Mirrors and Magic Frogs

A Quandary

2011-06-25T22:16:00.002-04:00

Why is it that when I am so completely swamped at work that I can barely have time to take a breath (the solution there, of course, is taking fractional breaths at strategically placed intervals) I have TONS of ideas, motivation, and inspiration to write.

Now that it's summer I actually have time to write. Where did my inspiration go?

Totally not fair.

SCBWI Winter Conference--part 2

2011-02-07T21:02:00.002-05:00

What I enjoyed about my first national conference:

1. Meeting Lois Lowry. Meeting Lois Lowry. And meeting Lois Lowry. Now if I can just meet Megan Whalen Turner and Katherine Paterson, that pretty much takes care of all the authors on my top nine list! (I’m not holding my breath for Alison Croggon, since she lives in Australia, and JK Rowling? Yeah, right.)

2. Networking with other SCBWI Members in my region: The luncheon was fun. I wish I had taken a picture because they crammed so many tables into that room and jammed so many chairs around each table that I half expected the NYFD to storm the building at any second for fire code violations. Of course, who knows how they’d have gotten in the room, it being so stuffed with tables and chairs and excellent food and socializing children’s writers and illustrators. I had fun talking with other writers, and I started a business card collection in the back of my plastic name tag holder.

3. Keynotes. I enjoyed the keynotes much more than the breakout sessions. To be clear, it’s not that the sessions were bad; I’m just very good at picking the wrong sessions (for me) to attend. If I ever lose my mind and strike out on the pageant circuit, I have my talent prepackaged and ready to go.

4. Ginger Clark’s talk. She was wry and funny and at the same time, very down to business. There were two things I didn’t enjoy about her session, both completely out of her control. One was being crammed between two women, neither of whom were very large, but both of whom seemed compelled to take up part of my chair (and they didn’t have people encroaching on their other sides.) That was rather bizarre. In retrospect, I’m kicking myself for not glancing around the room for the Candid Camera people. The other frustrating thing was people asking the same questions over and over again. Poor Ginger Clark answered the same one about four times in one session. She was much more gracious about it than I was feeling. Apparently, I need to keep working on patience. (But other people need to work on listening.)

Anyway, back to the keynotes. Most of the speakers were awesome. The closing keynote was my favorite, delivered by Linda Sue Park. I had met her once before, briefly, when my roommate at Chautauqua (Hi, Natisha!) introduced us. I’d never before heard her speak, though. She’s so inspiring. Her basic message was…

DON’T believe in yourself.

TBC…

Twitter Update

2011-02-05T16:45:00.009-05:00

Okay I joined Twitter, but I am not super happy about it. It wouldn’t let me be mirrorsandmagicfrogs. Too many characters. Grrrrrr. I should blog about the evils of an outside entity limiting my verbosity. But anyway, feel free to follow (Who came up with that terminology? It makes me think of follow the leader, which makes me think of that song from the Disney cartoon version of Peter Pan, which is now running through my head. Tee-dum! Tee-dee! A Teedle ee do tee day!) me. I’m mirrors_n_frogs.

SCBWI Winter Conference

2011-02-03T01:27:00.007-05:00

Okay, right off the bat...

Best thing about SCBWI’s Winter Conference: I met Lois Lowry!

Second best thing: I was in NYC for three days!

What I learned (Part 1):

1.) I still appear to be the only member who refers to SCBWI as “Skib-we.” Hey, we all have our quirks.

2.) Apparently, I need a dog. Lois Lowry (and a few of the other authors) showed some letters they received from kids, and nearly every single one ended with “And do you have a dog?” In case you were wondering, Lois does. I wonder if my landlady will accept that as an excuse to violate the “no pets” policy…

3.) I hate my Blackberry’s spelling autocorrect. Also if you correct your Blackberry’s auto spell correct of your facebook status update with a comment on said status update bemoaning your Blackberry’s stinking spelling autocorrect…your facebook friends will still make fun of you.

4.) I am an atypical writer personality. When one of the speakers—Sara Zarr, I think—said something about most of us being introverts, just about every head around me (and we’re talking over a thousand heads) nodded in agreement. I am SO not an introvert. I must have people around me. If there are no people, there had better be a bunch of books so I can get sucked into a story with people. Actually, I think that’s why I started making up stories in the first place. I had brothers—no sisters with whom to play Barbies and My Little Ponies. Although my brothers and I *did* often play GI Joe in the land of the giant women and talking ponies, they didn’t always want to play. Then I was stuck by myself. So I made up stories wherein my Barbies and My Little Ponies and Strawberry Shortcake dolls went on epic adventures that literally spanned weeks if not months. Anyway, if there were no people with whom to interact, I made some up. But I digress…

5.) I really have to join Twitter. :(

(part 2 to come...eventually)

Word Count Woes

2010-07-05T11:43:00.006-04:00

Brevity is not my strong point.

