Timing, Timing

Can I just whine to the universe at large that A.Fortis chose the most awful time EVER to go on vacation!? I’m in a final edit! I need someone to hold my hand and bring me adverbs! How could A.F. leave me for some wall!?

Whinging aside, Locus has announced the winner of the first year for SFWA’s Andre Norton Award, created to honor young adult SF/F novels and named in honor of the late SFWA Grand Master. While not technically a Nebula Award, it is voted on by members in the same way the Nebula Awards are, and the winner this year was Holly Black, one of the coolest YA SF writers I know. I really enjoyed her previous book Tithe, which I haven’t written up for our sister site, and look forward to reading her latest.

Cross fingers for me – I’m hoping to send a mss. back to the editor this week for a final run-through. I’ll let you know what happens next…

LAST comments on Kaavaya Viswanathan

The SF Chronicle’s Mark Morford had some deep and good words on Ms. Viswanathan, and the Incident that got me thinking. Indulge me to underscore one tiny idea of his: my success does not depend on someone else’s failure.

Just a tiny thought, world.

I’m done with this story, which has by turns depressed and disgusted me. I wish this girl the best – a new start somewhere else, not having to prove anything to anyone but herself. May the next big Incident in the writing world be a story of someone doing so well that we are inspired to greater heights ourselves.

An Alloy is a Mixture… in this case one poorly put together

I don’t want to add to the breast-beating and blaming going on in the Viswanathan-a-thon. I think we all have our own opinions on the incident – deliberate plagiarism, privileged-girl stupidity, “perfect minority” myth teen manipulated by adults, etc. – Truly, we’ll never know what really happened. There’s a detail in all of this that is interesting to me, however. I want to explore the idea of “packagers” in YA lit, what they do, and why they exist.

As I’m going through the process of getting published by a major imprint, I find that there are a lot of things behind the scenes that I didn’t realize existed. There is a huge machinery of movie tie-ins, product tie-ins, and marketing that stands ready to swoop on anything in your book that looks like it’ll help it sell. Publishers are in the business of making money, and they’re good at it; so good they’re kind of scary. (I honestly do not trust that they have my best interests at heart. This is business.) Some of the editing comments I received early on have to do not so much with the book or strolling, but how it will be perceived, and ideas on how to market it.

The American Book Producers Association explains that book packagers are responsible for some of the best “high profile” book projects and that they exist to make sure that “complicated” projects can go forward. Complicated, in that these books often are compilations among authors and researchers, involve non-print materials (apparently the publishing company has nothing to do with the coffee cup, canvas tote and CD that comes with your new novel) and labor are intensive to the point of involving more hours and work than may be worthwhile to the publishing house. Often packagers are brought in to flesh out in-house projects.

Alloy Entertainment, the self-professed “most successful marketers and merchandisers to the youth market” already had a checkered past before it met with Viswanathan. According to the New York Observer, Jodi Anderson, a member of the editorial staff at Alloy had an idea for a novel. She put together a book proposal, and pitched it to her fellow editors. It was well received and it was group-thinked – but then sent out to writers other than the editor, and when all was said and done, there was a novel – and the originator of the idea had her name appearing in the “special thanks” page of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Ann Brashares was co-editor at that time. Jodi Anderson’s departure for her own novel and work in other companies is understandable.

How much is any writer willing to pay for “success?” (What is that, exactly?)
I want my novel to sell. I want it to be read. I want to make enough money to live on, at some point, or else to support my small family. I guess the question comes down to how much of your artistic input you’re willing to give up to editors, agents, book packagers and others. Do you want action figures, coffee mugs, tank tops, stickers, and tote bags along with that movie contract? Do you want your readers to be “merchandised” with more stuff? Are you willing to do what it takes to be Harry Potter-huge? Does it any longer have anything to do with how good your story is??

It’s certainly something to think about before the contract gets put on the table in front of you.

B.utt I.n C.hair — it’s not that hard. Really.

I have many friends who write, and they either swing from one extreme to the other; from those who feel like they have no control over their characters, and that the characters must “speak” to them to move the story along, to those who are leery about that whole metaphysical metaphor, and feel like you just need to stick with your B.I.C. and get things done. Garrison Keillor’s little screed in Salon yesterday was both amusing and revealing — Mostly because I realized that I’ve never felt comfortable with admitting that writing is easy.

Okay, it’s not so very easy every day; some days there are lawn mowers outside, and there are sinus headaches and small children screaming or cats miaowing and climbing on the keyboard. Some days there are spouses and grandkids and classes and deadlines and time clocks, but on the whole, the words are in there, our lives are a great reference, and it’s not that hard to pluck out the words.

