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Today we have a special treat - Our Year of the Book blogger and author of The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester Barbara O'Connor and her esteemed editor Frances Foster have teamed up to give us one FANTASTIC blog piece. Enjoy!

There is no more important partnership in the creation of a book than that of the author and editor.

The author imagines the story and writes the words.

She might think that her vision translates to paper, but sometimes, it does not. Perhaps it’s still a bit too undeveloped and needs some oomph. Or maybe it just isn’t coming through to the reader the way she intended.

The author is too close to the work to see it. She needs an editor.

The editor sees the story with fresh eyes. She sees the cracks and flaws. She recognizes what is missing and what doesn’t need to be there. She knows what is confusing and recognizes which moments or characters aren’t coming to life.

But best of all, she sees the author’s vision and knows how to make that vision translate to the page the way the author intended.

The process of creating a book with the partnership of author and editor is one that evolves over time and changes with each book.

Here is a peek inside the partnership of author, Barbara O’Connor, and editor, Frances Foster, during the creation of O’Connor’s latest middle grade novel, THE FANTASTIC SECRET OF OWEN JESTER. O’Connor and Foster have worked on nine middle-grade novels together over the last fifteen years.

The Beginning

Barbara O’Connor:

My stories always start with a title and the first sentence or two. Usually, I have no idea what the story will be about. Strange, but true.

Here are the opening sentences of THE FANTASTIC SECRET OF OWEN JESTER:

Owen Jester tiptoed across the gleaming linoleum floor and slipped the frog into the soup. It swam gracefully under the potatoes, pushing its froggy legs through the pale yellow broth. It circled the carrots and bumped into the celery and finally settled beside a parsnip, its bulging eyes staring unblinkingly up at Owen.

(Let me assure you that no frogs were harmed in the making of this book. The soup was cold.)

That’s all I had for my story, except for one other idea that was still not fully formed. I knew that something was going to fall off of the train that ran along the tracks behind Owen Jester’s house. The problem was, I didn’t know what it was that fell off the train.

Eventually, however, I figured it out: a tiny, two-person submarine.

I’m not one of those authors who is reluctant to talk about works-in-progress or half-formed ideas. In fact, because I trust Frances’s opinions and honesty, I sometimes talk about new work with her at very early stages.

Back in August of 2008, I emailed her the first paragraph and this brief description of my idea: “The story involves submarines and bullfrogs. (I know, sounds kind of strange.)”

Frances Foster:

I wrote back: I love your first paragraph of THE SAD SHORT LIFE OF TOOLEY GRAHAM** and am dying to read on. Something like this makes me think of that question children ask--Where do you get your ideas, Mrs. O'Connor? It is totally appropriate. Where do you???? This one sounds fantastic!
** more

One of the books I'm currently reading is Stephen King's "On Writing". (The other is Stephen King's Under the Dome) Regarding the craft of writing, here is one of Mr. King's observations: "We are talking about tools and carpentry, about words and style... but as we move along, you'll do well to remember that we are also talking about magic."

Anyone who has written for any length of time knows there can be a kind of magic to the process.  Not always.  More often than not it's more about the tools and carpentry.  But one of the ways to make that special writing alchemy occur, in my experience, is to heed that oft-used phrase about writing; "Write what you know about". 

When I began work on "The Girl Who Became The Beatles", I was excited to be writing about a number of things I know about.  True, the book is about a 16 year old girl (which I most definitely am not), growing up in the present day (I grew up in the 1950's and '60's), who wishes she were as famous as the Beatles, then wakes up the following morning to find that her wish has been granted. (Something which has never happened to me, alas)

But here's the thing.  It doesn't matter if you're writing a wish-come-true fantasy, an adventure tale taking place in some exotic locale, or a story set in the distant past.  What I've found is that if you're able to bring some kind of personal experience to the characters, no matter how different they may be than yourself, that can be the combustible thing that makes the characters - and through them, the story - come alive.  And that's one definition of the magic in writing.       

