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This blog is intended to be a window into one writer's world, from thoughts about writing technique to musings about my experiences. Enjoy!
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Note: this information pertains to professional author pages, not to personal Facebook profiles. To set up a pro author page, see this post for some basic tips. Again, I want to acknowledge the Romance Writers of America community for sharing their finds and clever ideas.
1. On using real names versus pen names: if you want your Facebook fan page to show up under your pen name, you must create it through your personal profile (Facebook does not like it when you set up an independent page under an assumed name, and may remove such a page.) On your personal profile page, go to the flywheel on the upper right, and select “Account Settings.” At the bottom of that page, click the “Create Page” link. You can set that page up under any name, including the titles of your books.
2. Have a big announcement? Want a post to show up like a banner, across the entire page width? Hover over the top portion of the post (where your name shows up) and you’ll see two things emerge – an edit pencil and a “highlight” star. Clicking the star turns the post into a banner that spans the width. You can convert that post back to the standard single column width by clicking the star again.
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| Above you can see the banner I posted announcing my blog tour. In a few days, I'll return it to normal width. |
3. To increase your reach: Facebook likes it best if you create original material, right there. Rather than link to external material, post your own pictures, videos, or original content. Of course, sometimes it’s essential to link out from Facebook, but you’ll notice fewer page views on those posts.
4. As with all social media, balance informative material about your writing/your books with informative material of general interest. Think of yourself as an “expert” in some aspect of your interests and be an educator, not a broadcaster/sales person. To that end, one great way to engage interest in your page is to pose questions that are not necessarily about your writing, but perhaps about the writing life, creative work, craft. Questions engage reader interest. Note: always reply to readers. Remember, this is "social" media.
5. You can add apps to your professional page, including apps about your books. Just under your banner you’ll see a line of small windows: “photos,” “likes,” “videos,” and so on. Click the number button to the right and you’ll open all the windows you have (assuming you have more than four) and one with a +. You can add apps to the + window by clicking on the +, and then “add more apps.” The picture below shows my windows open to the second row.
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| I've opened the apps to show everything I have added currently. Soon I'll be adding more! |
Now, I've discovered that finding the right apps can be a challenge from within Facebook; I found the Bookpulse app, which I use as you can see above, and am very happy with, after hearing a recommendation. In a future post, I’ll try and give you a list of interesting apps you might consider. For the moment, if you do nothing else, add a video app and link to or upload your book trailers, etc., as videos attract more attention in search engines.
More soon!!
One of the talented fellow students I met at Vermont College of Fine Arts was Lyn Miller-Lachmann. Her award-winning first young adult novel Gringolandia is a powerful story drawn right from today's headlines. Her second novel, due out this month, sounds equally compelling: Rogue is a coming-of-age story about a girl with Asperger's syndrome. I have a deep and personal fondness for books about special needs kids. I'm delighted to host Lyn on my blog this week as she addresses humor in books featuring special needs characters.
An interviewer for my local newspaper asked me how I dealt with the sadness of my protagonist’s situation—the fact that Kiara has Asperger’s syndrome and cannot keep friends, and her parents, struggling musicians, are of little help because they must travel for work. I answered that she draws comfort from her special interest in the X-Men and her belief that one day she too will discover her special power. I also said that Kiara finds humor in her situation, a quirky humor that may be difficult for some readers to understand but that nonetheless makes her real and, hopefully, likable.
An example: In the first chapter of Rogue, Kiara attempts to sit with the popular girls at lunch, and one of the girls pushes her tray to the floor. (This actually happened to me, by the way.) Enraged, Kiara picks up the tray and slams it into the girl’s face. For that act, she is suspended from school for the rest of the year. Several weeks later, she meets a slightly younger boy who has just moved to her neighborhood, but she soon learns that her reputation has preceded her:
Chad whirls around so fast that strands of hair stick to his lips. “Hey, wait. Aren’t you”—he snaps his fingers—“the psycho eighth-grader that got kicked out for throwing a lunch tray and busting someone’s nose?”
“That’s someone else. I, uh, travel with the band.” Truth is, I didn’t throw the tray. I slammed it—hands still on the tray.
People usually laugh when I read the passage, in part because of Kiara’s tendency to be very literal about everything, and in part because, despite the consequences, she’s still proud of having fought back against the girl who humiliated her. In her justifiable lack of remorse, readers and listeners laugh with her, even though they might laugh at her literalness as well.
One of my pet peeves related to outsiders who write about characters with Asperger’s syndrome is their overreliance on humor that draws on our tendency to take idiomatic expressions literally and to fail to understand when people are being sarcastic. It really hurts when other people laugh at us. Seriously. Humor can help to defuse the discomfort that people feel in the presence of disability and distress, but writers have to be careful not to create humor at the expense of the character. The character should be the one who initiates the joke.
One of the best examples of humor in a novel featuring characters with disabilities is Jordan Sonnenblick’s Schneider Award-winning After Ever After (Scholastic, 2010), which portrays a cancer survivor with lingering physical and neurological impairments and his best friend, who has also survived cancer. Both boys have a self-deprecating sense of humor, though protagonist Jeffrey makes jokes about himself and his academic struggles and friend Tad says the things about their sometimes-clueless classmates that Jeffrey wishes he could have said. Like my protagonist, Jeffrey and Tad suffer pain, uncertainty, and feelings of isolation, and the author uses humor to leaven the story and build connections between the characters and readers who may not know what it is like to live with a disability.
There is a danger in trying to portray characters with disabilities as cheerfully accepting their fate and not wanting those around them to feel bad. Still, while it’s important to show sadness and struggle, we should also include moments of triumph and plain old fun.
In the past couple of weeks I've been on a steep learning curve regarding my Facebook Author Page. If you're an author, and you're confused about using Facebook...you are not alone.
First let me say that if you are an author, I can recommend that you create an Author Page separate from your personal Facebook account. Here's why: you can only friend 5000 people in your personal account. Yeah, yeah, I know. You don't think you'll ever have 5000 friends. But you really don't want to bore family and friends with writing stuff, and you really don't want to reveal personal stuff to your fans, even if you never reach the 5000 mark. It just makes sense to separate the personal from the professional. Plus, we can always dream.
So step one: create an Author Page. Go to Account Settings (upper right corner, the flywheel) and at the bottom of the page that opens next is a link to "Create Page." That will get you started.
Step two: name your page. I used "AuthorJanetFox." That was good, but I do wish I'd chosen "JanetFoxAuthor." Why? Because usually people don't search for me as "author." And why not just "JanetFox"? Because that's my personal account name. So "JanetFoxAuthor" would be perfect. Wish I'd known!
Step three: you'll need a profile picture (a small avatar, like you have on your personal page). I recently found by accident that using a different profile pic for personal and professional pages allows you to see more easily which page you are working from (more on that in a minute.)
Step four: you'll need a banner or cover photo, just like on your personal page. Now here's where I must acknowledge
C.J. Ellisson, a member of
RWA (Romance Writers of America), who has been extremely giving of her expertise. Among many other hints she pointed out that most people who look at an author page click on the banner and that's it. So your banner should speak to who you are and what you write (duh!!) That's my new banner above. It shows my books, reflects the images on my website, and includes my fox logo. And if you click on it, it now references my website and what I write.
Step five: know how to toggle between your personal profile and your professional page. For the longest time I thought that if I went to the menu at the left of my personal page and selected my author page I was moving into that format. Nope. You have to go to the flywheel at the upper right and select "Use Facebook As" and then your Author page.
This is important because only "pages" can like "pages" so when you like a professional page as your professional page you are keeping business with business.
