Bryce Moore's Blog, page 275

My Son Is Eight! Random Thoughts on Being a Father

Hard to believe that my son is eight already. It seems like not that long ago that we were bringing him home from the hospital. Of course, when I think about everything that's happened since then, it's clear that a lot of time has gone by.



It's getting tricky at times to do birthdays for the boy. Mainly because I'm in competition with myself. Over the years, I've done a lot of things on his birthday. One year, I made a whole treasure hunt event that took him all over creation. It took something like seven hours to finish. But I'd done it because we had company in town, and we wanted to do some other things--like go antiquing and to some of the stores downtown. I didn't want to have TRC feel like all he'd done was go to boring stores all day, so I came up with the scavenger hunt idea. It worked wonderfully.



Except that every year since, he's been looking for really elaborate celebrations. This time around, he kept coming up to me with random things he'd found around the house, wondering if they were clues that would start him off on another adventure. But since I've been just laid out with one thing after another for the past ever, I haven't had enough time to design anything elaborate. And then I feel bad that I wasn't able to do more.



But hey--we're getting a pet for him. That ought to make up for some of it, right? (More info on the pet to come in the days ahead. Not a dog. Or a cat. Or a hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, rabbit, fish--in fact, if I haven't told you what he's getting already, I'm willing to bet there's no way you can guess it. He's very excited.)



It's a fine line to walk--doing things to make your children feel special and loved, but not making them feel like they're the end all be all of existence. (Because TRC and DC can both get to acting that way from time to time.) There are all sorts of other tight ropes to walk. Challenging them to grow, but still emphasizing that they're good and worthwhile as they are. (TRC told me the other day offhandedly, "It's not like I'm the kind of kid who gets A+'s all the time, Dad." And I wanted to agree and disagree with him at the same time. He shouldn't feel like he fails if he doesn't, but he's a really bright kid--and he can definitely do well in school. I ended up saying nothing.)



There are no do-overs with kids. You get the ones you get, and the way you raise them is kind of final. I'm constantly evaluating choices I make now for both my kids in light of how those choices will affect them down the road. Maybe I overthink it, but then again, I overthink pretty much everything. It'd be a shame to make a mistake with my children, just because I didn't take the time to think things through. (Especially when I think through what my next Netflix movie should be five times before I finally move one up in the queue.)



In any case, so far, so good. I think both of my kids are awesome, although I realize I'm naturally inclined to think that. TRC ended up rating his birthday day a 9 out of 10, which means I did a pretty good job, in spite of the lack of treasure hunts. What did I end up doing? Letting him choose whatever he wanted to do for the day (other than go to school or not--that part was mandatory). So we ate pizza, watched Mythbusters, played board games, had cake, and watched Beyblades. Life is good, when you're eight.



Anyway--about out of time for the day--just wanted to wish TRC one more happy birthday.[image error]

Vodnik Chapter Commentaries: Chapter Two

Welcome to Monday, which means another installment in my chapter commentaries for Vodnik. Basically, I get to let you see some of my writing process in these each week--talking about what changes went into the novel as it meandered its way to publication. This was a chapter that originally spanned two and a half chapters. Why did it go on a crash diet to come to its current slender form of one chapter?



Because it did a whole bunch of things that other chapters were already doing.



For one thing, it had Tomas sit around his house and mope a lot. I don't know what I was thinking. Probably just gearing up for bigger and better things later on, I guess. (I didn't have an outline when I started this book. Only a vague idea of the direction I was headed. I did that a lot on my earlier books. And the natural result of this approach is that sometimes I have to write to figure things out. I still do this to an extent--I write to discover exactly who my main characters are, toying with different voices and personalities, refining things as I go. This means that sometimes a character will change mid-scene, mid-book. Sometimes I go back and change the character in earlier chapters--often I just pretend I did that and plow forward. (You can lose a lot of writing momentum if you keep insisting on making your earlier chapters match how you've changed things in later chapters. These days, I usually pretend the changes are there, then make all changes in one big fell swoop, once the draft is completed. By then, I know all the characters really well, and it's easy to just get them in line with who they became, not who they were.))



In any case, nobody really needs to read about characters being mopey for two and a half chapters--and certainly not at the start of the novel. Tomas was sad he was leaving. He was sad he was packing. He was sad he had a crummy apartment.



