Catching Up: A Five-Part Series

In which I cover five book- and/or writing-related things that have been keeping me busy since I last posted.

Part Three: Friends recently welcomed their first baby and in celebration I co-hosted a shower for them. The theme: Build Baby’s Library. The mom-to-be had made a comment many months ago that she thought one of the best gifts you can give to expecting parents are books for the baby. And of course, me being a book lover, I made a mental note of that comment. The theme worked well too, I think, because this was the last of three showers that were thrown for them so they had already received many of the baby necessities.

There’s so much you could do with this theme, don't you think? Ours was a very casual affair held at my friend the co-host’s home. The expecting couple was showered with books as gifts, of course. I made invitations using a vintage Mother Goose postcard. I glued a copy of the postcard to cardstock and printed the party info on back along with urls for Indie Bound, to encourage shopping at local independents, and Vintage Children’s Books, for finding copies of old favorites. Very simple to make and it only took me a few hours to print, cut, and assemble everything. The cake was actually cupcakes decorated and arranged to look like Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar. We initially planned to make the cupcake caterpillar ourselves—and I do think it would be a fairly easy do-it-yourself project—but we wussed out and ended up taking a picture to Target, where they do cupcake-cake creations of pretty much anything you’d like. I didn’t think to take a picture of our cupcake caterpillar (it turned out really well though), but here’s a cute version made by a professional baker I found online:



Speaking of the The Very Hungry Caterpillar, did you know that the book recently celebrated its 40th anniversary? 40 years! That’s amazing for a picture book to stay in print that long. To create something that has remained relevant and popular for 40 years would be incredibly gratifying. The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Massachusetts has been high on my list of places I’d like to go for years now. I'd love to take a road trip with my husband along the east coast and make that one of our stops. Also, did you know that Eric Carle keeps a blog?

Here is a video of Eric Carle talking about creating The Very Hungry Caterpillar (which was originally about Willi the Worm, a worm who ate too much. Isn’t that funny? Good call in changing it to a caterpillar.)

Catching Up: A Five-Part Series

In which I cover five book- and/or writing-related things that have been keeping me busy since I last posted.

Part Two: Sara Gruen. My husband gave me tickets to the Denver Pen and Podium series, and Sara Gruen was the author I was most excited to see. I love her book Water for Elephants. She wrote a great article for Writer magazine about the research she did in preparation for writing Water for Elephants. And she’s an animal lover, so I was pretty sure I would enjoy hearing her speak.

She was initially scheduled to speak in November, but had to postpone until February due to illness. At her lecture in February, the person who gave the introduction informed us that Sara Gruen had come down with the flu that morning but was determined to speak that night. Because she was ill though, she wouldn’t be signing books. This was a bit of a bummer, as I’d brought a first edition of Water for Elephants with me and was excited to get it signed, but what can you do, right? And the second she came out and began talking it was clear she was truly ill, and not just staging a diva illness to cut the evening short. (Incidentally, I recently read that she also canceled a March appearance with the Aspen Writers’ Foundation due to illness. Three doozies of a cold or flu in five months' time is a lot! Wonder if she's allergic to Colorado? Her next book was scheduled to come out this spring but publication has been postponed, which may or may not have anything to do with this string of illnesses. Kind of makes me worry that she's seriously ill, but I hope it's just been a run of bad luck with germs and cooties.)

Her voice was raspy and faint from laryngitis, but she told us many stories about the research involved in Water for Elephants (some of which you can find in that article in Writer magazine—I would provide a link but the website says the article is available to subscribers only. You can find it in your library’s magazine archives or order the back issue from the magazine's website. I want to say it was February 2007). She told us how, in order to buckle down and finish writing Water for Elephants, her husband set up a desk for her in the closet and she sat in there for hours at a time wearing soundproof headphones and working on an Internet-less computer so she could get completely lost in her fictional world without distractions.

