Books I read this Summer

And the list is PATHETICALLY small. I've been frustrated not to have more time to read. It's like if I want to read a book I can do that and still get everything done that's going on in my household or if I want to write a little, maybe I can do that. But my days are too packed to be able to read a book AND write both. Maybe someday when my boys don't take so much time, attention and worrying. Because, of course, I can't NOT worry, can I? Nope. Impossible.

1. ENCHANTED, INC. by Shanna Swendson (adult chick-lit fantasy)
2. I'M NOT JULIA ROBERTS (Laura Ruby, adult novel by a fab children's writer. She's awesome with this book, too!)
3. BURIED by Robin MacCready (YA suspense)
4. ANGEL MONSTER by Veronica Bennett (Stunning historical fiction about Mary Shelley who wrote "Frankenstein")
5. GOLDEN by Jennifer Barnes (YA paranormal)
6. THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick (self-explanatory!)
7. THE SUMMER SHERMAN LOVED ME (MG literary)
8. THE RUNAWAY PRINCESS by Kate Coombs (MG/YA fantasy)
9. I'D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU BUT THEN I'D HAVE TO KILL YOU by Ally Carter (ADORABLE YA chick-lit)
10. WHAT HAPPENED TO CASS MCBRIDE? by Gail Giles (nail-biting YA thriller)
11. STORY OF A GIRL by Sara Zarr (YA contemporary)
12. OUR TOWN by Thornton Wilder (read for a book group. Very interesting)
13. JOHNNY VOODOO by Dakota Lane (YA romance)
14. TANTALIZE by Cynthia Leitich Smith (YA vampire romance)
15. VANISHING ACTS by Jody Picoult (adult suspense)
16. GRIEF GIRL by Erin Vincent (YA memoir) I'll be posting about this next week when I get back in town. I met Erin in LA and this is an incredible book!

Only 16 books for three months! That's gotta be a record for the least amount of reading in my entire life!!! And I have at least 20 books waiting to be read. I ALWAYS have about 20 books waiting. And research. And school lessons to be prepared. And I keep hearing about great books out there and put them on hold at the library or buy them and the stack just keeps multiplying.

Confession: I'm supposed to be reading WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy this summer, too, for my book group's discussion in September. Ha, ha, ha! (Ssh! I rented the movie.)

Get a Free Book - before it's even published!

HarperCollins is giving away free Advanced Reading Editions (ARE) of books coming out this fall. Sign up with your email and snail mail (so they can send you the copy when they do the drawing) and then you get to write a review and answer questions about the book. The books offered look fabulous.
Especially check out my friend Alex Flinn's newest book, due out in October, BEASTLY!
What a cool idea! Don't miss out.
Here's the link: http://www.harperteen.com/firstlook/index.asp#books
Hope you're a winner!
Hope I am, too!
P. S. Sign up your teenagers and tell the teenagers you know. They can get a free ARE, too!

Ergh!

Drat, for some reason the You Tube link isn't working. I've tried repeatedly. Sorry and hmmph!

Just Google "Britain's Got Talent, six year old Connie singing" and you'll go right to it. Pretty amazing. She even made one of the judges cry.

You gotta see this!

This little girl is ADORABLE! Wow, what an amazing voice, timbre and pitch! She even gets Simon smiling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En0A8KGMgq8

On pins and needles for news from seaheidi!

I'm also printing up my handouts for the SCBWI monthly schmooze tonight. Yep, I'm speaking - about synopses. For some strange - but very nice - reason I've been having a lot of luck with mine. I have, like, a 75% YES rate from agents on my query/synopsis who want to see my manuscript. Of course, getting a YES for representation is a whole 'nother problem - but one I WILL lick. For starters, I've figured out a couple problems that I'm going to revise before I do any more querying.

Pointers from my little presentation will be posted tomorrow! Right now I gotta get dressed and get out of here. It's a 45 minute drive to Albuquerque and I'm meeting a writer friend for dinner beforehand. And yet, I'm fixing dinner to leave for the family. Hey, how come it always works like that for us Moms? The only way we can get out of the house is to make sure everyone is fed and happy first. :-)

Juicy Bits

From the L.A. Conference that is . . .

Rubin Pfeffer, Publishing Director of Simon & Schuster:

"A great book is one which sends the reader off to find the next book."

Ellen Wittlinger, author of ParrotFish:

"Art (or books) can take you out of a small world and open the door to a larger world. Art can save you."

John Green, Author of Looking for Alaska:

"Writing is an act of translation as much as it is an act of creation. "
"The great challenge is to translate a feeling or emotion or experience into a story that lets the reader feel the same emotion and have the same experience. "
"Truth doesn't lie inside the facts, it lies inside the people of your story."

Emma Dryden, Vice-President and Publisher at McElderry Books

"If an editor doesn't feel the story and love it and have it resonate to them, then publishing the book would be a disservice to the author. "

Kate Schafer, Agent at Janklow & Nesbit

She wants a book that makes her feel like something big and wonderful is happening.
Word of the Day: Optimism

Linda Sue Park, Newbery winner for A Single Shard:

"Finish. The. Book." (borrowed from Jane Yolen)
"Write the book more than you talk about the book."

Dinah Stevenson, Publisher at Clarion

"No two people define well-written in the same way."

In other news, this afternoon the whole gang (my family that is) went to see Bourne Ultimatum. Loved it! Very thrilling. I love mysteries and thrillers, but I've been too chicken to try writing one myself even though all my books have suspense and danger built into them. But they're not considered *thriller* per se.

Speaking of movies, we finally rented "Bridge to Terabithia" a couple weeks ago and I ADORED it. I thought it was very true to the book and I cried at the end, just like I cry when I read the novel. It was very emotionally stirring and I thought Jess and Leslie were PERFECTLY cast. The movie haunted my thoughts for days. The ending was perfect, too.

Notes from Emma Dryden, McElderry Books

Emma was so smart and wise in her keynote address and in her workshop on writing the novel. I really liked her a lot.

Here are a few tidbits:

1. Write what you know, write what you feel, write what you care about.

2. Books are for the soul. Books are how we preserve our culture. (I never thought about books in quite that way before, but how true it is. We can see our culture change throughout the decades through the books we have and the books that have lasted.)

3. All writers are working their way through a darkness and into the light just like our young readers are trying to do as they grow up. (I'm realizing this more and more about myself the longer I write.)

My themes and premises change depending on what I'm going through at the moment or what I've gone through during my life in the past. Maybe I'm confessing more than I should! Ha! But a writer's theme is never written down as such in the pages of their manuscript or even spoken in concrete words by a character. And that *take away* value a reader gets from a book might be something completely different for another reader. But a good book, a meaningful, emotional story always has one.

