Susan Beth Pfeffer's Blog, page 24

Lots Of Things Happening (But All With My Mother)

When last I left you, I was waiting for an ARC (or ideally ARCs) of Blood Wounds from my publisher, word from my editor about whether they were interested in a fourth moon book, and acknowledgement from my agent that I'd sent her my manuscript The Offering.

Oddly enough, I haven't received or heard a thing since. Well, I got my phone bill and my car insurance bill, but neither came from my publisher, my editor, or my agent.

I certainly had other things to keep me busy though. My incredibly cute 99 year old mother is trying life at the enriched housing section of her retirement complex. For the past fifteen or so years she's had an apartment there, but my brother and our friend Marci and I all think she needs more services than she's getting there. So I've spent much of the past week packing her things and buying her what she'll need and moving her into the enriched housing (which is one floor down from where she'd been living). If my mother likes it, she'll stay. If not, she'll move back to her apartment.

All moves are difficult, although this one had the great advantage of help from the maintenance staff, who did all the heavy lifting (and hung the pictures). But I had decided my mother should have familiar things with her whether she stayed or not, and that meant packing and unpacking the bookcase, which holds my father's books, my brother's books, my books, and any books my mother might feel like reading someday.



My father wrote fewer books than me, but his (and my brother's) weigh more than mine. So do the large print books, which are really heavy.

Still, having lifted and packed and lifted and unpacked, I have to give very serious consideration to the possibility I've written way too many books.

I wonder if my publisher and my editor and my agent think the same thing!

Wait Till The Sun Shines Susan

See how happy I look? The picture was taken at the Nyack Library, where I saw the only known advanced reading copy in captivity of Blood Wounds . My own ARC (or ARCs as the case may be)is but one of several things I'm currently waiting for. But since I am an extremely impatient person, it's the thing I'm currently waiting for whose lack thereof irritates me the most.

Not that the lack thereof of the other things I'm waiting for won't irritate me soon enough, and probably even worse.

Let's see. First off, I'm waiting for the sun to shine. This has been the worst spring ever and since it follows one of the worst winters ever, it's especially annoying. Three solid months of January followed by three solid (or really liquid, the way it keeps raining)months of March. I am not, by the way, the only person who's noticed this, but if everyone else wants to complain, let them complain on their own blogs (ooh, I love it when I'm whiny).

Then there's my royalty check. Now my royalty check will come, and since I have a very approximate idea how much it'll be, it's more amusing that irritating that it hasn't come yet. Amusing because my publisher, who generally speaking is wonderful, seems to think the month of April lasts 45 days, which at this point I wouldn't mind, since 45 days of April would be an improvement over 90 days of March. Anyway, the check will arrive circa May 20, since that's the circa it's arrived on the past couple of years. Just think of it as April 50th.

Another thing I'm waiting for from my publisher is a decision about The Shade Of The Moon. You wouldn't think it'd take them too long to read a two sentence synopsis, but I did cram a lot of words into those two sentences, and maybe they had to look some of them up in the dictionary. Oh well. That decision involves the spending of money on the publisher's part, and that always slows things down (which is why they think April has 45 days).

Lastly, and this one is going to take forever, I'm waiting to hear what my agent has to say about The Offering. I gave it a final polish yesterday and emailed it to her. But given that the two previous times I mentioned The Offering to my agent, she never responded (not even with a "You're crazy," or "Well, that's gonna be a stinker"), I can't even fantasize (and I'm naturally gifted at fantasizing) that she's going to drop everything to read it. Or drop anything. Or read it before the sun shines, assuming the sun ever shines again, which it won't so she won't.

I tell you, if there was a Nobel Prize for crankiness, I'd be a multiple winner!

Foreign Relations

This time of year, writers don't stay home much. We're invited to schools and libraries, where we get to meet really nice people who actually encourage us to talk about ourselves.

So far, I've been to Connecticut and upstate New York and Tennessee and downstate New York. I still have a local library to visit and a school to go to in Arizona. Scooter, by the way, has not liked any of this, and really gave me a talking to when I got home yesterday evening.

While I certainly listened to his complaints (I didn't have much of a choice in the matter), I was also occupied with opening a box that had come from my agent's office. In it, I found four copies of Die Verlorenen Von New York, aka the Carlsen (German) version of The Dead And The Gone.

It's a very striking cover, and a lovely addition to the non-USA versions of the three moon books.



