May 2010 – Tanita S. Davis

{Junkie? Stalker? Pervert? Thief?}

May 31, 2010

6:44 pm

4 Comments on {Junkie? Stalker? Pervert? Thief?}

(Kinda like “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief…” only different.)

About a month ago I had a bit of a laugh as well as a bit of a shudder as I realized anew that Google tracks queries.

Sometimes I think there should be some kind of flag that shows up on your computer searches, if you’re a writer. Some kind of universal symbol that says, “NOT A WEIRDO. I SWEAR!” I mean, so what if I need to look up something that knocks people unconscious? Don’t look at me like that when I’m researching flunitrazepam (Rohypnol). (Which, for my purposes, was utterly useless, and darned disturbing to read about.) And if I spend too long on a page describing blunt head trauma, well… I could be a nurse. Right?

How about all the times you catch me eavesdropping?

I need a T-shirt then. “NOT A STALKER. DISINTERESTED IN YOU PERSONALLY, JUST BORROWING YOUR MANNERISMS.”

Being shy works to my advantage these times — most of the time I don’t get caught eavesdropping. I have my head down, my hands and eyes engaged with something else. Also: bathrooms are really good places for eavesdropping, and women seem to forget that all those stalls make a great echo chamber. (Apparently in bathrooms, most men don’t speak at all. Or, at least they don’t make eye contact. I’m going to go with E. Lockhart’s vision of being a Fly on the Wall…) If you can stand to hang out in bathrooms, you do hear the oddest things. But, especially in the bathroom… don’t get caught just hanging out. That whole “WEIRD” label is really hard to shake, no matter that you promise to put the people to whom you are listening in a book.

No one said anything about chasing people…

The Patriot Act really put pressure on librarians to record what patrons were checking out, so they could suspect everyone of everything. Librarians: can I just tell you how sorry I am about that? I totally understand that you sometimes want to tell SOMEBODY about the weird people asking you completely random questions (My buddy Jac at the Seattle Library gets some SERIOUSLY weird ones), but I so appreciate you not calling the Homeland people every day on all the writers you meet.

Okay, so I’m not silly enough to try to check out The Anarchist’s Handbook, despite the fact that this is my Constitutional right — (you can read it online, of course, so don’t bother worrying your librarian – just keep in mind: GOOGLE IS WATCHING), but a great reference book, Hallucinogenic Plants, by Richard Evan Schultes (Golden Press, NY, 1976) now lives next to my Everyday Life in the Middle Ages — owned and on my shelf, so I can leave my “NOT A JUNKIE” shirt at home.

It just got to the point where it was too hard to prove what I was not.

(What? I sound PARANOID??? And? Is that a drug-related …oh. Never mind.)

Some days, it just occurs to me that it’s really weird to be a writer.

{Facebook, & Some Other Stuff}

by Tanita S. Davis

May 28, 2010

12:07 pm

17 Comments on {Facebook, & Some Other Stuff}

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Most of you who know me knew this was coming.

I only got a Facebook account because I was urged to by my various agents, editors, and other public peoples, and I do try and do as I’m told periodically, so I agreed, and set up my little place in the world, and was poked and tried to figure out the mechanics of poking back, and then with relief turned off the notifications for all the little things like pretend farms and pretend mafia and pretend sea kingdoms which needed me to just do one or two things for someone else in order to gain some kind of pretend points.

I pretend well. Honest. Just… usually by myself.

Anyway. I get a lot of email from strangers these days, and a lot of friend requests on Facebook from more strangers who might turn out to be friends, and I’ve met a lot of nice people. But, I think I’ve done my time on social networking, and while I’ll miss Adrienne’s very amusing little notes on her kitchen escapades, and Jules’ pictures of her stunning children, Leila’s granola obsession, Liz’s TV lineup, Robin’s packing woes and Tim’s complaints about his class load, I think I could probably hear about those things via email, and not worry too much. Plus, Facebook never thinks all these things are as important as I do, anyway, and tends to shuffle them to some invisible place where I have to track them down, and instead gifts me with recaps of LOST and comments on the latest Regretsy offering. Which, I don’t mind, but I think I’ll enjoy rediscovering ways to keep up with my friends that don’t involve a networking site which now sells my personal information – including birthday and city – to yet more strangers. Who will, in turn, sell that information to people who cheerfully shoot advertising my way, which I neither want nor need.