My favorite part was listening to her talk about her latest research with Bonobo apes. Her soon-to-be released book is called Ape House and it’s about Bonobo apes that become part of a reality show. She spoke to us about visiting the Great Ape Trust of Iowa where she befriended two of the Bonobo apes. Apparently there is a bit of a process in order to be allowed to visit the apes, and Ms. Gruen wanted to make sure they would welcome her. So she asked the scientists if she could bring backpacks full of goodies for them, which were a huge hit with the apes. She said when she first arrived, she asked if she would be able to visit with the apes and the scientists—who had previously told the apes about her visit and that she was bringing gifts—said, “Oh, yes. In fact, they are insisting on it!”

It was quite touching and fascinating to hear about how well these apes communicate and understand people. If you’d like to read more about her visit at the Great Ape Trust, there is an article about it here.

One last bit that I thought was funny and sweet: after her visit, Ms. Gruen was worried that the apes might forget her. So as a gift she gave them a subscription to a fruit-of-the-month club so they would get a tasty reminder of her month after month. Wanting to maintain a friendship with apes—that’s my kind of person!

Catching Up: A Five-Part Series

In which I cover five book- and/or writing-related things that have been keeping me busy since I last posted.

Part One: The American Library Association Midwinter Meeting.
This fell at a busy time for me, and I almost didn’t go, but I am so glad I did. You might think this ALA event is just for librarians and a select number of published writers and illustrators (I used to think that, anyway), but it’s not. Anyone can purchase a day pass, which is good for the whole weekend, and browse the publisher’s stalls where they have what seemed like their entire current catalog of books on display. They also hand out advance reading copies (ARCs) of upcoming books from their 2009 lists. Initially, I was most excited about the ARCs, but I soon realized the truly beneficial advantage for a writer (and I would think for an illustrator too) is browsing the publisher’s stalls.

Browsing the publisher’s stalls is an excellent way of doing market research. The book displays give you a visual overview of each publishing house. You can quickly assess if their lists are novel-heavy or picture book-heavy or a fairly even mix; the ratio of fiction to non-fiction; the types of books they seem to be interested in—if mysteries or chick lit or historical fiction dominate a collection, for example. You can also quickly note the authors and illustrators who publish with each house. Imprints are grouped together with their larger publishing house, giving you clarification on which imprints go with which house. Representatives from the publisher staff the booths—sometimes marketing people, sometimes editorial—and everyone I spoke with was enthusiastic and interested in talking about their books. You get a sense of each publisher’s personality and how well your work might fit in with them.

Current trends are also very apparent—this didn’t come as a surprise to me, but many publishers had a paranormal romance (Twilightesque) that was front and center or in its own display. (And remember, it’s often said that if you notice a trend in what is currently being published, then you can assume that acquiring editors and agents have moved past that and are looking for the next thing. Although, in any case I try not to think about trends as far as my writing goes, although I do think it’s important to be aware of what’s currently popular.) In addition to noticing who was promoting paranormal romances, I also paid attention to who wasn’t. This may not be an accurate assessment, but it seemed to me that any publisher could jump on the Twilight bandwagon if they wanted to, so the fact that they didn’t told me something about their publishing interests.

This is all research, of course, that you can accomplish on your own with a little extra legwork or mousework (except perhaps the talking one-on-one with marketing and editorial representatives about their work). But if you have the opportunity to attend an ALA meeting, I think it’s really a worthwhile event for any writer or illustrator. Seeing many of the publishers together in one place is impressive and informative, and if you are a keen observer (or even a so-so one) I think you'll be amazed at the additional information you are able to pick up.

And now, for your Saint Patrick's Day viewing pleasure, watch Beaker bring it on home with "O Danny Boy":

Ace and the Improbable

Yesterday my husband and I took our dog Jack to the vet. (Jack’s okay, just a case of trashcan-itis, as the doc put it. Nothing some antibiotics won’t cure.) While we were waiting for a test result, we took Jack and our other dog, Ace, for a walk. Just a quick one to pass the time and occupy the dogs. We were strolling down the sidewalk, admiring some of the older homes and their yards, when Ace abruptly stopped and squatted on someone’s lawn. Of course we didn’t have any bags for the business on us, and we’d walked about five minutes away from the vet’s office. I handed my husband the leash I was holding and said, “Wait here, I’ll run there and be right back!” I had only made it a couple sidewalk squares away when something registered in my awareness. I stopped and looked back and there, hanging from a tree branch two feet above my husband, was a plastic grocery bag. I kid you not.

