I'm not gonna lie...

I want this. That's ok, right? I mean, having crazy, wonderful dreams is just a part of being alive.

Revision Ideas for Dialogue Junkies

There are at least three of us in my writing group that just love to write dialogue.  We're perhaps a little tooo comfortable writing dialogue.  Like, maybe sometimes all a page is - is dialogue. 

I have to share this great post on the topic, How to Turn a Novel into a Textbook by Maggie Stiefvater.  Maggie takes a page from one of her novels and then tells us how it might have looked when she was starting out.  It would have been all dialogue.  A page of dialogue.

Then she walks us through some great revision ideas.  She lists "the questions I would ask myself looking at a page like this."  My favorite is "How is the writer showing a pause in dialog? By saying "she paused" or by inserting a non-dialogue paragraph?" (I had a total aha moment reading this one. LOVE IT.)  I also like "How is setting worked in?" and "Can I imagine myself there?  Why?"

Give it a look-see and let me know what you think!

LEMONY SNICKET RECOMMENDS...

photo source

I read this blog Dinner: A Love Story, and god knows why because everyone else knows I rarely cook.  But bloggers Jenny and Alex have started a series called Summer Reading List, where AWESOME children's authors make book recommendations.  Like Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket)!  I've added like 6 new books to my GoodReads list.  Also check out Pseudonymous Bosch's list of recommendations.

Here's how their daughter (will I someday have kids that say stuff like this? Please, god) describes A Series of Unfortunate Events:   

“Imagine lemonade,” Phoebe said, when I asked her to describe what the books are like. “Only with barely any sugar."

On Writing: Kate DiCamillo.

Apparently, everything Kate DiCamillo writes makes me cry.  Even her writing advice.  (Just because it made me teary doesn't mean it'll have the same effect on you.  So if you're looking for a cry, you know, read some Nicholas Sparks or something.  But it struck a chord with me.)  

When she signed my books at ALA in Chicago a few years ago, I told her how I just sobbed and sobbed while I read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  She told me she cried while she wrote it.

Illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline.

Fun in the Mail.

Exciting Amazon delivery today!

Currently Reading: "The Lost Hero" by Rick Riordan

Ok, I wouldn't classify this an "old-fashioned children's story."  It won't go in my little slideshow on the right.  But I went to this book for a break from the old-fashioned children's novels I'd been trying that I didn't like so much (I won't name titles) and from YA dystopian fatigue.  I wanted something fun.  This was a good pick.

It reminded of Harry Potter right off the bat because of that fun - characters like Leo, who come alive on the page:

"So, a crash course for the amnesiac," Leo said, in a helpful tone that made Jason think this was not going to be helpful.  "We go to the 'Wilderness School'" - Leo made air quotes with his fingers.  "Which means we're 'bad kids.'  Your family, or the court, or whoever, decided you were too much trouble, so they shipped you off to this lovely prison - sorry, 'boarding school' - in Armpit, Nevada, where you learn valuable nature skills like running ten miles a day through the cacti and weaving daisies into hats!  And for a special treat we go on 'educational' field trips with Coach Hedge, who keeps order with a baseball bat.  Is it all coming back to you now?"

It also reminded me of Harry Potter because I had just read Cheryl Klein's speech, "A Few Things Writers Can Learn from Harry Potter." Several things from her list ring true in The Lost Hero right away, too: 

• "So how does she make us care about Harry? First, she gets us to sympathize with him."  In The Lost Hero, we immediately sympathize with Jason because he's on a bus full of kids on a field trip and he can't remember anything, like who he is or what he's doing there. 
• "The second step in getting us interested in Harry: Ms. Rowling gives him an intriguing backstory and destiny."  Jason, Piper, and Leo just found out they're demi-gods - and now they're fated to go on a deadly quest, alone. 
• "The first book doesn't begin with...magic at all."The first chapter of The Lost Hero is almost firmly rooted in the totally normal world. It's not until the very end of the chapter that Jason hears anything about "halfbloods" or "monsters." 
• "And finally-the third technique J. K. Rowling uses in getting us to identify with Harry - She makes him a good person."  Just like Harry, Jason is a "good guy."  He protects others even when he's scared and doesn't know how.