Opening L.A. Keynote

First up: The incredible Mr. Walter Dean Myers. He was raised in a foster family. His father was a janitor and he told us that to this day his parents still don't quite *get* what he does for a living. Once he heard his mother on the phone talking to a friend and she told the friend, "Walter's job is typing stories". Ha!

The following part of is talk is where I really connected with Mr. Myers. My roommate, Kristin, and I had this very discussion on the plane the previous evening as we flew over so I was pretty wowed when Walter talked about it in the very first hour. It felt like he was talking to me.

He posed the question: Why am I - or why are you - a writer? Here are some typical assumptions from the outside world:
Is he a writer because he comes from a family of storytellers?: NO
Is it because he loves words?: NO
Is it because he loves to play with language?: NO

He's a writer because he loves to create and he loves building world that only he can envision and create and then try to bring it to life for others. Books always took me out of the boring real world and into a new, better, and more exciting place and that's the reason I wanted to be a writer, too, from the time I was very young. I think books are BETTER than real life.

Walter went on to discuss searching for the details of our *world* and our characters. Not only physical details, but emotional details. Details that explode the moment, that re-create a moment, that re-define a moment in a familiar but new way that connects you to your readers. Selecting the right detail is what we do every time we sit down to write. Find the details that convince your reader.

I'm off to search for the right details for my WIP, The Healing Spell. Happy searching to you, too!

SCBWI L.A. TOTALLY ROCKS!!!!

Gosh, why did it take me 11 years to get back to this conference? I am so psyched and so pumped and so filled with emotions and energy and inspiration I want to jump up and down and gush and cry.

Believe me, we all cried and sniffed and pulled out our tissues during so many moments throughout the whole weekend. And laughed and hugged and talked. More like yakked our heads off!

Of course, editors, agents, and keynote authors abounded the halls and dining tables, but one of the best parts of all, for me, was meeting such great new friends. Something I never expected.

Cool people I got to meet for the FIRST TIME after knowing them online:

seaheidi
bluemalibu
gneri
jo_no_anne
carriejones

Some awesome people I met and "friended" as soon as I got home:

griefgirl
pamm
lisa_schroeder
grizzlygirl1
kidlit_kim
kellyrfineman
kirkglaser

A totally cool, smart chick I got to meet again:

cynleitichsmith

And some other people I've known online that I was thrilled to meet in person in LA!

www.coleenparatore.com
www.lindasuepark.com
www.ellenwittlinger.com

Other writers I talked to during workshops and between keynote speeches like:

Carrie Watson
Rachel Rodriguez
Clark Leland Childers - who only gave me an email address and not a website, silly boy!
Vicki Thomas
Suzanne Taylor (who is gorgeous, expecting her first baby, and won a FREE conference next year!)

A few gals during the Historical Fiction writers group Sunday night:
Carole Estby Dagg
Lynda Pflueger
Sarah Wiseley Croley

MORE conference news the rest of the week so stay tuned!

SCBWI L.A. Here I come!

It feels surreal that I'm actually getting on a plane in two days. I went 11 years ago - only time ever - the year SCBWI celebrated it's 25th anniversary. About 400 people attended and it was fab of course.

I hear there are 800 + now that attend. I think I will feel like a mouse. I'm excited, nervous, terrified. Will I be brave enough to talk to people? Will I look like a dork? Will I know what to say without sounding like an idiot if I get close to an editor or agent - or one of those fantastic authors I worship? I need to go calm my fluttering heart.

Hey, please drop me a quick "Yes!" if you're going! Should we do a Blogspot/Live Journal gathering? Or will that amount to about 400 of us? Cool!!

Maybe we should wear name tags with our LJ personas. Hope to see/meet you there! Safe travels and *see* you in about a week!

Rattlesnake Rain!

Good stuff in the mailbox - my author copies of the August Cricket magazine with my story "Rattlesnake Rain"!!! It's the lead story, too - WOW! I'm thrilled. And it looks gorgeous, the illustrations are beautiful! It looks like they took the theme of my story and built the whole issue around it. Need I say, I'm excited?

Check out the issue from your library or bookstore - or if you subscribe already, enjoy! (The link shows the August issue)

Protect Your Work!

This is a great post by Diana Peterfreund on her blog. She gives out some wise and terrific writing advice - and her first book Secret Society Girl was pretty terrific, too. The sequel, Under the Rose, just came out last month.

I love her latest from Thursday, July 19th - Protect the Work! That's YOUR work - your writing, your time, your ideas, your voice, your style, your strengths, your passion.

Here's a snippet that really resonated with me because this is an issue that's been on my mind a LOT the past few months as I keep rewriting to please everyone else or to *fix* whatever is supposedly wrong with my manuscripts.


". . . Just because someone didn't like a particular aspect of your book doesn't mean you did it poorly. Nor does it mean it's your job to fix that aspect. It's their problem. I read on a blog the other day about a speech that writer James Rollins gave at Thrillerfest (pardon the hearsay, but the lesson is there, even in parable form): "He'd read the reviews for his first book and noticed that many of them commented on lack of characterization. So he was trying to work on the characterization. He submitted the manuscript to the editor, who saw some of the characterization attempts and asked him what he was doing. He told her, and she said that his great strength was making a book a page turner and to stop worrying about what the reviewers were finding wrong." That's protecting the work. Do what you do best. What one person hates about your work will be another person's favorite part. Don't try to be all things to all people, or you won't please anyone."


Read the whole post - it's wonderful.

As Promised

Repeated words in WIP's . . . only a week late. Hey, it's summer, right?

When I finished the revision into first person from third and I was going back to look at some of the scenes that ended up getting a LOT of reworking - and then ya get nervous thinking you've left in little typos and *loose* words - so of course I had to read it a third time JUST TO MAKE SURE - which I'm still not, but after awhile you just gotta mail it and move on to the next project . . .so ANYWAY, I started thinking about some words that began popping out at me over and over again. So I made a list and did the find/replace thing and discovered there were some words which stuck out like obnoxious gremlins.

Here they are:

1. Miserable - I kept worrying that I'd used this word verbosely, but it turned out I'd only used it 4 times in 80,000 words. I left them alone. Maybe I've just read this manuscript a dozen times too many so 4 turned into 48 in my mind.

2. Quickly - 41 times, revised down to 11

3. Suddenly - 22 times, revised down to 5

4. Instantly - 16 times, revised down to 5

5. Immediately - 11 times, revised down to 6

6. Stared - 28 times, revised down to 10 (My gosh, everybody plus the camels were staring at everything and everybody all the time! Enough already.)

7. Slowly - 18 times, revised down to 3. (My slowly's were actually slowing down the story)

8. Belly - 25 times. I got this down to 12 and patted myself on the belly - I mean back - because it IS a novel about belly dance, after all. But I also have 8 gut's and 12 stomach's and 7 abdomen's.