My husband didn’t understand why I was dilly-dallying.

“There’s a bag!” I said.

“What?!”

“In the tree!”

And he looked at me like I’d really lost it this time. But then he looked up and sure enough: a white bag rustling in the breeze.

“No way!” he said. (Actually, I think he said “No bleep,” and I pointed at Ace’s business on the ground and said, “Yes bleep,” and then he unhooked the bag from its branch.)

It’s funny how things like this can happen in real life, but if I tried to work something like that into a fictional story chances are it wouldn’t fly. Sure, it’s always possible if the material was handled right it could work, but I think the feedback I’d most likely get would be along the lines of: “They’re in desperate need of a plastic bag and then one just happens to appear in a tree? That they are standing right next to? Way too convenient and improbable.” I suppose this is why we have the saying "the truth is stranger than fiction".

And speaking of Ace and the improbable, today Ace has finally achieved something he’s been striving to do for years. He’s a role model in perseverance this guy:

High-Five Friday

Five happy things from the week:

1. Small Graces. Author and illustrator Grace Lin is auctioning off an original 5x5 piece of artwork every month with 100% of the proceeds benefiting The Foundation for Children’s Books. (This is the same Grace Lin who co-founded the Robert’s Snow fundraiser.) Over the last year I’ve noticed quite a number of authors and illustrators using their blogs or internet presence to bring attention to and/or raise money to support various causes. I think this is a wonderful and amazing thing.

2. Along the lines of wonderful and amazing things that writers are doing, fAiRy gOdSisTeRs, iNk has announced their 2nd Annual SCBWI Summer Conference Scholarship. The lucky recipient will receive a $1500 scholarship to the LA conference. Click on the link for more details.

3. My previously mentioned breakthrough in my revisions made me happy (see last post), and in general all the writing progress I’ve made this week. The next batch of my proofreading project arrives on Tuesday so I’m hoping I can keep up the writing pace (or some of the pace) while balancing it with work responsibilities.

4. This box of tangerines arrived from my parents yesterday. They also have a lemon tree and an orange tree in their backyard, and I’m hoping I’ll be the recipient of some of that bounty too. Citrus trees are one of the things I miss about California. I’ve been tempted to buy one of those small Meyer lemon trees to keep in our house. We have a lot of windows and a sunny exposure, so I think it would do okay. (Assuming the dogs and the cat leave it alone.) But it definitely wouldn't be the same as my parent’s giant orange tree, lemon tree, and tangerine tree.

5. Spent the morning snowboarding with my husband at Breckenridge. It was a gorgeous day in the mountains. Wide-open runs, freshly groomed, no lines. We got in about 8-9 runs and then left and were back home by 12:30, where we had very pleasant mid-60 degree weather. Spent the afternoon working on revisions. That’s a pretty perfect day in my world.

Breakthrough

I had a sun-rays-part-the-clouds-to-beam-down-on-me-while-angels-sing-hallalujah writing moment this week. I figured out a solution to a problem with the structure of my novel that had been niggling around in the back of my mind, and which I had been denying was actually a problem. And, as is often the case with a S.R.P.T.C.T.B.D.O.M.W.A.S.H writing moment, once the solution came to me it was so obvious. Obvious as in “I have two eyeballs” obvious, or “the Running Man is a far superior 80s dance to the Roger Rabbit” obvious.

The first part of my book has been worked over roughly 632 times, but it still wasn’t feeling quite right to me. My two main concerns were 1) I was taking too long to get to the inciting incident that launches Part II, and 2) There was not even one iota of the mystery storyline in the two chapters where my main character has her first day at a new school. When these doubts cropped up, I’d just say hush and tell myself things like, “Well, Harry Potter doesn’t find out he’s a wizard until 50 pages into The Sorcerer’s Stone,” or “It makes sense for the mystery storyline not to come up during her first day of school—she’s got a lot of other stuff on her mind.” On the one hand, these things are true, but on the other hand, they’re just excuses to make myself feel better because I didn’t know how to fix the problem. I banged my head against the locker, so to speak, trying to make those first day of school chapters work in Part I, but it just wasn’t happening. Any change I came up with felt forced and like I was trailing more of the same mystery breadcrumbs that had already been laid out. And perhaps most important, no amount of fiddling that I did within those chapters could change the problem of taking too long to get to the inciting incident. So I said “screw it” and moved on to a different part of the book that was a lot more fun to work on.