At one of the libraries I visited yesterday, I saw an advanced reading copy of Blood Wounds. It truly was advanced, since I have yet to see one. I assume at some point my publisher will send me one or more copies, but apparently I have to request them, which I'll do tomorrow. If they send me enough that I can spread them around here, I certainly will. My publisher has been very generous in the past, so I can only hope.

Another thing I can hope for is that the Susan Beth Pfeffer Every Book I Ever Wrote And Then Some Bookcase will miraculously expand. It's going to have to, since I already know of fifteen more books and audiobooks that will arrive at some point in this decade.



As my mother always says, this should be the worst problem I ever have!

Fanfic, Your Fic, And Me

I get emails on a fairly regular basis from people asking if I will read their books or stories, and Anonymous Santa Fe brought up the same question in a comment on my last blog entry.

It gives me great pleasure to know my books have inspired other people. I even, with a minimal amount of googling, found a Last Survivors fanfic page. Given that I came up with the idea for Life As We Knew It from watching the movie Meteor on TV one afternoon, I can hardly complain if my work gets someone else plotting away. And it's fun to think of my characters having lives I'm unaware of, sort of like hearing you're in a friend's dream.

But I haven't read any of the fanfic stories, and I always say no when asked to read anything. It's pretty much a hard and fast rule in my life. I figured out a while back that it's easier to say no to everybody than to say yes to some and no to others and have to figure out why I'm saying yes or no.

I don't even read my friends' books for the most part. As a courtesy, I don't give them my books to read either.That kills me sometimes, because I'm the bestest writer ever and their lives would be roughly 1,000,000,000% better if they read my most recent masterpiece. Then again, they probably know the same about their most recent masterpieces and me.

Feel free to take my characters or my plotlines and have fun. Don't tell me what your ideas are though, because I don't want to accidentally "steal" them (I got an email the other day from someone with what was basically a great idea, and I'm relieved that it would never work in The Shade Of The Moon as I'm currently planning it).

So thank you for asking, but the answer will always be no. Of course, if the question is, "Would you like a chocolate chip cookie?" you'll get a whole different response!

Think Of It As Gone With Cousine Mildred

The past few mornings I've woken up at 5 AM, which I can't even blame on Scooter, who doesn't start playing Purr On The Neck until 6. Maybe because I know in an hour I'm going to aggressively adored, I haven't been able to fall back asleep. Instead I play with ideas for The Shade Of The Moon.

Now I've been devoting a lot of brain cells to a book that I've yet to be told my publisher wants. I did that recently (as recently as Saturday) with The Offering, but the difference is if one publisher should happen to reject The Offering, then there are dozens of others to turn to. The Shade Of The Moon is more of a one publisher deal, so I should preserve my brain cells until I'm informed that they were overwhelmed by the two sentence version and want to give me lots of money.

Then again, I wrote 12 pages when all they wanted was 2 sentences, so this is obviously a book I enjoy thinking about.

This morning, as I awaited Scooter and played with ideas, I had a vision of The Shade as a Balzacian novel. Not that I've ever read anything by Balzac, but I did see a Masterpiece Theater of one of his novels. I had actually just created a character that I thought of as a combination of Rhett Butler and Belle Watling (not that I ever read Gone With The Wind but I did see the movie), so I don't know why I thought about Balzac, who, to be perfectly honest, I get mixed up with Emile Zola, who I never read anything by either (but I saw the movie about him). Before breakfast, I googled Balzacian, which turns out not to be a word, and then I googled Zolaesque, which also turns out not to be a word (and then I ate breakfast).

Dickens and Byron get words. I don't see why Balzac and Zola don't. Well, maybe they do in France.

I'm at the stage where I'm creating scenes and developing characters, which is my favorite stage of writing. I do have to be careful though. I heard Lisa (who is turning into a considerably more important character than you might have thought) say that Miranda's daughter Meggie was spoiled, and the next thing I knew, Meggie had morphed into Veda Pierce (and yes, I saw Mildred Pierce and I read the book). That seemed a tad on the overkill side, so I pulled away from Meggie and started thinking about other characters instead.

The trickiest character, by far, is Miranda. The younger generation can be whoever I want them to be. Mom is definitely who she is, and Lisa is someone who the readers of Life As We Knew It and This World We Live In don't know that well. Alex is a little difficult, because I have such a strong sense of who he has become and it's not necessarily what the readers might think, but I figure as long as I understand his motivations and portray him sympathetically, it's okay.