Well, that was an ironic opening, huh? Seriously, though. I'm constantly battling unnecessary verbosity. Case in point, the first version of my opening chapter to Kissing Glass was seventeen pages. I've gotten it down to eleven and a half, which is probably still too long. Where this really kills me, though, is in the short story genre.

It's not that I dislike writing short fiction. Half of the novels I've started began as short stories (see above re: bad at brevity.) Then they just take off and before I know it, I have 200 pages.

I'd really love to have a publishing credit because currently my resume includes...nothing. I've read that having prior publishing credits are helpful when querying agents and editors for longer works. Not 100% necessary, of course, but helpful. And since it's arguably "easier" to garner a publishing credit in the magazine market, I decided to revisit some of my short stories.

I have three completed. The problem is two of them are well over 1000 words. The third (which I actually DO really like, so it's not like I'd be subbing JUST for the credit) has been slashed to 569 words with a target audience of around first grade. Too long for Highlights (500 word limit for that audience.) Ladybug accepts fiction up to 800 words, but I'm less familiar with that magazine. Plus, I just love Highlights. Between my childhood memories of devouring the stories and combing through the Hidden Pictures puzzles and the scholarship they gave me to attend Chautauqua in 2006, I feel a stronger pull toward Highlights than Ladybug.

So what to do? Try to slash 67 more words and sub to Highlights? Or familiarize myself with Ladybug, add in some of what I cut, and sub to them? That's probably a silly quandary to debate, but...yeah. It's my (teensy) problem of the day.

Best laid plans...

2010-07-03T14:30:00.002-04:00

After a week-long grad school class during which I had no time to write anything that wasn't class-related, I had hoped to focus on one (or let's face it, with my attention span as of late, SEVERAL) of my stories today. But then...

Here is a (very lame) poem to convey the problem:

Ow, ow, ow.
Ow.
Ouch.
My head hurts
quite a lot.
Ow, ow, ow.
Ow.
Ouch.
Need coffee.
Have coffee.
No help. Too late.
Need drugs (not the bad kind.)
OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Yeah, so a poet I am not. You were warned. Plus, I have a headache. I mean, it would've sucked anyway, but at least I can blame this particular suckage on the massive pounding in my head.

Hmmm. Bright side to everything.

I HATE SUMMARIZING

2010-06-23T15:03:00.003-04:00

No, I mean really. Scout's honor.

This doesn't make me particularly rare among writers, of course. I've yet to meet one who, upon hearing the word "synopsis," breaks out the pom poms and starts doing high kicks or whatever. But really, I hate summarizing.

I just made a first attempt at summarizing Kissing Glass, which I'm posting below. It sucks; I know. If anyone would like to comment and offer advice on how to improve it, I would love to hear!

Kissing Glass Summary

Colette is not the typical princess. Much to her mother’s chagrin, she prefers playing baseball to attending royal balls and collects frogs rather than extravagant dresses. All of the princess lessons in the world won’t turn Colette into her older sister. Gorgeous and full of grace, Lucienne is the perfect princess—except for the horrible temper that regularly sends the line of arrogant suitors sprinting from the throne room under a barrage of anything within Lucienne’s reach.

When in a fit of temper, Lucienne smashes Colette’s favorite glass frog, accidentally breaking a curse and letting out an enchanted prince, Colette discovers that royalty isn’t all bad. Prince Frederick of Ganderland is everything all of her sister’s obnoxious royal suitors aren’t. He’s polite, willing to make his own toast, and quite possibly the only prince in the world who sees Lucienne for the fiend she is.

There’s just one little problem; according to the terms of the curse, Frederick is magically bound to marry Lucienne or he’ll turn back into a frog—this time forever. Lucienne, of course, wants nothing to do with such an un-princely prince, and Colette finds herself helping Frederick in a series of attempts to capture Lucienne’s attention, all while battling her own growing feelings for him. Nothing seems to work, and Frederick is on the brink of resigning himself to eternal frogdom when Colette discovers something about his curse that could change his life for the better. And leave hers in shards.

