Once More Into the Breach

As always, when I come away from an alumnae brunch, I feel grateful to know so many bright people, and a little envious of how great everyone looks and how positive everyone sounds about what they’re doing and where they’re going. This time we celebrated MeiMei‘s scriptwriting promotion at OLTL and ABC, and then WriteGrrrl told us about the television pilot she’s writing with friends, IGG introduced us to her new little one, and Seren and Pari told us about doing The Artist’s Way, and how that’s been for them.

And all the while I’m thinking to myself how lucky we all are — even as we piss and moan about editing (yeah, yeah, I know I should be doing that right now) and complete laziness, and unlearning some of what we ingested in grad school, and being tired and taking home work on weekends, and not taking time to rest… even now, as we’re all on the bumpy part of our roads to success, we are all so lucky because we are doing what we want to do. Even as it hurts. Even as we have to throw out 684,456 pages of our last novel because we figure out they’re pure crappola right before our editor does; even as we carve out forty minutes a day to read something — anything — while we’re on the exercise bike we’ve been using as a clotheshanger; even as we’re coming home from work and putting the baby down for a nap, and trying to steal thirty minutes to write something that isn’t a grocery list… we are lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky.

And I will try to remember this.

Because, truthfully? Sometimes all I think of writing is that it’s a pain. Via Jen Robinson’s Book Page I found a funny, realistic post from Fred Charles’ site which tells The Truth About Writing. And it is true! Although writing is not really a hard job, per se, it really is a pain at times. But again, it’s a good pain… because this is the gamble I chose for right now. And as Seren said yesterday, “…it 100% for sure won’t happen if you don’t try.” And so I give a roll of the dice with nothing to lose… and keep on writing…

Ooh! The newest Edge of the Forest is up. In the YA section, new novels The Rules of Survival, by Nancy Werlin, Dial Books (to be released next month), Fringe Girl, by Valerie Frankel, NAL Trade, and Out of Patience, by Brian Meehl, Delacorte Press, are reviewed, and there’s more interesting stuff from other children’s lit writers in the blogosphere. Check it out.

And the Nominees Are…

Okay, everyone loves the Fonz, so I won’t say anything too snarky: This morning on the Today show, Henry Winkler talked about his newest… kid book… My Dog’s a Scardey-Cat (Grosset & Dunlap, $13.99), title #10 of his Hank Zipzer (the World’s Best Underachiever) YA series.
Not a word about “jumping the shark,” people. Not a word.

You all see how much I adore you? I actually watched the video and had to stare at the oddly deflated Al Roker on the MSNBC website for several minutes, just so I could tell you who the nominees are for the Quills this year in young people’s literature. (Actually, I couldn’t figure out where the Nominees were, thus scalding my eyeballs with the vision. That won’t happen again soon, I can tell you.)

Without further ado, the Nominees in the Children’s Chapter Book/Middle Grade Category are…
Carl Hiaasen’s Flush
Cornelia Funke’s Inkspell, which is currently sitting on my nightstand;
Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane,
Lemony Snicket’s The Penultimate Peril (which is just such a cool title),
and Ptolemy’s Gate, by Jonathan Stroud.

In the category of Young Adult/Teen, the Nominees Are…
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, which I think might win;
Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, (also on my bedside table);
Christopher Paolini’s Eldest, which didn’t impress me as much as it did the rest of humanity, apparently,
Gabrille Zevin’s Elsewhere,
and Bay Area local Frank Portman’s King Dork, which I can’t wait to read

Authors at a black tie event, gaining the long sought-after celebrity once selfishly guarded by mere movie stars. It’s all about you, writers.
Right? Right!
Uh-huh.

Dispatches from Portland, YA for Adults

Got a funny email from our erstwhile classmate, J.R., who reports that she’s practically gone into debt at the bookstore this last month. High on her list of things to go into debt over next month is newbie Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl.