For TGWBTB, I set the story in "a place called Twin Oaks in the northeastern United States".  I grew up in the northeastern United States, in Pleasant Hills, a suburb south of Pittsburgh.  So I know what the winters are like back there.  How the endless grey days and the cold can sometimes suck the energy right out of you. But then, just when you think you can't take the depressing cold  anymore, you sometimes wake up in the morning and it's snowed overnight and the world looks fresh and new and there's nothing quite like that feeling. 

There's nothing like that feeling in Los Angeles, that's for sure, which is where I've lived for the past thirty years.  LA is where Regina goes in her wish-come-true world, for one whirlwind week leading up to the Grammy Awards.  So this was another place I was able to write about with some confidence; the little nooks and crannies of the area - such as a tucked away beach called Paradise Cove, or the Hollywood Forever Cemetery - as well as the more famous attractions.   

So... place.  That was something I was able to bring to the TGWBTB table.  Did magic happen as a result?  No, not yet.  I needed to add more to the mix.  Say... personal experience.  OK, I know what it's like to play in a rock and roll band.  So does Regina.  And I've loved the Beatles from the moment I put Meet The Beatles! on the turntable.  Guess what?  Regina feels the same way about the Beatles!

Robert Freeman's iconic photo of the band,featured on the cover of "Meet The Beatles!", their 1964 release.  

Actually, it was the Beatles, more than any other group, who convinced me that playing in a rock and roll band had to be more fun than anything else going.  Beatlemania was still going strong when I formed my first band, the Lost Souls, with a group of my high school pals.  That was in 1967.  A couple years later I was playing drums in "Still Flight", a group that took up a quite a bit of my time during my freshman and sophomore years in college.

Right now I’m getting to do the very best bit of being a writer – I’m spending time thinking.

Now, during thinking time, it is true that sometimes it can appear to others as if nothing much is happening, as if the writer is not doing very much. Sometimes even as if he’s having a snooze on the sofa. But don’t be fooled! Inside the writer’s head is (hopefully) feverish activity, as the ideas for a new books are grown, sorted, accepted or discarded and generally nurtured.

This part of the process itself needs some thought. It is VERY important. It can be frustrating and exciting all at once. It can be impossible to force at times, other times it cannot be stopped. And it can take a very long time. In fact, for any given book, I will probably have spent about twenty times longer thinking about it than actually writing it.

It’s another way in which a writer’s job is different from many jobs – the amount of time in your working life that you actually spend doing what ‘you do’ is very small. Maybe 5% of your time, maybe even less. This is a bit sad when you think about it, after all, you become a writer because you love writing (not because you think there’s money in it, everyone knows that JKR has all the writing money. Oh, and Stephanie M.) and then you end up not spending that much time doing the actual act of writing.

But there are compensations, and being able to tell people you’re working when you go for a walk or a bike ride, or have a bath, or even, yes, a snooze on the sofa on a Sunday, is one of them.

Over the years I have come to realise that it is important to be generous with yourself about these aspects of the job – they are vital, and building in sufficient daydreaming time when you’re busy doing other things like book tours, and so on, is important. A few years ago I spent a lot of time worrying about this sort of stuff. I think it was because I was a bit stuck on a book at the time, but I began to think about all the questions of how I write best. What time of day do I write best? I wondered. Should I have music playing or silence? Should I avoid other people? Should I turn my email off? A big one was, Where do I write best? At the time I worked in a loft conversion, which suited me fine. It was high up which was nice, and light and bright and airy. And quiet.

But it had always been my dream to have a writing shed in the garden, and when I moved house last year, I was very lucky to find one. Here it is

I have written in all sorts of odd places in the past. On trains. Behind the wheel of a car (I pulled over first..) On planes. In hotel rooms. But I can’t help feeling it is important to have a special place to write, and my new shed gives me just that. It is a whole room devoted to the creative process, and it’s like sitting inside a brain.

I’m about to go travelling again, but I must get on a start writing soon. I will probably have to write while I’m away, so how do I feel about not writing in my lovely shed? Well, all is well, I’m off to Sweden, and fortunately they seem to understand about these things there too. So this is where I’ll be.

 Okay, so it’s grey, not blue, but I think it will do fine.

The dawning of an idea. Maybe.

Because I'm both an author and an illustrator, people often ask if my books begin with writing or drawing. The truth is, neither. My books usually begin with an observation, which I then visualize and try to turn into a theme or story.

