets you live forever - was very clever. But the Cass' sarcasm and the interruptive monologues really made it hard to finish this piece.

So what is a writer to do with criticism like that? Does it matter?

My theory is that we sometimes learn more from what people don't like than what they do. For me, when it's my work, it tells me that something isn't working. It might not be precisely what the reader doesn't like that needs fixing, but I realize that there are holes big enough that they need to be filled.

So, if you're looking to learn something from holes, check out This Book is not Good for You, and see if you can find what you don't like. AND...what you might fix.

For other stimulating reads, hop over to our fearless leader, Barrie Summy's, blog!

Happy reading!

You might be a writer if...

2010-11-17T06:42:00.000-08:00

Fall is upon us and Winter is just around the corner, which means I am back to layering. It's cold in the mornings, almost freezing now, which means gloves and jacket while running. I even donned my fingerless writing gloves yesterday because it was kind of chilly in my office, as well as a heavy fleece jacket. Granted, I don't usually wear as many layers as the woman in the picture to the right when I'm toiling away in my office. Usually. But even on those exceptionally cold mornings, as the day starts to warm, off come the layers. Sort of like the trees shedding their leaves. First the gloves. Then the jacket. Then the thick socks over my regular socks. Layers. Layers. Layers. They're everywhere.

Even in writing.

You might be a writer if...you're into layering.

This semester at Vermont college coincides well with my "layering" epiphany. Each packet (we're up to 4 now and the last, the fifth, is due December 6) my advisor has given me the same advice, "This is great. Now go back and dig deeper. Make it better." While I've spent a good deal of time these last three months hashing out the linear storyline, I've spent far more going back and layering. First, it was my characters. I needed to deepen their emotional resonance. Then, it was my emotional vs. external storylines. I needed to deepen and merge them.

My normal method of writing thus far has been to hash out that down draft and then go back and layer, but that's hard to do with only 4 weeks per packet. The result has been linear and horizontal development happening simultaneously. Not an easy feat to pull off but well worth the effort.

As I've gone back and sculpted away, tearing out, rewriting, molding, shaping, I've become aware of the layers in my story and how they interact in a super slow mo sort of way. It's much more acute and measured, this seeing and perceiving, almost like applying then watching each layer of paint dry and the slow but inevitable enrichment that layer imbues upon the one below it. How the sum become greater than the individual parts.

Yesterday was the first time I got a glimpse of a very small corner of what this piece will look like when it's done. A snippet of the finished product in all its full, rich, complete and layered color. It was pretty cool. I've never taken my work this slowly before and watched its deliberate and steady development. I am beginning to understand how David Almond could have created Kit's Wilderness, a piece so layered and emotionally resonate on so many levels, it's become my benchmark and goal. Get to that kind of writing. It seldom happens that so many pieces of a work play together like a symphony, like Ravel's Bolero, repeating the same theme but in nuanced variation such that the air pulses with the harmony of melodies. And it's all due to subtle, controlled, labored over layering.

Layers. If you don't got 'em. Get 'em. Cause they can turn great writing into unforgettable stories.

Sacramento...or Bust!

2010-11-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I take Steinbeck's sage advice and "Head West, young man!" (okay, in this case, woman). Yes sir, I am leaving Oklahoma for the land of milk and honey...and librarians. I'll be speaking Saturday at the California School Librarians Conference with four other amazing writers - Susan Goldman Rubin, Linda Joy Singleton, Caryn Yacowitz, and Belle Yang.

Up-to-date and embracing all technology has to offer, we'll be talking about how to bring authors into schools on a shoestring budget. Skype visits, author interviews, podcasts, plays, graphic novels, hands on class demonstrations that bring books to life. We've gotten creative. Very creative. And we came up with some neat alternatives.

Which is pretty cool. For children's authors, there isn't much that can top kids reading our books. I mean, that's why we write. To share our stories. For me, visiting schools and talking to kids about my books, that's the Bees Knees. I hope, as the economy recovers, that schools will increasingly be able to afford once again to bring in real live authors to their students, but I'm glad we can offer some alternatives that get kids talking about writing.

Our panel is at 11 a.m. in the Sacrmento Convention Center, Rm 302/303, for anyone who happens to be attending. Afterwards, we'll be signing in the exhibitor hall, then it's kicking back and lunch!

I plan to head up to Apple Hill for the afternoon and try out some California apples.

Then it's back to the convention center in the evening for the Beatty dinner. I will be hosting a table, which means I get to talk books with librarians! Oh joy. Oh rapture. Oh endless bliss.

I love library conferences.

The Book Review Club - Going Bovine

2010-11-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

Going Bovine
Libba Bray
young adult

Bray knows her characters. The medley of sixteen year old underachiever/loser guy to talking garden gnome cast she creates is a fun romp to read through. Which is good because this is a looooooooooooong book. Very long. 480 pages long.

I know. I know. I sound like a griping teenager. The target audience. I wonder if the story has enough to keep them reading. I had a hard time remaining engaged.

While I enjoyed the imagination, the characters, the dialogue, the constantly changing setting, it was, ultimately, the leap of faith I was unable to take. At about the end of the first third of the book, when Cameron has already been hospitalized and is degenerating quickly - he's suffering from Creutzfeldt-Jacob (mad cow) disease, which is incurable and deadly. He sees an angel. Not just any angel. A punker angel. Okay, I'm still with you. The weird angel has appeared before in the distance. This might work. A punker angel named Dulcie.

Lost me.

We, as readers, are ultimately asked to "sign" a contract to take the leap of faith in fiction. To believe in the parameters of the story. Cameron's reality. It seems to incredible to be real. Sure enough, we come to discover in a 100 Years of Solitude sort of way toward the very end (and there are hints throughout that this might indeed be the case) that Cameron's been hallucinating/dreaming the last two weeks of his life. In other words, everything, including Dulcie, is a figment of his imagination. Yet his imagined life is far more alive and real than the 16 years of his life he more or less drifted through.

It's a great ending. Gabriel Garcia Marquez genius type of ending. But will the reader get there? We aren't in Latin American mysticism but modern day Texas. Realistic setting makes the leap hard. Dulcie makes the leap even harder. Granted, we're not supposed to take the leap in the end, we realize. It was a fantastical leap to begin with. One Cameron dreamed up. But because we do not know that right away, and because the fantastical keeps getting further and further out there, it's really hard to stay engaged, leaving the reader wondering, huh? What's the point? And, um, is it coming soon?

I hate not liking a book. I hate finding stuff wrong with the writing. There is no pleasure in it for me, especially with a book so close to greatness. Ultimately, it feels as though this piece lacked a stronger editorial pen. The right external input could have turned unbelievable into fantastical genius marvelous. We authors need editors. We really really do. No matter what stage of writing we are at. And we should never forget that. Because when we do, we are doomed to repeat our own mistakes without correction over and over and over again.

Read Going Bovine for its characters. For its Garcia Marquez crafty twist on reality. But also to notice where the editorial pen would have helped. Could have tightened, condensed and lifted such promise to the next level of greatness.

For other great reads, hop over to our fearless leader's blog - Barrie Summy Blog.

Happy reading!

Girl on Girl Crime

2010-10-27T07:44:00.000-07:00

This blog goes out to all the girls who've experienced girl on girl crime. I've been seeing more and more of it at younger and younger ages, and I have to ask myself, why? Why are we girls so cruel to one another?

For all of the progress women have made over the last one hundred years, why is it we are still our own worst enemies? Why do we pick on each other so mercilessly?

It's been getting to me lately because not only family members but also close friends of my daughters have been the object of girl-on-girl crime. I'm not sure what one children's author/mom/ aunt/friend can do about it, but maybe if I share my story, it will help other girls to share theirs.

When I was in 7th grade, for reasons I still don't understand, a 6th grader started picking on me. Go figure. A kid a year younger than me. She lived in my neighborhood. We went to the same school. Sometimes, we'd play like great friends. And other times, she'd needle me mercilessly. My father, pacifist male that he is, suggested I sock her one. Don't you love old-school parenting? I couldn't quite work myself up to decking her, even though every time she'd start needling me, it felt like she was socking me one.

The whole situation came to a head when my family was moving. Huge change. My parents were out of town looking for a house. Said kid and I were playing together in the snow. When we were both heading back to our houses, she started needling me again. I tried to turn a deaf ear, i.e. my back, and walk away. She pounced from behind, shoving me down in the snow.

I don't know why that day was different. I don't know why my cup finally overflowed. But I sprang to my feet finally ready to deck her. Yep. Not a proud moment. But empowering. I whirled around and the look that was on my face must have been insane seventh grader crazy. She turned and ran like there was no tomorrow. Better still, she never needled me again. And I never had to sock her one after all.

So, is the moral of the story girls should learn to box? Well...I think what happened that day was bigger than boxing. I finally stood up for myself. I established my boundaries. When I did, the bully realized she couldn't bully me anymore and stopped.

How girls establish boundaries without getting into fisticuffs, though? It's a hard thing to do. To be self-confident when hormone-world is like a roller coaster of craziness inside you. When you feel ugly even though your parents tell you you're pretty. When you sure you don't have the right clothes. The right look. The right anything. It's hard.

But it's possible. Because we girls really are strong on the inside. And we all do have boundaries. They're sacred things, those boundaries are. They are worth sticking up for. In sticking up for them, for ourselves, we become even stronger and more self-confident, and the bullies can't touch that.

So here's a shout out to all girls today. You are strong. You are special. You can do it!!!!!!!!!

And if you want to read about great techniques for sticking up for yourself, try, Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. No socking required!

You might be a writer if...

2010-10-20T07:01:00.000-07:00

I've been knee-deep in world-creation these last weeks. I'm writing a retelling of Frankenstein set in a dystopian future, which means the world is mine to make (and break). It got me to thinking about DesCartes. Cogito ergo sum...I think therefore I am. As an author, I not only think my characters into being. I think their world into being. Kind of leaves an all-powerful aftertaste.

You might be a writer if...you've developed a god complex.

And society thought only surgeons could do that. How little does the world know about the secret lives of writers. Saving limbs and lives is nothing in the daily routine of a writer. We create worlds. Destroy them. Shape alternate universes for our own. Rewrite history. And make it all so real, readers cry, laugh, rejoice and hate as passionately as they do in the real world.

It can leave a writer feeling a bit like god.

I have to admit, though, the godliness I experience is not only that of a god of great joy but one plagued by doubt, concern, tears, frustration, and hopelessness. It is an ever so fatally human god. Still, to be a writer means to think like a god. To be willing not only to breathe life into characters and worlds but also to destroy them with wrath, vengeance, or worst of all, for the good of the story. We kill our darlings, in the words of Faulkner.

I giggle to myself guiltily now when my husband (he's a doc himself) talks surgeons and god-complexes. If only he knew, he was living with a writer who suffers than very same complex squared.

At least he hasn't found all of those darlings stuffed under the floorboards yet. Or the alternate worlds that are crammed into the closets. Nobody ever said just because we kill or destroy our darlings we have to throw them away. We writers may be dastardly but we are environmentally conscious. We recycle nixed storylines and characters all of the time. That's the great thing about playing god. We can kill them off one day and bring them back to life the next.

Ah, the joys of being a writer!

Instantaneous

2010-10-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

Have you ever made pudding the old-fashioned way? I don't mean ancient here. I mean, still packet but with all that stirring.

When I was a kid, I used to beg beg beg my mom to make pudding. This meant, of course, someone had to be in charge of stirring stirring stirring that milk and pudding until it came to a boil. Guess who got that lucky job? Yep, the kid who asked for it.

My arm used to hurt from all of that stirring. Then there was the heat coming off of the burner. And the standing. My God, the standing.

But oh, when that jello was done, the pleasure. To feel it thickening under the turn of my wooden spoon. To smell its rich, yummy goodness. And then to wait ever so impatiently for the refrigerator to finally make that pudding do what is was supposed to do. I could hardly ever wait to finish dinner so I could get my pudding. My hard won pudding.

And then the instant kind came out. And all of that complaining and moaning about having to stir was replaced with a whisk and a few strokes.

The weird thing is, we stopped making pudding.

I'd forgotten all about this until I got together with a writer friend of mine the other day. He's a script editor for Hollywood. Has worked on some of the biggest films of our generation. I could tell you his name, but then he would probably kill me. So let's just call him, Hollywood. H for short.

I was moaning about how movies are getting so incredibly predictable and boring, and how that has slowly eeked its way into books. You know if X is writing a book, it's going to be a mystery/thriller/drama. Pick a genre. But pick only one. Because all of us in arts and entertainment are getting typecast. Every. Last. One.

H said it's because we've moved into the instantaneous society. I buried my head in my arms and moaned, where will it all end? (and felt very much like my grandmother as I said this).

H mentioned a movie I'd actually seen a few years ago. An "off-Hollywood" production called Idiocracy. It extrapolates present society 500 years or so into the future where the president of the United States is a professional wrestler, you can buy everything at Costco, including degrees, and the average IQ has gone so low, the average Joe of today who gets frozen and wakes up in the future is actually a genius who tries to save mankind from his own stupidity. It is black humor at its blackest, and yet with a thread one can see developing in our present society. Kids and adults attached to computer devices of all sorts all the time. Monies being poured into science that solves hairloss or increases breast-size most "naturally", rather than finding new sources of energy. The arts getting less and less attention as video of all nature takes over. And those video shows getting dumber and dumber with each season.

Where will it all end? (Again, feeling a lot like my grandmother).

And that's just it, Grandma Julie. Does the aging generation begin to feel like progress is not necessarily good, or have we really begun to overturn the technology screw and underturn individual thought and development? Is the future looming before our eyes Idiocracy? I cannnot be that pessimistic, even if I wanted to. Trouble is, I'm more fatalistic. I see us so individualized that we lose our sense of community. That what Thomas Jefferson said - I do not agree with you but I will fight to the death for you to have your opinion - will no longer apply and democracy will go the way of the dinosaurs, as will society (now there's a ya novel just waiting to be written). That we will all be linked in, facebooked and co-joined cybernetically, but forget how to interact in person. There's actually already a book on that - Feed, by M.T. Anderson.

There is the smallest part of me, however, that optimist of my youth, that believes mankind might actually still have some chutzpah lurking somewhere deep down that's going to explode out when the instantaneousness gets to be too much. It's the part that wants to make jello from scratch. That does not want everything immediately, right away, yesterday. The one that likes delayed gratification. And it's there. Just look at the book we all love to hate, Twilight. Delayed gratification cubed.

I hope so very much that part of me is right.

The Book Review Club - Speak vs. Wintergirls

2010-10-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson
Young Adult

and

Wintergirls
Laurie Halse Anderson
Young Adult

I read both of these books back to back and did not give up on life entirely, which speaks highly to Anderson's talent as a writer. These are not easy reads. Speak, celebrating its 10th anniversary in print, is about rape. Think that's edgy? Wintergirls is about bulimia and anorexia. This is tough stuff. Anderson does a fabulous job with protraying real, troubled teens. For any girl who has been through rape or is battling an eating disorder, these pieces must feel empowering because they let the individual know, you are not alone.

The reason I review them together is because, despite Anderson's skill at real, gritty portrayal of these issues through a teen character, after finishing the books, I was left feeling much like I had after a spree of John Irving books in my early twenties, i.e. like the main characters were the same person over and over. Lia of Wintergirls, birthed ten years after Melinda of Speak, nonetheless feels like the same teen. Anderson's writing chops are much improved, although the symbolism in Speak is incredible, the writing in Wintergirls will leave you rereading again and again to pick up craft points, turns of phrase, ideas on how to take mental illness and make it real for readers. Still, Melinda and Lia are interchangeable.

Why?

Their voice feels very similar. Their reactions, similar. Lia feels like a more mature Melinda, going further in her personal psychosis, more unstable, more suicidal, more detached. Yet still, Melinda.

Which leads me to ask the following questions: What results in similar characters across novels by the same author? Can we authors only get so far from our own perception? Are we slaves to our own hermeneutics? Or do similar driving motives across different stories nevertheless lead to similar characters?

I am not sure what the answers are, but I would like to know more because I find myself falling into that pattern in a present novel. Certain secondary characters feel similar to ones in an earlier novel I wrote. How do I avoid that? Should I? Or does such similarity define an author much as a defining brushstroke can define a painter?

Food for thought.

For more great reads, hop over to our fearless leader, Barrie Summy's blog. And for those of you in the Kansas area, if you get a chance, stop by the Kansas School Librarians Conference Thursday and Friday of this week. Barrie Summy, P.J. Hoover, Zu Vincent, Suzanne Morgan Williams, and I are the guest speakers for lunch on Thursday. It's a whole panel of characters just waiting to share!

A Cover! A Cover!

2010-09-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

A cover! A cover! I actually got a cover for my upcoming picture book, Rope 'Em. This is a red letter day (or, in this case, purple :-)

We writers spend most of our lives waiting. Waiting that centers around the slow but steady movement of an idea to a rough draft to revisions (If I could, I'd put in one of those repeat symbols for music because this is where waiting turns into something like Beckett's Waiting for Godot) to a manuscript to finding an agent to a sale to revisions - or, again, lots of revisions - to corrections, to ARCs, to, dare I say it...an actual, bona fide, hold-in-my-hands book.

The waiting can sometimes get to us writers. We suffer. Despair. Call each other and vent or moan, or both. But when that cover arrives, oh, is all the waiting worth it. So worth it!

So, here it is. The gorgeous cover for my next book. The hope that, yes, Stacy, it will really appear as a book in March. Really!

I am in love with the illustrations. So light-hearted. Fun. Silly. The illustrator, Bret Conover, is from San Diego, which is where the publisher, Kane Miller, sits as well. Barrie, San Diego really is the place to be, isn't it? This is his first picture book, and I think he hit a home run. Yeay!!!!

