Joyce Magnin's Blog, page 4

When Writers Procrastinate

This happens

Oh well, back to work.

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on April 03, 2013 05:04

Baseball, Books and Necessary Adjsutments

<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Fx8yGib-cRg..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Fx8yGib-cRg..." /></a><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Here’s the thing</b></span>, the Philadelphia Phillies opened their season last night. And I’m sorry to say it was a pretty dismal beginning. Ace pitcher Cole Hamels just did not deliver. The other players seemed tired, lackluster. No joy in Atlanta last night. Except for Chase Utley. Now he showed some spark and made the game a little easier to watch. Wow, I am being really down a team that just started their season. But here’s the thing. I think there is a lot to be said for getting out of the gate well, with speed and energy. There is something magical about winning that first game. It provides momentum and in theory can set the tone for the whole season. Last night, the Phils got out of the gate in not so great fashion.</div><div class="MsoNormal">But, that being said, they say baseball is a game of adjustments. If the batter has figured out your slider, or your fastball, your rhythm, make an adjustment. Change your pitches. Do something to foil your opponent. Batting not going well? Maybe the batter needs to drop his elbow a half an inch or widen his stance. Make the necessary adjustments and come out prepared in the next game. Fortunately Cole doesn’t have to appear on the mound for five days or so. Plenty of time to make some adjustments.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Writing and books are like this. You might say writing is a game of adjustments. The voice isn’t quite right. Adjust. The plot has holes? Adjust. If your book gets a slow start out of the gate, analyze and adjust. Blog more, Tweet more, travel more, teach more, write more. Adjust. Do what needs to be done not only for your current book but the next one. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adjust.</div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s no shame in a slow start as long as you don’t give up. Go Phillies! Go you!</div>

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on April 02, 2013 05:51

A Few MInutes with Kim (my editor)

Here's the thing. I love being being a writer. And I love being edited. I always say the real writing gets done in revision. One of my favorite editors is Kim Childress with Zonderkidz. She edited Cake with me and I learned so much as the story went back and forth several times until we were both happy with it. Kim taught me to linger a while with my characters and the story and see what they wanted. It was a huge lesson and made me me a better writer. Kim took a good book and made it excellent. So I thought it would be fun to interview her for all you. She has some great things to say.What do you enjoy most about being an editor? Least?

The Wise and Wonderful Kim ChildressI love working on a book from start to finish, polishing it with the author, and then getting starred reviews! I least working with authors who are not willing to revise.

Here's the thing, I love being a writer and some call me crazy but the best part of writing is the editing. I love working with my editors to make my books better. Kim Childress, my editor at Zonderkidz, was a delight to work with. I believed she really loved Wilma Sue and Cake and wanted it to be all it could be. We went back and forth several times until we both felt the story was just right. Kim taught me to linger a while with my story and my characters and truly allow them to tell their story. She took a good book and made it excellent. So, I thought it would be fun to interview her. I think you'll learn a lot.
What are the qualities of your ideal writer? Perseverance, patience, a willingness to learn and work on their craft, and a willingness to get out there and promote their work in any and every way possible.