But Miranda is someone the readers know very well, or knew very well, when she was 16/17 years old. Seventeen years have passed, which means half her life (how's that for a weird concept), and she's grown and changed during that time. She's made decisions and compromises that the readers won't have witnessed. I was a very different person at 34 than I was at 17, and I didn't have nearly as much end of the world life experience as she has. In addition, Miranda is going to be seen through the 16 year old eyes of Juliet, and 16 year olds see family members differently than other people do. I have to keep that inner core of Mirandahood in Miranda, all grown up, but to be honest, I don't know yet how to do that.

Ooh, spellcheck is going to have a lot of words it doesn't approve of.

Anyway, the current 5 AM vision for The Shade is that it be bigger (and possibly longer) than LAWKI. Juliet is part of a community that's vital and lively and noisy, and she participates and witnesses and shares what she knows with the readers. I want the book to be read by people who are interested in what happens next to Miranda and Alex and the gang, and by people who've never read any of the first three books. I want it to be part of a quartet, and yet a book that can stand alone.

But mostly I want my publisher to tell me if I should keep waking up at 5 AM to work on it!

You Give Them An Encyclopedia, They Ask For A Tweet

My poor beleaguered editor emerged from hiding to say that while she thought it was extraordinary of me to write a twelve page synopsis, full of the most intricate detailing (I could be paraphrasing here), for The Shade Of The Moon, what she really wanted was just a sentence or two. How, she asked, did I describe the book to my friends?

Well, the truth of the matter is, I haven't described it to my friends (present company excepted). Yesterday, it's true, I did talk to a friend, but I described The Offering instead, at twelve page length, full of intricate detailing. And when I've described it to you (present company included), I've described it as Peyton Place The Next Generation, which isn't exactly how I'd like to present The Shade Of The Moon to people who're going to decide if they want to publish it or not.

Not that Peyton Place The Next Generation wasn't fabulous. It was. I can still quote dialogue from it.

"Oh, Betty."

A classic.

Actually, speaking of dialogue, what I immediately thought of when my editor requested twelve pages be boiled down to two sentences was the beginning scene in Sullivan's Travels , which is probably the best beginning scene in the history of everything.

Sullivan: I want this picture to be a document. I want to hold a mirror up to life. I want this to be a picture of dignity - a true canvas of the suffering of humanity.
Lebrand: But with a little sex.
Sullivan: With a little sex in it.

So here is the two sentence version of The Shade Of The Moon. Feel free to put a little sex in it!

Seventeen years after the end of This World We Live In, teenagers related by love and by blood to the families in Life As We Knew It and The Dead And The Gone struggle to find their place in a society that is welcoming to some and forbidding to others.

Sixteen year old Juliet reveals in her diary her feelings of love, jealousy, and yearning, until a shattering truth changes her destiny and that of everyone she loves.

"We Shall Live On And See"

Isn't that poetic? My mother said it to me, and since I've been looking for a title for this blog entry, I decided to go with that.

When my mother got her teeth cleaned a couple of weeks ago, I scheduled her next appointment for October, and realized by then she'll be 100 years old. With no cavities, I hope.

Those nice people at UPS delivered the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Fall 2011 catalog (the one for books that come out after my mother turns 100)with its impressive page for Blood Wounds.



I really like the "Blood can both wound and heal..." heading, since it's genuinely reflective of the themes of the book. And I always like seeing the Marketing plan, especially, as in this case, where there is one.

By now I should have finished the revisions of The Offering, but I still have about 40 pages to go. I'll do them today if I can resist the siren call of a three hour nap. What's kept me from The Offering (other than good old fashioned laziness, the appeal of which should never be underestimated), is The Shade Of The Moon and the plotting thereof. It's been entirely too much fun coming up with plot and characters. So much too much fun that I wrote a 12 page synopsis which I sent to my editor yesterday. I think she found it a bit overwhelming. In fact, if I read between the lines correctly, she has entered the Editor Protection Program and will remain in hiding until convinced I truly am retired.