Are you with me? On the screen shot above you can see that I've selected the flywheel and what drops down allows me to toggle back and forth between my author page and my personal profile. (You'll also see that at one time I created a FORGIVEN page, but I find that I have enough to manage between personal and professional, and that FORGIVEN page lies mostly idle.) You can also maybe make out that my little profile pic is different. Now I know which page I'm working from as I scan Facebook because these pics are different from personal to professional. Believe me, it's not always obvious, which you will see as you play with this.
There are other tips I'm learning I'll leave them for next week.
Nancy Bo Flood, a good friend and talented fellow Vermont College of Fine Arts grad, has a new non-fiction picture book out, COWBOY UP! RIDE THE NAVAJO RODEO, with photographs by Jan Sonnenmair. I invited her to come by and talk about non-fiction picture books, because they have become an important part of the young child's reading experience.
Here's Nancy:
Informational picture books for children keep getting better with engaging stories and images. Regardless of the picture book topic, we see innovative designs, creative presentations, plus captivating images that often mix photographs and historical papers with colorful art.
The most striking new quality of current nonfiction picture books for children is that each book is a story – a story with setting, characters, plot or “through line,” and most important “heart.” What I mean by heart is that the author’s passion for the subject shines right through the words and captures the heart of the reader. When children read that last page, they not only know new information, but perhaps even more important, the reader cares. Wow! I want to read more. Where’s another book?
For example, Leda Schubert’s picture book biography of Marcel Marceau won this year’s Orbis Pictus Prize – the best in nonfiction children’s literature. MONSIEUR MARCEAU: ACTOR WITHOUT WORDS tells a true story with a blazing heart.
Look over the entire list of winning books recognized with the Orbis Pictus prize this year. The list is found at the National Council of Teachers of English’s (NCTE) site. The entire list is invaluable as a variety of examples of books that tell a story, engage readers, and provide a depth of information.
My own recent nonfiction picture book, COWBOY UP! RIDE THE NAVAJO RODEO, is a nonfiction “hybrid” of poetry, narrative and photographs. What I worked to create was a book that showed the heart of Navajo rodeo – the determination of the young riders as they try to stay on a bucking sheep , race around barrels on a galloping horse, or ride without saddle on a bucking bronco. I wanted to show that these wranglers are kids like any kid, they strut the midway, slurp a refreshing shaved ice, fight back tears when they don’t make a winning ride. To show the real heart of this sport, I wanted the reader to experience the riders’ fears, failures and successes, and also the excitement of the crowd, the involvement of every family member from the grandmas and grandpas to the cousins and baby sisters.
In summary, we see that the key qualities of good nonfiction books remain true. Research is thorough and in-depth, and whenever possible, includes primary sources. Information presented is accurate, often presenting “both sides” of controversial topics so readers can analyze and make up their own young minds.
But the newest components – story and heart - are now part of a good factual book regardless of the book’s topic. Nonfiction books, including picture books, are written with all the same skill and craft as any book – and with passion, heart and story.
I'm back from a fantastic trip to Chicago and delighted to be able to feature Liesl Shurtliff on the blog today! Her debut, RUMP, is a take on the Rumplestiltskin tale - which happened to be one of my favorites as a kid. I am *really* looking forward to reading this one. Here's Liesl:
Congratulations on the publication of your novel, RUMP. Can you tell us a bit about the story and what inspired it?
Thanks! RUMP is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, but instead of the villain, he’s an unlikely, yet loveable hero. As for the inspiration, I was actually brainstorming another story idea when I imagined a world where names are much more than just a title, but a person’s destiny. Instantly my mind gravitated toward the Rumpelstiltskin tale, for if there was ever a name of great importance in a story, it’s that one. And yet, for the crucial role he and his name play in the story, we know so little of Rumpelstiltskin in the traditional tale. We know nothing of where he comes from, what his name means, how he learned to spin straw into gold, or why on earth he would want someone’s first born child. I wanted to tell a story from his point-of-view, not only so we would understand Rumpelstiltskin, but also love him. Shortening his name to Rump got me on the right track and everything grew from there.
How long have you been writing for children/teens? Have you written other books or is this your first effort?
I’ve been writing seriously (with the goal to publish) for nearly ten years now. I wrote a little for newspapers and magazines, which was great experience, and then I turned to novels. I wrote two before I wrote RUMP, and they will both remain shelved for the foreseeable future.
I so agree that newspaper and magazine writing can be invaluable preparation for novel writing. Can you describe your path to the publication of RUMP?
I decided early on that I wanted an agent. It’s not totally necessary; I have friends that get books published with good houses without an agent, but it can certainly speed up the process and a good agent can help in more ways than just selling your work. I researched agents and the querying process while I was working on RUMP. (Querying is a skill in and of itself!) After a month of querying I signed with Michelle Andelman at Regal Literary. We revised together for a month before we went on submission, and then a month after that we had an offer from Katherine Harrison at Knopf. It wasn’t as hellish a process as some stories I’ve heard. Some of that is luck, but some is simply doing your homework, both in your craft and business.
Do you have any advice for beginning writers?
I would say follow your gut and don’t let anybody push you around too much. One piece of advice might be great for one person but totally wrong for another, so as you’re learning and sifting through all the advice out there, don’t be afraid to toss some of it out the window and figure out what’s right for your situation. There are “rules” in this business, but this is also a business that delights in a rule fantastically broken.
Can you tell us something about your personal life – inspirations, plans for the future, goals, etc.?
I’m a mother of three young children and it’s both a blessing and a challenge when it comes to writing. I’m extremely invested in both writing for children and the raising of my own, so it can be tricky to balance that. Thankfully I have an amazingly supportive husband and we manage it all pretty well.
One day I would really like to live in Europe, or at least go there! Everyone in my family has traveled there except me! (Talk about the black sheep of the family.)
Do you have any new writing ventures underway?
I am currently working on two new projects, one MG and one YA. I’m kind of shy about discussing works-in-progress until I know it’s going to work out. Not everything I write pans out, but I have high hopes for both projects. Fingers crossed as I write and I’ll be sure to shout it off tops at some point, so stay tuned.
Fingers crossed here, too! Do you have a website where readers can learn more about RUMP?
I did - and added it above - lovely!!
I grew up in a suburb of Chicago. At the time, Hinsdale was a quiet little place surrounded by corn fields. The street I lived on was paved with bricks, and my first sound memories are of the rumble-rumble-rumble of tires, punctuated by the mournful horns of trains in the night not far away. My dad was the rector of the church next door, Grace Episcopal, and I felt safe, loved, and content.
My elementary school, Oak School, was brand new, and plopped down in the middle of said corn, with only a few ranch houses scattered around. Mrs. Weber, my third grade teacher, may be directly responsible for my writing career, because she sent a poem I wrote into the Hinsdale Doings, and it was published. I can still remember the moment.
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| The house I grew up in. |
I'm going back to Chicago tomorrow, not for the first time, because my stepmom lives there, but for my first real author visit. I'm kind of excited and kind of nervous (as in, "prove yourself, kid"). If you live in Chicago-land, I hope I get a chance to see you at one of these events!
Sunday, April 7 - I'm speaking at my dad's church. This will be a truly humbling moment.
Monday, April 8 - Two presentations at Neuqua Valley High School Gold Campus - 7:45-8:30, and 8:35-9:20.
Wednesday, April 10 - 4PM- 5:30PM
Book Signing at The Book Cellar on North Lincoln Ave., with authors
T.M. Goeglein, M. Molly Backes, and
James Kennedy - and pizza!
also on April 10 - 7PM-9PM
Speaking at Cook County SCBWI monthly meetingThursday, April 11 - visiting my old elementary school, Oak School! Arriving 8:25AM.
