Will Write for Cake

What Writer's Block?: Inspiration from Kimberly Willis Holt

2011-04-22T12:56:00.001-05:00

I know, we're not supposed to have writer's block. You're just supposed to put your butt in the chair and do it, but sometimes you can sit there all day long and stare at a blank computer screen. If you've been writing for any amount of time, there have probably been times when you just aren't feeling it.

A couple months ago at the Austin SCBWI conference I attended Kimberly Willis Holt's small group session, "Back to the Porch: Breaking Writer's Block and Returning to the Creative Life." How could Kimberly Willis Holt speak about writer's block? It seems like she always has some amazing new book coming out. But she herself lost the will to write for five months.

So it happens to the best. Here are a few tips from Kimberly about moving past the blocks and start writing again:

Set a timer for a certain amount of time you will sit down and write
Write out the problem: draw a diagram showing what would happen if you removed a scene, for example, or changed your character's age. These might not be scenes you'll use, but it'll get you back into the story.
Write about anything. It can help to set the story aside you've been working on and write about something different for a little while to get into the writing habit again.
Webbing: draw a story map or a web about the chapter or scene you're having trouble with. This is a tip from Writing on Both Sides of the Brain that I wrote about here when I was taking forever to finish one chapter.
Start small. Write a list of words you like, or write some ideas on an index card. During the session we each took an index card and wrote about a place that was important to us. Then for a few minutes we brainstormed a list of words, feelings, and details that reminded us of that place. The memories you write about could work their way into a story or lead to new ideas. Kimberly pointed out, "A lot of stories are connected to the words on that card."

The turning point for Kimberly Willis Holt was when she read an interview her daughter did with a musician. Seeing the passion he had for his work inspired her to go out to her front porch where she first started writing, with a pen and paper.

She added that sometimes you'll discover that the story you're working isn't yours to write and you'll have to let it go. Other stories are yours, and they won't get written if you don't write them yourself. But you have to write to find out.

Some other books recommended during the session were Writing Down to the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg, The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp, and Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.

I know that for me, setting the computer aside and freewriting with a pen and paper help me come up with new ideas or figure out a scene when I feel stuck. Other people can't think that way, and have to be in front of the computer screen.

Let us know what's worked for you--how do you get past the blocky times?

A Sweet Deal On the Write Hope Auction For Japan

2011-03-26T12:22:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to point everyone to the Write Hope blog for a way to help out Japan and get a critique from the entire Will Write For Cake bunch!

A group of writers for children and young adults has set up the Write Hope auction to benefit Japanese relief efforts through the organization Save the Children. You can bid on the donated items like signed books, critiques, marketing consultations, and more, including a critique from the members of Will Write For Cake. We'll critique a full picture book manuscript or the first twenty pages of your midgrade or YA manuscript. And we have authors published at all those levels-- PB, MG, and YA, and in both fiction and nonfiction.

I know from experience that this group gives fantastic critiques, so you'll get great feedback! The auction offers lots of great items, so if bidding on a critique isn't for you right now, scroll through the listings to find something more to your liking, or click on their "Donate" tab in the sidebar for another way to give.

Thanks, and good luck with the bidding!

Hey, How'd That Happen?: Mapping Out Your Setting

2011-03-17T23:53:00.001-05:00

At the end of January I received the edit notes for my midgrade novel, CHAINED, so I've been working on those a lot lately, after giving them a couple weeks to sit on my desk so we could get used to one another. One thing the editor asked me to do was make a rough map of the setting. She's having trouble picturing where things are in the story, so that's something I need to make more clear as I revise.

Most of the story takes place on the old circus grounds where the main character, Hastin, works as an elephant keeper. I used the Draw program in OpenOffice to make a diagram of the property and came up with this:

I sent the diagram to the editor, but I've also kept a hard copy next to me while I revise, and it's really helped me firm up the setting. Whatever a character is doing, I check to make sure his actions make sense. Would he really be able to see what he's describing, or would the trees be in the way? Is he close enough to overhear that conversation he's eavesdropping on? What's a water bucket doing by the arena?

Just last night I was working on a scene where Hastin is bathing the elephant, Nandita, in the spring and decides to escape with her. The two of them take off and run away to the forest where Nandita used to live, and from there Hastin plans to return home. Then I looked at the diagram and said, "Hey, you two-- how did you get past the fence?"

Headdesk.

If Hastin were escaping on his own, I'm sure he could climb the fence, but with an elephant? Ummm, now what? Let's see:

People can do amazing things when they're really, really motivated. Powered by an adrenaline rush and desperation, Hastin carries the elephant over the fence. (What? It's not like she's full grown.)
You know, I've always wanted to write fantasy. Hello, magical fence that disappears for a chapter!
That fence is pretty old. How convenient it's rotted away over there by the spring.
Balloons. Lots and lots of helium balloons.

But after sleeping on it, I decided a fence that size would need a few gates, and I hadn't put any in the diagram. People are coming and going throughout the day, and I don't think they're all climbing over the fence. And they had to get the elephant in somehow, didn't they? They brought her in a big truck and drove right up to the arena. But if the gates are too accessible, it would be easy for Hastin and Nandita to escape any time, and the story would be over.

So, now we have one wide gate--one of those big metal ones you might see on a farm, held closed with a chain and padlock. In a couple other places are gates for people to walk on and off the circus grounds.

There. Now we don't have an entire cast of characters trapped forever behind a fence. For the scene I was working on, Nandita is a young elephant and can pass through one of those smaller gates (barely), but when she's older that won't be possible.

This isn't the only scene that changed--I've tweaked so many scenes as a result of having a map of the setting on the writing desk. It made everything so much clearer; if you're holding your setting only in your head, it's too easy to change it as you go along. You can have buildings that change locations from chapter to chapter, trees show up out of nowhere, fences that disappear and reappear.

I'd have saved myself a lot of revision time (and head smacks) if I'd had the setting map from the beginning. It still would have changed along the way, but I would have changed it on the paper diagram too, so I could keep things consistent in the story.

So if you haven't made a setting map for your story, try drawing one out and see if that helps you as your write your draft or revise.

Or a lot of you may have done this already--have you drawn out maps of your settings, and has it helped your writing? Have you used it to work out a problem that came up? Or do you cheat and just add balloons?

Early Entertainment!

2011-02-25T13:48:00.000-06:00

Is there anything more precious than a young child's mind? Everything is brand new! From a Jack-in-the-box to a dinosaur story, from a robin's egg to counting pennies, from a wiggly worm to falling snowflakes, the world is amazing and full of wonderful experiences.

Our writing often strives to entertain and educate, no matter what subject fills the pages. And early television for children employed this creative idea, as well. It was friendly, funny, and just plain goofy. Exactly what audiences of all ages loved. Not cartoons...but real people who demonstated various responses to all kinds of situations. Not fairy tales, but life experiences and how to react to them.

When I first taught kindergarten Sesame Street was controversial! It was too loud, too busy, full of too many characters, jumped from one scene to flashing numbers and letters. Would a child be able to keep up, make sense of it, know what was really the purpose of a particular skit?

But then the viewpoint changed. Kids loved it! The show was well written, showed children things they otherwise would not have seen, and best of all it snuck in learning! And adults found out they liked it, too! Oscar, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Big Bird and a gazillion muppet characters. Who could resist such a stellar cast?

Funny now, when you think about how fast our world and the world of kiddies today revolves with booming technology, ebooks, e picture books, and go, go, go all the time.

How well do you remember educational children's television shows that you loved? Mr. Rogers, Captain Kangaroo, Howdy Doody, Sesame Street, Ding Dong School, Kookla, Fran and Ollie, plus there were often local ones, too.

I watched Big Bill and Oomagog (a robot), and I was on The Uncle Hiram Show on the Fourth of July. I performed with another eight-year-old. We sang AND danced to I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy and You're a Grand Old Flag. We even had canes. It was way, way back, even before color TV!

Let's play TV for Tots Trivia!

1. What was the name of the postman on Mr. Rogers?

2. Who was the shop keeper who passed away on Sesame Street?

3. What was the name for the seated children on Howdy Doody?

4. Who was the most famous puppet held by Shari Lewis?

5. What was the clown's name on Howdy Doody?

6. Why did Mr. Rogers wear sweaters on his show?

7. Who wore bib overalls on Captain Kangaroo?

8. What was the name of the host on Howdy Doody?

9. What song, sang by Ernie on Sesame Street, became a hit?

10. Who was the ruler in the Mr. Rogers Neighborhood of Make-Believe?

How do you rate?

7-10 right and you love kiddy TV

3-6 right and you are probably under the age of 40

0-2 right and you are so, so much younger than I am!

ANSWERS

1. Mr. McFeely

2. Mr. Hooper

3. The Peanut Gallery

4. Lamb Chop

5. Clarabelle

6. His mother knitted every single one.

7. Mr. Greenjeans

8. Buffalo Bob

9. Rubber Ducky

10. King Friday

Stand by and stay tuned!

Do You Mother Goose?

2011-02-14T13:07:00.004-06:00

My latest picture book creation imitates a Mother Goose nursery rhyme. It was a challenge to say the least. In fact, I wrote the first half of the book six months ago, and then finished the second half two weeks ago. My brain had to recover from the first half!

When I mentioned the original rhyme to my husband, he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. The conversation when something like this...

Doris: You never heard of that nursery rhyme?

Hubby: No

Doris: Do you know Little Jack Horner?
Hubby: Huh?

Doris: Have you heard of Little Miss Muffet?
Hubby: Who?

Doris: What about Old Mother Hubbard?
Hubby: Are you kidding?

Doris: Did you read nursery rhymes?
Hubby: No

Doris: Did your mother ever read to you?
Hubby: Never

My hubby is Mother Goose illiterate! That pretty well wrapped our conversation.

But my own childhood was full of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. My mother also sang...silly jingles, lullabies, fav songs, Christmas carols and Christmas favorites, and anything else she felt like performing. She even recited The Song of Hiawatha!

By the shore of Gitchee Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

I even have my own family nursery rhyme! When I got married my name became Doris Lewis Fisher. Oddly, my grandmother had a cousin named Louis Fisher. My mother used to recite this jingle he said. I finally wrote it down and have it memorized.

There once was a fisher named Fisher,
Who fished on the edge of a fissure.
A fish with a grin pulled the gentleman in,
Now they're fishing the fissure for Fisher.

I love saying that nutty rhyme on occasion. Wordplay is just so much doggone fun.

And now it's time for not-so-easy, Mother Goose trivia! Good luck goosies and ganders!

1. Who went to bed with one shoe off and one shoe on?

2. When did the Queen of hearts make tarts?

3. Who sang for his supper?

4. Who found Lucy Locket's pocket?

5. Hark, hark, why do the dogs bark?

6. Who lived in a pumpkin shell?

7. Who came to town in a yellow petticoat and a green gown?
8. How does Mistress Mary's garden grow?
9. Who went to Glouster in a shower of rain?

Mother Goose Rankings!

7-9 correct and you are a Mother Goose gosling!
4-6 correct and you are a birdbrain!
0-3 correct and your goose is cooked!

Answers
1. My son John
2. On a summer's day
3. Little Tommy Tucker
4. Kitty Fisher
5. The beggars are coming to town!
6. Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
7. Daffy-Down-Dilly
8. With silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row
9. Dr. Foster

Watch this blog for more Literature Trivia coming soon!

Eleven -- it's one more than Ten

2011-02-09T09:26:00.004-06:00

I've fretted over this post now for a few weeks. But the pesky thing keeps insisting I write it.

In no way do I want to discourage anyone who truly loves to write and wants to be published. On the contrary, my hope is that this post encourages those of you who get up every day, drink the requisite amount of caffeine and pound away relentlessly at a keyboard. Some of you have been doing this for years -- and still can't seem to break through.

I know how you feel (I've been there!) -- you're on the edge, feeling sick of it all -- revision, submission and most especially, the wicked "R" word that we all HATE with a passion.

I've seen so many writers, after many fervent attempts to get published, simply QUIT. The message of this blog today is -- DON'T.

WHY? Because sometimes the first story doesn't sell, or the fifth or the tenth.

Just ask Beth Revis.

If you haven't heard of her yet, you will soon. She's on the NY Times best seller list for children's chapter books for her debut novel ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. The book, which was only released on January 11th, is a bona fide triumph for Revis.

Now you really want to hurl your computer across the room. You're so tired of hearing about these overnight successes. A debut author on the best seller list? You've been at this for a long time -- when will it be your turn??

Whoa. Don't do anything drastic yet. Not until you hear Beth's story. In a recent interview over at the Apocalypsies blog, her answer to this question blew me away:

Q: This is your first published novel, but have you written other manuscripts?

A: Have I written other manuscripts? *snerk* A giant wave of laughter ripped across the blogosphere. I wrote for ten years--and I wrote ten novels--before I found a novel that was worth publication.

Whaaat? ACROSS THE UNIVERSE was her ELEVENTH completed manuscript? TEN novels under her belt before this one?

I don't know about you, but I find that utterly inspiring. That is what's called perseverance. That's following your passion, no matter what the odds, no matter how many rejections stack up in front of you. Don't you agree?

So if today was the day you were planning on throwing in the towel on your stalled out writing career, maybe you'll think twice. If you have been submitting a manuscript that isn't getting any bites, maybe Beth's story will inspire you to start something new, something fresh. To go one higher.

Start the next story.

I'm guessing Beth Revis is glad that she did.

So tell us, what's inspiring you to stay in the game, no matter what?

Twitter Tutorial: The Long Version

2011-02-08T14:53:00.009-06:00

Monday night I did a Twitter presentation at the Houston SCBWI meeting, as the chapter's official Twitter Goddess. Twitter is easy to use once you get started, but there was a lot of information to try to present to a group in a short time, so I wanted to post a long version of the notes online. I decided to do that in a blog post so anyone who needs help getting started on Twitter or needs a refresher can see the notes. We'll start out with the basic stuff and work our way up to more coolness, so start wherever you need to. At the end of the post are links to a few awesome Twitter articles that others have written.

If you don’t have an account yet, go to twitter.com and click the yellow “Sign Up” button. Fill out the form on the next page. You can choose whatever user name you want as long as it isn’t too long (over 20 characters) and isn’t taken, but it’s best to choose something close to your real name (or the name you use as a writer), so people will recognize you. Sure, I could use my stripper name @BubblesSunnyleather, but since most people I interact with are book people, I want to use my writer name.

It’s okay to use an underscore mark, like JimBob_Writer, but don’t use any other special characters or spaces. Twitter will walk you through a set up for selecting some followers and writing you bio. Fill in a short bio and upload a small picture. Having a bio and a picture lets people know you’re a real person they might like to follow. To edit your profile later, click your user name at the top of the page, then “Settings,” then “Profile.”

Once you have your account, you can start tweeting by typing something (up to 140 characters) in the box at the top of the page, then click “Tweet” to send it. This will show up on your followers’ pages, and anyone who visits your profile will be able to see your tweets. This is kind of like a status update on Facebook--let your followers know what you’re doing, mention a book you just read, ask a question, etc.

Retweets (RTs)
Retweeting is a way to copy what someone else said while still giving credit for it. If you see a tweet that’s funny or interesting, you may want to retweet it for your followers or for anyone who didn’t see it before. Suppose my imaginary friend @HoustonAuthor tweeted this:

Just got a 6-figure book deal! And Disney bought the movie rights! Yay!

So I want to share the good news with my followers who may not know @HoustonAuthor yet, or with those who missed it when this was tweeted hours ago. I could do this automatically by clicking the “Retweet” button just below the tweet:

That will copy the exact tweet from @HoustonAuthor, but with the RT symbol and my user name: by LynneKelly to let my followers know this is something I've retweeted.

Or I might want to add something to it. In that case, I'll copy and paste the tweet by hand, then type my own message and an “RT” before @HoustonAuthor’s name. Then my tweet would look like this:

So now I’ve added my congratulations, and my followers know that everything after the RT refers to what @HoustonAuthor said. Also, they’ll be able to click on @HoustonAuthor’s name to see her Twitter feed if they’d like to.