Relax.I'm not going to ram the 12 pages of plotting brilliance into this blog post. I will tell you that as of this moment (and keep in mind my publisher has not said they want any kind of fourth moon book) all the characters who set off at the end of This World We Live In are featured in The Shade Of The Moon, except for Dad, who I fairly arbitrarily decided has died. But the focus of The Shade is on four teenagers (close your eyes if you don't want to know): Gabe (aka Gabriel, originally thought of as Baby Rachel, son of Dad and Lisa), Connor, Gabe's best friend, Juliet, daughter of Mom and the late lamented Charlie (I bet you didn't see that one coming) and Meggie, daughter of Miranda and Richard (you didn't think Miranda's been celibate all these years, did you?). Meggie's full name is Megan Rebecca, for Miranda's friends Megan and Becky, but Beggan didn't work as a nickname. Gabe and Connor are 17, Juliet is 16 and Meggie is 13. So Matt, Miranda and Jon are Juliet's half-siblings on Mom's side, Gabe is her half-brother on Dad's side, and Meggie is her half-niece if such a term exists.

Hmm... Just writing all that down makes me drowsy. Maybe I should take my three hour nap before tackling those final 40 pages.

Wake me up if the world comes to an end!

All Work And No Redecorating Makes Sue A Very Cranky Freelance Childen's Book Writer

So instead of doing rewriting/polishing of The Offering, I redesigned the blog (although I did keep the interesting stuff on the right side, where it's been for a while).

I'll work on The Offering tomorrow (along with a half dozen other jobs I keep not quite getting around to).

And while I'm thinking of it, for all who celebrate Passover, Happy Passover! And for those who don't, just pass over this whole paragraph (a little bit of traditional Passover humor).

Going Forth On A Fourth

Like any sensible freelance children's book writer with a cat, I emailed my editor and told her my vet wanted to know if there was going to be a fourth moon book.

My editor emailed back say say she intended to discuss that very possibility with the appropriate person to discuss those kinds of things at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The next day, my editor emailed me to say she had indeed discussed the possibility with the appropriate person and she and the appropriate person were interested in the idea. They particularly liked the concept of setting it a number of years later, so any babies or potential babies from This World We Live In would be teenagers. She suggested as an alternative possibility setting it 3 or 4 years after This World,perhaps focusing on Jon, but I don't like that concept as much.

So nothing is definite, but the next step is mine to take, which is to come up with something resembling a plot. I intend to finish polishing The Offering (previously known as Hart) first, and that's going to take a few more days. Then I'll let my brain focus on possible storylines for The Shade Of The Moon, and when I'm satisfied with what I come up with, I'll write it down, email it out, and see what happens.

No matter what, I'll be sure to tell you and my vet!

If He'd Voted, It Would Have Been 240-13

I took Scooter to the vet this morning. It took 25 minutes to get him into his carrier, and then he yowled the entire trip there. He also yowled the entire trip back, with considerably less justification.

While I was waiting to take Scooter in, the receptionist asked what in addition to his shots and general checkup did I want for Scooter. The exact quote was, "Sue, aside from his shots..." which I heard as a suggestion ("I'll take nooses for 800, Alex").

No sooner do I get Scooter into the examining room then my vet walks in and asks if there's going to be a continuation. It takes me a moment to realize he means is there going to be a fourth book. When Life As We Knew It came out, I thought it would be my last book ever, so I gave copies of it to everybody I know, including my vet, who loved it so much he bought copies of it to give as Christmas presents. Hardcovers at that.

Scooter, by the way, weighs 14 pounds. And my vet claims that when Scooter puts his paw on top of me, it's not to say he loves me, but to let me know he outranks me, which is very silly because every cat knows that and every cat knows every person knows that, so there's no point telling us.

My vet also says the official term for one girl cow getting cozy with another girl cow is nymphomania. I no longer remember how that came up in the conversation, but I'll remember it forever, along with a license plate number that I decided to memorize on the drive home to sharpen my memory skills. Years from now that license plate number will show up in my brain and I'll have no idea what it is and it will haunt me forever like stray song lyrics.

I continue to work on polishing up Hart. Not today, since I'm still recovering from those 25 minutes of Scooter chasing, but yesterday and I hope tomorrow and certainly Wednesday if the weather is bad. I've gotten deep enough into the polishing process that there is now an official Chapter Seven and an equally official Chapter Ten. I decided that there was need for a brand new Chapter Nine, so I wrote that yesterday, thus making the previously official Chapter Ten the equally official Chapter Eleven. The other change I made was the title. It is no longer Hart; it is The Offering. I think The Offering is a lot sexier, and it doesn't seem to be a particularly overused title, so I'm grabbing it.

Oh well. I could try to do some rewrite/polishing now, or I could put the den back in order after 14 pounds of chaos, or I could check out some neighborhood nymphomaniac cows.

It's always good to have choices!