Jacqueline West's Blog, page 7

36 days to go

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

I’ve just finished my most grueling revision yet (mostly grueling due to time constraints, not to the actual work involved, although there was PLENTY of that, too), and THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, VOLUME FOUR is back with the amazing editor.  This means that I get to return to my other work-in-progress.  I spent yesterday afternoon and most of this morning rereading the entire thing, and I’ve just started scribbling my way into new territory.  Moving to a completely different project at this point feels delightful.  It’s like I’ve been eating nothing but pineapple for the last eight weeks–and I love pineapple–but now I’m finally getting to eat raspberries instead.  And raspberries have never tasted better.

Red Wing’s own Soapbox Players has also just finished the run of Alan Ayckburn’s “How the Other Half Loves,” a 1970′s comedy with the trickiest blocking I’ve ever had to master, and it was a blast getting to work with such a passionate group of theatre-folk.   Tonight we strike the set, which always feels rather sad.  Here’s the cast, in all our tacky 70′s glory:

(Please note the fondue pot.)

In a bit of delightful ELSEWHERE news, I just learned that THE SHADOWS has been nominated for the 2013 Grand Canyon Reader Award, which means that young readers in Arizona can vote for it to win the prize. It’s in amazing company, and I am thrilled.  Thanks to all the educators and organizers who make programs like this possible.

41 (and -1) days

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

As of yesterday, SPELLBOUND is available in paperback for your purchasing pleasure!  You can order it here via IndieBound , or you can find it/ask for it at your local bookstore, or of course you can find it on Amazon.  Yippee!

I let out an even louder ‘yippee’ when this arrived at my house yesterday: My sample copy of THE SECOND SPY, in hardcover.  The photo does not do justice to how shiny and wondrous it is in person.

Just 41 days to go!

And, because it’s Friday, here’s the Friday photo clue:

(This is called “Museum Cat,” and it’s by an artist named Jimmie Trotter.  But you all know who it really is…)

Only 43 days left? It’s almost anoetic!

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

In general, I try not to rely on a thesaurus while I’m writing.  I’ve found that, unless you already have a very clear idea of the type of word you need, staring at a list of not-always-exact synonyms with all their sneaky connotations and roots and sounds will only lead you astray.  However, I do love the thesaurus for those moments when you know there’s a word that starts with “m” and it means something like fake or cheap, but your brain is refusing to give up the goods.

So, the other day, I fell down a thesaurus hole (and I would guess that thesauri would dig rather large holes) while I was on just such a quest, and I found a list of synonyms for “surprised” that were so strange I was sure that some of them must be fake.  Someone must have hacked into the online thesaurus and added these words, I thought to myself, like I saw my high school students do with Wikipedia. (The town where I taught was famous for being the home of several of my 11th graders.)  But it turns out that these wonderful words were real.  The first–anoetic–which actually means ‘unthinkable’ (and which isn’t recognized by WordPress’s spell check, apparently), sounded familiar.  The next, blutterbunged, had that too-perfect-to-be-true sound to it, and it’s an antiquated adjective that means exactly what it should mean.  A ferly is a Scottish adjective or noun meaning something strange and amazing and unexpected.  Best of all was gloppened–which is a form of the verb gloppen, meaning to surprise or frighten someone.  You can be a gloppener.  You can do something gloppeningly.  You can have said something gloppenedly.

For some reason, this makes me ridiculously happy.

And just for fun, here’s Brom on the porch, disemboweling a new toy.

 

48 days

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

Here’s the next visual clue to the contents of THE SECOND SPY…

(It will make sense if you read the book, I promise.)

 

Lots of other good news to share:

First, my twisted little story, “Miss Pipperman’s Parrot,” has just been accepted by The School Magazine, the oldest children’s publication in Australia!  No word yet on when it will appear, but I’ll be thrilled whenever it does.

Second, I received word that my poetry chapbook, Cherma, was selected as a finalist for the 2012 Eric Hoffer Award.

Third, I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble Galleria in Edina, MN for Concord Elementary’s book fair tomorrow — that’s Saturday, May 19 – at 11:00 a.m., to read, sign, and chat.

Now I’m off to water some lettuce seedlings.

The countdown continues: 51 days

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

I am a failure at this daily blogging thing.  However, my failure is making this countdown to THE SECOND SPY go a lot faster.  (Only 51 days left? It seems like just one entry ago there were 55…)

Today’s F.A.Q.: How old were you when you started writing?

