Catherine Austen's Blog, page 25
June 12, 2012
What’s in a Name?

Too exclusive?
I have to name this blog.
That was on my to-do list two years ago and it’s still there. Which doesn’t bother me much – it’s not like it’s the sole task carried over year after year. I’ve lived in Quebec for two decades and haven’t made it past intermediate conversational French. An unnamed blog isn’t much of a burden for me.
But some generous people have given me blogger awards and before I put them up on this site, I should give the blog a proper name.
I have never been one to dig for character names when I write fiction. The names of my main characters just sort of come to me and they are usually common. Or at least I thought the names just “came to me.” I realized exactly where they originated a few months ago when I made a webpage for both of my middle-grade novels, 26 Tips for Surviving Grade 6 and Walking Backward, and put the names of their two main characters together in one question, “Want to know more about Becky and Josh?”

Nah. Suggests that I like alliteration. Which I don’t.
Becky and Josh? Those are my neighbour’s kids. Seriously. Becky and Josh have lived next door to me for 15 years. I never noticed that I’d used their names in my books. And, um, Josh’s friend Max visits their house a lot. (Max is the name of the narrator of All Good Children.) So I was obviously glancing out the window while those names just “came to me.”
Maybe one day I’ll plumb the depths of my heart for a character name that really stands out. A doozy like Raskolnikov or Lolita, Scarlett O’Hara or J. Alfred Prufrock. But unusual character names often just annoy me. Instead of envisioning the character, I can’t help but see the writer, brow furrowed, lips pursed, scrounging for an original name. It bugs me. It seems so contrived. (And yes, I know all of fiction is contrived – but it’s not supposed to seem like it.) Maybe that’s why I don’t read much fantasy or sci fi. Not a lot of Steves and Jennifers on those shelves.

Nah. Sets the reader up for martini recipes.
I grew up in schoolyards full of Cathys and Lauras and Mikes and Daves. Parents did not strive to make their kids stand out from the crowd back then, and kids with unusual names hated hearing them called out. So maybe I choose common names so as not to burden my characters. (One of my fave fictional names is Micheal in Gentlemen, so named because his parents didn’t know how to spell Michael.)
Or maybe it’s because much of my early reading was of Russian novels. I got used to replacing the name on the page with a nickname in my head (like good old Al Karamazov). Ever since, I’ve only paid attention to the first letter of anyone’s name. (Both Katsa and Katniss were Ketchup in my mind.)
Most of the character names in All Good Children were taken from maps of the USA (Dallas, Washington, Montgomery) and my spice rack (Pepper, Saffron, Bay) – but this was not from laziness. I wanted a school full of future kids to show some trends in baby names. (And let me just say, if you are expecting a baby, towns and spices offer excellent prospects. I’m naming my next dog Wheaton.)

Makes me want to search my geneology.
The craving for a unique name is modern. And I share it. My kids are not Sam and Dave but Sawyer and Daimon. (Parents of other Sawyers always want to know how old mine is, to see which of us got to the name first. Parents of other Daimons just want to know why we spell it so funny.)
It’s a toss up for me between finding a good name for this blog and just calling it any old thing because the name is not important. Honest to god, a rose by the name of sorm would smell as sweet and a Raskolnikov named Rudy would be as memorable (that’s how I remember him, anyway).
I’m giving myself one week to decide on my blog name.
Those kids next door better do something interesting between now and then.
Filed under: authors, What's New, writing Tagged: blogging,