What bit of wisdom/advice would you have for that newbie author waiting in the shadows to speak with you during one of those nerve-wracking-fifteen-minute-speed-dating appointments at a writer's conference? Relax. Take a deep breath, and realize the value of their own worth and work, especially is they are doing what they feel God has called them to do. Because he will lead them and guide them despite what I say (or any other editor). I would repeat as a mantra, “With God for me, who can be against?” and then be bold with their writing and work. (This assumes that they are presenting their very best work.)
What were you favorite books as a kid?Hmmmm…. Okay, the Phantom Tollbooth is one definite, and just recently I saw that Simon and Schuster has re-released another that I absolutely loved as a 9-year-old—The Little Leftover Witch. If you checked the library records, it would show I checked out that book like 20 times—and I’m not exaggerating.
If you could have one of those nerve-wracking-fifteen-minute-speed-dating appointments with any DEAD author who would it be and why?Hmmm… Shakespeare. Okay, the guy was a brilliant romantic. I’d love to have him put together a proposal for me. ***
Kim has worked in the children’s publishing industry in a variety of roles for over 20 years. As a freelance writer, I’ve published over 200 articles and short stories. My regular book review column appears in Girls’ Life magazine, where I’ve reviewed books since the magazine’s debut in 1994. Before returning to work full-time, I established and maintained a freelancing career while raising four children through diapers, doctors’ appointments, broken bones, and all the joys and chaos that comes with family life—much of which I wrote about for Focus on The Child parenting newsletters, published by Focus on the Family. I became middle grade acquisitions editor for Zondervan in 2011, where I firmly believe God has called me to be. Someday I plan to return to my writing (I still review books), but meanwhile, I love editing. You can read more about me on my website, www.ChildressInk.com, and I would love it if you would “like” my Facebook page—Childress Ink Book Reviews, especially because in the publishing industry, it’s all about networking.

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on March 26, 2013 09:41

Cake Writing Contest

Now this is really exciting! My publisher Zonderkidz and Booklist Online Magazine have teamed up to bring you one tasty contest. The winning school or library will win $500 worth of books from Zonderkidz plus an autographed copy of CAKE and a Skype visit with me!
All you need to do is come up with a tasty recipe for a cake, but not just an ordinary Cake. These Cakes need to be extra special. We are looking for recipes for a Good Neighbor Cake, or a Good Friendship Cake, things like that. So jump on over to the contest page and enter today.

Here's the link:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZonderkidzCakeContest

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on March 19, 2013 05:11

Dear March

Today I’m looking Emily Dickinson’s poem number 1320.
Dear March -- Come in --
How glad I am --
I hoped for you before --

Put down your Hat --
You must have walked --
How out of Breath you are --
Dear March, Come right up the stairs with me --
I have so much to tell --

I got your Letter, and the Birds --
The Maples never knew that you were coming -- till I called
I declare -- how Red their Faces grew --
But March, forgive me -- and
All those Hills you left for me to Hue --
There was no Purple suitable --
You took it all with you --

Who knocks? That April.
Lock the Door --
I will not be pursued --
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied --
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That Blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame –

The Dickinson family entertained many houseguests. Young Emily was known to lurk around, hiding in the shadows, listening and watching her parents’ guests until she felt comfortable enough to join in. Sometimes she didn’t. But usually, she managed to get in on the conversation, especially with visitors she considered her intellectual equal. Emily Dickinson was probably around forty-two years of age when she wrote this poem. There is a lot of energy in this poem—like March. She compares March to a houseguest. In the poem she answers the door and finds March on the doorstep. Tentative at first, she invites him in, take off your hat. And then she begins a pretty frantic, wild conversation. This is something she was known for when it came to company. Tentative at first but then she could pretty much talk the ear off of anyone listening. We know she was expecting March because she tells us she got his letter. March was Emily’s favorite month because it brought new life. A symbol or metaphor she used often to denote rebirth in Nature and rebirth in Salvation. When April comes knocking she doesn’t want to answer. She’d rather April wait a while. Let’s enjoy March.

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on March 04, 2013 05:20

What Van Cliburn Taught Me About Writing

Here’s the thing, the world lost a truly great musician, artist this week, Van Cliburn. I remember listening to his recordings as a child and being pretty much stunned by his grace and talent and artistry. This morning I was listening to one of his recordings along with bit of commentary and it got me thinking. No one will argue that the arts often overlap. Many disciplines or philosophy in one field of art can often easily translate to another. For example, one must practice music everyday or nearly everyday in order to be good. The same can be said for writers. A writer must write everyday, whether it is actual writing or being at least conscious of the cerebral percolating that goes on in every author’s mind. But how is writing a novel like music? Well, here’s what I discovered this morning. Van Cliburn’s first piano teacher was his mother. She would ask him to hum or sing a piece of music before performing it. In this way he said he “breathed into” the music. Wow. That struck me because as a writer, and I think we will all agree that good writing has music, I often read my work aloud to see if it sings. But as I considered Van’s word this morning I saw how there was so much more involved to this act of reading our words. I believe that we breathe life into the words when we hear them dance on our vocal chords and tickle our ears. We hear things we might not hear just from writing or reading only in our minds. A connection, a holistic connection if you will, is made and this enables us to perhaps dig a little deeper. Writing gets better when it is performed in a sense.Van Cliburn also said that his favorite quote is from Rachmaninoff who said, “Music is enough for a lifetime but a lifetime is not enough for music.”This is true of writing and story. There are enough words and stories for a lifetime but a lifetime is not enough for story.