A few weeks ago in Boston at the AWP meeting I sat down in a packed lecture hall – hey, there were at least 11,000 attendees at this thing – and the girl next to me saw my name tag and said, “Are you the author Janet Fox? I’m Nova Ren Suma.” Well, for me, that was the ultimate fan-girl moment – in addition to being almost scary coincidence – because I loved Nova’s breathtaking IMAGINARY GIRLS to pieces. We shared some great conversations over the next two days, and she shared her excitement at the launch of her newest, 17 & GONE.
As part of her launch Nova invited people to write blog posts about being “Haunted at 17”, which I think is a hugely fun idea, so I decided to play. Here’s my post:
I was sure I’d met the love of my life at 17. He was funny, sweet, tall, good-looking but not creepily so. He played basketball, but not perfectly. He was a photographer, and for that, he had a real talent. He wrote me beautiful letters. He sang to me (off-key) over the phone. We were both madly in love and I’m betting my life would be way, way different now if...but I was haunted.
Haunted by the future.
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| Me at 17, taken by Mike |
Because, at 17, secure and happy with Mike, I decided one day to drop him like a hot rock. And I dropped him for his at-the-time-but-not-to-continue best friend.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. But only in hindsight, from way down life’s road.
I said, “Let’s date other people.”
“Why?” he asked, bewildered.
I shrugged. He cried. I didn’t feel bad. In fact, I was kind of cruel. Ok, just cruel.
I didn’t tell Mike that I found John sexy, that I wanted to make out with him, that I was tired of the same old, same old, but that was the truth.
I dated John for about five minutes, and then someone else whose name I don’t remember, and about that time I realized that maybe I’d been an idiot, but it was too late. Mike had started dating someone else, and he stuck with her through the rest of high school and beyond.
Yeah, I dated other guys, but what I wouldn’t know – for years and years – was just how special Mike was and how special that relationship was and how rare it is to find that soul connection with someone. How rare to feel secure in someone else’s affections. How rare and special he was as a person.
When I was in college I met Mike again by chance. He was living in New York as I was, and making his slow way up the ladder to professional photography. We went out several times and I fell madly in love with him all over again, and then one day he dropped me like a hot rock.
“Why?” I asked, bewildered.
“Because I don’t love you,” he answered. I cried. He hung up the phone.
I was 17 all over again, and haunted by my stupid, stupid, stupid mistake.
Fast forward another three years and I still hadn’t met anyone else like Mike. I was lonely, dating out of boredom, random and sad. I was traveling through London and lo and behold ran into Mike on the street. We had dinner, with some people including the woman who would become his wife. He was still funny, sweet, amazingly talented, having hit the big time as a pro photographer, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him. My heart ached and ached. All through dinner I wanted to weep.
I was 17 all over again. Again.
Two years later I met my husband. He’s funny, sweet, tall, terrifically good-looking, and a talented scientist. We fell madly in love and have had a happy marriage for many years.
About five years into my marriage I learned that Mike died in London of a sudden heart attack, leaving a wife and two children.
And leaving me. Or, the 17-year-old me. Who still, in some small corner of her heart, grieves for what might have been, but, hey. I was stupid at 17.
Check out the fabulous blog posts "Haunted at 17" on Nova's blog: http://distraction99.com/
By now you have all heard (I truly hope) about the
POISON blog tour for
Bridget Zinn's debut novel. If you haven't, just know that Bridget was a young librarian and author who sold her book as she was battling cancer and did not live to see it come to fruition.
But it has, to the great credit of her family, friends and publisher,
Hyperion. I never met Bridget. But I did hear about her while she was still alive, and many things about her story touched me in unexpected ways, maybe because I was at that time dealing with loss, maybe because it's tragic to lose anyone. But especially - just my personal opinion - because it's tragic to lose someone with talent, which Bridget clearly had in abundance.
So here's my story to commemorate Bridget's debut - a story about "firsts".
My first publication happened when I was in third grade. Yes, that's where it began for me, and it made a difference. My teacher, Mrs. Weber, asked us all to write poems, and I wrote one called "October." I still remember loving the writing - just the writing - because fall is such a favorite time and I wanted to bring the coppery colors to life on the page. Well, Mrs. Weber must have liked my poem because she sent it into my town newspaper, and they published it.
I can still remember the smells and colors in the kitchen - all that black and white - when my mother called me in. She had the paper spread open on the counter and she was as surprised as I was.
"Look! You have a poem in the paper!" And she beamed, for once not hiding her gap-toothed smile behind her hand. "I'm so proud of you!"
My mother was a writer, never published. I found her children's stories - lovely stories - in her files after she died suddenly and before she could see my current success.
So this is a post about firsts and about loss and about success and about what it means to create something that lasts beyond. Mrs. Weber doesn't know she "birthed" a writer. My mother doesn't know she encouraged me to grow into an author. Bridget doesn't know what a wide span of love her creative spirit has inspired.
I can't wait to read POISON. For one thing, here's the Kirkus review that wins me over:
Don't let the title or cover fool you! No grimdark teen fantasy or angst-y heroines here; just a frothy confection of a fairy tale featuring poisoners, princesses, perfumers and pigs, none of whom are exactly what they appear (except maybe the pigs)...Good silly fun - a refreshing antidote to a genre overflowing with grit and gloom.
What do you think, my friends? Time we had some true spirited joy? I think so. And Bridget Zinn with POISON delivers us all.
Buy POISON:
Add Poison to your Goodreads pile: <http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8113512-poison>
Today it's my delight to showcase an interview with Nicole McInnes, the Class of 2k13 debut author of BRIANNA ON THE BRINK. This sounds like a wonderfully compelling novel that I can't wait to get my mitts on. Here's Nicole:
Congratulations on the publication of your novel, BRIANNA ON THE BRINK. Gosh, I love that cover. Can you tell us a bit about the story and what inspired it?
You bet! Here’s the scoop: Sixteen-year-old Brianna Taylor finds herself lost, alone and with a major surprise in store after a one-night-stand. Just when she’s got nowhere left to turn, help arrives from the one person who is closest to her big mistake, but accepting that help will leave Brianna forced to choose between clinging to the ledge of fear and abandonment – or jumping into the unknown where a second chance at hope might just be waiting.
As far as what inspired the book, I was just really intrigued by the idea of what it would be like to be “cast out” of the life you once knew – partially because of your own actions and partially because of circumstances beyond your control. Thinking about this made me wonder what it would be like if the only people willing to help you were the people you had treated most cruelly.
How long have you been writing for children/teens? Have you written other books or is this your first effort?
I’ve been writing YA for the past several years. Before that, I was writing adult literary fiction, but what I kept hearing back from editors was that the stories felt more like they wanted to be YA, considering the ages of the characters, the voices, etc.
Can you describe your path to the publication of BRIANNA ON THE BRINK?
The path was long and bumpy, but once I figured out that I had a knack for YA, it smoothed out considerably. I have a wonderful, very editorial agent who helped me develop the first draft of BRIANNA ON THE BRINK into something that could be submitted to editors. Then, I was lucky to have the manuscript snapped up by Sylvie Frank, who has such a feel for YA and guided the manuscript on its final journey to published novelhood.
Do you have any advice for beginning writers?
Persist.
I love that - short and sweet, and oh, so true. Can you tell us something about your personal life – inspirations, plans for the future, goals, etc.?
