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In researching what I hope is the next Ellie McDoodle book, I've found tidbits of information that relate to some of the characters. One is this: Some animals live a very long time in captivity. An iguana in Aruba is 41 years old. Blue and Yellow Macaws live to be about 80.
These are people years, not dog years.
This struck me: What sane person would willingly take on an obligation that will last most of his/her life, nurturing a little creature that is totally dependent for food, love and socialization, even knowing the little creature would outlive the owner? How would you plan for its safety after you die?

Who takes over? It reminded me of something that happened 17 years ago: An elderly neighbor lamented to me that she worried not about her own future, but about her little dog. Who would take care of him when she was gone? Would they even find her dog in time to help it, if she keeled over and died at her house, alone? In my youthful idealism, I assured her we'd check on the dog and make sure he found a good home. Two years later we moved away. I sometimes wonder about that dog. I prefer to believe that, since they lived in the townhouses with lots of neighbors very close by, someone noticed when the woman died and someone took in the dog.

My own family adopted a dog after its owner died. It was not an easy adjustment but we figured it was the right thing to do.
So, who would knowingly acquire a pet that will long outlive them?
For that matter, who would lay the first brick in a cathedral, or set in a trust the first dollar for a benevolent foundation, or embark on a painting career in their 80s, knowing they wouldn't be around to see how it all turned out?
And then I thought, it gets even more mundane. Each of us who is a parent has done exactly that, as has every person in history: We start something hoping it's of sufficient value that the next generation will see it through.
We prepare for the future on faith.
I used to worry that the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 meant the end of the world as well. My husband says maybe it only means the end of Mayan civilization: Maybe an archeological dig will unearth the last of the Mayan culture at that time. Maybe an earthquake will reveal the last lost burial grounds of the Mayan and we might even find we have more in common with them than we thought (calendar aside).
Maybe we'll look back in 2016 and laugh, the same way we laugh at Y2k hysteria.
If people are still having babies and buying Macaws in 2011, that'll be a nice show of faith. :)
As for me, I'll keep building toward a future I won't live to see. I'll keep creating books for generations that don't exist yet -- and I'll somewhat reluctantly keep taking time away from creating books, to nurture the next two generations that do exist right now, my kids and grandkids.
It'll probably always be a struggle to maintain balance, but somehow it'll pay off, eh?

Friday: Funeral.
Friday-Saturday-Sunday: SCBWI Conference (wonderful)
Monday: Author visit, Holt-Delhi Public Library, art revisions
Tuesday: art revisions
Wednesday: art revisions
Thursday: Author visit, Girl Scouts of Lansing/Holt, art revisions
Friday: Hospital, help daughter deliver baby
Saturday: Hospital, finish helping deliver baby, Author visit, CADL, Main branch

Sunday: a day of rest? We'll see. I haven't looked at the revised art yet.

I have lots of sketchbook highlights of the hospital visit.
Here's one for now. Gotta get back to see the baby. :)

I sometimes wonder if I have multiple personality issues because on most things I am of at least two minds.Right now I'm happy to be writing this blog piece, here at the computer, but there's a nagging sense I ought to be in the dining room, writing more on my new story idea. When I get back to that, I will become the character, a 5-year-old boy who probably has A.D.D.
When I take a break from that story and turn to the sketch-diary work-in-progress, I'll become a 15-year-old adventurer. And then the next Ellie McDoodle book will beckon and I'll become a 12-year-old girl with all the inner-battling angst and confidence of adolescence. Then I'll bounce over to Marcella, a 6-year-old creative problem-solver. But even while I become those personalities, I still apparently nurture the nasty inner critic who tears apart everything I do. I don't mean to keep feeding her. I'd like for her to waste away, or pack up and visit someone else for a while. Alas, she thrives in my head and has no reason to move on. Actually, I suspect she's been busy reproducing because I hear other negative voices as well.All these characters, mischievous and virtuous, disparaging and uplifting, live simultaneously in my head.
Sometimes they all yell at me at the same time.Sometimes they yell at me at the same time that someone in my real-life family is yelling at me -- and usually the family member is the sort who thinks real-life people deserve priority attention.
It's not always a bad thing to have all these various brains inside me. It's often helpful, like when I am about to start an author presentation at a bookstore. I get butterflies almost to the point of nausea, in advance. Eventually one of the rational brains steps forward and takes control, assuring the others that I've done these visits many dozens of times, I can handle whatever comes up, and in the end the visit will work out well. Usually the other brains settle down and let that brain continue to distract me for the next few hours.Then when the visit is over, the other brains jump back in, bouncing up and down in my head (nausea returns) and I get the urge to run or turn backflips.
I've never in my life done a backflip; I'm sure I wouldn't survive it.
Thankfully, the Zen brain takes over and drives me quietly and calmly back to my home, by which time the backflippers are asleep from the white noise of the highway.
Maybe it's normal to have lots of competing brains inside you, if you're creative. But maybe it's what drove artists and writers insane, throughout history. For my own safety, I'm telling the voices they can stay; what I don't need right now is a full-head mutiny.I have to go. The 5-year-old in my head just woke up and is ready to tell his story.