In other, slightly less exciting news, the new silkworms arrived. They have started to hatch. Two have already died on the artificial formula, but we have at least ten going strong. Oh, let them go all the way. Let there be silk!

Ode to a Silkworm

2010-09-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

Ode to a Silkworm

Small eggs so black and fine
Unbend and crawl and dine
But not on everything
Even if it's green
One treat alone will please
Leaves! Mulberry leaves!
Soft and fine and new
But shake off all the dew
A connoiseur can drown
While chomping through and down
We may die anyway
If leaves are hard as hay
And leave you wondering
Why did I start this thing?

It's true. The silkworms are no more. We tried everything. I even steamed mulberry leaves - like steaming veggies for older people with wonky digestive systems. No go. They died. The silkworms, that is. Every last one. Fortunately, the company I ordered them from is sending us a fresh batch and artificial silkworm food. Hopefully this will work.

Oh, the things fiction doesn't tell you about real life! But we press on.

Despite our bad luck with silkworms, we adopted a new family member. We had two dogs for about ten years. Then, about two years ago, our beagle died. Just got old. After getting over missing him, we decided a new dog might be good for us and for our surviving, lonely dog. On Saturday, we finally found the perfect match. We tried the SPCA, but the dog we picked out didn't get along with our Mulligan. The one that did, wasn't terribly interested in us. So, we went to the city animal shelter. There, it is less a question of whether a person will find a dog to take home and more, can I limit myself to just one?

It was hard, mostly because they all wanted to come home with us, but we cannot adopt 65 dogs, as much as we would like to. Seriously.

After much deliberation, we decided on one.

She's pretty sweet and chill. The perfect writing partner. Lays on the carpet in front of my desk and keeps me company along the lonely path of writing. If only she could get the potty-training thing down...before the next batch of silkworms arrives.

If this were fiction, I would so make that happen!

You might be a writer if...

2010-09-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've been let out on good behavior for a few days having turned in my revised critical thesis. This basically means that I have time to take care of those fires that have been burning so evenly around my house. One is the Dr. Doolittle room, which goes straight to the heart of this blog: You might be a writer if...you try to make books come to life.

I don't mean the books you write because, of course, you try really hard to make those come to life.

I don't mean the books you read when you were a kid. Raise you hand (mentally) if you're one of those kids who tried to levitate rocks like Luke Skywalker or wondered if you really could tesser if you just thought about it hard enough.

No, I mean that you're still doing that today.

Guilty secret: I am.

Only, it isn't so secret anymore. You see, the summer residency at Vermont College assigned Linda Sue Park's Project Mulberry. Three other books were assigned with hers. We only had to read two. Being the good student I am, I only read two. But then, being the guilt student I am, after residency was over, I got the other two and read them (and I did not just write that in case any faculty members are reading my blog. Really).

Project Mulberry was assigned because of its format. Instead of Park remaining an unseen, unheard, unexperienced author, she steps in and has conversations with her main protagonist. The question posed was whether this got in the way of the actual story, if it pulled us readers out and whether that ultimately worked or was a hindrance.

Granted, all of that was interesting, but what really hooked me was the actual story. Two children raise silkworms, make thread and then embroider a project from the thread they've made to enter at the state fair.

In the words of ten year olds everywhere...Awesome!

So when my kids came home from their Montessori school needing a creative project for the year (they are in 4th and 6th grades in the same classroom), BANG! I had the perfect idea for them.

And they liked it. Yippee! Super Mom gets to secretly do good and make her favorite read come to life. Could life get any better?

It could get a whole lot more real, but I'm skipping ahead.

We ordered the worms. The girls quickly pointed out (after having read Project Mulberry, too) that the worms were more expensive in real life than in Park's story. I tried to explain that a few years had gone by, inflation, that kind of thing. I think they were still upset that reality did not exactly mirror fiction (as was my pocket book).

We pressed on, setting up shop in the garage since it's got the perfect incubating temperature at the moment, a balmy 85. Teh eggs arrive. We carefully placed them in the habitat, sprayed them with water...waited...sprayed...waited. In only six days, they began to hatch (faster than in Park's story, but no one complained this time).

Then the trouble started. We have a mulberry tree on our property, so food shouldn't have been a problem. We picked some leaves.

The worms wouldn't eat them.

Uh-oh. Silkworms eat mulberry leaves and mulberry leaves only. ONLY. What were we going to feed them?

My oldest pipes up, "the brochure the eggs came with said sometimes fall leaves are too tough."

Why didn't she tell me this before? (Let's not get into why didn't I read the pamphlet the eggs came with. I read Project Mulberry!).

So, I called my parents who always have a wild assortment of young trees growing in their yard. It was raining (storming actually), but I pleaded the case of the dying silkworms. My mom, who really must have wondered how old I was at that moment, agreed to trudge out in the deluge and check the leaves. We raced over to collect them.

Silkworms saved!

Until two days later. The temperature in Oklahoma shot up to the mid-90s. My husband, who has this thing about closing the garage door immediately after he pulls in his car, no matter how hot outside it is, did. The garage heated up.

Silkworms started dropping, like, well, like flies.

We ER-ed them into the laundry room. Painstakingly moved them from the dried out leaves to fresh, new, young, clean, delicious leaves.

Silkworms saved!

Then this morning, they started dropping again. Won't eat their leaves. Won't move. Might be in the sleeping stage, but we can't be sure. Frantically, I went online for advice. The only thing I could guestimate is that it could be mold on the leaves. Carefully, I created a new habitat, washed new leaves, and have now transferred all of the worms to their new home. My kids helped until carpool showed up.

Silkworms saved?

I really hope so because if we have to start from scratch, I will never get another word written on my novel. I have become a 24/7 silkworm caregiver. (This is not to mention the 30+ tadpoles we saved from soaring 100 degree temps in July and are now raising right next to the silkworms, of which, currently, 7 have sprouted all four legs and have greeted me mornings in the sink, on the faucet, on the sponge...).

I guess the motto of all of this is: Be careful what you wish for. I have never ever had a book come to life in such an exciting, frantic, uncertain, real way.

Does this mean I am becoming an amazingly great writer...or is my imagination finally getting the best of me?

Who is Justin Bieber?

2010-09-08T07:44:00.000-07:00

The challenge has gone out over at Red Room to try and get a grip on the insane amount of success, or is it fame?, the pop singer, Justin Bieber, a mere 16 year-old, has risen to in just over a year's time.

Those of my generation are shaking their heads. Justin who? How? What?

Me, I'm a children's author, plus, I have two girls. I'm in the throes of experiencing all of this from many angles. Granted, my eleven year-old is not a must-go-to-his-concert-or-I'll-die kind of fan, but her best friend is. And let me tell you, the giggles roll in mouth-covering waves when Bieber's name comes up. She knows all of his songs. She follows him in Seventeen. And she will watch any show, ANY, even if Justin is only a tangential part of it.

Why? Why, why, why bemoan parents? Why is he so special?

If you're a writer, you may, like me in my darker moments, feel a distinct twinge of, dare I say, jealousy? Why does he get all of the spotlight? Why his songs? What about my books? Or, to be somewhat more objective and less me, me, me-oriented, Katherine Paterson's? Yeesh. There's a woman who can write. Why don't kids put a huge poster of Katherine on their walls with a shrine of candles and library receipts from all of the Katherine Paterson books they've checked out, and the stub to the Bridge to Terabithia movie in a sealed glass case with light-sensitive glass, preserved for all times? In all fairness, I'm not sure that would really be up Katherine's alley, but you get my point. Why don't kids worship book writers like they do boy singers?

Tricky question. Very tricky.

T.S. Eliot's objective correlative clearly speaks to the answer, but let's keep it simple, shall we. Let's just let the object work on us:

Did your heart skip a beat? Were you swept back to the late seventies, the Partridge Family, hours of pining away for that perfect boy with the perfect hair and who can sing? (Note: this is a 2006 calendar. There are some of you still pining!)

Not feeling it yet?
Try this one:

Yeah, few can resist the sirene's call of Leif Garrett. That hair. Those eyes. That smile. That open shirt. Sigh. I don't know about you, but man, did I want...want...

Want what?

That's the real clincher, isn't it? What do these boy heart throbs stir in the girly breast (Did you titter because I said breast? Come on, admit it. After those pictures, we're all thirteen right now, aren't we?)

Possibility. The possibility of romance. Of being liked. Of having someone crush on you with that quivering, knee-knocking, heart-stopping intensity that you feel when you look at them.

And, in my great grandmother's words (fake a Hungarian accent when you read this), "They're such nice boys." They'll take care of us. Be good to us. Love us. And yes, even feminist extraordinaires want to be loved. So these figures are working on our deepest emotional desires, even if we do not want to admit it.

Bieber goes a step further. Take his song, "One Time". In the video, Bieber sings about how he is going to open up. He's going to tell the girl. The video shows him finally doing this. And what happens? Cool, ultra popular, singer spills out his heart and...the girl checks her watch and leaves! Rip the teenage girl heart out right there! Why? They know exactly how he feels. They've pined away for a boy who never notices them or worse, disses them. Bieber's video turns the table, making him the vulnerable one, the one needing to be taken care of and loved.

It's the perfect girl dream.

Now, as an adult, if you're still asking, why him?, I clearly haven't put in the right terms yet. Let's talk as adults for a moment, shall we?

Huge financial backing. H.U.G.E.

Usher discovered Bieber. He signed the boy wonder-to-be onto his record label, and then promoted the bajeesuz out of him. And wala, Bieber is a success. Usher could have chosen any kid - and there are tons who fit the boy heart throb bill - spiffy-ed him up, taught him how to sing, and given him a cool hair cut and they would have done the job just as well. Not buying it? Just see the David Cassidy and Leif Garrett pictures again. And again. And again. And again. It should sink in.

Justin just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Which only adds to the mystique, by the way. He is the quintessential nice boy from next door.

Getting back to the source of this blog challenge, Red Room, a group of writers, here's my last, all-out effort at putting Bieber success in writer's terminology. Think New York Times bestseller list. You might be a writer if, you've learned that the books that make that list are ones chosen in the quiet of a publisher's office by a group of editors who decide, "this is the title we are going to push". Marketing gets behind with the full force of their sales staff and advertising dollars. Ads are placed. Interviews lined up. An author tour arranged. And low and behold, the book makes the NYT bestseller list.

Does that mean the book isn't worthy? It's just dollars working? Absolutely not. But there are probably ten to fifty other books that, given the right marketing push, could have risen to that intense fame/financial success given the same sort of marketing support.

In the end, fame (and to some extent financial success) are about getting a lucky break. Luck: where preparation and opportunity meet. We writers can control the preparation. Write. Write on the edge of reason, taking all chances, no holds barred. We can even expose ourselves to opportunity by getting out of our writer's caves, speaking at conferences, doing book-signings at book stores, going to ALA and BEA.

In the end, however, whether opportunity and preparation actually meet, well, that's up to fate. Now if somebody could explain that nebulous entity to me, I'd be eternally grateful!

The Book Review Club - The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister

2010-08-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister
By Charlotte Agell
middle grade
(151 pp with some b/w illustration)

I won the advance arc for this book on Sarah Laurence's website and eagerly awaited its arrival. My youngest daughter is a serious Junie B. Jones, Judy Moody, Flat Stanley, Geronimo Stilton, you-name-the-series-she'll-read-it kind of kid. I wondered if India would fit the bill.

She more than lived up to my expectations. One of my pet peeves with series books these days is the flatness to the characters. This is not to say they don't have their own quirks, but rather, that they all seem to come from the same amorphous, fictitious middle America neighborhood. It's a great marketing ploy, but gets a little boring after a while, at least for me.

Which is what drew me into this book immediately. India is a adopted from China. Her parents are divorced. Her dad is gay and in a relationship with another man. Her mom is a self-sufficient artist (that really sealed the deal). India lives in a real place, Wolfgang, Maine. It is not middle America. It is a little town with a forest where you can get lost! There is so much texture to this story and its characters. The adventures India has are regular kid adventures. She has a boy who is her friend but not her boyfriend, Colby. He has a crush on a girl India cannot stand. India and Colby sleep out in a field to watch for UFOs. India spends time with her elderly neighbor next door. And all around these adventures is the enticing flavors of real setting, modern day family, and real life.

Go India!

Add to that the gentle illustrations with which Agell enlivens the pages, and it's a winning combination. I cannot wait to read more.

For more adventurous tales, hop over to our fearless leader, Barrie Summy's blog!

On a tangentially related note, I got to see the inside illustrations for my upcoming picture book, ROPE 'EM, that comes out in March 2011 with Kane Miller. Gorgeous (author swoons).

I'm in love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paradise for Sinners

2010-08-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

Somewhere between July and August I think I went from venal to mortal sins regarding the regularity with which I have been posting. I have my excuses...but don't all sinners?

So I was kinda surprised when they still let me into paradise. The Hawaiian version.

I frantically wrote for two weeks straight, literally day and night, to get that d*@# Master's Thesis rough draft finished so that I could take the long-planned family vacation with my family and not face a mutiny when they found me up in the middle of the night working on the d*@# thesis. It was self-preservation. Really.

So it was with a clean writing slate that I boarded American Airlines Flight 7 for the tropical paradise on earth known as Maui. For two weeks, I did not have to think about scene, setting, objective correlative, plotting (except maybe what I was plotting to do that very day with my kids and husband in that particularly gorgeous setting and the emotions it would evoke). It was glorious. Heaven on earth. Granted, there were times when the blackened coals of the underneath emerged to char my toes, but that's why man invented shoes, right?

I did not want to leave. Ever. Which is probably why I keep setting books in Hawaii. I can't help it. I am drawn to the climate and atmosphere of the South Pacific like a homing pigeon. It is just so...other. So...relaxing. My youngest made the wise point that if I moved there, though, it wouldn't be special anymore. Good point. Routine would set in.

Still, I'd be willing risk it to see if I could ever reach a saturation point living full time in paradise. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Now if I could just write that sinfully successful novel that will get me there!

Until then, here's to dreaming about sand, sun, and the next big wave.

The Book Review Club - A Step from Heaven

2010-08-04T06:19:00.000-07:00

A Step from Heaven
An Na
middle grade - young adult

Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one month since my last posting.

I have a really good excuse! Honest.

I'm bogged down in MFA thesis writing. I have to hand in the rough draft on Friday, which means I've had a whole 2.5 weeks to research and write it out. Stress. Where would I be without you?

Still, I wouldn't miss The Book Review Club for anything so I've surfaced for a few short, glorious moments to commune with the outside world...and remind myself, there is an outside world.

Here we go.

A Step from Heaven is the story of a Korean girl, Yung Ju, and her family as they move from Korea to the United States. The story follows the trials the move presents for all of the family members. The father becomes increasingly abusive, until Yung Ju is faced with either turning him in to save her mother's life (as well as her own), or turning a blind eye yet again.

Gripping stuff.

From a craft angle, I really enjoyed the vignette format An Na used to tell her story. The piece begins with Yung Ju and her father at the ocean. He is teaching her to swim. It is an endearing moment. The father is not just a brute, but he loves his daughter. Also, the scene highlights water, which is an underlying current throughout the book.

By telling the story in vignettes, the effect is very aquatic. The vignettes lap against the reader's mind like small waves. Building. Building. Ever building. Until the climax of the story when Yung Ju saves her mother and with one phone call, sweeps her entire family onto a new, healthier emotional trajectory.

The one issue I had with the piece is that, since it begins when Yung Ju is four, she refers to everyone in her family with their Korean titles, i.e. Mother is Uhmma, Grandmother is Halmoni, and Father is Apa. It might just be me, but it took me a chapter to figure out who each of the titles refers to. In the end, I caught on, but it caused me a great deal of initial confusion, as well as raised the question, if I plan to tell a story in first person, with a non-native English speaker, and want to stay true to character, how do I bring in the names of the people closest to my character without confusing my reader? It's a tough question. This approach did not feel satisfactory for me, but at the same time, I am hard pressed to come up with a better one, other than to abandon the foreign names and use ones in English. Tough call.

Nevertheless, this is a phenomenal read. The writing is tight. The flow even. The climb to the climax excellent. The characters well-rounded. And it is fairly quick. So, if you are looking for a short, craft-packed, well-written piece, look no further. A Step from Heaven is your piece.

For other great reads, check out our fearless leader, Barrie Summy's, blog!

Now back to that nagging thesis. Ugh.

The Book Review Club - Monster

2010-07-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

Monster
Walter Dean Meyers
YA

In the interests of full disclosure, this book has been on my mental to-read pile for at least two years. A writer friend of mine, Linda Joy Singleton, heartily recommended it, but I have to admit, I cringed at the title. I knew it would not be a green meadows, blue skies and sweet little bunnies read (I prefer these, I'll admit). This was serious stuff. So....I put it off.

Then it was assigned for the upcoming residency at Vermont College starting next Monday. So, I bit the bullet and got the book from the library.

Basic plot: African American boy from NYC is charged as an accomplice in a felony murder and this is his trial.

The story is gritty and well told; however its storytelling form is the real nugget in this piece. The story is written in script format interspersed with bits of prose and handwritten journal entries, as well as images. As such, it was an interesting mix of Hollywood meets young adult fiction. The images add to that feeling by offering snapshots one could imagine posted up next to beats/scenes scattered along a chaotic storyboard on some lonely script writer's wall.

It is perhaps the latest version of storytelling for our generation. A book of letters does not work super well in today's society. A book of emails or instant texting, absolutely. Just check out the TTYL series by Lauren Myracle. Script format, however, seems like an underused method for the world of kids' novels. I do not know of any other ya or mg books told in this style (and now hope for a few suggestions from all of you much more plugged in readers out there!) It offers the writer novel methods of honing focus on one character and pulling back out, much like a camera. It is worth playing around with as a writing format. Also, because of the vast amount of white space script format inherently brings with it, such books might lend themselves more readily to reluctant readers.