Here’s an example of a recent observation and how it might turn into a book. 

During a morning bike ride I noticed that the moon was high in the sky at 7 am. This is not unusual, but the sun was shining and the sky was clear blue that day, so the moon looked out-of-place up there in that bright morning sky. The image stuck in my head because it's contrary to all the classic images and children's stories about the moon. Later that day I was working on an illustration with a moonlit night sky and jotted this on a post-it note: “When the moon can’t sleep, it stays up all day.”

That evening, my wife and I attended an outdoor concert of Japanese music, which began with a song about the sun and the moon. Now the muse was hammering down my door and couldn't be ignored. After walking back to the car to retrieve a pencil, I doodled this on the back of the music program.

The core of the idea is that the moon doesn’t want to go to bed when it’s supposed to. It wants to stay up “late,” which, in this case, would be staying up all day.  What appeals to me is this twist from the norm combined with the magical quality of the moon. So I did a color sketch, to see if the story had visual potential.

This is typical of how a book begins for me; a single doodle that captures the essence of a concept. If the premise feels worth pursuing, I’ll put it on my wall of rough ideas and stare at it for a while. Some morning when I feel particularly inspired, I’ll write the rest of the story. Maybe it will turn into something, maybe not. It will probably depend on the phase of the moon.

Someone asked me recently to describe the young Sherlock Holmes in a couple of sentences, and that made me think quite hard. I have a very detailed mental picture of Sherlock, I know what he likes and dislikes, I know what he would do in most situations, but how would I sum all that up in just a handful of words? It’s like asking what he looks like – I can picture him in my mind, I could recognize him in the unlikely event that I bumped into him in the mall, but I couldn’t draw a picture of him, and if I tried to describe him then I’d end up going: “Er… tall, dark hair, serious brown eyes… er…” What I’m trying to say is that it’s not that easy to translate your own mental picture into something you can easily hand across to other people.

Anyway, I said something like: “He’s conflicted and he’s lonely. He doesn’t make friends easily – at least, he doesn’t think so – and he probably thinks too much.” And then I realized with a bit of a shock that I was describing myself when I was 14. Which made me realize that I probably started reading the original Sherlock Holmes stories because I identified with Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to be him.

Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the original Sherlock Holmes stories, never said very much about what Sherlock was like when he was young, which made my life a lot easier when it came to writing these books.

All we really know about Sherlock from Conan Doyle’s writings is that (a) his family is descendants of a line of local landowners, (b) his mother’s side of the family are descendants from a family of French artists, and (c) he has a brother named Mycroft. Everything else is pure speculation, which gave me tremendous freedom to invent things.

If Conan Doyle had written thousands of words about Sherlock’s early life then, frankly, there wouldn’t have been much point in me doing this series.  As I get deeper into the books – I’m just writing Number 3 (working title Black Ice) at the moment – I’m exploring how Sherlock gets to learn all the things we know he can do as an adult. Conan Doyle wrote about a very accomplished detective who was as much at home with a test tube as with a sword in his hand, but how did he come to be that way? And when did he come to be that way?

I know that Sherlock has to learn martial arts at some stage, which will probably mean going to Japan. He will have to learn the violin, which starts in Book 2 (Red Leech) on a sea voyage to New York. He will have to take boxing and sword-fighting lessons, although I’ve already set up the fact that he knows he has to do that. And he’ll have to get involved with a theatrical troupe in order to perfect his later ability to disguise himself. Apart from that he’ll have to start stocking his brain with lots of detail about tattoos and tobaccos and chemistry, and generally learn how to think rationally.

All this means I have to do a lot of research to make sure I get everything right. The world in 1868 wasn’t like the world now. Even getting Sherlock from England to America meant that I had to read a whole lot of stuff about the steamships that crossed the Atlantic – how long did they take, what did they look like, what was the food like, all those kinds of questions (no transatlantic jets in those days, of course). Getting the books for the research wasn’t easy – I hunted on Amazon and EBay, I checked all the second hand bookshops I knew about and I spent far too much time in libraries. Fortunately, for details of the tunnels that used to run under the Thames, I could actually use a couple of books in my own collection.