There was a brief moment of excitement when he saw the castle for the first time. Originally, he sees the castle at night, on his way to his apartment. I was actually quite happy with the description. Trencin Castle is easier to see and describe from afar, as opposed to the way it's introduced in Vodnik now--up close. But emotionally, it made Tomas feel a bit like a yo-yo. He moped and moped and moped, then CASTLE!!! Yay! And then five minutes later, back to moping. Since the castle got introduced a chapter later anyway, there was no need to have it in there twice.



The more I worked on the book, the clearer it became that the goal was to get Tomas to Slovakia ASAP. To get him to start working on not being mopey. To get him to start making progress. So 2.5 chapters became 1.[image error]

Official Vodnik T-Shirt Preview

Just got the proofs of the t-shirt in while I was off gallivanting at the circus earlier today. They look just plain awesome, so I had to share it with you all. (Plus, I have a raging headache, so it's easier to post this than do a full blown blog post for the day. The circus was lovely, by the by--just long and loud. But TRC and DC had a great time. Maybe I'll be up for a full post on that on Monday--we'll see.)



In the meantime--here are the t-shirts:









I'm really happy with how they're looking. The front will be glow in the dark. I've ordered 24 shirts in this run, and of those, 5 or so are already spoken for. I've had a lot of interest in them--if these sell out, I'll get more for next time. I didn't want to be left with a plethora of t-shirts kicking around.




I'm not making these to make money--they're supposed to be a way for me to promote the book and share the love with fans, so I'll be keeping prices down as best as I can. I haven't gotten the final bill yet, but I'd like to sell them in the $10-$15 range--as close to $10 as possible. We'll see how much they end up costing me. Shipping will be as reasonable as I can make it.




I think once they arrive, I'll have to do a contest to give one away . . . 




Anyway--what do you all think? You like?

Flying Solo--Four Days, Two Children, One Dad

Denisa's off in Bangor for the next four days, leaving me here with the kidlets while she helps run youth conference (a church activity for kids 14-18). Not that I'm complaining. I'd much rather be the one here with the 2 kids than the one there were the 100. :-)



So what's up on the agenda for me and TRC and DC? Today we might take an exhilarating trip to the dump to drop off some garbage. We might follow that with a rousing house cleaning, and perhaps a jaunt to the grocery store. Rumor has it there's still some discounted Easter candy, and that's exactly the sort of rumor that needs to be explored.



In the meantime, I'm crouched in front of my computer, trying my darndest to figure out what makes my new narrator tick. It's driving me more than a little batty. Good thing I'm off to the circus tomorrow with the kids. That should distract me much better than all the cleaning that's on the docket today.



The glamorous life of an author, folks. Living the dream.



In other news, I have to make dinner for the next four days. And I can't just have cereal (which is what I would have if I were just by myself). For some reason, Denisa seems to think cereal and milk isn't "nutritious"--whatever that means. And I do agree that feeding the kids nothing but cereal for four days straight probably isn't the best choice I could make.



Which leads me to look over the other arrows in my quiver. Mac and cheese? I already tried SpaghettiO's on them the other month, and neither of them liked it. Maybe tuna sandwiches? I also make a mean batch of pancakes.



Let's face it. Cereal might be one of the most nutritious options available to me. :-)



Wish me luck!

Why Netflix Might Be Ruining Everything, and What I Plan to Do About It

Denisa and I watched Make Mine Mink the other day (the third Terry-Thomas film I'd watched in a row. Thinking about writing a character like Terry-Thomas. He's so agreeably oily in his movie roles. Very distinctively British. I think a lot of people do Terry-Thomas impersonations without even knowing that's who they're impersonating.)



The movie was a ton of fun--a tale about a group of roommates who decide to start robbing fur stores and giving their profits to charity. It's light hearted and just plain enjoyable. A really strong three star film. It also got me thinking.



Not about the film itself--it isn't That Sort of Film. Rather, I thought about my experiences at my family cabin growing up. My cousins and I would all get together and go up there multiple times a year, and while we were there, we'd eat a ton of unhealthy food, play a slew of games, and watch far more movies than we ought to have.



It was a blast.


