March: A Time for Making Your Own Luck

Things are exciting around my house this time of year - March means St. Patrick's Day! And while I am only a wee bit Irish (my great-great grandmother Nellie Hines married into a long line of Pilgrims), my mother-in-law is 100% Irish so therefore my kids embrace the holiday. My husband helps run the parade contingency for our town when they march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade, and my youngest daughter is a budding Irish step dancer.

And even though I love making soda bread and drinking a pint now and then, there is one thing I don't fully embrace - the luck of the Irish. I certainly think there are days when you may be luckier than others, whether it's due to the stars being aligned or because you're just due. But at least as far as work and writing go, I think you have to make your own luck. So while it would be nice if there were leprechauns to send our your manuscripts, or agents and editors waiting at the end of the rainbow, I truly think you just have to do the work and make your own pot o' gold!

So here's what I've been doing and what is coming up this time of year. It's exciting, and hopefully the work will pay off.

ABC - applying butt to chair.

Critique Group - can't say enough how great it is to have like-minded individuals to bounce ideas off of. Find a good group, and make sure to GO.

Writer (and other) Friends - they may be in your group or not, but they are people you can meet up with for coffee, to ask silly questions of that you may be afraid to do anywhere else. You may only email them or know them from a Facebook group, but they are your people. I say 'and other' because one of my favorite people to bounce ideas off of doesn't even write. But she is an expert in children's literature and I trust her opinion above most.

12x12 Challenge - If picture books are your thing, or you just want to try writing them, this is the place. You can only join in Jan/Feb but the rewards last all year. The community is amazing and what's better than having 12 manuscripts in your pocket come December? (And Julie Hedlund is awesome.)

Making Picture Book Magic - This 4-week course is perfect if you need picture book 101 and then some. Susanna Leonard Hill gives you all the basics to go on your way and create something magic.

SCBWI Conferences - (April) I'm attending in New England but they are all over the country and SO good. This year's theme is (RE)INVENTION. I'm planning on meeting up with friends, volunteering, and getting a manuscript critique with a great agent.

Whispering Pines Writer's Retreat - (March) Whispering Pines was listed by SLJ as one of the great children's writers retreats with good reason. I went last year, and learned so much. SLJ article
But again, there are others around the country that may be closer to you. Find them!

Taking Chances - last month an opportunity came for a fun night at a party in NYC with writerly people. I met up with 2 other writers and we took a drive down. We got to meet some great people and make connections that we might not have made otherwise. And even if that's all we get out of it, we had a great time, and left with some yummy lasagna.

So by the end of April at the very least, I will have 4 new manuscripts, 2 more critiques, a few new writer friends, and a TON of new knowledge. And just maybe, I will be one step closer to the pot o' gold!

Here's hoping you all make March lucky!

In a House by a Pond, She Writes for Children

Some of my favorite people are the ones you meet who leave a lasting impression, though they may never know it. You don't meet them for coffee or exchange Christmas cards, you don't have them in your contacts or message on Facebook. Honestly, they may not even remember you if they saw you, but they somehow inspire you and stay with you.

For me, writer Kathleen (Kay) Kudlinski is one of those people. In 2003, as someone who recently realized they were interested in writing for children, I found my way to SCBWI. Through that, I got in touch with Kay as the leader of a critique group on the Connecticut shoreline. She was warm and welcoming, and as I went sporadically over the next 5 years, I soon learned that she was just the right person to lead a critique group.

I recently found out that she was being honored for running the Once Upon A Shoreline SCBWI group for 30 years. I never lived that close the shore, and after those 5 years I moved even further away, with two small children in tow. But during those years when I would make the trip to Guilford, I found Kay to be full of knowledge and insight, and just motherly enough to not crush our writing souls. She didn't tell the group that they needed to be persistent - she showed us by plugging away, year after year, facing rejections even after she had many books published. She offered great advice to a newbie like myself (who wrote down everything she said) like, "What happened to put your people off-balance, and how did they regain their balance?" She also showed us that even with families and illness and all the things that life hands you, you just keep writing.

So if you need some inspiration, check out Kay's blog and list of her many non-fiction books for children here: Kathleen Kudlinski 
She also has a science page tied into her great "Boy Were We Wrong" series here: Boy, Were We Wrong!

I once had the opportunity to attend a gathering at Kay's lovely house by a pond. I will always remember seeing her desk and shelves full of books, and thinking - this is what the home of a real writer looks like. So thank you, Kay, for being a great role model for children's book authors. 

Controversy vs. Mediocrity

I wrote this post for my KidLit Library blog (yes, my worlds of writing and children's library-ing are colliding again). But I think it's relevant to both, so read it if you have a minute, and comment too!

It is only January 19, but I feel like it's already been a huge and exciting year for children's literature. Last week we saw picture book Last Stop on Market Street win the Newbery and a Caldecott honor. This book got it RIGHT in so many ways.