If you haven't read her speech, do it now.  I honestly haven't read it all the way through because it feels like one of those things you have to absorb piece by piece.  But I should probably hurry up because her book Second Sight: An Editor's Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults is on its way to me.  Jody Sparks, my amazing critique partner, recommended it to me a couple of days ago. 

This is how I knew the book must be amazing:  Jody said I ought to take a look at the CHARACTER WORKSHEETS in it.  Character worksheets.  This, from my fellow groaner-in-crime a few weeks ago at the ole "Just do a character worksheet!" suggestion.  Cheryl Klein, I will be reading The Lost Hero on the living room couch while stalking the postman through our big front window for those character worksheets.  And that's saying a lot.

Brief IN SCBWI Conference Post.

Hello!  Just realized I never posted about my experience at the Indiana SCBWI spring conference.  Hats off to Kristi Valiant, a wonderful illustrator and talented event organizer!  This conference felt more smooth and professional than one I had previously attended.

The Writer's Intensive was an awesome experience.  I got encouraging and enlightening comments from an agent I've been following since I started working on this thing (I got to ask her in person about show vs. tell - awesome)! And she laughed out loud 3 times during my reading.  THREE TIMES.  Yes, I counted and wrote it in my notebook.  These are the things that get you through the gray days.  Great feedback from the editor, as well, who said she would keep reading, and whose advice I'm going to take about making my protagonist a couple years younger.

My critique partner and I did decide, though, that perhaps the regular conference sessions just aren't for us anymore.  It's so great to get your feet wet and learn how the industry works.  But now that I've learned enough about the process to hopefully avoid any horrendous mistakes as I begin, it's time to get back to - oh, yeah! - the writing.  If I spend money on another conference, it will be something craft-oriented alongside experienced writers like my talented critique group.  Suggestions?

Chasing Gold Stars

 Everyone's a Winner, Babe 8 x 10 print, $7 from Madman Incognito

At a young age, I found that doing certain things I loved led to solos/awards/gold stars/whatever validation, and that felt good.  The problem came when I started to think that the point of these activities was the validation.  And because I was destined for the chorus, I ended up not trying out for musicals.  You see, if the point of being in a musical is the validation, then getting a part in the chorus is just validation that you’re not a star yet. 

I forgot that I started doing the activities because of all the fun in the doing. If the point of being in a musical is the doing, then a part in the chorus doesn't just mean not being the star - it means being on stage, doing all the things I like to do, like singing and dancing and wearing pretty costumes, it means a little acting, and lots of time with fun people doing something fun with you, being part of a team.

I'm so glad I figured this out before too long so I could be in this play!  What have you avoided because you're afraid you won't be the BEST?  Is that keeping you from doing something you really enjoy?

I Chose "The Westing Game."

I decided to start with The Westing Game.  Good choice!  I have loved it from the transition from the first to second page:

End of page one:  Then one day (it happened to be the Fourth of July), a most uncommon-looking delivery boy rode around town slipping letters under the doors of the chosen tenants-to-be.  The letters were signed Barney Northrup.

Turn the page:  The delivery boy was sixty-two years old, and there was no such person as Barney Northrup.

Muah ha ha!  Brilliant.  More on this book when I finish.

Also brilliant is this post by new-to-me blogger Natalie Whipple, It Comes Down to One Thing: The Book.  The book is the thing, aspiring writers.  Go forth and read this helpful post.

Fun & Alexander Calder

Someday, it would be nice if it were said of me that I was a great writer...style, dialogue, plotting, what have you.  But it would also be really nice if I were remembered for having some fantastical, fun ideas - a great imagination.  I thought of this shelving a book about the artist Alexander Calder the other day.

I have always loved Calder, who is most famous for creating the mobile.  I love his mobiles.  But what struck me as a kid watching a video about him in middle or high school was the footage of this funny old man tinkering around making the Calder Circus.

"The 'Circus' was a miniature reproduction of an actual circus. Made from wire, cork, wood, cloth and other easily found materials, the 'Circus' was a working display that Calder would show regularly. A mix between a diorama, a child’s toy, and a fair game, Calder’s 'Circus' found many eager fans among the avant-garde. One of the methods used to create the 'Circus' was the bending of wire to form realistic figures."