An example of a place where I did the research but decided not to use it is where I have Sherlock and his friend Matty riding bicycles in the first half of the book. Actually, in 1868, there were no such thing as bicycles. The closest thing they

What's In A Title?

I was a screenwriter before I became a book writer.  Early in my screenwriting days, I went to Disney to pitch a story.  I was all wound up and ready to launch into my fantastic tale when the executive stopped me and asked, "What's the poster look like?"  I was so stunned I don't recall coming up with an answer.  I do remember that I didn't sell the idea.  Maybe because I didn't know what the poster looked like. 

There are two ways of looking at this anecdote.  1) It gives further evidence of the increasing superficiality of Hollywood, where posters and sequels and remakes and weekend box office grosses are more important than what's on the screen.  2) Film posters are important.

Both points are valid, but for the purposes of this blog, I'd like to focus on the second point.  Like film posters, I believe that book titles can be really important.  Let's face it, along with the cover - and what a terrific cover "The Girl Who Became The Beatles" has - a title is often the first impression many potential readers get when they peruse the shelves in a book store or check out books on the internet.  In bookstores, where most books only have the book spine exposed, the title becomes especially important.

A book doesn't have to have an interesting title to be successful, of course.  Ultimately, it always comes down to what's between the front and back covers.  Story and character.  But initially, anyway, if you're going to name your book, say, "The Road", it sure helps to have that great book cover, or - better yet - bestselling status as a writer to make potential readers pause in the bookstore aisle or on the internet to take a look.  

What I'm hoping for "The Girl Who Became The Beatles" - my upcoming Winter 2011 Feiwel and Friends release - is that the title will cause potential readers to hesitate even just a moment and wonder, "What does that mean?  How does a girl become The Beatles?"  If the title has that effect, I'll feel like I've done my job, at least as far as the title goes.

But as it turns out, there is more to "The Girl Who Became The Beatles" than just a title that might make readers stop and take a closer look.  This one actually cracked the story for me.  The original title for TGWBTB was "The Boy Who Became Paul McCartney".  It was very much the same story - a wish-come-true tale - but for some reason I was having trouble with it.  I couldn't get any momentum going on the manuscript. 

Then, some time after I had put my partially-written book on the shelf, a new title just fell into my head one day.  "The Girl Who Became The Beatles".  That was it!  Not only was the new title much more intriguing, but the gender change made all the difference.  I was excited about the challenge of writing a book from the point-of-view of a 16 year old girl.  I wanted to know why Regina Bloomsbury was such a Beatles fan, and what would happen to her when she "became" The Beatles.

As it turned out, the more I got to know Regina, the more I liked her.  Her quirks, her likes and dislikes, her fears, her hopes and dreams.  She spoke to me in a way that the boy in "The Boy Who Became Paul McCartney" simply didn't.  That's part of the magic of writing.  When a character starts speaking to you - as though they were a real person, separate from yourself - you know you're on the right track.  The bottom line?   I totally loved hanging out with Regina.   

So, what's in a book title?  In the case of "The Girl Who Became The Beatles", I'm convinced it meant the difference between writing the book and not writing it.  What a clos

Fancy Nancy + Joseph Campbell = Bridget’s Beret        Tom Lichtenheld v1. 7.9.10

The room erupted with “oohs” and “ahhhs” as the cover of Fancy Nancy hit the projection screen. I was participating in a Chicago-area Author’s Breakfast, attended by hundreds of teachers and librarians, as well as a handful of local authors. I’d never heard of Fancy Nancy, but it was obviously popular with the pros, so I paid close attention as the moderator explained the concept and showed some pages.

I’m not a raving feminist and I don’t begrudge any book that gets kids to read, regardless of subject matter, but I was surprised by the audience’s positive reaction to this new book. These were educators, mostly women, praising a story about a little girl who completely defined herself in terms traditional feminine trappings. Pink ones, no less.

Rather than rant or turn my breakfast into sour grapes, I decided to take some inspiration from the experience. Fancy Nancy made me realize two things.

1. Most of my books were skewed toward boys, meaning I was missing a big part of my audience. So I needed to write a book aimed at girls, with the protagonist being as a girl of substance beyond her appearance.