It was AMAZING how taking out the word usually ended up not just replacing it, but revising the entire sentence and paragraph into something tighter and smoother and more vivid. It was an interesting exercise, but surprising how long it took. But then NOTHING about revision is ever fast.

Formula: E.R.T. (estimated revision time) x 5 = A.T. (actual time)

Has anyone else ever done this, and what are your pet/favorite repeated words?

I've been underground for nearly four weeks because I suddenly decided to write my novel, Secret Rites of the Goddess in first person. If I'd known the work it would end up being I may not have even begun, but there it is. 120 hours later I'm doing the final check-through. And then I want to check out. Actually, I had this goal to revise two more novels this summer . . . silly me.

So the rewrite starts out innocently enough . . . I single space, paginate like a *real* book and make tons of changes along with all the *Jayden's*' to *I* and *hers* and *she's* to *me*. I also cut about 10 pages in extraneous verbage. I'm thinking, hey, this is pretty good. I like the voice better, I'm into the character more. And it only took me a week.

But another voice nags. "Go through it one more time. "
I obey.

I print out a hard copy this time instead of rewriting directly on my computer screen. I use bigger margins and bigger spaces so I can see and make corrections easier. I'm shocked as I'm reading and marking. My pages end up BLOODY! I mean, my red pencil is spilling its guts!

I rewrite the prose even more and I end up cutting 40 more pages of just plain verbage. Yes, 40! I guess I talk more on the page than I do in real life - although my three sons would majorly disagree. So in the end I've cut 10,000 words. It's now 80,000 words. I've put all the changes in and this round takes me 2.5 weeks of 8 hour days.

I'm burned out and couldn't face it Monday morning so I took a break and read two books yesterday and ran errands and took my son to the dentist. I needed that. Um, the books, not the dentist. The books helped me get out of *my* head and help me see the world again. I'm ready to finish today and mail this to a very patient, but highly interested agent.

Tomorrow . . . an interesting observation about repeated words.

8 Facts about me

I've been tagged by Barb O'Connor.

1. My favorite book growing up was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, but I don't particularly like horses. Good thing the book isn't really about horses!

2. I drink only fat-free milk with my pan of brownies. Ahem - I know they cancel each other out.

3. I wanted three daughers after having my three sons, but it never happened.

4. I have a golden Egyptian Goddess Selket sitting above my desk.

5. I know how to speak a little Bulgarian. Zdrasti!

6. I'm a part-time Mary Kay Beauty Consultant - but I don't do *parties* at all.

7. I've never been a morning person, but I get up at 5 a.m. to teach a class at church for teenagers.

8. My husband proposed to me with a plate of fortune cookies. Inside the last one was the saying: "Confucious say: Will you marry me?" He baked them himself.

Now for the fun part - I get to tag 8 other people!

Carrie Jones
Lauren Barnholdt
Melissa Wyatt
Alexandra Flinn
Janette Rallison
Mette Ivie Harrison
Mary Pearson
Julie Prince
Crissa Chappell

You're it!

Pioneer Woman!

Whew, boy! I'm leaving at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning for a wilderness pioneer re-enactment trek. Am I a sucker for punishment - or just blessed with the adventurous spirit as my pioneer forebears? Think I'll tell myself it's the latter.

We're going with a group of about 150 including the teenagers from church, pulling handcarts, and wearing 1850's dress. Thirty miles on foot with only a 5 gallon bucket with all our stuff. Yep, that's all under and outer and sleeping clothing, toiletries, jacket, rain poncho, flashlight, chapstick, sunscreen, first aid, T.P., towel, wet wipes, sunglasses, the works - in 1 five gallon bucket. With a lid, you've got an instant stool for the campfire. Another bag holds bedding, blanket, pillow.

We've been getting tons of rain this month which is really unusual so I'm praying for sunshine. As long as I'm praying I'll ask for NO 95 degree weather either.

I'll let you know if I survive the trip. I'm going as Ann Roberts Griffiths, my ancestor who left Wales in 1843 as a newlywed of 13 days with her husband Joseph and traveled from Liverpool all the way to New Orleans and then up the Mississippi to Illinois. From there she traveled 1300 miles across the western prairies to a new home.

I can't even imagine doing that NOW, let alone THEN. She's my hero. And we have practically the same name. My middle name is Anne and my maiden name is Griffiths so direct descendant here.

So back to packing. I just emailed three chapters and brand new detailed synopsis (written this weekend) off to another agent who requested my novel, Secret Rites of the Goddess. She even called my idea *brilliant* - so I'm just a teensy, weensy bit psyched!

Enchanted Fridays – Journey of a Novelist

I’m thrilled to interview one of the best YA authors out there and someone I've learned a lot from - Alex Flinn!

We're talking about DIVA today, but don't forget that Alex's next book BEASTLY comes out in October from HarperTeen, and sounds absolutely delicious!

KIMBERLEY: What was the seed for DIVA? What led you to write a novel about Caitlin after your book, BREATHING UNDERWATER?

ALEXANDRA: I got a lot of requests for a sequel to BU, and I really had no idea what I would possibly write about. "Nothing interesting is ever going to happen to Nick again," I explained to the kids who e-mailed, and I firmly believed that to be true.

A few people, not all girls, asked for a book about Caitlin, and I toyed with the idea of writing a book about her, after the book, going to performing arts school, because I had gone to a program like that my last two years of high school.

Then, I did a school visit where I was discussing abusive relationships with several girls who had been in them. "Why," I asked, "are so many girls in this school in abusive relationships." One girl replied, "It's a small school. If you broke up with your boyfriend, there'd be no one to date."

I thought that was sad that these girls thought they had so little going on in their lives, that they needed a boyfriend so badly that they'd accept one who hit them. And that sort of provided the spark of the idea for DIVA, to write a book about a girl pursuing her dreams and realizing that those dreams did not necessarily need to include a boy.

The opera part came a little bit from the fact that Caitlin was a singer in the first book and a lot from the fact that I like opera, and I think it is misunderstood by most young people (including my generation). People think opera is boring, but it actually has enough blood, guts, cheating spouses, and undying love to fill a season of Desperate Housewives and several Manga books. I used the opera, La Traviata, among others, as a parallel to Caitlin's and her mother's lives. La Traviata has been used in several modern movies, including Pretty Woman and Moulin Rouge, so I thought teens would get it.
KIMBERLEY: How much of Caitlin’s journey toward singing opera, performance arts school, auditions, and teachers experiences mirror your own?