I get huge amounts of joy from watching my kids grow up and from nurturing relationships with the most important people in my life. I plan to continue doing these things along with continuing to form new bonds with other readers and writers. The bookish life is such a rich one, filled with amazing people who love to read, write and talk about words and ideas.
Do you have any new writing ventures underway?
I do! I’ve recently wrapped up a manuscript that I’m excited about, and I have yet another one in the works. All of this is happening against the backdrop of BRIANNA’s release, so it’s a busy time. Both the new manuscript and the work-in-progress are also contemporary young adult.
Do you have a website where readers can learn more about BRIANNA ON THE BRINK?
Yes, thanks so much for asking! More information – including links to the various social media sites where I like to hang out - can be found at www.nicolemcinnes.com
For the past couple of weeks, since returning from my Texas trip, I haven’t been writing. It’s the first extended break I’ve taken since I can remember. And I’m taking this break because I have been, finally, unpacking case after carton of books – one of the last of the moving-into-a-new-home tasks.
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| Too many books?? |
All this sorting and sifting is good for the mind and great for the library. For the first time I can put picture books together, and alphabetize my YA collection (heck, might as well!) I’ve found duplicates of some books – time for the library sale – and others, well, I wonder why I have them on the shelf. I’ve found a number that must be added to my TBR pile. Some books the family has outgrown, and some I separate to highlight in a treasured spot.
This is much like what I have to do to my manuscript when I pick it up again next week, especially after this bit of time and distance. Some scenes need to be cut and some reordered so they work better with their neighbors. Some choice phrases turn up once too often. I’ve outgrown some clichéd expressions and I find passages of which I can be just a little proud. Putting my words in a box and taping it up for a while is the best way to view them all with a fresh eye.
In other news, I’ll be in Boston next week, speaking on two panels at the annual AWP conference at the Hynes Convention Center, with a bunch of my 2k10 friends (Michele Corriel, Swathi Avasthi, Leah Cypess, and Alexandra Diaz) and Anna Staniszewski. We’ll be speaking on Craft in YA on Thursday at 4:30PM, and Marketing Techniques on Friday at 10:30AM. And on Saturday March 9 from 10:30-noon I’ll be signing my books in the Vermont College of Fine Artsbooth (#312). Come see us!
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| The screen porch on the Barn - great for eating and working. |
At the end of January I made a trip to Texas for a number of events. For the time I spent in Austin I was lucky to stay at
The Writing Barn, a unique facility located on the south side of Austin owned and run by multi-talented author (and friend and VCFA alum)
Bethany Hegedus. It turned out to be as much a personal retreat for me as a promotional tour.
The Writing Barn is peaceful and serene. For the hours I spent there between events I was able to write without interruption - which was not something I expected. I don't usually write easily while I travel, so I was thrilled to add almost 8000 words to my WIP during my stay.
As if the Austin kidlit scene weren't already one of the best, starting this year Bethany is hosting a series of
"Advanced Writer Weekend Workshops". The first featured former editor and now agent Alexandra Penfold. The second in mid-April will address emotional pacing and be conducted by Sara Zarr, and the third, next November, will be run by Francisco X. Stork and is titled "Diving Deeply: Thoughts, Gestures, and Dialogue". I encourage writers to check out these offerings and, if you are in Austin, make plans to visit the Writing Barn.
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| At the MCBF with authors Suzanne Crowley, left, and Anna Myers. |
I also was privileged to participate in a huge event in The Woodlands, the
Montgomery County Book Festival. The readers I met - teens and adults alike - were attentive and excited and thrilled to meet so many of their favorite authors. The Festival had something for everyone - put it on your calendar if you are in the Houston area.
And a huge shout-out to
BookPeople in Austin, Barnes & Noble in College Station, the awesome librarians in Austin and Houston who made me so welcome, and
Murder By the Book in Houston - I had a ton of fun.
I met Erin Gray this past fall, when I had the great honor of attending the Women Writing the West conference in Albuquerque as a finalist for the WILLA Literary Awards for FORGIVEN. Erin, currently serving as president of WWW, is a bubbly young woman who set a fascinating tale of young Lenora fighting corruption and facing danger in 1925 in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. (Erin recently hosted me on her blog.) We share a lot in common - love of the west, love of hiking, love of the 1920s - and I'm delighted to host her today on the blog.
Congratulations on the publication of your novel, MOONSHINE MURDER. It’s a wonderful tale! Can you tell us a bit about the story and what inspired it?
Thank you, Janet. Here’s a bit from the novel:
It’s 1925. The small cabin deep in the San Juan Mountains is the only home seventeen-year-old Lenora Giovanni has ever known. But when her father dies from tainted moonshine, leaving her alone, she is forced into a life of danger.
MOONSHINE MURDER is a murder mystery / historical fiction. I was first inspired to write this story on a backpacking trip deep in the San Juan Mountains. I stumbled upon an abandoned miner’s cabin and was instantly intrigued. What kind of person would live here? What kind of life would that be? I started hitting the local museums and historical societies and unearthed some of the biggest secrets in the Four Corners – moonshine in the mountains.
How long have you been writing for children/teens? Have you written other books or is this your first effort?
I’ve been writing before I could even construct a sentence. My older sister was my scribe, and I would dictate the stories oozing from my imagination.
I wrote another historical fiction based on the Irish Immigrants during the Great Potato Famine. I never sought publication for this piece, but the desire to become published certainly started with that story.
Can you describe your path to the publication of MOONSHINE MURDER?
The path to publication for MOONSHINE MURDER is a long one. If you go to my blog, I have posted a picture of my drafts. It’s a very large pile, and I regret having to kill so many lovely trees to get to this point. But it was worth it.
I started writing this tale in 2003 between teaching middle school language arts. I first submitted to a publisher in the spring of 2006, right after the birth of my first son. From there I received several rejections, some kind enough to give me tips. I would edit, and submit again.
My contract offer came in the spring of 2012, and publication in the fall of 2012.
What research tricks or tools did you use while writing the novel?
I start with an idea, a time in history, or simply a curiosity. From there I hit the museums, the historical societies, the library. I try to get leads to primary sources. I’ve been fortunate enough to have interviews from people who experienced what I wrote about, and who remember what Prohibition in Durango was like. Some of my juiciest details are true tales.
Do you have any advice for beginning writers?
I will give the same advice given to me by western writer, Louis L’Amour’s wife – be persistent and never give up. Believe in yourself and your gift. Write every chance you get, and then write even more.
Can you tell us something about your personal life – inspirations, plans for the future, goals, etc.?
I have a wonderful family. I live in Southwest Colorado with my husband, two sons (6 and 1), an ole dog and two cats named Slobbers and Sugar. I love to backpack-- to be a part of nature.
Do you have any new writing ventures underway?
Yes. I am writing a historical fiction based on the legend of a preacher’s daughter turned outlaw who used the Cliff dwellings in Southwestern Colorado as her hideout.
That sounds terrific - I can't wait! Do you have a website where readers can learn more about MOONSHINE MURDER and your other books?
All writers have them: manuscripts in various stages of completion that may or may not ever see the light of day. I'm not talking about work that we've abandoned because life got in the way; I'm talking about work that just doesn't feel right.
I have a few of these books and I stare at the files and ask myself, what went wrong? And, can it be fixed?
Recently Marion Dane Bauer spoke to this topic in a series of excellent blog posts addressing her own failed picture book manuscript. She rightly states that picture books are such fragile things that it's nigh on impossible to resuscitate a failed picture book. But, she adds, it might be easier to bring a failed or failing novel back to life.