The one question is, what stories lend themselves to script format? Murder trial, absolutely. Drama queen? One-day-in-the-life types of stories? Are there more?

At the very latest, next week in Vermont, I hope to find out!

For more great reviews, hop over to The Book Review's fearless leader's blog and check out what the summer has to offer (maybe even a few green meadows!).

Unexpected Side Effects

2010-06-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

Since my last year has been filled with intense reading, analyzing and writing, I have wondered what, if any, the effects have been on my world outside of writing. As always, the side effects appear least where I expect them.

The movies.

My husband and I decided to catch up on actual movie-going since the kids are in Germany this month. When we were young and poor graduate students and living in Germany ourselves, every Wednesday night was movie night because the theaters had half-price tickets. There was hardly ever a lack of things to see. Sure, there were lulls, but for the most part, Wednesday night was a night away from reality in someone else's enchanting story.

This last week has not been as enchanting. We went to see Killers with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutscher, Sex and the City 2, and Letters to Juliet. You can guess who was picking the movies. But even if my husband had had more of a say, the only one we'd have added to the mix is Iron Man 2. Without having seen the last one, still, of the other three, the only one that held my attention was Letters to Juliet. I knew Sex and the City 2 would be a walk down memory lane, but I was actually checking my watch during the movie! Me. A diehard Sex and the City fan. During Killers, I checked my watch, too. I have never checked my watch in a movie. What is wrong with me? Have I studied plot so much that now I cannot get lost even a little bit in a mediocre film?

I think maybe.

The upside is that I've seen Letters to Juliet twice, and would see it a third time. The writing is smart, the acting good, the storyline plausible, with good A and B arc-ing stories. But why is there only one such movie out there at the height of summer? Granted, I'm waiting for the kids to come back before I go see Karate Kid, but that's got to be good. The original was already super and the new actors should spice up the latest version. I do not think there will be any watch checking.

However, if there is any truth to the adage that there are no new stories, only new ways of telling them, then I am worried about the movies. Of the movies listed above, only 2 are originals. Of those, I only got caught up in one. I know the movie industry is suffering, but there is good writing out there. Remakes are fun, but the real rush (and dollars) comes from fresh, innovative, exciting writing combined with sharp acting.

Now if I can just apply what I've learned to my own writing!

Another Semester Complete!

2010-06-17T06:26:00.000-07:00

I finished my second semester at Vermont College.

Amen! Hallelujah!

Where's the Tylenol?

Seriously.

It has been an incredibly full semester of writing. I took apart one manuscript for experimentation purposes. Yes, how fun, right? I got to try out varying POVs on the poor little thing. It survived. If I am being honest, it...well, it got better even. But it was a rough five months for that guinea pig of a work in progress.

I also wrote a second manuscript. Finished a rough draft even. Very satisfying. When I forget the sleepless nights and zombie like way I walked around the house some days completely stuck in my story, but I'd be like that with our without the MFA program. This way, I got to finish a draft with someone standing on the sidelines directing me when I got too offsides. Truly satisfying.

And then there were the umpteen critical essays I wrote, books I read, craft pieces I chewed on, and existential angst moments I went through trying to figure out how to make my writing better.

In the end, the big question remains? Was it worth it?

For me, yes. I realize I could do this to myself without the aid of an advisor, but I like the input. And I am not sure I would be so diligent about struggling with issues of craft if I didn't have to write those glorious ten page papers. And finally, I know for a fact, I wouldn't take an MS apart and play with one aspect of it just for the heck of it. It's like taking a car apart and not being sure it will still be the same model when you put it back together but having some vague notion it will run better, just not how. It isn't exactly a comfortable thing to do. Worthwhile? Totally. But better done for me with a little guidance.

But did it make me any better?

In a word, yeah. I am finally learning how to take raw information and transform it into something more than description, into story, and control the process while I am doing it. Granted, I keep creating new problems and sticking points for myself with each work, but I think that may be par for the game. Learning how to self-diagnose has been helping there. I still am a firm believer in a second set of eyes looking over my work before I send it out. I cannot always see the forest for the trees, and it is the blind spots that often need the most work for me. But I am learning. And that is what this whole process is about for me.

Hold on. Wait a minute.

I am learning!

Growing Pains

2010-06-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

Summer has arrived in Oklahoma, which means my two girls left a week and a half ago to attend school in Germany for the month of June. Last year was the first time they went, and there was lots of nervous uncertainty attached with the going. This year, there were less tears...on their side. I have a deep dark confession to make. I don't like being an empty-nester with an 11 year old and an 8 year old.

That is the selfish part of me coming out. I know this is so great for them. They're German gets sooooooooo much better during the month. They have new friends their age in a German school. The family that they stay with is phenomenal. My husband and I have been friends with the parents since graduate school (which is starting to make me feel old!). So they are in good hands, having great experiences, and doing things I, as a kid, would have given just about anything to do. But I miss my babies.

I know you can get used to just about anything. I'm not sure I'll totally get used to this, so I've decided to cope by burying myself in my WIP and rewriting until the cows come home. Literally. Since I don't have to take off to run carpool, gymnastics, swimming, and a million other errands, there is nothing stopping me from obsessing until those tinkling bells start a'ringin' (which actually sounds a lot more like a garage door opening when my husband comes home).

There is something to be said for obsessing now and again. I've learned a lot about my writing just from simply not having to stop mid-thought and fly out of the door. How this will translate into regular life once the girls come back, I have no idea. But, it is a journey, right? I'm on the road to somewhere...it'll be interesting to find out where that is.

The Book Review Club - When You Reach Me

2010-06-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

When You Reach Me
Rebecca Stead

middle grade

I thought twice about reviewing this book. It's always hard when a piece wins an award to write a review about it. The prejudice that goes along with an award as weighty as the Newbery is that the book is phenomenal.

Only, I had some serious issues with it.

Of course, making such a statement requires serious justification, and let me say that I think the premise--time travel--and the writing are phenomenal. They are what kept me reading.

However, I had some serious problems with the fact that Stead rested her story so significantly on L'Engle's, A Wrinkle in Time. A professor of mine in grad school told us--as a way of more or less taking the burden off our shoulders of coming up with new ideas for term papers and later, our own research--that we should build upon the ideas already out there (upon the shoulders of giants), not think we have to come up with brand new ones. So, I'm all for building upon the idea of time travel that L'Engle entertained in A Wrinkle in Time, which also happens to be one of my all time favorite books.

What I had trouble with in Stead's piece was that she built the whole book around L'Engle's when she didn't really have to. She set the book in the 1970s, made the main character obsessed with L'Engle's book, kept referring to it and debating the time travel issue as L'Engle explained it in her piece. I'm not sure why. Stead took L'Engle's idea and reshaped, built onto it, like many many writers do, and made it something clever and new. So why the need to incorporate A Wrinkle in Time into the very thread of When You Reach Me? The end result was distracting and placed Stead's groundbreaking thoughts and concepts in the very long, very gigantic shadow of L'Engle's own work.

In the end, if you are looking for amazingly good stylistic writing with strong characters, this piece has them. A new idea on time travel? The book has that too. If only it didn't have such a long shadow interwoven within its very fabric.

For more amazing reads, see Barrie Summy's blog this week!

There's a Low that's Moving Through...

2010-05-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

Tulsa is starting to have that permanently dreary, rainy look to it. Forget the tornadoes, which, actually, is sort of a crazy idea, but they are beginning to feel less dangerous than the perma-gloom. Rain is great. LOVE IT, especially in this part of the country where it can come all too seldom in summer.

The perma-gloom that comes with day after day after day of dreary weather because we are getting more than our fair share of rain all at once, however, is starting to wear.

The worst part is that the mood it throws me into makes writing feel like the ultimate challenge. Okay, anything cerebral right now feels like the ultimate challenge, but writing is really hard. Honest. I think I may have to escape to a windowless room and paint bright yellow suns all around to fool my brain into believing the weather is really really gorgeous out there.

Do you think it will work?

If not, I can always crawl into that book I'm reading right now, The Spying Heart, by Katherine Paterson, and hope that by the time I finish, the sun will have found its way back into the Midwest (if not back into my writing mojo).

Here's to hoping! Now where is that book....

Tornado Alley

2010-05-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

I foolishly put off blogging on Wednesday because I was finishing a manuscript and all I could think about was said manuscript. Hopefully, I'll think of something to blog about by tomorrow, I hoped.

I think I hoped too hard. Tomorrow has come and with it, a majorly intense blog theme--high winds and tornadoes!

The sirens went off at 5 a.m. this morning just as we lost power. For the first time in our lives, we grabbed the kids and headed for the storm shelter we had dug under our garage floor about seven years ago. That is an almost unreal feeling, huddling together, listening to the winds howl just outside the garage door (which suddenly seemed very flimsy), feeling the kids shake, hearing the dog pant, and seeing nothing but pitch blackness.

Fortunately, we came out unscathed and the house is still standing, but in a direct line with our house, only a street away, three huge, 150 year old trees were ripped out of the ground and laid crosswise across the road and front lawns of our neighbors. They missed the houses, by inches, but still, they missed.

And these were, theoretically, only high winds. I have a feeling someone at the weather station missed a rotation, but who knows. I'm just glad we're all still standing.

I have experienced a tornado once before in my life--right behind my car as I was driving home. I wouldn't suggest trying this at home. I had just returned from Houston and had spent the better part of an hour in a holding pattern over Tulsa until the storm moved out. The landing was super bumpy, but okay. I hopped in my car to head home. Minutes from my house, the storm, which had abated, revved back up. Hail pummeled down. The sky was pitch black. And behind me I heard the sound of a jet engine. I have never been so scared in all of my life. I was right next to the river, where tornadoes like to strike in this area. I could barely see anything, the rain was falling so hard. By the time I got home, I was shaking. I think I know how Dorothy felt now.

If you're looking for a little weather excitement, look no further. Oklahoma is the place to be. Me? I'd settle for calm and sunny right now. I've had about all the excitement I'd can handle for a while, but oh the story ideas!

The Book Review Club - Leviathan

2010-05-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

Leviathan

Scott Westerfield

young adult/steampunk

Steampunk.

Already skeptical? Or intrigued?

Westerfield's romp into the on-again off-again genre of steampunk will definitely leave you thinking. Granted, the complicated web of alliances that led to the first World War could be something tagged as, dare I say, dry and boring? However, by bringing in the fantastical, Westerfield makes a complicated but important era of history a little more accessible. How many students will groan, however, when they learn that Darwinist fabricated creatures did not, in fact, exist. Oh well. Whatever it takes to grab their attention and get them interested, right?

In short, Leviathan is the story of Aleksander, sole heir to the Archduke of Austria who is being hunted by Franz Joseph and Germany to be done away with quietly, and Deryn, young Scottish girl passing as a boy in order to serve in the Royal Air Force. Their paths cross when the airship Leviathan--part whale, part a thousand other creatures--that Deryn is assigned to is shot down by German planes over the Swiss Alps, where Alek is hiding out. The two join forces to battle a common enemy, the Germans.

If you like science fiction, you'll enjoy. If you like history, you'll have fun pulling apart the real from the alternate. If you like finding new tools for writing, well then, you may actually secretly (or not so secretly) whistle for joy.

Narration is probably one of the hardest aspects to incorporate into writing without killing a story's pace. We demanding readers want action, not a bunch of telling, right? Westerfield has his work cut out for him with this piece. Not only does he have to get in the usual suspects-character appearance, character backstory, historical setting, setting-he has to explain his fabricated creatures, how they work, how they came into being, and all of that alternate history. It's not small feat.

Westerfield tackles the weighty challenge by combining narration with other story elements, such as action, dialogue, and emotional responses. Much like the Darwinists in his story combine life threads of various animals to create fabricated war animals, Westerfield combines to create wholly new show-tell and tell-show “beasties” that turn a potential pace killer into a pace maker.

It's marvelous work, if a writer is looking for a few new tricks. How do I work narration into dialogue without it becoming an information dump? It's here. How do I distract with action while getting across narration? In Blake Snyder's words (Save the Cat) pull a Pope in the Pool? Westerfield uses a sword fight. Dissertations could be written on that sword fight alone. It's narration. It's a segway from Act 1 into Act 2. It's a symbolic cutting of the last strings of etiquette so that Alek is free to strive to leave his mark on the developing war. It's just plain good writing. How do I make narration a pace maker? Ah, it's here too. Nothing like using the divulgence of information to spark a romance between two main characters.

So, if you are looking for a little narration helper, look no further. Westerfield has a few tricks I will definitely use in the future. There is much craft to learn here, and even a few fun facts. It's well worth the two or three nights it takes to get through the book. Well, well worth it.

And when you're done with that, hop over to Barrie Summy's blog for more interesting reads!

There Are No New Stories

2010-04-27T16:20:00.000-07:00

I recently sat down to add an oldie but a goodie to my library, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I don't know how I managed, but I missed this one in high school and college. After finishing it last night, I am in awe.

I always thought Shelley's work was groundbreaking, even if all I'd ever seen of it was the parodied Mel Brooks version, Young Frankenstein. The tragic monster hero shines through, even there.

I'd even read about it some before. That is was and still is touted as the first science fiction piece. New. New. New.

Well...

In all fairness to Shelley, not even she labeled her work as new. She actually entitled it, The Modern Prometheus. Yep, that really really really old Greek guy who had his liver eaten out every day (he also happened to create life from clay).

There are no new stories.

Shelley did have a new take, though. It's not often that man creates life. Woman, yes. Man? And then he turns on it. Deplores it. And that creation goes out in the world to be despised and hated. And yet it only wishes to be loved and show love. It's external hatred that turns the outwardly monsterly creation into a monster on the inside.

Clever. Very very clever.

By the time I got to Frankenstein the man's death, I wasn't rooting for him. I was rooting for the misunderstood monster. How could I not? The monster pleads with Frankenstein to understand his plight. To give him someone to love and to share his life. Frankenstein, however, cannot get beyond his own external revulsion at the outward appearance of his creation. He cannot see that ugly on the outside does not necessarily mean ugly on the inside.

In today's world of increasing preoccupation with external appearances, it's a classic idea. A classic tale. It's still cutting edge. That's saying a lot for such an old tome. Wouldn't it be amazing to write something that rings true for such a long time?

What Happens After...

2010-04-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking long and hard about what happens after I finish grad school in writing. What is the expectation? I'm already published, so it's not getting published per se, although I would like to move out of the minor, small press houses and up to the major, bigger houses. Is grad school a surefire method of doing that?

How I wish.

Still, there is a certain level of expectation that grad school will help me figure out how to make my writing better.

So I was kind of surprised to read a rant on MFA writers the other day by an anonymous editor. God knows, we writers have enough paranoia about the world of publication, but now to read that educating ourselves in writing is a waste of time? Yeesh.

As a university educator in an entirely different field, political science, please let me say that I wish, wish, wish, it were required that politicians have a degree in political science, rather than law--as most do--or maybe even both. Perhaps then, they might have a deeper understanding of the history of interaction among nations and how best not to repeat past failures, rather than repeatedly making them.

Clearly, I'm all for educating yourself, which is probably why I'm in a writing MFA program. What I'm not for, and probably what an anonymous editor has against those with MFAs in writing, is attitude. I've had students who believe that just because they sat in my classroom, they had a right to a passing grade. Maybe that's what the anonymous editor has seen, writers who feel that since they have the MFA they deserve to be published.

If only it were that easy. Like any job, writing takes lots of hard work. In my experience so far, getting an MFA in the field means putting in more hours in a shorter time period and thus shortening the time spent figuring out how to write publishable stuff. Do you need an MFA to write? Absolutely not. A person can teach herself any craft. ANY. Thomas Jefferson was a self-taught architect and his home, Monticello, is still standing. But I wouldn't hire an architect today who went only to the school of hard knocks (unless, maybe, he were Thomas Jefferson).

So what does an MFA get you if it's not a pass-go-and-head-straight-for-publication card? A lot of experience in a condensed period of time. It's another option in the learning-the-craft scenario. In the end, it might-like any degree-get you a little more notice from editors and agents (say, 5 seconds instead of 3), but really, it's for me, the writer, not them, the outside world. Unless I figure out how to improve my craft, and then everybody wins. I'm guessing a lot of writers see it this way. I hope more and more will as we continue to educate ourselves. I hope, too, that the anonymous editor runs across some of them and changes her position on MFAs in writing. Education isn't a bad thing. It's what we do with it that measures what we've learned.

What I Love About Graduate School

2010-04-14T06:25:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd see myself writing those words. My first go around with graduate school, ending in a PhD, was not exactly something I loved. It was a painful process with a lot of angst. When it was all over, I was convinced someone would show up one morning on my doorstep demanding my diploma back. It took a year to figure out they were actually going to let me keep it. How relieved I was. But I wasn't relieved enough to ever think I'd set foot within the ivory tower again.

Age heals all wounds. Here I am, back in the graduate school saddle again. And this time around, I'm really loving a lot more of it. Honest.

Don't get me wrong, there is definitely pain involved with all of this learning to write. I mean, I could seriously do without the sick feeling deadlines stir up in the pit of my stomach when there is that "other life" of mine (kids, house, husband, dog, school visits, conferences, etc, etc, etc) jockeying for time and attention or the brain ache I get from trying to come up with new ideas for critical papers.

There's a big difference, though, that makes this whole go at grad school different. Feedback. I got plenty of feedback the first time around, but grades were the be all and end all of the program. I had to keep them up to keep my scholarships. This time, no real grades. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance philosophy to teaching prevails. Add to that, feedback. Writing is such a lonely world. Doing an MFA in writing makes that world infinitely less lonely and less confusing.