ALEXANDRA: A lot of the little things that happened to Caitlin happened to me or my friends. The bigger things didn't. Caitlin's parents are not my parents, and I never knew a boy like Nick. Caitlin's best friend, Gigi, is an entirely fictional character. The only characters who were loosely based upon real people were Caitlin's friend, Sean, and some of the teachers (Rowena, for example, is sort of a hybrid of two of the three voice teachers with whom I studied). But the little day-to-day things that happened to her (including her terror that she would be asked to dance on the side of the stage) were taken from my own life. I think writing an autobiographical book would be very challenging, but making the book about Caitlin gave me the opportunity to take the story away from my own and just choose bits and pieces I liked about what happened in real life.

KIMBERLEY: Are Caitlin’s favorite operas and arias your favorites? If someone has never been to the opera before is there one that you would recommend they see first?

ALEXANDRA: La Traviata is a favorite of mine. Some of my other favorites are more complicated to explain within the context of a book, like The Tales of Hoffman, or they are not for Caitlin's voice part, like Cavelleria Rusticana, so I didn't include them. The first opera I ever saw live was Turandot, which is an excellent choice because it has a compelling plot, unlike some of Puccini's other opera's, which focus more on beautiful music. Probably the "chestnuts," by which I mean the popular operas which are performed constantly, are the best ones for a beginner. These include Carmen, Madama Butterfly, Pagliacci, La Boheme, and Rigoletto.

KIMBERLEY: One of the most emotionally powerful scenes in DIVA, to me, is on pages 90-94 when Caitlin runs into her old boyfriend Nick, an abusive boy that she finally found the courage to leave. Her feelings toward him are so real. On one level, Caitlin still feels in love with him and yet she keeps telling herself that she shouldn’t have these feelings and tries to remind herself of how badly he treated her. Unfortunately, the good memories of Nick are hard to shake and she’s torn and a bit miserable. The doubts and insecurities she expresses in her online journal ring very true. I think many girls and women can relate to those feelings. We’ve all had them at one time or another when we’ve dated boys/men who weren’t good for us, whether they were actually abusive or not. Were those scenes difficult to write?

ALEXANDRA: I volunteered at a battered women's shelter and worked at the State Attorney's Office with domestic violence cases, before I became an author. After I became an author, I talked about dating violence with a lot of teens at school visits. At most schools, there are at least one or two girls who tell me about their abusive relationships. A lot of the stuff Caitlin puts in her journal that day is stuff I talk about with kids at school visits -- the whole question of "Why doesn't she leave him?" I know well why girls don't leave, but I hope my books help them to consider why they should.

KIMBERLEY: The most surprising or unexpected thing that’s happened to you since publishing your novels.

ALEXANDRA: It's really surprising to me that kids read my books in school. When I was in school, we mostly read stuff like Charles Dickens or, if we were really lucky, George Orwell, but never anything more modern than that. It never occurred to me that anyone would assign Breathing Underwater or Fade to Black. I think the topics appeal to teachers, and the real-life situations appeal to students.

KIMBERLEY: What are you working on now?

ALEXANDRA: My upcoming novel, Beastly, comes out in October. It's a modern, urban version of Beauty and the Beast.

KIMBERLEY: Share with us your secret "Diva" wish!

ALEXANDRA: My editor always talks about "What will readers take away from the book?" So my wish is that girls who read the book because it has a pink cover, might still take something away from it, whether it is insight into their own relationships with boys or their mothers, or maybe a little interest in the performing arts.

A big THANK YOU to Alex for stopping by and giving us a peek into her life and inspiration. Applause, applause!!!

Go hang at her Live Journal: alixwrites.livejournal.com and her web site www.alexflinn.com!

Yay for me!

I did it - I typed "The End" five minutes ago!!!

I'm WIP-ped. Sigh. Why do I always feel a bit of a let-down at the end of a first draft? I usually cry during the last few pages, but I didn't for this novel. Maybe because the phone kept ringing all day! It's hard to ignore your kids though - especially when they've got the car. Maybe it's also because I've been trying to get to the end for so long I was just too frustrated to *feel* anything. There have been so many interruptions. Like yesterday I had to stop drafting and go over the editor's notes on my story coming out in August in Cricket magazine and send it back with some rewrites so I ended up not finishing the novel like I'd hoped after all.

So The Death of Pharaoh Tutankhamun ended at 109,891 words. Time to get out the scissors. Or a hatchet. But not for a few weeks. On Monday I hit a rewrite on another book project for an interested agent.

Still, I should celebrate, right? I'm ready to kick back with a movie and some cookies. Warm, fresh chocolate chip anyone?

Chain me to my desk!

My Enchanted Fridays Interview is suspended for a week due to a frantic past couple of weeks of writing. Yes, I've actually been writing again and what's that up ahead? Can it be that there's LIGHT at the end of this arduous, black, winding, stumbling block filled tunnel? After nearly a year of plowing through research, re-plowing, fretting, moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth, stops and starts, head-banging days, and mostly utter terror that *this* is the book that I just cannot finish, oh my gosh! I think I'm actually going to type THE END to the first draft of The Murder of Pharaoh Tutankhamun today. (Maybe at midnight, but still.) Please, don't let anything happen to stop me. Bar the doors. Lock the windows. Unplug the phone. Get off the Internet! What's that? No, please, not the Interneeeeeeeet!!!

Um, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I'll let you know if I'm still breathing tomorrow morning.

Enchanted Fridays – Journey of a Novelist

I’m thrilled to interview one of my favorite authors this enchanting morning—Barbara O’Connor!!!

Barbara and I have one of those "old-fashioned" friendships –like before the telephone was invented and visiting each other was pure fantasy for two buddies living on opposite sides of the country. We discovered each other on a writer’s chat group, started emailing and haven’t stopped—and it's been ten years!!!! Friendship through the written word—I’d say that’s perfect for two writers.

Barbara O'Connor

HOW TO STEAL A DOG

Frances Foster Books, FSG, 2007

Barb’s web site: www.barboconnor.com

Visit her new blog, too! http://greetings-from-nowhere.blogspot.com/

Kimberley: How did you get the idea for HOW TO STEAL A DOG?

Barbara: This story started with a sign posted in a garden center near my home:

Still Searching for Willy.

No Questions Asked.

A hefty reward was being offered for the return of the little dog described as “very shy." I left that garden center with two pots of geraniums in the trunk of my car and Willy on my mind. He stayed there for a long time and wouldn’t go away. And then one day, as with most of my books, a title popped into my head: How to Steal a Dog

I tried and tried to think of a story to go with the title, but, as usual, that didn’t work. I always have to wait and let the story come to me. I had almost given up hope when the character of Georgina Hayes appeared in my imagination, along with the first sentence of the book:

“The day I decided to steal a dog as the same day my best friend, Luanne Godfrey, found out I lived in a car.”

And then I was off and running.