The movies were supplied and collected by my grandmother, and they were very good films. To this day, I see some movies and immediately think, "That would be a great Cabin movie." To qualify for this distinction, the film has to be rewatchable above all else. When you only have fifty or so movies to choose from, you better be sure all those movies are heavy hitters. (Examples? The Sting, Butch Cassidy, How to Succeed in Business, Sound of Music--to this day, I can still rattle off the movies that were in that collection, even though it burned down more than five years ago.)



Make Mine Mink would fit perfectly.



But you know what? I'm not sure if I'll get to have that sort of experience again--or if my children ever will. Not just because the Cabin burned down (though we did build a new one in its place), but because of Netflix. Suddenly, anything I want to see, I can see. Very easily. And what that's done to my movie watching habits is make me less inclined to rewatch a movie multiple times. Why see something I've already seen, when there's something I could experience for the first time?



And at first, that made a lot of sense. But now that I've been doing that for a while, I'm beginning to rethink my approach. Pre-Netflix, my movie collection was based on what was cheapest. I'd buy a movies on sale, and have those on hand. Post-Netflix, I've just stopped buying films altogether.



But maybe I need a post-post Netflix. Because sometimes those Netflix on-demand movies get yanked. I think I want a small collection of personal Cabin movies. Movies I can watch at the drop of a hat, anytime, anyplace. I need physical copies of those movies. I can find them through Netflix, watch them the first time there, but then invest in owning a copy, even if I have to pay a bit more for that copy.



Because I want my kids to have a Cabin experience. To have movies they didn't just enjoy, but loved--adored. Many times. And to do that, you sort of have to own something.



Thoughts?

Movie Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love

Denisa and I watched Crazy, Stupid, Love last night. My reaction? This is one of the first films in a long time that I really don't know how to review. Did I enjoy it? I'm not really sure. For those of you who don't know, the movie revolves around main character Steve Carrell's response to his wife of 25 years abruptly revealing that she wants a divorce after she had a one night stand with a coworker. He falls in with Ryan Gosling, a complete womanizer who spends his evenings preying on women at the local bar. Gosling decides to show Carrell the ropes--teach him how to work the system to basically let him sleep with a different woman every night.



So.



The premise--that latter part of it, at least--is vile, in my not-so-humble opinion. For about half the movie, I watched, very uncomfortably, as Carrell descended deeper and deeper into changing himself to become a human leech instead of a loving husband. The movie didn't completely glorify this, but still . . . It wasn't a fun time.



Now thankfully, the film did turn things around in the latter half in some remarkably unanticipated ways. I don't want to give away spoilers, however. The plot was very well done, but . . .



I'm just not sure I can really get behind this movie. Denisa and I spent a while after it finished, discussing the movie's pros and cons. It's definitely a strange duck. It's as if a light romantic comedy hooked up with a depressing relationships drama, with the two films tag teaming their way through the entire 2 hours. One minute you're laughing and questioning just how believable this all is, the next minute you're just disgusted by how true to life and realistic these people are being--in an undesirable way.



Even at the end, I still wasn't sure how to feel or what to think about the movie--which might have been the point, since I'm not sure Steve Carrell's character knew how to feel or what to think.



How do I rate a movie like this? With elements I loathed and some I really loved? I can't just take the average--it's not a 2 star movie. But neither is it a 1 star or a 4 star. In fact, I don't think I really CAN give it a rating. It is what it is.



Do you want to watch it? Maybe. I ended up overall liking it, I think. Which says something for the end, since (spoiler) I don't really dig depressing movies. So . . . if any of this review has sparked your interest, feel free to check it out.



And now, for the comments, I'm going to slap a big ol' SPOILER warning on them, and invite/encourage anyone who's seen the movie to discuss all parts of it. I'd be interested to see what other people thought.

Vodnik Chapter Commentaries: Chapter One

I've been wanting to do chapter annotations for quite some time. What are they? A write up of what went on behind the scenes in a specific chapter. If there were significant deleted scenes, I'll throw those up. Any interesting stories involved in the writing of the chapter? Those will go in, too. Pretty much anything I feel like saying about the chapter is fair game. Who knows where that will take my rambling mind?



I think it should go without saying--there will be spoilers in these commentaries. They're intended to be read after you've finished the book, in much the same way that you might watch the director's commentary for a movie after you've watched the film once or twice. So don't read them if you don't want to know what happens.