And, of course, that is when The Obvious came knocking at my door.

“Why can’t the inciting incident happen before her first day of school?”

“Well, uh,” I stuttered to The Obvious. “Because that’s not how it happens.”

“But why not? Why can’t it be?”

“Because . . . that’s not how I imagined it.”

Ding Ding Ding! That was the key for me there. I imagined it. The whole shebang—the characters and the plotlines and the mystery and the timeline. It’s all stuff I made up. I’ve been working with the ideas for so long that some things start to feel solidified, like that’s the way they have to be. In this case, it was my timeline. But when I really thought about it, there was no reason why the school chapters had to fall where they did. Changing around the timeline solved both of the issues that had been worrying me. Now there is a continuous (hopefully page-turning) build to the climax of Part I, and we get to that point much more quickly because there are two less chapters (actually, three, because I deleted one altogether). There’s also the added bonus of a new layer of tension built into the first day of school scenes, since they now follow the inciting incident instead of precede it.

My Word Is. . .

Your Word is "Hope"

You see life as an opportunity for learning, growth, and bringing out the best in others. No matter how bad things get, you always have at least a glimmer of optimism. You are accepting and forgiving. You encourage those who have wronged you to turn over a new leaf. And while there is a lot of ugliness in the world, you believe that almost no one is beyond redemption.

What's Your Word?

High-Five Friday

Five happy things from my week:

1. Really good writing week. Really good. And I intend to have a good writing weekend too. I’m getting better at making my writing time a priority and not feeling (too) guilty about it. It helps that I’m waiting for the next batch of my current proofreading project to arrive. It sure is easier to devote time to writing when it doesn’t have to compete with work obligations.

2. I’m getting a free book! I love free books. There are five books coming out this year that I’m already looking forward to reading: Silksinger by Laini Taylor (the sequel to Blackbringer), Lips Touch also by Laini Taylor (I think this is going to be a good year for her), the sequel to Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. And the other book I’ve been looking forward to is Sophomore Undercover by Ben Esch. And that’s the book I’m getting for free—YAY! He posted on his blog that he had a few left to give out, I emailed, bim, bam, boom, free book for me. Sophomore Undercover will be his debut novel, out in February I think. I initially read about him on Alice Pope’s blog and was intrigued, so I clicked the link to find out more. He’s hilarious. He's got some blog posts that really crack me up. (There’s some pretty funny banter that goes on in his comments too.) But it was the author pic on his website that prompted me to subscribe. It’s not your run-of-the-mill author photo, that’s all I’ll say. He strikes me as a unique voice to the young adult field, but at the same time his humor reminds me of a bunch of my high school and college friends. If his book is half as funny as his blog and website, I suspect he will quickly find a fan base.

3. I found out that the ALA Midwinter Meeting is going to be in Denver this year. This means more free books!

4. I also found out that two of my favorite friends are expecting a baby. They are going to make fantastic parents, and I am super-duper excited for them.

5. I’m trying something new with my resolutions this year. I joked about them in an earlier post, but honestly, it bummed me out that, of the goals I’d set so optimistically in the beginning of 2008, I couldn’t legitimately check any off my list by year’s end. That’s not to say I didn’t accomplish anything in 2008—I accomplished a ton. Just not the things on my list. It wouldn’t be a big deal to me if I had looked at the resolutions on my 2008 list and thought, well why did I want to do that? Sometimes our priorities and aspirations change in the course of a year. But my 2008 list is pretty much all things that I still hope to accomplish in 2009, so I feel like somewhere along the path of last year I was sidetracked from working toward the goals that are most important to me.

Okay, #5 is starting to feel like a downer. Where’s the happy, right?