June 6, 2012
What’s New Wednesday: CLA Awards Reception
Alas, I’ve missed a few too many Wednesdays on this blog. But I simply had to pop in to put on record the great evening I had on May 31st at the Awards Reception of the Canadian Library Association.
I was one of three happy children’s book creators honoured at the ceremony. (My teen novel, All Good Children, won the CLA 2012 Young Adult Book Award.) Author Kit Pearson was there to celebrate her latest novel, The Whole Truth, which won the CLA 2012 Book of the Year for Children Award. And visual artist Matthew Forsythe was there to receive this year’s Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award for the picture book, My Name is Elizabeth, written by Annika Dunklee. (Kit is a pro at these awards but Matt and I were newbies.)
The Awards were held in Ottawa this year, in the gorgeous glass-walled Convention Centre. The evening was beautiful, the hors d’oeuvres were delicious, and the room was full of exuberant librarians and library supporters. After an entertaining word from the sponsors (Library Services Canada and TD Canada Trust), the three awards were introduced by the Chairs of the three jury committees.
And they had such nice things to say! Sigh. It was really moving. I’d heard about my win over a month ago, but it didn’t really hit home until I heard the YA Chair, Carol Rigby, describe the long annual process of receiving and reviewing all the eligible YA novels. Holy smokes, that’s a lot of books to choose one winner from. And my book was chosen. Unanimously. Wow. Hearing that really made it hit home was an exceptional honour I have received.
I was so nervous while speaking to the audience that I have no recollection of it at all – I remember being introduced, then there’s a blank, and next thing I’m drinking wine and smiling ear to ear. But everyone tells me I did just fine. And I look insanely happy in the photos.
Everyone in the audience at the reception got to take home one of the three winning books. So after the awards I spent some time signing copies and chatting with readers. Now, that’s something I always LOVE. There’s nothing like talking books with book lovers.
The next morning, June 1st, Kit and Matthew and I met with a few classes of children at the Ottawa Public Library for a fun follow-up event of reading and drawing. It was great. A wonderful end to May and a beautiful beginning to June.
Filed under: writing








May 11, 2012
Friday Fable: Sour Writers
You have probably heard the fable, Sour Grapes:
A hungry fox snuck into a vineyard where ripe grapes hung from tall vines. The fox stood on his hind legs and snapped his jaws, eager for a taste. But the grapes hung just out of reach.
The fox hopped and pawed and jumped and stretched and took repeated running leaps, but no matter what he did, he could not taste a single grape. Finally, he tired of trying. “Those grapes don’t look so good after all,” he thought. “They’re probably sour.”
The fox turned his back on the vineyard and walked away with his snout in the air, saying, “I wouldn’t eat those nasty grapes if they were served to me on a silver platter.”
And the moral is: We grow to hate the good things we want but cannot have.
That is a good old tale. But if Aesop were a modern slave to the written word, he might have called his fable Sour Writers:
A group of writers met monthly in a coffee shop where books and magazines lined the walls. Their conversation ran like this:
“Mmm. Good coffee. Hey, there’s a copy of Best Stories of the Year. What an amazing anthology. I submitted a story for next year’s collection.”
“Good for you. I sent some poems to Discriminating Ear Magazine. They publish such gorgeous poetry.”
“I wish I could write poetry. But at least I have a novel out there. I hope it gets nominated for a Smart Readers’ Choice Award. Last year’s nominees were all so great, I couldn’t choose between them.”
“I loved Enough Said by that east coast writer. No wonder it won all the awards. It was brilliant.”
“I finished my novel last week and sent it to Good Stuff Publishers. I hope they accept it. They’re the most artistic house out there.”
“They are. I would love to publish with them. Maybe if my first book gets a good review in Tasteful Titles next month. I’m psyched about the review coming out with them. They’re the voice of the industry.”
“Oh, they are. And the book industry is so exciting right now, with thousands of wonderful books on the shelves, and lots of room for more.”
Etc.
But as the months and years wore on, the form rejections piled up. The list of agents and editors who didn’t want the writers’ work grew. What work they did publish received middling reviews before quietly disappearing. Meanwhile, other writers earned glowing reviews, signed lucrative contracts, sold film rights, received honours and were invited to speaking engagements and fancy dinners.
The group of writers tired of trying. Eventually, their conversation ran like this:
“Did you read the Best Stories of the Year anthology? What a piece of crap.”
“No kidding. And have you read Discriminating Ear lately? My 10-year-old could write the poems in there.”
“I don’t know what to read anymore. The Smart Readers’ Choice Award only has two decent titles on its shortlist, along with eight stinkers.”
“I know. Did you read Eat My Words, the award winner by that east coast writer? Oh my god. It dragged on forever. I mean, she just can’t write.”
“Seriously. I don’t know where to send my work anymore. Good Stuff Publishers is the only house left that accepts unagented submissions, but all they publish are clunky novels that follow the latest fad.”
“But those crappy books get good reviews in Tasteful Titles so people buy them, even though all the reviewers are college students who’ve never read anything written before the year 2000 so they think a story is original when it’s already been told a thousand times.”
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Stay hungry. Stay sweet.
“You’re not kidding. It shouldn’t be like this. There are more books published today than ever before, but so many of them are garbage.”
“People seem to like garbage now. The whole industry has gone down the toilet. It’s depressing.”
“Yeah. And this coffee sucks.”
“I noticed that, too. The coffee’s not as good here as it used to be.”
“We should find a new hangout.”
Exeunt.
And the moral is: Keep stretching, writers, and don’t turn sour. Everybody knows those grapes are delicious.
And that’s my Friday Fable.
Filed under: Friday Fables, writing Tagged: aesop's fables, book awards, publishing, sour grapes, writers