Pessl, just twenty-seven, has had her own cross to bear. Bookslut last March made mention that she is one of several new authors who have been outed as just ‘pretty faces,’ that create a buzz that has little or nothing to do with their work, but has everything to do with their huge advances and media attention. (Pessl incidentally also lists ‘model,’ ‘dancer’ and ‘actress’ on her CV .) The fact that nowadays sex sells, even in publishing had a lot of bloggers – justifiably – growling. It could be that Pessl’s comparisons as a ‘wunderkind’ with Dave Eggers will do her good — or not, but these days, it does make you wonder, just a little, exactly what is creating such hugely money-driven opportunities for certain writers. Is it really just their talent? The NY Times says yes, looking toward the fact that after two weeks on the market, the book is in its fifth printing.

Because of the buzz? Because of Pessl’s talent in writing? Is this really a YA novel, or …what? The description in various industry rags of Special Topics being “Nabokovian” and “Hitchcokian” make me “Chundernauseam,” but that just may be my snark speakin’. Click on the link and read the excerpt… I’d be very interested in your opinion.


Via Jen Robinson’s Book Page, I found a nifty article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about how more and more adults are looking to YA books as good reading. Of course, the unfortunate tagline is that “Harry Potter changed the rules,” but we have to give ol’ Harry his props — the novel did much for allowing adults to see that what is marketed toward their children is solidly written, entertaining, satisfying and thought-provoking. I think the level of sophistication found in YA literature is helping bridge age-gaps in other ways as well. After reading something challenging, who can say that the average 11-18 year old is limited, bored, boring or listless ever again? And after reading a great YA novel, don’t you have the urge to thrust it into the hands of the nearest young reader and say, “Oh, you’ve got to read this!”

Ah, the power of great literature.

Siiiiigh

Every year, writers go on retreats for that extra dose of solitude and silence that finishing a book needs. I tell myself every year that I’m lucky not to have to shell out extra money and leave my house; I haven’t got kids, my pets don’t need to be fed more than once a week (gotta love reptiles) and we have a pretty quiet little street. Now I’m jealous I never went. The Sunday Book Review this week has a rather wry little essay about what people do on these little jaunts. Affairs? Rivalries? Writing the best novels of your life? Maybe I need to leave the state to finish this edit… Or, probably not.

Musing on Race

On the up side, yesterday I got to see the back of my eyeballs. On the downside, it was a fully wasted day — once you get your eyes dilated, no more computer!!! I am cross, and struggling again with my edit… so, time to focus on something else…


I’m late with these thoughts, but I wanted to throw out some props to my man, Al.

Okay, actually? I think Al Sharpton is insufferable, a pervasive evil most garrulous, ostensibly in the name of equality and respect and civil rights. Hah. However, for once… I respect his opinion. In a keynote address at the annual National Assoc. of Black Journalists in Indianapolis August 18th, (at which the ever excellent YA and children’s poet Nikki Giovanni read this poem) Sharpton made a pointed statement about teens and race. He said, “We have got to get out of this gangster mentality, acting as if gangsterism and blackness are synonymous… I think we have allowed a whole generation of young people to feel that if they’re focused, they’re not black enough. If they speak well and act well, they’re acting white, and there’s nothing more racist than that (emphasis mine).”

WHERE was that man when I was in school? (Actually, again… he was there. Spouting something stupid, no doubt. Better question, perhaps: WHY hasn’t he said something intelligent like this before? Never mind.)

After Devas T’s most excellent commentary back in May, I took a closer look at my characters. I am committed to predominantly writing characters of color — not because I don’t know enough about the dominant culture, but because there needs to be more books about people of color just… living. Not being particularly ethnic or having racial whatevers, but just living life and having issues common to mankind, perhaps just flavored with their particular cultural status; issues and storylines and plot twists that are accessible to all readers, in the name of bridging the gaps between us maintainted out of fear and ignorance. I find that I am still uneasy about this — not because I don’t think there are readers interested in my characters, or having some connection to a life like that, rather I am still afraid that someone is going to say someday (and please God, may it not be my agent),

“She’s never going to win a Coretta Scott King Award.
She’s not black enough.”