Another Day, Another Book

2010-06-22T16:55:00.010-04:00

Read, not written. If only I could write as quickly as I read. Correction. If only I could write WELL as quickly as I read.

But back to the reading thing. I finished re-reading The Goose Girl (because in case I haven't mentioned it before, I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally like Shannon Hale's writing.) I'm now more than halfway through When You Reach Me. It's a fun read so far. I haven't gotten to the "why it's a Newbery winner" part yet, but I'm sure it'll hit me at some point.

Other accomplishments of the day include trying a new pho place (fail; I'll stick with my regular place,) buying a new printer (wireless ready!) and starting to outline a fifth book in the Reflection series. I don't know if anything past the first one will ever come to fruition, even in draft form, but ideas keep popping into my head. It's not my fault I can't let my characters go! Sure, one might possibly make an argument that, since I created my characters, it is completely 100% my fault, but to that person, I say--LOOK, A CHICKEN!

You missed it? Awww, too bad. It was totally dancing the cha cha slide.

But back to my stories. Currently, here are the stats for the series that was never intended to be:

Book One: Reflection draft #I've-lost-count complete at 80,000 words; waiting to be revised yet again

Book Two: untitled draft #1 at 28,500 words

Book Three: untitled draft #1 can barely be called a draft. It's mostly ordered scenes connected by me typing "And then this happens..." Currently at 5,841 words

Book Four: The Heir outline/random scenes at 3,981 words

Book Five: untitled outline/random scenelets at 1,386 word

Hmmmm, I definitely see a pattern forming here. I think I'll go work on Kissing Glass instead. If you think I'm distracted to easily, you could be on to something, but...LOOK THE CHICKEN'S BACK!

NBF and Addendum to My Top 8 List

2010-06-21T20:07:00.008-04:00

First of all, shame on me for living in the DC area my entire life and not knowing anything about the annual National Book Festival until last fall. I'm sure it will be an annual pilgrimage on the Metro from here on out.

This year, on Saturday, September 25th, the Library of Congress will hold the 10th annual National Book Festival on the Mall. The site looks like it's been up awhile, but they're going to be adding more details from here on out. My favorite author (don't tell the others on my list,) Shannon Hale, I very much doubt will be there.

If you're curious as to why, just check out her blog (Squeetus) over there -------------------------------------->

I was ecstatic, however, to discover that the newest addition to my "favorites" list will be attending! So on Saturday, September 25, 2010 you'll find me standing somewhere in the winding line waiting to have Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games series) sign my book. Come join me! But no cuts.

The New and Improved Top 9 List

Alison Croggon

Kate DiCamillo

Shannon Hale

Lois Lowry

Donna Jo Napoli

Katherine Paterson

JK Rowling

Megan Whalen Turner

and now...Suzanne Collins!

Summer!

2010-06-20T15:09:00.005-04:00

So this post comes about four months after my last one and isn't at all what I promised (though I am still planning to do the top 8 rundown.)

However, with school out and my classroom packed up, I finally have a second to blog! I've also had a few seconds (okay, four days) in which to read read read!!!! (Normally I might get annoyed with myself for using extra exclamation points, but reading is deserving of them, in my opinion.)

Since school let out, I've been to the pool three times and been in the water exactly zero times. I was actually going to go in yesterday when I got to a good stopping point in my book, but there was an unfortunate accident in the baby pool, and since both pools are on one system, they closed the water. So I kept my nose in my book.

I'm in the middle of a few books, but I cast all those aside when I was invited to a book discussion for Scott Westerfield's Leviathan. I was very excited to be able to attend (since so many things occur when I am working) and it was the perfect excuse to read Leviathan, which had been sitting in a box since I bought it back in *mumbles.*

At any rate, I read it in four hours, spent another hour brushing up on the real history of pre-WWI Eastern Europe, and now I can't wait for Behemoth. Unfortunately, amazon says I must. Curses.

So then I tried to get back into The Book Thief. I still can't decide if I like it. The choice of narrator, in my opinion, is brilliant, as is all the play with colors and nuances of color, but I can't quite bring myself to love it. That's probably why it's taking me so long to read it. But I read a few pages of it.

Then I remembered a lonely little amazon box that held Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy. I unshrink-wrapped it (new verbs are fun, right?) but then saw another book in the box--one I'd placed in my cart because I'd heard of it and it got me free shipping. Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.