May 2, 2012
Young Writers’ Workshops (What’s New Wednesday)
I went to my first ever writing workshop last week, and it was my own workshop. (Meaning that I had to stand at the front of the room rather than slouch in the back row.) I kept expecting the writing police to arrive at any moment and charge me with “workshopping without a clue.” But that didn’t happen. Because I actually knew what I was doing! (I just didn’t know I knew.)
For three days in April, I was a guest author at the MASC (Multicultural Arts for Schools and Communities) Young Authors and Young Illustrators Conference in Ottawa. I led six groups of talented writers aged 9-14 in developing characters and plots and bringing them to life through well chosen words. It was so inspiring! All those bright young heads bent toward their desks, all those pencils scratching the paper.
And the work they produced? I was so impressed! Tender and beautiful descriptions, funny and clever dialogue, vivid and thrilling action, crisp and moving poetry that caused spontaneous applause. And all of it done on the spot in a few minutes of time. Amazing.
It was an honour to be part of that. For the children who came to the Conference - they are handpicked from eastern Ontario and western Quebec schools, chosen by teachers for their interest and talent - the workshops are an opportunity to learn techniques from established authors and illustrators and, perhaps more importantly, to just sit and write or draw for an entire day and share their work with a group of kids who all love to do the same thing.
It was such a pleasure to meet those young writers and hear their work. (They inspired me to update the Tips for Young Writers Page on my website.)
So I had my very first writing workshop as an award-winning 46-year-old author. I should have started sooner, huh? If you’re wondering why I avoided workshops for so long…
Sad to say, most of the writers I met as a teenager had shoulder chips and cruel streaks and lousy interpersonal skills, so I thought learning through humiliation was the norm for the field. In six years of university, I only took one class that involved writing in a group setting – and I can still picture the prof cutting down a student (the sweetest one, of course), calling him a one-dimensional man. In my limited experience, writing teachers did not attack bad writing. They attacked other writers. (And they weren’t very interesting, either - while the biologists at school were all talking about how fascinating the world was, the writers were all talking about themselves. Yawn.) I didn’t want to sit through their classes.
Why oh why didn’t I recall Donny Osmond’s sage advice: ”One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl”? Even three bad apples don’t spoil a bushel. Oh well.
Fortunately, my prejudices against writing classes have since been shattered by reality – better late than never. One of the best things that has happened to me since publishing my first children’s novel is that I’ve met so many writers who are bright and talented and humble and strong and deeply supportive of each other, including many writing teachers who are committed to bringing out the very best in their students, instilling a love of writing along with a dedication to the craft.
Now that I’ve been to a writing workshop and found it so much fun, I might even be ready to take one as a student.
I’m too old for next year’s MASC Conference. But if you know young writers or illustrators who will be in grades 4-8 next spring, in eastern Ontario or western Quebec, inquire with their school principal about getting them involved in the 2013 MASC Young Authors and Young Illustrators Conference. It will be one of the best days of their school year.
Filed under: What's New, writing Tagged: children's books, creative process, writing workshops








April 18, 2012
What’s New Wednesday: Book Awards and Celebrations!
The Blue Metropolis Children’s Festival starts today in Montreal! From April 18th through April 23rd, children’s authors will read and perform for young audiences at 55 venues across the city, and all of them ABSOLUTELY FREE!!
I’ll be there on Thursday, April 19th at 10:00 a.m. at the Reginald JP Dawson Library (1967 Graham Blvd.), where I’ll read humourous excerpts from my books and talk to kids about why you need a sense of humour to be a writer (or a kid). If you’re in the city, come out to meet me.
And stick around for a few days to hear all the other children’s writers. (Well, actually, you can’t hear them all because some of them are speaking at the same time in different venues, so unless you can borrow Hermione’s time shifting gizmo, you’ll have to choose favourites.) Find out all the details at the TD-Blue Met Children’s Festival Website or the Blue Met Facebook page.
Ever so nicely timed with my Blue Met reading, my middle-grade comedy, 26 Tips for Surviving Grade 6, has been nominated for a 2012-13 Hackmatack Award – that’s Atlantic Canada’s young readers’ choice award. This means that kids in grades 4-6 all over the East coast will be curled up with my heroines, Becky and Violet, in the months to come. Oh, I love that thought.
And did I mention that my first novel for teens, All Good Children, has won the Canadian Library Association’s 2012 Young Adult Book Award? I don’t think I mentioned that. In fact, “blog about CLA award nomination” was still on my list of things to do when the results were announced. So I don’t have to blog about the nomination; I’ll skip straight to the celebration.
Hurrah! This is a prestigious award here in Canada. (Case in point: Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavour and Cathy Ostlere’s Karma are the Honour Books for the CLA YA Book Award this year. We’re talking fine writing. And yeah, I double-checked that my win was not a late April Fool’s joke.) There will be a CLA Award Reception at the end of May to celebrate. I’m buying a new dress.
I might as well get all my bragging out in one blog and mention that All Good Children has been nominated for the YALSA 2012 Teens’ Top Ten. Holy smokes, it’s up there with the latest books from Meg Cabot and John Green!
I must come up with a relevant fable for Friday. In the meantime, I hope to see you in Montreal!
Filed under: writing