For now, my plan is to do one a week, every Monday. We'll see how it goes.



Ready?



Vodnik changed a lot over the writing process. A large part of that is due to the way I wrote it. I just wanted to write a book about a haunted house, to start with. Then it turned into a haunted castle, and then it turned into a haunted castle in Slovakia. This book didn't write itself--it evolved. Take the beginning. In the first draft, the book opened with Tomas having a conversation with his best friend, Peter.



Poor Peter.



He played a fairly significant role in the first draft. Tomas's one friend from home. They chatted back and forth on the internet about Tomas's experiences. He provided Tomas with stability, and I ruthlessly cut him out in the revision process, turning Tomas into the loner he is at the start of the book as it now stands. Why did I do this? Because after about a third of the book, Peter stopped being relevant. The internet conversations became too random. There was no need for him as a character.



The sad truth of the matter is that I can't even have my fictional characters keep in touch with each other in the absence of Facebook. (Before Facebook, I was notoriously bad at staying in touch with friends. Tomas was the same way. Since the first draft happened in a pre-Facebook world (I finished it in March 2007, about five months before I would be on Facebook myself--and the book takes place in 2004, I believe. (I might be wrong on this one. I worked it out once to make sure I had the timing of all the events down. It all comes down to the day of the week the Fourth of July lands on. I think it's like a Tuesday in the book, which  limits the possible years. The book can't take place in the present day--Slovakia has changed too much even in the last five years. And it can't take place in the 90s. It was a different country then, too. So you could actually figure things down to the exact dates as you go through the entire novel. Not that I'd recommend it, but it's possible.)



Anyway--where was I?



Oh yeah--pre-Facebook. The book's before then, and Tomas and Peter drifted apart. It's structurally stupid to have a character be introduced as a main character in the first three chapters, only to have him disappear a third of the way into the novel. What if Ron totally vanished after the first bit of Harry Potter? Wouldn't make much sense.



So Peter got the axe.



Another big difference? No fire. In the original version, Tomas's parents move because they choose to. They want to. This naturally makes Tomas even more of a whiny wreck at the beginning than he is now. Part of me liked that. I moved around a lot when I was a kid, and I didn't have a choice in the matter. That's just how it goes, you know? And I liked the fact that Peter was envious of Tomas for getting to leave for Europe, when all Tomas wanted was to just stay in America.



But the beginning was just. too. slow. So what did I do?



I burned the house down.



And why did I do it? Not just for kicks and giggles. I needed a way to introduce magic earlier in the book. As it was, there were hints--the conversation Tomas has with his parents about what happened in Slovakia when he was little is pretty much unchanged from the first draft (except for the setting)--but nothing concrete. Having the house burn down around him--while he stayed untouched--is a pretty exciting way to introduce the mystery.



In fact, I had the actual fire in the book up until the last draft or so. I'll throw it in here to finish off today's commentary. Why did it get cut? Because it was repetitive. We go through all the relevant details again in the hospital. So structurally, you had Tomas live through the fire and experience it all first hand, and then had him relive the fire in his memory, just pages later. That didn't work. The big goal was to get him to Slovakia as quickly as I could, although it was also important to me to show where he started accurately. Tomas had to be grounded, so we could see who he was as a character. That's why the America chapters are still there, instead of on the cutting room floor. (Plus, have any of you wondered why his house burned down? Especially in light of the fact that there's a certain vila in his life? I'm not saying somebody--or something--started that fire on purpose. But I'm not saying she didn't, either . . . )



Anyway. I'm about out of time, so here's the fire scene, for your reading pleasure. It's short--this is the trimmed down version that almost got included. The original was a bit longer. But sifting through something like 7 drafts of Vodnik isn't exactly how I want to spend my Monday today. Sorry. :-) Onward.






By the time I woke up, my room
was engulfed in flames and smoke. My mind froze, unable to take in everything I
was seeing: the closet, flames shooting out the doors and spreading up the
ceiling, the walls nothing more than four sheets of pulsing orange and red,
interrupted by the space where the window used to be.

The need for air brought me to my
senses. My body shook with coughing, and I rolled out of bed and into a crouch,
hoping there might be some cleaner air down there. Smoke kills in a house fire
as easily as flames.

