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     Roxie and her pals sat in my "possibilities" file while I wrote and sold two more picture books, and researched my next novel. I kept thinking of one of my first editors who told me "There's a story in there somewhere." She was referring to Yankee Girl, which, at that point, I had been writing for over three years. I knew there was a story in Camp K-9. . . somewhere.
    I would like to say that I had one big "Aha!" moment and found that story.
    I didn't. Instead, I had a lot of little "Oh" moments.
    One "oh"came when I realized that most of my camping experience had been as a counselor. I was fourteen when I had my only experience as a camper.  I thought of Roxie as an eight-year-old in "people
years." Most of my personal camp memories would have to go.
    Great.  My manuscript was vanishing, not growing.
    Another "oh" moment came while stuck in Atlanta traffic, which happens at least once a day.  I was
planning a writing exercise for one of young writers' day camps. I decided I would have them write about their most precious possession.  I needed to give them an example of something or someone you are deeply attached to. I didn't want a lot of essays on X-Boxes or their latest birthday present.  What had been my most precious possession?
    From nowhere (because I wasn't thinking all that hard) I thought "my quilt." When I was born, my Grandmother Rodman made me a quilt from corduroy remnants. It was the size of a twin bed coverlet. I wasn't as bad as Linus and his blankie, but I dragged "the Quilt"everywhere.  I called it "Meemaw's Quilt" after it's creator. After I started school, the Quilt left the house only for road trips and sleepovers.  Since everyone took bedrolls to sleepovers (in the days before pink My Little Pony sleeping bags) no one ever noticed the quilt.
      I had taken it to that 8th grade camp, rubbing on particular corner, worn velvet soft, comforting myself to sleep.
     I had just enough time to scribble "M'maws quilt" on a Wal-Mart receipt before the traffic on Georgia 400 once again took off like the Indie 500.
     I was actively thinking about Roxie as I was taking the MARTA train to the airport one day. Specifically, the conflict between Roxie and Lacy. Lacy was a bigger dog. Would that be enough to make her so disagreeable?  Would it be enough for Roxie to fear her?
    The answer; no. What if Roxie had a secret she didn't want anyone to know, especially not Lacy?
    I heard the voice of one of the many superstar writers I had listened to over the years.  I don't remember who it was, but the voice said "It isn't enough to get your character into a jam.  You have to put them in as much peril as you can without killing them. And remember, they have to figure it out for themselves. No fairy godmothers, no magic genii's coming to the rescue."
    Now the voice didn't say that the Situation (not the one from Jersey Shore) must be life-or-death. The character didn't have to be tied to the train tracks with a locomotive roaring in her direction. "You find  the worst thing to happen to your character. It might not be life-or-death for you, the reader, but you must understand how perilous this is for him/her."
    Not an "aha" moment...just another question I couldn't answer. I scrawled "life or death for Roxie" on a Walgreens receipt before I was shoved out by the crowd at the Airport Station.
    That night I was in an unfamiliar city, trying to sleep in an unfamiliar bed. I always fret over these presentations, no matter how many times I have done them before. A good bed helps. I recall with fondness a room in Miami with one of those cloud-like coverlets and a pillow t

April may be the cruelest month, but I don't care.  I'm too busy celebrating the last year of my thirties, my son's third, my daughter's fifth, and yes, a Blogiversary and our April's birthday, too. 

Have you noticed that "Happy Birthday" is rarely (if ever) sung on TV?  As Mary Ann pointed out, there's that pesky matter of royalties, and apparently this song commands exorbitant ones.  Next time you watch a soap opera (if you dare), note the quick cutaway to commercial when the cake is wheeled out or the opportune ringing of a phone or sudden heart attack that befalls the birthday girl.  It's not about the drama, I'm sorry to say.  It's about the stupid song.  Just as often, it's about the Midol product placement or the actor who can't remember his lines or the set that has enough room for only two people when you need to throw a wedding! 

Most of my paid writing work has been writing for hire.  Writing for hire can be an awful lot of fun.  But apart from the challenges that are readily imagined (what if I hate the material?), there are also those devil-in-the-details moments I never considered.  When I was writing Nancy Drew, I had to be cognizant at all times of the rules of Nancyland (no guns or drugs despite the raging crime epidemic in River Heights).  There was a preordained number of chapters and pages, as well.  An hour-long daytime program is only 39 minutes minus the commercials.  Writing to a set structure (see the five-paragraph essay) makes life a lot easier in many ways.  In other ways, it is horribly constraining. 

My English Composition students write five essays per semester, and often they have trouble getting excited about the material, to put it mildly.  This is writing-for-hire in its barest form, after all -- pass the class, and you get to graduate and, one hopes, find the job of your dreams.  Fail to get the job done, and well... take English 101 again. 

For my students, God is in the details.  Once they can recount an experience vividly, without resorting to cliches and empty expressions, they have connected with the material in a way that makes the writing fun (and the reading, too).  And if they have done it once, they can do it again.  So even if their writing is full of run-ons and agreement errors and I despair of having taught them anything, I have.  I think. I hope!

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