Well, for this year I made a list of year-long goals, like I usually do. My vision of where I hope to be and what I hope to accomplish by this time next year. But then what I did, which I didn’t do last year, is also make monthly and weekly goals. I haven’t planned out the whole year or anything. I know that would be futile because of that whole “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans” deal. I only looked at January and thought what do I want to accomplish this month? What do I need to do this month? What am I capable of accomplishing this month? And then I did the same thing for this week. And guess what? It looks like I’m on track to meet my weekly goals. So, high-five!

Any high-fives from your week to share?

Have a good weekend, everyone!

"We left the Packard on the street and took
two rooms at a boardinghouse where the wallpaper
slumped and the lightbulbs buzzed and browned."

Isn't that wonderful description? Sparse, but a picture immediately forms in my mind. I love especially "lightbulbs buzzed and browned". It's from So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger. A book that I'm enjoying a lot even though it's taking me forever to read it. (Not the fault of the book.)

Just wanted to share. That is all.

On Tap-Dancing Monkeys and Time Machines

My gym was packed tonight. I had to wait ten minutes just to use one of the lowest-on-the-totem-pole cardio machines: the stairmaster. Which can only mean one thing: Happy New Year!

We’re a few steps into 2009 and, personally speaking, so far so good. My husband and I rang in the New Year by making a nice dinner (don’t ask me what—it’s only been six days and I can’t remember. But it involved the stove and more than three ingredients, so it was real fancy pants) and watching Back to the Future. Boy, that movie holds up well. And the soundtrack: awesome. I think I need to put Huey Lewis and the News’s Power of Love back on my gym mix. I could have sworn I’d seen the movie somewhat recently but as we watched it I realized there were a lot of parts I’d forgotten. Huey Lewis’s cameo as a judge when Marty McFly and his band try out for the school show, for example. And: “The Libyans!” And: “Great Scott!” Or Marty McFly’s 1955 mom calling him Calvin Klein because she thinks that’s his name sewn into his underwear. And how excellent Crispin Glover was as his dad.

From a writer’s perspective, and as someone who is working on a mystery, I particularly noted how well small details were planted that come up later for an important storyline or for comic effect. Enough attention is drawn to the small detail that you notice it, but the main focus is on something else in the scene so when it ends, that’s what you’re left thinking about, not the small detail. For example, in the beginning of the movie Marty is talking to his girlfriend Jennifer. They’re walking through the town square and in the background there’s a table of people trying to raise money to save the clock tower. One of the fundraiser people interrupts Marty and Jennifer’s conversation, so you definitely notice the fundraisers, but they’re just an aside. It’s Marty and Jennifer’s conversation that is really carrying the scene. Marty’s worried about his musical future, they’re making plans for a special date. At the end of the scene Jennifer’s dad shows up, and she has to leave. She needs to give Marty her grandmother’s phone number so she grabs a flyer from the fundraising table, writes on the back, and hands it to Marty. He tucks it in his pocket and the flyer is totally forgotten until he pulls it out in 1955 and it provides Marty with the answer for how he can get back to the future. I was marveling at how well that was executed, because things like that can easily come off as too convenient or coincidental, but this really didn’t.

We also saw Jersey Boys last Friday, which I’d seen once before, but it is so worth seeing multiple times. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a fantastic musical. The story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. There’s a lot of swearing, so it's definitely not kid-friendly. But it’s very well done. Creative staging. Funny. Well-told story. The first time I saw it I was surprised at how many of their songs I know and like. I was like a broken record to my mom: “I didn’t know this song was theirs. . .”

I guess I’ve started off 2009 with a lot of nostalgia and looking back, haven’t I? 80s movie and one of the great boy bands of the 60s. Odd since this is the traditional time for looking forward and goal setting. I’m a big time list maker, so usually I’m all over drafting up my resolutions. I opened up my file of resolutions for 2008 recently and was surprised to see that not one thing on the list could be checked off. Not one! Which gives me pause in drafting up a new list. I’m inclined to go one of two ways. I’m thinking along the lines of this:

1. Wake up every day.
2. Go to sleep at some point.

Or this:

1. Adopt an orphaned monkey.
2. Teach him to tap dance.
3. Get on America’s Got Talent with your tap-dancing monkey.
4. Win America’s Got Talent.
5. Impress David Hasselhoff so much that he asks you to sing a duet with him on his next album and film a video featuring the tap-dancing monkey.
6. Turn David Hasselhoff down, but take a picture with him for next year’s holiday card. Score!