I've sent off enough manuscripts to have compiled a select and diverse collection of treasured rejection letters ranging from "it's not right for our list" to "I was confused." There are the acceptance letters in there, too, which is fantabulously awesome, but it's the rejections that get under my skin. It's not only because my work was rejected. That stings, of course. But actually, it's because I don't understand exactly why. Unfortunately, the publishing world is an incredibly busy place and if editors write you anything personal, it's a boon. Deciphering it, however, is an art unto itself. Bottom line, however, it's not working.

In grad school, I get the why behind "it's not working". I really really appreciate that. I'll do anything-probably because of all of the past rejection letters and the burning desire to minimize those and maximize the acceptance ones-to make a piece better. If my advisor says, X isn't working, I'm thrilled. Sure, I have an emotional response to not having gotten it right, but all of those rejection letters have taught me to value the explanation that follows the critique. I spend the entire next packet figuring out how to make X work, or throwing it out and going for something new. I sometimes wonder if there wouldn't be more published authors if the game of writing and publishing allowed for more in-depth comments in rejection letters.

In the end, I guess it's about finding my own path, but I am thrilled I have a guide for this portion of the journey. I feel like I might actually make it.

The Book Review Club - Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

2010-04-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
by Grace Lin
middle grade

Move over brothers Grimm, there is a new fairy tale weaver in town, Grace Lin. And the tales aren't scary! No cut off thumbs. No drown children. No wolves cross-dressing as grandmothers. Instead, the reader is whisked off to the mountains of ancient - but not too ancient - China as Minli travels to the Neverending Mountain to ask the man in the moon how to change her family's fortune. She meets a dragon who cannot fly along the way. He too, wishes to change his fortune, and joins her. They meet many many more interesting characters on their trip - greedy monkeys, a green tiger, a boy with a water buffalo, a prince - to the Neverending Mountain that help Minli and Dragon or vice versa, and sometimes, both.

The tale is full of tales within tales - The Story of Fruitless Mountain, The Story of the Paper of Happinesss, The Story of the Village of Moon Rain. For those looking for a few craft points to walk away with, Lin eloquently moves from third to first person as she moves from Minli's story to these fantastical stories. Interestingly, she doesn't always switch voices. For the last story within a story, The Story of Wu Kang, for instance, Lin stays in third person. There is a paper in there somwhere...Even more importantly, though, the form is ideal for bedtime reading. These short stories within the story create natural stopping points that make the book ideal for short reading periods.

In this age of to buy or not to buy a book, this is a book worth purchasing in hard back. It is a work of art. There are color illustrations throughout, and four point color within the stories. It really is like a modern day, unscary fairy tale book rich with fantasy, Chinese fantasy. What a boon for American readers. Asian fantasy is, as yet, an almost untapped source of ideas and stories. There is so much to get lost in and enjoy.

I cannot wait to read this aloud to my daughters. I have a feeling it's going to be one we read over and over and over.

For more great reads, hop over to Barrie Summy's website to see all the writing world has to offer this month!

You Might Be a Writer If...

2010-04-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

It has been so long since I had any revelations about being a writer. I think it's the trees blocking out the forest conundrum. I don't ever get out of the insular writer bubble to see how quirky I really am.

But...

While I was in Virginia, I did manage to escape for a little bit. Ironically, it was during one of the school visits I did there that I came across this little insight:

You might be a writer if...you hide extra copies of you WIP like horcruxes.

A child asked me if I keep extra copies of my manuscripts that I'm working on. I had to suppress maniacal laughing. Extra copies would be sane. I keep a gazillion copies stashed all over the place because, you know, what happens if my hard drive crashes? I need a copy not on my computer. So I put one on my husband's computer. But that might crash too. So I also got an Apple Time Machine that backs up his computer, my computer and anything else we connect to it. Okay, but what if the house burns down? Or we get one of those tornadoes Oklahoma is so famous for? Forget the house, the photos, the musical instruments, I need a safe copy of my WIP! Seriously, when we practice tornado drills in our house, my laptop is right after my kids. Nonetheless, I also keep a copy on a little zip drive I carry around with me. Ah, but that's not foolproof either. What if I lose it? Okay, so I need to periodically email myself a copy of it. Yes, safe in cyberspace.

Or not. My email could get lost. Things like that happen in cyberspace, you know.

Okay, so I make a hard copy of it. But this gets back at the "What if the house burns down?" issue. So, I send my WIP to a close friend (name not to be shared because, of course, that would defeat the purpose of keeping it safe, right?).

This friend is a screenwriter who has worked on blockbuster movies and understands the (I will not use the word "paranoid" despite how applicable it may seem) overly cautious first parent attention an author pays to her little, developing WIPs. This person keeps my WIP in a safe. A fireproof safe. Ah, finally, my little baby is safe.

Of course, getting rid of that hard copy is just as hard as getting rid of a horcrux. My friend recently had one destroyed for me. Believe me, this person is a gem. (S)he understands my need for total secrecy (which is not silly or extreme, is it?) with an unfinished piece. (S)he works with a company that does nothing else but destroy such types of writing. The WIP was shredded first one direction. Then the other. Then burned. And I can get the ashes if I really really want proof.

If you think of a WIP as being a little piece of an author's soul, then I think all of the--what may seem--nutty behavior makes sense.

Maybe.

I hope.

Back Home Again...in Virginia

2010-03-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

You know that one place (or maybe two) you've lived in that, from the moment you got there, just felt like home?

I've lived all over the Midwest, East Coast and Western Europe, and as luck would have it, that place, for me, is Charlottesville, Virginia. Every time I get back, I feel like I'm home. It's funny, too, because I spent the five most difficult years of my life there. Difficult because I was writing a dissertation, and, for me, just about every other challenge I've faced in life has been a thousand time easier than that gut-wrenching, sleep-depriving, paranoia-inducing academic obstacle course. Still, Virginia turned out to be the perfect place to do it.

My husband and I made really great friends there. Friends we still keep in touch with although we've been gone now for (gulp) ten years. And the air has just right smell to it. And the food, just the right taste.

So when I was invited to speak at the Virginia Festival of the book in C-ville this year, I was ecstatic. The kids were ecstatic. It was like a second Christmas in Spring.

Except for the trip out. It was...what is the right adjective here...insane? We missed our connecting flight in O'Hare due to weather (I'm not sure what kind of weather because it was in the 50s and raining, but that's what the airline was claiming was the cause of delays and the reason they didn't have to try very hard to get us out until, say, next Spring). Pandemonium ensued. It was two weekends ago, the first weekend of Spring Break in the Midwest, and everybody was trying to get somewhere. Let's just say that it was a minor miracle we were able to get anywhere near Virginia before I'd aged another year. I think the gods of aviation must have intervened because before my birthday dawned on Sunday, we were at my brother's in Chesapeake.

My kids were then subjected to the usual, learn American history firsthand routine. I took them the Yorktown, Jamestown, and colonial Williamsburg. It rained, but it didn't matter. We were too excited to be back in Virginia. Then it was off to Charlottesville (C-ville to townies and students) for a week of school visits. My kids spent the time with their godparents and old friends, one of whom took them hiking two days in a row.

When I asked my kids if they were having an okay time, what with my being away all day at schools, my ten year old looked at me and said, "Are you kidding? I would have come here without you!"

Needless to say, the week went by way too quickly, and it was suddenly Saturday morning and I was off to the Festival. Red letter day. Got to see old writing friends, talk on a panel with them about setting in kidlit, schmooze, meet lots of authors I'd never met before, and round the evening off with a dinner at a cozy tapas joint in town (where we all learned to never order the tuna tartar again, unless you're Thimbelina).

Sunday, I took the girls to our favorite hiking spot, Pen Park. I'd spent many an afternoon there during grad school with my dogs. For whatever reason, our family really really loves that place. We've seen all manner of wildlife there - deer, snakes, skunks. My kids think it's a wild safari.

The week ended way too soon, and Monday we were on a flight back to Tulsa. Unlike the trip out, it was uneventful, easy even. Leaving wasn't. I'll miss you Virginia. A lot.

Can't wait until I'm back again.

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

2010-03-10T07:19:00.000-08:00

It wasn't exactly what Dylan Thomas had in mind but I'm still raging. Daylight Saving begins this weekend. I love that extra hour of sleep in November, but I'd gladly exchange it for no time change at all. Here in the heart of the Midwest, we sit pretty badly for such an early change. It has just started getting light about 6:30 a.m. now. Come time change, it will be another month before we see such glorious rays so early. The very thought makes me grumpy. Why, why why do we have to fumble with time?

It was Ben Franklin's idea. I'm guessing he didn't like sleep anywhere nearly as much as I do. Although I'm pretty sure most of colonial America shared my love of a warm bed because thrifty Ben's idea went no where. It wasn't until 1905 that anything happened with Daylight Saving, and it was a Brit who (re)started the movement. William Willett loved his early morning horse rides, and was flabbergasted that the rest of his neighbors chose to sleep through the early morning rays. So, he wrote a pamphlet on how much Britain would benefit from rising earlier. When a bill to introduce Daylight Saving was introduced into Parliament, it was met with huge opposition. Ironically, most strongly from farmers. It is a myth that agriculture benefits from setting the clocks back. Dew still lays heavy on crops in the morning the warmer months and there is little farmer can do with them until the dew has evaporated. The bill died and Brits continued to enjoy a good night's sleep.

World War I and II did that elusive hour of sleep in for the world, however. Troops needed light for battle. Factories needed to save money on electricity by working when the sun was shining.

We've been fiddling with time ever since.

In 2005, the oddest form of greed changed Daylight Saving. Sporting manufacturers and convenience stores lobbied Congress to move the beginning of Daylight Saving up from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March. Their reasoning? Money. Customers frequent their stores and/or use their products more often when the sun is out.

Oddly, the sun is not out any earlier here. In fact, we're thrown into darkness in the mornings for at least another month. Granted it's out later, but how many slurpies can a person drink in that extra 30 minutes of sunlight?

Congress retained the right to go back to the 1986 Daylight Saving Schedule should the new one prove too contentious. In all honesty, it doesn't seem very likely that will happen. The sporting industry and convenience stores organized, lobbied, and paid for the change. A massive grassroots movement to change what dollars and cents have produced seems an almost impossible Leviathan feat.

There is hope, however. In the United States, Hawaii doesn't observe Daylight Saving. Too close to the equator for sunrise and sunset to change too much.

Think they've got room for one more sleep-deprived, Daylight Saving refugee?

The Book Review Club - Jumped

2010-03-03T06:22:00.000-08:00

Jumped
by Rita Williams-Garcia
YA

If you are looking for a book with alternating POV, look no further (says the person ensconced in graduate school). Seriously, POV is a big thing. Another tool to manipulate in the dark labs of mad writers everywhere.

Cut to mad scientist laugh. Bauhahahahaha!

All joking aside, this is a gut-wrenching book, much like "Precious." You've gotta read it, even though it's like watching a train wreck unfold in slow motion that rips your heart out and puts it back, still beating, but its rhythm changed forever.

In short, artistically, slightly full of herself but living in her own world of happiness Trina cuts in front of thuggish Dominique just before school starts. Leticia sees it happen. She also sees that Dominique is going to jump Trina for cutting her. The events unfold from there. Dominique explaining why she has to jump Trina, to set things straight. Trina, blissfully unaware Dominique is going to pummel her into the concrete, revealing how happy she is at the new school because it's got art classes. And Leticia trying to convince herself why she doesn't need to step in to stop the fight.

Each girl is so real, so pulsing with life, I expected any one of them to appear around the corner at any minute. The book is that well written. It's also gritty. Abdicating responsibility. Territorial defense. Artistic cluelessness. They all come together and leave the reader wondering, Can we all get along? Is it even possible? What kind of world are we really living in today?

Heavy stuff. Food for thought. For ponder.

Williams-Garcia doesn't let her reader off the hook. She holds you fast until the last word is spent. The last mistake made. The last ambivalence uttered. That question still thudding: What would I have done? What?

What?

What?

For more fascinating, fun, and full court reads, hop over to Barrie Summy's website!

There is Hope, World

2010-02-17T06:39:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, the Olympics were all about beating the Soviet Union. China was a dark force whom "we" didn't like very much, but the Soviet Union? Yeesh. Darth Vader, Sauron and Lex Luther all rolled up into one.

Have times changed.

My family and I were watching the games the other night when Canada won its first ever gold on home ground. It was an emotionally overwhelming moment to share with Alexandre Bilodeau when he caputured gold in the men's moguls. We all cheered. Loudly.

None of us is Canadian.

It got even better yesterday when Shen and Zhao won the pairs figure skating gold, a medal that's eluded them for two decades and which they came out of retirement to try one last time to capture. I was in tears.

I am not Chinese.

My ten year old daughter said, "That is so good. They deserve it."

She is not Chinese.

Why my emphasis on nationality? Because after growing up fearing the "evil empire" that was the Soviet Union, I realized last night that the world my children are growing up in is a vastly new one. One in which we cheer for the winners, no matter where they are from. When an announcer talks about a Japanese skater who became Russian to follow her dream of figure skating, and in a joking aside says, "Does anyone defect to the Soviet Union?"

Times have changed. Changed for the better.

Sure, there are still problems. Iran and Israel would not march into the games one after the other. Taiwan is not allowed to call itself Taiwan. But, you know, I think the Greeks were onto something. These games, they may not necessarily be the big force that changes our opinions about each other, but they keep lines of communication open. They give us the opportunity to root for our fellow man, regardless of nationality, and to mourn with him. The moment of silence for the Georgian luge slider, Nodar Kumaritashvili, during the opening ceremonies is one I will long remember.

For these brief two weeks, we get a chance to be better than we are. American broadcasters have even gotten with the program. Two games ago, all they ever seemed to show were the Americans performing. Now they are showing a great cross section of athletes, giving those of us at home the opportunity to cheer for the best athlete, no matter where she is from. It's awesome. And I don't meant the trite definition of that word. I mean the awe-inspiring, we can do anything if we put our minds to it, definition.

There's hope world. Don't give up on us yet.

You Might be a writer if...pain is inevitable

2010-02-10T07:15:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've gotten to reflect on the ins and outs of writerdom, mostly because I've been hanging on by the skin of my teeth in my MFA program. There are just not enough hours in the day.

A few emails ago, however, one of my advisors put me onto a short tome written by a fellow traveler in the writing lane, Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

I am a dedicated runner, which this advisor knows as we've crossed paths in the wee hours of the morn running during residencies. Although the reading tower is approaching critical heights in my office, I got the book (downloaded it to my Kindle, actually, thus not adding to the teetering tower).

Murakami hooked me right away with these words--"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."

It is?

It is.

In this life, if you live it even a little, pain is inevitable. Doesn't matter if you're running, swimming, have kids, are married, or, god forbid, decide to try art for a living. Pain is inevitable.

That's a liberating thought. I'm not alone. Everybody suffers! Don't get me wrong, I'm so not taking joy in somebody else's pain. Far from it. I'm just relieved that, well, the pain thing, it's...dare I say it, normal.

Yippee! I'm normal! (Have I been waiting an eternity to say that).

Suffering however...

Well, I can either fall into it, or accept the pain and move through it.

Which gets back to the running thing. In running, at least, the longer I work through the pain, the greater the reward when I finish. All I need to do is juxtapose my running attitude to my writing. There will be pain. There is pain. What I do with it, that's the true test.

The Book Review Club - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian

2010-02-02T12:51:00.000-08:00

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
YA

It's a bit daunting to review a book that's won the National Book Award. I mean, does it get any better than that? Okay, there is the Pulitzer, or maybe the Nobel Prize, but hey, this is the National Book Award. Wow.

Does Alexie live up to the hipe?

In a word, yes.

This is a character driven piece about a topic - reservation life and the hopelessness it breeds - that, in this generation, is little spoken about. Alexie brings it to life in a deeply emotional way. Death, alcoholism, hopelessness. Love, family, tribal bonds. Heavy topics handled with an honesty that makes the emotional cartharsis at the end of the piece feel very real.

This isn't about fixing the mess the U.S. created when it set up reservations. It isn't about doing away with reservations, or rethinking them. It's about one boy, Junior's, journey to create a new life for himself, a life with hope. It's about his love for his family. His love for his friends. And how he straddles two worlds to become one person. At the same time, his experiences aren't so heart-wrenching you'll be looking into Prosac by the time you're done. It's good, well thought-out, clean writing.

If you feel like honesty, like a solid read, like letting literature change you, read True Diary. Junior lives up to his potential and beyond.

And for more fun and exciting tales, hop over to Barrie Summy's website for the complete list of The Book Review Club's reviews this month!

I Like Vermont in January...How About You?

2010-01-27T06:31:00.000-08:00

My second residency at Vermont College has come and gone. I was so pysched to get there and, by the end of the ten-day residency of twelve hour days, kinda, pretty much ready for it to be over as well.

It's such a bittersweet mix. So much writer stimulation. So many ideas. So many wonderful people to hang out with and talk shop (so much wine)...and so many long hours.

I came back last Wednesday mentally functioning on about three synaptic connections that had somehow managed to weather the constant firing all that learning had put them through. On Thursday, I was a zombie. All synapses fried. Weekend meant some downtime (minus taking oldest daughter to a gymnastics meet at 8 a.m. Sunday morning). Monday, I managed to pull myself together and write my first critical paper for the new semester. Today, I'm writing my second. Secretly, there is a part of me that would like to abscond to a deserted island and lay in the sun for a few weeks, doing nothing but processing the vast amounts of information I took in while at Vermont College, but writing is the name of the game, and this program keeps you swimming in it, no matter what. That's a good thing, even if it feels like having to eat your broccoli some days.

