{word wrangling in a time of pestilence}

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HOORAY for another completed project! Somehow, though I had published two small press books before Knopf, and four books with Knopf, I’d never before sold a book I hadn’t written. That in itself was a new and stress-laden experience. Try writing a book that a.) touches on microaggression and racial misunderstanding as social unrest regarding racism erupts nationwide, and b.) feeling like everything you say is being observed and judged by both Black and white readers, during this time, and c.) needing to quickly move up the deadline for it. Nope, it was not stress-free, and even up until early the morning I was meant to turn it in, I was sitting there, wrapped in a blanket, fussing with one scene which hadn’t quite hit the note I wanted until – ding! – suddenly, it settled exactly into its proper level. At last, I could shower in peace. Whew.

Harper-Collins/Katherine Tegen Books continues to be an utter treat to work with. Here’s a pro-tip, writing people: you’re supposed to be asked your opinion on things like cover styles, cover artists, and voice over talents for audio books. I say again: until this book with this house, (with the caveat that I DID comment on other projects without being asked) I HAVE NEVER BEEN. And it thrills me – and saddens me – every single time it happens that I’m so excited about being asked/included/considered/acknowledged as a person of intelligence who can make meaningful contribution to the publication of HER OWN DARNED BOOK. It infuriates me to know that other authors – certainly white authors I’ve spoken with – considered that de rigueur, sometimes even with their first book. I mean… you suspect that you’ve been treated differently based on race, and then you see how clearly differently you’ve been treated, and it’s like… okay, then. Maybe it was the publishing house policy. But, maybe it wasn’t…? It’s hard to know, and hard to trust your work to someone when you’re not sure about them.

Publishing remains a tricky field, friends. But, at its best, there’s a lot there to love.


Americans love humor, and children are huge fans of the silliest things, but actually producing humor, actually writing funny? It’s SO hard.

My writing group, led by the humorous ones among us, have pushed for a long while to discuss humor from a craft perspective, and I was… reluctant. Because funny, to me, is not the same as funny to them. We didn’t have a common understanding, I thought, so it was better to skip it. I wasn’t the only one who felt that way – some of us have decided to pass on this discussion, and I don’t blame them.

But… humor. It’s subjective, and yet, necessary to explore in order to understand it.

We’re making our way through an older book, THE COMIC TOOLBOX by John Vorhaus, and dissecting what we agree and disagree with in regards to actually eliciting humor from ourselves and properly setting up our work to support it. We’re pulling humorous bits from our favorite books and films. And we’re making laughably bad attempts at writing humorous dialogue, sports team names, and TV pilots. ‘Laughably bad’ is, at least, funny.

I suspect we could think of worst ways to pass the time during the plague.

{“…after the watermelon thing.”}

I told you! I told Jackie she was going to win. And I said that if she won, I would tell all of you something I learned this summer, which is that Jackie Woodson is allergic to watermelon. Just let that sink in your mind.

And I said you have to put that in a book. And she said, you put that in a book. And I said I am only writing a book about a black girl who is allergic to watermelon if I get a blurb from you, Cornell West, Toni Morrison, and Barack Obama saying,”This guy’s okay. This guy’s fine.”

Yeah, remember that? 2014, the National Book Award, televised on C-SPAN and elsewhere. People are so heartened to see African Americans on the National Book Award finalist list. Poets and writers and people of letters are tuning in. In the children’s lit community, we’re thrilled that Jacqueline Woodson, one of our steady bright lights in YA literature, has won. She’s earned that BIG award, one which will thrust her outside the quieter waters of children’s lit, and… in that moment, the professional crowning pinnacle of her success thus far, the presenter makes …a watermelon joke.

“In a few short words, the audience and I were asked to take a step back from everything I’ve ever written, a step back from the power and meaning of the National Book Award, lest we forget, lest I forget, where I came from.” – Jacqueline Woodson, quoted in the New York Times.

He had an hundred million reasons why, later, he had remarked so disparagingly on the poets who were nominated, why he had told jokes and tried to wrest the attention of the crowd from the nominees onto his vast and hungry ego. But, it wasn’t personal; he cried no foul, she’s my friend! a thousand times, and yet, that moment, those sly, knowing words sliced thousands of us to ribbons, as the audience laughed, and a tall, serene woman had to stand – and yet again, endure. Endure. Endure, with her face at peace, as if the buffoonery of the man before her didn’t reach her.