Right? Either aim so low I’m sure to succeed or so ridiculously high I can look those superior resolution achievers in the eye and say, “What? How about you try to find an orphaned monkey in Colorado and tell me how well that works out for you.” I’m onto something here, aren’t I?

And now, for a little mix of nostalgia and present(ish) day all wrapped in one musical ball of fun. . .

Biff sings!

High-Five Friday

Five things that made me smile/laugh/happy this week:

1. Yesterday when I checked the mail, it was all holiday cards.

2. First snowboarding day trip of the season last weekend. We did our favorite weekend routine: Pack the car the night before, roll out of bed at 5:30am, get on the road by 6. Get to the ski resort around 7:30, have coffee and breakfast, be at the lifts first thing when they open. Snowboard until we're pooped, head home early afternoon, and beat the traffic. It was an excellent day of snowboarding--3 inches of snow the night before, and a light snowfall while we were out. It stayed around 30 degrees so it wasn't too cold. And I hardly fell at all.

3. I spent most of Sunday baking holiday cookies while snow fell outside and holiday tunes played in the background.

4. We went out to dinner with friends and their toddler-age daughter kept pointing urgently down the aisle whenever Santa was mentioned, like she thought he was in Chili's with us. We finally realized that she was pointing at an elderly woman who sat with her back to us and had white hair and wore a red sweatshirt with a white collar sticking out. She also made me laugh with this crazy little dance she'd break into at random moments. (Our friends' daughter, not the elderly Santa-look-alike woman.) And another funny: Our friend the father asked her, "Who's the man, Sammie?" clearly expecting her to reply "Daddy!" but instead she gleefully tapped Big Bird on her placemat. And also, the look of both amazement and agreement on her face when she and I were looking out the restaurant window at the cars in the parking lot, and I told her that the blue car was probably Cookie Monster's because they are both blue. Kid time is always a highlight of my week.

5. Christmas is next week and I'm traveling home. Knowing that I will be getting a good dose of family-time and also quality time with my California cats is definitely smile-worthy.

High-Five Friday

Five things that made me happy this week:

1. Snow, glorious snow. There's nothing that will snap you into the holiday spirit faster than decorating the Christmas tree with a blanket of snow outside. The recent snowfall also means it's quite possible I'll be snowboarding this weekend!

2. Online shopping. Almost done with my gift list. Should I be worried that I have my credit card info memorized now?

3. Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas. I am totally hooked on this. His explanations combined with the photos make the projects really easy to follow. And I'm brimming with ideas I want to try now. The only downside is squeezing in the time. And it's a nice blog to look at too, which does make a difference for me. How does he do that rough black frame around the photos, I wonder? I really like how that looks. The photo below is from his blog. It's my favorite of the tags so far.

4. Rediscovering our holiday decorations. I love unpacking the ornaments and other holiday decorations we've accumulated over the years. Last night I was unwrapping ornaments and chattering to my husband and showing him what I'd uncovered: "Look at this one! This one's so cute. Do you remember this? This is one of my favorites. . ." And he remarked, "This is almost as much fun as opening presents for you, isn't it?" And you know, it really is. Perhaps because I have a lousy memory and so I've truly forgotten a lot of what's in those plastic storage bins. Two of my favorite holiday tchotchkes that I had forgotten about are pictured above--the wind-up snowman and Santa.