Whoa.  How fun does that sound?  How fun does this look?

"In a time of constant artistic upheaval, Alexander Calder’s aesthetic revolution concerned itself with a somewhat taboo topic in the art world — fun." - from PBS.org*

  I think perhaps all children's writers can relate to this interest in making fun art that the kid version of you would have loved.

When I imagine that footage - Calder puttering around with what could be seen as a playset with dolls - I'm reminded of myself, playing pretend on the page, characters acting out grand schemes, inventing wild things that the very young Virginia might have dreamed up on the playground.

All writing is supposed to be fun - it's an act of choice.  But as a children's writer, I have a special privilege to have fun.  I hope I use it. 

 *It later says that he "was living in Paris off the proceeds of his regular performances." We should all be so lucky!

Too Many Novels!

So many novels checked out right now!  Must read faaaast!  

Will finish Savvy tonight, at least.

Which should I read after that?

Old-Fashioned Children's Novel: "The Willoughbys" by Lois Lowry

How have I not done an old-fashioned children's novel highlight yet?  No matter; I've got the absolute perfect book to kick off - Lois Lowry's The Willoughbys.  The Willoughbys is perfect because it's a parody of so-called "old-fashioned children's novels."

"I have a plan," Mr. Willoughby said, putting his paper down. He stroked one eyebrow in a satisfied way. "It’s thoroughly despicable."

"Lovely," said his wife. "A plan for what?"

"To rid us of the children."

Little do Mr. And Mrs. Willoughby know that while they are trying to rid themselves of their children, the children—four of them—are trying to rid themselves of their terrible parents.

 From Houghton Mifflin:

"Abandoned by their neglectful parents to the care of an odious nanny, the four Willoughby children—Tim, the twins, Barnaby A and B, and their sister, Jane—attempt to fulfill their roles as good, “old-fashioned” children. Following the models set forth in lauded tales from A Christmas Carol to Mary Poppins, they hope to attain their proscribed happy ending, or at least a satisfyingly maudlin one. An unquestionably ruthless act sets in motion the events that lead to their salvation, and to happy endings for not only the four children but also their nanny, an abandoned baby, and a candy magnate and his long-lost son. Replete with a tongue-in-cheek glossary and bibliography, Lois Lowry pays playful homage to classic works of children's literature in this hilarious and decidedly old-fashioned parody."

If you are thinking this book sounds like perfection, you're right.

Lois Lowry on her inspiration -

“I grew up on classic children’s literature, including fairy tales. So it has always permeated my consciousness. Somehow I was reminded of Hansel and Gretel, and the fact that their parents dropped them off in the woods intending that they die of starvation. Couldn’t do that in a book for kids today! I thought. Then, chuckling, I thought, Why not? And so I created the Willoughby parents, who go off on a lengthy vacation and then send the children a postcard saying, in essence:  By the way, the house is for sale. When someone buys it, you will have to find another place to live. Leave your clothes—we might be able to sell them. “The Willoughbys is simply a spoof, or takeoff, on classic children’s literature of the past, with all its stock conventions—the orphans and villains and coincidences and long-lost heirs who turn up at the last minute.”

One of my writing group members said my first chapter reminded him of The Willoughbys.  I just about died of happiness.

On Writing After Reading "On Writing."

What to do when your plot explodes?

It's all Stephen King's fault.  At least, he started it.  A week or so ago, I was doing a quick read of his memoir/craft guide On Writing to decide whether I was going to finish it or send it back to the library.  I landed on his section on not plotting.  You should here that I am a serious plotted, outliner, and all-around planner of everything, novel included.

Mr. King writes "A strong situation renders the whole question of the plot moot, which is fine with me.  The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a What-if question."  Hmm, I thought.  What is my "What If"?

It went something like this - "What if, um, your mom dies and you don't know who your father is, so you're sent to live with your evil headmistress who wants to steal your inheritance and then you find out your father's name but it's really common so you have to travel all over the country to figure out who he is?"  

In other words, what if plotty plot plot to plot plot, plot-plot-plot, PLOT happened?  Which doesn't even get to the whole magic part of the story, which is one of my favorite parts and ought to somehow be central!  Could this be, I thought, why I can never answer the question "What're you writing about?" in one, cohesive sentence?