I don’t support hate, and yet, in that moment, that dizzyingly visceral emotion shivered in my sight. Gut-punched, I wanted to both hiss and claw, scream and spit. As far as I was concerned, that man was finished, and I was done with him and all his works, forever. I never bought, reviewed, read, or talked of anything else he said or did. It made no difference to his life, I am sure, but it seemed right, to me, to simply use my internal Wite-Out and blot him from my notice for the rest of forever. I was fully over this “problematic” favorite.

It’s clear that I’m still sitting with our current moment in the children’s lit industry, trying to work through it, and thinking about the last time that so many voices came together to exclaim in disgust. It was for our Ms. Woodson, and rightly so. The commentary was sharp, and loud – and ultimately… was placated by the huge monetary donation Handler gave to We Need Diverse Books. And then, most of the voices were hushed, pressing their hands against the shoulders of those who still rose up, and their hands over the mouths of those still bitterly protesting. He apologized. He made it right. You can’t judge people on what they say.

But, yesterday, after Handler wandered flat-footedly into the pages of children’s lit history again, this time into the earnest signatories of the #ustoo pledge, wherein members of the children’s lit industry pledged to hold accountable conferences and gatherings, and not attend those which have no clear sexual harassment policy, people took him to task for his very clear participation IN the harassment. The very innuendo-laden jokes, in front of children and adults. The demeaning sexual talk. But — he apologized. He made it right. You can’t judge people on what they say.

It seems clear that you can, unless what you say is racist.

In my small and petty way, I blocked Daniel Handler from my sight years ago – but he’s still been doing things, writing, being invited places, feted within the industry, and I’m the doofus who didn’t realize that his “little faux pas” on Ms. Woodson’s big night had long been forgotten.

But, as Heidi so succinctly asked, didn’t we figure out this guy was trash after the watermelon thing? What are we doing still courting that kind of person to be a speaker and to visit classrooms? Why don’t we seem to take the humiliation, shame, and harm of racism as seriously as we’re all endeavoring to take the #metoo harassment thing?

In all seriousness – is a #metoo movement going to actually succeed if, once again, racism is instructed to take a seat at the back of the bus?

1897. “The day before the inauguration of the nation’s 28th president the Congressional Committee of NAWSA hosted a large parade on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. The idea behind this was to maximize onlookers who happened to be in town to attend the inauguration. Woodrow Wilson expected a crowd at the train station to greet him; however, very few people actually showed up to greet the president, the largest part of the crowd was his staff. The parade was led by the beautiful lawyer Inez Milholland Bouissevain upon a white horse. This image of her as a warrior atop a horse is what made her an iconic image in the fight for womens’ right to vote. This massive parade consisted of no less than nine bands. It also included four brigades on horseback and close to eight thousand marchers. The parade was cut into sections: working women, state delegates, male suffragists, and finally African-American women.

The point of the parade was “to march in the spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded.”

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the journalist who led an anti-lynching campaign in the late nineteenth century, organized the Alpha Suffrage Club among Black women in Chicago and brought members with her to participate in the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. The organizers of the march asked that they walk at the end of the parade. She tried to get the White Illinois delegation to support her opposition of this segregation, but found few supporters. They either would march at the end or not at all. Ida refused to march, but as the parade progressed, Ida emerged from the crowd and joined the White Illinois delegation, marching between two White supporters. She refused to comply with the segregation.”

– Excerpts taken from One of Divided Sisters: Bridging the Gap Between Black and White Women by Midge Wilson & Kathy Russell, Anchor, 1996, and PBS.org.

I think I’ve been naive, and pretty quiet – but it’s clear the time for my naive assumptions is way over.

{thanks, again}

This year, I did not do my Daily Gratitude post-a-day challenge in November.

Have you ever heard of scleromyositis? Systemic scleroderma? Polymyositis? Neither had I… but October and November were largely given over to familiarizing myself with Latin and Greek words that characterized these random autoimmune disorders. I suggest you don’t get on the internet and look up either one, or their adjacent symptoms; it’s just not helpful. It’s honestly never helpful to go straight to WebMD after talking to your doctor, but it’s least helpful when you have an autoimmune disorder, and everything you hear or see is a variation on this disorder is related to both fibromyalgia, Raynaud’s and arthritis, and Your Mileage May Vary. At baseline, you can characterize it as the chronic inflammation of the nerves, muscles and joints, but it’s much less straightforward. There is just so little unambiguous information on our bodies attacking ourselves. It’s hard to figure out what you’re feeling, how you should react, what you should fear, and what you should do next.

So.