@Replies
An @reply is a way of saying something to a specific person, although it isn’t private. People who follow both you and the person you’re talking to will see it, as will anyone who visits your page. You can @reply someone by:
- typing @ in front of their user name
- clicking "reply" on one of their tweets
- selecting "Mention" from the tool icon in their profile

Example: @MyPretendDog You’re not sleeping on the bed, are you?

Because @ is the first character there, only people who follow both me and @mypretenddog will see that on their home pages. If I start with any other character, all my followers can see it:

.@MyPretendDog is the best dog ever.
or

I sure hope @MyPretendDog isn’t chewing on the couch.

Any of my followers can see that, because I didn’t start with the @. And @MyPretendDog will notice it when she checks her replies.

So don't do something like this:

@MyPretendDog is awesome and you should all follow her!

'Cause who's going to see that? People already following you and @MyPretendDog, because I started with the @. Put some other character in front of the @, or put the @username later in the sentence.

I could do this too as a way of passing along @HoustonAuthor’s good news. Instead of RTing her book deal tweet, I could write:

Congratulations to @HoustonAuthor on her awesome new book deal!

Interacting with other people is the best part of Twitter, so you want to know if people are talking to you or about you so you can reply back. You don’t want to ignore people, do you?  At the top of the page is this bar:

By clicking on the “@Mentions” tab, you’ll see the tweets of people who mentioned you. When @MyPretendDog checks her replies, she’ll see the tweets that include her user name, like this one:

LynneKelly  I sure hope @MyPretendDog isn’t chewing on the couch.

Then @MyPretendDog will probably want to answer me back:

Even if I’m not on Twitter at the moment to see it on my main page, I’ll see it whenever I check my replies. But remember, it’s not private--anyone following both of us can see that conversation. Suppose I had a cat who followed @MyPretendDog and me. @ThePretendCat noticed our conversation, and tweeted this:

@LynneKelly Hey, @MyPretendDog is sleeping on your bed. Shall I bite her for you?

Both @MyPretendDog and I will see that on our pages and under our Mentions tab, since both our user names are there.

Check your retweets now and then too--if people RT you automatically by just clicking the “Retweet” button under your tweet, you may not see that in your replies. It’s good to thank people who’ve shared one of your tweets, and checking your RTs will show you who’s done that. Click the “Retweets” tab, then “Your tweets, retweeted.

That will bring up a list of your tweets that someone else RTed. Click on the arrow on the right side of the tweet to see who RTed that. Then you can click on each of their names and send them a message if you want. @HoustonAuthor may write something like:

Thanks for the RTs about the book deal! @LynneKelly @Mydog @OtherHoustonAuthor

But what if you want to say something to a person but don’t want the whole world to see it? That’s when you use the direct message, or DM. Again, there’s more than one way to do this. You can type by hand:

But it’s easier to click the “Message” tab on a follower’s profile:

Once you're on your Messages page, click “New Message.” Type who you want to send a DM to, then type your message in the window.

On your Twitter page you’ll see the tweets of people you’re following. Now you know how to tweet, RT, and reply, but if you’re not following anyone your page will be blank. So how do you get followers, and who do you follow?  If you know someone’s user name, you can go to their profile by adding it to the Twitter address in the address bar, like this: www.twitter.com/scbwihouston.

From there you can click the green “Follow” button. Now you’re following SCBWI Houston! [Or if you belong to another SCBWI chapter, you should be able to find them on Twitter also. Type the chapter name in the search window if you don't know their user name, or look at the SCBWIHouston "Following" list-- all the chapters should be there, and you can click "Follow" from there.]

For suggestions, click the “Who to Follow” tab at the top of the page. Twitter will suggest people you might like to follow, based on who you’ve followed so far. There will also be a “Who to Follow” section on the side of your page that Twitter will update with suggestions. You can also search for someone by typing a name in the search box at the top of the page.

Another good way to find people is by checking out others’ “Following” and “Followers” lists. Find out who they like to follow and who’s following them. Once you follow someone, they may decide to follow you back. You'll do the same for your new followers--check your list now and then and see if you'd like to follow back the people who are following you. If you're not interested in following them back, you don't have to do anything, but if they're so creepy you don't even want them following you, hit "Block."

For an easy way to find editors and agents to follow, go to my profile at http://twitter.com/lynnekelly then click "Lists," and select the Editors-Agents list. You'll see the recent tweets from the people on that list, but on the right side of the page, click "View all following" to see everyone I've added to it. (A lot of other writers or publishing people you will have similar lists.) Then check who those people are following--you'll find more people you want to follow.

It's not okay to pitch your novel or query an agent or editor via Twitter, but following them is a great way to find out what's going on in the publishing industry and with their own work; they might tweet "Finally getting to my January queries" or "I wish someone would send me a good mermaid erotica manuscript," for example. And if an agent tweets, "If I get one more manuscript about woodland creatures or wizards I'm going to throw my computer out the window," then you know to send your novel about a squirrel who goes to wizard school to someone else. Of course they also tweet about things that aren't work-related, like what's going on with their kids or pets or where they like to shop. They start to seem like real people, almost.

Look for businesses you like and follow them, too--they may tweet about specials or coupons, and a lot of companies are using Twitter as one more way to provide customer service. Check out the feeds of Overstock.com or Zappo's, for example. Notice how often they're responding to customers. They're watching for people who mention them, offering help to those who complain and saying thanks to those who compliment them.

You don’t have to use lists, but they’re a good way to organize your followers, especially if you’re following a lot of people. When you’re on someone’s page, click on the little arrow button to add them to a list you’ve made:

That way, you can quickly check the tweets only of the people on a certain list, like "My favorite funny people,” "Authors I like," "Friends from prison," or whatever you want to make a list for. Click on a list to weed out everybody else on the page.

Hashtags
By typing a hashtag (#) in front of a word or phrase, people can click on that word or phrase to follow a conversation about that topic, or see what others are saying about it. Good examples are the Tuesday evening #kidlitchat and Wednesday evening #YAlitchat. People interested in children’s and young adult literature discuss that night’s topic by adding #kidlitchat or #YAlitchat to their tweets. When you click on a hashtag like #kidlitchat, a page comes up showing all the tweets with that hashtag, whether you’re following the participants or not. Even if you can’t participate in real-time, you can bring it up later to read the conversation. Either click on the hashtag in someone’s tweet or type it in the search box at the top of the page.

A popular hashtag on Fridays is #FF, for "Follow Friday," used for suggesting other users to follow. Check out the follow recommendations from people you like following, and you may find some new ones to add to your follow list. (@DiandraMae explained at the meeting that while an @ is kind of like the "To:" in an email, a hashtag is like a subject. You don't have to use a hashtag, but it's a way to follow a subject.)

Under "trending topics" on the right side of your home page, Twitter lists the popular topics people are talking about, and those are often hashtag phrases.

A Bit About Marketing
There were some questions about using Twitter to market yourself, but really, the best way to market yourself is to NOT actively market yourself, if that makes sense. Or at least not to look like you are. It's not interesting to follow people who tweet about their own book (or themselves in general) over and over, but users who have a lot of followers are those who interact with others and are funny, helpful, supportive, entertaining, or otherwise interesting. For users who tweet about all kinds of stuff and interact with their followers, I celebrate with them when they tweet, "Hey, I just got a book deal!" because I feel like I already know them. And I'll probably look for that book when it comes out. I'll give a couple popular authors on Twitter as examples (please share your favorites in the comments--there are so many great authors on Twitter.

Look how many followers Maureen Johnson has. She didn't get many by talking about her books. Notice how many of her tweets show her interacting with those followers. (When she has a phrase in quotes with someone's user name, that's her way of RTing a question or comment to her, then she'll type her answer after that.) Whenever she does mention a new release or other good news about her books, it doesn't bother anyone because that's not what her twitter feed is about. It's about her being herself and having fun talking to people about whatever's going on with her (or her weird neighbors). I'm not saying you have to tweet as much as she does--she's obviously a vampire who needs no sleep, or she has a well-trained army of monkeys to do her work for her. Tweet as little or as much as you're comfortable with, but remember to be yourself and get to know people.

Libba Bray is another great example of a funny/interesting/nice/wacky person to follow. You'll notice she too has a good balance of tweets, retweets, and replies in her feed. (She'd probably say that she's not well-balanced otherwise.)

Follow Cynthia Leitich Smith because she knows everyone and everything. Great links to author/agent/editor interviews and articles about the publishing industry, and she's super-supportive of other authors.

The Writer's Digest article listed below goes more in depth into social networking and book sales.

You can do everything on Twitter straight from the web page, but there are applications you can download to make it easier to organize and follow. Tweetdeck, for example (downloaded from tweetdeck.com) organizes your lists, replies, and hashtags you’re following into columns, automatically shortens web page addresses, and makes it easy to add pictures to your tweets.

See these excellent articles for more information:

Nathan Bransford's post about how to use Twitter
Twitter Tips For Writers
Mom, This Is How Twitter Works (Not Just For Moms!)
Don't Tweet That: How Not To Be A Twitter Dork (includes easy fixes)

Still have questions? Send me an @reply on Twitter. Like this:

Some of My Best Friends Are Fictional Characters

2011-02-07T08:00:00.101-06:00

On Wednesday I wrote about how the authors at the Montgomery County Teen Book Festival answered what one book they'd save from their burning house (I still shudder at the thought). Another question was about what person from the past they'd like to be friends with. Here's how they answered:

Lois Lowry thought the writer of the Little Lulu comics would be fun to hang out with because Lulu was was always outsmarting people, especially boys. She's intrigued that the author's name was listed only as "Marge" and would love to know how that happened. (So Marge was doing the one-name thing before Madonna and Beyonce.) Thomas Sniegoski had a comic book answer too; he's a comic book writer himself, among other things, and wishes he could meet the famous comic book writer and artist Jack Kirby.

Anna Godbersen chose Ernest Hemingway--not a surprise, since we know from the saving a book from your house fire post that she's a big Hemingway fan, but Jeff Stone had the same answer. Despite his love for Herman Melville, he thinks he'd be too hard to talk to, while Hemingway seems like a guy he could drink and fish with.

Justina Chen would like to meet with Amelia Earhart because of her brave pioneer spirit.

Those are all good answers, but when I thought about what historical figures I'd like for a BFF, I kept thinking of fictional characters. Maybe it's just more fun to think about being friends with a character from a book instead of a real person. Here are a few I thought of:

Harriet from Harriet the Spy. I'm sure we'd have fun wandering around the neighborhood looking for adventures and writing in our notebooks. I remember wanting to be Harriet when I read Harriet the Spy and The Long Secret, and I even had a notebook where I wrote down things I observed. I don't remember what I wrote, but it's probably a good thing no one ever found it.

Sophia from The Color Purple. She'd be a blast to hang out with. Plus, she'll tell you exactly how she feels, and anyone who crossed you would get a punch in the face.

So many people from the Harry Potter series, but the Weasley Twins in particular. They'd always keep you laughing, no matter what's going on. And how much fun would it be to go to school at Hogwarts?

Katniss from The Hunger Games series. A loyal friend, and when times are rough she'll hunt down some food for you. Hanging out with Peeta and Gale would be an added bonus.

Jacob Black from the Twilight series. What? He'd make a great space heater. You know how cold it is outside?

I'm not the only one with friends from books, am I? What literary characters would be your ideal BFFs?

Bugs

2011-02-05T08:33:00.002-06:00

My whole family buzzed with excitement when I opened an envelope recently with this caricature drawing of my sons from Neil Numberman, the talented and funny artist of the JOEY FLY, PRIVATE EYE books:

A prize from Tara Lazar’s PiBoIdMo, Neil’s illustration here strangely captures something of the essence of my boys. Being a termite would be pretty cool – what other creature can eat a whole house?

Admit it. It would be fun to be a bug. Once you get past the hairy, skittering legs and compound eyesballs, creepy crawlies have some pretty fantastic abilities. Who wouldn’t want to fly, or shine a taillight without batteries?

My oldest son fantasizes about being a bug that can walk up walls. (I frequently find him hanging from doorframes).

My younger son spent the better part of his first grade year drawing and cutting out scorpions because . . . well, we’re not sure really. (We worry sometimes that expensive therapy may be in his future.)

My personal fav is the caterpillar. What other creature can do nothing but eat for a month, then take a serious two-week nap, only to wake up skinny and beautiful? But alas, I’m not a caterpillar. A month-long binge would only result in a spider spinning a web above my head declaring me “Some Pig.”

Strider bugs walk on water, monarchs can find their way to Mexico without a map, and no one messes with a rhino beetle. What kind of bug would you be?

Books We Grab In The Fire

2011-02-02T11:02:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I attended the Montgomery County Teen Book Festival, speed-walking in about ten minutes after the general session started, about as punctual as usual. As I arrived, the young adult authors on the panel were answering a question what one book they'd grab on the way out the door if their house were on fire. (This is assuming family members and pets are safe). Quite a variety of answers:

Lois Lowry talked about her copy of The Shining, a first edition autographed by Stephen King. Um, yes, I'd grab that too. Use it as a downpayment on a new house.

I think Thomas Sniegoski's answer was most like mine--he's pretty sure he'd burn up with all the books, because they're all over his house and it would be impossible to save just one. Plus, his house is highly flammable.

Anna Godbersen and Jeff Stone both picked classic novels. Anna's choice was Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, and Jeff would take Moby Dick, which he reads at least once a year. I get that we have our favorite classics, but unless it's signed by Herman Melville (or even Stephen King) or it stopped a bullet for me, I'm not grabbing Moby Dick in a fire. There must be a used bookstore on the corner that has a copy.

Justina Chen said she'd likely be standing there throwing things into the fire, like all of her journals to make sure no one would get a hold of them if she perished in the flames. I'm sure a lot of us would be doing the same thing, and throwing in a few first drafts of novels too. But assuming she had time then to escape, she'd grab the book her kids made for her. Good choice! Irreplaceable, and something that can make you happy when you're crying about your house burning to the ground.

I started wondering what book I'd snag from the burning bookshelf. I do have a shelf of signed books (not The Shining, but still), so I'd probably scoop them all up as I stop, drop, and roll out the door, although I suppose that's cheating to pick several. But I do have a book of my grandmother's poetry. She was a writer almost all of her life, and at age 99 she could still recite a poem she wrote 50 years ago. My aunt put a lot of Grandma's poetry together in a book (actually it's a two-volume set now), along with pictures of her throughout her life. So that would have to be the book I'd grab--not nearly as replaceable as everything else. If we're talking about a published book on the shelf, I'd have a harder time narrowing it down to one.

So what book would you take with you when escaping a fire? Not photo albums--those are safe in the front yard with the family. This is a different question than those like, "If you could have one book with you on a desert island...," because it's more about sentimental value, or even monetary value, rather than the book you enjoy reading over and over again.

Would yours be one signed by a favorite author, a classic novel you've reread many times, or something of sentimental value? Maybe you've written in the margins of it, or you remember it as the first book you really loved, or it's one that someone you loved gave you.

I know, we'd all grab tote bags and empty the bookshelves into them, but no cheating--you have to pick just one!

Lessons From Austin Powers

2010-12-29T12:55:00.011-06:00

This week I finished reading a book I couldn't wait to get my hands on, because I loved the last book I'd read by the same author. It took me a couple months to read, though--sure, I've had other stuff going on to distract me, but I didn't have that can't-put-it-down feeling I get when I really, really love a book. You know the ones, where you look up at the end and notice your house is a mess and your family is hungry? Wasn't happening here.

Although my writing so far has been only realistic fiction, I read all different genres, so I'm willing to do my share of suspending disbelief. Traveling in a spaceship to live on a new planet? Yeah, let's see what that's like. Vampires sitting at the next table in the cafeteria? Sure. I may even spend time debating whether I'd prefer a werewolf boyfriend or a vampire boyfriend. (Not saying I've done that. But if I did, I'd pick werewolf.)

But in any book, the real-life stuff has to be believable. If it isn't, that's when I start thinking about Austin Powers.

We can actually learn a lot about writing by watching that groovy international man of mystery and his nemesis, Dr. Evil:

"Start the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism!" Here's a great bit of dialog from the first movie, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, between Dr. Evil and son Scott:

Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy's nemesis, Austin Powers.
Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don't you just kill him?
Dr. Evil: I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.

