Joyce Magnin's Blog, page 11

Calling All Reviewers

Here's the thing, I've decided to ask for help. Well not help exactly just some plugs, reviews, endorsements, happy statements, a few positive sentences from all of you guys who have read Griselda Takes Flight. Apparently it's really important to get reviews on Amazon so I am asking any of you who have read Griselda to please, pretty please post an honest review on Amazon for me. If you do, I will send you not only a Bright's Pond map but also this month's feature recipe from the upcoming Bright's Pond Pie Book. It's a delicious strawberry/rhubarb and comes with a recipe for the best crust recipe in the entire world. And everyone knows, crust can be tough to make. Sooooo, please, post a review. Give Griselda a few stars and let's watch Griselda's rating zoom. And then after you post your review, go have a slice of pie. Oh, and all the reviewers who post reviews in the next week or so will be entered in a drawing to win a free, autographed copy of the next Bright's Pond novel releasing September 1—Blame It On The Mistletoe. It's a Christmas story.

A Most Gracious Letter

This came today. I loved it so much I asked the writer if I could post it on my blog and she graciously agreed.

Dear Joyce,
First, I want to tell you that I do not read novels usually and especially "Christian novels" even though I am a Christian. They have always seemed too "pat" for real life and way too sweet!

I picked up Charlotte Figg Takes Over Paradise because of the cover!!! We used to live in a trailer of that color 45 years ago..and I liked the smooth feel of the book in my hand...so much for e-books for me or judging a book by its cover!

Anyway, I loved the story...but especially I loved the statue in Rose's yard...the concrete hand of God...it made me cry and laugh and I want one in my yard! I shared this wonderful concept of sitting in a huge concrete hand of God statue to my 9 year old granddaughter and she made me a picture that is on my fridge, of her and me sitting together in the hand of God and all of the names of both sides of her family written on it. It is BEAUTIFUL!

(And this morning as I was pondering God and His Grace, I looked over and saw my "hand of God" on the fridge and remembered an old hymn that I used to sing as a child called "Safe Am I" and it goes on to say in the hollow of His Hand)

I did not want the story to end so soon. I will now read your other books.

Thank you!

Kathy Corn

IN JUST ~ A Favorite Poem for Spring

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

I'll Fall Asleep Counting My Blessings

Here's the thing, February was quite a month for me. To begin with I learned that my middle grade novel, Carrying Mason is going to be published in hardback. Hardback! I dreamed of having a book with a dust jacket ever since I was nine years old. Yikes.
I took an extended leave of absence (I might not go back) from my school job so I can concentrate on my writing career. Pretty scary but it had to be done. Sometimes you just have to believe in yourself, your talent and abilities and of course God who is charge of it all anyway. I am getting ready for my sister, Barbara to come next week for an extended visit as she undergoes some pretty significant surgery. Again, I just have to thank Jesus that I am able to be here for her.
Thirdly, I am also waiting for my dear friend and cohort Nancy Rue (awesome writer btw) to arrive on Thursday and then we're traveling to a writer's retreat in Maryland with the world's best writing support group.
Fourthly, I had this great meeting with some great friends to discuss a new and exciting plan, direction for my work and teaching. Stay tuned. Good things on the horizon.
Fifth, I put together a neat new dresser I bought at Ikea. It's reddish. I love it. My friend Leslee gave me some really cool socks and a pair of Chucks. Man, I have some of the best friends on the planet. My dear daughter, Rebekah sent me a terrific recipe for bread. Yayyy. I reached the next level in Angry Birds. My bff Pammy continues to encourage and remind me that I'm worth hanging around. I got a new pub photo. My daughter Emily and I finished her Fafsa. I found a dear sweet funny amazing friend from high school on Facebook and we got together last week. What a great time we had. My son Adam and I went out for lunch and it was very sweet. I learned that my blood sugar is a teensy bit elevated but my cholesterol is terrific.
Reviews of the new Bright's Pond Book, Griselda Takes Flight are coming in and they're pretty good.
Publisher's weekly did a Profile of me and my writing in their Feb. 28th edition. I lost another five pounds. All in all it was a pretty good month. Sometimes it really works wonders to look at the blessings along the way.