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I didn’t lack gratitude this autumn — I don’t lack gratitude — but I was lost in my head, trying to remain normal, participate in normal industry activities within the Kidlitosphere, finish this novel, keep normal on the front burner while my head was filled with gray mist and buzzing. After a September move, and finally settling into a little jewel box of a house, I should have been grateful. After the horror of the fires, I should have been grateful that we have had a lovely autumn, with one last splash of unseasonably warm days in October followed by glorious rain, and more rain, with a few clear blue days interspersed in between. Autumn has had a drinkable quality this year, as our lungs praised the air quality and took in deep draughts of petrichor, crisp, leaf-mould, wet ground, faint woodsmoke, and glowing moonrise. I got a new bike! I randomly lost another seven pounds! There has been much that is lovely and fine, including the gift of teenagers trick-or-treating who ensured that we did not have a year’s worth of old candy in a jar to keep eating. Even amidst the grinding exhaustion and pain, even with the weird lesions that showed up on my fae, there has been so much grace, so much relief, so much change – but I missed a lot of it, locked in to the paralysis of What? How? Why?

I’ve started on an immunosuppressant drug this week which means a lot of hand-washing – and a lot of hand-wringing about having twelve people for Thanksgiving and five choral performances and loads of rehearsals between now and December 16 – but the plans were made before the treatment was decided, and there’s no turning back now. I’m being as careful as I can, whilst balancing and juggling all else that is on my plate — being a good partner and friend and daughter and writer. We’ll see how it all goes.

As for my blogging, it’s time for a recenter/restart. It’s never to late to try for some gratitude, after all. Hope you’ll join with me for December Light. It’s a dark old world out there, so I’m going to light a candle a day – a poem, a thought, something. The new trailer for A Wrinkle In Time reminded me of my favorite part of the book, when IT was vanquished:

“Suddenly there was a great burst of light through the Darkness. The light spread out and where it touched the Darkness the Darkness disappeared. The light spread until the patch of Dark Thing had vanished, and there was only a gentle shining, and through the shining came the stars, clear and pure.

It’s not a direct quote from the book, but the movie synthesizes it beautifully: The only way to defeat the darkness is to BECOME THE LIGHT.

Join me?

{the new year’s resolutions…}

*dusts off blog*

Autumn, incoming. Been foggy and chilly in the mornings for most of August, and this morning I opened the first jar of applesauce we canned two weeks ago. Today’s chill and fog, in honor of the battering poor Hawaii is taking, is hardly noticeable, and yet: September. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, the breezes smell of apple peels, etc. September is always the beginning of the year, after sooooo many years of school and teaching. So, happy new year, friends. It’s time to start over, and make new resolutions.

Strawberries on Cake

Summer’s goal was to finish the WIP by today, the official, can’t-really-excuse-it-anymore month when summer ends. Guess what? It’s …kinda finished! But, I’m not in the Cake-With-Rejoicing phase. *checks mood* Nope. Definitely still The Whining Phase, so it’s not time for cake. (Banana bread with whipped cream and a few shavings of chocolate, maybe. Technically, despite my Scottish friends’ snorts to the contrary: banana bread IS NOT CAKE. {LIE: it is BANANA CAKE. Maybe it’s just not time for chocolate cake yet??}) I’m not yet sure the novel says what I want it to say. Secret Agent Man will look it over on the 15th, Tech Boy is reading it now, so I’m holding off saying I totally hate it until then, but…

I might hate it. As usual. The thing is this: I keep trying to write to the well of deeper ideas that I have within me, the well which doesn’t come with a winch and a bucket but just… a cover? A nice little decorative bench seat around it? Some wild flowers? No way to get the water out, in other words. This inarticulateness really bugs me, but the cure for being unable to speak is to keep talking, and talk… louder. And, so I continue.

To that end, I’ve also listened – equally, doubly important. This morning I listened to a round-table discussion on Writing The Other with three writers of color, discussing the importance of practice, of failing, and of not holding minority communities responsible for your wanting to tell their stories. This is important to me – still and always – as a person of color, because my current Kinda Finished Work features a person who is part of the albinism community, and a Latino character. I don’t feel like I necessarily need an empathy-check on writing these characters as human beings, but it’s been empirically shown this year that people of color can still mess up – COLOSSALLY FAIL, even – if they don’t check in with the people whose voices they’re borrowing, so to speak. And so, the plan is to check in… once I get past this mushy, “I think I hate this” spot. Eventually.

(What’s really niggling with me right now is less writing minority experiences ignorantly, but writing, I guess, feminism coherently. There is a metaphor about teen girls as blank canvases that makes my main character kind of an extended metaphor – and she kind of is, but she’s also a character, so she’s kind of is not. Her albinism is being used to underscore that metaphor, but I’m still not sure it works. ANYWAY. Book mechanics!)