Could. Not. Put. It. Down. (Except when I drove home from the pool and when I paused partway through to order its sequel from amazon and to discover the third part doesn't come out until the fall. GRRRRR.) Within minutes of finishing, I downloaded Kindle for PC from amazon and ordered the Kindle version of Catching Fire, which pretty much means I can't complain about the government's fiscal irresponsibility for at least a month. Still. Totally worth it. Finished it this morning.

NOW I have to wait for Mockingjay. Curses again.

In the mean time, perhaps I'll try WRITING something. :P

My Top 8 Favorite (Contemporary) Children's Writers

2010-02-27T18:24:00.002-05:00

Over the next couple of...however long it takes me to do this...I'll blog about one of my top 8 (top 10 lists are too conformist for me) favorite contemporary children's writers and what it is about them that I adore.

Some of them will come as no surprise, I'm sure. So here they are, in alphabetical order (because I can't decide my TOP top from my middle and bottom top; not because I'm conforming):

Alison Croggon

Kate DiCamillo

Shannon Hale

Lois Lowry

Donna Jo Napoli

Katherine Paterson

JK Rowling

Megan Whalen Turner

First up...Katherine Paterson. Coming next week.

What have I done today?

2010-02-11T17:13:00.007-05:00

The short answer is not much. I'm going to take a leaf out of Joanna's blog and post some stats. I hope you don't mind, Joanna!

Words Written: 247

Words Deleted: 249 (This doesn't seem to be the right direction. Does novel-writing come with a GPS?)

Number of MSWord Files opened and closed with minimal alteration: 4

Hours spent on the BB: *mumbles*

Contests Entered: ONE (at the Guide to Literary Agents Editor's Blog)

http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/default,date,2010-02-07.aspx

Number of GIGANTIC icicles knocked off gutter by hanging out second story window and blindly swinging a titanium crutch:

Yeah, I don't really know, but aren't they cool?

Long ago

2010-02-10T15:06:00.002-05:00

…in a galaxy far, far away…

(Just kidding. It was last September in Washington, D.C., but you *had* to know that was coming, right?)

I attended the National Book Festival on the mall with a few students and their grown ups. I was most excited to see Shannon Hale and Kate Di Camillo (fortunately, so were my students!) and thanks to the delays on Metro’s red line that morning, we arrived just in time to see a panel discussion at the Children’s Pavilion…that included both Shannon Hale and Kate Di Camillo…and six or seven other authors, most of whom I’d never heard of before. The whole time the moderator was introducing people, this guy John Something-or-other was holding up their books behind them, goofing off, and generally being hilarious. None of them seemed to mind, and the friendly, teasing interaction between all these authors was really fun to observe.

So we got to the end of the row of authors (on backless, wooden stools—I can only imagine how uncomfortable they must have been) and John Something-or-other got up at the podium and introduced… The Exquisite Corpse Adventure.

Sounds gory, huh? It’s not. An exquisite corpse, John told us, is an old art term. Seeing as how I enjoy art talk about as much as I’d enjoy a ten mile jog barefoot on a treadmill resembling a moving bed of nails, I’d never heard of it before. Fortunately, John explained. Basically, it’s when artists take their individual pieces and smush them together to form a whole project, sculpture, etc. (To read more, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse)

Well, what does that have to do with a whole slew of children’s writers most of whom are not also illustrators? In this particular case, a whole slew of children’s author’s are writing a round robin.

(Incidentally, I found out later, an exquisite corpse is also a writing game that I’ve played without knowing its name.)

The Exquisite Corpse is hosted on www.read.gov and will update every other Friday for a year. John Something-or-other, who wrote the first chapter, proceeded to read it aloud at the panel discussion, and may I just say? HILARIOUS. Bizarre and silly humor is right up my alley. The other authors there couldn’t say enough about it. Several of them joked(?) that Katherine Paterson bullied them into participating, but they were all so enthusiastic, you could really feel the excitement brewing among the audience—overwhelmingly kids. I couldn’t wait to share it with my fifth grade class.

As soon as I got home that evening, I fired up my old laptop (the one with a missing i key and a fussy space bar that’s now hibernating beneath my bed and functioning as an extra hard drive for my pretty new Dell) and went straight to read.gov to reread chapter one. I discovered that John Something-or-other was actually Jon Scieszka (*facepalm*) whom I have adored since I was in elementary school when he published “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.” I’d just never heard his last name pronounced before (and don’t ask me how it sounds, because I *still* can’t say it correctly!)