Kimberley: Do you have any personal experience with homelessness? How did you go about doing the research – or maybe you just have this brilliant imagination. Which I totally do not doubt!

Barbara: I just have a brilliant imagination. (Kidding, of course.) Thankfully, I have no personal experience with homelessness. And why Georgina presented herself to me as homeless is a mystery. As for research, I confess that I did the research after I wrote the story.

Flannery O’Connor once said, “We don’t need to be immersed in experience, we just need to contemplate it.”

So that’s what I did. As I wrote Georgina’s story, I transported myself into that car where she lived. I imagined how it looked, how it smelled, how she would sleep, where she would keep her stuff, what she would see outside her window.

But I knew that it would be important to portray her situation sensitively and realistically. I needed to research, to educate myself about the reality of homelessness, and, in particular, rural homelessness. So I read everything I could get my hands on about rural homelessness, primarily from government agencies, such as the National Coalition for the Homeless and the Rural Poverty Research Center.

Kimberley: Love Georgina’s notebook ( I have a love affair myself with the color purple.) Was the notebook part of the book’s initial conception, or did it come later? We see her entire character arc through that notebook.

Barbara: Glad you like the notebook! I love using those sorts of devices to portray the feelings of a character. I used postcards in MOONPIE AND IVY and drawings in TAKING CARE OF MOSES. Georgina’s notebook was an effective way to show her evolving feelings about what she had done.

Kimberley: What was the best/worst part of writing HOW TO STEAL A DOG?

Barbara: The best part was crawling into Georgina’s head and actually stealing a dog. That was fun! The worst part was trying to figure out how to get her out of her predicament and trying to be realistic about her homelessness, yet still sensitive to the issue.

Kimberley: Where did the characters of Carmella and Mookie come from? (For those who haven’t read the book yet, Carmella is the owner of the stolen dog and Mookie is a homeless man full of down to earth wisdom and wit.) They’re so brilliant and quirky, and yet very real. Do you have this secret stash of fabulous characters hidden in your basement?

Barbara: Oh how I wish I had that secret stash! Carmella came purely from my imagination, but Mookie was inspired by a real person. My mother lives in an assisted living facility down in South Carolina. There was a wonderful old man who lives there – named Mookie! He sits out front all day long so he can smoke. When he told me his name, I knew I had to use him in a book. (His real name is Green Hill, Junior. That’s a pretty cool name, too.)

Kimberley: Tell us about your journey to publication. Give us the low-down on the agent/editor hunt and where were you when you got THE CALL that somebody wanted to publish your book?

Barbara: I started my career with biographies for children, but since my heart is with fiction, I’ll tell you about that journey. I actually got pretty lucky. I was in a writers group with Leslie Guccione, an author who, at the time, was writing a series for Scholastic. She offered to send my manuscript to her editor, Ann Reit. Ann liked the manuscript (Beethoven in Paradise) and asked if I’d be willing to work with her on revisions. Of course I said yes! We worked together on it for several months and then Ann decided it just wasn’t right for her. Talk about disappointing! But she offered to connect me with an agent, which, as you know, was a big favor and one which I was extremely grateful for. The agent was Barbara Markowitz. Barbara and I were a perfect match and are still together. Barbara ultimately sold BEETHOVEN IN PARADISE to Frances Foster at Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

I remember exactly the moment I got THE CALL. I was on vacation with my husband’s family in Florida. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited.

Kimberley: Any advice for aspiring writers?

Barbara: Two things come to mind first for me with regard to aspiring writers. First, focus on finding your unique writing voice and write something different and fresh. You’ve got to stand out from the pack in such a competitive business. Second, don’t give up. Publishing requires lots of perseverance.

Kimberley: What are you working on now? Any books coming down the pipeline?

Barbara: I just finished the copyedits for my next novel, due out in the spring of 2008. It’s called GREETINGS FROM NOWHERE. This was a fun book for me because I was ready to challenge myself and try a multiple viewpoint story. This one has four points of view and was much harder than I had anticipated. Hopefully, I pulled it off. Time will tell, I guess.

Kimberley: The most surprising or unexpected thing that has happened to you since getting published.

Barbara: I wasn’t prepared for how much marketing I would have to do. I always figured you just write a book and get it published and that’s it. Ha! Little did I know I’d have to do mailings and prepare brochures and speak at conferences and all those things that I’m not particularly good at and don’t particularly enjoy.

Kimberley: What is your own secret wish (goal) for your life or writing?

Barbara: I’d love to reach a level of success where I could earn enough from royalties to not be so dependent on school visits for income. That would be cool! (Although I do enjoy going to schools a lot.) And name recognition would be pretty groovy.

Kimberley: My own secret wish is to meet you someday, but I won’t, um, steal a dog to buy my airplane ticket, okay? Thank you so much for being with us today, Barbara – and please, don’t stop writing!!! You have more fans than you know.

Barbara’s web site: www.barboconnor.com

Visit her new blog, too! http://greetings-from-nowhere.blogspot.com/

Shy No Longer

Man, I've been slammed this month. My WIP hasn't been touched in two weeks and I get very antsy when I only have a few chapters left to draft and I'm forced to put it aside. But it's also been a great month, too.

While in Arizona visiting my husband's mother for her 88th birthday (who still lives by herself and exercises on a treadmill no less!) we went to see Body Worlds in Phoenix. My oldest son is taking an anatomy/cadaver class and made a great tour guide. The displays/show of human bodies, embalmed in this plasticene process was stunning and mesmerizing - all these actual, REAL human bodies in various dramatic, athletic and *dance* poses to show how the human body works; the organs, the nervous system, digestion, lungs heart, the brain - everything. I thought I'd be more freaked out, but it was fascinating. Since my boys are older and have had so many biology classes they loved it, but my kids have had a lot of influence on me, like how I would never have gone to see all the action flicks over the years on my own, but how I adore those kinds of movies now because I experienced them through my boys' eyes and heard their excitement and talk about how cool and awesome the X-Men are or Spiderman. In fact, LOTR have become my all time favorite movies besides Gone With the Wind and Somewhere in Time. (Yes, I'm a romantic sap. And I watched all fifty hours of the "making of LOTR" on the extended DVD editions.) But I digress.

One thing I didn't expect at Body Worlds were all the very young kids in tow by their parents. I'm not sure I would have taken my children when they were that age. I kept thinking it was a little too much sensory stimulation and kind of scary to see the human body so exposed and gory even, although that's not the right word. For example, one of the plastinated cadavers was a woman on display upside down with all her reproductive organs open for inspection. There was also a room with embryos and fetuses from early conception to premature babies born at 32 weeks that did not survive. You get the picture. At the same time, the preservation is such that they almost seem *not* real, like store models or dummies except skinned and just muscles and bones. So you don't know what these people looked like when they were alive or how old they were when they died. I do highly recommend the show. Makes you look at your own life and body in a whole new way and I once again appreciated and admired the true miracle of life.