Part of my intentional resolutions for this new year is participation – I’d like to go to another writing conference, somewhere, and listen and talk about ideas and writing. Last week, I let out into the light of …social media, if not “day,” the idea I’ve had and written and rewritten for a science fiction novel. I’ve kind of been discouraged by my agent about speculative fiction — on his website, Secret Agent Man flatly states he doesn’t read it and has let me know that the editor with whom I work at Knopf has no experience in it, either. Since “Contemporary YA sells” (Thanks, John Green), the interest in it from my people has been less than faint, and so I’m kind of at sea… but on the other hand, thinking positively, I now have the opportunity to work with new people. I may even use a different configuration of my name, just to keep things straight. I’m determined, especially after listening to people writing under the hashtag #YAWithSoul, that there really does need to be more representation of marginalized groups in science fiction and fantasy. I’ve been fiddling with this novel FOR YEARS and — I’ve decided it’s going to be the next one I work on. I’m hoping it feels riskier than it is.

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Finally, there’s a potential move on the horizon – another international relocation. I tend to lose my ability to write in the panic of packing and unpacking. This time, I’m a.) going for less panic (“Well… good luck with that,” Anxiety says, examining her nails), and also intentionally going to carve out some time for my brain — and at least write some poetry or SOMETHING to start processing things sooner. More information on that as it happens.

(And, hopefully, cake. Soon.)

So, those are my new writing thoughts for the new year. What are new year thoughts?


{thirty steps to meltdown or, what happens when I am stuck on a manuscript, in no particular order}

  • wander aimlessly through my house
  • stress clean the kitchen
  • read a lot. And queue up reviews for weeks in advance
  • trim my hair
  • Tell myself not to panic
  • trim tech boy’s hair
  • tweeze my eyebrows
  • tweeze my leg hair
  • look up trichotillomania on WebMD
  • rearrange the fridge
  • rearrange the spices by height
  • rearrange the spices by alphabetical order
  • stress bake cookies with no recipe
  • ask God WHYYYYYYYYY multiple times
  • wonder where that one figure skater is doing now
  • sigh a lot
  • dust mop beneath the couch
  • analyze the dirt in the Roomba
  • discover where earring backs have gone
  • rearrange my earrings
  • stress clean my desk
  • write notes to myself
  • find a spider. usher him or her out
  • ponder the pile of laundry in the laundry room
  • consider doing one load. consider doing ALLL the loads
  • lie on couch, staring, dry-eyed
  • Panic. Just a little
  • imagine names for pets
  • argue with self if pets are cats or fish or turtles
  • write faux jacket copy and abandon it
  • try outlining, then laugh wildly at how bad it is
  • full on panic. Wheeze
  • organize notes to myself by writing – neatest to scribbliest
  • read novel notes from 6 months ago, laugh wildly, edge into hysterical sobbing
  • make a serious stab at a novel synopsis
  • begin novel-as-movie paragraph, “In a world where…”
  • wail. Loudly.
  • find a spider. Usher it from this life
  • promise the muse nonexistent firstborn
  • take back promise, because kids would make this even harder
  • close my eyes and imagine the character
  • remember whatever the character wants needs to not happen
  • rediscover the concept of CONFLICT
  • write a letter, telling story of novel so far to mother
  • whisper, “Ohhhh…!” as light breaks
  • is that a spider? Huh.
  • mutter prayer of thanks and GET BACK TO WORK

{six word stories: winners!}

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PEAS AND CARROTS had a great book birthday. Thank you so much for the love and good wishes sent all day yesterday! It was nice to hear from so many of you. It was also excellent to see the effort that went into the six word stories you sent. Sometimes big stories lurk in little words. Some of the stories are sweet:

“Autism teaches patience, love, and truth.” – C

And others, not so much…

“Hell is other people. Or parents.” – D

These little stories definitely made me want to hear more. I liked that they were little novels enclosed in a tight space. Six words can give you a lot to go on — more than you might think:

“Product of Tiger Mom and DEFCON1.” – AC

“Mixed nuts, emotionally adrift; imperfect strangers.” – d

And I was amused by how many stories included… dogs. What is it with six word stories and dogs? The basic gist of all of the dog stories is wrapped up in this plaintive sigh:

“Nobody understands me but the dog.” – L

The stories have gone into the hat:

Congratulations to:

ABBY C

& “A QUIET GIRL SPEAKS”!