This weekend, I spent a lot of time reading commentary in the children's literature world about a controversial picture book called A Cake for George Washington. The short story is this - the book is based on a real slave of Washington's who sets about to make a birthday cake with his daughter, only to find there is no sugar in the kitchen. A simple search will pull up opinions left and right and give you more information about it than I want to rehash here. The problem in simple terms is that the father and daughter are depicted as happy and smiling while they set about their work. Illustrators will say they very well may have been smiling while taking pride in their work. Critics will say this gives children a white-washed view of slavery.
Scholastic pulled the book not long after printing, so we may never get to read it. As a librarian, I want to read it. As a writer, I still wonder how that book made it to print. But I love hearing the different opinions that are coming out of this. The discussion, the texts I exchanged yesterday for an hour with a co-worker about this. Because even though I may not have read it,  here's what I think it is probably not - MEDIOCRE.

The author, Ramin Ganeshram, is a food writer with great writing credentials in other areas. I believe she and the illustrator had good intentions in crafting this story, and I think it's a great idea. It may be a story that should be told, just in a way that wasn't quite so...off. As writers and publishers and librarians, we need to get this stuff RIGHT.

So if any good comes out of this, it is that we are talking about it and trying to get it RIGHT. And also GREAT. Coincidentally, I have been reading Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children's Literature by three experts in the children's lit world. I recently texted my co-worker a passage from the book, where the authors remind us about the time author Jane Yolen called three popular children's books - (The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and Love You Forever by Robert Munsch) the "triumvirate of mediocrity". My co-worker and  I laughed because we've seen these titles get requested many times. We know there's nothing wrong with them, but we also know there are so many wonderful books BEYOND those. We talk about how even though we have a small library where most of what I order is the CREAM of the CROP, we still get new books that come in, get passed around the staff, and get a resounding...eh. It's fine. It's okay. Did that author do their BEST?

So let's keep the conversation going. I want to hear what Chris Rock says as the black host of the all-white Oscars this year. I want to order more diverse books for my not-so-diverse library population and I want them to make my patrons take them out so I can justify ordering them. I want more stops on Market Street and more conversations by publishing houses about how to make A Cake for George Washington RIGHT. I also want less mediocrity, because our children deserve it.

The Motivation of a Jolly Rancher

I don't normally make New Years resolutions, but if I did, I would resolve to have more days like today. At least with regard to my writing life.
So far, 2016 has not been kind. A broken washing machine, a trip to the ER with my mother on New Year's Eve, then a trip back on New Year's Day for myself. My stitched and bandaged hand has not allowed me to un-Christmas the house either.

But today, I got to spend time with writer-people. I even set out some goals for the year, worked on revising the middle-grade novel I can't let go of, and finally, was inspired by my nine-year-old daughter (of course that's where the Jolly Ranchers come in).
She's a lot like me in that we are perfectionist procrastinators who can work wonders when faced with a deadline. Her deadline is tomorrow, and the task was a game board of sorts from her music teacher.  She'd had all of break to complete it, but was determined tonight to complete as many of the boxes that should could. Play a song backwards. Teach someone else how to hold your saxophone. Play with your eyes closed.
And the best part was the difference in completing 10 tasks, or 15. One more Jolly Rancher candy. She could earn one candy for every 5 completed boxes. Yup. Even though there's a bunch of leftover holiday candy in our kitchen, that one Jolly Rancher lit a fire under her like nothing else. So...

I'm going to try to remember to bring a little more 

sweetness to my writing life this year. 

More foamy lattes with writer-people. More sweet words of encouragement to myself. Maybe even a rewards system where I earn peanut butter cups for written pages! (Just occasionally with that last one or I'll have other resolutions that need making.)
Here's to a sweet 2016 for my fellow writers. May the sugar provide the energy for our projects, and may it not be too sticky.

Why I'm Thankful for Realistic Fiction

I have lots to be thankful for this holiday season. Friends, family, nice writer people. And hey, no one cried during touch football this Thanksgiving! Did I mention that I have no reason to go to Toys 'R Us this year? That's huge.

My kids are getting older, and while that can be bittersweet, one thing that happened over Thanksgiving weekend made me really happy. After spending black Friday shopping with my almost 14-yr-old (her first time), we still had enough energy to go out on Saturday. She asked to go to the bookstore. Wait for it - then she asked me to help her pick out some books in the young adult section (ok, so they were books she wants me to buy for her birthday, but still). As a librarian for all her life, I've brought many books home for her. Some she's read, some she's had no interest in. Some she even laughed at when I tried to read them with her.