(Plus, when your PhD-information-systems-management Tech Boy gets quoted by American Public Media about how much he hates Facebook, and doesn’t trust them as a company, you sort of tend to want to ease back from the whole thing, just so as not to look, um, hypocritical.)

Upshot: if you’re my friend on Facebook, and not in real life, that’s okay. I’ll still say hello to you if we ever meet. If you’re my friend in real life, then surely you don’t need social networking to remind you of this.

Congratulations to Ms. Williams’ Speech and Theater Arts students at Goldthwaite High, who, this year, are competing in the University Interscholastic League in Prose. The University Interscholastic League was created by The University of Texas at Austin to provide leadership and guidance to public school debate and athletic teachers. The organization has been around since 1909, and the Prose competition since 1927.

Especially on the heels of Sara’s most excellent Audie for OPERATION YES, it’s an absolute hoot to imagine people reading parts of MARE’S WAR for their prose selection. How I wish I could be there to hear them. Take pictures, y’all!

I had no idea this could ever happen, but it appears that I have had such a good writing week that I have killed my keyboard.

In the middle of simmering up a lovely mess of plums, citrus peel, and sugar, I dashed to my computer to whip out a quick email.

That was Mistake #1, and you have NO IDEA how often it is repeated in this house. NO. IDEA.

I started typing… and the first ‘e’ I typed gave me a string of letters: asdfg qwert` — and then opened a bunch of Help menu windows.

Obviously, that wasn’t supposed to happen… so I frowned, and typed ‘e’ again. And then I typed the alphabet, and got an ‘e’ when I typed ‘f’, and a bunch of other nasty things started happening. I went online to Microsoft’s Help page, which is, as always, anything but, and did some troubleshooting, got on the Web and searched for my keyboard type, texted some people who should know about these things…

Oh, and I made some charcoal while I was at it.

It took me TWO DAYS to clean the burnt plums off the bottom of that pan. Two days, boiling salt water, a frosting-spreader-turned-chisel, and a pumice stone.

And let that be a lesson to all of you. First, expect your wireless keyboard to detonate at some point. Even after you’ve taken it apart — three times — and cleaned it all the way to the little nifty-looking circuit board, in the end, it’s not as sturdy as a corded keyboard. Second, adding sugar to anything acidic means charcoal is just a step away. Don’t forget all those fun – and stinky – chemistry lessons, and beware. Third, if you’re cooking, for the love of stainless steel pots, stay in the danged kitchen. You’d think this many years and this many burned pots later, I’d have figured that one out.

And you might well wonder what’s up with all the pink/orange/red in these photos. Well. It’s something in the water, I’m sure, but a sure sign of spring around these parts is the annual Dyeing of the Tresses. This year I took part, thinking it might be fun to go off my usual boring ways and appear in public in a disguise.

Yes. I am a dork. I have never seriously dyed my hair before. (Except for all the times I dipped the tips in Kool-Aid, which really comes off on things and does nothing to dark hair – but it worked on my blonde friends really well.) Since I didn’t really know what I was doing, and my hair was just sort of confused by the whole process, I am now the proud owner of a sort of coppery orange striped head of hair. Think red-furred lemurs.

Every time I catch a glimpse of my reflection in sunlight, I have the urge to laugh.

And really, that can only be to the good, right?

HAPPY FRIDAY!

{The Hitchcock Weekend}

by Tanita S. Davis

May 25, 2010

4:21 pm

7 Comments on {The Hitchcock Weekend}

General Coolness, Random Notes and Errata

Apparently, warm weather in Scotland is for the birds. Specifically, the black-faced gulls, the moorhens, the swallows and the swifts.

In the course of seeing wild animals from around the world – rhinos, lions, elephants and the like — walking around a park and otherwise enjoying the balmy weather on the weekend, I was seriously accosted by:

a.) a goose,

b.) a kestrel,

c.) a peacock,

d.) a duck, and

e.) a seagull

…at one point or another at the safari park where we went this weekend. All I can blame it on is that it was a broiling 78°F, and it seemed that everyone in Alba was outside, half naked, and grilling something.

I think the birds were somewhat resentful of this.

I tried to explain that I was a vegetarian.

It did me no good.