March 23, 2012
Friday Fable: The Writer in Debt
You may have heard the old fable, The Star Gazer:
A man went walking every night just to gaze at the starry sky. He was so smitten by the beauty of the heavens that he never looked where he was going. One night he stepped into a well and fell in and broke his leg.
A passer-by (who was not a star gazer but some fellow on his way home from work) heard the moans and shouts of the man in the well and asked how he came to fall in. "Were you pushed by some robber?" he asked. "Did you jump in to escape a tiger? Were you guided by the hand of Zeus?" "No," said the star gazer. "There was this shooting star…"
"Shame on you!" said the passer-by. "You are so keen to see the heavens that you don't notice what is here on earth!" And he left him in the well.
And the moral is: If you cannot attend to the everyday things of life, you will not live long to admire the wonders of the world.
(But I think there is a second moral: People who have worked till nightfall are generally in a bad mood. Like those ants who pick on the happy grasshopper in that other fable.)
(And a third moral: If you want to star-gaze, grab a blanket and find a field. Duh.)
Anyway, that is a good old tale. But if Aesop were a modern slave to the written word, he might have called his fable, The Novelist with March Madness:
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Note the laptop behind the PB jar.
A writer publically committed and internally promised to finish the first draft of a particular YA novel during the month of March as part of March Madness. She stuck with this commitment, drafting every damned day for hours on end. She was so smitten by her story and characters that she rarely cleaned her house or cooked a proper meal. Soon she was living in a pigsty with two children who played video games all day and ate Pogos for supper.
One day a visitor (who was not a writer but a clean freak) popped by. The visitor tiptoed through the Subway wrappers and PS3 controllers in the living room to reach the writer, who was glued to a laptop at the kitchen table, surrounded by banana peels, sandwich crusts, and dirty coffee cups. "Did a hurricane hit?" the visitor asked. "Are you ill? Are your children holding you hostage?" "No," said the writer, typing in a frenzy, "The drug dealer's been murdered and the police think my hero did it."
"Shame on you!" said the visitor. "You are so keen on your make-believe world that you don't take care of the world and people around you!" And the visitor left.
"Thank god she's gone," the writer thought. "Hey kids, why don't you order a pizza?" she shouted absent-mindedly. And they were all happy.
And the moral is: Run with those heavy drafting periods as far as you can because they don't last long and nobody ever died from a dirty carpet.
But I really must add a harsher fable, too, one more in line with Aesop's, called, The Writer in Debt:
Once there was a writer who was so in love with her work that she quit her job and ignored her family and let her house fall apart and left her children to raise themselves. She never chatted with her friends, never made love to her husband, never played with her children, and never paid a bill. Eventually she stopped bathing, talking, or even looking away from her manuscript.
After months and months of this selfish behaviour, her husband took the children and moved to a new house. The writer was evicted from her pigsty and left to wander the streets alone looking for somewhere to plug in her laptop.
And the moral is: There's more to life than books, you know.
And that's it for this Friday's fable.
Now I'm back to my draft. I'm almost done — and I still have a week of March left!
I better get more peanut butter.
Filed under: Friday Fables, writing Tagged: aesop's fables, creative process, YA novel