Brain Numbing Noodle Pain

Here's the thing, I was innocently preparing pasta for supper last night when suddenly and with provocation a noodle leaped from the boiling water and slapped me on the wrist and burned me. (As you can clearly see in exhibit A.) I stood there, stunned for a second or two. Pain seared my arm as my alleged noodle assailant clung to my wrist, burning the skin and quite possibly attempting to inflict disfiguring third degree noodle burns. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to dash to the kitchen sink, run the cold water and cool my wrist. Now this may not seem like such a big deal but this morning I discovered a secondary problem with this burn on the wrist. It is in exactly the place I rest my arm on my laptop as I type, directly on the edge of my Mac. What are the odds? I mean really, who get's noodle burns? Criminy!

Come Gee! Come Haw!

Here's the thing, writing a novel is like mushing in the Iditarod—a 1,150 mile race through some of the harshest and most beautiful terrain known to man. There's lots of up hill climbs, down hill slides, frozen tundra, dense forests, river crossings, warm check points and frankly, unless you're the lead dog, the view never changes. Uhm. Well, okay maybe writing is not that bad. But yeah, striving to be the lead dog is not a bad goal. Scripture tells us to be the best, to do everything as though it were expressly for Jesus. Do I do that? I try. But sometimes I admit that hanging back in the pack is okay also. It's comfy—less threatening, less responsibility. But then again, I really want my novels to be the best. Maybe not the best according to the masses or according to The New York Times Bestseller Lists or any other list but the best that I can do. Doing my best, running hard, responding to my master's call to Come Gee or Come Haw! I keep mushing. And if I get noticed and if I make the bestseller list then that's okay also.

Occasionally I have a dog in basket—no not an IHop breakfast—it's an injured pooch on the trail. Except for me it's a manuscript in the basket. I hate that the most. It's hard to put a story or a scene or even a character out of its misery or out of the race but it's necessary if I am going to finish the race. It's kind of crazy to keep a malfunctioning appendix in your body, right? It's necessary to be brutally honest with my words if I am going to do my best, to have something that I truly believe I could set at Jesus's feet. Well, a book and my heart. I mean really what else is there?

PUblisher's Weekly

Here's the thing. I was at school yesterday working with the kindergartners on their show. It's called Calendar Kids--pretty cute, y when I heard the gentle ping of my phone informing me of an email. During a lull (there's a few) in the production I checked and discovered it was from my publicist, the wonderful Maegan Roper at Abingdon Press. Turns out that one of the editor's at Publisher's Weekly wants to do a profile of me for their next issue. Wow. This is exciting. Maegan told me that the editor, Jackie, loved Griselda Takes Flight. Yayy. Jackie and I are scheduled to talk Monday evening and she is now my new BFF. I'm a little nervous. I will let you know how it goes. Now I have to figure out how to get my hands on an actual copy of the magazine. Uhm.
Oh and BTW, FYI, Griselda Takes Flight releases April 1--There's a joke in there somewhere--but you can of course pre-order it now. I hear it's pretty good. What's with all the pumpkins on the cover? You'll see.

DREAM ON

Here's the thing, I like American Idol. There, I said it. I like to watch American Idol and I got to say that this week's episodes were pretty good, maybe even the best in three years. Not so much because of the, uhm, "talent" but because of the judges. I was a little disturbed at first when I heard that Steven Tyler was going to be a judge. I thought oh criminy, another rocker sold out to the man, to the masses. All of a sudden this unabashed, big-lipped, pulsating, gyrating, screaming, singing, amazing Aerosmith rocker was up there or perhaps down there, with Ozzy Osborne and Gene Simmons—old, worn-out rockers with nothing better to do than act like idiots on national television. But, I got to say, Steve did not suck. Thank you for not sucking and looking stupid, Steve. In fact I thought he was funny, a bit over the top at times, gracious, even caring. I thought Jennifer Lopez was fantastic and I always liked Randy. So here's to what I am hoping will be a great season of American Idol. Hope does indeed spring eternal, because I will say I was prepared to stop watching this year and oh, I don't know, read a book instead.

Now, what is it that I like about the show? I think it's because I see so many parallels between the show and writing. Newbie, wannabe writers are so eager to put there stuff out there, before the judges (read: editors, agents) only to so often have their dreams destroyed, ripped to shreds, manhandled and dashed like waves against a craggy shore. But there is something indomitable about the human spirit that wants to create joy and goodness, beauty and art that even folks with no skills, no musical ability step out and give it there all in the hopes that they might have, "IT". That elusive mixture of talent, skill, ability, knowledge, guts, ego, and self-loathing that mixes together in some other-worldly alchemy and produces art.