SCBWI Handsprings conference: The first page of my WIP was read/commented on by a First Pages editor's panel at the Friday evening reception and the visiting editors from Dutton, Random House and Holt did a fabulous job. I was so nervous listening to my work read out loud in front of a room full of people (the authors were kept anonymous) and then having it critiqued by Real Live Editors made me sweat. Later I knew I should have double dosed my deodorant. Anyway, I got GREAT comments and one of the editors gave me his card and asked to see the entire novel and even gave me the name of an agent to try! I was flying high with excitement, especially since I'd brought along my husband and youngest son who likes to write. We've had some great visiting editors before but these three dug into more details about their work, the process and what they are particularly publishing more than anybody else which is so nice because after a few conferences and couple dozen books on writing it's easy to tune out the basics of submission guidelines that you've heard a million times before.

Last week's Middle Eastern Belly Dance Show!!! Yes, I actually performed TWO dances (tribal cane dance and a more traditional veil/cabaret number) and did a presentation on the meaning and origin of the ancient dance and the women of the Bible at church for all the moms and teenage daughters. We created a Bedouin tent, sat on the floor on pillows, ate Middle Eastern food, enjoyed fabulous background music I compiled from my CDs and at the end I taught some basic belly dance moves. It was a blast and everybody loved it, even the skeptics in the group who thought belly dancing was like stripping or pole dancing (!). This has been in the works for about three months and I was so nervous I almost backed out. The next day I collapsed with the flu and then took off a day after that to pick up my son from college. Just got back yesterday and I think I'm done with laundry and shopping and errands and bills, although I'm still coughing.

I keep telling myself that the performance last week was good experience for when I sell my novel Secret Rites of the Goddess and go on tour doing belly dance/booksigning events. Ha, ha!

Tomorrow we do the wisdom teeth surgery and then please, after that can I write again?

Enchanted Fridays - Journey of a Novelist

Do you read Jane Austen over and over again?

Do you secretly wish you lived in the 19^th century?

Do you invite friends over for high tea?

Do you wish Jane Austen was still publishing novels from "the other side"?

Wish No Longer—I have the book for YOU!

After you read my chat with this awesome new author, Polly Shulman, fly on over to your nearest bookstore or library and grab her very first YA novel, ENTHUSIASM!

Once you start, I swear you won’t be able to put it down.

Polly Shulman

ENTHUSIASM

G. P. Putnam’s

Contemporary Young Adult 2006

Kimberley: What was the seed of the idea for Enthusiasm? How long have you been a Jane Austen fan and how did your novel get its title?

Polly: I've been a Jane Austen fan since seventh grade, when I stayed up until dawn reading Pride & Prejudice. I remember trembling when I read Darcy's letter putting Elizabeth in her place. It was one of the most intense literary experiences of my life.
Oddly, I don't remember exactly how I got the idea for Enthusiasm. All my life I wanted to write novels for young readers, but I somehow could never get past the opening chapter. I had a bunch of beginnings squirreled away in my hard drive. In the early Aughts, I had a fantastic freelance job writing weekly book reviews for Newsday, then my column got cut from the paper's budget, so I said to myself, "All right, Polly. Time to either get a job in an office or finish one of those novels." I consulted my best friend, who said, "What about that book you started a while back, with the girl climbing in her friend's window?" I said, "Girl climbing in a window? What are you talking about?" She said, "You know, the one where she's dressed up as a Jane Austen character?" So I searched my hard drive and found it, but I didn't really remember anything about writing it.

Funny you should ask about the title—it does have a story. I thought of "ENTHUSIASM" pretty soon after I buckled down to work on the book, which is about two girls: the narrator, Julie, and her best friend, Ashleigh. Julie is bookish and a little shy; Ashleigh is wildly outgoing and given to crazes, for everything from King Arthur to candy making. When Julie lends Ashleigh a copy of Pride and Prejudice, Ashleigh decides they need Austenesque romances of their own, so she drags Julie off to crash a dance at the local boys' boarding school. I knew I wanted an Austenesque title, an abstract noun or noun pair—something along the lines of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion. Enthusiasm seemed like the natural choice.

In fact, it seemed so natural that I thought someone must have already used it, so I Googled and found that someone had: Jane Austen's niece Anna! I found a series of letters from Aunt Jane thanking Anna for sending her manuscript and giving her material advice about it. Apparently, Anna originally named her book Enthusiasm but changed the title to Aunt Jane's suggestion: WHICH IS THE HEROINE? Aunt Jane says she prefers ENTHUSIASM: "I like the name ‘Which is the Heroine’ very well, and I daresay shall grow to like it very much in time; but ‘Enthusiasm’ was something so very superior that my common title must appear to disadvantage."

I thought about using "Which is the Heroine" for a subtitle, but my editor wisely talked me out of it.

Kimberley: What a fascinating peek into history! That’s a great story, Polly. So I have to ask, what is your favorite Austen book?

Polly: Pride and Prejudice. No, Persuasion. No, Emma. No, Sense and Sensibility. Whichever one I happen to be rereading at the time. Austen's juvenilia is amazing, too. She was a comic genius as a teenager. It's a different style from the novels—broader, more overtly satiric—but just as funny.

Kimberley: What were some of the challenges in writing Enthusiasm, the hardest parts, the easiest—if there is such a thing as easy writing! (An oxymoron if I ever heard one.)

Polly: Actually, once I got going I found it astonishingly easy to write. I was doing what I thought of as "real work" at the same time—editing books and articles about science (which continues to be a big part of how I make my living). I found it pretty freaky to go back and forth between Julie's love life and particle physics, or Ashleigh's friendship and the latest news from Mars. I did have some trouble with the narrative voice in Enthusiasm. I wanted Julie to sound a little old fashioned and Austenish, but I also wanted Ashleigh to sound like an over-the-top Austen parody when she spoke. It was hard to strike a balance and get the contrast right.

The love scenes were a little embarrassing to write—as if I were reading Julie's diary over her shoulder.

Kimberley: Which character do you most identify with, Julie or Ashleigh?

Polly: Definitely Julie. But sometimes my friends laugh and say, "You're such an Ashleigh!" Oddly, the ones who say that tend to be Ashleighs themselves.

Kimberley: That’s hilarious! So I gotta ask: Did you dream about Parr? He’s like, the perfect guy; sweet, romantic, poetry writer, stands under windows pining after his true love, great kisser, totally yummy.