5. Google Reader. I recently discovered this and RSS feeds--I know, I know, I'm late to the party here. I'd heard mention of this stuff before, but it all sounded intimidatingly technical to me. But it's super easy to figure out, and it is so cool to have all the blogs I like to follow in one place. And as a result of how cool and easy it is, I now have like, twice as many blogs that I'm following than before. But I think I'm spending less time blog reading because with everything in one place, it's easy to scan what's new and read only the updates that are pertinent or interesting to me. If anyone else has been intimidated by the RSS/newsfeed/axom mumbo jumbo, don't be. (And you don't have to use Google. There are other readers available that probably work the same way, but Google is the only one I'm familiar with.) Before, I had a variety of blogs and websites bookmarked and sorted into various folders. I also had direct links to the blogs I visit most frequently on my Google homepage. It was a decent organizational system, but Google Reader vastly improves on it. Now it's essentially like an email inbox but limited to the RSS feeds of my choice. I only need to visit one place and now I can see all the blogs I'm following and which ones have been recently updated. I can read the blogs from there or click on a link to take me to the original site. And you can subscribe to blogs even if they don't have a little "Subscribe" link on their page. Or at least many blogs--I have come across a few that I'd like to add to my reader but can't. If you look in the url window of the blog you want to subscribe to and you see a little orange square with three white swoops in it, that's the RSS icon and you can click on that and follow the steps and whallah! Added to your Reader in mere seconds. And once in your Reader you can sort your blogs into different folders to keep them categorized or rename the blog feed. Can you tell that I'm a total nerd over organizational tools?

Happy Friday!

December Already?

Last Saturday, this is what we woke up to. Beautiful way to head into the month of December don’t you think? (Nevermind that today, in the actual month of December, it was in the high 60s and the snow has all melted.) Snowy days are great for bundling up in sweats and slippers, holing up in my office with a steaming hot mocha, and writing writing writing. I’d like to say that’s how I spent this last snowy Saturday, but it’s not. My brother and family were still visiting in the morning and after we saw them off, there was laundry, vacuuming up the feathers from decorating the dog, a general straightening of the house, and I finished reading my friend’s novel in progress for our writer’s meeting on Sunday.

Ace, proud of his feathers
I can’t believe the end of the year is swiftly approaching. Only one more month to check things off my yearly Want-To-Do list. I’ve accepted that many of those things aren’t going to happen this year. (Paint the kitchen cabinets? Not going to happen. Finish the basement? No way. Go to an outdoor movie in Boulder or at Red Rocks? Missed out on that for the year.) Onto the 2009 list they will go. But there is one thing I really hope I can accomplish by the year’s end—finish the revisions on my novel. Over on Cuppa Jolie, a new blog I recently found (via Laini Taylor’s Grow Wings blog), she was talking about setting goals for December in order to stay productive through all the holiday hubbub. I volunteered my goal of finishing my revisions and I have to say it felt good to vocalize it. Throw it out there into the ether as it may be. If anyone in either of my writing groups is reading this, they will be rolling their eyes right about now because I’ve vocalized my goal of finishing my revisions to them for quite awhile now. So stating it in a different format to a different audience isn’t really what’s going to make the difference. I know that. It’s up to me and only me. Prioritizing writing time over other things (like laundry and vacuuming up feathers from decorating the dog), stocking up on bum glue to aid in keeping that butt in chair, and banging on the keys until the revisions are finished. That’s easier said than practiced though, but I’m working on it, and for some reason vocalizing it to old writing friends and new ones too helps keeps me focused on the goal and not tempted by the myriad of distractions that are out there.

"And that's really the most important part of the reservation. . ."

Watch this video and substitute the word "car" with "turkey". This is what happened when my husband and I went to the grocery store Thanksgiving morning to pick up the fresh turkey we'd reserved the week before.



There is a happy ending to the story because they ended up giving us a free (frozen) turkey to make up for their mistake. Despite the turkey mishap, it was a very enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday. Hope it was for everyone else too!

David Wroblewski Event

Saturday night I went to see David Wroblewski speak at an event hosted by Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Lighthouse Writers is a great writing organization located here in Denver. Along with hosting writer events like this one on a regular basis, they also offer a wide range of classes and workshops. I’ve taken three workshops from them in the past (two short story and one novel) and highly recommend them. They are run essentially the same way as my MFA program workshops and the creative writing workshops I took as an undergrad. Lighthouse Writers' classes are first come first served until they fill up. (There are prerequisites for the advanced classes.) And as with any workshop, it’s going to vary a bit depending on the instructor and the people who make up the class.