Harold Underdown will be guest speaker with reknowned interviewer Jan Fields at The Institute of Children's Literature for an online chat called "Down the Publishing Path" on Thur. May 22 from 8-10 p.m. Eastern.
Go here to join in the chat or to find out more info: chat page.
Email any advance questions for Harold to [email protected].
The 3rd edition of Harold's book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books comes out this month.
I recommend this book everywhere to new writers; I think it's the most useful publication for beginners on how to write books for kids. It's helpful for non-beginners, as well.
I've bought a few copies of it. Mine keep going out on loan.
And -- Harold's an awfully nice guy, very helpful with advice. I've "known" him online for more than a few years in a few writer communities (he's one of those kindly-instructor types: Patient, helpful, never pompous or overbearing), and I remember how excited everyone got when he announced he was writing this book. We all knew this book was desperately needed by the new writer community.

Go to Harold's Purple Crayon website for more detailed info on his book and also for up-to-date information on the children's books publishing industry.

Interested in finding out more about kids' books writing? Check out the amazingly overflowing ICL chat transcripts from years of interviews with experts and experienced writers: Very useful stuff here.

And, check out the transcript from my chat with ICL, about humor, here: Humor in kids' books. It's humorous but informative.

The current problem: The studio's too small, too cluttered, and too disorganized.
The plan: Reorganize it. I have two days to make it work, before I need to return to the various works in progress.
The process: Write out my "Wish List," all those things I really want the studio to provide, accommodate, and be. Then figure out what needs to be where. Then move everything into place.
The obstacles: A million other projects, the voice in my head that says to work on something more concrete, limited time, tight finances, tendonitis, Snood.
The rewards: Substantial. No more embarrassment about how the studio looks. And a return to those distant happy days when I loved my studio and found it easy to do any kind of work in it.
The progress: To be announced.

This is so cool. One of my dear writer friends is new to blogging and her first post is a review of my second book, Ellie McDoodle: New Kid in School. And it's a well-written review. She happens to like New Kid in School -- which is nice -- but I especially like how she wrote the review. You can tell she's a writer.
I love it when I read something that's so well-written it makes me wish I'd written it.

And, I have to say, it's very nice hearing an opinion on the second book.


I worked in a vacuum for so long, tweaking the book and trying to make it better than the first, and all this time I've been craving feedback. Something other than my editor's comments.
Not that I discount my editor's words - far from it - but she's working on the book, not just reading it for pleasure.
I wanted to hear from a reader. Someone who isn't looking for typos, art snags, or a better way to convey a scene. Now I have, and I am happy.
And, incidentally, this lady is in the book, on page 7, with the rest of my wonderfully amazingly talented and skilled critique group.*

The final copyedits went to press just a couple days ago.
I'm done. The book is done. For better or for worse, it's done.
So now I'm working on the next book. :)
And I just finished my taxes, my kid's FAFSA, the flu, Family Night, some heavy-duty March is Reading Month author visit planning, and I put in some quality time as a parent. That last bit is not to be underestimated. I'm not yet allowed to announce the life changes affecting a few of my kids, but lets just say it's all happy and it doesn't get any bigger.
So now I finally have a window of opportunity to upload the SCBWI Conference sketches from two weeks ago.
That'll be a huge job, but not as big as some of this other stuff has been.
Ahh, life is good.

*except one whom I love dearly, who moved to another state. I felt there were too many people on page 7 and it started to look self-indulgent and I hate that in books and comics, so I pulled her out and put her name on page 10 instead. I'll probably always beat myself up about that. Would one extra person on the page really have been too much? O, the incessant self-analysis. It's proof I am alive. I breathe, therefore I analyze. Anyway, maybe I'll draw her into the next book...