If you are thinking about entering the Vermont MFA in Writing for Children, my advice is, do it! Do it now, rather than later. It is such a magical opportunity for a writer to live in and work with an incredible group of ever-changing writers. You get a little spoiled even. All of the greats seem to come to Vermont at some point. This time around, Katherine Patterson was there, as was (she stops to look up names because, no, those synapses are not yet firing like they should) Kimberly Willis Holt and Lynne Rae Perkins. Inspiration is in the air. The place really does become a little like Brigadoon for writers. Time stands still. The reality of the outside world is held at the base of the hill leading up to the college (if you ignore the 7 a.m. fire trucks our program accidentally called out twice--the classic blow dryers burning out fuses and setting off fire alarms in the dorm scenario. The New England Culinary Institute students have got to hate us by now.)

Despite the long hours, I like Vermont College in January. You would too.

The Book Review Club - The Old Country

2010-01-05T17:16:00.000-08:00

The Old Country
by Mordica Gerstein

Alone Gerstein's name would lure me to read one of his books. It has such an interesting and alluring sound to it. His middle grade novel, The Old Country, is, of course, even more intriguing.

Gisella, a famous violinist, tells her grandson the story of how she was once a fox...in the old country.

Filled with mystery, war, controversy, longing, magic, sarcasm, symbolism, and many other isms, this is a writer's dream of a book. Not only did it grab the reader in me, tempting me into taking that leap of faith into imagination but also it interested me as a writer. How does one pack so much into such a short story, leading the reader on in such a fantastic way that she can only hope the story is long, long, long, Dostoevsky long. It isn't, but then, its shortness is part of its magic.

I happened to listen to this one on tape. Tovah Feldschuh read. She added such depth to Gerstein's characters. Her many voices were so distinct, I often forgot only one person was reading. For once, I'd actually suggest listening to this one before reading it. You won't regret it.

So on the way to school, the grocery, doctor's appointments, gas station, or wherever, get yourself a copy of this book. Just don't be surprised if on the way to one of those countless places we all run to during the course of a week, you might actually forget where you're going and find yourself lost...in The Old Country.

For other great reads these cold winter months, pop over to fearless leader, Barrie Summy's, website. Temptation awaits!

Parent Jitters

2009-12-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

I wish I could blog about how thrilled I am to have completed my first semester at Vermont College, what a ride it's been, how much I've learned, how much better my writing has gotten, all of that good stuff, but today, this week's professional accomplishment has been entirely overshadowed by something so much bigger.

My oldest goes in for minor surgery tomorrow. She's having her adenoids removed and turbinades shrunken. She's a mouth breather, is going through the joys of orthodontic work, and needs more breathing room.

It's minor surgery. Twenty minutes tops.

But it's a full anesthesia. Granted, that's what my husband does. Not that he's doing hers. Not a good idea to work on your own loved ones. He'll be in the OR, though, which is great. Still, I'm worried. This is my baby. My little girl. My responsibility.
Will everything go all right? How will her recovery be? Is the pain manageable?

I don't even want to go to that one question that circles around on the perimeter of all the other worried parent questions. It's like, if I give voice to that question, I'm inviting disaster.

I'm not the only one who worries like this, am I? Am I overdoing it? Okay, maybe. I keep telling myself it could be a lot worse. There are greater things to overcome. But denying my feelings isn't working all that well today.

So, I guess I'm going to bury myself in my writing. And when my baby gets home after school, hug and hug and hug her.

Somewhere, in all that, I hope to find my courage.

Honey, I'm Home...

2009-12-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

They say role reversal can pep up your marriage. My husband is home this week chilling on the couch. I'm at work.

Okay, okay, I don't normally spend my days when he's not home on the couch in front of a roaring fire popping bon bons, but, you know, I sometimes get the feeling my husband thinks I do. I'm a writer. What else can I be doing for long stretches of time while he's off working?

Other writers know what goes on in the daily life of a lonesome wordsmith - a lot of quiet time, a lot of typing, lively conversations with imaginary friends, and sometimes, when the typing isn't happening, small sacrifices to the muse.

But husbands? Spouses? Significant others?

It's a big black box, surrounded by bon bons and free time.

Which is why it has been so cool having my husband home this week. For the first time, he's gotten a chance to see what I really do all day.

Granted, my monosyllabic responses--"write"--to this question over the years haven't been helpful. I guess I needed to show, not tell.

This week I've shown.

And he's watched.

Even listened when I ask him if I can read something out loud.

It's been fun. So much fun that I'm really going to miss him next week. It's neat having a pair of eager ears. And a lunch buddy. A friend. My best friend.

It may not have been role reversal this week, but it has definitely added spark to our relationship. My husband "gets" what I do.

Priceless.

The Book Review Club - Bull Rider

2009-12-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

Bull Rider
by Suzanne Morgan Williams

upper middle grade/ya

Drugs, sex, teenage pregnancy, you name it, children's authors write about it. Suzanne Morgan Williams is no different. She has taken on perhaps the mother of all controversial issues for this country, the war on terrorism. Bull Rider's story is current, it's controversial, but far more importantly, it's really really well-written. Any book can take on controversy, but take it on without becoming preachy, now that's good writing.

Cam O'Mara's older brother is a marine. He goes off to fight in the Middle East, is injured, and comes back home a very different person. Cam's family struggles with the effects of war on their own world, the world at large, and the way people see them. Cam, a skateboarder by passion, turns to bull-riding, a time-honored family profession, because it is the only way he can escape the discomfort and uncertainty of his life. In the end, he chooses bull-riding to help his brother realize that if Cam can face his fears and straddle a thousand pounds of bull, then his brother can face his, learning to walk again.

This isn't a light read. It isn't a comfortable one. But it is unforgettable. Williams isn't preachy. There are no easy answers to war, not for those opposing, those waging it, and especially not for those fighting it. Her characters are well-shaped, offering all sides to the debate but no judgments. Family, love, hanging in there for each other, these are the driving force of her story.

Read it. It'll make you think.

And for other great reads this crazy December month, hop over to Barrie Summy's blog.

The Book Review Club - Butt Wars

2009-11-04T06:11:00.000-08:00

Butt Wars
By Andy Griffiths
Age Range: ? ? ?

My seven year-old brought this book home. It was the party favor at a birthday party.

She was disappointed. Butt Wars? It sounded so boy boy boy.

I was puzzled. Butt in the title...of a middle grade?

I had to read it. Right after I convinced her she should at least try it. It was outside her comfort range because of the boyishness. And seeing as I wasn't opposed to the butts, or the crapalanches, or the aresteroids, or the flying brown blobs (I read a lot of German kidlit, and kids curse a lot more in middle grade German kidlit. Even in British kidlit, for that matter), I wanted her to try something different. Granted, this is a little out there, but nonetheless.

She loved it. LOVED IT. It's the longest book she's ever read.

Then I read it.

Butt Wars, The Final Conflict is the the third and last in the Butt War trilogy in which Zack, together with his butt, has to save the world from the Great White Butt. In this story, he travels back 65 million years to battle his arch enemy, and the double (or triple, I kind of lost count) agent, Mutant Barf Lord. I have to admit, I got a little tired of the butt talk. Buttasaurs, stink butts, cocobutt trees...if you can stick a butt in it, Andy Griffiths did. But (no pun intended) I think it's exactly that irreverent, crude potty talk that makes this book so endearing to a young audience (it was originally marketed in Australia as a YA). And I have to say, there is plot. Poopy plot, but plot.

What, however, does the infiltration of crude language into middle grade mean for writers? Profanity is definitely still a rarity, especially gratuitous profanity (for the exception to the rule, read or listen to Orson Scott Card's scifi middle grade, Space Boy), but crudeness?

Until Butt Wars, I hadn't seen it in this magnitude. Even more interesting, Butt Wars is an Australian creation brought to the U.S. market by Scholastic. We imported crudeness, which may have been easier than letting one of our own break down that wall.

But what does it mean? Before, crudeness-like profanity still is for this genre-was a sonic boom that could be used to catch the reader's attention. Now, it is fast becoming the norm. That makes the palette of language possibilities a little more colorful (yeay!), but our jobs a little harder. We need a new sonic boom.

Will it be profanity?

Or will it be something entirely new?

Curioser and curioser...

If Butt Wars just isn't your thing (or even if it is), check out Barrie Summy's blog for a whole host of books that'll have you talking and reading well into December!

Sustainability

2009-10-28T06:35:00.000-07:00

I know. I know. Sustainability is actually one of the big millennia buzz words, usually referring to important things like, saving our planet. Recycle. Reduce. Reuse. I get it.

But right now I'm really worried about sustaining my hair. It's all because of the gray. Gray changes everything. It makes your hair wiry. And changes the whole styling thing. It pretty much makes you reassess your haircut and ask if there isn't something that can be done because, basically, you don't want to look like your kids grandmother just yet (okay, ever!).

I've thought about dealing with the gray by going short (I have long hair).

But I had a bad experience with short. A few years ago, after I had my second child, I let my hairdresser convince me to get a bob. It would be easier than having long hair, he said. I gave in.

He did a great job. It really looked good. Amazing. Effortless.

Until I washed it.

And then all of those layers went every which way but down. Horror. What was I doing wrong? I suddenly remembered with a sinking feeling how my hairdresser had started to sweat as he dried my hair. How he'd labored at those layers. They weren't effortless at all.

Ack! How was I supposed to manage this?

I let it grow out.

Which was great until the grey started to appear. I mean, it's not exactly like it's going to go away now (despite my complaint with the gene pool. They so are not returning my phone calls).

So, color, right?

But there was that one study they did that one time that showed a correlation between coloring and bladder cancer.

I don't want vanity to give me bladder cancer.

Okay, green freak, go all gray. Easy enough. Yeesh.

But I don't want to look like Barbara Bush.

Then cut it all off!

But...um...isn't that one of those options that sounds a lot better than it looks?

Why don't men have these problems???

Maunscript Diet

2009-10-21T07:01:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a manuscript gain an unsightly number of pages, so much so that you cringe at the cost of printing it out?

I am usually a short writer. When I started college, I trembled at the thought of ten page papers. Ten pages? Who am I, Charles Dickens?

When I wrote my dissertation and managed a whole 250 (including 25 pages of bibliography and tables), I was flabbergasted. I'd maxed out. That was for sure. Never would I write anything longer. Ever.

And I didn't.

Until...

I started my present WIP. It's about a boy and a dolphin set in late 19th century New Zealand, and I even got to go to New Zealand last November for on-sight research. At that point, the ms was still a manageable 285 pgs.

Over the last year, I think my WIP secretly gorged on adverbs, Anne of Green Gables poetical monologues, and New Zealand scenery because it grew to a whopping 420 pages. A real full figured dame.

Given another era, another economy, another stage of existence in the publishing industry, and it might have been fine. Dickensian (or Botticelli) full, but fine. But it's a hard sell in today's market.

After a lot of thought, and talking with other authors, and speaking with agents, and pretty much hashing until I had come to terms with the inevitable, I put my ms on a diet. A serious diet. No liposuction here. I mean serious, word-counting, shave-off-the-excess pagery reduction.

I started three weeks ago. Being the slightly obssessive compulsive neurotic writer that I am, I'm keeping a "diet" journal. At the end of each day of revisions, I weigh in. The rule is that the ms word count cannot be any higher than where it was at the beginning of the day. I strive to make it a lot less. So far, it's been working. I have successfully shaved 11,000 words off, and I'm only through the first 120 pages.

Oh sweet success. I can almost taste the adverbs.

No, No! Bad writer. Stay away from the adverbs!

See how hard ms reduction is?

Sigh.

Please keep your fingers crossed. Pray to any and all writing muses. Send me parsimonic vibes. My ideal ms weight: 70-75,000 words (285 ms pgs), and I want to reach that by Winter Break. Which means, no adverbs on the side. No waxing poetically about scenery. Cut. Cut. Cut. Snip. Snip. Snip.

And, every once in a while, celebrate the hard won successes.

GLEE!!!!!

Now back to counting words...

There is No Secret Handshake

2009-10-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

The jig is up. There is no secret handshake. No magic formula. No deus ex machina for writers.

Aghast?

I was. Next thing you know, they'll be telling us there is no Santa Claus. Yeesh.

Leaving the big red guy out of it for a moment, I have to admit, when I started out writing, I was certain there was a secret formula. All I had to do was figure it out and the bestsellers would flow from my pen. I mean, honestly, it wasn't the craziest idea I've ever had (there have been crazier, like the time I decided I could prove girls are every bit as good as guys and jumped from a bridge into a river after a guy. Don't ask.) So what was it for writing? Writing for exactly two hours each day? Or writing nonstop, foregoing sleep, until I'd birthed my idea? Or if that wasn't working out, how about writing standing up, like Hemingway. Or drunk?

I will shamefacedly admit, I've tried all of these "formulas" out and then some. None of them worked. So finally, I resigned myself to the fact that I'm not clever enough to decode the secret handshake and will have to plug along writing as best I can.

It wasn't until I read Stephen King's On Writing a few weeks back (after four picture books and a middle grade novel, hundreds of school visits, and I don't know how many conference speeches) that I had my "Eureka!" moment. There is no secret formula to writing.

Not, at least, in the way I was thinking. I mean, the big secret is, to write. That's it. Everything else is fluff.

What King showed in his book was enlightening for me, or maybe I really had finally hit that "clever enough" to understand it point. His journey to authorhood, i.e. the early years of his life and what prompted him to want to write, couldn't be more different than mine, or thousands of other writers. It's eclectic, unique, what makes Stephen King, Stephen King and not Stacy Nyikos. His candid, tell all approach to describing his life as a writer made that clearer than anything I'd ever read before.

The thing that separated him from thousands of other writers is stubbornness. He plugged away at writing, day after day, year after year, rejection after rejection, until he had honed his skills - his, not Charles Dickens's or John Grisham's or anybody else's - to the point that he had mastered them.

And then he kept writing.

The best piece of advice he ever got in all those years of struggling and writing was a line scrawled at the bottom of a rejection letter from an unknown editor: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft - 10%.

Okay, so there is a formula.

But that's for revisions.

The Book Review Club - Horns & Wrinkles

2009-10-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

Horns & Wrinkles
by Joseph Helgerson

middle grade

I have to say, I've had this book for a while. I picked it up. Put it down. Picked it up again. And then put it down.

Finally, last week, I made myself read it. I don't know why I hesitated, but after reading John Gardner (yes, I am haunted by Mr. Gardner), Horns & Wrinkles was the perfect antidote. Funny. Insanely creative. Set up north where I grew up, so it felt like slipping into a comfy old chair that had been hidden away and forgotten. Gloriously complete.

Horns & Wrinkles is the story of a girl, Claire, whose cousin, Duke, has a spell put on him for being such a pain-in-the-you-know-what bully. Every time he bullies, he turns a little more into a rhino. Until all is really lost, and he becomes one, only he doesn't mind. And Claire, who hates all of his bullying, finds herself repeatedly trying to save his happily lost soul, help the river trolls find their fathers, turn her grandfather, aunt and uncle (and their dog) back into humans (they've been turned to stone), and hoping all the while that she's not actually a river troll disguised as a human herself.

See?

Imagination cubed.

I couldn't have come up with this in a million years, and now I totally want to get to know Joseph Helgerson. His style in Horns & Wrinkles is a combination of irreverent Mark Twain, folklorish Mississippi-river, and Helgerson hilarity. I grinned. I chuckled. I even laughed. And I kept wondering, "what in the world will he come up with next," and try as I might, Helgerson kept surprising me. Amazingly refreshing.

For more fun reads, pop over to our fearless leaders website, Barrie Summy, and dive into the delicacies listed there. So many good books. So little time!

Commercial Books - All Sugar and Sprinkles

2009-10-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

Mmmm...mmm....mm. Donut with sprinkles. Just thinking about one makes me want to ditch my blogging and find the nearest donut shop.

Okay, no. No, I'm a big girl. I can resist the urge (for twenty minutes).

But isn't that the effect commercial books have on our brains? Sugar rush pure. By commercial I mean dime store reads that make beach life perfect. I have guiltily indulged in them time and time again. My favorite, the Shopaholic series. Yep. Totally love those. Too much of them, though, and I start to feel a sugar rush coming on. I need a little meat-and-potatoes, and soon. Time to reach for a Lisa See.

So what is the value of commercial reads? They get such flack. They aren't National Book Award material. They aren't Pulitzer worthy. Worse, in the world of kidlit, commercial reads have been dodge balled for rotting out kids' brains, much like too much candy will rot their teeth.

Are they really that bad?

I don't know about you, but after I finished Where the Red Fern Grows a couple of weeks ago (and for anyone who has not read it, it's the Everest of dead dog books, two dead dogs!), I was glad the next books on my MFA reading list were my third grader's Rainbow Magic Series Shannon the Ocean Fairy and Joy the Summer Vacation Fairy. Fluff. Cotton candy fluff.

And just what I needed. I didn't need anymore emotional upheaval. I needed lightness.

That experience got me thinking about the value of commercial reads (and, I'll admit, the stuff for a much-needed second critical paper for my Vermont packet).

If books like Where the Red Fern Grows are the meat-and-potatoes reads (Barrie Summy's parent's terminology. I'm indebted to them for life) then commercial books like the Rainbow Magic Series are dessert. And dessert definitely has its place in a meal.

Dessert is the reward for finishing that meatloaf, or the perfect touch after a filet mignon, or the prize after a mystery meal cooked by (insert name).

At the kidlit level, commercial reads are also educational (just don't tell young readers that). By holding plot, characters, setting, and format constant, emerging readers can focus on the really tough issue at hand, learning to read. They are the chapbooks of our generation.

While I was reading my daughter's Rainbow Magic Series books (which thrilled her to no end because we could talk about them), I got her to read Sarah, Plain and Tall (Newbery winner that is still short enough for her to tackle). We both learned something. Dessert tastes pretty yummy. And meat and potatoes isn't so bad after all. It's all about balance.

Now where's that donut...

You Might Be a Writer If...

2009-09-24T06:29:00.001-07:00

The kids are back in school. The dog has gone back to her full time occupation - sleeping on the couch. And I have the freedom to obsess about writing once again.