David Wroblewski is the author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, a book that has been getting a lot of praise and recognition from booksellers, prominent authors like Richard Russo and Stephen King, the New York Times bestseller list, and this lady named Oprah. And this is his first novel too, which is just mind-boggling. To have the New York Times and Oprah greet you with open arms on the other side of publishing your book? That is an incredibly rare occurrence for well-seasoned authors, let alone a debut novelist.

So David Wroblewski is a local author and when I heard the Lighthouse Writers were sponsoring an event with him, I couldn’t pass that up. I really wanted to have the book finished beforehand because they warned there might be spoilers, but I didn’t get enough of a head start on my reading. And there were spoilers too—a fairly significant one in fact. Even though I was forewarned, I was irritated about that spoiler in particular because it came when a woman in the audience was asking David Wroblewski a question and the spoiler-part was 100% unnecessary in the question she was asking. She even posed her question first and then blurted out the bit of information after she stated her question. It was like this (completely made up example, not a spoiler): Why did you decide to set this story in Wisconsin? Edgar turns into a werewolf!

I’m guessing she was one of those kids in school that was always blurting out answers just to make sure everyone else knew that she knew them.

Even though I’m griping here, it really was a wonderful event. David Wroblewski is great. He was humble and gracious, insightful and funny, and seemed truly passionate about his work—both writing and his work as a software engineer. I suppose it shouldn’t matter, but so few writers rise to the ranks of bestselling, award-winning success, and I’m one of those people who always wants the nice guys to come out on top, so it really was an extra bonus for me that I liked him as much as I did, in addition to liking his book.

He read aloud the scene in the book that is written in second person. It’s the only scene written in second person and he said when he sent the first draft to his editor he thought for sure that scene would be cut because it was such a risk, craft-wise. But the editor didn’t have a problem with it.

Another interesting tidbit about that particular scene is that it was at that point in writing the first draft that he got blocked on the book for a year and a half. Part of the reason for his getting blocked was that he had started a new job. But creatively (he realized this after the year and a half had gone by) he was struggling because he’d initially written the book in first person and was finding himself really limited by it. So he went back to the beginning and rewrote the book in third person and was able to move on.

In responding to a question about craft—I believe it was someone asking why he decided to write that scene in second—his answer was in part, “You know, I’m a first timer at this. I don’t necessarily know what I’m doing.” Which I just loved because it’s so honest. He’s in a position where he could probably get away with putting on airs about his writing. But the honesty is a lot more helpful to a fellow writer. It resonates. It’s encouraging to hear someone who’s reached this high point in their career say that they don’t know what they’re doing. Clearly he does, his book demonstrates that, but it’s a feeling that I think is quite common among writers when we’re sitting by ourselves day after day, translating this story from our imagination to paper (or computer screen) not knowing if we’re headed toward Oprah and the New York Times, or a stack of rejection letters that reaches our nose, or someplace in the middle. I think it’s common for us writers to feel in over our heads and to ask ourselves over and over and over: What the heck am I doing? Will I ever pull this off? And that tiny obnoxious voice whispers to you, “If you’re worried you can’t do this, you probably can’t.” The trick is to flick that obnoxious speaker back to the dark recesses of your mind, because worrying that you can’t accomplish something is a whole lot different than actually not being able to accomplish something. But it’s a long and lonely road writing a book, so there’s plenty of time for that obnoxious speaker to claw their way out of the dark recesses of your mind into the forefront and try to derail you once again.

So it’s incredibly gratifying to hear someone who’s come out on the other side successfully echo your same writing experiences and concerns. He went on to say writing is often intuitive, and he also made a point of talking about how he thinks any creative endeavor has to be in part exploratory and experimental, and there were a lot of ideas or things that he had tried throughout the ten years of writing this book that had fallen by the wayside and he’d since forgotten about them.

I could go on with more thoughts on David Wroblewski and what he had to say about writing, but thinking about his presentation has me itching to get back to my own novel-in-progress now. Happy writing!