That notion pushed me to examine some of the reasons my own novels have "failed" or are failing, and whether I might be able to give them a second chance. Here are some of my observations in case they are useful to you:
- If the reason for failure is due to weak characterization of protagonist or antagonist:
This may be resolvable. A deeper character analysis might reveal a backstory wound. A change in tone might bring a character's voice to light. A shift in point of view - from, say, third to first person - can often shift the character into gear. Taking the character outside her comfort zone - stressing her, putting her in harm's way - can often reveal the underpinnings of response. Forcing the character into doing something "out of character" can elicit deeper revelations and emotional reactions.
If this is my problem, and I still love the story, I'll give it a second chance.
- If the reason for failure is due to weaknesses in the plot:
This one is tougher for me and often depends upon where I am in the novel - first draft, second draft, etc. Do I have enough tension? Can I add or subtract scenes to increase the tension or reveal new things about my characters or the situation? Can I spin the plot in a new direction without trashing the story entirely?
But in that last question lies the difficulty. If my premise is weak, I'm in trouble. Or, rather my novel is in trouble. It's hard to shore up a weak premise. Sometimes I can spin the premise, turn it around and look at it from another direction; but sometimes...
And in the case of writing fantasy or science fiction (both of which I'm trying now), the premise is everything, in my view. And if the premise, however good, has been done to death in recent years (vampires, anyone?) then the novel will likely be viewed as derivative at best. Time to abandon. If the premise is unwieldy such that your reader cannot suspend disbelief, time to abandon, or at least set aside.
- If the reason for failure is due to lack of heart:
Fatal. If I have lost the heart of my story - the love for the story above anything else, a belief in the power of that story, a feeling that it reveals my own heart and the underpinnings of the human experience - I'm done.
Here's what Marion had to say, and she's right: the deepest flaw that can inhabit any piece is a lack of genuine heart. I have to love the story to pieces to be able to write it. And I know that an editor, agent, and my readers will feel my lack of heart and respond with a "meh" if I don't give them my emotional all. (This is why I don't write assignment work, unless the assignment speaks to me.)
We've all read books by authors we love that seem to be weak, or lost altogether; I imagine it's hard for an editor to put aside the work of a successful author. I would rather be my own arbiter of what I want to send out into the world. I have maybe half a dozen completed but flawed novels that will likely never see the light of day, that I've set aside, even when someone has asked for the work.
But that's fine. I move on and write the next one, and the next and the next. As Marion says, the very act of writing feeds us...Success is only a happy byproduct, not the reason for our effort.
Exactly.
A few weeks back I gave out some practical revision ideas, but today I want to examine a more nuanced way to look at revision.
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| My walk in the summer and fall. |
Every day I try to take a walk. Usually I’m taking the same walk, retracing my footsteps. It’s a good walk, part exercise, part meditation; I use my walking time to let my brain ruminate on my current project, and more often than not, that rumination is fruitful.
In fact I find that I reach a breakthrough idea at about the same point every walk - that must be the place where my brain relaxes into my physical exertion and my internal editor goes on vacation, because I come up with my best ideas as I reach that rock, that tree.
Today, while walking this route, I could see the imprint of yesterday’s walk in the fresh snow. I put my foot in the same imprint at times; at times, I moved away for easier footing or a more direct route. Sometimes I moved even further, if I heard or saw something of interest that I could incorporate into my walk, weaving a deer sighting or a wolf track into the thread of this walk and into memory.
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| Winter dawn at my new Bozeman house...just because. |
This is how I see revision. I walk in the footsteps of my previous work. Sometimes I work to make something more direct. Sometimes I clarify. And sometimes I find an entirely new thread, a new path, or a new and exciting interest.
I love revising, almost as much as I love walking. The generation of work is exciting, just as walking a new route can be a thrill. But walking the same route every day is a pleasure of a different kind – awakening my senses and sharpening my focus.
So I’m off to revise...right after my walk!
While I'm still digging myself out of boxes (too many books! Can someone have too many books? Yes, when that someone has to move them into a new home...) I thought I'd post information about my upcoming Texas book tour. I'm excited to get back to my for-awhile home state and see many great friends, so here's the itinerary.
Tuesday, January 29th
7 pm
BookPeople
603 N. Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX 78703-5413
512-472-4288
Wednesday, January 30th
6:30 pm
Westbank Library
1309 Westbank Drive
Austin, TX 78746
512-327-3045
Thursday, January 31st
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| Guest room at The Writing Barn |
12-2 pm
Discussion / librarian book exchange
Austin Public Library
While in Austin, I'll be staying at The Writing Barn. I'm going to write a blog post about that experience when I return.
Friday, February 1 - Sunday, February 3
The MCBF should be an awesome weekend event, with many terrific authors in attendance. I'm thrilled to be involved. Panels will run all day Saturday, with time for attendees to meet their favorite authors.
Tuesday, February 5
6 PM
B&N College Station
Lone-Star Pavilion
711 Texas Avenue
College Station, TX 77840
979-764-8955
Houston's Joy Preble (the Anastasia series) will join me for a booktalk in College Station.
I hope I get to see you in Texas!
I'm going on a short hiatus while we move into our new home (yay!) in Bozeman, Montana, and I squeeze in time to finish pages on a middle grade novel. I'll be back the first week in January with a final revision post and some new things to bring to everyone.
So, the happiest of holidays and warmest wishes of this blessed season to you all. Just for fun, here's a look at our new living room only a couple of weeks ago - now it's filled with boxes. Presents under the "tree!"
I love writing for children. I’ve often thought that it’s because I’m reliving something from my childhood. But I also see that it’s because children ask the most direct questions, some of which I cannot answer. I’m trying to answer them for the children who read my books and for the child inside me.
So my question, right now, in the wake of Sandy Hook, is: why?
Why are we here? Why do innocent children die? Why do we suffer? Why does discourse lose civility, and why can we not find common ground?
I write for children hoping to find an answer to these questions.
I’m deeply proud to be a member of the kidlit community that asks and seeks to answer these questions. This is a passionately committed community that strives to protect children, to engage children, to help children find answers to the fundamental questions, and especially to the central question: why?
I don’t have answers, but I do have thoughts. And one of these thoughts is that if I can’t answer the questions, I can do something.
I can take a stand.
There is no more time in our society to look away. Too many children suffer. We can no longer look away from child exploitation. We can no longer look away from child slavery and forced child marriage. We can no longer look away from the violence promulgated by the entertainment industry aimed at children. We can no longer look away from the ease of access to weapons that kill the most innocent with impunity.
I can no longer look away.
I am taking a public stand against access to assault weapons.
I believe there is no earthly or God-given reason that a semi-automatic weapon capable of killing scores of people – of killing twenty innocent children – even when wielded by an inexperienced shooter should be available to any person, at any time.
I’m taking a stand in favor of gun control.
I’m also taking a stand in favor of hope.
This is the time of year when we all look to the most generous of human ideas: that birth is a gift and yet that our life may require sacrifice, self-denial, and loss. Human generosity – that the gift of life does require sometimes overwhelming sacrifice – gives me hope.
A teacher who barricades a door and loses her life in the bargain has sacrificed everything for her children, and this gives me deep grief, but also hope. A first responder who carries the unimaginable burden of doing a job well in the face of personal horror gives me hope. A nation that takes stock and may be awakening to a new reality gives me hope.
Why are we here? What is the meaning of life?
More importantly, why are you here? What kind of stand can you take – can we take – that will make a difference to the children today and the children of the future?
This is an important question, and I’m asking myself this question every hour. And I’m taking a stand. I’m standing up for the children.
I hope you'll stand with me.
I was tapped by my friend Jan Godown Annino to participate in a blog hop. In case you don’t know Jan’s work, she’s the author of an acclaimed picture book biography, SHE SANG PROMISE, illustrated by Lisa Desimini. It would be a wonderful addition to any library.