The one constant in her reading life has been realistic fiction. One of her favorites as a child was the Art Lesson by Tomie DePaola. Real enough kid, real school situation. She loved Junie B. and Cam, even Emma and Alice. She usually doesn't select books with magical anything, even going so far as to sneer at the suggestion of Harry Potter. When she was in 4th and 5th grade, she went through what I like to call, her Cupcake period. I spent a good amount of time finding every book that had anything to do with cupcakes. Cupcake stores, friends who sell them, how cupcakes brought the family together, etc. If it was written about a cupcake, she read it.

She's had to veer off the realistic path on occasion, for school mostly. At one point I worried that she wouldn't physically be able to read a book that was fantasy or science fiction! But I love that she loves realistic fiction. That this sometimes quiet and shy girl finds answers to situations in her own life in the lives of these characters. It reminds me how many of us of a certain age devoured Judy Blume books like it was our job.

So thanks to all you writers of realistic fiction. Thanks for books void of wizards and space travel, mermaids and fairies - Wait! She did go through the Daisy Meadows fairy books at one point. Maybe there is hope she'll expand her reading repertoire after all. But if not, that's okay. What I really hope for is more days spent with her in the book store or library, quietly reading jacket flaps and checking out displays, maybe getting coffee drinks after.

Oh, and if you're interested, here's what she selected:

                     A maybe on this one.

It Happened Yesterday

Like most writers, I've become accustomed to rejection. Or maybe I should say, it's definitely gotten easier since the first time. But yesterday, something new happened. And I'm not happy about it.

The middle grade novel I  had sent out is something I've been working on forever. It's not new to rejection either. But most of the comments I've gotten about it have been about plot structure or something like "it's not right for my list." But this last one targeted the one thing I thought I had right - the voice! Other writers (and an editor or two) have always told me that the voice was great and that they really loved the main character. Then...this.

"I'm just not connecting to his voice quite enough to take on this project."

Ack! Where does one go now??? It's hard not to dwell on the fact that every single aspect of your novel may have issues. But I'll try to remember that is only one editor's opinion. And then I'll go take a walk with my novel-rejection playlist. And finally, I'll find some awesome quote on Pinterest to make me feel better. Or read that last pin, "How NOT to Write A Novel."

And then, who am I kidding, I'll send it out again.

(reblogged from swoonreads)

Prepare for the Creative Randomness

I'm not the neatest person when it comes to most things, but I am pretty good at maintaining and organizing my family pictures. See here:

Photos from my digital SLR and iphone are added by month and year, and sometimes special categories like trips, etc. But since I'm always snapping pictures of random things, I find photos here and there that aren't anything I need to keep, but I feel the need to share with someone. So you, lucky reader, are getting a glimpse today at the random pictures I've taken over the last year and a half - never fear, they generally have something to do with books, writing, or creating - I think. 

My neighbor's daughter created this awesome display of altered books for one of her college classes. What I find amazing is the time it must have taken - I would never have spent that much time in college on a project!

 The  New Britain Museum of American Art is located in the city I grew up in, and has always been a favorite place of mine. Last year they had an exhibit on Maurice Sendak that I brought my girls to. (I can never resist sticking my head in those holes).
I took a pic of this book, which was included in a display of all of Sendak's written or illustrated books on a wall. I was a teaching assistant under Francelia Butler at the University of Connecticut one semester for a Children's Literature course. She was a great lady who was so knowledgeable about her field - she is truly missed.

 This next 'selfie' is of myself and author Lisa Papademetriou, taken at a NESCBWI Conference. Despite the fact that our noses look weird, I'm including it because she was such a great speaker. She was truly inspirational and left us with this great quote, "Sucking at something is the first step to becoming sorta good at something." Thanks Lisa! Check her out here: lisapapa.com

I often find myself wandering in book stores, as you may too. I found this in something I can't recall, but I liked it because I too, often hang out in the 'dark night of the soul' area.
But then, I see stuff like this below, and feel like I should be a happier person, so I go with it.

Sometimes, this is required to get from dark night to amazing day. I can't say enough about this particular flavor - visit Salem Valley Farms and try it for yourself!







 The next set of random pics were taken at School Library Journal's Day of Dialogue and Book Expo in 2014. My co-worker Patty and I were starstruck to meet these people! Lois Ehlert (how about an honorary Caldecott for this lady?), Raina Telgemeier (who's cooler than her), Chris Raschka (like him better with a haircut), I Wonder if that's R.J. Palacio (couldn't help it), and just for kicks, Alan Cumming who had a book coming out.

 This one is just funny and qualifies because cookbooks are well, books. Taken at the Brooklyn Flea Market, this is my co-worker and often times partner in crime Patty trying to look nonchalant after she discovers chef Paul Prudhomme. The face cracks me up.










And finally, some words of wisdom from a phone screenshot - maybe it explains this entire post. I like to think I often love the crap out of everything, which is why I take so many pictures!