And later, when Austin and Vanessa are suspended above the tank they'll be lowered into:

Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
Close the tank!
Scott: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
Scott: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!
Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.

Is your antagonist acting like a parody of a villain? Are your readers going to feel annoyed and frustrated like Scott and yell at the book, "Why don't you just shoot him?" Of course, you don't want your protagonist to die or your story would be over. But if someone's out to get her, why don't they catch her right away? There has to be a reason they miss, a reason for the chase. Does the heroine somehow evade her pursuer, just when he's gotten close? That's suspenseful. Or does the villain have a chance to stop her, but let her go because he's holding out for something more dramatic? That's Dr. Evil. If the bad guys are out to get us, they're not going to wait around for sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.

"A lot's changed since 1967." Technology and language changes from one year to the next, even. Unless it's meant to add authenticity to a historical setting, avoid using slang that can make your book seem dated within a couple years. If your character's dialog doesn't ring true--he no longer sounds like himself, he's talking like his mom or like someone who grew up in the 80s instead of now--you pull your readers right out of the story. Keep up with what's going on in the world and with your audience so you won't sound like someone who's been cryogenically frozen for thirty years.

"You're semi-evil. You're quasi-evil. You're the margarine of evil. You're the diet Coke of evil. Just one calorie, not evil enough." The Austin Powers movies have no shortage of one-dimensional bad guys. Dr. Evil and is henchmen are funny in the movie, but we don't want our own characters do be accidentally funny caricatures with all the emotional depth of Fembots. If characters have no flaws or weak moments, readers don't feel like they know them, because they don't know anyone who's all good or all bad. Don't you feel more connected to a story when you see what a character seems familiar to you?

Think about the villains people love, or love to hate. Why is Hannibal Lecter such a memorable and convincing bad guy? None of us would want him living next door, but he's intriguing. If he were repulsive at every moment we'd turn away, but we see his human side too. He loves classical music. He's respectful to Clarice Starling, even cares about her, although they're on opposite sides of the law. (For more on how Hannibal Lecter can help with character development, here's a great post I came across on Suite 101.)

If we saw Hannibal's evil plotting only, he'd be forgettable or laughable. We remember Hannibal; we laugh at Snidely Whiplash and Dr. Evil.

Hey, where did that come from? That's something your readers should never have to ask. A character can defend herself with a nearby object if it fits the setting and we're not seeing it for the first time. We have to see the object in an earlier scene so we're not taken aback when it conveniently shows up right when she needs it. We're okay with the henchman Random Task throwing a shoe at Austin Powers in Goldmember, because it was introduced earlier as his weapon of choice, however ridiculous. But if your heroine grabs a pool cue from her car trunk during a fight and informs us just then that she was planning on taking pool lessons, we're going to be confused and annoyed by the deus ex machina-ness of the scene.

In this comical fight scene from Goldmember, some of the objects used as weapons make sense, like the mini bottle that Mini-Me grabs from the hotel minibar, but things like the inexplicable frying pan add to the absurdity of the scene.

Avoid the frying pan.

There are probably many more lessons we can learn from the smashing Austin Powers, but these are just a few to keep in mind while writing and revising. We give our story the attention it deserves when we work to create well-rounded, three-dimensional characters who act and speak in ways that make sense, within a setting that makes sense.

Putting in all that effort isn't the easy way out, but it's worth all the work you put into it. 'Cause when you get it right, it's a beautiful as sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads.

Now stay shagadelic, babies!

Swaggerin' In A Winter Wonderland

2010-12-22T16:48:00.002-06:00

We woke up to find this post from agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe in which she was looking especially...purple. And sparkly. She's always a ninja, as you can see from her epic battle scenes and as evidenced by her contract negotiation battle scars, but now she's looking even more stylish than usual. And she can keep warm.

Jo really liked the picture of Monica & me in our Snuggies in my agent celebration post, so we thought she might like one of her own. But we couldn't just get her a plain one. Even the animal print ones weren't unique enough. Thankfully we came across some inspiration from Lara Zielin's Bluggie commercial.

Perfect! We shall decorate a Snuggie!

And what should we have embroidered on it? Her name, or a special title? What do you call someone who takes a manuscript you've written and entices editors to make a deal with her when she leans against an office wall asking, "Hey, need a book? I got just what you need."

Yes, that works nicely! It actually turned out more bejeweled than pictured here by the time I sent it-- there were a few stray spots of the super-duper adhesive I used, and nothing was going to remove it. So...cover with more jewels! (There's probably a writing lesson in there somewhere about revising or something. Perhaps that'll be another post.)

Here are the sleeves:

This is truly one of those times when it's better to give than receive; we had a lot of fun making this and we've been giggling about it for weeks.

To all of our agents, editors, friends and readers out there, may your days be sparkly and bright, and may all your Christmases be gold-embroidered.

It's December!

2010-12-01T16:46:00.004-06:00

November is over and you know what that means...no not Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, not buying and wrapping and mailing, not cards and cooking and parties.

It means PiBoIdMo is over...YAY! That's Picture Book Idea Month in case you were wondering.

It means I wrote down an idea, title, detail, character or plot for each day in November...you know, 30 wacked out, ridiculous, hilarious, sensational and best selling ideas.

This was the brain child of Tara Lazar and has caught on like hula hoops, pet rocks, and Beanie Babies. Everyday we read a post to inspire our creativity. These were wonderful and meant I could still be as silly as I wanted even though the last time I played Hi Ho Cherry-O, tried to lick my elbow, or turned a somersault was many a year ago!

Oh, the word possibilites to ponder...animals, names, aliens, the ocean, outer space, bugs, yo-yos, sparklers, monsters, and on and on and on. It was a chance to think short and crazy, long and hazey or even square and mazey!

I took my ideas to the Cakers at critique yesterday for an out loud reading. It's funny how they all seemed to agree on which ones appealed the most. And it also showed me which ones to consider first. The support I get from the Cakers is delicious. I'm fired up , ready to write, eternally hopeful as all writers must be.

Look out December, Doris is writing more than she is wrapping!

Revising With Chocolate And Pirates

2010-11-20T01:26:00.004-06:00

I'm sure everyone's been to those workshops or conferences that are just okay--the speakers are good, and you pick up one or two things you might use in your writing. Or a few days later you tell someone it was a good workshop, but you can't think of anything specific you learned.

Nothing like what we went to last weekend.

Three of us Cakers--Christina, Laura and &--attended Darcy Pattison's amazing Novel Revision Retreat, hosted by the Brazos Valley SCBWI.

Luckily, even a couple of rotting tires couldn't get in my way. Before leaving town I stopped for an oil change. "Change" may not be the right word, really. The way my jalopy leaks oil, it's more accurate to say "oil replacement." But I digress. The mechanic told me not to go anywhere without getting two dry-rotted tires replaced. I wondered if it would help to rub the tires with a really good moisturizer, perhaps a hydrating mask, but mechanics look at you funny if you suggest things like that. Seems what I was driving around on were about as sturdy as papier-mâché, so a detour to Discount Tire was next.

Finally, I was on my way for real. I got to the workshop only about 15 minutes late, and there was chocolate on the table! In bowls that kept getting refilled all weekend!

I'd used Darcy's book Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise while revising CHAINED, and it helped so much (like with adding those pesky feelings I've mentioned), but it was even better seeing the activities and discussing in our small groups how we could use what we'd learned to revise our own novels.

For several of the activities, we used our "shrunken manuscripts" (the full novel printed single-spaced in an 8 point font). You can read more about the shrunken manuscript here, and it's a great way to visualize the big-picture stuff in your novel. Here's an example:

So that's my whole novel on my living room floor. At the workshop I placed a blue "X" over the chapters I thought were the strongest. They're pretty well spread out throughout the beginning, middle, and end of the story, so that's good. If you do this for your own novel, see if there are huge gaps between chapters you marked. If the strong chapters are all at the beginning and at the end, the middle of the novel may not be interesting enough to keep a reader going till the end. If your first chapter isn't one you marked as strong, see if there's a better place to start telling the story.

In this next activity, we used different colors of highlighters to mark the sensory details in one scene.

The scene is from chapter 3 of my YA novel REASONS FOR LEAVING. The main character, Minna, is lying in bed after being fired from yet another job. Here's an excerpt from that scene before the revision:

Our bulldog Marge walks in and climbs onto my bed. Well, not so much climbs, I guess. It's more like, she puts her front paws on the bed and waits for me to help her up. She always knows when I'm having a bad day. She licks my face once before lying down next to me.

After highlighting the sensory details there (not too many, other than what she sees and the dog licking her face), I set the page aside and rewrote the scene, keeping in mind that it would be stronger with more sensory details. Here's the "after" excerpt:

Our bulldog Marge saunters in and climbs onto the bed. Well, not so much climbs. It's more like, she puts her paws on the edge of the bed and waits for me to hoist her up. She's panting from the effort, even though I'm the one doing the heavy lifting. Her breath smells bacony--like real bacon, not like those treats that look just like bacon (but trust me, taste nothing like bacon).
"Margie, have you been getting into the trash?" She's probably been chewing on paper towels I threw away after making BLTs last night.
She licks my face once and flops down next to me. She always seems to know when I'm having a bad day.

I'm sure I'll end up tweaking that more as I revise, but just that couple minutes of scribbling results in a scene that works harder to bring the reader into the story with more sensory detail.

Later in the story, Marge throws a wrench into Minna's plans when she again gets into the trash and then the laundry, so the scene now does something Darcy mentioned she learned from Linda Sue Park: every chapter should have something that looks forward and something that looks back. When Marge does this again later, the reader will already know that this is a habit of hers.

Saturday night after taking waaaaay too long at dinner (What? The restaurant had a dessert called "ooey gooey chocolate cake"), we returned to the hotel meeting room to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. Can you believe I'd never seen it before? But even those who had seen it were able to watch it in a whole new way, because throughout the movie Darcy pointed out things we'd learned from our revision activities.

Objects weren't placed in a scene for no reason. That bed warmer? Nice weapon for whacking a bad guy in the face. We saw examples of mirror characters, like the two incompetent English soldiers and their pirate counterparts; repetition, like everyone swooning whenever Johnny Depp appeared Jack always grabbing for his personal effects, and Elizabeth singing the pirate song--once as a young girl at the beginning of the movie, and years later on the beach with Jack; and reversals of dialogue: a couple times throughout the movie, someone calls Jack "The worst pirate I've ever seen." At the end, an officer says, "That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen."

These are all things we don't usually notice when watching a movie, but they add to the character development and the storyline, so novel writers can learn a lot from the big screen. I'm sure I'll spot those literary devices in movies from now on. But I won't mention them out loud while in a movie theater, unless I want people beating me up with popcorn buckets.

So, if you ever get a chance to go to one of Darcy's workshops, go!

But you might need to give me a ride.

Dude Talks Like a Lady

2010-10-11T22:05:00.003-05:00

I know you writers--ideally you'd stay home all day without letting things like pesky day jobs get in the way of your creative genius, right? But think about what you know or what you've learned because of your day jobs. Anything that helps with your writing?

As a sign language interpreter, I'm in one of the rare jobs that allows me to work in completely different settings each day. Where else can you go from a doctor appointment to a business meeting to a college class to rehab all in the same week? The same day, even. I mean, unless you're a doctor who has a meeting and perhaps a graduate school class and a drinking problem.

I'm not going to run home after an assignment and write any deaf clients into a novel (I promise), but having access to so many different places gives me a broad vocabulary and knowledge about what those settings look like. And it helps me catch dialogue in a manuscript that doesn't ring true, because I have to be aware of how deaf clients want me to sound when it's my voice delivering their message. I'm constantly thinking, "How would this person sound if he were saying this with his own voice instead of with his hands?"

A few days ago I saw this post on Tracy Marchini's blog about differences in male and female speech. Great information about writing realistic dialogue for male and female characters. When reading it I thought, "Hey, I forgot that I knew that!" The research she cited like A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication: Essential Readings included information that I've picked up in interpreting workshops, so it's the kind of knowledge I've been using forever without consciously thinking about how it applies to my writing.

To put it simply, when I'm interpreting for a man, I don't want to sound like a girl. I know, the others in the conversation or the audience hear a female voice, but I try to match my tone and word choice to the speaker. Maybe my own word for something that's great would be "awesome," but that would be a weird choice if I'm interpreting for a 90-year-old. If the speaker is a male, I try to avoid saying things in ways that are associated with female speech. We can do the same in our writing.

For example, women tend to use more "qualifiers" when speaking, like "kind of," "I think," "maybe," and "tend to," like I just used. So I watch for those when writing dialogue. In my own work-in-progress, a male character said something like this when asked about taking a year off from college:

"No, it wasn't really planned, but my dad lost his job, so it's been kinda hard. I came home to work and help them out a little before going back to school."

Okay, now quit being a girl.

That's been revised to "I didn't plan to leave, but my dad lost his job."

Now, I shouldn't have to qualify this but I will. ('Cause I'm a girl? Maybe.) Of course no one is saying this is how all women talk or how all men talk. Communication styles vary from person to person and from setting to setting. We know women who speak very directly, without hesitations or qualifiers, and there are men who do say "kinda sorta." This is about patterns that researchers have found when studying how men and women communicate. Like all research, the results don't apply to everyone.

Alrighty then. Here are some other things that are common in female speech, so look for these when you revise your male characters' dialogue. (I'm also constantly editing these out of my emails before sending, because I know my sentences will sound stronger without them.)

Tag questions: ending sentences with phrases like "Isn't it?" or "Don't you think?" to elicit a response from others.
Intensifiers, like "so," "very," and "really." It might seem like "really" adds emphasis, but often it makes a statement weaker.
Hesitations: "Okay," and "Well," for example, within the sentence.
Questioning statements: Asking someone "Could you put that down?" instead of saying, "Put that down."
Inclusive language, like "Let's" and "We should."

In addition to the article cited at the beginning of the post, I found more information in this fascinating article by Elizabeth F. Morgan, about what she discovered about her own use of "powerless language" when interpreting for a deaf businessman. Although it's meant as an article for interpreters, I think it's a great resource for writers, too. There's even a handy-dandy chart with examples of language that sounds masculine or feminine.

One important point Tracy Marchini brought up in her post was that there's a difference in written dialogue and real-life speech. Women use more "encouraging speech" to keep the conversation going and affirm that they're listening, but you don't want to clutter up your written dialogue with utterances like "Mm-hmm," and "I see," even if we do that in real life; that would be boring for the reader.

On another note, the research can explain some miscommunications between men and women. While men see a question as a request for information, women use questions as a way to keep the conversation going. Ever heard a woman complain about her husband or boyfriend telling her how to solve her problem, when she just wants to vent?

Here's how a girlfriend might answer our question if we're complaining about a co-worker who has wronged us and deserves to perish in a rabid squirrel attack:

"How could she do that?"
"I know, seriously? I cannot believe her."

And here's how a guy answers the same question:

"How could she do that?"
"Here's what you should do..."

Yeah, that's annoying. But we've confused them by asking a question we don't expect them to answer with instructions.

I'd like to write more about day jobs, but since this post is getting long I'll save that for later. But tell us in the comments how your day job benefits you as a writer (besides the paycheck), and I'll include some of those in the next post. And tell us what you think about the male/female communication styles-- are there other things you've noticed that I didn't mention here, and what have you seen in your own work when writing dialogue?

I won't mind if you don't edit out your qualifiers in your comments, either. Really.

(Whether these differences are learned or inborn is a whole 'nother discussion, one I won't get into here. What do you think, loquacious baby?)

Voice, defined

2010-09-30T16:15:00.008-05:00

Voice:

The words you choose.

It’s tone.

It’s mood.

It’s the way you structure.

You just know it when you see it, when you hear it.

I’ve heard writers, agents, and editors all try to explain this elusive concept of voice in writing.

At the National Book Festival last Saturday, I had the privilege to hear a presentation by one of the world’s best-loved illustrators, Jerry Pinkney. He stood up to speak late in the afternoon, when the tired crowds had thinned, but die-hard fans remained. He talked about his childhood, and the hours he spent with a sketchbook in his hand.

And then he answered a young girl's question.

“Mr. Pinkney, how do you draw pictures, so that they look like yours and not someone else’s?”

He paused a minute, considering.