March 13, 2012
Dear Disappointed Fan
I received two letters from readers last week. The first was a thankful email from the parent of a reluctant reader, an 11-year-old girl who read Walking Backward and really engaged with the story. That was such a nice letter to receive! I answered it with a thankful email of my own.
The second letter was an anonymous typewritten page sent to my publisher accusing me of "picking on fat people" in All Good Children. That was not a nice letter to receive! It wasn't a complete surprise – I knew my mouthy narrator would offend some readers. And it was kind of fascinating — I'm interested in how a text is rewritten by readers. But mostly it felt like an anonymous bucket of poop dropped on my doorstep.
This blog post is my response to that "disappointed fan." It's a long letter aimed at one reader. If you're not her, feel free to ignore it.
Dear disappointed fan,
I was sorry to read your letter about my teen novel, All Good Children. Normally I would not answer an anonymous letter, but I suspect we are acquainted in some way, and I'd like to respond to your accusations.
I understand that you are hurt and angered by the portrayal of overweight people in my book. The book is set in a time and place where great emphasis is placed on looks, and it is narrated by a boy who thinks insulting things about all the people who wield power over him. The scorn with which Max calls some people "fat" is deliberate – a deliberate choice I made in developing my character. And I knew when I made that choice that the insult would hit some readers harder than others. (The same goes for the hatred with which some characters in the book call others "faggot.") Some readers will feel themselves insulted every time the insult is used in the book.
I know what it's like to be sensitive to certain issues, insults, and stereotypes, to the point where you feel outraged every time they come up, regardless of context. Everywhere you go, someone is making fun of someone else, and if you've ever borne the brunt of such insults, every new example of it is infuriating because it's all part of the same cruel mindset that ruins people's lives. I get that.
But I also get that sensitivity colours our perception. The text we read is not the text on the page, but the text interpreted by what we bring to it. And when you are keenly sensitive to an issue, you bring a lot to the text that isn't actually on the page.
(I also know what it's like to be incensed by something I've read and then have someone suggest, "Do you think you might be so upset because of [insert personal issues here]?" That annoys me terribly. But over the years I have come to accept that sometimes I really am so upset because of [insert personal issues here]. Sometimes I go a little crazy in my accusations only to have someone point out that actually I have it all wrong.)
So here goes…
You are wrong in claiming that "all the really nasty characters" in my book are fat – or that all the fat characters in my book are nasty. Neither of these is true.
The nastiest people in the book are the aggressive homophobic Richmonds, Dallas's father and brother, both of whom are physically fit and neither of whom Max mocks based on their looks.
The next nastiest are the racist kids, Washington and Tyler. Washington is tall and fit, and Max does not mock his appearance. Tyler is tall but thin and Max mocks him as "skeletal" and "bony."
The next nastiest are the nurse Linda (who is one of the mothers at the football game), the substitute teacher Mr. Warton aka Werewolf, and the principal Mr. Graham. The principal and the nurse are both overweight and Max mocks their weight. Mr. Warton is slim but unusually hairy, and Max mocks him for his excessive body hair. Max insults all these nasty characters for their habits and personalities as well as their looks.
So, though you "couldn't help noticing" all the nasty fat characters, there are actually only two: Linda and Mr. Graham. There are a lot of nasty characters in the book, but the majority are not fat. Perhaps you did not notice them because Max doesn't mock their size (except Tyler's thinness because it is beyond what the culture aspires to). Instead, where they have other physical "flaws," he mocks those. And where they don't have physical "flaws" he doesn't mention their appearance. But they are nasty nonetheless.
Most of the overweight characters in the book are not nasty at all. The security guard at the beginning of the story is not "really nasty," as you suggest. She is just a woman doing her job. In fact, I'd say she's extraordinarily patient to deal with a passenger like Max without being rude to him. The same goes for the man on the airplane across the aisle from Max – he is fat but not nasty. Rather, he's pleasant and friendly. Max does not like either of these people – the guard because she is frisking him and the man because he is chatting up Max's mother – but they are not nasty.
Because of the first person narration, you see these characters from Max's point of view, and he views them scornfully as "fat." It's no coincidence that these scenes are at the beginning of the story, when Max is at his most arrogant, feeling superior to everyone around him and comfortable in his elite position. His behaviour in these scenes is obnoxious and his thoughts are insulting. It is not so much a case of my using overweight characters as "an easy stereotype for villains," as you suggest. It's more Max who is the stereotype: he is the sort of kid who makes fun of fat people.
(But actually Max is not as mouthy as he likes to think – in first person narration, the gap between what characters do and how they are presented applies as well to the narrator. But that's another issue….)
So the first scenes include two overweight people who are not nasty but who are portrayed scornfully by the narrator. Later in the book, there are other overweight characters whom Max likes or is indifferent to – Xavier's parents, Max's teammate Bay, the reporter who likes Max's art – and Max calls these people "large" or "big" and does not mock them at all because they don't wield any power over him. None of them is nasty, either. You may not notice their weight or their character because Max does not portray them scornfully as "fat" and so they don't trigger the same reaction in you.
All tolled, the book has a lot of characters who are nasty and a lot of characters who are overweight, but the two categories don't overlap in the way you suggest. Where they do overlap – in Linda and Mr. Graham – Max is very nasty about their weight. I wrote this deliberately, not to insult overweight readers but to portray my narrator's mind. Max is an arrogant teenage athlete in a fictional world in which embryo selection has entrenched the ties between looks and status, and his own looks mark him as being of lower status than others. (He is unusually short and is mocked by others because of it, e.g., repeatedly called "midget.") He is among the elite yet not quite "fit," and he places exceptional emphasis on body size, both his own – he assumes that everyone looking at him is thinking he's too short – and others'.
Am I "picking on fat people" by having a narrator describe some overweight characters cruelly? I don't think so. Authors are not their characters. Yes, I deliberately developed a main character who thinks insulting things about others and yes, I deliberately developed overweight characters for him to think insulting things about. But a sweet compassionate narrator who puts himself in other people's shoes would not work in this book. I needed a protagonist who was the sort of kid that people want to medicate for better behaviour, one with a mocking sense of humour, one who doesn't care about what is done to other people until his own number comes up.
I could have gone Hollywood and had no overweight characters for Max to pick on, or I could have gone schmaltzy and had a smart-mouthed teenage narrator who miraculously has nothing insulting to say about overweight people in authority, or I could have gone politically correct and had all of the overweight characters be nice and only slim characters be nasty. But I did not make those choices because they are not realistic to me.
Does that mean I care more about my writing than my readers' sensitivities? Could be. Yes. When I write, I do not think about making readers feel good or bad. I think about crafting an authentic voice. I don't use footnotes telling readers how to interpret what the narrator says or differentiating my views from those of a character. I know that readers bring their own background to a story, and there will be always readers who confuse author and character. That's just the risk of writing, especially in first person. You have to accept that risk and write your own truth anyway. The book I wrote will never be the book someone else reads. It is certainly not the book you read.
Your letter stands out as the craziest I have received from a reader. I had a nasty letter from a woman who complained that atheists shouldn't write for children, after she read Walking Backward, which has an atheistic narrator. Like you, she felt personally attacked and tried to school me on human dignity. Like you, she assumed she knew my beliefs and even what I was thinking as I read her letter. But she didn't ask if I thought Christians were "incapable of human decency," as you suggest I feel about fat people. Nor did she get cute, as in your question, "Have you suffered horrible atrocities at the hands of fat people?" And she signed her name. So your letter tops hers for crazy. (And I'm not even touching your closing statement about how I "should be grateful" that I don't know what it's like….)
I'm good with many types of crazy, but I'm not so good with anonymous accusations from people who think they know me because they interpret my writing a certain way. Your letter is way out there. And it's mistaken.
But since you felt sad by reading my book, we could call each other even. (Don't get sadder and write me another. Seriously.)
Filed under: authors, teen novels, writing Tagged: all good children, creative process, fictional characters, how to read a book