This is, of course, ludicrous on any number of levels. First, if I don’t finish this stupid edit… well, you know the rest on that one. Second, and probably more importantly, I don’t need an award to tell me I’m doing well expressing the ‘black experience,’ whatever that is, and I’m sure the award has nothing to do with that (and apologies to anyone who has ever received it – I’m not knocking or mocking it!) But take every young adult who has been told that they’re in Ethnic Deficiency since junior high… multiply their number by the divisive, pernicious, insistent media hype that says You Must Be This Thuggish To Ride, add to it the 1 in 3 Black males incarcerated, and then you’ll have the number of young people, of both genders, who need to be re-educated that just being themselves — achieving where they can, failing and trying again where they can’t, speaking and thinking and discovering themselves — is just fine.

Anyone who was or knows young people knows what I mean here. I’m sure this is not just a “black thing.”

Porcupine Quills, more like…

Ooh, lest we forget:

It’s time for The Quills Awards! The newest in the pantheon of ruthlessly self-indulgent awards shows, it’s like the Academy Awards for books! Reed Business Information and NBC last year created an industry-qualified “consumers choice” awards program for books. “The Quills celebrates the best adult and children’s books of the year in 20 popular categories, including Book of the Year, plus an committee-selected award for best Book to Film.”

You know you want to vote in this, so hurry on over to The Quills between August 22 – September 30th to be sure Harry Potter is chosen once again as the most popular book of forever and ever in Young Adult/Teen fiction, because, since this isn’t about content but sales (“The Quills celebrate excellence in writing and publishing”), and one of the Award show’s stated goals is to “Interest more consumers in acquiring books and reading,” that’s what’s likely going to happen for many, many years. The Nominees will be announced on the 22nd, and then you can place your vote in over twenty categories!
Aren’t award shows just fab?

Fine, fine, taking my snarky self away from the keyboard.

Under Pressure…Bird by Bird or not.

(Since this is a team-blog, we mostly keep things impersonal… if you’re offended by a somewhat personal writing rant, I apologize, but I wanted to share this with you all. -t)

I hate writing; I love having written. – Dorothy Parker

Was looking for a knitting stitch (well, I wasn’t really, but was looking at a site pointed out to me) just now. I am here at my desk, it is well after five p.m., the magical hour when I release the chains that bind me to this burgundy throne, and I am STILL HERE, disgusted, but… I have to finish this last bloody chapter before the weekend when we have friends and company and then there’s the brunch next Sunday, and I don’t have time, and I have a stupid music meeting next Wednesday, and somehow I got volunteered for the book thingy tomorrow, and I’ve got to finish this chapter, dear God, the month’s almost over and I have appointments on Friday and I have to pick up my contacts and the library has a book on hold, and I have to get this to my agent before the editor loses interest…”

And then I read this knitter’s post about writing that made me laugh out loud, and sigh a lot, and know I need to share it with you. You need to read the article for yourself, but the Yarn Harlot has it so right… “Towards the end of book writing I am shaky, sad, exhausted and out of my mind. …add that I am also unreasonable, obnoxious and loud. (Very loud.)”

“…Book writing is strange and scary. You can’t tell how long you’re going to have to do it, what time you’re going to finish, if it’s going to be alright when you do finish, or if you’re going to spend 3 hours dragging 500 words out of your brain only to look at them, realize 467 of them are complete crap and hit the delete key as you sob for the 14th time because you’re going to need to find a way to carve another 3 hours out of your responsibilities … probably so that you can write more complete drivel that no-one would ever like to read, knowing the whole time that your deadline is running out while you ponder that you’ve made an enormous mistake and really should go to work in a factory, where at least you can tell if you’re getting something done and no-one tells you your punctuation is crap …”

(or that “Teen agers don’t wear acid wash,” like you’re a full-on born-again MORON…)

“… I am torn somehow between being profoundly aware of my luck, desperately grateful for the opportunity and deeply, deeply frightened.”

Hear, hear. Sometimes I think, “What on earth convinced me that this was going to be a good livelihood? Why does anyone want to read this pointless, sucky little story? Hadn’t I better get a job, just in case I actually have to SUPPORT MYSELF someday on something other than Saltines and a cardboard box!?”