“What I think you are asking about is called style,” he said. “But style is not how I draw. Style is how I see the world.”

Surely Mr. Pinkney’s simple description tells us something important about every creative discipline, including that intangible idea of writer’s voice.

We practice and practice to master the writer’s craft, until it becomes a natural extension of who we are.

And if we are brave enough, we are finally able to say something of our own unique experience, something someone else is longing to hear.

Contest of Unspeakable Evil Update!

2010-09-25T10:50:00.001-05:00

Remember you have till tomorrow night (before midnight central time) to comment on the Speak Loudly post for a chance to win your choice of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler, or Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

And, instead of picking one winner, we'll pick a winner for every ten people who comment. Thanks for all the comments so far, everyone!

Bloggers Speak Out--and give away a bunch o' books!

2010-09-22T22:32:00.002-05:00

For those of you who have been following the Springfield, Missouri book challenges and the subsequent overwhelming support (Twitter explosion, anyone?) for the authors, today's Springfield News-Leader printed some new articles about the controversy.

Here's the newspaper's article, "Parents, Take The Opportunity to Discuss Issues Writers Raise," and editorials from authors Laurie Halse Anderson and Sarah Ockler.

Bloggers Speak Out is a movement sparked by the article that got us all a bit riled up, "Filthy Books Demeaning to Republic Education," in which Dr. Wesley Scroggins advocated the censorship of books in schools, and specifically requested that the following books be removed from the Republic school system: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler, and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

I'm sure the response to the challenge was more widespread than anyone could have predicted. Those of us who love books get a little miffed when someone tries to take them away. So many writers and readers chose to speak out to show their support for these authors and fight against book banning and censorship.

To make it easier to find all the contests, reviews, and articles, the awesome Natalie at Mindful Musings put together a list of bloggers doing giveaways and book reviews of the challenged books. (And here's Natalie's fabulous letter to the editor in the News-Leader!)

Remember you have till the 26th to enter our contest; comment on Sunday's post for a chance to win one of the three books mentioned in the article.

Here's the giant list! Now go read and win some books!




Below is a list of links of bloggers speaking out against book banning and censorship--in the form of giveaways, posts, and reviews. Some are "officially" participating in what we're calling Bloggers Speak Out, and others are posts that we've found around the blogosphere. If you get time, you should definitely check them out! 



Giveaways of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
**All giveaways will end on 10/3, unless otherwise noted**
Papercut Reviews
Braintasia Books
Escape through the Pages
Tina's Book Reviews
Sea of Pages
Mrs. Deraps Reads
Moonlight Book Reviews
Cari's Book Blog
Just Your Typical Book Blog
For What It's Worth
Wondrous Reads (Ends 9/27)
Frankie Writes (Ends ?)
The Elliot Review (Ends ?)
The Bookologist (Ends ?)
La Femme Readers
Other Giveaways
**All giveaways will end on 10/3, unless otherwise noted**
-Lisa Schroeder: ARC of The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney (Ends 9/23)
-Will Write for Cake: Win Speak, Twenty Boy Summer, or Slaughterhouse Five 
-Mindful Musings (here): Win Speak, Twenty Boy Summer, or Slaughterhouse Five
-Teens Read and Write: Win The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
-Mundie Moms: Win Speak, Burned, Twenty Boy Summer, or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Ends 9/26)
-Wicked Awesome Books: Win a "Filthy Books" Prize Pack
-Carol's Prints: Win Speak and The Mockingbirds
-Myra McEntire: Win Speak, Twenty Boy Summer, or Harry Potter
-The Bookish Type: Win Speak or Twenty Boy Summer
-Bea's Book Nook: Win Speak & an ALA Challenged Book (Ends 10/2)
-Sarah Ockler: Win a Wesley Scroggins Filthy Books Prize Pack (Ends 10/1)

Other Posts Against Book Banning and Censorship
Braintasia Books
Escape Through the Pages
As Told by Jen 
Aine's Realm
The Compulsive Reader
Once Upon a Bookcase
Daily Dose
Speak Loudly Book Drop @ Late Bloomer Online
A Life Bound by Books
Red House Books
Frankie Writes
Michelle's Bookshelf
I Should Be Writing
The Undercover Book Lover
Punk Writer Kid
Lisa and Laura Write
Between the Covers
Another Book Junkie
Jenni Elyse
Eve's Fan Garden
The Ultimate Dumpees
Reading the Best of the Best
The Pirate's Bounty
Reclusive Bibliophile
Book Faery
Bloggers Heart Books
Book Swarm
Fantasy 4 Eva
The Ladybug Reads
The Lady Critic's Library
Emilie's Book World
Jacob's Beloved
Just Your Typical Book Blog
Maggie's Bookshelf
Basically Amazing Books
Novel Thoughts
Random Ramblings
Holes in my Brain
Readligion
Vision Quest Fail
Shelby Barwood
Supernatural Snark
Consumed by Books
Ann Marie Gamble
The Darker Side of the Fire
Katie's Book Blog
Sassymonkey (BlogHer)
GreenBeanTeenQueen
Jessica Lei
Maria Romana
Abby Minard
The Mimosa Stimulus
Books and Things
Beyond the Trestle
Authors Speak Out
Laurie Halse Anderson: This guy thinks Speak is pornographic
Laurie Halse Anderson: The power of speaking loudly
Author Gayle Forman @ Eve's Fan Garden
Author Saundra Mitchell @ Eve's Fan Garden
Karen Rivers
Sarah Ockler: I Speak Loudly for Speak
Sarah Ockler: On Book Banning Zealots and Ostriches
Author Laura Manivong @ Page Turners 
Cheryl Rainfield: Fight Against Ignorance
Myra McEntire: Speak Loudly: In Defense of Laurie Halse Anderson
Andrea Cremer: Speak Out
Natalie Standiford on Censorship @ Emily's Reading Room
Important Articles on the Subject
"Filthy Books Demeaning to Republic Education" (the article that started it all)
Scroggins' Official Complaint to the School Board (PDF)
"Republic School Book Choices under Fire" (Springfield News-Leader)
Laurie Halse Anderson's Editiorial in the Springfield News-Leader
Sarah Ockler's Editorial in the Springfield News-Leader
Natalie @ Mindful Musings' Letter to the Editor in the Springfield News-Leader
Essay: Kurt Vonnegut's Thoughts on the First Amendment

Speaking Loudly for SPEAK + Giveaway

2010-09-19T17:38:00.014-05:00

Bad things happen everyday. Hiding books that deal with the tough issues won't make the problems go away; it just gives those who have experienced them one less place to go to feel like they're less alone. Books allow us a safe place to see people who survived the unspeakable.

If you're a writer and you've been online today, you've probably seen the outrage over Professor Wesley Scroggins' opinion piece in his Springield, Missouri newspaper about the "soft porn" high school students are exposed to in their English classrooms. He gave Laurie Halse Anderson's National Book Award-winning novel SPEAK as an example.

In case you're unfamiliar with the book, here's a description from the jacket:

"Speak up for yourself - we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows that this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication. In this powerful novel, an utterly believeable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.

I won't ask how familiar our readers are with pornography, soft or otherwise, but I hope we'd all agree that rape isn't porn. I find it disturbing that Dr. Scroggins thinks it is.

On one hand it would be nice if everyone ignored Dr. Scroggins so he'd quietly go away without an audience, but then what? No one says anything, and any book he doesn't like will quietly go away too, removed from the library shelves--like Slaughterhouse Five--to avoid any unpleasantness. I don't want Dr. Scroggins deciding what goes in my library or anyone else's. The thought of bare shelves saddens me.

I'm going to venture a guess that Dr. Scroggins hasn't read the books he objects to so vehemently. Maybe he heard about them from someone else, or at best he flipped through them to find sentences he could hold up as offensive. It's hard to imagine how he thinks we're protecting high school students by removing this book. If students don't read about a girl who was assaulted at a party, I suppose that will prevent it from ever happening to them.

People have been posting about this all day, more eloquently than I ever could, so I knew that much of my post here would include "Here are some awesome people and what they said." Laurie Halse Anderson wrote her own response on her website. It's so inspiring to see the support for her in blog posts and the flood of responses on Twitter (tagged #SpeakLoudly) from writers and readers.

Most inspiring of all, though, are the writers who wrote about their own abusive pasts, their own trauma, and said "This book helped me" or "I wish I had this book when I was a teen." I can't imagine how hard it was for them to write about their experiences, and I'm amazed they've found the strength to do it. Here are just a couple of them:

Author Cheryl Rainfield, who has survived things I can't even bear to think about.

Author C.J. Redwine, who says, "I'm a Christian too, and a rape survivor, and I want SPEAK on the shelves."

I think the most powerful message was from the student who commented on Dr. Scroggins' post to say, "As a middle school girl, I was raped by a family member. I feel strongly that I might have made an actual suicide attempt if it hadn't been for a teacher who saw me where other teachers just let me fade into the background. She was the one who gave me Speak. There were no other books about being a rape victim allowed for girls my age, and Speak (in tandem with my wonderful, wonderful teacher) allowed me to understand it wasn't my fault, I could be okay. Since then, I have participated in many groups, and have found out that my story, sadly, isn't uncommon. There are far too many girls out there like me to take away one of the few books out there that speaks directly to us, tells us it will be okay, tells us that we have the right to fight for ourselves. This book isn't pornographic; it is a rallying cry for abused, raped girls who don't what to do or how to live. I thank God for Laurie Halse Anderson, that she helped me and that her book stands to help so many others."

Laurie Halse Anderson has heard from thousands of kids like her about how SPEAK has impacted them. Here's her poem about those letters:

That's who we should be listening to.
--------------------------------------------
Want to win one of the books from Wesley Scroggins' article? Leave a comment and I'll pick a winner next Sunday. Winner gets a choice of Speak, Twenty Boy Summer, or Slaughterhouse Five.

Also visit Sarah Ockler's blog (author of Twenty Boy Summer) for a chance to win all three books, plus chocolate!

It's for research, I swear!

2010-09-15T16:42:00.002-05:00

I love the news programs like 48 Hours and Dateline, and recently discovered ID-- that dangerous time-suck of a cable channel that's like a true crime marathon. I've watched enough of the shows to know that if someone's accused of a murder, the police will probably be checking their computer history. Each time, I'm amazed that the suspect hadn't thought of that. I want to scream at the TV, "Seriously? You Googled 'How to poison someone with antifreeze,' then poisoned your husband with antifreeze?! Didn't you think that would look bad?" That's one of those things that's hard to explain, isn't it? Not something most of us look into just 'cause we're curious. Your trial probably isn't going well if Exhibit A is poster-sized screen shot of your search history that includes "How to train ferrets to commit murder," especially if your significant other recently died in a tragic attack by assassin-ferrets.

But watching those shows does make me worry about the search history on my own computer. Not because I plan to kill anyone, but just in case I'm ever accused of a crime if someone close to me mysteriously dies or disappears. We know sometimes innocent people become "persons of interest," so it's possible, right? And writers have legitimate reasons for searching for some pretty weird things. So how incriminating would my computer's history look?

I can see the interview now:

Detective: "Interesting. The coroner found that your neighbor died of botulism poisoning. You've been reading quite a few articles lately about botulism, haven't you? What a coincidence."

Me: "Oh. Right. Yes. I can explain that. It really is an amazing coincidence. See, I was writing this scene where a character is hospitalized after trying to make homemade Botox by sticking a needle into a bloated, dented can of peas and jamming the needle into her forehead."

Detective: "Uh-huh. And I suppose we can read this scene, in a book somewhere?"

Me: "Well, no. Turns out botulism poisoning isn't as hilarious as you'd think."

Detective: "I'm sure your neighbor would say the same thing. If she wasn't in the morgue, I mean."

Me: "Um..."

Detective: "And you were also searching for 'How to fake a kidnapping,' 'Faking own death,' and 'New identity.' Going somewhere?"

Me: "No! Really, it's all going to be in a book. Maybe. I haven't revised yet. It's not for me, personally. I'm not going anywhere."

Detective: "Yes, you're right about that. I believe you won't be going anywhere for a long, long time."

Me: "Can I have my laptop back, then?"

So what weird searches have you found yourself doing as a writer? We'll be your witnesses. Just in case.

Where the Heck Have We Been?

2010-08-28T10:48:00.001-05:00

Right. I'ts been over a month since the last post!

That's OK, we Cakers know no one is keeping score (you aren't, are you?) and in our defense, we have been BIZ-EE this summer!

But now that kids are back in school, vacations have been taken, and cooler weather is on its way (yeah, not likely in Houston, but a girl can dream), we are SO excited to start the celebrating. Although a book sale is HUGE and signing with an agent is MONUMENTAL, is there anything sweeter than the moment you can actually hold the book in your hands? I think not!

So without further ado, this month we are proud to introduce:

WWFC member Laura Edge's TWO new books (adding to an already impressive non-fiction portfolio):

WE STAND AS ONE (The International Ladie's Garment Workers Strike) from Lerner Publishing Group AND

HILARY DUFF, Part of Enslow's Celebrites with Heart series.

We Cakers were lucky enough to read both of these books in critique, start to finish, and can affirm that they are awesome! Congratulations, LAURA!

Another Caker, Miriam King's first picture book officially releases on September 1!

Welcome to the world LIBRARIAN ON THE ROOF...

This is such a wonderful book, and to confirm that fact, it was chosen to represent the state of Texas at the 2010 National Book Festival in Washington D.C. What an honor! Miriam will be in attendance, along with some of the greatest authors of our time (besides her, of course).

In other news, three of us are finishing up first drafts of novels to bring to the Darcy Pattison Novel Writing Retreat sponsored by the Brazos Valley SCBWI in November. Ever gone to one? This is my second and I can't wait!

Others of us are preparing for a Fall full of school visits, book signings, writing, editing, hopefully, more frequent blogging and of course, CAKE.

Happy writing everyone,

Christina

On Santa frogs, creepy dolls, and questionable turkey recipes

2010-07-23T09:57:00.001-05:00

I've come across some interesting things while packing up my house to get ready to move. In looking through conference notes, I saw this quote from Isaac Asimov:

"The reader will remember not the phrase, but the effect it has. If the phrase does not have an effect on the reader, change it or cut it."

I don't know what conference presenter relayed the quote to us, and I couldn't confirm that was the exact quote or find where Asimov said that, but that's what I scribbled down at the workshop, so let's just assume he did say something like that at some time.

'Cause I think it works really well with sorting through ten years' worth of stuff. Plus, deciding what to keep and what to throw out reminded me of editing.

By some miracle of physics, the entire contents of one closet filled up the living room. Not all of those things can be worth keeping.

This, for example:

What is this thing and why do I own it? It's-- a frog, I guess? Wearing a Santa hat for some reason. Maybe it's cute, but it doesn't elicit any warm feelings from me. There's nothing wrong with him, really. I love frogs. I love Santa. But the amphibious hat-wearer needs to go.

Maybe when you're revising a manuscript you'll find some phrases or scenes that are like the Santa frog: nice, but they don't serve any purpose. It might even be a favorite scene you've written. But does it advance the plot? Will it have an effect on the reader? If not, there's no reason for it to take up space. So, toss it out like 1997's tax receipts.

Some things worth saving have an effect on us, but not a pleasant one. Like these gals:

Yeah, I know. Lovely, right? Just the kind of thing a little girl would love to cuddle with before falling asleep at night. They live in a box in my closet. Yes, I do worry they will leap out and murder me in my sleep. But they're antique, and they were my grandmother's. So they will stay.

Some scenes are hard to write. I don't mean the writing part, although that's hard too, but I mean because they're unpleasant. Something bad happens to the characters we love. Maybe someone's broken his heart, or punched her in the face. Or your character has lost her home, or her family, his innocence, or everything he's ever loved. You've read books like that, too; anyone who's read Laurie Halse Anderson or Ellen Hopkins knows about scenes that are hard to get through. We identify with the characters and hate to see bad things happen to them, but that's part of their story. And we remember them. They have an effect on us.