Polly: Of course! He's my hero! I'm lucky enough to be married to someone from the same universe; those adjectives of yours pretty much describe my husband. Andrew doesn't stand under our windows or write me sonnets—he’s a graphic designer, not a poet—but he does make me the world's most romantic works of computer art. Enthusiasm was published right around my birthday, and to celebrate, he had my favorite chocolate shop make a chocolate bust of Jane Austen holding a copy of Enthusiasm. They had to build a special mold for it, which he designed.

Kimberley: Wow, what a great husband! Sounds like he is your Parr. Tell us about your journey to publication. Give us the low-down on the agent/editor hunt and where were you when you got THE CALL that somebody wanted to publish your book?

Polly: After I wrote "The End" and finished jumping around the room shrieking, I called my friends in the publishing business and asked them to suggest agents. I compiled their suggestions, researched, and sent out the manuscript to three agents; after an agonizing wait, three rejections came back. I cried for a couple of weeks, then called some more friends and sent the manuscript to three more agents. This time two of them wanted it. I loved them both. I chose the more experienced one, Irene Skolnick. She's had her own agency for many years and I was impressed with her client list. And she represents two of my friends, who both adore her.

She sent out my book and got three offers for it. That part's something of a blur for me, because just when it was happening my stepfather had a bad accident and had to spend several weeks in the hospital; I remember a lot more about that than about the sale of my book.

Once Irene got the offers, I talked to the editors and chose the one who I felt understood the book the best. One thought it was close to perfect the way it was, but I've been an editor all my working life, so I knew that it couldn't be perfect. Nothing ever is, let alone my writing! One thought it was too sweet and wanted me to make the story darker, which didn't feel right to me. The third one had a number of suggestions for improving it, which I thought were right on the money, so I picked her. I feel very lucky to have such a smart editor with such a good ear.

Kimberley: Any pitfalls? Advice for aspiring writers—or even us seasoned writers (meaning the ones that have already survived many bruises and brick walls?)

Polly: Hm... Don't give up. Don't throw out those first chapters, even if you think they're going nowhere. Don't let the inevitable rejections stop you. Take advice from readers, but be picky about whose. People might correctly identify problems with your book, but you might not like their suggestions for solving them. Or they might put their finger on the most interesting, vital part of your story and tell you to take it out because it makes them uncomfortable.

What helped me the most was my best friend, Anna Christina Buchmann[umlaut over the u], who's also writing a novel. We're each other's first readers, critics, cheerleaders. As soon as I finished a chapter, I would email it to her. She would read it and tell me "That's great, keep going." To a large extent, I wrote Enthusiasm for her: I wrote a book I knew she would want to read—a book she and I would both want to read. I'm glad other people turned out to want to read it too, but it would have been enough for me if it just pleased Anna Christina.

Kimberley: Yay for good friends! Any books coming down the pipeline?

Polly: I'm working on a fantasy novel about a pair of sisters who are witches. They live in Brooklyn with their mom, also a witch, who's trying to save the world from an evil magician. Unfortunately, she's trying too hard, so the girls have to save the world from their mom going overboard trying to save it.

It's much, much harder to write a fantasy than a romance. You have to invent a whole world and make it consistent. It's taking me a million years and every ounce of brain power I have. Not to mention all the mathematicians I've had to consult! I'm not kidding—so far I've had very generous help from a topologist at Brown, an applied mathematician at MIT, and a physicist at Harvard. I hope they don't get mad if my magic turns out to have contradictions in it.

Kimberley: The most surprising or unexpected thing that has happened to you since publishing your novel.

Polly: I'm thrilled at the email I get from readers. Some of them tell me about their friendships—there are a lot of Julies out there with Ashleighs for friends. Some of them tell me about the fiction or poetry they write, or ask for advice about their love lives. Every time I hear from one, it makes me happy all week. I especially like it when they say Enthusiasm made them read Jane Austen.

Kimberley: What is your own secret wish?

Polly: I've lived it—it came true. I always wanted to write a book that would give young readers at least a slight echo of what I felt when I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. Now I wish and hope that I can do it again.

Kimberley: All your fans sure do – and that includes me!

Let’s hear it for Polly Shulman! Thank you so much for taking the time to let us peek into your world! You‘ve got lots of Enthusiasm and you're a doll!

Don’t miss Polly’s website for more delicious details and to play "Spot the Sonnet", the secret sonnet contained within the novel. www.pollyshulman.com

This is so cool!

I received some delightful news last night. A young man I know well who has been best friends with my son since they were five years old just got accepted to Columbia in New York for their three year Master's of Fine Arts program in Film. His dream is to have his own film company someday and at the tender age of 25 (with a wife and baby no less) Justin has already been involved in several movies, his biggest job last summer as a production assistant for a Christmas film being released this coming December nationwide; "Together Again for the First Time" starring David Ogden Stiers and Julia Duffy (Patty Duke was supposed to be in it, but that's a whole other story.)

The thing that totally tickles me is that six months ago Justin asked me if he could use the screenplay for my novel The Last Snake Runner for his application process for graduate school. About three years ago I thought it would be a kick to try a screenplay and I picked that novel because it's a very visual based war story/love story with a time travel twist. Two years ago Justin used my screenplay for analysis in a screenplay class while getting his undergraduate degree at BYU. (They had to bring in a screenplay based on a book). This time he used the treatment for his application - and it worked! He's accepted and starts this fall.

I'm so excited for him and to think my words helped him achieve this dream. One of those blessings the universe gives you - just when you wonder if anybody's noticing at all.

New Books!

Couple of announcements I'm sloooow in posting.

My good friend Cynthia Leitich Smith's new book TANTALIZE has blown out the gates with a delectable aroma of fine Italian dining--my favorite food, although Sanguini's got SCARY for the patrons (aka readers), and yet I find myself wanting to slip in the back door and snoop around despite the danger.

Just finished HOW TO STEAL A DOG by my dear friend Barbara O'Connor last night. Once again, she writes the PERFECT middle grade novel, full of all that southern talk and slang and wisdom that I adore. She just plunged into the Live Journal blogosphere, too as of yesterday.

So keep a lookout for their upcoming interviews with moi! Soon now, very soon. I promise.

Enchanted Fridays – Journey of a Novelist

It’s Friday—is this the best day or what?!?

I have the joy of kicking off my new series of interviews with some totally awesome authors. These are some of my favorite writers and I know they will soon become one of yours! Walk, don’t run to your nearest bookstore or library!

Pop open a cold one, grab a hot tea, or break open the bag of chocolate that’s calling to you (yeah, that one right behind you) and sit back and relax.

Whether it’s reading a book that whisks you off into a new world or you’re a writer creating your own, always do one thing: Enjoy the journey . . .

Christine Kole MacLean
HOW IT’S DONE
flux, an imprint of Llewellyn

New York Public Library has just selected How It’s Done
for its 2007 list of Books for the Teen Age!!!!
(That needs a bunch of exclamation points!)