Secondly, I enjoy watching the judges handle the critique portion of the audition. I have learned a lot over the years. As someone who is often asked to read and critique a new author's work I actually took lessons from the Idol judges. I learned with their help to be a little more gutsy in what I had to say. Sometimes you have to take the band-aid approach to a critique and just tell it like it is. Rip it off, let it sting for a bit and then hopefully the crtitiquee will move on with her life, or go back to the drawing board, or keep practicing. Over the years, in the judging, I have seen compassion and frustration and joy delivered to the hopefuls. I have also seen times when the talent was so terrible that the judges couldn't contain their derision. Yeah, that happens in the writing world also. I know, I know those fifteen minutes of appointment angst can feel like your heart is being ripped out of your chest through your ear. It's tough. But, hey, like Flossie always told me, when you tiptoe through the rose garden of life, be sure to wear long sleeves—thorns hurt.

But every so often a manuscript crosses my desk that shines, that shows potential and true talent. This brings me great joy. I love discovering real talent just as I believe the American Idol judges do. After all, talent should never be hidden under a bushel and as Steve sang:
"Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream until your dream comes through
Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream On Dream On
Dream On Dream On"

Hey, it worked for me.

Write Well and Carry a Big Machete

Here's the thing, my mother told me that God never promised us a rose garden so I better bring a machete. She also said that if I stood too close to the edge of the platform the EL train would suck me under. But, and this might or might not be a good thing, she never told me what I should do with my life. No, she pretty much left all the tough decisions up to me. So the idea of becoming a writer was never up for discussion. I simply decided that this would be my goal in life—at least a goal—career-wise. I always loved books and stories. My most favorite school day was when the Scholastic book orders came in. Remember that? It seemed we could get seventy-five books for a buck ninety-five back then. I raced home with my treasures and wouldn't come up for air for days. I was reading at the age of three and so I pretty much devoured anything with words on it—including cereal boxes and shampoo bottles. So words and reading and stories were always a part of my life. It was like instead of white and red blood cells my heart pumped the alphabet. So I suppose it was a given that I would become a writer. But why? Why write?

I love what Flannery O'Connor said when asked that very question. She answered: "Because I'm good at it." Yeah, that works but there's more to it suppose. I've said that I write because it's the only thing I do that when I'm doing it, I don't feel like I should be doing something else. How's that for a convoluted sentence. But it's true. I also write to escape the world. I know, it's backwards I suppose. People often say they read to escape. Well, I write to escape because I basically am not so jazzed about the real world and prefer to sit in a universe of my own design. Is that egotistical? I don't know. Writing and words are my machete. They help me cut through the nasty parts of the garden and find the beauty, to make sense of things and maybe in some way help someone else to make sense of things. Artists use a paintbrush, surgeons a scalpel, ministers the pulpit, musicians use their instruments. We all have something that helps us make sense of our little corner of the universe. So, what's your machete? The weeds don't hack themselves.

By the way, the picture has nothing to do with writing or machetes. It's just Mango feeling humiliated again.

Snow Days!

Here's the thing, we are expecting a moderate snow storm to roll through tonight that should dump at least five maybe more inches of snow. Woo Hoo. SNOW DAY. I work in a school so I will have the day off--WITH PAY. It doesn't get much better than that. The possibility was the main topic of conversation at school today. Teachers walking down the halls crossing their fingers and saying things like, "I hope it's a snow day," or "Please. if there is a God in heaven let it be a day off." It could turn out to be a two-hour delay. Which I hate. It just makes my day longer and I have to deal with thirty sopping wet kids who can't get their snow boots off. So, yeah I'm hoping for a snow day. But here's the thing. It's not the same anymore. I remember when I was a kid in school waking up, seeing all the glorious, wonderful white stuff outside and my sister and I racing to the radio to see if the announcer called our school number. I still remember it--452. It was so exciting to hear your number called. The only thing more exciting was waking up on Christmas morning. Kids don't have the excitement anymore. Now I get a global connect phone call at five AM, an email, the announcement scrolls across the TV and it's on the school web site. It's not the same. It made me wonder what other little joys our kids are missing out on because of technology.