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on March 02, 2013 09:31

A Post Flossie Post

Mom was pregnant with me in this picture.Here’s the thing, my mom, Flossie, passed away a few years ago and at times it’s still a little rough. I miss her, even though her declining years were pretty hard. She had multi-infarct dementia, or as she called it, Multi Old Fart Dementia. She also had some pretty serious heart issues and of course diabetes. Yet, she was still able to make me laugh. Sometimes she wasn’t aware that she was being funny but most of the time she was just plain funny. I’ve been thinking lately about how many times I visited her at the nursing home. She didn’t want much, just a cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts and for me to water her plants. She had many, many plants and a magical green thumb which enabled her to grow anything and perhaps more important keep it growing. I’ve written in the past about the eighty- year-old onion, which I inherited. And yes, I’m happy to say, it is still alive in spite of my gardening disabilities. Mom spent the majority of her time in her little room looking out the window or watching whatever came on channel six. I would try to get her to join the others in the great room for meals but she always barked. “I’m not eating out there with all those old people. Bunch of old fuddy duddies.” And so I didn’t push the issue. Who was I to make her spend time with people she didn’t enjoy?She would leave the confines of her room to attend bowling. That’s right wheelchair bowling. Now there’s a sport to behold. Pretty amazing really. She would get wheeled up to a ball resting in a kind of gutter on a slope. And then she’d give the ball a push and off it would roll to knock down the pins. Flossie won several bowling awards. Then there was the choir. Now I’m just saying, the choir was well . . . pretty awful although if you listened close enough you could hear that many of the choristers did, at one time, have a good voice. Like my Mom. And she was also a painter. An artist. And she was really quite good. Until her declining years. I set her up with an easel and canvas and her paints at the nursing home but the results? Well, not so good. She tried to paint Jesus as a boy holding a lamb and he ended up looking more like that kid on Mad Magazine holding a trout. So yeah, the painting was more frustrating than therapeutic. I’m not sure why I’m sharing this today. I woke up thinking about Mom this morning. It might be because folks have been asking me why I write about magical things. Mom was kind of magical. Perhaps that’s why. She had a knack for making the fantastic happen, for things long lost to be found at precisely the correct moment. She could make me confess to some petty childhood crime just by winking and of course she did make my warts disappear with a potato and a burlap bag. True story.

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 28, 2013 05:14

Twitterpated

Here’s the thing, last Friday I hosted my first ever Twitter party. For those of you who might not know about this phenomenon it is basically an opportunity to field questions from readers and others via Twitter. It’s really quite ingenious. I really do love Twitter. There is just something so challenging about getting a lot of info into a little space. A good lesson for any writer. Write tight. But I also learned some things at this Twitter party or Twitter Q&A I thought I would share with you. I learned:I’m still pretty nervous when it comes to things like this and I wish I was a little more prepared. I should have thought about it more and thought of some of the questions that were asked so I had ready-to-go snappy, tight answers. I stumbled over what to say at times because there was just so much I wanted to say in my answer but didn’t have the room. I will learn to say what I mean in 140 characters or less. That’s a good thing.
I’m not as nervous as I once was. A few years ago I would have done practically anything to get out of it. Or I would have had to call a friend to sit with me while I Tweeted. But no more. I think this is because I am much more confident in myself as a writer and with what I write. That’s a good thing.
The world is getting smaller and smaller. Technology is making us small. I know that my fan and probably one of biggest fans, Chris was lurking all the way from the UK. Wow, that’s pretty cool. Readers are brought very close to authors so I better shape up and be prepared. Gone, I think, are the days when being the hermit, recluse author was cool, fashionable, possible. Is THIS a good thing?
I have great readers and tremendous support from the other professionals in my life and my little writing circle. And that, my friends is a very good thing.