            This couldn’t be happening. Part of me prayed it was
a nightmare--a flashback to the earlier accident--but I knew it wasn’t. My eyes
never stung in my dreams.

The window was my first thought.
Jumping from the second story might result in some broken bones, but I’d rather
do that than rush through a house fire. But even as I crawled toward the
window, the ceiling collapsed. My way was blocked with a half ton of flaming
beams and drywall.

I scrambled to the door, but the
hallway was just as bad as my room. Worse: the floor was burning, too. I
blinked a few times--my eyes tearing in the smoke--and stared at the fire.

None of this made sense. If
things were already this bad, I should have been burned to a crisp.

Instead, I wasn’t even sweating.
I looked down.

My t-shirt and shorts were on
fire.

I fell back into my room--where
the floor had yet to ignite--and rolled around. The room spun in a tight
circle, the flames blurring into orange streaks as I tried to put out my
clothes. Maybe my skin had already been badly damaged, the nerve endings fried
even worse than when I was six. As I rolled, I couldn’t stop coughing. The air
smelled like a campfire, and I could taste the ash as it poured down my throat
with each gasp. My energy began to fade as my body shut down without oxygen.

I was still in my barrel roll
when I saw a face next to mine. Black helmet, clear gas mask: a firefighter. I
coughed twice more. My vision dimmed. It was as if my body, seeing help arrive,
had given up on me. The firefighter leaned over me, and I blacked out.

A Huge Update on Vodnik--Reviews, Illustrations, and More!

So it's been a good three or four weeks since Vodnik came out, and I'm getting a lot of people asking me how the book is doing. After giving the same response five or six times, I thought it might make sense to write up a blog post and address all the questions at once.



The basic answer is, "I don't know." Authors don't get sales information for their book. I can follow Amazon's Sales Rank for the novel (it went up as high as 23,000 or so), but I have literally no idea how to interpret that. As I've watched it off and on the past few weeks, I'm increasingly convinced that a purchase or two can make that sales rank really hop. So is having a book that's selling the 23,000th best on Amazon good? Darned if I know. It's better than if it were 230,000th.



When will I know solid numbers? Not for another five months or so, probably. Sometime around then is when royalty statements theoretically start getting issued. (With an emphasis on theoretically. I'm in uncharted territory  here--never had a book released before. I'm mainly just parroting back what other people have told me.) At that point, then I'll have a better handle on things.



I will say that the response to the book has been very positive so far. My reading at the Farmington Public Library was a great success, and I just got back from Reading Round-Up yesterday, which also went very well. (There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 librarians at my panel, and I signed quite a few books while I was there. I also made a good connection with the people at Barnes & Noble, who were selling my books there. They want to have me come for a signing at some point in the not too distant future. Yay!) The first reviews on Amazon and Goodreads were great (and many friends posted reviews, which was fantastic--thank you!). Better yet, people who don't know me are now posting reviews, and they're almost all super, as well. It feels great to be getting such good feedback and encouragement. Thank you thank you thank you!



Book bloggers have been reviewing Vodnik, as well--and there have been some really super reviews. I'm listing the ones that have come in so far (that I know of right now) down at the bottom of this post, if you'd like to peruse them. They've been overwhelmingly glowing, and I really appreciate them all!



However, I'm still very much a small fish in a huge ocean, and any and all help to spread the word is much appreciated. If you have a moment (and haven't done so yet), head on over to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads and review the book. People really do look at these reviews to make decisions about buying books. Honest reviews are always welcome!



If you write a blog (or know someone who does) and would like to consider reviewing the book on your blog, that would be fantastic. I'm also happy to do author interviews, Q and A's, interpretive tap dancing--you name it! It's really hard for a book like mine to get noticed. We've been doing a great job so far, but it's important to keep the push up to keep from getting drowned out by all the other fantastic books out there. :-)



I do have a couple of new tidbits you can use to share (or just look at them to appreciate how awesome they are). First up are some super illustrations of three of the characters Shawn Boyles drew for Tu. They're over here, and they include the Vodnik, the Fire Vila, and Morena. Awesome job on these, Shawn! I wrote some original descriptions of the characters, just for the web site. I especially like the picture of the vodnik--creepy and friendly at the same time. Great! (Some have wondered if this is the start of a graphic novel version of Vodnik. I wish! That would be wicked fun. Maybe if 1,000,000 people email my publisher, it'll become a reality.)  :-)



