A weekend in SCBWI land with Heather Alexander from Dial Books for Young Readers and Elana Roth of the Caren Johnson Literary Agency has left me with a notepad of reminders, comments and do-lists for myself. Bottom line right up front: If I'm going to be a better writer, I have to take the advice given by those who know the business. The Arkansas SCBWI shows signs of declining. Numbers were low, enthusiam and questionning were muted and hesitant, but Heather and Elana pulled no punches. Getting published means giving lots of time and attention to the written product before you query or submit.

They both handed us paperwork that mimicked various stages of reviewing queries, making choices, categorizing, describing, and selling the manuscript to an editorial board. Good Grief! What an eye-opening experience. Twenty query letter in 15 minutes? You'd better believe it! Find one sentence pitches for stories and novels that run thousands of words? Oh, yeah. I loved this set of challenges. Thank you  to both ladies for never letting up, for making us think outside the keyboard and our own rose-colored assumptions.

Making resolutions, they say in January, is meaningless. I say making resolutions is essential for charging the little grey cells. And so do others with more grace than I.

Mary Anne Radmacher, writer, artist. Woman with a 'fascination with words' and a 'commitment to intentional living.' She has a knack for touching my core of determination.

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.”

Begin each day as if it were on purpose. (Oh dear, all those days I've wasted living on auto-pilot!)

Discover the tools to build your own vision.

The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I want to be...because of all I may become, I will close my eyes and leap!

My resolutions are always the same: Keep revising until each sentence is sharp. Until each thought is clear. Until the child who reads my story will save it for another read later in life.

Thanks again to Heather and Elana for giving me new tools.

When news strikes, it seems to come in dribbles or deluges. We--the inhabitants of Kidstuff-Kate, Kim, Karen, Kristin, and Mandy-have taken on a new partner in pen. Tim Koch. Yes, he of sterner stuff, of abatoirs and incendiaries, of ghouls and etherzombies, have joined mind and time in the ever-enticing race toward publication. He's [email protected] or Whirled News at http://timswhirlednews.blogspot.com/ 

He may not know it, but picture books and middle grade novels are harder than Horror. Wait until he tries one!

News Flash 2: One of our writing colleagues is locked in her dungeon, facing withdrawl symptoms from Henry-the-most-beautiful-son-in-the-world and our own encouraging Rah-Rah-Rah-Siss Boom Bah! messages, to complete her new MG novel in order to respond to a wonderful agent who spent an evening trolling blogs looking for something to tickle her fancy! Go Karen Go! As for that agent with wings? You can't believe the fires in our bellies that were rekindled by that little email message out of the blue.

So we are mostly offline today, working our fingers to the bone and ignoring the 68 degree, brilliantly sunny, gently wafting, greenly smiling spring day! All of NW Arkansas is singing, but we are typing. Mandy in a crowded and noisy space to blur the universe, Karen in her basement (mentally if not physically), Kristin in a mind-meld with the five munchkins, Kim in the forest of Missouri outside her cabin, and Kate with her feet on a cat and a cat in the lap, right here at home. Hmmmmm, smells like Key Lime Pie Cupcakes today.

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes (ala Southern Living w/ help from moi)
12 jumbo aluminum foil baking cups or a bunch of little mini-bite-sized cups)
Pam or imposter
1 fudge brownie mix (or chocolate wafers)
1/2 C butter melted
Mix the sticky brownie goop without any egg or
     pulse the cookies until powdered and add the butter.
Press into cupcake cups

3-8 oz softened cream cheese
1 1/2 C sugar
***w/ elec mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar until blended
2 tsp lime zest
1/3 C fresh lime juice
***add zest and lime juice until blended
3 large eggs (fork-whipped)
***
Add the eggs little by little just until last yellow bit disappears
Fill the cups completely full.

BAKE 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until set.
Cool on wire racks 15 minutes.
Cool competely before topping with garnishes of
your choice.
Whipped cream (Cool whip in my house) and fresh berries
suggested by SL folks, and they know their stuff! Actually I'm
thinking Cool Whip, more zest for tang, and crushed butterscotch lifesavers.

These are to celebrate Karen's exciting challenge and her other new novel all about CUPCAKES.

What a glorious group of people I spend my Thursday evenings and occassional Saturdays with!

Now it's my turn to get busy!

Tell me, writers: What treats would you like to have warm from the oven after you've slaved over the keyboard for a whole beautiful day? Kidstuff wants to know!

And just for fun, how's this for an opening chapter? Standing for Something


Escape
Out of darkness, a sudden blast of light slammed into a dogwood tree down the road. Flames filled the hollow around the old diner with a burnt char and died in sheets of rain. The boy woke, frightened by the light and its thunder that shook the car where he’d slept. Fog blocked his view through the backseat windows. The Man must have left him here.