I whine about finding the right word. I whine about lackluster prose and dull dialogue. I whine about revisions. Everyone whines about revisions, especially when one has a contract so close they can smell it, but there are those last four hoops to jump through, and they’re not sure they have any more elasticity in their knees – everyone whines then. Some of us whine because we have to remake the bed every day, it’s just a personality quirk, and we refuse to sleep on the floor. But this job truly is not that hard. As Keillor says, “It does nothing for the reader to know you went through 14 drafts of a book, so why mention it?” We are lucky to have this job. We are not breaking rocks. We are not shoveling. We are not flipping burgers and sucking up grease through our very pores.

We are simply chained to our keyboards.

It’s a Good thing.

Golden Kite Award Update…

We’ve been waiting and SCBWI has announced the changes to its Golden Kite Award.

The biggest change? Money. And it’s about time, too. Books for children and young people have been low on the totem pole of book awards forever, and it’s been a two-party system (Newbury and Caldecott) for quite awhile. This isn’t to say that there aren’t other great book awards, including some regionals and some for specific age groups (like the Michael Printz) but recognition has been slow and limited and YA and children’s writers can toil in relative obscurity because the marketing money just hasn’t been behind something as mundane as books. And then you get random hyped examples of people who get half a million dollars for a book they haven’t even written yet… (well, I would give Ms. Viswanathan a break today, but there is new evidence. Anyway, my point was that nobody gets rich off of writing).

Happily, that looks to be changing. Beginning with the 2006 competition, Golden Kite participants can win $2,500 in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Book Text, and Picture Book Illustration. And the fun is including the backstage people, too. Editors of winning books will receive $1,000, and for the winning book in the Picture Book Illustration category, an additional $1,000 will be given to the book’s art director. That surprises me a lot, and I’ll need to think about what that means to the industry… do we get more “superstar” editors who are that much harder to get books to…? No offense intended, but don’t we have enough of those!? Hm. Anyway, what may be the best perk is that winners get an expense-paid trip to Los Angeles to attend the award ceremony at the Golden Kite Luncheon at SCBWI’s Summer Conference in August. Since we all know that the Summer Conference can be a spendy little venture, that was thoughtful on the SCBWI board’s part.

This is all part of a move to get the Golden Kite Award national recognition, and in turn to promote books and quality literature. Cheers!

**************************** **************************** *************************
Meanwhile,the brave YALSA/ALA folks are going to have their annual conference in New Orleans. In June. In hurricane season. They’re already looking for volunteer opportunities as well. Good for them.

It was FATED…

It had to happen. One of my favorite nonfiction adult books has been made… into a children’s book. Publisher’s Weekly reports that Eats, Shoots & Leaves is going to make the 4-8 year old set grammar-savvy once again. Toning down her ‘zero tolerance approach to grammar,’ author Lynne Truss teams up with cartoonist Bonnie Timmons (made famous by NBC’s long-ago Caroline in the City and numerous quilting toilet paper commercials) and pairs amusing pictures with funny sentences to help kids understand what they’re really saying when they neglect commas, or add them in the wrong place. I can’t wait to get this one for my little brother – and a copy for me, too, because my literal mind simply cannot get enough of such silliness as “Becky walked on, her head a little higher than usual” vs. “Becky walked on her head, a little higher than usual.” Now, imagine that with pictures! Meanwhile, Fast Food Nation, retitled as Chew On This, is also being turned into a YA book… and here’s hoping that stocks in all fast food places plummet! Doubtful, but hope springs eternal…

Meanwhile the Random House/WaldenMedia marriage is already bearing fruit; Carl Hiaasen’s brilliant book Hoot is opening as what looks to be a brilliant movie on May 5. More children’s/YA novels look to be coming into movie form this year include Where the Wild Things Are, a few Nancy Drew mysteries, the His Dark Materials trilogy, the Spiderwick Chronicles, The Tale of Despereaux, A Bridge to Terebithia, The Giver, Charlotte’s Web (I’m a bit sad about, because with Dakota Fanning, it looks like a remake of Babe. Again. And Oprah is Gussie the goose!?) How to Eat Fried Worms, and more. Can movies really make readers? We’ll find out…

Kaavya Viswanathan: Too Good To Be True?

Eeeeouch! Last April I mentioned the story of a very lucky girl who got into Harvard just about the time she got a very lucrative two book deal. At the time, I was a bit scared for her — only 17, and already — wow. I spoke at my undergrad alma mater about this 17-year-old girl who had gotten a $500K book deal based on a couple of chapters she’d written and told them that no, they’d have to work a bit harder, this kind of stuff never happens. It seems I may have been more right than I knew…

Like many other writers, I was a bit green with envy over this young woman’s succeess — but now I’m a bit nervous for Kaavya Viswanathan, now 19. Recent allegations claim that entire phrases from her book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, are taken from Megan F. McCafferty 2001 novel “Sloppy Firsts” and the 2003 sequel “Second Helpings.” There is, in fact, a full 14 word paragraph that is all McCafferty with only the names changed.

My stomach just knots as I read the comments from the Harvard newspaper, where Viswanathan is a student. Much has been made of this obviously bright girl, but it does seem that her fairy-tale beginning was just too good to be true, and that sharp readers are already joining the fray to make sure and pick out every single incidence where she could have taken her pieces of work from somewhere else.