On to my favorite kinds of things to find:

That first paper is one I post on the refrigerator every November. It was a "How To Cook a Turkey" assignment my daughter had in 2nd grade. Is it well-written? Sure, for an 8-year-old, I think it is. Is the recipe accurate? I wouldn't recommend using it unless you want to spend Thanksgiving in the emergency room with all your family members. And the turkey's missing a foot. But after ten years, I still laugh when I read the instruction, "Bake for 30 minutes at 104 degrees." We're keeping the turkey.

The yellow paper looks like something the daughter drew at age 2. I think it's a family portrait. Sure, our legs are attached to our heads, but she could write "Dad." No one has arms, but we have ears and knee caps.

When we look over a drafts of our manuscripts, we always find things that need to be rewritten. Maybe the words aren't exactly right, or the sentences are too wordy. There isn't enough detail, or there's too much. Or you're revising something you wrote last year, and you've grown as a writer since then, so you'd write it differently today. But the feeling is there. The scene has an effect on the reader. It isn't perfect, but it's worth keeping.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm getting a padlock for that box of dolls.

Setting the Stage for Story...

2010-07-19T13:26:00.000-05:00

Setting. It’s important. When done well, it can become a living, breathing character and give vital depth to any story.

Who has read To Kill a Mockingbird and not been transported to Maycomb, Alabama, where the air is scented with Miss Maudie’s flowers and you can almost feel the tension bubbling beneath the sidewalks?

Or what about the arena in The Hunger Games, which becomes as menacing as any of the human characters? Or Grandma Dowdel’s farm in Richard Peck’s A Year Down Yonder?

Setting is crucial, and if you can speak about the place where your book is set with some authority, you’ll have an easier time convincing readers that the world you’ve created is real and that they need to step inside.

That’s not to say setting should be a carbon copy of places that you have lived or visited. We writers need to take bits and pieces of our memories of place and translate them - make our readers understand them on an emotional level. Why did these places resonate with us? Why are they important to our characters? This doesn’t come from telling us (for example) that there’s a coffee shop on the corner, it comes from describing the smells, the sounds, the ornate tin ceiling and the "ca-ching" of the old fashioned cash register.

For my book, THE ICING ON THE CAKE, about a teenaged cake decorator, the setting came by coincidence, while I was actually quite stuck, not sure where the story was going.

In 2006, my husband and I went to a wedding in Grand Rapids, MI. We flew into Chicago and drove around the bottom half of Lake Michigan. On our way, we stopped in several of the quaint towns that dot the Michigan shore. They are quiet, cozy, welcoming and completely charming.

It didn't take me long to realize I had found my setting, and the rest of the story fell into place. My main character, Sheridan, loves her hometown. When her father is offered a reality TV show, she is faced with the possibility of leaving. But how to convince my readers that a 15 year old girl would not want to leave a small town like St. Mary (the fictional town I came up with) for super cool New York City?

The key for me was to have St. Mary become almost like a mother figure to Sheridan, representing security, safety and comfort. This was important because one of the key plot points is that Sheridan's mother is missing. Quite literally, St. Mary is Sheridan’s safe harbor. Not just a place, but something more. I guarantee I could not have successfully gotten that across if I hadn't had the experience of our time in Michigan.

Amazing how important story elements can come together when you're doing something as seemingly non-writing related as going to a friend's wedding.

Yeah. They're adorable. And don't think they're not getting mentioned in my acknowledgements.

So. Setting. Where have you found inspiration for the places your stories are set? Where do your favorite books take place? Can you imagine them set anywhere else?

Happy Monday!
Christina

I'm not eavesdropping, I'm researching

2010-07-16T11:41:00.000-05:00

I wasn't trying to listen, I promise. But I couldn't help myself. You'd have done the same, I'm sure.

Yesterday I was in the waiting room of a doctor's office, and I honestly was reading a book at first. But then I overheard a woman on the phone across the room, and from then on I was doing a very good impression of someone reading a book. I wish I caught the beginning of the call, but at the point I started listening, her side of the conversation went something like this:

"I was naked when they pepper-sprayed me and tied me to the gurney."

I wonder what the normal people (i.e. non-writers) in the room were thinking at the time. Maybe something like, "What a weirdo" or "Damn, I hate it when that happens."

But of course I'm thinking, "That is awesome."

And then my brain started filling in the details. Which was a bit of a challenge, because I was still trying to listen to the rest of the conversation (The phrase, "Why? 'Cause men are crazy, that's why?" came up too). But as other people were probably thinking about moving away from this woman, I was leaning in closer to try to learn more (while still staring at the same page of my book.)

Under what circumstances would something like this happen? Let's see...a gurney implies there were paramedics there, so someone must have been injured. Who called them? Perhaps the police? They had a reason to arrest her, maybe at home where she happened to be naked, then pepper-sprayed her because she was getting violent? That's quite a picture. For some reason handcuffing her wasn't adequate, so the gurney and restraints became necessary at some point.

And what's it like to be this woman's neighbor? I bet this wasn't the first incident of crazymaking. You don't lead a perfectly normal life, taking out the trash on Thursday mornings, weeding the flower beds, checking the mail, then suddenly find yourself naked on a gurney. At least I don't think so. Let me know if you've had a different experience. So she's probably a regular source of entertainment and/or annoyance. What does someone across the street see when they peek through the curtains at her? (And you know they're peeking.) She's probably not the person you'd trust to take care of your cat while you're on vacation. Or your plants, come to think of it.

Then I started introducing her in my head to other interesting people I've met and wondering how they'd interact. Like our handyman who was usually drunk by 11 A.M. (I affectionately call him "Drunken Handyman Guy.") They'd make an interesting couple. And by "interesting," I mean, "they'd probably murder each other." Or what if Drunken Handyman Guy and Pepper-Sprayed And Tied To A Gurney Naked Lady had kids? Yikes! What would they be like? Or what if they were YOUR parents?

So, do you find yourself doing the same thing--listening to conversations around you and making up stories about them?

Now I'm concerned that people will be afraid to talk in front of me, fearing they'll end up in a book somehow. Um...don't worry. I'm not listening. Really. Keep talking. This book I'm reading has my full attention.

The Sentence

2010-06-26T16:02:00.000-05:00

Like lots of moms, I struggle in the summer with setting limits on video game time. My boys would happily spend their entire vacation with Mario and Lego Indiana Jones.

“Time's up!” I holler downstairs. I’m not surprised when ten minutes later I descend to find them still roaming the galaxy.

“Turn it off. I mean it!” But no one is listening to me. Completely exasperated, I flick off the TV and turn on my Commander Mom voice:

“You’ve. Been. Sentenced.”

Eyes glazed over from too much game time now register a look of horror. Then the wailing begins.

"I just wanted to finish this level."

"John gets to play all day if he wants to."

"You never let us play."

I've heard it all before and I'm calloused. I pry the remotes from their hands. "You need exercise. Sunshine. Your brains are turning to mush."

“No Mom, this IS exercise,” insists my seven-year-old, completely serious. He wiggles his fingers for me. “Look how fast and strong they are!”

That does it. I’m the parent here, and I have to follow through on my threat. I drag them to opposite ends of the kitchen table and place pieces of paper and pencils in front of them. At the top I write “I will listen to my wise and wonderful mother.” Then I number from 1-10. “Don’t get up until you’re finished. And if I can’t read your sentences, you’ll have to write them again.”

A multi-tasker by necessity, I congratulate myself on providing discipline, penmanship practice, and brainwashing all at the same time. At first blush, I know this seems like a terrible idea. Who wants their kids to associate writing with punishment? But experience has shown me that if I get my kids to pick up a pencil for any reason, wonderful things sometimes happen.

I leave them sulking over their pages. I haven’t even finished unloading the dishwasher before I hear the giggling start. Glancing back, I see them sitting side-by-side now, scribbling in the margins. They are engaging in their own form of storytelling, drawing rockets and monsters and laser guns shooting down imaginary planets. They send me rebellious glances from time to time as they continue their conspiratorial creativity.

“Let’s not spend all day,” I say, egging them on.

It takes them two hours to finish their sentences, and by that time most of the paper in the notebook has been used up. They can’t wait to show me the intergalactic war that has just been waged by characters of their own creation. As budding storytellers, they have it all: setting, plot, and darn good sound effects.

I send them outside, and then tuck their pages in a special file. Someday after they’ve won a Pulitzer or the Newbery, I’ll want to remind them what a wise and wonderful mother they have.

Permission Impossible

2010-06-18T11:12:00.000-05:00

So. For nearly a month, I’ve sat on some great news. I’ve celebrated in secret. Bit my tongue. Defied near-death limits of squee retention. And yet, despite the personal joy, and the congrats from a select few, what I really couldn’t wait to do was announce my news to the world.

Because I’d just gotten my first big book deal.
Yes, my moment was here.
The world was my oyster.

So, the second I got permission, I sat down to write my squee blog. A page later, I stopped. Deleted. Started again. But the words kept sounding the same:

Me, me, me! La, la, la! I’m so awesome! Yes, I am!

Egads, right? I mean, I’m no awesome writer, just word-hack made good. A stubborn girl who didn’t know when to quit. And this too-cool-for-school kid who appeared on the page just wasn’t me.

Shaken, I soldiered on, but so it went for several weeks. Write. Delete. Write. Delete. Write. Delete. Until I got so fed up that I turned to Lynne.

“This is hard, and I don’t like it. Can you write my squee blog post and pretend you are me?” I said.
“No, you have to write it yourself, dork!”
“Okay, an embroidered, cheetah-print Snuggie, if you just write it for me.”
“What? Is this a blog post bribe?”
“Yes.”
“I can't believe how desperate you are to avoid this. But you realize it shows at the bottom of the post who the author of the post is, right?”

Yes, well, I hate you, and you’re not my friend any more. (Lynne, okay, maybe my brain thought this for a nanosecond, but it’s not true. You’re still my friend and I totally love you. XOXOXO, Mon)

Anyway, since Lynne was dead to me, I was able to forget about the evil post until my agent, Jo called. “So, when are you going to blog...er, celebrate?” she said. Queen of Subtlety, that girl.
“Ugh. I can’t write about my real-life self. It’s all me, me, me, and I sound like a dork.” (I am, actually, a dork, but the irony of this was lost on me at the time.)
“But you have such a funny, natural voice,” she said.
Silence.
“Look, Monica, why don’t you try writing it like a story?”
“Sure, Jo. Neat,” I said, ready to dismiss the idea.

But, as is the way with Jo’s suggestions, it turned out to be a great one. I mean, what was my story? And why was an itty bitty blog post proving so difficult to write?

Several brownies and a few long walks later, I came to a conclusion. The post felt terrible to write because it was dishonest. The ‘me thing’ was a lie. I mean, maybe I typed the words, but it was my friends who read and loved them first. And my hub who supported my unwaveringly. And Jo, who saw the glimmer of potential in little ol’ me.

Truth is, it takes a village to raise a writer.
And maybe all I needed was the proper acknowledgement.

So. To my village—a million, trillion thanks. I owe every bit of my success to you. I love you all to the moon and back!!!

Now, without further ado, the deal:

I’m thrilled to announce that Jo sold me in a four-book, work-for-hire series to Penguin. Due out in summer 2012, this series will follow 7th grade, French Horn player, Holly, as she joins her middle school band and endures all of the drama that comes with being a “band nerd.” Light, fun and funny, with an ensemble cast of very strong, unique characters, the series shows a group of completely different people brought together by a shared love for something. A bit like Glee, for the middle school crowd.

Yeah, pretty dang awesome, if I do say so myself.

Brain Drain

2010-06-03T21:21:00.000-05:00

Do you store your ideas in your head instead of on the page? Are you a fanatic about getting it all figured out before tapping on the keyboard, or picking up the pen or pencil? Sometimes that's great, but chances are you'll suffer brain drain and forget one of the main points you wanted to remember.

I used to do that for my picture books until I realized once I started actually writing, more ideas developed than I could possibly create and hold inside my brain. The details, verbs, characters and activities came alive. One time I sat down, planning to write a panda book, and out came a book about an ostrich and a hummingbird. Not exactly what I anticipated. And yet it was so much fun to find flying birds in my head, and they weren't bats in my belfry!

Now when I have an idea, I create a folder for it and put inside a one page document with a title (I usually start that way) and any details I think about for that particular story or article. It can be character names, activities, geographic areas, nutty nuggets of storyline, colors I want to mention, relatives to ridicule or even dog breeds and names. Now when I daydream about my writing I don't suffer brain drain from overloaded wires and circuits!

In fact, sometimes I pull up the document, read it over, and type more on it before I even write one sentence related to the story. So if you brain is drained, strained or mainly on the plain in Spain, type a document to store your ideas and add to it when the creative muse is playing inside your cranium. You'll be glad you did. Just get them on the page! And do it now, before they go outside to play without you!

Smories!

2010-05-31T22:08:00.000-05:00

Some fun news for Laura and me this month-- we each have a story on the Smories website, which posts videos of adorable British children reading short stories that writers submitted to the site.

From their submissions, the Smories people take their fifty favorite stories to post on the site for one month, so ours will be up there for the month of June, and fifty new stories will be posted in July.

Starting in August they'll do something different and post a new story each day; see their submission guidelines if you're interested in sending them a short story, and maybe we'll see yours there!

Laura's story is "A Whale of a Rescue," and mine is "The Shell Collector and the Selkie Wife."

Complete coincidence that we each wrote about aquatic creatures.

Do Not Let Your Left Brain Know What Your Right Brain Is Doing

2010-05-31T12:40:00.000-05:00

The Rutabaga Festival. How it plagues me. On my work-in-progess, Reasons For Leaving, I got up to chapter 10 without much of a problem. Then somehow, I stalled. I did have to set it aside to do some revisions on Chained, and then I was distracted with the sale and with normal everyday stuff like housecleaning and way too many good books to read. Oh, and a computer virus, daughter's prom, upcoming graduation, etc. That's life, though--everyone's busy, distractions are everywhere, we all get sidetracked and somehow get our work done anyway. But for some reason I keep avoiding writing this next chapter.

When I've had this problem before it's because I wasn't sure what needed to happen next in the story, but in this case, I know what happens. The main character goes to a Rutabaga Festival. That sounds harmless enough, but I literally did not write anything on this book for weeks and weeks. I'm not even sure why I don't want to write this chapter. Is it because I worry it will suck? Likely it will, but it's only the first draft, so that's ok. Maybe I don't want to write the details it will need. Maybe it's a sign that the chapter isn't necessary at all. Still, it's a first draft and I just need to write it. Later I'll take it out or revise it or whatever it needs, but for now I just need to get it onto the page. I keep telling myself that, but it doesn't seem to work.

I imagine my main character knocking on my window and saying, "Helloooooo...remember me? You left me sitting in the car."

To get myself back to the manuscript at least, I decided to skip over that chapter for a while and write the ending. I'd been thinking of the last chapters anyway, so I wanted to get those ideas written down. Also, since there's a mystery in the story, I think it's good to have the ending written so I know where it needs to go. Now the last two chapters are drafted out.

So that's nice. Back to the middle.

If I don't get my left brain out of the way--the part that worries about the chapter organization, that it won't work, that it will be boring--this will never get done. Usually it helps me to set the computer aside and do some freewriting when I'm working on a new chapter or when I feel stuck on a scene. The ideas flow better that way and I'm not tempted to edit so much like I do when I'm on the computer. I've done plenty of freewriting on this chapter now, but when the time comes to write this part of the story, I still end up staring at the blank screen until some other distraction saves me from having to do it.

So I took out my copy of Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette Anne Klauser, because I remembered it had some great exercises for getting that judgmental left brain out of the way so the right brain can do its work. I turned to the chapter on branching. Unlike linear outlining, branching is a way of organizing ideas from the center of the page outward, and allows for new ideas or details to be added easily. And it uses the whole brain. Klauser explains: "A linear outline is one-sided and left-brained. Branching is multi-faceted and whole-brained. Branching gives a picture an encourages spontaneity (right), at the same time, it provides structure and indicates logic (left)." [pp. 48-49].