The kestrel was allegedly only doing its job, entertaining the crowd at a bird of prey show. It swooped through the crowd, leaving nervous shrieks in its wake, as it neatly skimmed the heads of many of us, zipping and banking and doubling back like a teensy stealth missile with a deadly hooked beak and talons. We were all bent double with our hands over our heads by the time it decided to return to its perch. The little bugger. Must’ve had its Wheaties that morning. (Or the bleeding equivalent.)

The peacock I’d mistaken for a wad of feathers and twigs in the top of a tree. I figured it was a faraway nest… until it moved. And moved again. And then ~~fell~~ fluttered, in the worst parody of flight I’ve ever seen, out of the tree and landed a little way away from me. And proceeded to stalk toward me. With intent.

It was… a bit unnerving. I always thought peacocks were scared of people. Apparently not.

The duck and the gull had the mistaken idea I was interested in feeding them. I explained that wasn’t going to happen. The goose was the only one that insisted.

I actually scared off the goose for a few seconds, because I mistook it for a duck.

I must explain: Ducks are occasionally… obnoxious. How many times have I seen small siblings and other children overwhelmed at the marina back home, when feeding ducks, by a sudden bum rush of all the ducks in the pond, plus seagulls? We all got used to shoo-ing them, and I was confident as I loudly berated the pair of large white birds stalking our picnic table. I ignored the sideways looks the one closest was giving me. “GO,” I told it. “YOU ARE BEING RUDE.” It backed up a single step.

I felt like I’d achieved some measure of success, and sat down and ate my lunch, keeping a wary eye out, and occasionally reinforcing my message with a brisk, “SHOO.” And then, the ducks came waddling out of the river. And I had a basis for comparison. (Yeah, yeah, I know we had ducks when I was a kid. That was a long time ago… and I seriously just wanted it to go away so I could eat. I admit to not really paying attention…) I realized that either the white “duck” must be the largest duck on the planet, or….

Geese, according to D., and my vet friend Jess, are generally evil, and will chase you, hiss, and “bite.” Jess dislikes Canadian geese, and D. was chased at the age of five by the regular barnyard variety. I’ve not had a bad experience with geese, but having heard so many horror stories, I would have been careful, if I’d bothered to look at the bird closely.

It worked out, though — I was aggressive and verbal, and the goose clearly thought I was insane.

Works for me.

*I have ZERO idea what that bird with the orange beak might be. Moorhens have orange beaks, but they look hennish. This thing does not. I therefore must conclude it is just another bird who was stalking me, trying to get mentioned in my blog.

An Update, Of Sorts

by Tanita S. Davis

May 21, 2010

3:00 pm

6 Comments on An Update, Of Sorts

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1. I just got my flight confirmed for the ALA Convention!

2. This means, me and my shoes now have some way to get there.

2a. (Barring volcano incidents, I mean.)

3. This also means that the time is growing short. <<Insert Panic Here>> There is shopping to be done. There will be speeches to give. There will be people looking at me. <<Insert MORE Panic Here>>

4. I have nothing to wear. I have no idea what to say. I am trying to figure out how to see people, yet remain invisible. I think the Shrinking Violets need to come up with some sort of a pin that we can wear which will make this happen.

4a. (These are the types of thoughts I often have. But, the “seeing people yet remaining invisible” thing hasn’t yet worked.)(Also, shy+introverted=stay-at-home writer who should really stay home. Coming uncomfortably soon to an ALA Conference near you.)(Ooh, I know! The answer is a disguise!! I shall dye my hair. No one will recognize me then, right? RIGHT???)

5. So, the shopping. It always amazes how there are 9,9999 things which are close to right, but not quite acceptable.

Also: I now have a renewed hatred for maxidresses.

5a. (Why are there so many dresses on the market which are pretty and go swish, and which do not suit short people?)

5b. (Why must I be so short?)

5c. ( And, no, the answer is not to wear heels. I’m already pretty sure I can only wear the pair I bought for about ten minutes, or I’ll be walking with a cane.)

5d. (On the other hand, canes are pretty awesome. I could get one with a sword in it.)

5e. (Which would endear me to no one at the Dulles airport. Never mind.)

6. Which brings me back to that one pair of shoes and the plane ticket. <<Insert YET MORE Panic Here>>I am so not ready for the ALA Convention.