Life has changed a lot for me in the past month.
The biggest change: I'm not working day and night on the second Ellie book anymore (although I do have copy edits due in a few days). Now I'm working day and night on a picturebook about a drama queen. I've been writing and rewriting and drawing and redrawing this book since April when the idea first hit me.
My agent saw it a couple times, loved it, asked if I wanted to tweak the cover art, and I took it back and tightened the writing, redrew the whole thing, showed it to a famous author during a conference portfolio review...
She loved it too, made a few little suggestions, and I took it back to my cave, tightened the writing again, started to redraw the whole thing again, and am trying to finish before jetting off to NYC for the SCBWI Conference there in a couple weeks.
My agent wrote a few days ago, asking if I take on these punishing tight deadlines/long work hours on purpose, since they seem self-induced.
I suppose I do. For one thing, I'm deadline-oriented. Nothing like a deadline to scare the bejeebers out of me and make me achieve something I think I can't do.
For another, I most certainly have A.D.D. (Took a test and found out the only indicator I *don't* have is I am not male) Having so many distractions makes it tough to stick to a task unless it's critical.
Here's another thing that's hard for me: Staying loose under pressure. It only took about 5 redrawings of the first page of this third book, to get me back to the normal, loose line I so easily produce in my on-the-spot sketches. I think that's because it's a different genre than the Ellie books -- I'm more uptight about it.
Which reminds me - here are more sketches from my trip to Santa Fe:If all goes well in the next couple weeks, I'll finish the Marcella book *and* be in another airport, sketching planes.

This is Ellie, from book 2, embarrassed and trying to melt into the floor.Suddenly my time is my own, again.
I've been working nonstop since September on the second Ellie book, first some marketing stuff with the publisher and then the revised art and writing for it.

All during November I worked all day and all night on the book. I stayed up til 2, 3, 4 in the morning. Sometimes til after 6am. Sometimes I went to bed at 3 and had to get up at 7:30 to get my daughter to school. It was a grueling schedule, definitely.
I missed some very important events. I don't even want to list them because if I think about it too much I'll be too sad and will question my priorities.
Basically I put my life on hold, for the book.
Nobody asked me to.
Nobody forced it on me.
I have a weird sense of focus when it comes to books.
Whether reading them or creating them, I enter the world of the characters and it's nearly impossible to come back out before the job is done.

With Harry, Hermione and Ron, my teenage self became the fourth buddy, the one not mentioned in the book by the author. I hung out with Hermione in the girls' dorm. I had a crush on both Ron and Harry, and wondered whose side Snape was on. In that big cataclysmic fight scene I was there, helping our guys to triumph over evil.

It's the same way with my Ellie McDoodle books. I become part of the book, both observer and creator, an unwritten and unmentioned character who goes on every adventure, shares in every secret and sometimes wishes my real life was so exciting.
(Actually, my real life is plenty exciting, but a lot of that is due to the books!)

All through November I lived the Ellie book.
I sent the last package of art and text to arrive on my editor's desk on the last day of the month.
There will still be little revisions, and the first package of the first 44 pages has some very rough art in it, so there are about 11 illustrations that I know will need redrawing.
But the bulk of it is done.
Book 2 is written.

I think you'll enjoy it. I laughed a few times, out loud, while writing it.
I felt Ellie's angst and I understood her pain in certain scenes.
I think the reader will, also.
Ellie McDoodle: New Kid in School won't be on bookshelves until the end of June. In this book, Ellie starts at a new school in a new city without any friends.
Like me, Ellie has trouble sleeping before the big event.

Here's a sneak peek at page 66:

Now, I can't wait for the whole thing to be printed into a galley and then published as a real book.
I think it's a good one!
But there's plenty of things to do before the book comes out.
Like answer all this email.
I have 958 messages accumulated, which need responses. Very few of them need only filing or deleting.
If you've written me and you've waited patiently for two months for a response, know that you've got plenty of company, and I might be responding soon...

It's a great day to be alive, I know the sun's still shining when I close my eyes, There's some hard times in the neighborhood but why can't every day be just this good. --Travis Tritt song

For me, a great day is when I've gotten a lot of art and writing done, and the kids are nearby and safe and I know exactly what work I need to do the next day. Throw in some music I love or my favorite tv show ("The Office") and it's hard to imagine being happier.