I started in the middle of a blank page with the words "Rutabaga Festival," then branched out from there with the different things I might include in the chapter, then branched out further with more details. Now and then I did have to stop my left brain from wanting to take over the whole task. When I drew the branch about food at the festival I thought, "Ooh! I should get online and research rutabaga recipes to get ideas for what they might serve!" Yes, perhaps later, but not right now. Be quiet and keep working. Or on the branch about people: "Careful not to get stereotypical or anything. Just because they're in East Texas doesn't mean they'll see people wearing camouflage or a guy with a belt buckle bigger than his head." Yes, I know you're concerned. We'll take care of that later. "And she probably won't be playing the games or going on the rides when she's there to look for her friend..." Yes, I understand that. Now go away before I start singing Ludacris songs to you again.

So here's what I had after I finished the branching exercise:

I know, it looks like a hot mess, but it's actually really organized, and a lot of ideas are on the paper now. Here's a prettier example I made so it would be easier to share:

Of course, if outlining works for you, keep doing it. But if you're like me and don't like to outline, you may enjoy branching as a way to get ideas on paper and organize your chapter, your to-do list, even your whole book.

After all this, it's possible the chapter won't be in the final manuscript, but now's not the time to decide that; now's the time to write it. But the time spent on it won't have been wasted, because there will be other times I feel stuck and want to avoid writing something, and I'll know that I can work through it. For I have faced the rutabaga.

If it does show up in the final manuscript, and that manuscript is sold and made into a real book, you might read it and think, "That's it? That's what gave her so much trouble? What was so hard about that?!" And that means I will have done a good job, because sometimes it takes a lot of work to make writing look effortless.

So what holds you back from getting your writing done, and what have you done to overcome it?

Aaaaaaannnnnd SOLD!

2010-05-13T15:34:00.000-05:00

So if you've been reading our posts, you know by the teasers that the group has been waiting to announce some good news.

For a little over a week I've been bursting with happy news and wasn't sure how much longer I could hold it all in. We even had cupcakes at our WWFC meeting on Tuesday, to celebrate my good news, Chris' birthday, and perhaps some other good news by a Writer To Be Named Later. Still couldn't squee to the world, though, until the deal was official. I was getting worried that I'd find myself unable to take it anymore while in some random place like the grocery store and run up and down the aisles screaming, "Guess what?! Guess what?!" Or that I'd break out in a happy dance with a cubicle chair at work. So thankfully the official announcement is out! Here it is, from today's Publishers Marketplace:

"Lynne Kelly's debut CHAINED, about a boy who works as an elephant keeper in northern India to fulfill a family debt, to Margaret Ferguson at Margaret Ferguson Books, at auction, by Joanna Stampfel-Volpe at Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation."

I actually didn't know the news was public until I was checking Twitter while getting my hair done and saw that a couple of people had congratulated me on the book deal. So it was in the hair salon that I finally said publicly, "Hey, guess what?" I managed to stay in my chair, though.

For those who don't know Margaret Ferguson, she's an editor at Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, and she'll be releasing books under her own imprint there starting next year. And from what I've heard, completely awesome. The release date for Chained should be sometime in the Spring of 2012.

It's been a fun and exciting time, but now that I'm able to share the news with everyone, it's just now starting to feel real. Yay!

Do the Write Thing for Nashville auction!

2010-05-06T12:57:00.000-05:00

Hey people! More posts about WWFC news coming soon, but for today I wanted to let everyone now about an auction where you can win some awesome stuff and support a great cause.

In the "Do the Write Thing for Nashville" auction, you can bid on things like signed books donated by authors and manuscript critiques or phone calls with editors and agents who have donated their time and services. Day one of the auction is open now, and new items will be posted each day. Authors/nice people Victoria Schwab, Myra McEntire, and Amanda Morgan have organized the auction to benefit victims of the recent Nashville-area floods.

So stop by the auction site and place your bids to help Tennessee flood relief efforts, and win something amazing at the same time!

Just Around the Corner -- CAKE!

2010-04-30T16:41:00.000-05:00

So we at WWFC have been sworn to a sort of secret pact this week. Can't name any names, can't reveal any details, but since we always celebrate good publishing news with cake, suffice it to say that there will be cake soon, maybe two (maybe three, who knows at this point?)

In honor of the news that shall remain a secret -- I made my first vlog. I spent all day trying to post it and when I finally did, the audio and video were off by a good second, and the whole thing had the look of a poorly dubbed Godzilla movie (minus Godzilla of course).

So I'm posting my favorite Cake-related video for your enjoyment. And to the members who shall remain nameless -- get out your forks -- the cake is on it's way!

More Trailers!

2010-04-29T09:17:00.000-05:00

Wow! There are so many awesome book trailers out there, we really need to do a book trailer MONTH. Here are a few more of my favorites ...

This is the trailer for One Wolf Howls, by Scotti Cohn, published by Sylvan Dell. This is a great example for authors of how to market not only your book in a trailer, but also yourself. Scotti introduces her book in an engaging way, but mentions her availability for speaking engagements and speaks of the book's educational value in the classroom.

Enjoy...

Faithful, by Janet S. Fox - is out TODAY from Speak/Penguin Books and this trailer has me ready to go out and devour a copy! I love historical fiction, and this book sounds so compelling. Plus, Janet is a friend of the Cakers from just up the road in College Station, TX. Congratulations to her! Enjoy the trailer, produced by Janet's talented son, Kevin.

Hope you enjoy these ... let us know what you think!

Have a great day,
Christina

Book Trailer Week Continues ...

2010-04-28T09:51:00.000-05:00

Today I'm posting a trailer by Will Write for Cake member Doris Fisher. Doris' awesome picture books thrill children (and adults) everywhere. They are funny, interactive and her "Day" books have the magical ability to make math fun. And Happy Birthday to Whooo? Best Baby Shower gift ... ever.

Enjoy the trailer below...

And if you haven't seen this trailer, watch it now. Listening to Neil Gaiman's voice and beautiful prose is like getting a literary massage. Enjoy...

My favorite line ... "Trust dreams, trust your heart and trust your story." Words to live by.

And don't forget to send us links to your favorite trailers!

Happy Wednesday,
Christina

When the zombie apocalypse comes, I'll be in my pajamas. Or in that shirt I've been wearing for three days.

2010-04-26T13:11:00.000-05:00

It had rained for so long, it seemed the sun would never shine again. Weary, beaten-down mobs clamored to grab the last of the goods. There would be no other chance. Either they'd fight their way to the front of the line, or walk away empty-handed. Maybe they already held an armful of supplies, but how long would that last? A few weeks? Months? Besides, what was being handed out this day was different. If they passed them by, who knows when they'd see them again?

You might have guessed by now who I'm talking about. You've seen them, yes, but perhaps not like this. Not in the wild. And not so many in one place.

That's right. Librarians.

At least I heard it was like that on the last day of the Texas Library Association Conference in San Antonio. I was in bed at the time. (What? It was raining.) I did go on Friday, so I can write more accurately about the time I was really there.

If you go to TLA or a similar conference, it's best to arrive on the first day if you can--the cool tote bags I saw and some books I was hoping to nab were gone by the end of day one. But, since I was working Thursday evening, I drove in to San Antonio after work that night. Friday morning, after having a Texas-shaped waffle at La Quinta (are there any other waffle irons in the shape of a state? Any Delaware-shaped waffles?) I headed over to the convention center wearing this shirt I bought after seeing it on Jamie Harrington's blog:

It's a Storysaurus shirt. It's a picture of how Jamie outlines. Adorable, isn't it? And somehow that's about all I packed. I knew I set aside other clothes to wear for the weekend, but they didn't make it into my bag. Oh, and the shoes I was wearing were cute too, and comfortable enough for normal walking around, but not for walking the miles and miles around the exhibit hall to see all the publishers and other exhibitors and to look for a new shirt.

TLA is a great place for author sightings, since tons of authors have book signings for an hour or two. I did spot Suzanne Collins, but people had started lining up at 7:30 AM for her 10 AM signing. The first 250 people were given wristbands--yes, like they're lining up for concert tickets--so they could get in line to get their copies of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire signed. Many disappointed people were turned away, but I'm sure we all want Collins to save her hands so she can keep writing.

I knew where I wanted to go first: the Albert Whitman booth to see a galley of fellow Caker Miriam King's first book--the picture book biography Librarian on the Roof!: A True Story. It was so cool to see the layout of this story I remembered from the first time Miram said at a critique meeting "I know this librarian who lived on a roof...". I love how the book turned out, with awesome illustrations by Stephen Gilpin.

Next I had to hit the other publishers' booths to see their upcoming books and to pick up any ARCs (advance reader copies) they were handing out. Some of the publishers set out display copies only, and you can ask if you may have an ARC of something you see. For others, when a stack of ARCs thunks onto the table, people descend upon the booth like a pack of semi-feral cats hearing a can opener. Here's a picture showing most of what I got:

Missing from the stack is Linger, the sequel to Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, because daughter's friend has been dying to read it, so I let her take that one to her (after I read it, of course). How cool am I that it'll be released in July but I have it NOW?

Also missing is Jessica Warman's novel Where The Truth Lies, companion to last year's Breathless. That one is at my mom's house now--she got sucked into the book after flipping through it and reading a bit.

With the ARCs and the books that I purchased, like Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Sarah Ockler's Twenty Boy Summer, my tote bag was getting heavy. The Baker & Taylor booth had some really cute bags to give away, and in an act of bravery and heroism, buddy Brian grabbed the last bag for me by tackling an elderly woman who was stuffing about seven of them into a bag. Or he might have just walked behind her to pick up the last one before she could take it. Something like that. So then I had these little guys to help divide the bookload:

I was hoping to get an ARC of agent-sister Kody Keplinger's novel THE DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend). The nice people at the Little, Brown booth didn't have any copies to hand out, sadly, but they let me hold the display copy. I didn't even think of running away with it. Maybe just for a minute, but that's all.

By early afternoon I was dragging, but there was more to see. I couldn't give up. I walked by the Simon & Schuster booth just in time to see Chris and Miriam waving frantically and exclaiming, "Get in line! Get in line!" So I got in line. Liz Garton Scanlon was there signing her gorgeous book, All The World, a Caldecott Honor book illustrated by Marla Frazee, and the S & S representative handed a book to each person in line. I got mine signed for my nephew Dylan, but I'll read it many, many times before I hand it over.

From there I rushed over to the Hyperion booth to meet Patricia McCormick. We started corresponding a couple of years ago about her novel, Sold, and about my own writing. She's an awesome writer and a really nice person, so I'm happy I was at TLA the day she was there so I could meet her in person. We hadn't communicated much lately, since someone hacked into her email account. I knew all those emails about um, "toys" weren't really from her.

After leaving the exhibit hall, I sat down on bench outside before making the trek to the parking garage. I know I looked like a bag lady. A bag lady who really, really liked to read. Of course after making it to the garage I still had about twenty minutes of wandering around exclaiming, "Where's my car? Dear God, just help me find my car! Where did I park?"

I collapsed soon after arriving at my mom's house, about an hour out of town, where I stayed for the rest of the weekend. I did plan on going back to TLA the next morning, but like I mentioned before, it was really rainy when I woke up. And the bed was so comfy. And there was no way I was going to walk around in those shoes again. I still had the nothing-to-wear problem; I'd bought a cute Where The Wild Things Are shirt, but it didn't occur to me that I'd be wearing the new white shirt over a navy blue bra. Not so cute.

So I wimped out. Didn't go anywhere, didn't wear shoes the rest of the weekend. Just sat around Mom's house in my Storysaurus shirt and read my new books. I started and finished Charles Benoit's You on Saturday. Amazing book, so hard to put down. The rep at the HarperCollins booth had said that reading it was like "watching the Titanic sink and hoping it'll work out okay this time." You know from the beginning of the book that things are not going to turn out well, but you have to keep reading to see how things unfold.

I asked some of my braver and not-so-sleepy friends about the last day of TLA, and it sounded pretty wild. The exhibitors don't want to pack up their display copies and leftover ARCs, so many of them hand out everything they can before leaving. There is clamoring. And shouting. Some throwing. Sounds kind of like Mardi Gras, except no one is flashing the publishers. At least I don't think so. Some of those books looked really good.

Next year's TLA will be in Austin, and I'd like to go for all three days. Before leaving home I'll check to make sure I've packed more than one shirt and some comfortable shoes. Maybe some ninja gear. And one of those orange bicycle flags for my car.

But if the apocalypse hits before then, I'm hanging out with librarians. They know how to survive. Plus, they'll have all the good books.

Cool Book Trailer Week!

2010-04-26T10:56:00.000-05:00

The Cakers have been busy lately, with author visits (Doris) and deadlines (Laura), conferences (Miriam & Chris), house hunting & possible good news (fingers crossed Monica), waiting on good news (Lynne) and nurturing a humongous garden (Tammy). Whew!

But others are busy as well -- take Hilary Wagner who Doris Fisher & I met at the SCBWI conference in Chicago last fall. Her book, Nightshade City, will be out in October from Holiday House. Check out the cool trailer here.

Looks great, doesn't it?

How about you -- seen any good trailers lately? Share them with our readers!

Happy Monday,
Christina

A Place to Call My Own, and Super Size It, Please.

2010-04-21T15:04:00.000-05:00

Isn’t it exciting? Thanks to the Internet, the public is now able to peek into the Secret Lives of Writers. If you are a writer, you know that our secret lives are often so terribly exciting...

Although I am living the dream, I do occasionally fantasize of having more. That fantasy is to someday have a writing spot, all my own. Know what I mean?

I think I could definitely bang out some word count in a place like Laurie Halse Anderson’s writing cottage:

Or unfold my Wal-mart lounge chair in Jane Austen’s garden (she has wifi I assume?):

Either of these two would work out just fine.

Of course, I do have a dedicated space in my house. But it is also home to the hamster and doesn’t have a door, or walls, really (it’s a loft). The piano is in here too, so every other day or so I am entertained by a whiny kid who “doesn’t wanna practice!”

So you might understand why sometimes I just want to get out. Like today. A change of venue is just what my wip needs, I reasoned. So I drove to our brand new library here in Kingwood, Texas. Just opened two days ago … yeah, that will be THE PLACE where my creativity will come alive.

Except that it’s closed on Wednesdays.

Frustrated, I drove until I came upon a familiar sight, glowing like a beacon on the horizon. Yes, here is where my novel will thrive, where the characters in my head will find a home on the page.

Hey. If I can’t have a writing cottage, at least I can get fries with that.

Now my question to you …

Is there a spot where you feel most comfortable, creative and inspired? A cozy chair near a picture window? A greasy spoon? A spot far from the noise of traffic, home and distraction?

Let us know … and send a picture!

Hey, Someone Interviewed Us!

2010-04-06T17:15:00.000-05:00

Here's an interview with the Will Write For Cake group on the blog of The Irrepressible Writer.

Great job, Carol, and thank you!

I Got Your Feelings Right Here, Part 2

2010-03-29T20:16:00.001-05:00

In yesterday's post I wrote about some adventures in Revisionland, where I floundered for some time while trying to get my main character to express himself.

After revising based on some helpful feedback from other agents and then signing with Joanna, I still had more work to do.

For many of the revisions, I added some internal thought to help readers connect with the character more. Many scenes and chapters had ended too soon, without saying enough about what was going on in the character's head. Again, especially because it's told in the first person POV, the reader should be in the character's head with him, not wondering what he's thinking.

Today I'm posting some "before" and "after" examples from the manuscript, along with Jo's comments.

Before: I try my best to look brave.
Jo: But inside he feels...?
Me: Um...not brave?
Revision: I try my best to look brave, but I worry I'll never feel safe again.

This is from a scene where Hastin surprises his mom with a visit after not seeing her for a couple of weeks, and he notices her smile seems forced:

Before: I run toward her, then stop. Doesn't she want to see me?
Jo: How does that make him feel? Tie it to his elation, then being deflated in some way.
Revision: I run toward her, then stop. Doesn't she want to see me? All this time, I thought she must be missing me as much as I've missed her, but not it feels like I've done something wrong.

Here, a character is giving instructions about trapping an elephant:

Before: "Come here each evening to see if we've caught anything," he told me as we stood at the trap's edge. "...After a day or two, we will have our elephant."
And the chapter ended there, so Jo asked me to elaborate on how he feels about this. In the revision I tied this back to Hastin's family, specifically his sister having to leave home for medical care after a bite from a disease-carrying mosquito.
Revised to add: And that elephant will not have its family anymore, because of us. My stomach sinks. I'm no better than the mosquito who bit my sister.