Anyhow, the following Monday, I shared the first chapter with my fifth graders. They were instantly hooked. Every two weeks since then, we’ve read the update. I relish the GROANS that fill the room when we reach the end of each chapter.

Music to an aspiring author’s ears.

P.S. You’d think I’d come up with a better metaphor, but hey, I’m still aspiring. ;)

Pretty Much Just a Loooong Ramble...

2010-02-09T16:49:00.004-05:00

I really should be grading.

Well, what else is new? I really have no excuse, except that with another snowstorm looming I will probably be trapped in my house the rest of this week. Should give me plenty of time to tackle that pile of unmarked papers.

So what to do in the mean time? I’ve finished (reading) one book—Hood—which is Stephen Lawhead’s retelling of the Robin Hood legends set in 11^th century Wales instead of in Sherwood Forest. I’m about a quarter of the way through the second book in the trilogy. The narrative is set within something of a frame story and alternates between first person present tense and third person (limited) past tense. That’s interesting for Lawhead. (I’ve read his Pendragon Cycle as well as far as I remember, he generally sticks to third person. Though now that I come to think of it, perhaps Merlin was in first person. I haven’t read it in so long…) Anyhow, I find myself needing a break from that for a bit.

So…what to read now? All of my Shannon Hale books (except the autographed copy of The Goose Girl, which I don’t want to damage) are in my classroom library or loaned out. (What was I thinking?) I reread Alison Croggon’s Pellinor quartet pretty recently, so that’s a no.

What I really WANT to read is Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief and company. I count her among my top ten favorite children’s authors (hmmm that sounds like a decent, if probably overdone, blog entry.) I’ll save the reasons for loving her writing for another time (in case I end up doing that top ten thingamabob,) but suffice it to say she’s brilliant. And, hey, doesn’t she have another book coming out this spring?

Why, yes, she does! The fourth book in the Queen’s Thief series, A Conspiracy of Kings, is due to hit bookshelves in March or April of this year, depending on the source. Personally, my vote is for March, but I’m ridiculously impatient when it comes to books. Case in point, I asked my awesome Australian friend to buy and ship me a copy of The Singing because it came out a few months earlier there than here. Anyhow, I’m really looking forward to new adventures in Attolia and Eddis and to seeing what Eugenides has up his sleeve this time around.

But that’s not going to happen for at least another month, so back to the problem at hand. No Shannon Hale and no Megan Whalen Turner here at home. Those are who I really want to read right now. So where does that leave me?

In Revisionland.

I wish I’d come up with that term myself, but I can’t take credit. Someone at Verla Kay’s board coined it, or at least that’s where I first spotted it. It’s a painful place (Revisionland, not VK’s,) and I seem to revisit it more often than I visit NYC. Not by choice. I would LOVE to be able to put pen to paper, fingers to keys, or whatever and pen/type/chisel in granite a story that would need no revision. Who wouldn’t? (Oooo, that’s a great answer for the next time someone asks “If you could have one superpower, what would it be?” I’ll have to remember that.) But revision is a part of a writer’s growing pains, I guess.

Speaking of which, I’d better get back to it. If anyone has anything that would be more fun (blog updates, exciting news, bamboo shoots to shove under my fingernails) I love a good distraction!

SNOW!

2009-12-19T17:25:00.005-05:00

<------- Even the birds are snowed in!

The DC area doesn't get a lot of snow. We might get a few inches here and there a year if we're lucky. It's usually enough to cancel school for a day, since no one in DC seems to know how to navigate snowy roads. We usually get enough to make a snowman or go sledding or have a snowball fight, but then it melts away and we're back to the gray dreariness of winter in the mid-Atlantic.

Every once in awhile, though, we'll get a real snowfall. The kind that tucks you inside your house with hot cocoa or has snow boots, gloves, hats, and scarves jumbled on the mat by the door, dripping with the remnants of hours of outdoor play.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that "every once in awhile" blew into DC (well, a lot of the east coast, really) on Friday night and didn't let up until about midnight Sunday morning.

I really love the way the world looks covered by snow. Everything is so fresh and clean and perfectly smooth on the surface. Even the ugly, man-made things like power lines and telephone poles don't seem to mar the beauty of the landscape as much when they're covered with snow. I love the gingerbread feeling of the houses when their roofs are iced with snow, and icicles dangle from their gutters and porch awnings. Even the roads disappear beneath a blanket of snow, and the contrast between lawns and asphalt is lost in that pure whiteness
almost as if God is saying, "THIS is how I created things."