Peach@Rebelle Reads

Winners, once again using the contact form (Don’t leave personal information in the comments, of course) send your mailing address and you’ll receive a signed copy of PEAS AND CARROTS and some other tiny goodies.

Thanks to everyone who played along, and thank you again for being part of a great book birthday. I hope you keep writing the stories of your families, and of your lives.

{book birthday giveaway: six word family stories}

Dess knows that nothing good lasts. Disappointment is never far away, and that’s a truth that Dess has learned to live with.

Dess’s mother’s most recent arrest is just the latest in a long line of disappointments, but this one lands her with her baby brother’s foster family. Dess doesn’t exactly fit in with the Carters. They’re so happy, so comfortable, so normal, and Hope, their teenage daughter, is so hopelessly naïve. Dess and Hope couldn’t be more unlike each other, but Austin loves them both like sisters. Over time their differences, insurmountable at first, fall away to reveal two girls who want the same thing: to belong.

Tanita S. Davis, a Coretta Scott King Honor winner, weaves a tale of two modern teenagers defying stereotypes and deciding for themselves what it means to be a family.

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In honor of PEAS AND CARROTS’ book birthday February 9th, I’m out and about in the blogosphere, talking about hiding (@B&N’s OPEN MIC Project – do check out the other pieces), writing about divine (every) bodies (@STACKED BOOKS, and thanks to Kelly for inviting me), and tomorrow I’ll be at John Scalzi’s blog, sharing the BIG IDEA – or one of them – behind the book. At some point, I’ll also show up in The Horn Book blog. I have two copies of PEAS AND CARROTS left to share, and I thought I’d give someone a chance to win one… by sharing a six word family story.

Hemingway’s famous six-word tale, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” inspired the “six word story” meme, and has served as a writing prompt for decades, challenging writers’ ability to create an entire narrative arc in just six words. Having a topic may – or may not – make it easier… give it a shot and see!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS: Create an original six word story – funny, poignant, etc – describing your family, whether chosen family, foster family, or the one you were born with. Submit this story, between NOW and midnight February 9th (PST) via the site’s contact form, with the words “Six Word Story” in the subject line. I’ll be sharing some of these as I receive them, and will throw the very best of them in a hat and select two. Winners to be announced February 10th, and personal details, mailing information, etc., will be requested then.

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Good luck! Remember you have between now and midnight (PST) December 9th.

{a tiny PR note}

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I’m told the candy does NOT, in fact, taste like peas or carrots. Bummer.

People expecting copies of PEAS AND CARROTS, those are going out this week. People who want a chance to win a copy, along with a lunch bag and a little magnet — please stay tuned to the February 9 release date —

February is not just when the groundhog emerges (albeit with a LOT of help from people pulling it) from its hole to find its shadow – it’s apparently the month when introverts Make An Effort (also with a LOT of help from people… pulling). I’ll be booktalking, and being visible this February here and there – first, I’m presenting a webinar February 2nd for The National WWII Museum on Mare’s War as part of their WWII emphasis this year. Teachers and families who do homeschooling, you’ll want to jump on this! The week following, I’ll be on the blog STACKED and then the tumblr Size Acceptance in YA; at BN Teen Blog’s Open Mic project sometime next month, and on John Scalzi’s WHATEVER blog’s Big Idea project on February 9th, which is the same day that PEAS AND CARROTS has its book birthday.

I’m grateful to everyone who asked me to show up and hang out next month, and given me the opportunity to talk about what I do and how I do it.

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{the opposite of indifferent}

The antonyms of indifference, Merriam-Webster reminds us, are attentiveness, curiosity, warmheartedness and sensitivity. I agree, and Tabatha Yeats, a writer who blogs at The Opposite of Indifference has those qualities in spades. Dismayed at our after-Christmas distress, she sent along the perfect joyful little distractions… games!

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Please note the blue and copper glitter nail polish= also a fun distraction

Love Letters is kind of a narrative game of risk that seeks, in a most unloverlike fashion, to knock all the other lovers out of the game. It’s kind of amusing when really cut-throat people play it; Tech Boy and I are still kind of fumbling their way through and the first round, anyway, were somewhat gentle with each other. (That didn’t last.) But Red7 is …catnip for the competitive, a game in which one has to change the rules to win. On the surface, it’s very simple… you’re simply organizing suits, in a way. But, you’re also playing seven games at a time. We were a little amused and a little relieved to see that there are Youtube tutorials – at least three – on how to play.

If the first ten days of January predict how the year will go, I’m going to be well amused (and also well drookit, as the Scots say. This rain is kind of amazing)! Thank-you, Tabatha, very much.