A later chapter circled back to that idea, when Hastin is making a promise to the elephant they've just trapped:

Before: "I won't leave here without you, I promise."
Jo: End the chapter with his final thoughts to keep us connected to how he's feeling.
Revision: "I won't leave here without you, I promise." And I mean it too, but I don't feel any better. I feel like a mosquito promising to take back its bite.

At times I used Hastin's actions to show how he was feeling. I hadn't shown enough about him feeling afraid when he was alone in the forest. He's an eleven-year-old from the desert, so of course he's not comfortable wandering around the forest by himself. He may not come right out and say "I'm afraid," but I try to show that fear by the way he freezes when he hears an unfamiliar noise, jumps away from a spider, or checks a tree branch for snakes and bugs before climbing it. (That also helped with another revision task, firming up the setting.)

In Part 1 of the post, we had some great comments about authors who have ninja-like skills at showing a character's feelings. When it's done well, you finish a book feeling like you've been on a roller coaster ride with the character. It's by no means an exhaustive list, but here are a few to start with if you need some good examples. Suggestions from yesterday's comments were Mary E. Pearson, Sarah Dessen, and Megan McCafferty; other authors I thought of were Sara Zarr and Jo Knowles. (I dare you to read Jumping Off Swings without crying!)

I Got Your Feelings Right Here, Part 1

2010-03-28T23:38:00.000-05:00

Recently I finished a round of revisions for SuperAgent Joanna to get my mid-grade novel ready for submissions to editors. In addition to sending an edit letter that addressed big-picture issues, Jo sent a hard copy of the manuscript with notes written throughout. After a while, many of the comments started sounding familiar: "And how does he feel about that?" "How does that make him feel?" "And he feels...?"

And it wasn't the first time I'd had feedback like that. Sometimes the comments on chapters I'd brought to critique meetings showed that readers wanted to see more about how the character was feeling or what they were thinking. A couple of agents who were nice enough to send feedback with the rejection letters indicated the same thing-- I wasn't showing enough about what was going on in the character's head.

Obviously I was being too sparse in my descriptions of my character's thoughts and feelings. Why was I holding back? I love the quote from this article: "...although the Irish have a marvellous ability to tell stories, when it comes to their emotions, they may have no words." So maybe that explains it. It's hardly my fault. Or maybe I was worried about the dreaded "telling" too much instead of "showing." Sure, if I filled the story with internal thoughts like, "I was sad," and "I was so angry," that would be really boring, but there are ways of showing those feelings that help readers connect with characters more, and thereby root for them and keep reading the story to see how things turn out.

So it's taken some work since for whatever reason the feelings thing hasn't come naturally for me, but here's some feedback I got from agents and the revisions I did in response to that.

Last year I got "the call" from an agent who was interested in representation, but she wanted to see a lot of revisions first. Here are some comments she had about the need to show my main character's feelings more, and I think it shows that line we try not to cross between saying too little and overdoing it:

"The story needs to pack a strong emotional punch."
"Currently, the connectedness between [the characters] is lost...you need to focus right in on these two and show us how crucial they are to each other...Let's SEE the connection between them, rather than just being told about it."
About the main character, Hastin: "I wonder if there could be more feeling from him. I don't mean a lot of breast-beating and over-writing, but we never really see him get angry or in strong emotional pain. I think we should see more of what's in his heart, though it's possible to convey this with a lightness of touch and understatement."

She was right--the character was going through a pretty miserable time, but he didn't express that. One suggestion she gave for improving the manuscript was to strengthen the character arc, and to do that I'd have to show not only the events that happened to him, but how he changed on the inside as he went about his journey.

I went through the manuscript and highlighted all the places where I could show the character's reaction to what was happening. And there were a lot. Then I tackled each highlighted scene by doing a little freewriting about how he felt at that time--not just the emotion, but what he felt physically too. Is there a sinking feeling in his stomach? Does he hit something out of anger? Does he feel like things are so bad, he'll never be happy again? I picked out my favorite words and phrases from the freewriting to add a concise description of the character's feelings to the scene. The Bookshelf Muse has an amazing Emotional Thesaurus that helped tremendously. (It's also great for setting descriptions, so bookmark it!)

I also added a rock--a gift to Hastin from his dad--that he'd hang on to when he was nervous or afraid, because it helped him feel safe and closer to his dad. Later in the story, when his hand reaches for the rock in his pocket, Hastin doesn't have to say anything for the reader to know how he feels. (When I mentioned this to my awesome manuscript critiquer Uma Krishnaswami, she told me I was using an example of T.S. Eliot's objective correlative. Hmm, yes, objective correlative...I meant to do that. Now write that down so I can Google it.)

I spent about three months on that round of revisions; here's a bit of the letter I got back after resubmitting:

"The story isn't quite 'singing' to me the way it needs to...We would need an editor who fights to acquire it because they have fallen in love with it--because they feel with Hastin in his loneliness and fear..."

Not what I wanted to hear, of course, but I knew the manuscript was a lot better than it was before, so the time I'd spent revising wasn't at all wasted. But I still hadn't quite accomplished what I needed to. After some more revising I submitted to agents again, and here's a paragraph from a response I got back from another fabulous agent that was so helpful:

"...I felt that there were first person point-of-view issues. I like it when characters play it close to the chest and show instead of tell how they feel, but first person POV requires the occasional outburst of feeling. ...The author gives external hints to the character's state of mind, and were it not in first person POV I would find those enough, but it's jarring to be in Hastin's head and not know explicitly how he feels."

Of course--since we're in that character's head, we should always know what he's thinking and feeling. If it were too stream-of-consciousness the story would get bogged down with too much description, but the reader should never be left wondering what's going on in the character's mind. That makes so much sense but it hadn't occurred to me before.

I have some examples of how I revised the manuscript again based on Jo's comments, but I'll save those for a new post. For now I'll leave you with a couple of unputdownable books I've read recently that showed the main character's feelings so well on every page: The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan and The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams (here's an interview with her on Cynsations.) Certainly there are many more great examples, so leave 'em in the comments and I'll include the suggestions in Part 2 of the post.

Holding Human Hearts

2010-03-27T08:58:00.000-05:00

If I decided to switch genres and write horror instead of books for children, I’m sure I could do a creditable job. After all, not many writers, horror or otherwise, can claim to have put their hands inside a human chest to hold a living heart.

While in nursing school, I worked as the weekend assistant in a cardio ICU. The facility was large enough to offer state-of-the-art heart interventions, but small enough that it needed its staff to float among various departments. So one weekend, when the OR staff had an emergency surgery and needed an extra hand, they taught me to scrub in. I became the weekend “heart holder.”

Holding a heart in surgery is about as dramatic as plucking eyebrows on a Saturday night. My job was to hold the heart in place to give the surgeon access to the part of the organ that needed work. The minutes would tick by with nothing to listen to but the steady hum of the bypass machine, and nothing to look at but something that resembled a piece of cold chicken, a marvel of human anatomy that makes us all live and breathe. When that part of the surgery was complete, I would return to the ICU to run errands and walk recovering patients up and down the corridors.

But the next morning always smacked of the miraculous. The heart that I’d held would be repaired and tucked safely back inside a person who was awake, and usually complaining. I’d help them up to a chair, open their Jello and juice containers, and position their pillows. All the while, I would listen. Heart surgery has a way of bringing out people’s most private thoughts -- about God and mortality, regrets and dreams. I found that holding hearts can be a serious business.

A writer’s words can touch and hold young hearts. They can surgically bypass barriers and reach inside where we ourselves could never go. Because of this, children deserve the very best -- stories that let them laugh and cry, stories that that help them find their way.

Kids get the fact that the world can be a difficult, sometimes scary place. A good book is a safe place to process hopes, fears, and ways of navigating the world. While they don’t need to be coddled, they do need respect for their place on the path to emotional maturity. The craft of writing needs good doses of caring and humility, because holding hearts is a serious business.

Fasten Your Seatbelts. It's Going to be a Bumpy Ride...

2010-03-19T15:11:00.000-05:00

What are you working on this weekend?

If you live in Houston, you know that this glorious sunshiny-spring weather is saying bye-bye tomorrow morning …

So, forget about clearing out your flower beds or dining al fresco. Crank up the gas on the fireplace and make yourself a warm cup of … tea, coffee ... pick your poison.

OH, and don’t forget your Snuggie. We Cakers are fond of them & recommend them highly for writing and/or reading during inclement weather.

Which brings me back to my original question … what are you working on this weekend?

Are you continuing your journey through a first draft? Are you thrilled with it, excited to work on it, can’t wait to return to the world you’ve created? Is it Newbery or Printz worthy? Is it destined for the bestseller lists?

Or … and stop me if I’m wrong … do you dread returning to it, because you’re so sure what you’ve written so far sucks worse than anything ever written? Ever? Well?

Or … are you in the middle, and find yourself, after a good start, sagging. Sagging middles. They’re horrible.

Or … are you near the end, reveling in what you’ve accomplished so far but absolutely terrified by the fact that YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW IT ENDS?

And then of course, maybe you’re at the end. You’ve done a wonderful job writing a decent first draft. And then you realize … it’s time to start the second draft.

Yes it’s true, the journey of a writer can never be described as smooth. There are hurdles, there are potholes, there are roads that end abruptly in a free-fall tumble off a cliff.

But whether I’m working hard on that first draft, or the 10th draft, I try to remind myself that every published author has been down this very same road. Except for those dweebs who do everything perfect the first time.

But let's not discuss them. Let's instead sit back and enjoy the wind in our hair as we watch the sheer rock face go whizzing by. Because we know that at the bottom of that ravine, after we climb out of our smashed up jalopy … we'll find a better story.

Right? Right. Now go get that Snuggie. It's time to write!

Conference Reflections: Alexandra Cooper of Simon & Schuster

2010-03-13T17:48:00.000-06:00

Another of our awesome speakers at the Houston SCBWI conference was Alexandra Cooper, senior editor at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, who discussed how and why a book is acquired.

Editors look for balance in their own lists, and among the lists within their imprint and publishing house. If you submit your work directly to an editor instead of through an agent, your chances of getting accepted are better if you find an editor who publishes books like yours. Go to conferences and do your research to find the right editor. (And of course, make sure they take unsolicited submissions-- most of the big houses don't, but editors who attend conferences generally invite attendees to submit to them.)

Alexendra mentioned that one reason the picture book market is tough right now is because they are expensive to produce; they're generally printed abroad using four colors on heavy paper. And unless you're the author/illustrator, remember that royalties will be split between the author and the illustrator, so the book must earn out the advance for both people.

Writers of picture books were happy to hear from her (like we heard from other speakers too) that although novels are hot right now, the market is cyclical and picture books will come back.

Not all mansuscripts are rejected because the writing is bad or the story isn't there. Sometimes editors have to turn down submissions they love. Why might Alexandra turn down a perfectly good manuscript? Like so many editors, she gets a buttload of submissions (my phrase, not hers), so she has to be really selective. Or she may have too many books in the same category, so the manuscript she's looking at wouldn't give her that balance she mentioned. And sometimes a story just isn't distinctive enough. Editors are responsible for contributing to the company's bottom line, so they can't always publish everything they're passionate about. They need a balance between backlist authors and new authors, literary and commercial fiction.

So what is she looking for? A great voice-- one that's original but comfortable, and a story that captures and holds readers' attention. In order to acquire your story, editors must love it; they have to be willing to defend it in an acquisition meeting and answer any questions that come up about the work. She also looks for authors she thinks she'll be able to work with again.

Alexandra usually does two rounds of revision with an author. The first editorial letter presents overall issues, like character dynamics and themes. The second letter helps to fine tune the manuscript by addressing details like line edits and tightening of scenes. From the time a book is acquired to the time it's published usually takes 18 months to 2 years.

Alexandra works with picture books, midgrade and young adult novels, not easy readers or non-fiction. There are a few exceptions, like some picture books about Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton that came from ideas she assigned to authors and illustrators.

When it's time for you to submit your own work, keep in mind that you deserve an editor who is as passionate about your book as you are!

Spring Beckons

2010-03-13T14:06:00.000-06:00

Spring is here in Houstonland. It would be shocking if another freeze came our way. It's also time to throw off winter doldrums, frozen thoughts, and cold ideas. Heat is headed our way. Get your ideas baking, your sentences stirring and your chapters cooking.

Tonight the clock springs forward. Put a spring in your step and your writing. Spring clean your shelves and read about writing your favorite genre again, just like when you first started writing.

Celebrate spring with a walk. Open your senses to all that surrounds and to sweet spring sounds. There's a mockingbird near my house that sings around 2:00 am. No doubt this little bird knows spring is the singing season.

Let go and whistle a happy tune, hum a favorite song and bellow a broadway melody. Chirp and create! Your fingers will spring onto the keyboard with new vitality and purpose.

Seasons give us reasons to begin again and look forward to the future. Who knows what awaits? Spring beckons with new writing possiblities, budding nature and blue skies. Hop to it!

Blogger Late than Never

2010-03-08T19:11:00.000-06:00

After a terrific day of presentations at the Houston SCBWI Conference, we had a Q & A for the speakers.

One question was, “What are your favorite future projects?” This delighted me. I’m ready to read these wonderful soon-to-be-available books. It’s like waiting for dessert. We know it’s coming. Bring it on. And hurry up!

Ruta Rimas told us about Henry in Love, a picture book written and illustrated by Peter McCarty. Henry, the cat, is in love with Chloe, the bunny. How will he win her love? Ruta also mentioned The Doubting, a novel by Heidi Ayarbe. It deals with a soccer player and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Patrick Collins is looking forward to the picture book, Moon Bears. Who doesn’t want to see out-of-this-world text and art in a pb?

Sara Crowe answered with Saving Maddie, a novel by Austin’s Varian Johnson. It involves past friendship and loyalty to one’s own beliefs. Sara also mentioned the novel, Sea by Heidi Kling, which deals with tsunami victims.

Alexandra Cooper said Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour was her favorite future project. This novel, written by Morgan Matson, takes readers across the country on a road trip adventure.

Nancy Ferensten told us Spies of Mississippi, a nonfiction novel by Rick Bowers, involves the journalists who tried to destroy the civil rights movement. How tragic!

Shadow, a novel by Houston’s Jenny Moss, was mentioned by Lisa Sandell. Who can Shadow trust in this mystery? Lisa also told us to watch for The Clockwork Three by M. Kirby that is a turn-of-the-century mystery for kids.

Cynthia Leitich Smith proudly announced her picture book, Holler Loudly, will be published. She first wrote it in 2002. This is such an inspiration as we hurry, write and wait. And then rewrite, and rewrite and keep submitting.

I hope these titles encourage you as much as they do me. Different genres, fiction and nonfiction, all soon published and coming our way. Hip Hip Hooray!

Just Go Ahead & Wire Those Royalties to my Swiss Bank Account...

2010-03-06T14:07:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I was sitting in on fellow Caker Doris Fisher's school visit to my youngest daughter’s elementary school.

Doris is a pro at these sort of things, an expert at involving the kids & getting them excited about writing & reading (& even about math, since the 3 of her 4 picture books are math-related).

When the presentation was over, it was question-and-answer time and Doris was pelted with the usual inquiries:

Where do you get your ideas?
How long did it take for your book to come out?
What are you working on now?

But one particular IRS agent in training raised his hand and asked the one question that everyone wishes they could ask but can't (unless they are a precocious 10 year olds) :

How much money do you make?

Doris glanced to where I was sitting in the back of the room. I rolled my eyes & smiled.

Her answer "Not a lot."

Of course– as many of us know, a published author is lucky if they earn enough money to constitute “making a living”. They depend on school visits, speaking engagements & usually another part- or full-time job to make said living.

But don't get totally depressed yet -- because, of course, there are exceptions. I LOVE to hear about those. The every-so-often book deal that literally takes your breath away. Read this story about YA author Josephine Angelini from yesterday's Publisher's Weekly...

That's right -- a SEVEN FIGURE ADVANCE! (And does this series NOT sound fantastic?)

So yeah, it can happen. It does happen.

Now will it happen to one of us? Will it happen to you?

The odds are slim, certainly, and we probably shouldn’t waste too much time planning our big move to that de-luxe apartment in the sky– but we can dream, can’t we?