He was hungry. Cold and hungry. He needed to pee. Under the quilt again, afraid to move, he muttered the rules for being ‘good.’ There were rules especially against leaving the car, and he knew better than to break the rules. But. . . on the back of

Once again, the variable weather of Arkansas has given us a Spring Break to remember. Nearly 14 inches of snow in March! Probably not at all odd for Michigan, but a once-in-awhile surprise in Arkansas. Then within 24 hours, 60 degree weather and the snow's gone, except for Constable winks of crystals under bushes and tucked into crevices betweens stones. Today it's lovely. Brilliant sunshine and the smells of spring, even if the damp is chilly rather than warm.

Lingering Winter
Footsteps clattering like magpies,
hungry sparrows, giant robins

Secret breezy whispers fluttering
like pigeons and mourning doves

Holiday scents gilding by
on lingering drifts of cold, dry air

Fleeting giggles in quick windy swirls
of crunchy brown leaves

Forgotten blossoms of summer sighing
like tiny fishes weaving between wands of seagrass

Suddenly,

Tears of spring
swirling warm mist
showers of sharp knives

Inhale slowly
breathe in pale sunlite dreams
possibly fog.

For everyone who's read To Kill a Mockingbird, as opposed to loved To Kill a Mockingbird, here's my take on the question.

We, even those of us who are baby birds in the writing nest, write our stories from the heart ...or they die.
We, even those of us who stumble over and over again, pick up the pen and try another story...or give up.
We, even those of us who may not be Sunday faithful, dream, wish and pray for inspiration...or we feel abandoned......and I am telling you, feeling abandoned is a state of our own creation.

This morning, instead of writing or even dreaming up something worth writing, I searched the ether for an abridged version of TKM for our SPED classes. Why? You might ask. Surely if we 'encourage' kids who can't read above 3rd or 4th grade level to slog through TKM, we have a good reason. Could it be that the story is arresting, full of action, dynamic, thrilling?  To a kid, not so much.

Ah, but I and possibly you, grew up on the film. The FILM first. The action, the drama, the pathos. The FILM first. Then, after a little time and a little emotional scarring, I read the book.

And oh, while I love the story, the writing, the characters, the conflict, and the reveals....to me, To Kill a Mockingbird was meant to be real life, visceral, angry and sweaty, frustrated and frustrating. To be Scout, to be caught up in an adult world that doesn't make any sense at all, to have so many questions about decent behavior and compassionate understanding of other people...and to be unable to make a difference, what more could the main character want in a story? What better way to electrify the heart of a child who believes at that moment, 'I would never shut up and let this happen.'

What better way to empower one of tomorrow's heros?

So, now I ask you: Is it better that a slow reader have read through the full version with adult vocabulary and dictionary by the side, or is it better that these same teens read the story in simplified language and then view the film?

Authors: What's your response? If you were a 9th grade teacher, how would you teach it and why?

I'm listening.

We all know the old adage: Water never boils if you're watching the pot. That eight minutes for spaghetti seems to take twenty; waiting to dash in the asparagus (yes, I own no microwave oven) is the time it takes for one madly crazed cat to rip the NT Times Sunday newspaper into shreds. Time marches on all summer; time munches on all winter. We who gain and lose almost by osmosis are too fully aware of winter. An apple here, 1  point. A couple of chocolate covered pretzels there, minus 5. Two broiled chicken thighs and a poached pear with cinammon, 10 points and the signal to STOP! But then one turns around to look out the window and OMG, it's only 9:35 in the morning. Without the sound of traffic and the ringing of the school bells (buzzers), there is no distinction. We might absent-mindedly eat allllllllll  daaaaaaaay looooooong.

Alas, so it is in many novels. Time has no anchors.
The reader is merrily skipping along, from dangerous dark staircases to wild winds of a storm, only to find that either six months has passed or thirty-five minutes. So many authors have taken to hitting us in the eye with a time frame sub-heading. May 23 7:52 PM.    Four Days Later.      On Board the Hummingbird in a Storm of Epic Proportions      Twenty-eight Years, Six Months, a Lifetime Ago.

Enough. I fall back on Chekov. Anton, in case you were educated in the last few years when Russian short stories were no longer in the general curriculum. He charged writers to embed both time and place into the story itself, in order to expose the viscera of human relationsips. And his advice is undeniably sound.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

If you cry 'forward', you must without fail make plain in what direction to go.

A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer. [I'm dying to know if he saw writers as mere photographers of life and human relationships.]

And of course, he had a comment about humans, too, that we could contemplate on a winter's day:

All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.