Today was just such a day. My new character, Marcella, still needs some work before she's submitted to a publisher, but she's almost there and I know exactly what to do next. Ellie McDoodle's sequel, The New Kid in School, is progressing well. The kids are nearby including one visiting from college. I just rediscovered all my digital music files so now there's music on the jukebox. Life is good.

Most of us were together at my house last night for Family Night. Tornado warnings kept everyone here a bit longer than they wanted (on a school night) but it felt good to know they were all safe while the thunder crashed around us and the tv weathermen kept announcing new threats.

We woke up this morning to news and photos of the destruction just 10 miles up the road. The last time a big storm ripped through here, it took out our screen door. But just a few houses away, power lines and huge trees were down, everywhere, and one neighbor lost his garage.

We've been pretty lucky. It's a great day to be alive.

I'm busy at school lately, whether doing author visits or picking up or dropping off kids or going on field trips or sketching classes or showing a teacher my latest picturebook art. Here's what happened a couple days ago:

That's my grandson, who's in kindergarten, waiting for his aunt, who's in fifth grade, to finish her math so they can walk home from school. He's smart but disruptive.
And that's my dear friend, the fifth grade teacher, who sometimes puts up with a lot.
Her class is featured in the next Ellie book. Attending school is great inspiration!
Back to work...

I'm putting every spare minute into two books I'm working on. It's fun work, but I tend to lose whole months at a time when I do this.

I forget about almost everything except the essentials (like, um, kids, and meetings) and I pop my head up at the oddest times, throw out a few emails that may or may not make sense, and duck back down into my work before getting an answer.

It's efficient. I'm getting a lot of work done. But sometimes I feel like a recluse, or a ghost. Reaching high for the stars always seems to pay off. So, back to work....
Before I go -- I've done some exciting and rewarding author visits this summer. I love connecting with audiences.
Next up is the Schuler Books birthday bash on Sept. 15. If you live near Lansing, check it out!

I've been working on a new book, for a younger audience than the Ellie McDoodle books. Here's a sneak peek at the protagonist. Sometimes she has a bit of an attitude -- like any normal kid, right? But she's creative and that's what makes her lovable.

This from my friend, Kim Norman:
I've got a new song, folks.
A parody of the old song, "Baby, it's cold outside."
This version is a dialog between a harried editor and a pushy, newbie writer.
A warning, there is one tiny, slightly naughty word at the very end of the song.
http://www.kimmyawards.com

I listened, I laughed. Upon the third time hearing it, I snorted while laughing. I urge you: Go listen to Kim's song. It's funny.

Today I cut my hair.
I do this whenever I get a peculiar sort of restlessness that is only made better by doing something drastic and permanent.
The good news is I am getting better at this, having done it for, oh, gosh, about (counting fingers), well, ever since college.
The bad news is I am still not a professional.

BEFORE the fit of pique:



<--
admittedly it is
messy
and too long.







AFTER the fit of pique:


Well, it's
messy but
it's no longer
long.



Right after cutting a few inches off my hair, I found the exact right words for the first three sentences for the picturebook I have been pouring my heart into for the past six weeks, PLUS a title.

Obviously, then, this strategy works.

But I have revisions for the Ellie McDoodle sequel due this summer.
And I am running out of hair.

Yesterday, R and I went to The Big K to purchase the "camp essential list."

Towels.
Sheets.
Shampoo, soap, lotion.
Flip flops.
A calling card. (No cell phones allowed)
Bandages for blisters.
Wart stuff, just in case.
Advil for sore dancer muscles.
Shaving cream.
Hair ties.
Hair spray.

The last time we went shopping for camp was the summer she got sick. I am trying to treat these last two days with a big smile. I do not have to be nervous. She has earned this moment. She is a beautiful, healthy dancer.

We drop her off on Sunday.

You'll find some great transcripts of chats over at the ICL page.
And you'll also find (ahem) my chat about humor there also.

This Humor chat was a lot of fun to do. Jan Fields, the web editor for ICL and also the moderator of the chat, is downright brilliant. Still, we managed to digress into low-brow humor at times. Slapstick lives!

If you're a writer wondering about some part of the process of writing for kids, check out the index of transcripts dating back to 1999. The sheer breadth of it all will astound you. And sign up for their free Children's Writer e-newsletter. It's packed with useful information.