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You know what the problem is with writers conferences? They are so stinkin' INSPIRING.

Yesterday, after completing my Cybils judging duties, I meant to get back to posting more about the SCBWI NY conference, and instead, I was consumed by the blazing---near pyromaniacal---desire to work for hours and hours and hours on a new writing project. It isn't even a sane project. But I can't help it. I'm so smokin' in love.

My outdoor gym class was canceled due to icy weather. I wrote. My stomach growled. I made myself a fried egg sandwich. I wrote. My son came home from school. I yelled hello in his general direction; he grabbed his guitar and waled on it. I wrote. He was hungry; we went out, grabbed two slices of pizza. We came home; I wrote. He watched Prison Break (on the DVR) next to me on the couch; I pointed out gaping plot holes in the story; I wrote. I talked to my husband; told him about the insane new project; he said: luckily, your patron (that's him) doesn't demand sanity or instant commercial success. I had another scorching idea; I wrote.

How will today run? I don't know. Maybe not so fast. But I would like to thank the following speakers at the SCBWI conference for leaving burning hot coals in my writing shoes:

David Wiesner: sure, he talked about wordless picture books. But story is story, and sometimes I listen much better when an illustrator is talking process. He showed sketch after sketch of abandoned cover art for Flotsam. It reminded me of flirting with draft after draft of a poem that you desperately need to hook, and then, you do.

Carolyn Mackler: she read from her high school diary. Yes, I know they were paying her to do this, but still! The guts. The most important thing I heard? She said: what I didn't write in that diary was as interesting as what I did write. She was chronicling all the ups and downs of her attraction to numerous boys, but not the stuff, the real emotional stuff, going on in her family at the time. I filed that away: what the character doesn't say is as important as what she does.

Susan Patron: you made me like you. How did you do it? Yes, you were humble and funny and you admitted to every fumble and flaw, and you talked about being gripped by irrelevant, wandering thoughts about the circle of knees that confronted you when you crawled under a table to retrieve a forgotten speech from your purse. Yes, I think it was the knees that got me. You made me feel as if I were part of that secret community of people who would think such strange, strange thoughts about knees and know what to do with them.

Finally, a shout-out to Jennifer Hunt of Little, Brown. Your breakout session was wonderful; it really was. I'm sorry I didn't take notes on what you were hoping to acquire. One half of me was listening; I swear. You read from/edited some beautiful books (must look for All of the Above, and I already loved Story of a Girl and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.) But the other half of me, the writer half, was racing across the page, writing the first draft of what would later become my insane new project begun yesterday. I don't know what you did to me. Editor voodoo?

So there you have it. I'm on fire. And I know what (and who) lit the match.

P.S. There was a fire alarm at the hotel on Saturday morning. I was on the 44th floor. I was wearing heels. I walked all the way down to the lobby. Maybe this whole post is BS, and it was that extended downward march in a metal stairwell after smelling real smoke that inspired me.

The first in a series of mini-reports on my trip to the New York SCBWI Winter conference:

I did something geeky last Friday. I went to the Central Children's Room at the Donnell branch of the New York Public Library and asked to see a copy of my book. I was just going to peek at it on the shelves and marvel that my book (MY book!) was in the same building as the original stuffed animals from Winnie the Pooh, Wyeth paintings, and a Newbery medal.

But my surreptitious plan didn't work. The librarian on duty insisted upon doing her job and helping me. It turns out that Letters From Rapunzel at this particular branch was non-circulating, and The Most Helpful Librarian in the World jumped right up and went to the back stacks to pull it for me.

Really, I didn't mean to make her leave her desk and go fetch my own book! It's not like I haven't seen it before. But I hadn't seen it in a library in New York before, and I really did want to. Maybe because I went to kindergarten in NY. Maybe because I went to the library often in NY. (Although not the Donnell branch, sadly, according to my mom and dad. More likely the local Queens branch.) Or maybe because I'm a total library geek.

Anyhow, I held it, stroked its shiny library cover, and fantasized about filling the white space on the title page with a pithy literary comment, my non-trembling signature, and the date: Feb. 8, 2008. Then, I reluctantly gave it back to the Most Helpful Librarian. Turns out that I screwed THAT up.

Because later that night, at the KidLit Drinks get-together, I talked with Betsy Bird, librarian at the same famous Donnell Children's Room, and blogger as Fuse 8 (read her detailed post about Donnell here,) and she said: Oh, did you sign your book?

WHAT? I could've written in a library book? Really? *sigh*

On the other hand, I did do some things right on my visit to Donnell. I inspected Eeyore's tail and marveled at Tigger's realistic stripes. I signed Pooh's guest book. I eavesdropped on a play being rehearsed in a back room. I said a little prayer before the plain, matter-of-fact sign reading: In Memoriam: Madeleine L'Engle and Lloyd Alexander (among others.) I peered through the window of an office at a model of the Little Cabin in the Woods, and longed to move the figures around in a dance to a fiddle tune. I oohed over the Mary Poppins books and umbrella.

Most of all, I left feeling grateful for the chance to stand in a place where I could picture myself as a child, rushing in the door, running over to the new books, getting lost in all the choices, visiting old favorites on the shelves, and leaving with an armful of the best of the best. I wouldn't have noticed if an author had been standing there, holding her own book. Except of course, if it was a book I wanted to read. And then I would've thought: HEY! WEIRDO! Are you done with that?

P.S. The building that holds the Donnell branch has been sold. Betsy Bird has been gathering memories of the Children's Reading Room. If you have a good story, please get it to her here.

The Celebutantes: On The Avenue by Antonio Pagliarulo