Yes, of course that's it.  Because since then my plot has exploded.  Almost immediately after reading this, my brain fevered-out and I started questioning everything I though I'd written in stone - characters who were dead are now all alive, in one form or another, pseudo-science is now magic, romantic pairing now cousins - the list goes on.  I couldn't believe how many plot turnarounds my subconscious had been storing up to pour forth in this one moment of frenzied, panicked notebook scribbling.

So what exactly do you do when you're a full outline and 5 chapters into a draft with a synopsis and first chapter due for manuscript critique in a few weeks and now your story wants to change?  

Get to work, I suppose.  le sigh.

Has this happened to you?  I'm going to be fine, right?

Gounding the Creative Life.

As much energy and good vibes as creative activities can provide, they can also overwhelm.  

gorgeous polariod, $2,200 by Frances Melhop

Yes, I am really happy that I get to play a part in a musical.  But when I'm not careful, I burden myself with worries based on the idea that since this is a dream come true, everything related to it is also extremely important.  Every related fear - Will my costume make me look fat?  How will I ever hit that one note at the end of that one song on that certain vowel in a remotely pretty way?  Please tell me I don't have to cry onstage. - seems a huge, IMPORTANT fear, requiring rumination, and action, and exploration, and PANIC.
But in the big scheme of things?  This show is a really small part of my whole life.  We're talking 3 months tops for this show, and I've already lived 336 months.

gorgeous polariod, $2,200 by Frances Melhop

Unless you're Cory or my mum, you don't know that I ended up making more than one 2011 goal after all.  The second goal is to be more centered.  You know; calm the hell down.  I LOVE this goal.  It's like an anti-goal - the goal to curb goal-setting madness.  Yes, it's really cool that I've met a goal, that I get to do something I've always wanted to do this year!  But it's hardly worth anything if I don't enjoy the process itself! 

I went into my audition focusing on enjoying the process and not worrying about the results, just hoping for the best, hoping for a part in the chorus.  I ended up really having fun, and I even wound up with a part!  This is definitely the way to go.  What do you do to keep perspective and deal with the stress of success?

Old-Fashioned Musical.

I'm so excited!  I tried out for my first community theater musical and got a part in The King and I!  Talk about your old-fashioned musicals.  The story goes like this:

It is 1862 in Siam when an English widow, Anna Leonowens, and her young son arrive at the Royal Palace in Bangkok, having been summoned by the King to serve as tutor to his many children and wives. The King is largely considered to be a barbarian by those in the West, and he seeks Anna's assistance in changing his image, if not his ways.

With both keeping a firm grip on their respective traditions and values, Anna and the King grow to understand and, eventually, respect one another, in a truly unique love story.



I get to play Tuptim, portrayed in the King and I movie musical by the gorgeous, awesome Rita Moreno.  You may know her as Anita from West Side Story!

New Jane Eyre Film.

Hooray!  I just read Jane Eyre a few months ago; it's easily in my top 3 novels of all time.  Cory alerted me that there's a movie coming out and it really looks good.  This adaptation is supposed to stick rather faithfully to the novel; here's hoping!

Says director Cary Fukunaga, "I’ve spent a lot of time rereading the book and trying to feel out what Charlotte Brontë was feeling when she was writing it. That sort of spookiness that plagues the entire story…there’s been something like 24 adaptations, and it’s very rare that you see those sorts of darker sides. They treat it like it’s just a period romance, and I think it’s much more than that.”

You can definitely see the Gothic bent in the trailer:  enjoy!

Dream Illustrator: Anna Bond of Rifle Paper Co.

I've been a fan of Anna Bond's work since Design*Sponge featured her Rifle Paper Company and started a veritable blogger craze.  I did some (admitedly five-minute) internet research and can't find that she has done any book illustrating but it can't be far off for her.  Her work screams delightful children's book.

In today's daydream, I finish my novel, then sell it, then the publisher just happens to nab Anna Bond for her first foray into publishing.  Clearly our works are a match made in heaven - she's already got a print featuring a scary hedge and she must love flowers because they're featured in so, so many of her prints.