Next, I've made my decision on the T-shirt front. I'm going to go with #1 on a black or dark grey shirt, just like the one featured on the cover. The only addition is going to be the fact that this shirt will GLOW IN THE DARK, baby! Because what's the sense in living in the year 2012 if we don't live it up a little. My five year old inner-self is totally demanding the glow in the dark feature. Because that's just awesome, by default. I'm still working on polishing the graphic and getting it ordered, but I hope to have it all done in the not too distant future. (With all the spare time I have, you know.)



I also have an Author Facebook page up. (In addition to the Facebook page for Vodnik, which has been up for some time.) Why not take a sec to go over and like it? :-) I'm working on transitioning some things. At some point, I need to have a personal FB place for personal stuff, and a public space for public stuff. This is my effort to start that ball rolling. Feel free to share the pages as much as you'd like.



Blog Reviews


Beyond Dragons and Wizards--"Vodnik smacked me in my face and showed me that true wit, sarcasm, earnest story-telling, multi-layered plotting, grit, and fairy tales can all inhabit the same book."
Dan Wells (Author of the I am Not a Serial Killer series and Partials)--"I loved VODNIK, honestly much more than I expected to. It’s well-written, unique, and clever. It’s a breath of fresh air in a very popular genre, andI can’t wait to see what Moore gives us next."
Charlotte's Library--"Immensely enjoyable journey to a place where old, strange, crazy magic fills the streets of a medieval city. It's part mystery, part the story of a boy finding magical powers (while dealing with culture shock), part an exploration of ancient stories, and altogether engrossing."
Elitist Book Reviews--"VODNIK is a terrific YA novel. There's no doubt about it. It's uniqueness and characters overcome the shortcomings. You should buy it and read it. It's well worth your investment. Prospective authors should read it as an example of how to write a non-conformist Urban Fantasy. The best thing I can say about VODNIK is that it makes me want to read the sequel RIGHT NOW!"
Finding Wonderland--"Now, THIS is what I'm talking about. No werewolves. No vampires. No British isles fairytale constructs. No Arthurian legends, creaky with age, being unfolded and poorly cleansed of the dust of ages for the nth, nth, nth time. No. This is neither the U.S. nor the UK, but Trenčín, [Slovakia], baby. And it's got big, sharp teeth. Or, you know, big, drown-y-and-then-throws-you-in-a-teacup hands. Whatev. Point: it's vicious and dark and dangerous...and completely amicable, in a "just doing my job" kind of way. It's also full of The Crazy, and funny. This is a Tu-worthy book, indeed - another hit out of the ballpark for Lee & Low's amazing little imprint that could."
Ranting Critic--"I've read books by authors that try to be funny and fail, but Bryce Moore does it almost without any effort. Tomas, the main character, watched movies constantly before moving to Slovakia, so some movie quotes are expected. The characterization was very well done, I found myself caring for almost all of the characters in the book without noticing. He makes you feel like you are a part of these character's lives, which is something that only a few other authors I've read have been able to successfully do."
So Many Books, So Little Time--"Vodnik is an excellent read for those who are looking for fantasy with a spark of something new."
UMS Tigers Read--"Instead of Vodnik being a depressing read (I mean, Tomas does make friends with Death herself!), there is sarcasm, irony, and snarkyness that drew me in. The more I read the book the more I liked it and finally I decided that finishing the book was more important than doing laundry or going to bed at a decent time."


Those are of course in addition to the official reviews from Kirkus ("A shy boy blossoms in this surprisingly witty debut.") and the Sneak Peek Reviewers Club at School Library Journal ("The originality of the myths is a good change of pace from Greek or Roman myths. The story reminded me of how there are still new voices in writing. This was no "boy meets girl over summer break" or "humans dating vampires" story. The author has created a great new type of mystery and legend, and I'm one reader who can't wait to see if this story continues to develop. I'd be proud to have this book in my personal library.")



