Publishing Nightmare?

I have to pass this along, because I think it conveys two important messages:

1. The publishing industry is a complex machine, and we (writers and book lovers) need to understand how it works.
2. Buy books, if you want to keep books alive!

I'm buying books for everyone on my Christmas list this year, unless I'm donating to a charity in their name.

We only have recourse to the Big Box Booksellers here in our town, but that's okay. They'll order just about anything that's in print. I buy a lot of fiction, because I love the feel of a book in my hands, and because I re-read all the time. So while I love the library, I plan to buy books this holiday.

Here's the link to a great blog:
http://editorialass.blogspot.com:80/2008/11/crash-flow-or-what-went-wrong-in.html

Creative Breakthroughs

So I was working on my novel revision (the one for Puffin), and in a conversation with my agent, Alyssa, I had what my middle grade character Barty (from the other novel in progress) would call a "lightbulb moment". Yes, yes, I know all about show, don't tell, but I still hadn't managed to control my urge to talk, talk, talk. She pointed out that I tended to begin all my chapters with internal musings.

Hah! She was right. I felt stupid and elated at the same time. Now, this is something I can fix, and by doing it, I've begun discovering all the other places where my narrative tends to bog down and move too slowly.

Now, another issue altogether. I want to brag about my critique partner, Kathy Whitehead. Her new picture book from Penguin, Art From Her Heart, is getting lots of press and rave reviews. I'm so proud of her! You can find her book by checking her website from my list at right...

National Book Awards

We all know by now that our beloved Kathi Appelt may not have won the NBA top award, but she has won our hearts! The Underneath is a masterpiece of fiction, completely transporting and compelling. I found it as rich as any fantasy - like the books that I loved as a child. Publisher's Weekly interviewer John Sellers asked about one tiny image (only one of many rich images) in the novel:

"Appelt was asked about the significance of the crescent moon on the forehead of the kitten, Puck. “I used it to endow Puck with the magic of the moon,” she said, in keeping with the magical realism in The Underneath. “I think of the moon as a kind of watcher, watching over him and his sister.” "

Kathi's is the kind of writing I aspire to. Complex, layered, nuanced, rhythmic. The Underneath will resonate for years.

Yes, I Know...

Once again, the all-consuming life has taken over. But...I submitted packet 4 today to Sarah, so I have no excuse now but to post.

SCBWI Brazos Valley held its annual conference this weekend, and we had the best faculty possible. Cynthia Leitich Smith (author most recently of the hilarious and gruesomely intriguing Tantalize) and her husband Greg were there, along with Kathi Appelt (National Book Award finalist for The Underneath) and her agent Emily Van Beek, and Kim Griswell, Editor from Highlights. All of our presenters were outstanding. It was especially exciting to have Kathi, as the NBA announcement is this Wednesday, and we are crossing fingers!

You can see photos of our event at Cynthia's blog http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com (just ignore the awful one of me...)

I do have a piece here that will also appear in our little newsletter, but I think might be helpful at large:

At our conference this past weekend, we ended with a “first pages” analysis. Randomly chosen first pages were read aloud to the audience and panel members (our invited speakers and critiquers), and each speaker gave a flash reaction. That is, was the first page compelling enough to entice an editor to read on?

This analysis went hand-in-hand with Sherry Garland’s great presentation on “Grand Openings”, in which Sherry outlined some of the best ways to open a story.

At the end of the conference, some in the audience expressed concern that the responses to the first pages were overwhelmingly negative, to which Kim Griswell answered, “Yes, the market is tough, and what you’re hearing is that your opening must be terrific.”

I reflected later that I heard a slightly different message. I heard lots of “Yes, I would be intrigued enough to read on”. I also heard that different aspects of the openings were handled well – some had great characters, some excellent description, others intriguing plot ideas or good voice.

What does this mean for us writers? First, I think we tend to hear negative comments before we hear positives. Maybe that harks back to our childhoods, when we tended to hear “no” before “yes”! But more importantly, I think the market is tough, and it pays for all of us to recognize that the first pages of our novels or picture books need to be honed and polished.

Personally, I spend more time on my first page than I do on any other aspect of my writing. I’ve rewritten my first pages dozens of times, and shared them with my critique partners until they get a “wow”. We live in an era of snap judgements. Hooking your reader on the first page is the equivalent of grabbing the TV viewer with remote control in hand: you’ve got seconds, if you’re lucky.

I’m headed back to my work in progress, to rethink my first page. It won’t be the last time I rewrite it, but the attention I place there will be well worth the outcome – an opening that promises more great stuff to come.

A Long, Long Time

No excuses. Just busy. In the middle of trying to finish up my 3rd packet for Vermont College, my editor finally sent the first revisions of Faithful. It was exciting to see them, and have this step in place, but for a while I felt pretty overwhelmed.

On my Vermont work: Sarah continues to really like my middle grade novel, so my goal is to finish it this semester. The main character is hilarious. I'm not sure where he comes from. I don't think of myself as a comic, but Barty comes from somewhere inside me, and yet he makes me laugh. I know that sounds a little weird, but it's true.

On my novel: Jen didn't have much to say past the first five chapters, and the comments she did send were to dig deeper into my character and add more of what Maggie's thinking about in the beginning. This was not too hard, since I, too, felt those chapters were racing along, and I felt they needed a bit more. That's now done, but I'm revising the entire novel once more.