February 29, 2012
What’s New: March Madness
If you need help keeping to a daily word count – or sticking to any other writing or reading goal - and you just can’t wait till November, think about joining March Madness. AKA an Almost-Nano Challenge.
Open to writers, readers, bloggers, and illustrators who want to set some goals for the month and openly admit to the world whether they are even remotely keeping them. With plenty of opportunity to cheer on fellow writers &C. With prize opps, too. And the best thing is, you don’t even have to stick to your goals to win the prizes. You can stop by a March Madness blog to cheer on more disciplined writers, then go putz around for the day while your WIP wallows, and you could still win a prize! Awesome! This is the challenge for me.
So I stopped by Denise Jaden’s blog (She wrote Losing Faith. I voted for it on the SCBWI Crystal Kite nomination thingy. If you haven’t read it, you could make reading it one of your March goals and then win a prize just for reading it. Easy peasy.) So anyway…. I took step one of March Madness: state the goal you intend to achieve during the month.
Yes, I bared my goals to the world. Sort of. Actually, I kept them fairly vague: ”Finish one WIP.” (I didn’t even identify which WIP – but I know which one I mean.) Sounds simple. The hard part is my commitment to “not set any more goals for the month until I’m done that one.”
Ouch. That is going to be tough. Because I really like to follow up 6 months of achieving diddly squat with a stellar month in which I:
finish drafting one teen novel;
finish revisions on another teen novel;
polish my latest middle grade novel;
draft two picture books;
submit the pile of manuscripts teetering on top of my file cabinet;
detail the outline of a historical novel for adults; and
finish my research on said historical novel.
That was pretty much my list of goals for February. And January. And last December…
I’m starting to suspect that the reason I achieved diddly squat during the past 6 months is that I have too many goals. So many that I can switch from one to another whenever I’m bored or antsy, yet still feel like I’m on track ”working toward my goals.” Even if I’m never actually completing any.