When you take a step back and see all those in one place, it seems like things are looking pretty rosy. Definitely feels good! Have I missed a review? Let me know, and I'll make sure I shout it from the rooftops. :-)[image error]

Dogs Baking Bread

I complained to Denisa that I didn't want to write two blog posts in one day (this one was written yesterday, and is being posted automatically today--the power of modern technology!). She said all I should do is post a video of dogs baking bread, and that would be enough.



Since I trust my wife completely, here it is. Dogs baking bread. Any of you who expected more out of today's blog post really need to take it up with Denisa. A warning, though--don't cross that woman. She's got a long memory.








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In Which I Realize (Three Months Later) That I Put My Foot in My Mouth

So I'm on a panel tomorrow at Maine Reading Roundup--a conference for Maine children/YA librarians. My panel is entitled New Voices from Maine, and it's highlighting four authors who live in Maine. Somewhere along the way, I got it into my head that it was highlighting four NEW authors. I also didn't think this was a very big conference. I didn't think this based on any actual facts I had read or research I had done. I just stupidly assumed, and I didn't pay too much attention to it.



So when an email started going between conference organizers and the members of the panel--discussing what sort of format this panel should take--I thought I'd be nice and share my wealth of panel-presenting experience with the other people. Here's what I wrote:

Vodnik is my first published book, but I've been on a fair number of panels in the past at fantasy/science-fiction conventions. I've seen it done both ways, with each speaker on the panel getting roughly the same time, or with all panelists presenting on a number of topics (How did you get your "break", how do you write your first draft, etc) guided by the panel moderator. I'm happy to go with either approach, although I'll say from my experience attending panels, I've usually found the ones that focus on a series of topics (with each panelist contributing to the discussion) have been more interesting than the ones that just have a series of individual presentations.

My two cents.

Looking forward to meeting you all in person!

To which one of the other authors replied soon after:

Completely agree with Bryce on the format, having been on a fair number of panels myself.
Cat

"How nice," I thought to myself. Someone agrees with me. Won't this be such a fun little panel. I promptly forgot about it. It wasn't until April, and this was back in January. I had lots of other things to be doing, instead.



Jump forward to just a bit ago. I'm talking to one of my coworkers, a former public library director, chitchatting about the Reading Roundup, and she mentions off hand that it's one of the biggest librarian conferences in the state--THE biggest for YA/Childrens Librarians. Like, 350+ librarians in one spot. For Maine, that's a whole lot of librarians. (What do you call a group of librarians, anyway? A cart of librarians? A shelf? A section? A classification? A Dewey? A bun? (blech!) A hush? A chapter? A tome? The possibilities are endless!)



This new information led me to wonder if, perchance, my quaint little panel might be a tad meatier than I had assumed. And so I put on my librarian hat and did a bit o' research. Let's see. It's got Brenda Sturgiss. Seems like a nice woman. Published a picture book with Amazon. Well-reviewed by Kirkus. Okay. Maybe I was right after all. This is a panel with other new authors like me.



It's also got Jeannie Brett. Award-winning illustrator/author of over 10 picture books. Hmm. Maybe I was right to be worried. Who's the last person?



Catherynne Valente.



Hmm . . . That name is awfully familiar. Sounds a lot like Cat Valente, actually. And that name is definitely familiar. And didn't somebody sign their name as Cat at some point back there earlier in this whole thing? Coincidence?



Nope. It's Cat Valente. New York Times bestselling author of sci-fi/fantasy fame. Hugo and Locus award-nominated. Finalist of the World Fantasy Award twice. Guest of Honor at various and sundry cons across the globe.



That Catherynne Valente.



Who had been kind enough to not kick me in the keester when I claimed I'd been on a "fair number" of panels at conventions. Who instead just said she'd been on a "fair number" of panels herself.



Something tells me that if you compared my fair number to her fair number, my fair number would be left in a quivering wreckage of low self-esteem.



Well, on the bright side, she agreed with me, right? I reviewed what I said, and other than the "fair number" statement, I don't think I wrote anything inordinately stupid. That's a relief.



In any case, the moral of the story is to always be nice, kind, and respectful in your correspondence with everyone. (Which I was.) Also, don't make assumptions. Also also, don't get cocky, kid.



I'll be away from my computer tomorrow, off at the not-so-little conference. Maybe I'll write up a blog post tonight and have it auto-post tomorrow. Maybe I won't. You'll just have to wait until tomorrow to see.[image error]