Which brings me to another discovery - Darcy Pattison's Novel Metamorphosis. I highly recommend it for revision. If you have the chance to take one of her workshops, I'd jump at it.

And now I have to put on my mom hat and steer my teen son in the right direction - he's doing well, but, gosh, I'm glad I'm no longer in high school. He said yesterday that he'd just like to fall asleep and wake up at 25. Sadly, as I told him, he'd still have to go through the dreck to come out the other side.

Back!

It's been a long time since my last post. The hurricane, and life in general, made things hectic.

The hurricane had a much greater impact than has been depicted in the media. Things around us are fine, but I hear from friends that Houston is still a mess, and of course Galveston will be a mess for a long time.

At any rate, I wanted to post on a couple of things. First, I have read a remarkable book, and want you all to know about it. It's Identical, by Ellen Hopkins. This is normally not the kind of book I would pick up, but Ellen is a Regional Advisor with SCBWI, and I had heard good things about it, so I sank my teeth into it. And her book sank its very sharp teeth into me.

Dealing with numerous difficult issues (incest, bulimia, and mental illness, to name a few), Identical nevertheless features a protagonist who is deeply engaging. The form of the book is prose-poem. I found the language hauntingly beautiful, and I was so riveted by the plight of the central character that I wanted to jump into the pages and save her.

If you are or know of a teen girl who can handle this tough but incredible read, I really recommend it.

On another front, I'm slogging away on my third Vermont College packet, and trying my own hand at edgier teen fiction. This is way outside my comfort zone, but I'm trying to dig deep. I had such an idyllic childhood. So many kids don't.

So, I think it's really important that this edgier literature is out there. Maybe it will help someone deal with a tough hand.

Ike

The good news for our area is that we weathered the storm very well. No power outages, much-needed but not torrential rains, and even the winds were not too terrible. Our house passed the test with flying colors; just minor items blown over.

But the news is not so good in Galveston and Houston, where there is no power, windows were blown out of skyscrapers, and streets are flooded. This was a devastating storm, and in the next few days we'll see just how bad it really was.

My son and I are planning a trip to the volunteer center to see what needs to be done. We have lots of evacuees here in our hotels and shelters.

Hunkering Down

We are all watching Ike with trepidation around here...I've been around and around my yard, looking for anything that might fly away, and then I think "100 mph winds? I'll be lucky if the roof doesn't fly away."

Anyway, schools are closed and we've been told to stay off the roads. I provisioned earlier so I'm just watching the weather channel and keeping fingers crossed. Needless to say, not much writing is getting done today.

Although, really - isn't that the best time to disappear into a magical world that is within your control?

Slightly Askew

I've been thinking about this topic a great deal lately, because all my friends are discussing it, so hey, here goes nothing.

To self-publish or not to self-publish?

Way back when I started writing I would have done almost anything to see my name in print. It just seemed so darned hard to get the attention of editors, agents, anyone who would even read much less accept my work. Of course, I thought what I was writing was perfect, just the thing, kids would love it, and so on. I thought I just needed to get the right person's eye and - voila! I would hit the big time.

I was wrong.

For one thing, I had the wrong goal. The goal is not to be published; the goal is to be read. To be read and loved. To be read over and over again, and on into timelessness. Sure, some people come into this world with a gift that elevates them right away to a sphere of knowledge that gives them the ability to write a winner. I'm not in that camp. I needed to learn what children will read and like. I needed to learn pacing and character and scene/sequel. So getting published before I learned those things would mean a mediocre book at best.

I have friends who are self-published - several who are really great, superb, award-winning writers - and I looked on them with envy, and not a little of the, well, why not?

I'm so glad I opted "not" and here's "why".

1. I needed to become a better writer first.
2. I needed to become a better writer first.

You get the idea. Editors were not rejecting me because they didn't get my writing; they were rejecting me because my writing wasn't good. Okay, maybe, but not good. Not salable. Not re-read a million times good. Not as good as my self-pubbed friends who are good.

So, if you are considering self-publication, which in these times is all too easy, please think again. The number of self-pubbed books that make it is miniscule. That's because the number of self-pubbed books that are any good is miniscule. That's because - most - not all - of the authors who are self-pubbed jumped the gun, and didn't learn the craft of writing first. Like me, who almost went there and is very happy she did not.

For the Ages

A thread currently under discussion on the boards at Vermont College has to do with the age of the protagonist of middle grade novels.

I have a real interest in this, since I've written a middle grade novel and most reviewers tell me they have trouble with the character's age. He acts much younger than his years, at least in the world I created. He is ADD, and kids who are ADD tend to be less mature than their peers, but that's no excuse for incorrect or age-inappropriate dialogue.

So what to do? I've done a survey of contemporary books that feature characters of the same age. Boy, do they vary! One character reads Shakespeare, another goes to boot camp, a third has dyslexia and can scarcely read anything at all. Girls tend to be more mature in general; boys tend to be more active (duh).

I'd love to hear from anyone who has thoughts on this one. So much of what kids have to read in school in middle grade/early high years is OLD - like Dickens-old - and though I love Dickens, his voice is not exactly contemporary. What is it that tweens, especially tween boys, like to read (other than the obvious fantasy/science fiction)? Who do they like as characters?

As a footnote, here in Texas, we are grateful that Gustav was not what it could have been, and we are keeping fingers crossed for our neighbors in Louisiana.