On the up side, yesterday was a decent writing day. I put two of my characters in Utmost Jeopardy, which really, according to The Rules is what you’re supposed to do: take your characters and screw up their lives beyond redemption. And then write your way out of it.

Well. Still working on that second part.

AND, on the OTHER up side (because there are always two, otherwise your smile is just kind of a smirk), it has reached SEVENTY DEGREES outside (with 70% humidity as well, of course) for the first time this year. You would not believe the number of people just sitting outside, in relief, giving the impression that this is a city full of people who just lounge around all day on lawns. Frankly, this is a good impression for a city to give.

Blessed are the lawn-dwellers, for they shall make this city look a bit more attractive. Except for that one guy watering the hedge.

You think I’m kidding, don’t you. *SIGH* Man, you don’t know how much I wish I were.

All right. I must go back to work, but you have now been launched into your weekend. Go forth with glee.

That is all.

{Summer Reading. Summer… not…}

by Tanita S. Davis

May 15, 2010

11:19 am

1 Comment on {Summer Reading. Summer… not…}

Interviews

…and summer still dragging up bad puns. C’est la vie.

Wow, how many years have we been doing this now? Four? Five? Well, either way, it’s once again time for the Summer Blog Blast Tour, where fifteen or twenty bloggers get together for a week to interview their favorite children’s literature authors and illustrators. Twice a year this small segment of what we term the “kidlitosphere” celebrates celebrate story in all its manifold permutations, and renew our love of books — and give everyone some great books to chase down for their summer reading projects.

This project is a lot of work — it takes getting past one’s reflex shyness to approach an author or their agent, it takes reading their work deeply enough to ask intelligent questions that they’ve not already heard fifteen times, and it takes a huge amount of coordination for Colleen (who is made of Awesome and Woot with sprinklings of Spreadsheet, probably) to get the interviews set up and spread out and linked each day. It’s a labor of love, though. I really love stories — they’ve shaped my life, they’ve saved my sanity, and they’re just the larger part of what makes me, me.

Come be a part of the stories. The official schedule is up at Chasing Ray, and I hope you drop by!

Poetry Friday {Fragile, But Holding Together}

by Tanita S. Davis

May 14, 2010

5:03 am

4 Comments on Poetry Friday {Fragile, But Holding Together}

Poetry Friday

   I learn more about God
From weeds than from roses;
   Resilience springing
Through the smallest chink of hope
   In the absolute of concrete….
~Phillip Pulfrey, “Weeds,” Perspectives

Even those of us who are blown apart are stronger than we think.

Dandelion

by Julie Lechevsky

My science teacher said
there are no monographs
on the dandelion.

Unlike the Venus fly-trap
or Calopogon pulchellus,
it is not a plant worthy of scrutiny.

It goes on television
between the poison squirt bottles,
during commercial breakaways from Ricki Lake.

But that’s how life
parachutes
to my home.

Home,
where they make you do
what you don’t want to do.

Moms with Uzis of reproach,

dads with their silencers.
(My parents watch me closely because I am their jewel.)

So no one knows how strong
a dandelion is inside,
how its parts stick together,
bract, involucre, pappus,
how it clings to its fragile self.

– Read the rest at Poetry 180.

Dandelions have always been one of my favorite flowers. I kept a dandelion clock, dried in puffball form, for years in a purple plastic box, sealed with tape so no stray breeze would disrupt its perfection. Eventually I felt like it was like cruelly caging something which would prefer to live, so I let it go.

Odd, isn’t it, how when we’re kids, we seek out those dandelion clocks, knot together those golden flower’s stems into chains, but when we’re older, we revile the poor things as weeds. I’m sure that says something about our psyches and the travesty called “growing up.”

But, never mind. The dandelions are tougher than we think. And my faraway friends, who this week abruptly lost uncle and father this week – you, too, are tougher than you realize.

Poetry Friday is at Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup, which means it will be gorgeous and cultured and classy and tasteful. Do drop by.

{Writing to the Broken Places}

by Tanita S. Davis
May 12, 2010
10:46 am
2 Comments on {Writing to the Broken Places}
Essay Musings, Literary Life Observations, Uncategorized

Sometimes beauty exists only in shadow.