Glee!

I've hunkered down with John Gardner the last couple of days. Writer/professor/Breadloaf speaker, most known for his nonfiction works on writing skills - The Art of Fiction and On Moral Fiction. I am in an MFA program. There will be challenging (read, it makes my brain hurt to try and understand) craft reading. John has tried his best to teach me what it means to be a true writer. To delve deeply for Truth, Beauty and the Good. Between you and me, I think I tend more toward that nebulous line he draws between the mad and the artist. I mean who isn't when -

You might be a writer if you revise everything, including your clothing.

It's true!

Just yesterday, I found myself in a day long outfit revision. It's not entirely my fault. I've been presented with unusual dressing conditions. It is normally in the 90s this time of year in Oklahoma. Not this year. We saw the low 50s this morning. The low 50s! This has forced us sunshine worshippers into the murky realm of "layering." You know, a t-shirt, sweater, maybe a jacket, all to be peeled away as the day warms up. Northerners are pro. True artists. Not so much those of us in down below the frost border.

Shivering but still fully in John-Gardner-delve-deeper-to-find-Truth,-Good-and-Beauty mode, I did not grab the first thing I saw (a wool sweater) but delved deeply to find my Truth about the art of cool weather dressing. I ended up with a dark memory of northern German dressing practices. I lived in northern Germany for 5 years. Number one rule when living right on the Baltic Sea where it is constantly windy and cool - wear a scarf. It's an absolute must.

I pulled out a scarf.

The problem was, because I was still sort of in summer mode, I pulled out a very thin (as in narrow) scarf. I threw it casually around my neck, grabbed my leather jacket (another northern German must provided it's not raining. That calls for fleece-lined oilskin jackets) and went out to walk the dog.

Because the scarf was so narrow, it wasn't exactly keeping my neck warm. So, I tried wrapping it snugly and knotting it on one side. Much better. My neck was warm. And it looked good.

But now the necklace I was wearing suddenly seemed superfluous. An adverb made redundant by a good verb. Off came the necklace.

Which, of course, meant I needed to change the earrings.

That made the background all wrong. I changed shirts.

The jeans stayed, though. I didn't edit out everything...exactly.

But the shoes definitely had to go (No, I was not trying to get away from revisions on actual writing yesterday...much). The tied scarf's, how shall I say...French sophistication called for much snazzier shoes than the sneakers I'd thrown on. So I changed shoes.

Finally, it was perfect. Ready for the world to see.

Which makes it sort of ironic that I was at home alone. I had created an Emily Dickinson outfit. Flawless but never to be seen until posthumously.

Hold on.

Does that mean I need to revise my will now too?

Out on Good Behavior

2009-09-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

The ivory tower is granting me a one day pass to go out and see the real world. The things good behavior will get you!

GLEE!

I'm being let out to speak at Oklahoma's school librarian conference, EncycloMedia. I'm excited. Thrilled. And a little nervous. Okay... a lot nervous. I'll be out with real people. I have to talk. I have to talk intelligently, in complete sentences, with no editing, about my middle grade novel, Dragon Wishes. I have to sound like I do this regularly. But all I've done for weeks now is sit in the ivory tower with my imaginary friends - and a few dead writers - and write. My social skills have sort of fallen by the wayside. Ask my kids. My husband. My dog, even.

Fortunately, should my skills waver, I'll be in amazing company and so hopefully no one will notice. I'm speaking with Eileen Cook, What Would Emma Do, Cynthea Liu, Paris Pan Takes the Dare, Jenny Meyerhoff, Third Grade Baby, and Suzanne Morgan Williams, Bull Rider.

We're followed the next day by P.J. Hoover, The Navel of the World, Jessica Anderson, Border Crossing, Barrie Summy, I So Don't Do Spooky, Donna St. Cyr, The Cheese Syndicate, and Zu Vincent, The Lucky Place.

Beforehand, we're being interviewed for a televised program that the Metropolitan Library of Oklahoma broadcasts throughout the state. Please, please, please let my hair cooperate so that I look like someone who actually styles her hair every once in a while, rather than pulling it back in a haphazard ponytail because dead writers and fictitious characters don't care what your hair looks like. And after that, there is a luncheon with librarians. Gulp. Can I carry on a coherent conversation for a whole hour? Or will I get that far off, I-have-an-idea look and start scribbling on my napkin? Librarians will understand if I do, right?

Maybe after all of that real world experience, I'll be ready to lock myself away in the ivory tower again, but I have a feeling, it'll be the other way around. I used to be a pretty social person, some time in the distant past...I think. Either way, I think that seeing, talking and interacting in a spontaneous way with real live people who don't need me to edit their dialogue could be, what's the word?

Oh wait, I know...FUN!

Sleeping with the...Scorpions?

2009-09-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

I couldn't help but break with my regular, frenetic, MFA writing/studying routine to post about this. I was lying in bed the other night (reading frenetically, of course). Where the Red Fern Grows. A classic I've avoided because it suffers from the painful dead dog syndrome, actually two dead dogs. But, in the name of higher education, I'd decided to tackle it.

I was just getting to the good part where Billy catches his first coon. He races back to the farm to tell his family. He's screaming and jumping and hooting and hollering. He's so worked up, his mother thinks he's been bitten by a snake. She drops everything and runs to help him.

When she discovers it's not a snake bite at all but a captured raccoon, she threatens to give Billy a sound thrashing.

Pretty exciting stuff, right?

Now add to that that this story takes place in the back country of the Ozark mountains in northeastern Oklahoma, about an hour and a half from where I live. As close to home as it gets, really. Plus, it's nighttime. The kids are in bed. I'm alone. With the dog. And I'm reading about snakes. Yeessh.

Something tickles my arm. I reach over to brush it off, thinking my imagination is really getting the better of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something scurry off across my bed. I bolt upright. I look.

It's a scorpion.

"Holy Sh**!"

At least, I think that's what I said. I was busy rocketing out of my bed as far away from the scorpion as possible. Practically hyperventilating, I dash to the phone and call my dad. Yes, I'm five again, tops, and hoping my father can fix it all. His advice: Kill it.

Gulp. I have to kill a scorpion. In. My. Bed.

Sorry, Wilson Rawls, but now Where the Red Fern Grows not only suffers from the dead dog syndrome but also the dead scorpion one too. After I'd beaten the scorpion very very flat, I called my husband and told him he had to come home right now.

When he finally got home and found me, a shell-shocked bundle of jumpy nerves huddled up under a blanket upstairs on the sofa as far away from my bed and any other scorpions that might be lurking, he had a hard time taking me seriously. In his defense, I must have been a comical sight, only I didn't feel a comical sight. I wanted sympathy. Indignation. Deadly, bug-killing chemicals.

But my husband is from Germany. They don't have scorpions. He doesn't get the whole, "They can hurt you" factor. To make matters worse, he is a Scorpio. He joked that I shouldn't have smashed one of his family members. Ugh.

Seeing as I was not going to get the needed overdose of understanding and sympathy from him, I called my girlfriend down the street, who hates bugs, ALL bugs. Okay, so maybe that was a little selfish, but I needed a lifeline! My friend really rose to the occasion. She listened. She was sympathetic. Indignant. Offered bug-killing chemicals. But in the end, there were two of us not sleeping that night.

Many many dollars later (I called the bug guy out to douse the house; so did my poor friend), it is safe to say, the only scorpio(n) I've slept with for many nights now is my husband...I hope.

The Book Review Club - Weedflower

2009-09-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

Weedflower
by Cynthia Kadohata
ISBN: 978-1-4169-7566-3

It has been a whole month since my last post. I blame it all on my MFA program. I can't quite seem to eek enough time out of the 24 hours allotted to us mortals per day. Just two more hours! Just two. I could get it all done...I think.

Nevertheless, I've taken a break in frantic learning for Barrie Summy's amazing Book Review Club. I wouldn't miss this for anything, not even sleep. So here goes, Weedflower.

One of the most stirring Supreme Court cases I read while teaching constitutional limitations was the 1941, U.S. vs. Korematsu, which posed that the U.S. government had violated the civil rights of Japanese-Americans who were forced by the government into internment camps during World War II. The Supreme Court ruled that while the U.S. government had violated its citizens’ rights, the state of war the country found itself in outweighed those rights and made the internment legal.

This background knowledge and prior, personal conflict with the legal aspects of internment made Kadohata’s novel all the more moving for me. It was rewarding, albeit hard, to step into the emotions of what internment must have felt like. Through the eyes of eleven year old Sumiko, Kadohata does an amazing job of showing what it was like for Japanese Americans during this excruciating time. Fear, exhaustion, broken families, paranoia, unusual friendships, the slow rebuilding of a productive, hard-working immigrant population, the uncertainty of starting all over again, bravery, loyalty, love of family and land. It's all in here, deftly woven together in a luminous tale.

The craft aspect of this book I enjoyed the most was that I was not sure where or how the story would end. Would Sumiko and her family ever get out of the camp? Would the war last ten years? By staying very close to Sumiko and her feelings in a Solzhenitsyn, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich kind-of-way, Kadohata powerfully conveys the endlessness of internment and uncertainty of the Japanese plight during WW II.I was on the edge of my seat to the very end. And when the novel was over, I was left thinking long and hard about why it ended the way it did. The ending begs for discussion.

This is a book to learn from. To enjoy stylistically. To get lost in. I really loved it.

For other great reads, hop over to our fearless leader's website and meander through the rich panoply of choices. That pile next to my night stand grows exponentially each month. I hope yours does too!

The Book Review Club - The Uninvited

2009-08-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

If you are thinking about ending your summer reading with a deep, diverse, moving but in tune with the up-and-coming young adult generation book, look north. Canada north. Ontario, to be exact, where Tim Wynn-Jones’ piece, The Uninvited, takes place (and where the author himself lives).

A little bit mystery, a little bit drama, The Univited is the story of three young adults, Cramer, Mimi and Jackson, ages 18 – 24, who share the same father but do not know of their common link. They discover their common link over the summer at a small house owned by their, unbeknownst to them, common father. Sitting on an island created by a side channel, a snye, off of the main river, Eden, the house and its island are “magical”, not in the fairies and demons sense but in the “getting away from it all to think” sense.

Each of the members of the trio escapes to the island to search for something different – inspiration, safety, recognition. They find their soul’s desire, albeit in ways that bind them together forever.

The aspect of this book that really mesmerized me was how Wynn-Jones deftly uses the river Eden and its offshoot, the snye, as mirror reflections of the meanderings of the three siblings as they weave in and out of each other's lives and life itself. The watery mirror intensifies the book’s emotional core like water intensifies the sun’s rays, making the book that much deeper, that much more unforgettable.

If you are a writer looking for a book that expertly reflects aspects of craft, READ THIS BOOK. If you’re just looking for an unforgettable summer novel, READ THIS BOOK. If you’ve ever wanted to read a book set in Canada because, well, because it’s there and you’ve always wanted to see it, READ THIS BOOK.

If I haven’t come up with a reason to woo you over to The Univited, well…READ THIS BOOK anyway. You won’t regret it. Scout’s honor. It’s that good.

For more compelling, zany, thrilling, or just plain fun reads, visit our fearless Book Club whiz, Barrie Summy’s, blog: www.barriesummy.blogspot.com. You won’t regret that either!

There Will Be...Ice Cream

2009-07-31T06:29:00.000-07:00

After the hard work of residency, I opted for a little down time before jumping right into my first packet. Hopefully, if any of my advisors are reading this - Tim, Ellen - they won't be upset with me for skipping school those first few days.

I had to get some psychic distance, honest!

And fulfill a twenty-two year yearning. I'm not exaggerating.

It all started with the Sound of Music. Like every other person my age, I watched that movie every single Thanksgiving throughout my childhood, and fell in love with Rold even if he was a trgic hero turned bad, and wanted to be Christine, and wondered what ever happend to the family. When my roommate at Notre Dame told me her family vacationed every summer at the Lodge the Trapps built in Vermont, I just had to see it. Somehow.

Somehow turned into a twenty-two year wait. And fortuitous luck.

When I found out the first residency for Vermont College was in July, I emailed Julie, trying to keep my excitement to a low but pretty sure I totally failed, to ask if her family was, you know, just maybe, on the off chance, um...going to be at the Lodge say, July 21-24. They were!

Sometimes fact really is stranger and more coincidental that fiction.

So, on Tuesday morning, after a night of celebrating the fact I'd survived my first residency, I met my old roommate in my new dorm. It was pretty surreal. Pretty cool. The perfect ending to my first stint back in college life.

When I walked out of the dorm, I felt drained. It had been an amazing residency, but my head was mush, full of stuff to sort. Stowe, Julie, the Trapps, the mountains, running, sleeping, chilling out, shopping...just being, rather than thinking, put me back on the road to writing. I filled up again, especially on Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The plant is about fifteen minutes from Stowe and Jules and I took a tour. They give you ice cream at the end! Perfect temperature, not too mushy, not too hard. And it was a new flavor. So delicious.

Hiking up to the Trapp family chapel was pretty amazing too. It's not often I get that far out into nature. Jules had me petrified of bears, but anyone who's read my post on the bear encounter in the Shenandoah's hopefully understands my paranoia about bears in nature. The only thing we ran into were gnats. Huge relief.

Then there was the shopping in Burlington. And eating at the Trapp Family Lodge. Tasty. Very very tasty.

But most of all, there was spending time with a person I'd lived together with in the closest of quarters for a year during college. Someone who knows as much about me as probably only one other person because of that intense dorm living, and who, after all that, still likes me.

It. Was. Awesome.

I can't wait to do it again.

Whaddya say, Jules? I promise, you won't have to pose with me in the Ben and Jerry's ice cream lid again...probably. I think.

Wayward No More

2009-07-27T06:20:00.000-07:00

Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been way too long since my last post. I have a couple of good excuses...I think. First, without my husband, I spent the latter half of June in Germany picking up my kids. They were going to school there with the children of friends of ours. They got a real taste of German elementary school, and loved it! When school was over, we toured Germany. We went to Bremen to see the Stadtmusikanten (pictured left), then to Kiel for the huge regatta held there every year, and finally to Berlin where a friend of mine lives. We even made it to Frederick the Great's Sans Souci. Awesome awesome trip.

Only to be followed by a 10-day residency in Montpelier at Vermont College. I decided to take the plunge and applied to their MFA in Writing for Children. Even more amazing, I was accepted. It is a two year program. Each semester begins with an on-campus residency during the summer months.

How can I describe that experience? Eye-opening. Elevating. Chocolate-craving stressful. Enriching. Writer's mecca. Those days were packed with more kernels of ideas and thought on craft than the last six months of my life. I'll need another six months to process it all.

If you are thinking about honing your writing skills, man, Vermont College is the place to go. I learned so much, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'll be spending the next two years writing critical papers, reading way more than I already do, and rolling up my sleeves and learning how to use a few more tools of the trade. POV, metaphor, prologues here I come!

Seriously, Vermont College is a writer's dream. I got to talk shop with people as interested in writing as me. A writer can really let her hair down and wax on about the finer points of writing in this program (or the stuff you just hate, can't understand, want to change!). It's awesome.

If that wasn't enough, I got to revisit dorm living. Not that I was missing it. Still, it turned out to be pretty fun. I lucked out and got an amazingly wonderful dorm roommate. We bemoaned and celebrated together. And hey, this time, I was old enough to buy my own beer. What's more, I could afford the good kind.

I'm psyched to get going on my first packet. Can't wait to dive in and try my hand at critical papers on craft.

Of course, after I get that first packet back, I may be groaning a little more than usual because I'll probably have loads of revisions to do, but growth is painful, any kind of growth, right?

You Might Be a Writer If...

2009-06-19T06:38:00.000-07:00

Has your son or daughter ever followed you around the house repeating every single word, gesture, expression of yours? Or have you seen your children do it to each other with the secret desire of driving each other nuts, and, of course, succeeding?

Imitation is the best form of flattery, they say. But what about when it's involuntary?

You might be a writer if...you're a better parrot than your kids.

Most writers will admit pretty quickly that inspiration for their characters sometimes comes from quirky aspects of their own personalities, emotions they've been through, even kids they knew when they were growing up, or know now. We writers do pilfer on occasion, which I disclaimed on a while back. But what about when it boomerangs back on us and we start imitating our own characters?

When I'm revising heavy sections of a work (this happened with Dragon Wishes), I sometimes go through a low myself, carrying the emotional weight of my characters around with me after I turn off the computer. It's not so fun, perhaps necessary to make good writing into unforgettable writing (or at least decent writing), but not one of my more favorite forms of imitation.

It's not the only form, though. Oh, no. Not even close.

I'm working on a YA set in late 19th century New Zealand, and have been for the last 13 months. I've eaten, slept, drank, read, written and pretty much been in 19th century New Zealand for over a year. I even went to the modern day version for real in November 2008. I really did my research. Really went to live in the moment. It was well beyond 'imitation.' It bordered on total immersion. The imitation came later.

I started saying, "eh" at the end of my sentences. I have to say, it is a Canadian thing. Only, I'm not from Canadian, so I wasn't exactly sure why I was suddenly doing it. And I couldn't stop. My husband teased me about it. My daughers laughed. But it was my seven year old who got to the heart of the matter in perfect, no-nonsense kid fashion.

"I like how you talk like Charlie now," she said one afternoon after my umpteenth "eh" that day.

Charlie?

Who? What was she talking about?

Then it hit me. Charlie Mueller, the salty lighthouse keeper in my novel (Like any slightly obsessed writer, I've read my novel to my kids). Charlie's got this great "ye aren't the fastest ship in the harbor, are ye, laddie" kind of brogue accent. I really love writing his dialogue. I guess I love it so much, I started imitating it.

So what does all of this mean? Imitation is an occupational hazard?