Q: What led you to write a novel about a girl falling in love with an older man—a college professor no less! I'll admit I had a crush on a teacher in high school while I was working as his aide in a special education class. He didn't wear a wedding ring and I was "crushed" again when I learned he actually was married! Not that I'm looking for your tell-all or *confession*, but did you draw on any kind of personal experience? No pressure here!

CKM: Maybe it was just the community I grew up in (small town, not much to do) or my socially precocious group of friends, but we all dated guys who were older—in some cases a lot older. The summer after graduation, a friend of mine married a guy eight years older than she was. One of the things I’ve thought about a lot was how cool my parents played it when I was dating an older guy. They never tried to tell me what to do. I wondered, “What happens when parents don’t play it cool?” There’s the seed of the idea.

Q: I admired your ability to get inside Grace's head and heart, expressing her feelings and emotions without sentimentality or melodrama. What were some of the challenges in writing this novel? What were the hardest parts to write and which poured out of your fingers onto the keyboard?

CKM: Thanks! I worked on it for about two years, but I was also writing other things during that time. The first draft, which I wrote in third person, took me a year. In the second draft (six months), I switched the story to first person. I spent another three months on the third draft. The hardest part was Grace. I was frustrated with how slow she was to see she was making a mistake. But when the story begins, Grace is 18 and has been somewhat sheltered. I had to remember she doesn’t have the experience to know the things that would help her see the relationship slightly more objectively. (Although, come to think of it, who among us ever sees a lover objectively?) Her relationship with Michael is a “starter relationship.” She’s just learning. The fact that he’s a lot older and ready for different things raises the stakes considerably.

Conversely, Tori, Liv, Will—scenes with them were a blast to write. I have to add, however, that precious little ever “pours out of my fingers onto the keyboard.”

Q: There are some provocative discussion questions at the back of the novel. Did you write those or did your publisher? At the risk of appearing ignorant, what IS the IT'S in HOW IT'S DONE? What is IT for YOU?

CKM: The publisher came up with the questions, and I can’t even answer some of them! I think there’s more than one “it” in the book. “It” refers to sex and seduction, obviously, but also to bigger things, e.g., finding yourself, breaking off a relationship that’s wrong—even if it feels good, and ultimately growing up and being your own person, not whoever your parents want you to be or whoever your boyfriend wants you to be. How *is* it done? One step at a time. There will be missteps along the way. Those are the times we learn the most.

Q: New and published authors love to hear about other writer’s journeys toward publication. Was writing something you always wanted to do? Where were you when you got *the call* that somebody wanted to publish your book?

CKM: I’ve known since I was about eight that I wanted to be a writer and I never looked back. I’ve been a professional writer since college, working at magazines, ad agencies, and corporations. I still do some of that work on a freelance basis to fund my fiction-writing habit. I’ve never felt driven to write—perhaps because I came to writing so young and it has always been integrated into my life. And I confess to being stumped when asked why I write. To me, it feels like being asked why I breathe or sleep. I don’t mean I’d die without it. It’s simply that I can’t imagine not writing, in some form or another.

It was a rainy October day when I got the call at home, just as I was thinking about what to make my sick five-year-old for lunch. The editor made an offer and I asked her if I could get back to her. At the time, I was reading a book about the ins and outs of publishing, and I literally had not yet read the chapter on advances and contracts. That’s how green I was.

Q: Pitfalls? Things you learned along the way? Anything you would do differently?

CKM: I would have written a breakout first novel. LOL!

Q. The most surprising or unexpected thing that’s happened since publishing your books.

CKM: The most surprising thing? I’ve grown into a good public speaker, or so audiences tell me. I recently did a session on how to find the time to write (I still freelance in addition to writing fiction) and got so much positive feedback on it. One person told me my presentation had changed his life. While he was obviously exaggerating, what he meant was that he’d gotten a lot out of my session. Even five years ago I wouldn’t have guessed that I could be an effective public speaker.

Q: I’m sure he was not exaggerating! What are you working on now?

CKM: I just finished a rough draft of the fourth book in my series of Mary Margaret novels for 8- to 12-year-olds. The working title is MERRY MARY MARGARET CHRISTMAS and it’s scheduled for Fall ’08. I’ve been mulling over a picture book idea, so I may get serious about that, but I’m also gearing up to start another YA.

Q. Yay on both the new Mary Margaret novel (great title btw!) and embarking on another YA! Good luck to you, Christine. Last question: What is your own secret wish (goal) for your life or writing?

CKM: I’m thrilled that publishers think my books are worth publishing, but I’m not satisfied with my writing skills. I have a long way to go on that front. My not-so-secret wish is to get better. A lot better.

Thank you, Christine, for being our very first Enchanted Friday guest author! (Hear that thunderous applause from the great blog reaches of the universe?)

I hope, dear reader, that your appetite is whetted to read HOW IT'S DONE. You'll be hooked from the first page!

Don't forget to visit Christine at her website: www.christinekolemaclean.com

Bookmark this blog for the next Enchanted Friday installment!

Watch This Space!!!

Enchanted Fridays - Journey of a Novelist

I'll be doing interviews with some very cool, chic and awesome YA authors right here in this very blog so Stay Tuned. First one will be Friday, March 30.

Which, actually, is the last day of my Spring Break. I get to sleep in next week! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well sort of. I'm also planning on writing a book. The second half at least. We'll see how fried I am come next weekend.

Clearing the desk

I got sucked into critique land with twenty crits for a contest. Read them all twice, wrote up a full page of coments and suggestions for each one, filled out a talley sheet, picked winners, and mailed them off yesterday. OFF MY DESK! And floor. And nightstand. Yippee!

Now back to MY stuff. Feeling very selfish. And slow. Because I've barely plowed through half of the 200 pages I wrote last September and am rereading so I can get back to drafting the rest of this humongous, ancient Egypt historical. I've also been helping my son with some essays he's needed to write for a class and did some critiquing for a 15 year old girl I teach piano. She's actually a pretty good writer and I wouldn't be surprised if she's published some day. But it sometimes feels like my life is not my own . . .

Check out this interview with Andrew Karre at Flux. Good stuff.

Want to read some great hooks from WIP's by fledgling writers and feedback from a terrific agent? Go here. You'll come up gasping for air about three hours later.

Great news a few days ago: My story, "Rattlesnake Rain" will be published in Cricket Magazine this August! Finally.

SCBWI schmooze tonight and dinner with Nancy H. beforehand. Off to do a few pages of rewriting before I leave.

Before I forget, check out Bev Katz Rosenbaum's web site. Good stuff and she also critiques manuscripts at a very reasonable price.

Now go write.