“As an author, I write to that broken place in myself, knowing that I wasn’t alone then, and all of the things I was struggling with haven’t been resolved – which means there are oodles of teens still battling those very same issues, and still with no validation or acknowledgment of their struggles.”
– Neesha S. Meminger, author of SHINE, COCONUT MOON

Last month, author Sarah Mlynowski did a bit of Twitter PR for her new novel Gimme a Call, and challenged YA authors she knew to tweet a message to their high school selves. The answers she received were amusing, poignant, and thought-provoking. Colleen’s feature this month at Chasing Ray’s What A Girl Wants takes the question a step further: which books did your high school self need to read?

I thought it amusing that none of us listed a Francesca Lia Block book, none of us mentioned Franny & Zoey, and none of us mentioned and Judy Blume or Norma Fox Mazer. Maybe that’s ’cause we were already reading those during our senior year?

What would you send back in the time machine to Sixteen/Seventeen-year-old you?

{Plans Afoot}

by Tanita S. Davis
May 10, 2010
3:27 pm
11 Comments on {Plans Afoot}
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I have gotten the nicest emails from friends and associates going to ALA Annual Conference next month — all excitedly planning for plane tickets and meeting for drinks and figuring out hotels. Poet Sara has even put together a “things to do in D.C.” kind of blog post, which leaves me kind of breathless – there’s a lot to do, and I won’t be there for longer than a week!

At this point, I’m merely hoping that we’ll be able to fly out from one of our local airports — ! The volcano has rerouted friends from Glasgow to Edinburgh for recent trips to the U.S.; we know one guy who had to take a train all the way into Madrid in order to leave this side of the world.

I have a feeling it might be tricky getting out of here.

While everyone else is abuzz with anticipation, I’m still trying to figure out what to wear. I have bought a grand total of ONE pair of shoes for the whole conference, despite the multiple meet-ups I’m Officially Scheduled to take part in, not to mention the casual times with friends. One pair of shoes — and I have no idea when or where I’ll be wearing them, but it seemed like a good idea to buy them at the time.

Now that I have the shoes, I have no idea what else to buy… and those who know me know how much I loathe shopping… which is why I started this “I need clothes for this” odyssey in, oh, February, and still have only the single pair of shoes to show for myself. *SIGH*

Much to my jealous mutterings, it’s been in the eighties in D.C. — here, today, at this moment, it is FORTY-NINE degrees – yes, that’s 49°F. In spite of the slow warming, there are leaves on the trees, and flowers blooming, but all of us are to the point of being obvious about checking our watches and asking, “Um, Spring? Anytime now…”

Maybe it’s just as well that all I have are shoes. I’m going to die of heat exhaustion when I get to Washington; shoes may be all I can stand to wear…!

Meanwhile, enjoy the scene in Glasgow, as we watch the clouds roll by.

{Only Five Days Left…}

by Tanita S. Davis
May 4, 2010
3:41 pm
1 Comment on {Only Five Days Left…}
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In case you’ve missed this at Cynsations, on April 29 and continuing through May 9th, the Hunger Mountain Spring Fundraiser has manuscript critiques for auction! If you’re an aspiring author or poet, check this out, there’s a lot to bid on. Of special interest: a full length Middle Grade novel critique with Michelle Poploff, Executive Editor at Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, as well as a full-length picture book critique with Tanya Lee Stone; and a full length YA manuscript critique with some chick named Tanita.

Not sure what Hunger Mountain is all about? Here’s a bit of light reading for you.

{On the Street Where You Live}

by Tanita S. Davis
May 1, 2010
2:00 pm
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…I have often walked down this street before;
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I
Several stories high.
Knowing I’m on the street where you live.
– My Fair Lady

This is the street where I live. Or, rather, this is the garden in the crescent on the street where I live. Or, perhaps, this is the sky above the garden in the crescent on the street where I live.

This is a Glasgow sky — mercurial, tempestuous, moody, more often filled with stinging sleet than sunshine. This is a Glasgow sky with Winter giving a last, ill-tempered huff at being asked less than gently to move along by the denizens of a beleaguered city. This is Le Printemps in her prima dona garb; mostly bareboned twigs with the lightest festoon of green and white and the softest of pinks, quite sure of her welcome, but being coy, striking a pose on the runway rather than sashaying along.

Boiling clouds and fleeting shadows, blue and gray and pale all swirled into one.

This is Spring.

Arriving.