I bet my kids would love to use that on me. "I have to imitate you, Mama. That's what kids do. It's an occupational hazard of being a kid."

How many moms would by that one? I know I wouldn't. Parroting really gets old after a while.

Uh-oh.

Does this mean my kids can threaten to send me to my room if I don't stop parroting Charlie right now?

I'm in trouble.

Sinful Nature

2009-06-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

Green Girl tagged me with this sinful post:

"Sometimes you can learn more about a person by what they don’t tell you. Sometimes you can learn a lot from the things they just make up. If you are tagged with this Meme, lie to me. Then tag 7 other folks (one for each deadly sin) and hope they can lie."

Whew. The pressure is on. Good lying. Here goes:

Pride
What is your biggest contribution to the world?

Gosh, what a tough question. It's a real toss up between those highly acclaimed academic tomes on the principles of cold fusion and my spicy spaghetti recipe.

Envy
What do your coworkers have that you wish was yours?

Anonymity. I get hounded all the time by eager tweens begging me to please, please, please write a sequel to Dragon Wishes.

Gluttony
What did you eat last night?

Monte Cristo sandwich, fries, and baked fudge with ice cream and whipped cream. It's a real tragedy to have one of those metabolisms that just won't let you put on any weight. What's a girl to do but eat?

Lust
What really lights your fire?

Apathy. I'm so tired of men who know what they want. Couldn't they be wishy washy for a change? Not know what they want? Take years to propose? Why do they have to hurry us so?

Anger
What is the last thing that really pissed you off?

The recent election demonstrations in Iran. How dare those forward thinkers try and bring about democracy, or even fairness in election voting returns. What do they think this is, the 21st century?

Greed
Name something you hoard and keep from others:

Manuscripts. Move over Emily Dickinson. Just wait till I die. Oh, the treasures the world will find.

Sloth
What’s the laziest thing you ever did?

Gave one word answers to open-ended questions.

Disclaimer: I may be an author, but I'm not sure I'm the wittiest one when it comes to answering questions like these. It's all that Catholic upbringing. I can feel the weight of Purgatory bearing upon me as I fudge the truth. I swear! May these writers be more unencumbered in their yarn spinning :-)

ROOTS IN MYTH

Gutsy Writer

Hello Ello

Keri Mikulski

Lilly's Life

Rena Jones

Writing it Out

You Might Be a Writer If...

2009-06-12T06:16:00.000-07:00

The empty nest I've been brooding over this past week has given me plenty of time to think. Letting go of those little babies is one of the hardest things ever. Letting them fly. Letting them find their own wings. Any parent experiences a certain reluctance to cut the cord and bid them adieu.

But what about a writer and her work?

You might be a writer if...you launch your finished manuscripts into the world the same way you launch your children, with a jumbled mix of excitement, worry, fear and hope.

Similes and metaphors comparing writing to having children abound. Incubating an idea. Laboring over a story. Nurturing a plot along. Giving birth to a finished product. And letting go?

There is definitely some joie de vivre involved in putting the keyboard down and launching a finished story into the world. And trepidation. It's your creation. You've labored over it. There have been days when you really feel like you've sweated blood and tears to turn raw material into unforgettable prose. And days when you've waxed on and on and on, moony-eyed in love with your little creation.

And then comes the day when you wake up and know, today is the day. I've done all I can do. The last word has been written. The last change made. Much like a parent with a child, it's time to take a step back and launch them into the world. Let them fly. Will they crash? Undoubtedly. Will they get up? Please God, universe, whatever deity or higher being is out there watching over them, let them get up.

Will they soar?

That's any parent or writer's greatest hope. That their labor of love will soar, will influence others in a good way, leaving them changed or entertained or thrilled. Or maybe a little of all of the above.

And so we parents and writers launch our little loves into the wide wide world. Our hearts are practically bursting with pride for them. We worry for them. We're even a little fearful. But more than anything, with all our hearts, we hope that they will soar.

Empty Nesting for Culture

2009-06-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

I fell off the radar temporarily last week. Lost all communication. It was a combination of the end of school, huge trip, and finishing my WIP, Pelorus Jack.

Most of all, though, I was an emotional wreck. My kids and their father left on Friday for Germany. I stayed at home in the empty nest.

My husband grew up and lived most of his live in Germany until I "imported" him to the U.S. after we got married. Since the girls are a blend of two cultures, we try really hard to get them over to Germany once a year to visit family and friends. This year, we decided they were old enough for a deeper "cultural immersion" program. We're sending them to school there. Which means, I won't see them for several weeks. A lifetime.

I was scared and nervous. They were scared and nervous. I'm pretty sure I sprouted countless new gray hairs within those last hours leading up to their flight. The closer it got, the more I asked myself, Why am I doing this? Is it that important for them to be able to speak and understand German?

After I had a good cry, a glass of wine, and a serious portion of Jane Austen, I came to the same conclusion I'd been coming to all year. Sometimes doing what is best in the long run means surmounting some steep short run costs.

My motivation is all experiential. My family is a big, Hungarian family. My generation, however, is the first that didn't learn to speak Hungarian. My grandfather (1st generation American) speaks, writes and reads it. My father (2nd generation) learned only to speak it, and gradually lost it when he grew up. I (3rd generation) only learned to curse in it. Not very useful when trying to communicate in Budapest at age 19, let me tell you.

More than that, though, my whole life I've always felt like there was this big part of my family, my culture, my own history that was lost to me. Moving to America was definitely a step up for us, but we left behind family and traditions in Hungary. Ones I will never really get to know because linguistically, I've lost the tying thread.

I don't want my kids to feel like that. I want them to feel a part of both of their cultures. I also feel like tolerance grows from a more organic and personal relationship to various cultures. One begins to see that things can be done differently and it's still great. Diversity is the spice of life.

So, they start school on Thursday in Germany. Our friends with whom the girls are staying have two boys the same age. They live in a small town. My kids will be the star guests at their school. I'm so excited for them. It's going to be the experience of a lifetime.

If only I could miss them a little less....

The Book Review Club - Shift

2009-06-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Shift
Jennifer Bradbury
May 2008
Atheneum
ISBN: 978-1-4169-4732-5
Retail: $16.99

Jen and I spoke together on a panel at NCTE, and I got her book then. I've been meaning to read it ever since. I'm so glad I finally did.

Shift is the story of two 18 year-old high school graduates, Win and Chris, who bicycle across America the summer before college starts. It's a journey of self discovery, a YA coming of age story about how the journey is the goal, where you end up may not be where you were headed.

The story is told in retrospective. Chapters alternate deftly between reflection and present day events. Win disappears on the trip shortly before the two reach the West Coast. When he doesn't show up to start college at Dartmouth, his wealthy and influential father begins a search for him. He sends his FBI buddy to Chris at Georgia Tech to start the search, ultimately forcing Chris to find his friend before Win's father ruins Chris' life.

Author, Jen Bradbury, took a similar trip with her husband after they were married, a two month trek across America on a bike. Her experiences give this story an organic, I've-been-there feel. It makes me want to pull my mountain bike out of the garage and give it a go. It also reminds me a little of Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance and the idea that nature, landscape, the world around us can only truly be experienced if you put yourself in the middle of it,not watch it pass by through a window.

This is a great summer read. It'll have you longing for open spaces, the taste of a hearty meal after a day of grueling exercise, the welcome softness of the cool earth against your back and the glory of the wide open spaces, creeks, rivers and plains that beckon us to experience them firsthand. If ever there was a road trip book, this is it! Sign me up.

For more great reviews and must reads, head over to Book Review Club central, Barrie Summy's site. There are some real temptations waiting there that even the most reluctant reader won't be able to pass up.

You Might Be a Writer If...

2009-05-29T06:47:00.001-07:00

In these trying economic times, we all need a little lift now and again, a little ray of hope on the horizon. Some of us even resort to games of chance to lift our spirits or improve our lot. I hear the lottery is doing well everywhere. I used to play, when I was a very poor graduate student. I even won something like 64 DM one time. It amounted to roughly $32. A lot of money back in the day.

Writers have their own twist on games of chance to improve their fortune.

You might be a writer if...your version of the lottery is submitting manuscripts to publishers.

You're smiling, aren't you? But think about it, sending off to publishers really is like playing the lottery. Honest. I'll show you.

Let's take the entry fee. Minimal. For a lottery ticket, a couple of bucks. For a submission, 44 cents. Even less than the cost of a lottery ticket! (Which is good because we writers are a poor lot. Poorer than the average lottery player, I'd wager.)

A lottery player lingers long over the numbers, trying to discern which ones might be the winning power ball combination, just like a writer lingers over phrases and plots, trying to create a winning combination that will win the heart of an editor.

Playing leaves you feeling good, happy even. Even if you don't win, if you get the dreaded form rejection letter, for a brief moment, there is that indescribable high that playing brings. That full body rush that zings and sizzles all the way to the tips of your hair when you hand in that lottery ticket or drop the submission envelope into the mail.

While both are games of luck - getting your numbers pulled vs. finding an editor who resonates with your work - you can actually stack the deck in your favor with editors via...you guessed it, good writing. No matter how perfectly you fill in those little round circles on power ball, it's still all up to the gods of chance whether you'll win or not.

Nevertheless, regardless of which game you're playing, there are minuscule chances of winning. Take heart, though, fellow writers. Getting your manuscript pulled from a slush pile, read and then accepted (can you see the looming mountain?) still has a higher likelihood than winning the regular lottery in any state or country. Far fewer people play the publishing lottery.

Be forewarned all you lottery players out there. Playing the publishing lottery isn't for the faint of heart. It takes courage, a certain level of willingness to inflict self pain (via rejection), and the stamina to get up and play all over again.

Still, whether you're putting your money on words or numbers, one universal stands true: hope springs eternal. Next time, you might just win.

Let's Go Fly A Kite

2009-05-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day started out kind of slow. I snuck into the office to write. My daughter vegged out on cartoons. Until my father suddenly appeared with a kite.

We hadn't been kite flying in ages. Suddenly, the house was a blur of action. Kite flying. It was contagious. We couldn't get out the door fast enough, despite clouds that threatened rain (and a Ben Franklin kind of kite flying experience should thunder show up too). We were off on an adventure to the park.

Only problem. Not a lot of wind. We were running all over the place trying to get that kite into the air. I was beginning to despair.

Then again, there is nothing quite like the determination of a seven year old. If there was even the hint of a breeze, we were going to find it.

And we did!

The only thing was, once my daughter had gotten a taste of kite flying, there was no holding her back. We stayed until the cows came home (all of them).

Which didn't bother any of us. It was a blast.

Even the ice cream man showed up. There really is something about the ice cream man that screams excitement. I couldn't get the dollar bills out fast enough before my daughter was grasping them in her fist, throwing the kite string to the wind (which I then ran after), while my father ran after her, trying to keep her from zigging into traffic just to stop the ice cream truck.

I think every ice cream driver gets a kick out of seeing how fast he can get those kids running. Personally, I think if they wanted to really break records at track and field events, they should pull out an ice cream truck. American runners at least would be reaching new speeds, I'm telling you. My daughter did.

She got her ice cream.

Then we eased out under a huge, old tree and watched her slurp down a crushed ice, while we built imaginary cities out of twigs, old leaves, dandelions and acorns.

Best Memorial Day ever.

You Might Be a Writer If...

2009-05-22T06:44:00.001-07:00

Some weeks, I can think of at least three things I could write about in this Friday post. Other weeks, I'm praying to the gods of inspiration for, well...inspiration. Of course, I could do the high functioning thing and write down the extra two ideas in the creative weeks, but somehow, it never happens.

The save came this week at the eleventh hour, literally (11 p.m.), as my husband and I were walking out of the movies.

You might be a writer if...you've been told you've got an overly active imagination.

That's what my husband told me. He wasn't the first, just the latest. Poor guy.

We went to see the latest Star Trek movie last night. I admit it. I'm a trekkie. A huge trekkie. It's not my fault. I blame it on bad Sunday TV programming during my formative years as an adolescent. Sunday morning was such a let down after Saturday cartoons. Plus there was all that time to kill before church, the comics read and reread, my brother soundly aggravated and totured. What was a kid to do? Enter, deus ex machina extraordinaire, Star Trek reruns.

The original, of course. It was the 1970s. I watched them all, many times over. The only problem was, my brother and I hardly ever got to see an episode through to its end because we had to leave for church. We used to push it to the very last minute, begging our parents to let us finish.

Maybe it was all that unfulfilled longing that made me such a trekkie. Either way, come movie time last night, I was giggly with excitement. I hadn't read any of the previews, watched few to none of the trailers. I wanted to let the latest script writers do their thing.

It was great for me. I was thrilled, scared, excited, moved. If only my husband had remembered how moved I can get. More than once, the alien coming out of nowhere had me screeching or jumping or...well, I hit him one time so hard, I kind of hurt him. Poor guy. He spent the rest of the movie with his arms crossed, scooched away from me, avoided all contact for fear I might accidentally injure him again.

"You have an overly active imagination," he said as we were walking over. "Big time."

It's too true. I can't deny it because the evidence is overwhelming.

I tried levitating rocks with my mind after seeing Star Wars.

I slept with my neck covered for years after seeing a Sammy Terry midnight marathon of the early Dracula movies.

When my mom had to pull a splinter out of my hand when I was five or six, I got kind of emotional. "Everything is getting dark. I can't see anything. It hurts too much!" (Yes, I actually remember saying that.) My mother: "Open your eyes."

Oh yeah.

The only reason I think I was able to read Lord of the Rings as a child was because I imagined all of its black and sinister creatures more a sort of tarnished grey. And that still had me scared to death. After I saw Peter Jackson version of them, I didn't sleep for weeks.

I have an overly active imagination. I didn't know what to do with the thing, until I became a writer. Now all of those insane ideas can weave themselves into something that makes sense. Whole books come to me in the blink of an eye, and people ask me, "How did you think that up?"

Overly active imagination.

My characters don't just inhabit my brain, they dance around my office. Go shopping with me. Advise me on how to talk to my children.

Overly active imagination.

Bedtime stories for my kids come so easily, maybe too easily. We constantly miss bedtime.

It's a talent now, not an oddity. I love it. I just have to remember to buy my husband some protective gear for our next movie outing!

Double Digit Mania

2009-05-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

My oldest hit the double digits this Friday, and oh, what celebrating there was!

I was all ready for that. I'd made one cake, bought another, wrapped the presents, gotten the house ready for the onslaught of ten year who would pour into it the next day. We were ready to celebrate.

What I wasn't expecting was the trepidation. Not mine. Hers.

DD: Mama, should I be excited?

Me: (trying to hide surprise) Sure. You're turning ten. That's a big deal.

DD: I don't want to get older.

Me: Why not?

DD: I like being nine. I want to be nine for forever.

Me: Really?

I didn't totally get it. I was one of those kids who was nine going on nineteen. So come Saturday night, I went into the slumber party/night of silly 10 year old fun trying to catch glimpses not only of the allure of kiddom she sees but of its magic.

You know, I must have been blind as a kid. There was a Jupiter Jump, cookie cake, water balloon fights, sleepover with ten girls, movies - The Indian in the Cupboard, Hotel for Dogs, Marley and Me - gummy bears, popcorn, donuts, swinging, and laughing. Oh, was there laughing!

Most of all, there was abandon. Abandon to swim in it all, in the moment, in the fun, the silliness, the excitement, and the total exhaustion.

What was I thinking trying to grow up so fast??

I understand now why she is worried about getting older. Worried about losing that part of childhood and all that goes with it.

She's a smart kid, smarter than her mom. Hopefully, some of adulthood will eventually appeal to her. But after Saturday night, I get why there's no hurry getting there. There's so much to see until then. I'm glad I get to see it with her.

You Might Be a Writer If...

2009-05-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

Ooh, after the week I've had with babysitter woes, I have really been looking forward to my Friday post where I get to let my hair down, sit back, and ponder the inane, quirky habits of that ecelectic species, writer.

This week's spotlight gelled for me in a dream last night. I haven't had the best luck with working things out in the subconscious before, but man, last night, the stars must have aligned because when I woke up, what I dreamt actually made sense.

You might be a writer if...you swoon for writers like they were rock stars.

I mean the Leif Garrett/David Cassidy kind of swooning, where your heart gets up to some crazy erratic pace and your head feels so hot, you think you might lift off the ground or explode. Yep, that's what great writing does for writers.

Sound melodramatic?

Okay, maybe just a little, but what writer hasn't had that moment when a turn of phrase in a piece stopped them dead in their tracks. Where they sat there, saying it out loud, letting the words roll and bump across their lips as they savored the flavor of great writing.

And then became insanely curious to learn about the person who wrote that. So much so you, say, maybe googled them? Checked out their wikipedia page? Looked for interviews. Driven by the haunting memory of that amazing combination of letters and sounds that became greater than the sum of its parts.

I know. I'm swooning again.

I didn't used to swoon so for writers, not before I became one. I always read a lot, tons, but honestly, I wasn't all that into remembering author names. It was all about book titles, or even more simply, the story itself.

Now that I am a writer, now that I'm constantly working to improve my craft, I've become a closetcase fan of other writers. Then again, it may only be me who thinks my curiosity and interest is secret. I've seen my friends give me that funny look when I start going on and on and on about how I'd love to have Markus Zusak and his family over for a grill party. Kids would be playing on the swing set (I have no idea if he has kids. I do.) Spouses would get along great. And we'd talk about whatever. Not necessarily books, but life. I mean, who wouldn't want to kibbutz a little with the person who wrote:

As it turned out, Ilsa Hermann not only gave Liesel Meminger a book that day. She also gave her a reason to spend time in the basement - her favorite place, first with Papa, then Max. She gave her a reason to write her own words, to see that words had also brought her to life.
"Don't punish yourself," she heard her say again, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness too. That was writing.