This is my very first rejection letter.  It came from Highlights Magazine, and I just rediscovered it last fall, glued into my oldest scrapbook amid a lot of My Little Pony and Care Bears birthday cards.  Of course, Highlights handles submissions from kids very kindly, so it wasn’t so much a rejection as a “Don’t call us; we’ll call you” sort of letter, but the outcome was the same.  I’d sent them some little four-line rhyming poem–I think there were cows in it–and I was trying to write something that the magazine would like, not that I liked. 

You can see the date, typewritten at the top: December 30, 1987.   The day after my eighth birthday.

The poem I sent to Highlights is the first poem that I can recall putting on paper outside of school, on my own, just because I wanted to.  I started writing my first “book” not too long afterward: It was a lavish mess about a rebellious princess who ran away from her kingdom and ended up in a valley full of unicorns (as one does, if one is a rebellious princess).  I didn’t show that story to anyone.  And I didn’t show anyone my next story (which was probably also about unicorns), or my next poem, or the story after that, or the poem after that.  And I didn’t submit my writing to any kind of publication for another eight years.

By then I had written dozens of poems and stories.  And I had gotten a little bit better at it.

 

55 days – and Second Spy Clue #1

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

The wait time is dwindling…

And here is the first visual clue of what to expect within THE SECOND SPY.

56 days

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

Today’s accomplishments: Typing and cleaning up more than 4,000 words of the current version of Volume Four, and smacking a wasp that had gotten into the house before Brom could eat it.

Today’s frequently-asked question: How many books have you written?

If the questioner means, ‘How many books have you written that have been published, the answer is: 2, with #3 coming soon (or #4, if you count my chapbook of poetry.)

If the questioner means, ‘How many books have you written, published or not, the answer is: I couldn’t possibly count them.  I’m currently revising two books, and I have two more waiting in the wings with their early chapters and notes.  And, back in my practicing days, I wrote an adult novel, a series of graphic novels, and dozens–perhaps hundreds–of novels that end at Chapter 3, where the writing started to get hard, and I gave up.

Here’s a picture that I sometimes show at schools:

All of those binders and notebooks are full of my writing: hundreds of poems, dozens of short stories, and many novels — some finished, and some that never will be finished. There is another row of binders that can’t be seen on the shelf up above, and another stack of currently-in-use books and folders sits on my desk.  I’ve never counted to see when and where I reached a million words (Ray Bradbury once said, “If you want to be a writer, write a million words,” which I think is pretty good advice) but I’m sure that most of those first million are here, in these folders.  And I’m grateful that no one will ever get to read most of them.

 

57 days

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

I spent yesterday having an amazing time with the 4th graders at Mosinee Middle School in Mosinee, Wisconsin (thanks again, students and teachers!), and hurried home to Red Wing just in time to be late for rehearsal with Soapbox Players.  This is my excuse for yesterday’s postlessness.  Today’s will have to be a short one too, as I’m squeezed between revisions and appointments and more rehearsals.  As an apology, here’s a picture of Brom, in the sunniest corner of the couch.

 

There (and there, and there, and there) and back again

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

I’ve just returned from a two-week tour with three other middle grade authors, one brilliant improv actor, and a revolving cast of wonderful book reps, media escorts, and publicity folk.  En masse, we visited schools in Texas, California, and New York (thanks again to Visitation Academy and Eanes, Barton Hills, Sycamore, Fairlands, Los Alamitos, Santa Rita, and Covington elementary schools!), unfolded an incredibly collapsible set, and performed our “Endangered Authors” game show, as created by the Story Pirates.  After each stop, we’d pile back into our van like a bunch of bookish vikings and sail off to invade the next school.  We also made stops at Mrs. Nelson’s Toy and Book Shop, Hicklebee’s, and Vroman’s Bookstore in California, signed books for one sunny, breezy afternoon at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival (I saw Betty White!  From a great distance!  But that counts!), had dinner with Judy Blume and John Green and the rest of the Penguin Young Readers Group, and spoke on a panel and chatted with librarians at the Texas Library Association convention.