I will not stray.
That is a recurrent problem in my life. And one I intend to face this month. My March motto is: Don’t stray from the path. And March Madness will help me live it large. Accountability, i.e., the risk of being publicly shamed, should keep me on track. (Or not. We’ll see. I’ve never signed up for any of these things before and there’s a good chance I’ll drop out by, oh, March 3rd, but what the heck.)
I hope some others join in the month’s madness. Today is goal-setting day. (But no worries if you join tomorrow or even mid-month, so long as you come with a goal in hand.) Visit Denise Jaden’s blog to sign up your goals and find out where to check in through the month to tell us how you’re doing.
Good luck. (And thanks to Deb Marshall for posting about this accountability opportunity.)
Filed under: What's New, writing Tagged: creative process, editing, goal setting, march madness, procrastination, writing








What's New: March Madness
If you need help keeping to a daily word count – or sticking to any other writing or reading goal - and you just can't wait till November, think about joining March Madness. AKA an Almost-Nano Challenge.
Open to writers, readers, bloggers, and illustrators who want to set some goals for the month and openly admit to the world whether they are even remotely keeping them. With plenty of opportunity to cheer on fellow writers &C. With prize opps, too. And the best thing is, you don't even have to stick to your goals to win the prizes. You can stop by a March Madness blog to cheer on more disciplined writers, then go putz around for the day while your WIP wallows, and you could still win a prize! Awesome! This is the challenge for me.
So I stopped by Denise Jaden's blog (She wrote Losing Faith. I voted for it on the SCBWI Crystal Kite nomination thingy. If you haven't read it, you could make reading it one of your March goals and then win a prize just for reading it. Easy peasy.) So anyway…. I took step one of March Madness: state the goal you intend to achieve during the month.
Yes, I bared my goals to the world. Sort of. Actually, I kept them fairly vague: "Finish one WIP." (I didn't even identify which WIP – but I know which one I mean.) Sounds simple. The hard part is my commitment to "not set any more goals for the month until I'm done that one."
Ouch. That is going to be tough. Because I really like to follow up 6 months of achieving diddly squat with a stellar month in which I:
finish drafting one teen novel;
finish revisions on another teen novel;
polish my latest middle grade novel;
draft two picture books;
submit the pile of manuscripts teetering on top of my file cabinet;
detail the outline of a historical novel for adults; and
finish my research on said historical novel.
That was pretty much my list of goals for February. And January. And last December…
I'm starting to suspect that the reason I achieved diddly squat during the past 6 months is that I have too many goals. So many that I can switch from one to another whenever I'm bored or antsy, yet still feel like I'm on track "working toward my goals." Even if I'm never actually completing any.

I will not stray.
That is a recurrent problem in my life. And one I intend to face this month. My March motto is: Don't stray from the path. And March Madness will help me live it large. Accountability, i.e., the risk of being publicly shamed, should keep me on track. (Or not. We'll see. I've never signed up for any of these things before and there's a good chance I'll drop out by, oh, March 3rd, but what the heck.)
I hope some others join in the month's madness. Today is goal-setting day. (But no worries if you join tomorrow or even mid-month, so long as you come with a goal in hand.) Visit Denise Jaden's blog to sign up your goals and find out where to check in through the month to tell us how you're doing.
Good luck. (And thanks to Deb Marshall for posting about this accountability opportunity.)
Filed under: What's New, writing Tagged: creative process, editing, goal setting, march madness, procrastination, writing








