Cynthia Lord's Blog, page 17

Small Business Saturday!

I told Kenny at Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers he could count on me to do anything that needs doing at the store on Saturday from 12 to 3: dust the shelves, clean the bathroom, read to children, you name it! Because he and all the other booksellers out there do so much for us--it's a nice chance to say thank you with deeds, as well as words.

Knowing Kenny, it'll be a fun day! So Mainers, come chat with me in Farmington on Saturday and see what he has me doing! :)

Michigan

I had a wonderful time in the Grand Rapids area of Michigan!  My visit was coordinated through the Kent Library District, and I visited with about 2,000 kids in Grandville, Plainfield, and Cascade Township. It was a great three days full of different kinds of events.

The kids were fabulous! They had good questions and thoughts and they touched my heart.



Thank you, everyone for a great visit!

AASL Conference, Hartford, CT

I had a lovely time this past weekend at the American Association of School Librarians conference in Hartford, Connecticut.  I spoke on a panel on middle grade books that encourage empathy.


Back l to r:  Leslie Connor (Waiting for Normal), Erin Moulton (Tracing Stars), Lynda Mullaly Hunt (One for the Murphys), me
Front:  Jo Knowles (See You At Harry's), Kimberly Newton Fusco (Tending to Grace), Nora Raleigh Baskin (Anything But Typical), Karen Day (A Million Miles From Boston)

I saw old friends and made new ones, and I was touched, over and over, by the people who told me their stories about Rules.

The one I'm still thinking about was a lady who came up after my panel, who has a daughter with autism about the same age as my son. It was one of those moments where the world stops for turning for a moment, and even though the hotel staff was breaking down the room around us, while I hugged her, it seemed like we were the only two people in the world.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Grand Rapids, Michigan for three days of school and library visits! 

Half A Chance

The Scholastic Online Preview for Spring 2014 is now up, including a snippet of video of me talking about my next novel, Half a Chance. The whole preview is wonderful, but if you only want to see my part, it's in the Middle Grade and Graphic novels section and Emily Seife, one of my editors, begins talking about Half a Chance at 1:39.

As you're watching, imagine my poor husband with his camera and tripod squeezed in between my desk and table out in my little writing shed with a stop watch and holding up fingers to tell me how long I have left. :) He's a real trooper.

http://www.scholastic.com/onlinepreview/

Home from the Groomer's!

"Whew! I made it!" Milo says.

Copyedits Done!

Yesterday, I answered the copyeditor's questions and made the suggested changes to the first book in the "Shelter Pet Squad" chapter book series. Then I read the book carefully without all the notations in a pretty place: right near the Dahlov Ipcar mural in the children's room at the Patten Free Library in Bath, Maine.




And as for my work-in-progress novel, this morning I achieved a nice round number. Since I'm aiming for 30,000 words, this is a third of the way.

Five Things on a Friday

1.  I had two wonderful days at Falmouth Elementary School! Cathy Potter, the librarian, posted some great photos on her blog of our visit together and some artwork the the kids created around Rules. .

2. At my assembly in Falmouth, I had a special surprise. One of my own former students came to see me!  When I taught Amy, she was a third grader, and it was so lovely to meet her all grown up.

3.  My upcoming books are all in various cycles, so I'm constantly having to put my work-in-progress aside to do something else. Today it's copyedits on my chapter book. It's a good busy, but a bit overwhelming at the same time.  I just keep shuffling what I'm working on, and squeezing new writing time in between.

4.  It really looks like November now in Maine. Our maples and oaks are mostly bare now.

5.  Next Thursday, I'm off to the American Association of School Librarians conference in Hartford, Connecticut. Next Friday, I have a signing from 1 to 2, a panel from 3-4:30, and a supper sponsored by Scholastic. 

Thank you, Falmouth Elementary School!

Had a wonderful day at Falmouth Elementary School! After school I drove down to the Town Landing and took some photos. In my work-in-progress, my main character lives above a general store. I found the store I'm going to base her home on. It's perfect!



The funny thing is that I ordered a sandwich in the store so I could hang around and absorb details as it was being made. When I came out of the store, the school bus was stopped out front, letting some kids off. Suddenly the bus windows slammed down and kids were yelling, "HELLO, CYNTHIA LORD!" I don't know what all the people in the parking lot with me thought, but I felt like a celebrity.

Thank you, everyone!

Drafting Along

I've been working on my novel draft this morning. I'm aiming for a chapter a day on every day I'm not traveling or speaking.  So today I drafted on Chapter 5.  Here's the opening to that chapter:

Dr. Katz liked to say that she had no choice but to become a vet. With a name like "Katz" everyone expects you to like cats, so it was good that she did. And it was good for Lucky and me that she also liked dogs and kids.
          
She was one of the only people I ever let call me Tigerlily, because when she said it, it sounded pretty.

NaNoWriMo

I've never done National Novel Writing Month, but this year I have a novel that I sold on proposal and promised a first draft to my editor by early January. So NaNoWriMo falls at a good time, and it would be nice to have some community while I'm plowing through a draft.

The official guidelines call for 50,000 words by the end of November, but my middle-grade novels tend to be 35,000-45,000 words. So I'm aiming for 30,000 for a first draft.