I’m answering here the questions that she passed along to me. And I thought I’d talk about one of my WIPs. I usually keep this stuff to myself until the very end, so as not to jinx anything. Fingers crossed!
What is the working title of your book?
THE NETHERWORLD.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
I had a dream that I was suspended in a place between life and death, and when I woke up, I knew I had to write about how that felt. This novel is a bit dark and dreamlike.
What genre is your book?
Middle grade fantasy.
What is the synopsis of the novel?
Jake, a boy who is trying to deal with a school bully, causes an accident that renders his sister Eliza unconscious and near death. Jake is told that if he sells his soul he can rescue her from the Netherworld, the place between life and death. He agrees; but his mission is not as simple as it would seem. By entering the Netherworld Jake sets in motion other and bigger events. Jake and Eliza and the Netherworld guardian Mab must find a way to save Eliza, Jake’s soul, and the Netherworld itself.
How long did it take to write the first draft?
I’ve got a very rough first draft that took me about four months to write. But most of that draft will disappear...I started the novel as a workshop piece at Vermont College of Fine Arts and it grew.
What other books are comparable to this book?
Middle grade fantasy is booming and rich at the moment - something that excites me greatly. I’m reading THE PECULIAR by Stefan Bachmann, and just finished GOBLIN SECRETS by William Alexander, and I think they both have things in common with THE NETHERWORLD. And I love Lauren Oliver’s fantasies – especially LIESL AND PO.
I’ve tagged my friends and fabulous authors Bethany Hegedus and Joy Preble, so please check their blogs in the next couple of weeks for their blog hop posts!
Last week I talked about a few of the more global approaches that I take while revising a manuscript in progress; this week I’ll try and finish up with the following:
- how I use checklists
- my favorite workbooks
- dedicated passes
As I move into the middle to later stages of revision, I like to use checklists to remind me to pay attention to my own personal quirks – the tics I’ve developed as a writer that weaken my writing. Because my first drafts are so organic, I tend to be lazy at times – I’m paying more attention to getting stuff down on paper than I am on the smaller issues. So this mid-revision process is truly important.
Here’s a personal checklist that I developed a long time ago:
- Find all the "ly" words (i.e., adverbs) by using the Word "find" feature and eliminating most - if not all.
- Search for "it is/was" and "there is/was". It's almost always stronger to use different phrasing. (Or, by example... “Phrases are almost always stronger when they don’t begin with ‘it's’.”)
- Search for places where my character "felt," "saw," "looked," etc. When I'm really inside my character, those soft verbs aren't necessary. Much better to show the event or action without the distancing verbs.
- Search for sentence "flow." In particular, I look sentence by sentence for stronger first and last words. First and last are the most important words in the sentence.
- Search for passive voice and other indicators of "telling" (like, helping verbs, "to be" verbs).
- Try to make sure there's tension on every page.
- Remove dialogue tags wherever possible. Even "said" can get in the way when only two people are talking.
- Make sure gesture substitutes for internal thoughts wherever possible.
- Look for those things that popped up in my subconscious and may be amplified - recurring metaphors or images.
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| my own workbook in the company of the "greats" |
- Watch for unintentional repetition of certain words and phrases.
I have several workbooks that are particular favorites, and at some stage of revision I’ll work through some or all of the exercises within:
As you can see, I’ve made up my own workbook that includes my checklists and some others I’ve collected at conferences and workshops. In that workbook is a list of the things I look for in my dedicated passes.
At some point near the end of the revision process, I’ll do a dedicated pass for things like:
- smooth and interesting transitions between chapters
- magnification of character traits
- items of metaphoric significance or resonant setting details or thematic elements that can be amplified
These dedicated passes allow me to focus on just one thing at a time. Sometimes, in a more complicated story, I may have to do a dedicated pass for small items like eye or hair color, or prop details.
What this all means is that I often do 15 or 20 or more revisions for each work. Sometimes things change radically from revision to revision; sometimes I'm changing just one thing, albeit important (to me, at least.) The later revisions usually take only a short amount of time - maybe only a day each. But this process works for me.
Next week I’ll be participating in a blog hop – but the following week I’ll talk about the most important aspect of revision: inspiration.
Now that
NaNoWriMo is almost over, it’s time for the next step in the process...
revision!
Some of you might think that revision is a dirty word. It’s not fun to go over and over something – especially if there seems to be no end in sight.
But I actually prefer revision to writing the first draft. I often don’t plumb my character’s depths until about draft 3; and the plot is pretty messy until draft 6 or 7; and it isn’t until the umpteenth draft that I can play with fun things like language and theme and tone and detail.
In a couple of weeks I’ll talk about holding fast to your initial vision, as you “re-envision” your manuscript, but this week and next I thought I’d share some of the things I do when I revise and some of the tools I find most helpful.
There are 5 specific tools that I use when I revise:
1. taking stock of the “big picture”
2. visual aids (charts, photos, graphs)
3. checklists
4. workbooks
5. dedicated passes
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| one of my shrunken manuscripts |
Here are the first two of these tools as I use them:
1. Taking stock of the “big picture”
The first thing I do when I’ve finished what I consider the initial draft is put it aside. Not for too long – I need the story’s momentum to keep moving forward – but I give it a few days rest, letting it marinate, and I do something completely different (like eat chocolate...)
After those few days I pick up the manuscript again and read it through, cover to cover. In this process I try to read aloud – there’s something about reading words out loud that allows me to find things that don’t work or sound awkward. (Yes, I get pretty hoarse.) I also try not to stop in the middle and change something huge – I’ll make notes in the margins as I go, but I want to get a feel for the entire scope of the story.
My favorite big picture technique is
Darcy Pattison’s “
shrunken manuscript”, which allows me to visualize the story at a very large scale. I highly recommend that you find a copy of Darcy’s
Novel Metamorphosis, as it contains several similar techniques and one of the others might strike your fancy. But here’s the gist of the shrunken manuscript:
- Shrink your manuscript to 8 point font, single spacing, with no chapter breaks - you'll be able to read it, just enough to know where you are
- Highlight areas for different aspects of the manuscript – character development, description, subplots, moments of tension (or lack thereof), etc., etc.
- Stand back and just look
You’ll see from that distance where you may be missing details of character that are crucial, where your subplots flag or disappear, where you’ve dropped the tension, and so on. This is a great way to discover if your manuscript is too description-heavy, or too action-oriented, or where you may have lost track of a character (as I did while writing my first novel, Faithful, and a main character at that!)
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| my plot board with notes and Martha Alderson plotline |
2. Visual aids
I’m a visual person, and at some point in crafting a story the only way I can see whether I’ve developed it properly is to see it visually – usually on the wall of my office, where I can spread out the timelines and plotlines together with notes and photographs.
A tool I’ve recently become fond of is
Pinterest, and I’ve created boards for each of my novels, allowing me not only to see the pictures that are inspirational to me but also to share those with readers as they develop.
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| plot planner in miniature |
By far my favorite visual aid is
Martha Alderson’s
PlotWhisperer plotline (do check out her Plot Whisperer
books and other tools.) I’ve made a corkboard with the plotline marked in masking tape, and from there I can use sticky notes to jot down scenes, emotional changes, conflict. Small sticky notes are perfect because I can’t write too much – just enough to direct my thoughts. Plus, I can work in color for different aspects of the story and that appeals to my visual sense.
On that board I also post head shots of my characters, and eventually I’ll post a miniature version of Martha’s plotline, one that I’ve integrated with the hero’s journey and other turning points.