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 27, 2013 05:16

Creative Genius, Blathering Idiot? It's Hard to Tell

<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IpvmlsnlJmk..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IpvmlsnlJmk..." width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Mews</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s the thing, some days I am convinced that I am a creative genius—and then other days I am convinced I am a blathering idiot lacking even two brain cells to rub together that would produce a new thought. Today is one such day---for the former, not the latter. This seems to happen when I begin a new novel. Which I am in the process of right this very minute. It’s another middle grade novel. I’d tell you what it’s about but then I’d have to well, you know, do away with myself. You see, talking about a project too soon can have some really detrimental effects upon a work in progress or as I like to call it, at least at this stage, the POG or Piece of Garbage. Someday it will become something better, an actual WIP or Work in Progress but for six weeks at least, it’s a POG, a big fat POG that haunts my every waking thought and well, some of my non-waking thoughts. But such I think is the fate of the writer and maybe any artist. There is a time for everything, according to Ecclesiastes (how insightful is that? But a topic for another post) and so that means there will come a time for my now nebulous, gray, although I am beginning to see fringes of color, story to quicken, spring to life. It’s kind of like watching one of those step photography shorts, the time lapse video of a peach being born—from flower to full fledged fruit. </div><div class="MsoNormal">But until then I will muddle and strain and plead with myself to come up with the story, to sift through the ideas and make something good. It will happen. But for now I am in this idiot phase and that’s okay. It’s part of the process. How about you? Do you struggle at the beginning? Do you struggle with wanting to discuss it with a friend, to brainstorm ideas, plot points? I do, and yes, there will come a time when I will feel secure enough with the idea, when it be solidified enough for me to discuss. But until then, I blather and wince and stare into the abyss a lot. I procrastinate, play video games, cross stitch, read, and wait upon the muse. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’ll show up. The trick I think is in not walking away, not expecting the muse to knock down your door. I’m convince the muse waits and watches as we struggle. It’s the only way she’ll come.It's kind of game she likes to play. Don't fight it. </div>

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 21, 2013 04:30

Longhand Wrangler

Isn't it awful?Here’s the thing, I have the worst handwriting on the planet. Now, perhaps you are wondering why, in this day and age of computers, Iphones, Ipads etc. does my handwriting even matter. And while, yes, I write my books on technology, usually a combo pack of Word for Mac, Iphone, Evernote for Ipad etc. But every so often, particularly when I begin a new story I write longhand, on a yellow legal pad with a black ink (always black there is no other color with which to write) gel pen. I’m not entirely sure why I do this except that for some reason I think there is a volatile, emotional, wildy electric connection between the head, the heart and my hand that brings a story alive, gives a new character solidity, even more so than seeing her emerge on the computer screen, and my brain moves very quick (quickly?). The trouble is, I have terrible, terrible handwriting. As you can see in the image above. And it is so frustrating because I write sometimes amazing wonderful sweet, beautiful inspired words but when I go to read it back or type it into Word, I can’t read my own words! Argggghh.
I think I’m hopeless. I try. I really try to write neat (neatly?) but I just can’t. I never had good penmanship. Drove my teachers insane. “Joyce,” they would shout. “What does this say?” I’d usually shake my head. “I don’t remember.” This did of course lead to many not so great grades. But somehow, I do manage to get my books written, by lots of longhand wrangling, but sadly there have been times when I write something longhand that I thought was totally inspired at the time that got los t in translation. And that’s sad. But thank goodness for computers, right? You’d think so, but unfortunately my typing skills are not that much better than my penmanship. It’s a wonder I get anything done.

View more on Joyce Magnin's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on February 20, 2013 05:49