I mean, seven figures?!

Just think of all the cake that would buy.

In the Beginning there was CAKE...

2010-03-02T13:57:00.001-06:00

Rolling in from today's critique group meeting. When I say rolling I'm being totally serious. Because of course, there was cake. Yesterday was Lynne's birthday, so we had to (of course) celebrate.

There's a new bakery in the area called Cakewalk -- that's where we picked up Lynne's awesome chocolate/chocolate mousse elephant cake for the last meeting. That cake was so good that this morning I stopped by and picked out some goodies from their case.

Only 5 of us could make it this morning, so I tried to exercise self-control. Here was the damage: one (slightly huge) lemon bar, one (OMG to die for) fudge brownie, two each chocolate & vanilla cupcakes.

And possibly my new favorite thing on the planet: chai cupcakes. Spicy, vanilla-y and covered with the best buttercream frosting you've ever had in your life. Seriously. Amazing.

We also read some great new writing (because really we don't JUST eat cake) -- one first chapter in particular by member Miriam that, were I an editor, I would have put an offer on after reading the first paragraph!

Sadly, I'm not an editor. Sorry, Miriam. But it was utterly riveting & expertly written.

I think that's one of the best things about being in a critique group: you get to witness the birth of a story. Of course, those stories will change over time. Point of view, tense, genre, names, genders of characters -- these may all be completely different by the time it is a polished manuscript. In fact, the first draft may be completely unrecognizable from the final.

But still, to be there at the beginning is really something special. And if there's a chai cupcake sitting next to you at the time -- oh yeah, that's even better.

I Swear I'm Not Doing It For the Cupcakes

2010-02-27T20:22:00.001-06:00

Ok, I confess...I'm seeing another critique group. I can't help myself. I love both groups so much, it seems unfair to have to pick just one. I have needs, people.
Today I had lunch with my once-a-month critique group, and the elephant cupcakes they brought from Rao's Bakery were too cute not to post.

We meet once a month to critique a big chunk of a novel--one person hands over a half novel or whole novel manuscript, and at the following month's meeting we give the critique. When we don't have anything to critique, we still meet to have lunch and talk about our writing and what awesome books we're reading.

They also got me this adorable pillow that will hold my pajamas when I go to a slumber party...

And this teapot, also adorable.

Now tell me, who could resist such cuteness?

Conference Notes 2010: Put Every Word on Trial for its Life!

2010-02-27T14:56:00.000-06:00

It’s been one week since the fantastic SCBWI Houston conference that my fellow Cakers have been blogging about …

Lucky us, this year’s mix of editors/agent/author/art director came together to form pretty much the perfect storm of speakers on writing & illustrating for children.

A particular high point for me was Balzer & Bray assistant editor Ruta Rimas’ presentation on What Makes a Book Great. This speech was a timely reminder of how we as writers can analyze our writing & make it as effective as possible.

Ruta shared a quote by Francine Prose from the book Reading Like a Writer, in which Prose implores writers to “put each word on trial for its life”.

How do we do that, you ask?

Rimas started us out thinking microscopic, encouraging us to look at the individual words in a sentence (ask yourself which words stick out as successful, which support the overall theme of the story) – to a more general analysis of a specific sentence (Does it build up suspense? What does this sentence do structurally?) to poring over whole (or groups of) paragraphs – noticing how their flow makes the story “breathe”.

We were shown concrete examples of successful word choice/sentence &paragraph structure from classics like Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. The excerpts Rimas chose proved how this kind of attention to detail can strengthen a story.

The idea is that this kind of careful analysis -- from the smallest unit (the individual word) to the largest (the paragraph or chapter) will create a purposeful rhythm in your story.

Your reader may not ever consciously notice this “rhythm” but it is part of what will keep them reading, curious, wanting (needing!) to know what happens next…

You can bet I’m taking Ruta’s advice & sticking it in my editorial ammunition pouch. As I pound out my current wip, I can promise that I will indeed put every word on trial for its life. If it's not necessary, it's outta there! NO MERCY!

Are you to the challenge too?

Thanks again to the awesome Vonna Carter for the conference pics!

Conference Reflections: Lisa Ann Sandell of Scholastic

2010-02-24T22:46:00.000-06:00

Ever been to one of those conferences where the presentations cover information you already knew or had heard so many times before? Well, that wasn't the case at the recent Houston SCBWI "Reach for the Stars" conference. All the speakers were excellent, and so many people-- beginning writers, seasoned writers, and everything in between-- complimented the quality of the speakers.

For the next few days, those of us who attended will be posting about the conference. See Laura's post about Nancy Feresten of National Geographic.

Author and editor Lisa Ann Sandell of Scholastic gave a presentation on "Breaking Through the Black Hole (aka The Editor's Desk)." Lisa has been with Scholastic for about 10 years, and works mostly with mid-grade and young adult novels. The books she's worked on include the Charlie Bone series by Jenny Nimmo, The Fire Eternal by Chris D'Lacey, and Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah. An upcoming book she's excited about is Shadow by our own Jenny Moss!

If you've browsed through the young adult section of a bookstore lately, you've probably noticed a lot of paranormal books on the shelves. So many of us love reading them, too, but Lisa's noticed that it's getting harder for books in that genre to stand out. She also sees plenty of fantasy submissions and wonders if that genre has peaked. She sees more potential for growth in mid-grade books, and predicts that mysteries and thrillers are about to hit it big.

So what is she looking for? The book that hasn't been written yet. She likes to see a compelling hook on the first page, an original voice, something different from anything she's ever read. Whatever the story is, readers need to feel that the book is relevant to them, that the stories and characters are relevant to their lives. They need to be invested in the characters. The book needs to feel important to today's readers but have staying power too.

Lisa advises authors to find an agent, because they can fend for you in the best way.

She gave great advice on writing a stellar query letter. Here are a couple of her tips:
Keep the letter straightforward, with a concise summary of the plot and characters.
Focus on your story-- don't include a marketing plan or comparisons to other books.
Be yourself, because that will ring true. Can you write a description of your book on a 3 x 5 card? What about on a Post-it note? (I'm sure she means the regular size-- don't go out and get the poster size, you cheaters.) Keep that note at your writing table so you can refer to it now and then.

I was lucky enough to talk to Lisa at the pre-conference party, and again during my conference critique of my work-in-progress. Besides being a super-nice person who loves books, she was so helpful in discussing where my story is going and what I can do when I revise to make it better.

One thing I've noticed from the presentations here and at other conferences and workshops is that the popularity of different genres is cyclical. Several years ago, YA novels were hard to sell, and everyone wanted picture books. Now the YA market is huge, and as those who write picture books know, it's harder than ever to get an editor or agent interested in acquiring a picture book manuscript. I'm sure vampires and other paranormal creatures will never go away (especially if they're in the form of teenage boys with abs of marble), but maybe we are getting to the point at which people are saying, "Enough paranormal! Give me something else!" And that something else could be a mid-grade mystery, a picture book, or whatever you're writing right now.

We'd like to thank Vonna Carter for her awesomeness and for letting us lift pictures from her site, since none of us dorks thought to take any at the time. Visit her website to see more pictures and conference posts.

Conference Update: Nancy Feresten of National Geographic

2010-02-24T14:28:00.000-06:00

From 2008 to 2009, the sale of eBooks rose 176 per cent. Revenue from them was only 1 percent of the market, but projected to be one-third of the market by 2013.

Nancy Feresten of National Geographic shared those statistics at the SCBWI Houston conference and scared me to death.

eBooks replacing print books? Please say it ain’t so!

Okay, I’ll admit it. I love books. I love the smell and feel of them, the sturdy, comforting bulk of them. I love to thumb through them or sink down into them and lose myself in a magnificent journey.

As an old time book lover, I can’t imagine giving up my precious books for a machine. No, no, and I repeat, no!

But then I listened to Nancy’s vision for the future of publishing and I can breathe normally again. She explained the endless possibilities so well that I can only give a brief recap. I was too enthralled to take notes.

Readers will always want stories, facts, photos, and fun. Print books will continue to instruct, inspire, and open new worlds for readers. After all, print books are portable, collectible, durable, and inexpensive.

But in the not-so-distant future, there will also be a whole array of eBooks that readers can download onto e-readers with multimedia options like moving pictures and sound. Digital books can be any length, they take up little or no space, they have adjustable text sizes, and they are searchable. Students will be able to carry all of their textbooks on one reader. Teachers will be able to customize materials for their students. Researchers will have access to all kinds of information that simply wasn’t available in the average library.

So, rather than fear the future of publishing, I’ve decided to embrace it. Thanks, Nancy.

Critique Group Success: The Main Ingredient

2010-02-22T12:09:00.000-06:00

Of the seven WWFC members, six of us have a published book or an agent. On reflecting over the last four years that we’ve been together, I would boil our success down to one main ingredient: cooperation. We haven’t discussed it much, but the Cakers have always worked with the assumption that success for one is a success for all.

With thousands of manuscripts circulating the inboxes of agents and editors, children’s publishing is a competitive business. Competition can bring out various emotions and strategies, and not all of them are helpful. It’s easy to feel that someone else’s slice of the pie means less pie for me. At the risk of carrying the dessert analogy too far -- if I have to eat more pie than you, chances are, I’m going to position myself in front of the biggest piece with my elbows pointed out.

But if we try to succeed alone, we shut ourselves off from allies that could be crucial to our success. Like critique groups everywhere, we read manuscripts. We applaud what we love and constructively critique the parts that don’t quite work. But we don’t just share manuscripts. We lend books, send links to great articles on writing, and share market information about new agents and opportunities.

Could we gain a slight edge by keeping great finds to ourselves? Maybe. But the Cakers have chosen not to and we’ve been rewarded with true friendships and a group where creativity thrives.

The submission process rides like a bumpy roller coaster with ups, downs, and unexpected twists. While it’s always easy to share good news, bad news takes another level of vulnerability. Genuine goodwill and commitment on the part of critique group members makes it possible to be open about failure. And that, in the end, may be our greatest success. Our learning curve has been steeper and faster because we’ve learned from each other about what works and doesn’t work in both our writing, and in the market. Together, we have six times over the experience any of us would have individually.

We’re just getting started, and the best is yet to come as we continue growing in craft and career. But one thing is certain: there’s enough pie to go around, and it’s much sweeter when shared with friends.

-- M.G.King

We love Cake Wrecks!

2010-02-21T20:27:00.000-06:00

Cake Wrecks is a fun blog to visit for unintentionally funny, horrifically bad cakes, but on Sundays they feature really, really good cakes. And their post today was literature-themed and adorable, so here it is!

Dr. Seuss cakes at Cake Wrecks

Houston SCBWI Conference or Bust!

2010-02-19T09:10:00.000-06:00

It's been a big week for WWFC (see yesterday's post!) and it's not over yet... Tomorrow morning, at the crack of dawn, most, though not all :( of WWFC will be heading west toward Katy, Texas for the Houston SCBWI annual conference! We're all excited, kinda like college girls on their way to Cancun for Spring Break, minus the bikinis and umbrella drinks.

Here's tomorrow's line-up:

Alexandra Cooper, Editor, Simon and Schuster
Patrick Collins, Creative Director, Henry Holt & Co.

Sara Crowe, Agent, Harvey Klinger, Inc.
Nancy Ferensten, Editor-in- Chief, National Geographic
Ruta Rimas, Editor, Harper Collins
Lisa Ann Sandell, Author and Editor, Scholastic Press
Cynthia Leitich Smith, Author and Teacher (Vermont College of Fine Arts)

The Houston conference always provides great networking opportunities, a chance to get your work critiqued by an industry professional, a way to meet fellow writers & illustrators & also an excuse to eat really yummy Mexican food after.

For those of you who will be there, make sure you look for us ... WWFC from Kingwood. For those of you who can't attend ... watch this blog for a conference recap next week!

Have a great weekend!

Christina

Agent News!

2010-02-17T22:40:00.000-06:00

As Christina mentioned in this post, we got to celebrate some good news during our last meeting-- because I got an agent! Yay! Here's a bit about that agenty journey.

After working on my first novel for about three years, writing and revising and attending workshops and conferences and going to some awesome critique groups, I felt ready to start querying agents last year.
It was exciting when someone wanted to read more.

Of course there were rejections.

But I took it all in stride.

And I kept working and revising and submitting and attending workshops, conferences, and awesome critique groups.

Finally, one day...an agent emailed to set up a phone call! So we talked, and she offered representation, and she was awesome and nice.

But the next day, I had a call from another agent!

She was awesome and nice too, and also offered representation.

So that was great, but I had to make one of those hard decisions-- you know, where you have two great things in front of you and you can pick only one.

I thought back to other tough decisions I'd had to face...

I took a few days to think about it, and made a decision about which agent felt like the right one for me. I sent her an email, and she called right away! But I was at work, so I missed her call.

But we talked the next day, and we're both thrilled to be working together.

She sent me the contract...

...and I'm now represented by Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary and Media Representation!

Here's her adorable self right here:

Doesn't she look smart and bookish?

Like always, we celebrate good news, so at our last meeting, the critique group brought me a cake!(I should mention that the novel is called CHAINED and it's about an elephant, so the theme of the cake will make sense.)

Monica was especially happy for me, since she's also represented by Joanna and knows how fabulous she is.
Joanna requires all clients to wear Snuggies after signing with her. It's kind of like a cult. A warm, comfy, cult.
Ok, not really. But that would be awesome.

Author visits

2010-02-15T14:00:00.000-06:00

This is a busy week for me with two author visits and a Houston SCBWI Conference this weekend. I only write picture books, unlike the other writers in Will Write for Cake.

What's new that I can mention to you about an author visit? Probably not much, but gosh, they are just so much doggone fun.

My four picture books, published by Sylvan Dell Publishing, obviously have great appeal to students under the age of 8. But lucky for me, my books are also filled with facts for all ages, as well as wacky pictures to find. Even adults giggle while reading my books. Happy Birthday to Whooo? is full of baby animal birth announcements. Guess which baby has been born from word play in the announcement and the art around each announcement.

The best guess I've received from a student(who was three years old) was for an announcement that started, "We are flying high in the sky."It's an octopus!" he eagerly told me. Clearly the little guy knew everyone was telling me animal names, but was he exactly on the right page? Probably not! But who cares? I told him it was a great guess, while the teachers in the room giggled behind their hands.

My other three books, One Odd Day, My Even Day and My Half Day are all Math with a Laugh. Rhyming and full of unusual pictures, readers find oddities in each book, as well as being introduced to odd number, even numbers and fractions. Amazing art and verse involve the reader with all the fun.

When I first started author visits, I wondered what I would do, how would this work, was I a dud before I even opened the school door? But I've found out students love visiting authors. Not only am I visiting their school or the author at a literacy night, but I'm a real "live" author, which I like better than being a real "dead" author.

Teachers and librarians couldn't be more helpful, considerate and excited, too. What fun for everyone. I hope all children's writers have the chance to enjoy this aspect of publishing. What a book blast baked to perfection with sweet memories!

Let Them Eat Cake!

2010-02-10T12:27:00.000-06:00

Welcome to our blog!

As you can see from the column on the right, we write children's books and meet every other week to read & critique, talk books, agents, contracts, and trade gossip in general.

Oh, and yes, we eat cake -- whenever good news hits, or even if we've had a string of bad news (like the week our collective rejections hit the double-digits).

The cake doesn't happen every time we meet, but lately we've been swimming in it.

Our latest cake-worthy news just officially rolled in today -- in the form of member Lynne Kelly Hoenig's decision to sign with agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe at Nancy Coffey Literary & Media. Joanna also happens to represent fellow WWFC member Monica Vavra.

So congrats to Lynne, who has worked very HARD for this for a long time!

What's next? Hopefully a book deal, and definitely, CAKE!

We'll keep you posted!

Christina

Critique today

2010-02-09T12:59:00.000-06:00

Nothing like creative writers reading each other's writing to inspire. Critique groups provide words of encouragement, comments on plots, generate ideas and discuss publishing news. A treat every week we meet, with no calories!

Still stirring the batter

2010-02-08T19:13:00.000-06:00

I'm typing this to see if it comes up and posts on the blog...like a trial run of a new recipe.