I do love all that, but the really magical thing about it is how quiet it makes everything. DC suburbs are generally LOUD. Even at night, there are cars whizzing by, planes and helicopters flying overhead, and occasional sirens disrupting the normal noisiness. When everything is coated in two feet of snow, though, the world becomes deathly still, and I can imagine how the night must sound to characters in my stories--characters who live in times free of sirens and motors and televisions blathering on about how you can't possibly live without the new slicer/chopper/blender/do-your-homework-for-you thingamabob. (Okay to be fair, it wasn't the snow that eliminated that last one but the "off" button on the remote.) Anyhow, as I stood outside listening to the sound of silence, I got inside my characters' heads for awhile and envisioned their world--a world that is both simpler and more complicated than mine.

SCBWI Retreat

2009-12-06T16:32:00.009-05:00

Warning: This post may be slightly incoherent, as I just returned from my very first activity with my regional chapter of SCBWI--a weekend retreat in Lewes, Delaware. I didn't sleep a lot. But really, sleep is overrated. Right?

I mean, who goes to a retreat to rest? The purpose of this retreat was mostly just to have a time and place where nothing was expected of you except writing. Armed with my laptop, a spiral, and an arsenal of #2 pencils, I hopped in a car with two people I didn't previously know and rode over the Chesapeake to the Delaware coast. I fluttered from project to project, but I did manage to get a good chunk of Kissing Glass: Chapter Five revised to where I almost like it again. I also did some badwriting (you know, when you just force yourself to plow on, even if you have to write junk like "Then she went home.") on Gingerbread and finished nearly a whole chapter.

Even though I didn't get an enormous amount of actual writing accomplished, I'm still incredibly glad I went. The best part for me was getting to meet people. I really enjoyed getting to know a snapshot of them and talking with them, as I'd never before met anyone in the region. I'm already looking forward to the next regional event. Hopefully I'll see some familiar faces. :)

Things I Learned (or at least had reaffirmed) on My First SCBWI Retreat:

1. I don't like the cold. (Actually, I already knew this, but this weekend reaffirmed said knowledge.)

2. There are a lot of people in the area who are in the same boat (or at least a similar boat) in terms of where we are in our writing careers.

3. Some gnome names are more memorable than others.

4. I'm not the only one who has ADD when it comes to bouncing between projects.

5. People will write just about anything into their story for chocolate.

6. No one else in my region of SCBWI pronounces it "SKIB-wee." Oh well.

7. When you're facebook-ing everyone on the left side of the room, nothing much happens in your story.

8. Ophelia joined the group Maidens Who Don't Float.

9. If you finish page 54...it doesn't really count if you started on page 51.

Not about writing...

2009-11-03T17:38:00.003-05:00

Some people are born with amazing hearts. Matthew is one of those people. He's had a heart for the Haitian people since the age of four. Please read his story and his vision at the website below.

http://www.cardsofjoy.org/

The Timing of Inspiration

2009-10-24T17:19:00.003-04:00

Like diving into a pool on a sweltering day, writing is a relief. It breaks over me in a refreshing, sometimes shocking, way. I'd really like to dive into writing right now. I've managed to revise the first four chapters of Kissing Glass to a point where I'm almost happy with them--you know, for now, anyway. One more chapter and I get a free set of steak knives! Okay, not really. But I still want to get to the five chapter mark before I submit it to my critique group. I've got incentive, I've got the desire, I'm feeling inspired....but I can't do it right now.

Why? Because I'm still working my way through a stack of grading the size of Terrell Owen's ego. It shouldn't come as a surprise to me that inspiration chose now to strike. The size of the stack usually seems directly proportional to how loudly inspiration screams in my ear. It leaves me wondering why inspiration and free time avoid each other with such stubborn enthusiasm.

As an elementary school teacher, I get summers off. One would think that amount of time off would lead to an explosion of new writing from my pen (or, more accurately, from my keyboard.) Yeah, um...it doesn't. I do take graduate courses and work on curriculum for the following year, but for the majority of the hours between mid-June and mid-August, I'm completely free of grown up responsibilities, completely free to follow my muse...

So do I?

Uh...Nope.

Because said muse is nowhere to be found. Maybe it does some sort of reverse hibernation thing. I don't know.