Viswanathan is the youngest author signed by Little, Brown in decades, and the movie rights for the novel have already been sold to DreamWorks.

Ouch.

A shameless plug for a favorite author, and a great teen book club

Happy Weekend! Here’s a fabulous little event for YA writers brought to my attention by a fellow SCBWI-er :Not Your Mother’s Book Club a Laurel Village, SF club of the incredibly hip, is throwing a party. This YA literature community for people grades 7-12 welcomes Sarah Dessen to cafe Lo Cubano, she of the myriad sensitive and intelligent books reviewed on our sister site. This shindig is on the 25th, so you’ll need to move quickly to get your tickets online from Books, Inc., drop by their Laurel Village store, or give them a call at (415) 221-3666. Don’t wait – it’s not a big place, and once the tix are gone, they’re history, and this will be just another great event that you missed! Ticket price includes Dessen’s newest book for all the lucky teens, tapas, prizes and more — take notes, writers. What a fabulous idea for doing your own PR!! And check out their blog. Man, if I ever am forced to reincarnate I’ll make sure I come back somewhere near the Laurel Village Books Inc., thanks. What cool folks.

Cheers!

Odds and Ends on a Sunny Monday

Carpe Diem, Memento Mori: Muriel Sparks, born 2.1.1906, and best known for her novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, died April 15th. Not at all a YA novel, Brodie still captured in essence the cutthroat competitiveness, petty triumphs and mobster-style clannishness of high school girls. I best loved Sparks’ book Memento Mori despite Brodie being more remembered for its cinematic adaptation of sinister plotting in a girl’s school. I preferred Memento because of its unusual villains; I rather like the idea of sinister plotting amongst the elderly; the disembodied phone calls and shadowy voices were hysterical, as were her descriptions of the foibles and fetishes of certain portions of our population (and now you know what happens to dirty young men – they just get old). Now I shall go onto the porch and open my happy tale of death in the geriatric years as a salute to the grand old dame of sinister. Goodbye, Ms. Muriel. Memento mori, on this sunny day: remember that you must die.

********************************

This summer, if you’re not up to the spendy trip to L.A. for the SCBWI conference, if you want something more specifically geared to writers of literature for older children, or you just want somewhere new to go, here’s a conference that’s a little closer to the Coast, and a bit smaller:

THE PACIFIC COAST CHILDREN’S WRITERS WORKSHOP:

A Team-Taught Seminar for Middle Grade & Young Adult Novelists
Specializing in Character-Driven, Realistic Fiction

August 11-13, 2006 * Theme: Crafting Savory Scenes
At the Best Western Seacliff Inn * Aptos, CA (near central coast Santa Cruz)

SMALL GROUP; 90 PERCENT HANDS-ON; CLOSE CONTACT WITH FACULTY
* Joy Neaves: Senior Editor, Front Street Books * Deborah Noyes Wayshak: Senior Editor;
Candlewick Press.(Deborah is also a fiction and nonfiction author of adults and kids books.)
* Jennifer Jaeger: Associate Agent, Andrea Brown Literary Agency
* Martha Alderson: Author of Blockbuster Plots, Pure and Simple

THREE FOCUS SESSIONS: How to Craft Scenes Integrating Character, Plot, and Theme

PRE-WORKSHOP APPETIZERS: Personalized exercises, peer-manuscript critiques, readings

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS & FEES
*Basic (Fri.-Sat.): Friday: Dinner with editors; Martha Alderson’s hands-on session tailored to our group. Saturday: 9.5 hours of master-class clinics, keynotes, Q-A; gourmet lunch. Manuscript critiques (written or in-person) by 1-2 editors; Query/Synopsis & First Pages critiques. $149-339.

* Add-on (Sun.): Garden-patio champagne brunch with faculty. Jennifer Jaeger and Martha Alderson will each do a focus session. Brunch/talks: $39. Also, for added fee: morning critique or consultation with Jennifer/Martha (choose private or semi-private; 15-55 minute sessions).

There are only 40 spots for this conference, so if you’re interested, get cracking! Email conference director Nancy Sondel * go to www.childrenswritersworkshop.com

In passing…

As an addendum to my earlier post on copywriting, I did a little more research and found a website called Creative Commons. It is a non-profit company that creates licensing agreements for those whose creative work is posted via the Web, or found on blogs; whose work is shared, passed around, and eventually published. These licenses protect some rights while providing unlimited use of others, and, unlike that sealed-envelope trick, are viewed respectfully by actual judges. Professors who have written web-based texts for their students, bloggers, photographers and others have found these useful – and they’re worth checking out for writer’s purposes.

A concept equally intriging is copyleft! If you’re interested in your art never being copyrighted, and forever belonging to the public domain, freely passed around, added onto, changed, built from and morphed, this is for you.

Q Bon weekend, writers!b