February 24, 2012
Friday Fable: The Writer who Cried Bestseller
You probably know the old fable, The Boy who cried Wolf:
Once there was a shepherd who was bored out of his skull. He slept most of the day and daydreamed the rest of it. Once in a while, he counted the sheep. The boy suspected that the villagers considered him a dullard. He suspected the sheep considered him a dullard. And sometimes he wondered himself.
One day, the boy looked at the quiet field and thought, "A wolf could really liven things up around here."
It's possible that the boy honestly mistook the black sheep for a wolf. However it happened, he ran into the village screaming, "Wolf! Wolf!" The villagers grabbed their weapons and rushed out to defend the flock. But there was no wolf in sight and every sheep was accounted for. The villagers went home grumbling.
Three days later, the boy had done nothing but count sheep, and he craved attention even worse than before. He ran to the village lying through his teeth, "Wolf! The biggest wolf you've ever seen!" The villagers raced to help. But there was no wolf in sight and every sheep was accounted for. The villagers went home angry.
The boy thought about spending the rest of his life in this field where even the sheep ignored him, and he just couldn't stand one more second. He began to cry.
While he was crying, the sheep began to bleat. A pack of huge hungry wolves headed straight for the field! The boy raced to the village shrieking, "Wolf! They're eating the whole flock!"
"We're sick of your lies," the villagers said. "Go back to the sheep, you dullard." And so the sheep were eaten, the villagers felt stupid, and the boy became a minstrel known far and wide as Lying Larry with his Singing Lambs.
And the moral is: Once you're known as a liar, no one will believe you even if you're telling the truth.
That is a good old tale. But if Aesop were a modern slave to the written word, he might have called his story, The Writer who cried Bestseller:
Once there was a writer who barely wrote anything. He drank coffee and scribbled ideas on notepads. Once in a while, he drafted something, but mostly he wrote blog posts about the difficulties of writing. The writer suspected that editors considered him a lame ass. He suspected other writers considered him a lame ass. And sometimes he wondered himself.
One day, the writer checked his empty inbox and thought, "A bestseller could really liven things up around here."
It's possible that the writer honestly mistook his first attempt at a children's story as a potential bestseller. However it happened, he wrote in his query, "My easy reader is like Elephant and Piggie meet Frog and Toad. Dyslexic kids especially love to read it. I have a Ph.D. in Early Literacy and I've published 47 picture books under the pseudonyms Frank Asch and Margaret Wise Brown." A gullible intern requested the manuscript. The writer fired it off with a post-it reading, "Better snap this up soon!!!" When the story arrived, it was wordy, clunky, and dull. The intern rejected it with a form letter.
One year later, the writer had written only 125 new words (plus 365 blog posts), and he craved attention even worse than before. He resurrected a novel he'd written in his teens, though he knew it was badly conceived and poorly executed. "It's Harry Potter at the Hunger Games," he wrote in his query. "Hilarious, gripping, with a love interest that will ignite your shorts. I have two offers from other houses, but I've always wanted to work with you guys." The gullible intern, who had since become a gullible editor, requested the manuscript. The writer fired it off with a post-it reading, "You have a two-week exclusive!!!" When the story arrived, it was idiotic and unreadable. The editor rejected it with a form letter.
The writer thought about spending the rest of his life alone in the blogosphere writing endless analyses of his few lousy first drafts, and he just couldn't stand one more second. He began to cry. Then he began to write. He cried and he wrote for an entire year, then he cried and revised for another year. Finally, he polished his words and thought, "Holy smokes, this is really good!" He asked a few established authors for comments, and they offered suggestions and endorsements. The writer fired off a query saying, "Margaret Atwood calls my novel "moving and insightful" and Paul Auster says, "I wish I'd written it myself." (And it was really true this time.)
The editor wrote back, "I'm sick of your lies. Go back to your blog, you lame ass." And so the writer got an agent who sold his novel to another house, the editor felt stupid, and the book was a great success.
And the moral is: Work your lame ass off and write a good book, not an ad campaign.

Tone down the ad campaign. Honestly.
And on the off chance you can't get Paul or Margaret to endorse your book, write a decent honest query letter to go with it.
If you want a second opinon on your query letter, consult the blogosphere for help. One of the awesome writers in my picture book critique group, Ishta Mercurio, has begun a weekly Wednesday query critique on her blog, Musings of a Restless Mind. It's tailored exclusively to picture book queries, so if you write for young minds, send Ishta your draft query letter and she'll give you her advice. For novel queries, Ishta suggests consulting the Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment.
But write a decent book first. Honestly.
Filed under: Friday Fables, writing Tagged: aesop's fables, children's books, lies, procrastination, query letters