(Mid-show, at Eanes Elementary School. L to R: Adam Gidwitz, E.J. Altbacker, Jacqueline West, C. Alexander London, and Peter McNerney)

 

(Blurry writers gnawing ribs, in Austin)

 

(Playing stickball between school visits in California)

 

All of these hotels and dinners and run-ins with famous authors are so very, very different from my real writing life, which mostly involves shuffling around my house in wrinkled pajamas and dirty eyeglasses, microwaving a third cup of coffee.  I miss my tour cohorts, who were so marvelous that they made two weeks of crowded van rides feel like fun–and anyone who gets the chance to see the Story Pirates, Adam Gidwitz, C.Alexander London, or E.J. Altbacker in action absolutely should.  But I am also glad to get back to revising Volume Four, planning my garden, and catching up with Brom Bones, who had quite a lot to tell me when I came home.

Apparently, Brom grew increasingly nervous and naughty while I was gone.  On the last day of the tour, he tore apart two wastebaskets and ate a box of Crayola crayons.  (According to Ryan, afterward, he pooped rainbows.)

It’s hard to believe, but there are now just two months (and two days) until the release of THE SECOND SPY.  The paperback release of SPELLBOUND on May 24th is even closer.

With so much good fortune all at once, this almost seems like overkill, but I’ve just learned that THE SHADOWS has been selected for the 2012-2013 Sunshine State Young Readers Award list for grades 3 – 5.  Huge thanks to everyone who made this happen.

 

 

 

The Big Spring Tour! (and a bit about Dumpsters.)

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

I had this mini-conversation at the Post Office yesterday, where I was mailing a package of signed books.

Postal Worker: These things are headed the way of the Dumpster.

Me (with slight concern, thinking she was referring to anything sent via "Media Mail" these days):  What?

Postal Worker: Everybody's got their Kindle now.

Me:  Oh.  Yes.  I suppose so.

Postal Worker: My nine-year-old granddaughter, she's always reading on that little screen.  I love books, myself.

Me: Yeah… So do I.

And then I walked away, feeling vaguely sad and disoriented, thinking of copies of my books being cheerily tossed into Dumpsters by house-cleaning Kindle-owners.

I suppose it's true that Kindles and Nooks and iPads are taking the place of paper books — when it comes to certain books and certain readers, at least.  They are handy and speedy and trendy (and dubiously eco-conscious), and there's not much point in bemoaning their existence, whatever their pros or cons.  But here's the thing: They're headed the way of the Dumpster too.

Just like phonographs, and record players, and Walkmans (Walkmen?), and CDs, and eventually, iPods.  Just like those weird, boxy, early-days mobile phones that are approximately the size of a man's penny loafer.

Someday, Kindles and Nooks and other e-readers will be outdated items that no one can repair or supply with media anymore.  And on that day, books–all the books left in the world–will still work.

When I was in England with my college choir, we visited a medieval church where a monk showed us the oldest book in the church's collection.  It had been handwritten by that very same church's monks sometime in the 10th century.  It was a thick volume with a plain, graying cover, and he opened its pages to show us the squarish, black-and-red calligraphy that had come from those monks' pens, recording the Latin chants they had sung more than a thousand years ago.  It was like a line strung through time, straight back to those medieval men squinting over their tables with their candles and quills.  I cried.  And on the day when the last e-reader is sold, supplanted by some new form of technology, that book from the 10th century will still be serving its function–being read, and making some other sentimental choirgirl cry.  I hope.

Speaking of books and ways to get them, I am about to embark on a multi-state, multi-author tour.  C. Alexander London (An Accidental Adventure), Adam Gidwitz (A Tale Dark and Grimm), E.J. Altbacker (Shark Wars) and yours truly are heading off on what the Penguin publicity department has named the "Endangered Authors Tour" — a game-show themed program planned and hosted by performers from Story Pirates — visiting schools and bookstores in Texas, California, and New York.  Craziness will surely ensue.

If you'd like to catch us for a signing on the road, here's the current itinerary.  Public events are in bold.

April 18: Texas Library Association Convention, Houston, TX.  Panel: "Thrill Masters" – 10:15 a.m.  In-booth signings for the rest of the afternoon.
April 20: Eanes Elementary and Barton Hills Elementary, Austin, TX.
April 22: Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Los Angeles, CA.  Signing, 2:00 p.m.
April 23: Sycamore Elementary, Claremont, CA.
April 23: Mrs. Nelson's Toy and Book Shop, La Verne, CA.  Reception and signing, 5:00 p.m.
April 24: Fairlands School, Pleasanton, CA.
April 24: Hicklebee's, San Jose, CA.  Reception and signing, 3:00 p.m.
April 25: Santa Rita School and Covington Elementary, Los Altos, CA.
April 26: New York, NY.  School visit/bookstore info to come!