Next week I’ll talk about the other revision tools I find helpful – but please share yours here, too!
Magical realism is a phrase I never completely understood until I recently read Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races. The term seems contradictory: how could a realistic story contain magical elements? What does a writer do to introduce those elements without throwing the novel into the terrain of fantasy? I suppose some readers will argue that The Scorpio Races is fantasy, but I’m going to take the side of magical realism, and this analysis approaches her fabulous story with that in mind.
Her setting is entirely believable – an island off the coast of, well, something like Ireland. There are references to the mainland, the Atlantic, and America, and the names she uses have that Celtic ring: Finn Connolly, Sean Kendrick, Skarmouth, Thisby. Our heroine’s nickname is Puck, conjuring Shakespeare. People live in proper houses, drink in pubs, drive Morris cars, raise sheep; the rock-strewn grass hillocks are contained by hedgerows and stone walls. Altogether this is a place we know, its familiarity bred of our familiarity with Anglo-Saxon literature and lore, even if there is one extremely odd thing about this place.
The sea that surrounds the island is inhabited by flesh-eating water horses.
By the time I was ten pages in, I completely believed that Thisbe exists, and that I’d better watch out for those frightening yet beautiful uisce. That this magical element of The Scorpio Races also derives from our Celtic heritage is part of what makes it feel real.
The deadly November races on the backs of the uisce forms the heart of the concept, but this is also a love story, a coming-of-age story, a love-of-horse story, and a triumph of the spirit over soulless financial power. Sean and Puck tell their tales in first person present tense, enhancing the immediacy of both characters and plot: “this is happening to me, and it’s happening right now.” Once we buy into these characters, we buy the whole tale, hook, line, and sinker.
Puck is a game girl with a face full of freckles and unruly hair in the middle of an unruly orphaned life:
For a moment, I see the room like anyone else might see it. It looks like everything around Finn has crawled out of the mouth of the kitchen sink drain. It’s a mess, and we’re a mess, and no wonder Gabe wants to leave.
‘Let’s go,’ I say.
Sean’s voice is hard, born of his hard luck, and he knows horses. He knows horses better than anyone. He’s also a boy of few and well-chosen words:
I slide off her and hand him the reins. He takes them with a puzzled expression on his already puzzling face.
I say, ‘This mare is going to kill someone.’
The strong and enticing Puck and Sean, who are (as the reader sees long before they do) a perfect match, are also so much fun to live with that the story’s magical element is almost unnecessary. As a writer then, I've come to think that the best magical realism must possess this quality: that the realistic aspects of the story are even more engaging than the magical aspects.
In a true fantasy, our perception of the story itself may be clouded by dwarf behavior, elf antics, or fairy godmother wishes. In magical realism, the author could dispense with the magic – and still have a heck of a great tale. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Stiefvater writes beautifully, conjures a complete and visible world, and that her secondary characters are every bit as engaging as her protagonists.
But I maintain that in order to write great magical realism it is necessary to write a great, rich and complex story that rises above the magic – that the realistic part of the story makes a magic all its own.
My donation drive for the American Red Cross continues all month, including comments on this blog post. Many thanks!!
It's SIRENS launch week and I'm very excited to share my latest work with you. (As a reminder - during the entire month of November, every comment on every post on the Wardrobe elicits a donation to the American Red Cross. Plus you might win a copy of SIRENS! See this post for details.)
Now to the business at hand: my launch post! (I'm excited. Did I mention that?)
One of the most evocative scenes in American fiction takes place in a living room in a Long Island mansion and features two girls, Daisy and Jordan, long-limbed and lounging, dressed in white. The scene is in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s THE GREAT GATSBY, set in 1925, the year of its publication. Although not historical fiction in the strictest sense, it is fine fiction in the best sense – and it brings to life the Roaring Twenties in America. Great historical fiction brings the past to life. I can't wait for the movie version due out this summer.
I couldn’t be happier that the 20s are experiencing, forgive the pun, a renaissance. Anna Godberson has released the BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS series, and Jillian Larkin has crafted THE FLAPPERS series; Libba Bray has launched THE DIVINERS.
I'm thrilled to have SIRENS join the mix.
When I did my research I was all prepared for flappers and bootleggers, for gangsters (Al Capone) and gorgeous skimpy clothes (Coco Chanel.) Women got the vote, and writers had the Round Table. The 1920s in America was a wild and crazy time of financial boom and liberated behavior, a period when a fluid and mobile society, combined with the freedom afforded by the automobile and the new working middle class, allowed teens to flee from their parents’ Victorian restrictions. Advertising - the "Mad Men" era - was born, in fact, in the '20s.
Yes, everybody was on board with dancing and drinking (albeit not legally) and public necking. The 1920s in America were Party Time Central.
But the 1920s was also a time of quiet civil unrest and spiritual exploration. The Ku Klux Klan experienced a rebirth, with open marches and anti-black, anti-immigrant posturing. Immigrants of Italian, Irish, and Jewish extraction were pitted against one another and against society in general. A bomb went off on Wall Street in September 1920, targeting the rich capitalists of the stock exchange but killing clerks, runners and stenographers; it was said to be the work of radical Bolshevists, although no clear culprit was ever found.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle engaged in a long-running verbal war with his friend Harry Houdini over the question of spiritualism. Houdini was a pragmatist; he knew magic to be a performance. Doyle believed in spirits and the afterlife, and participated in a movement that experienced a resurgence in the 20s.
The parallels between today and the 1920s-1930s are all too evident: the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties echoed in the 1990s boom; the market crash of 1929 and 1930s depression echoed in the 2000s bust. Post-war trauma today found expression first after World War 1; we fear global pandemic today, but the deadly flu pandemic of 1918 killed millions.
Today we recognize the parallels of our own lives with the past, and maybe make sense of the present. I hope that I added to the "making sense" part of it with SIRENS.
Here's the full trailer for SIRENS, thanks to my talented son Kevin:
I've been feeling helpless since
Superstorm Sandy hit one of my favorite places in the world, and I suspect a lot of you share that feeling.
I'm a native New Yorker. I was born in Manhattan and schooled on the upper west side. At various times in life I've lived way downtown near Wall Street, in Greenwich Village, in midtown on the east side, on 79th and Central Park West, and on 111th and Riverside Drive. I have family and friends all over New York and New Jersey, some who are still without power.
A few who've lost everything.
Some generous kidlit folks have already begun to raise funds for the
American Red Cross and other organizations.
Kate Messner has founded
KidLitCares featuring an astonishing array of terrific auction items - you can benefit the Red Cross and win something to help your writing/illustrating career.
My friend
Jeri Smith-Ready has taken
an inventive approach: you give a little to relief - she suggests the Red Cross, the
Humane Society, and
AmeriCares - and she'll give you something awesome for your troubles.
Here in the Wardrobe I'd like to offer something, too.
For the rest of the month of November, for anyone who comments on any blog post here I'll make a donation to the American Red Cross.
If you tell me you've donated to any Sandy relief organization at all - and I'm going to take it on faith - I'll send you a handful of bookmarks.
At the end of the month, the names of everyone who has commented and donated will be thrown into the hat and the winner will receive a signed copy of SIRENS, which is set in New York City.
All you have to do is comment. And, if you want, make a donation.Rules, again:
- For your comment, I'll make a donation to the American Red Cross.
- For your comment plus your assurance you've made any donation to any relief organization, you get swag plus I make my donation (contact info please so I can get your snail mail addy; US addresses only.)
- All commenters/donators will be eligible to win a copy of SIRENS.
Thank you.