Do you have a lighter lit and are waving it in the air like me? I mean, gees, that's just one line. The whole rest of the book is just as strong.

Zusak is just one example on my ever growing list of authors I'd love to meet and talk with. I don't mean interview talk. I mean Paris, early 20th century, Picasso taking on Modigliani talk. I mean, Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald. You know, arguing and debating, chewing and reforming and rewriting what makes good art in a seedy bar with a good French wine. They argued. They debated. They drank. They lived. They created. They changed the world.

God, what a time that must have been. An unending concert of ideas matching pitch and being reworked into something new and brilliant.

I'm swooning just thinking about it.

*****On a very little side note to rising fame and writer fortune, my book, Dragon Wishes, was an Honorable Mention in the San Francisco Book Festival this week. I feel like a rocker who's finally playing decent venues. Hopefully, one day, it'll be the Met.

What Happened?

2009-05-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

This weekend supplied me with countless material for an edgy teen novel, or at least, a realistic one.

It all began when I had to go away for one weekend with my husband. We have two kids, seven and ten. So, we needed a responsible person to take care of them. We asked our really great grad student babysitter who is awesome with the kids. Only hitch was, she was graduating this weekend. We went to option B, a high school senior we've known since age 12, who's babysat for us for about six years. She's been to Europe with me, on author tour. However last year, she went a little teen nutty when she got into her first serious relationship. Still, she's graduating in a few days, and I thought, she's almost nineteen, what sort of trouble could she possibly cause in a day-and-a-half?

I learned this weekend that you never, never, never ask that question when a teenager is involved.

The kids are all right. The house didn't burn down. However, I've had a few eye-opening experiences into today's teenage world.

Said babysitter snuck her boyfriend in for a sleepover of her own. I say snuck because I was never asked. Also, he "left" when the kids went to bed, but his truck stayed parked in front of our house all night long. He "returned" at 7:15 by letting himself in through the front door. And she told her parents he didn't stay over. And I guess she figured no one would ever be the wiser.

WHAT?????

Doesn't she realize there are no secrets in a house with children? (Diane Sutterfield made a whole book around that very idea, The Thirteenth Tale)

Didn't she ever see Bill Cosby perform stand up or watch his TV show, even in reruns?
The seven year old is the informant.

Did she forget my husband and I were teenagers once as well?
My husband knew all of the right questions to ask our seven year old. And I did a little around the neighborhood investigative journalism. It was pretty easy to put the pieces together and figure out what went on.

It didn't get worse from there, just consistent. She didn't ask if she could have a girlfriend come over and spend the night Saturday night. She told my girlfriend, who's daughter she took along with mine to the movie, the girlfriend was just visiting.

She call me and didn't ask what she should feed the kids when the glaring leftovers in the fridge, the fresh bread, the milk, the fruit, the cold cuts, the ready make mac and chees, pasta, cans of tomoato sauce, frozen pizzas my husband stocked the fridge with on Friday left her without a clue. Instead, she called her parents and told them I hadn't really left any food in the house for my kids and she needed money to take them out to dinner.

She didn't ask if it was okay to go into my bedroom and use my bathroom repeatedly for long baths.

She didn't bother to refill the dog's water bowl and put the dog outside for six hours, then told me she did refill it when I called and asked.

I was never asked. It was the "better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission" weekend.

I'm ranting. I know. I feel incredibly violated. I feel really disappointed. I feel hurt. And I feel like it's my fault. I should have known, right? What can I say in my defense? She used to be a decent kid. I mean, I've known her for almost seven years. My kids adore her. She's never, to my knowledge, exhibited this kind of irresponsible behavior before when work was involved. And I know kids go through trying times. I was a teenager, however long ago it was, but I remember when I was working, man, I tried to up my game, tried to seem responsible at least.

And this kid, she's almost nineteen. When does maturity and responsibility kick in? My husband said this is teen reality today. They don't want to be responsible. This is their life.

I am so out of touch.

As a human being, I ask myself, where are we going? And, how did we get here? As a parent, I ask myself, is this what I'm going to be up against? As a writer, I ask myself, is this my readership?

Because if it is, man, I've just had an intensive weekend seminar on how some teenagers at least function, what's important to them, and what to write about. It's gonna take a while to process all that. Reams of material.

In the meantime, anybody out there got the name of a decent babysitter???

You Might Be a Writer If...

2009-05-06T16:44:00.001-07:00

What's your verb?

I love that Nike commercial. Verbs are the cornerstone of good writing. I'm always searching for a better one. Why use walk quickly, when you can say sprint. Or swagger. Or, a personal favorite, sache.

But what about the verbs we writers us to describe our profession?

You might be a writer if...the verbology you use to describe writing makes you at least sometimes sound like a cross between a butcher and, well, an axe murderer.

Too extreme, you say? Let me give a few examples.

When I first started writing stories for children, I had to carve out time from my regular job to write. Steal a few moments here and there. Then hours. Eventually hammering my day into a whole new schedule in which writing took up its own little niche.

Verbology still too kind?

What about revisions? Some authors love them. Some authors, not so much. I waiver between hating and loving them. It's where the real work begins. Where the diamond in the rough story becomes a glittering work of art. So much labor is involved - cutting, slicing, chopping, tearing out in whole, sculpting, and reshaping.

Still not convinced?

An author friend of mine and I were talking on the phone the other day. Yes, real live, person to person talking. I was giddy with the excitement of spontaneous conversation (I was also avoiding revisions). So was she. And we were tired of regrouting the kitchen floor. She was asking me about the first line of her book. She said she loved it. The whole book came out of it. But it was all wrong. It needed to be changed, better, ripped out and replaced entirely, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. I tried my best to help her to step over the edge and cut it out.

Her response: "I know I need to, but I just can't kill my darling."

What comes around goes around. We're all faced with making the ultimate "sacrifice" now and again:

For example, my critique group read my present WIP. One of them was not happy with one of a the male characters. Her suggestion? "Kill him off. It will make the story better."

Now I know what my friend feels like about chopping out that first line of hers. I don't quite have the taste for blood just yet. I want the character to redeem himself. But if I'm unsuccessful, well, I may just have to get out my scalpel.

Now this butcher-esque verbology amongst writers may just be a trend out here in the wild wild west, but I've got a sinking suspicion it transcends state lines, national lines even. I'd love to talk to a non-American writer, like a German one - since I speak German - and find out if they hammer, chisel, cut out, chop off, hack, and sometimes snuff out their favorite characters or lines with such abandon when they're writing.

Do you?

The Book Review Club - Alligator Bayou

2009-05-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

Alligator Bayou
Donna Jo Napoli
March 2009
Wendy Lamb Books
ISBN: 978-0-385-746540-0

Alligator Bayou is not a fun read. It's not an easy read. But it is a must read.

The story is based upon the hanging of four Sicilians in Tallulah, Louisiana, in 1899. It is told from the viewpoint of fourteen year-old Calogero, who has come to America from Sicily after the death of his mother to live with his uncles and help them run their vegetable stores.

The uncles have a prosperou business in rural Louisiana, miles and miles from New Orleans and the lynchings they experienced there. They believe they are safe here. They hope they are. But safe is a relative term swimming in a sea of prejudice.

Tallulah is far from open to its Italian residents. Calogero and his thirteen year old cousin, Cirone, are not allowed to attend the school for whites, and are dissuaded from attending the school for blacks. "Better to be uneducated." Italians living in the U.S. in the 1800s were treated as a race unto themselves, shunned by whites and warned not to mingle with blacks. So Calogero takes English lessons from a young artist passing through the area, Frank Raymond. Frank also introduces him to the last living member of the Tunica tribe, Joseph.

Calogero's heart, however, belongs Patricia, one of the black girls who passes by the vegetable stand he runs each day after school. He soon become friends with her brothers, who take Calogero and Cirone through a rite of passage, alligator hunting.

Life is starting to look up. The black community invites the Calogero and his family to celebrate school graudation, and the fourth of July. They are finally beginning to make friends and Calogero is falling in love, all this is a sea of hate and prejudice. The townspeople are begrudging toward the Italians and their prosperity. When the whites find out that Calogero and his family are celebrating with the black community, things get worse.

Harsh words fly and tempers flair when Uncle Francesco serves people in the order they come into the store, not according to the color of their skin. The Italians are cheating the whites and giving the blacks special favors. Vioelence bubbles underneath an ever thinning sheen of ice.

It breaks through with the simplest of acts. Uncle Francesco's goats roam free. They bother the doctor. One night Dr. Hodge shoots Francesco's favorite goat, Bedda.

Francesco's brother, Carlo, confronts the doctor about killing the goat, albeit in Italian, and gets his head bashed in. Gusn coem out. The doctor tries to shoot Carlo's other brother, Guiseppe, who himself shoots Dr. Hodge in the leg. Rumors spread like wildfire. The Italians have killed the doctor. A mob forms. They capture all of Calogero's family, except Calogero.

Frank Raymond tries to spirit Calogero out of town, but Cal refuses to go. He wants to help his family. He slips away from Frank to find his uncles, only to watch the mob preparing to hang them. Patricia and her brothers find Calogero and help him escape.

There are no real spoilers in this review. Napoli explains the driving force of the story in the preface, the hangings. She does a poignant job of making the reader care about the characters even though foreboding, foreshadowing and death ultimately hang over their heads. By the end of the book, you yearn for them to escape their fate, all the while knowing, that fate occurred so long ago.

Napoli weaves in fact with fiction to create a searing, eye-opening reading experience. The story reveals and reminds that prejudice is not so long ago in our history, and that it has been directed at people's of all different races and creeds. It also tells the story - that has faded somewhat into the folds of history - of the prejudices that Italian immigrants had to overcome to stake their claim in this country, thereby creating a rich forum for class, reader, book club discussion about not only on the shortcomings of our country in dealing with its immigrants not only in the past but also today.

Truthfully, I dreaded reading this book. Inequalities, prejudice and the failings of humanity hang with me long after I've read about them. They leave a wound that aches. This book and its story are no different. However, the change reading Alligator Bayou wrought in me isn't just pain at the shortcomings of man toward man. The story deepened my understanding of immigration and what my family must have gone through when they came here. It heightened my respect and for immigrants the world around. And it left me with an increased awareness that tolerance isn't about accepting that with which we are comfortable with but accepting that which is new and uncomfortable. Tolerance is the glue that binds humanity together.

It needs to be spread around. Donna Jo Napoli, in telling this story, challenges her readers to do just that. Take on the challenge. You won't be sorry.

For more must read books, visit The Book Review Club headquarters over at Barrie Summy's blog.

You Might Be a Writer If...

2009-05-01T06:20:00.000-07:00

Do people come up to you and ask you to tell their story? Do you walk away from school visits with loads of new story ideas that kids give you like sticks of gum? Do adults drop hints about stories you could work on?

What about your family? Are they the worst of all?

You might be a writer if...you hear "you should write this" A LOT.

"You should write this" comes out of all corners. For a while, when I was still a newbie to writing, I didn't hear it at all. It's like being the new kid on the block. People around you can't figure out if you're in the writing gig for good, or you're goofing off.

Then that first book or article comes out, and whoa, ideas suddenly come flying toward you.

I didn't know what to do with them at first. Listen and nod politely? File them away? Write them out? Where is the advice on this in the writer operating instructions booklet?

What people want me to do, I've learned through trial and error, varies greatly. Okay, they all hope I write the ideas into something, but how those ideas should turn out is what varies so much.

Kids are the best. At school visits, I get all kinds of ideas tossed at me, like so many colorful balls. I try to volley them back because, you know, I might actually be talking to the next William Faulkner or Stephen King. You never know. Maybe all they need is a little push. I've seen some amazing stuff from kids nobody would ever expect had so much writing talent. So, each time a child tells me "you should write this" I say, "what if you did?" (And then there are a few ideas, I admittedly stick in my pocket. I did mention last week we authors like to pilfer.)

Adults are a little trickier. They sort of expect you to write out an idea if they take the time to tell you about it. Some of them are pretty good. A friend of mine met me and my family at our most favorite donut shop on Saturday before soccer. My family and I LOVE this donut shop. Family run. The donut maker is a real artist. He makes donuts into shapes and then colors them. I've never seen anything like it anywhere. And they taste fantabulous. It's worth traveling to Tulsa just to try them. Believe me. So it's probably not all that surprising that my friend suggested (as I was on my 3rd donut) I do an article on the origins of donuts. Now that happened to be a very good idea. Because I'm just itching to get back in the kitchen and interview this donut master, if he'll let me in. Plus, it turns out, the Dutch came up with donuts. So I'm altering my trip to Europe this summer to make a pass through Amsterdam so I can photograph some Dutch donuts. That was an amazing idea. No strings attached.

The tricky part comes when it's family. My immediate family is one thing. They live with me and they've learned that I pilfer, change up, and turn into something new. If they share an idea with me, who knows what it might turn into or where. And if it's my kids, I try to put the idea right back in their hands and challenge them to write something. I don't always succeed. Case in point. My daughter was at the opera this week. Her first time. She came home with three tickets.

Daughter: (Holds out tickets with huge smile on face) "I've got something for your blog."
Me: "Thanks, sweetie. That's really nice, but why don't you write about your trip?"
Daughter: (Face falls. Hand lowers.) "But I got them for you. I collected them off the floor so you'd have more than one. Can't you use them, please???"
Me: (Guilt-ridden and seriously impressed that her journalistic skills are kicking in so early.) "Okay."
Here they are:

When it comes to my extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, things get really tricky. I am my family's memory keeper. Not their story teller because that would mean I could pilfer and pillage history with abandon and then turn it into anything I want. Not when it's family. I'm the historian. The biographer. The living tape recorder (if such things still exist). When my family gives me an idea, they want it transferred to paper exactly as it happened. If I don't, well, there have been some sticky moments. And disppointment. Pencil thin lips and shaking heads. Sigh. Family events mean double duty. First record then take said events back to my secret writing lab and tinker with until I infuse them with new life Buahahahahhaha. (evil mad scientist laugh)

"You should write this". We get it a lot. It's often pretty helpful. Many of us use it. But what to do about the expectations that are attached to it? Maybe we should follow the movie industry, issue a disclaimer: The characters and events depicted in this piece are purely fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Can I write with abandon now?

TGIM - Thank God It's Monday

2009-04-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

Thank God it's Monday.

I never thought I see myself saying, thinking or writing that. I usually long for the weekend. I spend my weekdays in my office slaving at the computer, storytelling, and I really enjoy turning my brain off on Friday. However this weekend...yeesh.

It all started Saturday afternoon.

Actually, to tell this story properly, I have to give you a little backstory. I'll try to keep it short because, well, I don't want to lose my reader. Nevertheless, setting and history is important. Here it is: We live in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has snakes. Lots of snakes. Poisonous snakes. Scary snakes.

My background: I grew up in Indianapolis. Hardly any snakes. In fact, at the Indiana Dunes near Michigan City, IN, they hand out a pamphlet on What to do when you see the elusive, Indian rattlesnake (this is a real animal): 1) Determine your location, preferably via GPS; 2) Call the local park hotline and let them know where the snake is; 3) try not to scare said snake.
Reaction by Oklahomans to above description about what to do when you see a rattler in Indiana: Bursts of uncontrollable laughter.

Husband's background: He grew up in Germany. No snakes. Well, okay, there is this one thing that's like a snake that lives in Germany, but it's more like a lizard, slow, sweet, entirely harmless.

End of backstory.

It all started Saturday afternoon. The family had just finished our first heavy yardwork day in the flowerbeds. My husband and I were sitting on the front steps, nursing our sore muscles and drinking a beer. My kids were instantly bored.

Kids: "We're bored."
Me: "Go see your friends."
Kids: "Nobody's around."
Me: "Play with each other."
Kids: Glares and pained expressions.
Husband: "You can go to the creek."
Kids: "YEAY!!!!!"
Me: Refrain from killing husbad. I hate the creek. Houses that back up to it and that have pools regularly have water moccasins. Don't get me wrong. I went creek stomping as a kid, but I never saw a snake in a creek until I moved to Oklahoma, and they've all be water moccasins.
Me: Not wanting to scare children witless but maybe dissuade husband. "They have to take a phone in case something happens." (Important: our kids don't have cell phones).
Husband: Unperturbed. "They can take your phone."
Me: Refrain from walloping husband on head with beer bottle. There is, after all, still beer in it. "It was your idea. Give them your phone."
Husband: Fatal error number 1. "Okay."
Me: Fatal error number 2. "Fine."
Kids: "YEAY!!!!"
Kids take off to creek with dire upon-pain-of-death warning that they are not to lose said phone or go into creek with phone. Kids swear up and down on each other's lives they will follow this one little rule.
Fatal error number 3. We believe them.

7:15 kids lose phone...in creek.

We of course don't know this until Sunday morning after spending hours at the creek both before and after dark wading through water, rushes, tall grasses - with all the water moccasins and God knows what else - looking for said phone. I found it the next morning as I'm having my daughter retrace her steps, step for step, along the bank and then jumping from rock to rock in the middle of the creek (she's 10, she could have known better, I think). It was lying in the middle of the creek bed still shorting out.

Needless to say, the creek is now off-limits until adulthood for them (secretly, I'm relieved. No more snakes). We are paying for our stupidity by having to buy my husband a second phone (it was an iPhone, the lost one). My kids had the scare of their lives because they had to tell us they lost the phone. The oldest, the one who actually lost it, is grounded from technology of all sorts until her birthday, her 18th birthday (okay, not really, just her upcoming one in May). They both spent Sunday grounded, which means I had to stay home and finally got a chance to relax. And I've learned how to extract water from a phone. There's this nifty little trick that involves a plastic bag, phone and rice (or coffee beans), and/or a dryer with a drying rack you can put in the middle of it. Didn't work, but hey, I could share nifty information.

What a weekend. Thank God it's Monday (TGIM).