I want my characters to be "human" as Chekov knew boys and girls, men and women, to be human.
I want my readers to sigh (or howl or laugh or weep), to flip back and re-read a scene to seal it in better, to hand my stories to someone else and say, "Read this one."

I'm spending more time with Mick and Reverend Richter these days, looking for the moments when a sensitive kid can see the 'glint of light on broken glass' as he grapples with identifying the Man's identity.

If I'm careful, middle grade hearts will 'stand still.'

It's been a long time while we survived Christmas, then a big milestone birthday, and some nasty weather at my house. But back to the saddle.....it's Pitch Fest Day. Hello Elana Roth!

Here's my pitch for the day.

In a small town where a boy's suspicions aren't taken seriously by the authorities, a predator could do a lot of damage before someone can stop him. Only a few days into the school year, Mick Hawthorn, curious eighth-grader and kidnapping survivor, begins to suspect the true intentions of a new charismatic pastor who's become part of the school faculty. If anyone is going to step up and expose the dangers of a possible pedophile and kidnapper, it's going to have to be Mick.


STANDING for SOMETHING is an upper middle-grades novel especially written to remind boys that being young doesn't mean you're powerless.

Good Morning Writers! Please be sure to share your No Kiss scene link in any comments so I can enjoy your No Kiss scenes too! Thanks to Frankie for getting our fingers back into action after the holidays.

********************
Gillian glanced at the French doors when she heard the car door slam. At last! Time had nearly stood still all day while she waited. He’d be windblown and hot from the ride up from the desert in that little sports car. She knew exactly how his body would feel when he hugged her. Sand would have roughened his skin, leaving a faint dust that would transfer to her own fingers tips as she stroked his arm. Summer down in Phoenix would have tanned him to gold, not sun-yellow, but soft and inviting, like old, old jewelry. Despite his brown eyes, he never darkened to a true tan, but like the finest suede, kept the gleam of oiled leather. She mussed her curly hair with both hands, making sure it was a bit wild. He liked that way.


         She wanted to hug him, to stand shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, her chin to the curve of his neck. In the last few nights, anticipating his arrival, her restlessness had conjured up dreams of racing out to meet him, regardless of what the neighbors might see. The thrill of tasting his mouth, of nuzzling her nose and cheek against his kept her awake and anxious. It had been nearly a year since his last visit, and email wasn’t enough to sustain her need. She turned her chair slowly as the doors opened, and a large suitcase was heaved up the last step into the sunny day room. The case rolled across the smooth terrazzo floor, and she caught it before it bumped into her.

        “Gillian,” he said as he closed the doors. “Some men know when to throw in a hat. I toss in a suitcase. Shows how special I am and forces you to accept me, even if it’s been so long, you don’t remember who I am.” He shook his head and stretched every limb, ignoring the customary means of politely entering a house. It was his home too, after all.

        “I had forgotten how hot that drive up the west road would be this time of year.” Joints popped and she laughed.

       “You can’t be getting old,” she said.

       “Ha! Just watch me. Six hours in the tuna can on wheels and I’m as stiff as the Tin Man. Listen.” He jiggled a knee and ankle and they popped on cue. “Dying as we speak. Feed me quick and give me the coldest glass of tea in the place.”

        He seemed to leap across the room and knelt before her. “You are my darlin’ darling, and I’ve missed you every single moment. How have you been? Everything going all right?”

       As he stroked her hair and traced the edge of her chin with his warm fingers, a thrill of desire made her heart begin to race. “I promised I wouldn’t be gone so long and I let you down. I’m sorry,” he said.

       “You’ve been away for more days than I can count,” she said and allowed her fingers to trace swirls through the blond hair of his arms. She leaned into his touch, swayed against his palms, waiting for him to wrap her in his arms and lift her out of the chair as he had done last year.

       “I’m so glad you’re home again,” she said. “I’ll bet you’re exhausted.” The effort to remain cool made her mouth tremble, but he was forbidden fruit, and she could not cross the line without his invitation. He leaned his head against hers and moaned as if he were in pain.

       “Mostly I’m starving. What’s on the stove?” He rolled the suitcase aside and pushed her chair with him as he headed for the kitchen. “A man travels on his stomach.”

What a quandry! I'm headed to Austin, Land of the Politically Free and Confused, to see Aunt Pat, last of the rip-roaring Hankerson gals, and it's going to snow again tomorrow in North Texas (another country) and Oklahoma..........now what's a person to do when you can't drive home again?

I could go east.....but then the drive home is longer than childhood. Coming up Hwy 59 in Arkansas would mean shady slick up hills and possibly ski slope downhills, daidging lumber trucks and local runaway Sunday drivers.

What would you do? WWYD????