Years ago, when I was starting out, I met several authors who were beyond kind to me. They offered advice and support and never made me feel anything but accepted. One was Kelly Bennett, whom I featured recently, and another was today's guest, Sherry Garland.
Sherry moved to College Station, Texas, from Houston just about the time I was getting started with my writing. She was a real role model - highly successful, having written beautiful books that I continue to admire. And her career continues, through thick and thin, with gorgeous books of all stripes. I'm really pleased to welcome her to my blog. Here's Sherry:
You’ve been a successful author for many years now. Can you tell us a bit about how you began – your early sales, and the books you’ve published?
October, 2012 marks my thirtieth year of being a published author. I have thirty published books, so it averages out to one a year, but in fact there were many “dry” years with no books and some bountiful years of two or more books.
I give credit to my high school English teacher as the person who started me on the long journey to becoming an author. She encouraged me to read great works of literature and to write. She made our senior honors class enter a state-wide essay contest. I won first place, was in the newspaper, on TV, honored at a banquet and received $100 (that was big bucks back then). She made me feel that I had a talent for writing. I also took journalism and wrote some items for the high school newspaper.
However, it was fifteen years later before I considered writing as a career and joined a writer’s group in Houston. I read tons of how-to-write books and attended conferences. At one conference I met an editor and submitted a proposal to her for a romance novel. She bought two manuscripts from me (I used a pen name). I didn’t like writing love scenes and the editor was discouraging, so I quit writing altogether and figured my career was over. About five years later, I saw an ad in a writer’s magazine placed by an educational publisher wanting someone to write a children’s NF book about Vietnam. I had never written for children, but I knew a lot about Vietnam because of my friendships with the Vietnamese community in Houston. That NF book launched my career in the children’s publishing industry. Because of that research, I sold seven books about Vietnam (2 YA, 4 PBs, and 1 NF) plus two magazine stories. Suddenly I was a children’s author!
Please share with us your most recent publications. Can you talk especially about your “Voices of...” collection – how that came into being and what’s planned for the future?
Even though the books are only 40 pages long, they have to be 100% historically accurate. It takes me about one year to do the research then write the book and back matter that includes a 1500 word historical note, glossary of terms and bibliography. Every time I write one, I feel like I have done the equivalent of a master’s thesis! It does make me good at playing Trivial Pursuit.
It started when my editor at Scholastic asked me to write a picture book about The Alamo. I was getting nowhere fast then one day, while sitting in the courtyard of The Alamo, I had a “Eureka” moment: I would tell the story from the perspective of sixteen first person narrative, some real historical figures, some fictitious people. The editor loved it and hired Ronald Himler to do the wonderful illustrations. That book sold very well, in fact this book is used in nearly every elementary school in Texas; it is even sold at the Alamo gift shop. When the Alamo book went out of print, Pelican Publishing, a regional publisher who specializes in southern and southwestern books, reissued it.
One day the president of Pelican Publishing asked me if I would write a Voices of Gettysburg book using the same 40 page format. It was a topic that worked well with 16 narratives, alternating the POV between Union and Confederate soldiers and citizens. It was illustrated by Judith Hierstein and released in 2010.
Then, I saw a TV documentary about the Dust Bowl and knew it was a topic I had to write about. Being a native Texan, I have many older relatives who lived through the Dust Bowl period. Voices of the Dust Bowl, also illustrated by Judith Hierstein, was released in 2012.
Pelican also asked me to write about the attack on Pearl Harbor. I felt out of my element because I did not know much about WWII. It was difficult to alternate the POV between Japanese and American narrators, plus get in all the historical data that needed to be presented, but I am happy with the results. The talented Houston artist, Layne Johnson, agreed to do the illustrations. Release date for Voices of Pearl Harbor is spring, 2013.
Do you prefer to write picture books or novels?
A very tough question. After 14 novels, I used to consider myself a novelist first and foremost. I would happily say that it was easier for me to write an entire novel than one picture book. But after 14 picture books, I have become quite fond of the PB genre, too. Nearly all of mine are historical in nature (except for the folk tales), so it takes a long time for the research. As I get older, I am finding it harder to sit still long enough to write an entire novel. One novel took me three years to research and write, so I want to make sure the novel is something I truly care about before I invest that much time in it.
You clearly love to do research as most of your books have some historical or cultural details. Please talk about how you choose your subjects and how you conduct your research.
Yes, I’m not a sci-fi, fantasy sort of gal. I write realistic fiction, both historical and contemporary. Of course, all of my historical works, such as the two Dear America books, are inspired by actual historical events Even my contemporary novels have real events as their basis. For Shadow of the Dragon, I was inspired by the news about the beating death of a Vietnamese teenager by a gang of skinheads. For Letters from the Mountain, the idea came from a TV documentary about teens who “huffed” dangerous inhalants. I wrote The Silent Storm after experiencing a hurricane in Houston in 1983.
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| interior spread from Voices of Pearl Harbor |
Because I want the novels to feel “real,” I have to research every aspect of the time period or culture – clothing, housing, language, means of transportation, lifestyles, customs, philosophies, religion – the list goes on and on.
I have two criteria when I choose a subject: 1) I have to love the topic myself and 2) it has to be something that will interest young readers and/or teachers.
I know you’re something of a “school visit expert.” Do you have any tips or strategies that you can share with readers?
I consider doing school visits much like going into battle. Hope for the best but expect the worst. Be flexible. Don’t lose your cool when things go wrong. Something will alwaysgo wrong – AV mechanical problems, schedule mess-ups, doors locking you out in the rain, fire-drills, kids throwing up on your shoes, and on and on. Always have a written contract that explains what materials are needed, length of presentation, size and age of audience, number of presentations, travel arrangements and fees. Don’t trust the organizer to remember everything. Get a schedule ahead of time. Get both school and home phone numbers of the organizer. I have more information on my website.
What are you working on now?
Two YA novels set in the 1960s; two contemporary middle grade novels; a YA mystery; and a weird YA novella that I am afraid to send out to anyone because it is more edgy than my other works. And lots of picture books.
How can readers learn more about you and your books?
My blog is called “Into the Woods We Go”: [email protected]
Thanks, Sherry!
Here's one of Sherry's book trailers, this one for The Buffalo Soldier:
This week I want to give a shout-out to some fabulous bloggers who are hosting give-aways and teaser reveals for my newest release SIRENS. You are all my heroes: we authors are forever grateful for the way you help to spread the word about new books.
So, thank you, thank you, a million times thank you! to:
My Friend AmyLauren's Crammed BookshelfThe Compulsive ReaderEmily's Reading RoomThe Mod Podge BookshelfIn Bed With BooksThe Story Siren
Poisoned RationalityCheck out the links - some of the contests are still open! I'll have more thank-you's very soon.
And don't miss the
Crossroads Blog Tour on now. A bunch of fabulous authors, spearheaded by my friend
Judith Graves, are on board that train, including me. Look for lots of paranormals. The grand prize for coming by this tour is a Kindle, preloaded with our books - wow!
We'll all be together for a Twitter chat, hosted by the awesome
Mundie Moms, on Monday, October 29 - check it out.
And since this second baby is now out in the world, here's teaser number 2 for SIRENS, with a shout-out to my talented son, Kevin Fox, who makes all my trailers:
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Your post was perfect! The fall was Bridget's favorite time of year and she would have loved to have read your childhood poem OCTOBER. Thank you so much for sharing Bridget's novel POISON with new readers. It means so much to me and her family.
Wishing you the very best,
Barrett Dowell
(Bridget's husband)
Barrett - It's my honor, really. My thoughts are with you. Best - Janet