Inspiration, it turns out, is an ornery little booger.

Confessions of a Book-a-holic

2009-10-16T13:28:00.007-04:00

I once read an author bio wherein the author said she grew up in a house "stuffed with books." That's a perfect description of my life. I grew up (am still, in some ways, growing up) in a life stuffed with books. I like it that way.

At the age of two (maybe younger) I would crawl up on my Pop Pop's lap and beg him read the same book to me over and over again. I don't remember him ever complaining about it, even after a long day at work. My grandmother bought me more books than I could count. Up until about second grade, I cherished the time right before bed, when my mother and I would snuggle on my bed while she read aloud to me a chapter book that was still a little too hard for me to read on my own. Heidi was one of my favorites.

Books were treasures to me for as long as I can remember, so I don't understand people who don't like to read. My older brother, for example, always hated to read. My grandmother tried everything she could to get him interested, up to and including bribery. She offered to pay him $5.00 for each book he read one summer. He flat out refused. When I quickly volunteered for the same deal, she told me I'd bankrupt her.

It was probably true. I read nearly everything I could get my hands on, from my mom's old Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew hardbacks to Sweet Valley Twins, Babysitter's Club, and the Mandie mysteries (and there was some more quality literature in there too.) I kept books in my desk at school to read whenever I became disinterested in what I was supposed to be learning at the time (which was often.) I kept books under my pillow to read by the stripe of light from the hallway that fell across my bed long after I was supposed to have been sleeping. Being sent to my room with orders to tidy what was invariably a complete disaster zone and not to come out until it was clean? Yeah, that happened only until I cleared a path to my bookshelf. Then I'd contentedly lay on my bed reading until my poor mother just gave up. Once I discovered, in third grade, that I could write my own stories, I split my undercover time between reading and writing.

I never outgrew it.

I still leave books laying around practically every room of my house. I have Chekov's The Cherry Orchard in my bathroom, Pride and Prejudice on my dresser, shelves full of books in my office/living room/storage room, and a whole stack crammed inside, beside, and underneath my nightstand. I have books in my gym bag, in my skating bag, and in my car (Don't go getting visions of me reading while driving; you just never know when traffic will grind to a complete standstill for an hour or more, and I'm a firm believer in "Be prepared.") My classroom library is busting at the seams. Before my shoulder got messed up, I usually carried a book around in my purse. I'm not to be trusted in a Borders or Barnes and Noble on payday, and let's not even talk about my amazon wishlists (yes, listS.)

So yeah, I own a LOT of books. With that many sitting around, who can read just one at a time? Right now, for instance, I'm reading Shannon Hale's Forest Born (again,) The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch, 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, a book on backward (curriculum) design, a book by John Piper, and a whole slew of others.

Although I do read works on philosophy, history, science, math, theology, education, and the writing craft, fiction is (and I suspect will always be) my first love. There's just something about a story that's magical in and of itself--the way it draws you in and allows you to leave the real world behind.

And in this world, who doesn't want to do that from time to time?

Sick (as in, I am)

2009-10-13T14:47:00.003-04:00

Okay, first things first:

Last Thursday, I bit the bullet and got a flu shot for the first time in ten years. Yes, I not only let some anonymous nurse jab me in the arm with a needle full of dead virus to keep me from getting sick, but I paid her to do this. And now here I sit five days later, in bed with a fever.

Grrrrrrr.

I had to take a day and a half of sick leave, which I tend to hoard in Gollum-like fashion (my precioussssss) and despite being in bed for the past hours, I cannot sleep. So I'm updating my blog. I don't have anything particularly weighty to contribute right now, but I'm bored, so here goes.

*ahem*

Things I Should Be Doing Right Now Instead of Updating My Blog

* laundry (it's not like it'll make me sicker)

* grading last week's reading tests (which, judging by the first couple, might actually make me sicker)

* revising Kissing Glass

* revising Reflection

* trying to figure out Autorealm (Thanks, Caryn! It's awesome; I'm just horribly dense)

* starting a synopsis for Kissing Glass

* revising my synopsis for Reflection

* practicing my query letters

* trying to figure out how to write description like Shannon Hale, Alison Croggon, and Cheryl Reifsnyder without just copying them ('cause that's illegal, rude, and they probably wouldn't like it so much...)

Dear Shannon Hale,

2009-10-12T00:51:00.001-04:00

I want to write like you.