2. Most of my books were what I call “encyclopedias of silliness.”  I’d been avoiding the traditional narrative, and it was time to see if I could write a proper story with a hero, plot, and gracefully delivered message for kids.

I found inspiration for the character in my niece, Madeline, who is a natural child-artist. The two of us have spent many hours together drawing and painting, and I’m frequently envious of her creations. So I knew my character was going to be an artist. Now all I had to do was write a story.

A friend had recently introduced me to Joseph Campbell’s concept of The Hero’s Journey. I figured if it worked for James Joyce, it can work for my picture book, so I taped it to the wall and began to write. I used a few fundamentals from the Hero’s Journey to form the backbone of my story: the call to adventure, the helpers, and the circular ending. Through it all, my editor, Christy Ottaviano, kept me on track.

The pivotal point in the story, where Bridget discovers that she can still make art, was originally written as a scene on a beach, where she unconsciously makes a drawing in the sand. As much as I liked the visual poetry of this sequence, I felt the influence of Suzy Lee’s wonderful book, “Wave,” was too obvious, so I abandoned it. You can see the beach sketches here.

The backmatter was originally a graphic-novel style spread showing the backstory about Bridget’s hat, what really happened to it. I like the drawing for its divergent style, but we ultimately decided to go with the current backmatter which does a lot more for art education.

So, “thank you” Fancy Nancy and Joseph Campbell. Bridget and I both appreciate your inspiration.

The last and final installment from David Whitley. Enjoy!

In a few months time, my second novel will be published.

...

Gosh, I enjoyed typing that.

There’s just something rather pleasing about “second novel”. It makes me feel more like a proper writer. Very, very slowly, my mother is starting to fill up the special shelf for Whitley first editions that she put up, in a burst of touching if somewhat over-ambitious optimism. It helps that she’s decided to fill the empty space with different editions of the same book - the Swedish cover of The Midnight Charter is particularly fetching.

It’s strange to think that, just a few years ago, all of my dreams were about simply getting published. (Well alright, not all of my dreams – quite a lot of them contained the usual contingent of people jumping out of Christmas puddings, talking upholstery etc... I’m getting off track here.)

I honestly thought that once that first, magical book was in the shops, that would be it. What happened afterwards had never really occurred to me. So when my publishers mentioned that my publicity tour was booked, that was quite a surprise.

After all, the point of being a writer is that you can spend months alone, crafting your thoughts. Every word you send out into the world can be lovingly polished and checked at least four times, just to make absolutely sure that you don’t sound like an idiot.

But now I was going to be “live on stage”. No place to hide from an unexpectedly searching question, no barrier between me and the people who were actually reading my book!

And this wasn’t even a typical publicity tour. Not for me a gentle chat in a local library with two senior citizens and their dog. No, I am a writer of Children’s / YA fiction... and that meant a schools tour.

Children will not spare your feelings. If they think something you’ve written is stupid, they will tell you, in no uncertain terms. There’s nothing more demoralising than telling your best joke and pausing for effect, to be met with the kind of stony silence which only children can produce – a look which implies that not only are they not impressed, but it would have been better for all concerned if you had never been born.

So, when the tour rolled around, I approached the first event with a nervous smile, and an escape route already planned.

And you know what? I loved it.

Maybe it was discovering the joy of reading aloud from my book, and over-acting all of the voices. Maybe it was relief at finding that no-one handed back a signed book because they couldn’t read my terrible distinctive handwriting. But honestly, I think it was all about the audiences.

I was just bowled over by how clever they were, how willing to take an idea and make it their own. I’ve had questions of such insight from eleven-year-olds that it took me five minutes and a verbal essay to answer. I’ve had invitations to read their own work, which is almost always skilful, witty and alarmingly dark.  And to my relief, there wasn’t a single school where I haven’t managed to get a few laughs during my talk. Now, I do school events whenever I can, and never fail to go away with new energy and delight.

So, with only a few months to go until the tour for The Children of the Lost, I can hardly wait. It’s time to leave the world of dreams behind, and try out the real one again for a bit.