I … have to constantly balance “being a writer” with being a wife and mother. It’s a matter of putting two different things first, simultaneously. – Madeleine L’Engle

You can be so quiet while people are talking to you. You can be utterly silent while you’re in on the phone, chatting, talking over the breakfast table, making conversation in the hall. That’s because you have a laptop downstairs, a computer upstairs, and sixteen pads of paper around the house where you’re writing down the plot notes that keep sticking up from your forebrain like cowlicks. You’re NOT LISTENING to any of the people around you. You’re multi-tasking to the point of cell-phone user rudeness. You’re inverted to the point of only needing someone else in the house so they can get you food.

The Yarn Harlot talks about housekeeping. Cleaning. Knowing you should, but you can’t because you’re ‘working.’ Then playing online Scrabble or checking Bloglines instead of actually working. Ranting about the mess anyway. And not doing anything about it until your ‘cup runneth over.’ And then boom — things go flying, toilets water is sloshed, generally things are broken, and there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Ah, the good life!

As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It’s a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write. Having anybody watching that or attempting to share it with me would be grisly. – Paul Rudnick

I wish I could eat cereal out of a box. I can’t even whisper to you the number of pounds that I have gained since March, doing this edit. Now I’m not eating any carbohydrates at all, I’ve sworn off them, ’til Thanksgiving, and I’m vowing to drag myself to the gym EVERY day WITHOUT fail… just as soon as I finish this bloody edit. Which means I have one more week. It’s like quitting smoking and biting your nails at the same time you decide to take driving lessons from your rageaholic stepfather. WHAT WAS I THINKING!?

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

I am beginning to see why families and spouses figure in so prominently in dedications and acknowledgements. I know I have been whiny, clingy, snappish, snarly, and whiny all over again. I have been lachrymose, self-pitying, self-defeating and selfish. I have been absolutely sickening. And I only have one hundred pages left. Mac & Lareverie, I tell you now, you have a place on the flyleaf of whatever novel I write, and stars, oh, stars, on your crowns…

Notes From All Over

Via Buried in the Slushpile – help for those REALLY long short stories that just…won’t… quit, Miami U presents The Miami University Novella Contest. This isn’t targeted specifically toward YA literature, but my long-winded peoples (and we know I mean me), might really benefit from this.

Okay, you know you’ve probably entered far too into the YA spectrum when you write an email to Disney demanding that they Save Kim Possible, but you know what? So what? Writers are artists, and artists are allowed to be… wildly eccentric. So there. Plus, KP is a stand-up YA heroine… I neglected to mention it last week, but Chasing Ray has a most excellent piece about bookish YA heroines in the latest Bookslut that I’m sure you’ll want to read. I know I am putting all of those books new to me on my personal to-read list — Bookish Grrrls R Us!

And people, did I say it was the Summer of Food? It IS! There’s another teen cookbook – this time written by an actual teen. This 15-year-old UK teen has just hit the States, chatting with Martha Stewart and going on the Today show. Food and teens: popular. Who knew?

Yesterday I read the School Library Journal’s criticism on a mystery written by a former professor of mine, and I just cringed. I live in a dull dread of a.) actually publishing someday (which does tend to be a bit limiting since that is also my life’s goal, at this point), and b.) actually garnering reviews. I have determined that I should probably not read them, and leave that kind of drama to the doughty S.A.M. as part of his job. And then I read today’s Planet Esme which has an “Ask Esme” segment that was heartening. A fan asked Esme why she never really rips on the books she reviews but doesn’t like. I loved Esme’s response, that criticism, in this society, is overrated, and an attitude of competition has given would-be critics more power and clout than is really necessary in this world.

It takes five seconds to write a bad review, and really, the main audience of a children’s or YA book is a kid, right? So if the book didn’t speak to us? Maybe it will speak to someone else. And as writers we all know that we will indeed have the “big books” and the “little books.” Perspective: good stuff, that, and in lamentably short suppy in this snarky, post-Simon Cowell, writer-stab-writer world in which we live.

Have you seen this cartoon by Devas T? Keep pushing, people. BIC. It’s the phrase of the week.