Sincerely,

Timanda

I'm not even kidding. I first discovered Shannon Hale's work a few years ago while trying to catch up on my Newbery reading. As an elementary school teacher, I have a built in excuse to read children's literature. Convenient, huh? Anyhow, I read Princess Academy and loved it. So I looked up her other works on Amazon.com and bought The Goose Girl. I'm a sucker for a reluctant princess, for a misfit, for pretty much everything Princess Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee is in the beginning of the story. I don't want to say too much about her character here, as I don't want to spoil the story for those of you who haven't read it, but the evolution of her character throughout the book is amazing. As impressed as I remain by Hale's flawless characterization, what really leaves me green with envy is her ability to describe her character's world so it reads like a symphony.

I hate writing description. It's the bane of my existence (along with synopses, first pages, query letters, the dallas cowboys, and people who drive five miles an hour in the left lane.) Seriously, why can't you people just see what's in my head and let me ignore that pesky "establishing setting" stuff? Bah.

But Shannon Hale is a master of establishing a rich, full world without you even realizing she's doing it. She weaves all these threads together so deftly, so intricately that you, as a reader, don't even notice, and pretty soon you're staring at the whole darned, absolutely gorgeous tapestry where there was just a bare wall before. The way she turns phrases and chooses verbs that wouldn't normally go with their subjects--I can't do that. I can't even come close to doing that.

So yeah. I'm a bit of a Shannon Hale fan. I was so excited when I learned she would be at the 2009 National Book Festival in Washington D.C. Now I hate traffic and politics, but occasionally living in the D.C. area has its perks. (Oh look! National Book Festival! Perk!) I got to hear her speak as part of a panel on The Exquisite Corpse Adventure, which I may blog about another time. Very cool idea.

Additionally, I schlepped my hardback copy of The Goose Girl aaaaaaall the way down to D.C. on the Metro. She wasn't scheduled to sign books until 3 p.m., but my group had learned by standing in the Kate DiCamillo line and almost not getting our books signed (except that she very graciously extended her time another forty-five minutes) that we needed to stake our claim super early. We got in line a little before 2. And yes, I stood in line for over an hour--in the rain for the last twenty minutes--to get my book signed.

She apologized for the rain. I asked her if it was her fault. That part was probably funnier in my head, but she laughed anyway. I did have a few kids with me, so she may have thought she was signing my book for one of them. I don't know. I don't care.

She signed it,

For Timanda, who can change the world.

Hmmmm maybe. Probably not. At the moment, I'd settle for describing it.

Mirrors and Magic Frogs: the Beginning

2009-10-11T19:57:00.000-04:00

Who am I?

I'll begin this blog by saying something I never say out loud to people I meet: I'm a writer. Why don't I tell people? Because inevitably people ask, "Are you published?"

The short answer is no, I'm not. That leads to either more questions or uncomfortable silences or well-meaning but utterly unhelpful suggestions or...that look. You know, the one where the person gets this smirk on his face and you know he's holding back the "you're deluding yourself" comment just to be nice. I guess it never occurred to him that an amateur writer is already aware of how tough it is to break into the publishing industry. She could have, you know, actually researched it and might know a bit more about it than the average layperson. Because that would make sense. (Incidentally, this is the part of the blog where you learn a bit more about my personality--I tend to err on the side of sarcasm. Who would have guessed?)

So no. I haven't been published.

At any rate, the long answer is I'm working on it. I'm a member of the Society for Children's Book Writer's and Illustrators (SCBWI.) I've been to writer's conferences on scholarship and gotten some positive feedback from editors. I'm not actively trying to publish my work at the moment because I know my writing is not yet at the level it needs to reach before I seriously pursue publication or representation by an agent. Rome wasn't built in a day. I'm guessing no one out there can tell me how long it actually did take, since cities grow and decay and grow some more. Writing is sort of like that.

What do I write?

Children's fiction. I've dabbled in many genres, but fantasy draws me in like a fire on a cold night. There's just something so comforting about it. I love being able to create the entire world where my characters exist, of throwing things that have a more modern flair into a world with a more medieval flavor to it. In a work of fantasy, characters can do anything and be anything, the lines between good and bad are usually quite clear, and good traditionally triumphs over evil. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where that always happens? Obviously, we don't. So I write about worlds with magic frogs and mirrors that reflect more than just surface images.

I had envisioned my first post being a tad longer, but I have to go defrost an old freezer now (which, btw, do not exist in any of my fantasy realms.)