And you know somethi

When things line up in the universe for the briefest of moments, in the smallest of ways...well, in my book, there's nothing much cooler than that.  Earlier today, I literally spent a good 20 seconds with my mouth hanging open because of that "synchronicity" thing.  I have to back up a bit first...

I don't have kids but I have 2 cats, Jules and Olive. 

I also have an adorable 5-year old niece, Rilynne. Whether the 3 of them like it or not, they are the recipients of 89.9% of the maternal instincts I possess (the rest goes tothe neighborhood wildlife I feed every day and the flailing bugs I scoop out of Lake Michigan). 

Jules and Olive have been enjoying the beautiful spring weather as much as I have.  Each morning around 8:00 I've been bringing my computer outdoors so I can get some work done while keeping an eye on the cats as they wander around the yard and nearby woods.  It's very quiet and peaceful here and most of the time the road I live on is rarely traveled, but this time of year it gets rather busy.  It's the main thoroughfare along Lake Michigan so from Memorial Day to Labor Day it's used by lots of beach-goers and boaters and summertime tourists.  Jules has learned to stay away from the road but since Olive is still new to the neighborhood, I continually monitor where she is to make sure she remains the lovely, un-squashed, free-standing kitty that she is today. 

Jules has a couple favorite paths by the lake that she ventures out on each morning and while she does that, my coffee and I walk around with Olive for about a half hour or so while she does her first bit of exploring for the day.  Many times I read while I walk with her (I just finished a great, "walking" book by Kathleen Kent, The Heretic's Daughter, which I highly recommend).  Other times I just enjoy looking at the flowers blooming or watching an inch worm work its way up a string of spit (is that what it is...heavy-duty spit?) or trying to think up possible book ideas.  I've been loving starting out the day like this.

Most days, after we finish our wandering, Olive is pretty good about sticking close by.  But there are days like today, while I unsuccessfully tried to figure out what to write about for this post, that she apparently had her own business to tend to here, there and everywhere.  Our agendas weren't meshing and I was finding myself growing more and more frustrated each time I sat down to write only to have to get up a minute later to search for her.  Jules, being black and white is pretty easy to see in the woods

but Olive, being tan and gray with only a few spots of white, couldn't be more camouflaged among the trees, fallen branches and dead leaves. 

It takes a village to make a book.

First, there is the author (i.e., me), who must think of an idea.

Think

Think

Think

Eureka! An idea!

The idea gets scribbled onto paper and grows into a story.

I keep track of my progress.

Word by word.

Page by page.

I organize the pages.

Eventually, I type the magic words:

The story is perfect and I am done.

The mailman delivers my idea-that-has-become-a-perfect-story to my publisher.

Enter the editor.

She looks at the big picture – the forest of the story, not the trees.

She says things like: “I think the bones of your story are strong, but why don’t you let it all sit and simmer for a couple of weeks so you can see how you feel about it.”

I don’t tell her, but this is how I feel about that:

But, of course, she is right.

(She is almost always right.)

I let the story sit and simmer.

And then I revise and she comments and I revise and she comments.

Finally it is perfect (again) and I am done (again).

The assistant editor jumps into the process and begins handling the gazillions of details to get the book into production.

Now I can sit back and relax a bit while lots of other “villagers” join in and do their jobs: agents, marketing folks, publicity folks, artists, designers.

So many jobs to do.

So many people to do them.

But then…

The copyeditor arrives in the village.

I must now examine the trees (i.e., the small stuff).

Every time I get to this part of the process, I’m amazed at how easy it is to miss the small things.

For instance, I seem to have a problem with repetition.

p.22, 3rd para: ‘ “I know y’all are up there.” That irritating voice slithered up the ladder…’ Rep of “up” OK?

p.24, middle of page: “First of all, he said it all the time.” Rep of “all” OK?

p.29, line 6: ‘ “I mean, maybe it was farther up that way.” Travis nodded up the tracks.’ And just below: “Owen looked up the tracks.” Reps of “up” OK?

p.35, middle of page: “Earlene’s face turned red as fire as she jammed the duct tape back into the junk drawer.” And next line: “…Earlene stood stiffly beside him, her fists jammed into her waist…” Rep of “jammed” OK?

p.95, line 4: “Owen looked down into the cage. Tooley floated in the dirty