Then the blogging world goes berserk, and hipster, design-loving mom bloggers everywhere, San Francisco to Williamsburg, declare they must all go out and support Rifle Paper Co. and this brilliant new children's writer, who features characters with lovely hipster baby names just like their own children; Helena, Henry, Winifred, Charlotte...  

Everyone wins, especially me, because newly rich, I can now snag multiple orders of this, this, this, this, this, and front the cost of custom wedding invitations for all my engaged friends, forevermore.

Magnolia Plantation.

I can't even remember where I came across this website for Magnolia Plantation & Gardens in South Carolina but I totally want to visit. Besides these gorgeous gardens (doesn't one right below look straight out of the Secret Garden movie?), the picture of the "swamp garden", with the trees rising out of the green foam really got my imagination going. It's otherworldly.

image sources top to bottom: 1, 2, 3 & 4, 5

Books of Elsewhere = YES.

I am so pleased to say that I need to go shopping.  It's time to add a new old-fashioned children's novel to my collection; the first in the Books of Elsewhere series by Jacqueline West, The Shadows.  Who hasn't wondered what it would be like to travel inside a painting? 

illustrated by Poly Bernatene

I don't like to write reviews; I'm not about to pretend I can go on and on about people's craft.  I'll just say that the book has a great premise and is very well written - meaning even a critic like me forgot all about the writing and just wanted to know what happened next.  

via Dibupoly

This review excerpt by the Bulletin for the Center for Children's Books will do better justice:

"The atmospheric old house is a new home for eleven-year-old Olive, and though she finds it fascinating, with its colorful contents that include a collection of arresting paintings, she also finds it creepy. Her instincts prove to be accurate: the vivid paintings are actually portals into other realms, accessible to her if she’s wearing the spectacles found in the house. Advised, albeit cryptically, by Horatio, a talking cat secretly still resident in the house, Olive dabbles in exploration of those realms, but she also unwittingly comes ever closer to enabling the evil trapped inside the house to break free. West creates a delightful concoction of quirky humor blended with a rumbling ominous undertone (“This house belongs to someone else,” Horatio warns Olive, “And that someone may not want you here”); venerable fantasy tropes such as talking cats, animated paintings, the sinister and secret old house, and conveniently distracted parents parade out in enduring and endearing form. ..."

If you or your students liked Neil Gaiman's Coraline or in general like slightly scary classic middle grade, go for it.  The characters are delightful and the talking cats - oh, the talking cats are awesome, just exactly how talking cats would sound and act.  Check out the link above to the Amazon page for more plot info and reviews, or my previous post for the trailer, and enjoy! 

via Upstart Crow Literary

New books in at the library.

I just got three new potential old-fashioned-children's novels in from the library.  I'm so excited to read them and hopeful I'll have some new favorites to share!  For a sneak peek, you can watch the awesome trailer for one of them here:

Becoming Jane.

film stills via Eras of Elegance

The other night when I was home alone, I watched Becoming Jane again, likely in the hopes of becoming Jane.  The 2007 film is a wonderful, smart imagining of what Jane Austen's life (and romances) might have been like and how they might have inspired her novels.  Unlike a lot of works that piggyback on the steady popularity of Jane Austen's novels, the movie is well done and of course, tres romantic.   

I may have saved a photo of the lovely, well-cast Anne Hathaway playing Jane Austen writing to inspire myself.  On my computer desktop.  I keep running into people talking about the power of visualization lately and it so happens that in addition to Jane Austen probably being my favorite writer ever (yes, even though not a children's novelist!), strangers sometimes tell me I look like actress Anne Hathaway a bit.  I must not look like her very much or those close to me would probably agree more, but I must admit I agree a bit with my students and coworkers.  That said, I also feel like I look a bit like Jeff Goldblum, who by the way acted like he knew me once at a press party in LA.  Maybe he thought I was a long lost illegitimate daughter.

I'm also working on convincing myself that there's something very glamorous about sitting in a chair and working on my novel (in order to get myself in said chair, because glamour seems a pretty good motivator for me.)  This helped.

Happy Birthday to me.

Thanks to the generosity of family and friends, finally have I started my collection of the Penguin classics hardcovers designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.  Happy birthday to me!