Laura Langston's Blog, page 36

Notes From the Road

TD Canadian Children’s Book Week started with a bit of a jolt when I arrived at my first presentation in beautiful Elora, Ontario to find my audience waiting! A  communication mix up between two librarians resulted in two grade three classes arriving half an hour early for my talk. Luckily, they were happy to wait while I set up and it meant I had more time to get to my second presentation in Guelph later that day.

I’m in Waterloo today where I’m talking to grades five and six students at two local libraries. This morning’s talk is about writing Hot New Thing. This afternoon, I’ll focus on Lesia’s Dream.

I’m off to present in New Hamburg and then Stratford tomorrow before driving to Woodstock where I’ll spend the night. Friday, I’ll speak to students in that community before driving back to Waterloo where I’ll drop the rental car and catch a bus to Toronto.

Highlights from the road so far: when talking about how story ideas often come from real life events, one grade three student told us how his father had been shot in the knee with a rifle. A neighbor did it, the student said. By accident, of course. But there was tons of blood and everybody was scared, except the family dog didn’t mind because he actually finds the smell of blood appealing. It was just the opportunity I needed to talk about how conflict – in this case, a shooting  - can impact everybody (even dogs) differently.  After the session ended, the teacher quietly informed me that the ‘real life’ rifle shooting incident the student spoke about was all fiction. She knows the family. It never happened. Given the range of details in the student’s ‘real life’ event, I suspect I was listening to a future writer.

It’s a real honor to be picked to tour. I must thank the Canadian Children’s Book Centre for coordinating the week, as well as all the teachers and librarians who have greeted me so warmly in every community. I’ve really enjoyed the chance to get out from behind my desk and talk about books and writing to so many excited students.

My April Reads

I can’t say I’m a huge Kindle devotee. I probably pick up physical books twice as much as I power up my Kindle. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate having it. I do. With its back lighting and relative weightlessness, it’s great for reading in bed at night. It’s also wonderful and indispensable when I travel (No more trying to cram a week or two of reading material into a suitcase). So I’ll be loading the Kindle with books for this Sunday’s departure to Ontario. Although, given my schedule, I suspect I’ll be too busy (and too tired at the end of the day) to do much reading. But I can’t imagine traveling without something to read.

In the meantime, here’s what I’m reading before I leave:

On the Kindle: Best Friends Through Eternity by Sylvia McNicoll

At the Gym: The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

Beside the bed: Seven Letters from Paris: A Memoir by Samantha Verant

 

Books read to date 2015: 31

Packing Up

A friend of mine just left for a month in Italy. Barb packed everything she needed for four weeks in her carry on. She wasn’t austere about it either. She took scarves and jewelry to change up her outfits, an extra set of glasses and even a replacement glass eye in case the one she wears meets – I don’t know – some kind of shattering end. She took a second pair of shoes and a couple of books, but she left all her electronics and any extras at home. She is on vacation, in the true sense of the word.

I used to be pretty good at traveling light too. I remember once packing everything I needed for four months in Europe into a small duffel bag. Seeing my friend’s bag brought back memories of minimalist travel. There’s a real freedom that comes from traveling unencumbered by stuff.

I’m heading off at the end of next week to tour for TD Canadian Children’s Book Week and I am packing a load. In fact, organizers are billeting me for the first night and I feel like emailing an apology to my hosts before I arrive (I’d also like to ask if they have a hair dryer I can borrow for that first morning but I’m too embarrassed. Anybody viewing my large suitcase and substantial carry on would swear I’m bringing an entire salon with me).

In fact, much of what I’m bringing is material I take into schools. I’ll be talking to almost nine hundred students over five days and I take props. As well as reading from my books and talking about where my ideas come from, I pull out character bags and I show them what the editing process is like with a marked-up manuscript. I’m lucky enough to have rough sketches from some of the illustrators I’ve been paired up with too, and a set of color separations to show them how a book goes together, so those go into the mix as well.

It’s going to be a whirlwind week and a lot of fun. Since I’ll give away my books on the last day of the tour, I’m be traveling much lighter on the way home.  At least that’s the plan.

However, I am stopping for a few days in Manitoba to see my dad. And there’s a great deli on Portage Avenue called De Luca’s . . . a wonderful bakery called Gunn’s . . . and I could use another bag or two of wild rice for the cupboard.

So no guarantees.

 

Overheard This Week

 

It would be a great place to work if it wasn’t for all the raids.

Was I in a Texas border town eating a spicy plate of enchiladas nortenas and eavesdropping on a couple of construction workers complaining about being disturbed by U.S. Border Services agents looking for illegal aliens?

Or was I nursing a cool cocktail in Key West while a couple of well-dressed twenty-somethings worried about the questionable practices of the nightclub where they were currently employed?

Maybe I was chowing down on an egg white scramble in Southern California listening to hotel workers complaining about the raids on pregnant foreign visitors presumably there to give their newborns U.S. citizenship status.

Any one of those three scenarios would have been lovely.

But no. I was in my kitchen scrubbing teriyaki salmon skin out of a cast iron frying pan while Teen Freud and a few of his buddies discussed their current employment options.   Teen Freud already has a part time job – at a bottle recycling depot.  He’s had it for the last three or four years. It’s a great fit while he’s in university. It pays well, the hours are flexible and he’s getting another kind of education: learning to interact with the public and being exposed to a wide range of clientele.

But entering the world of the working class has been a shock to Teen Freud’s delicate system. He finds the eight hour shifts too long. The smell on his clothes at the end of the day off-putting. The work physically grueling. “It’s making me old before my time,” he told his buddies that night. “Half the people who work there have arthritis and they’re not even thirty yet. What kind of future is that for me?”

Clearly not the kind of future he has in mind. So Teen Freud is looking for greener pastures.  That’s a good thing.  Unfortunately, however, his preferred greener pasture is one of the medicinal pot dispensaries popping up in our part of the world like dandelions in spring.  It would, he thinks, be a great place to work.  Other than that little issue of all the raids.

There’s also the issue of the odor on his clothes. I haven’t mentioned that yet. And I won’t. But if he does decide to apply for a job, I plan to point out that he’ll have to find a way to change outside before coming into the house at the end of the day. I find malodorous clothes off-putting too.

I suspect Teen Freud will find another greener pasture after that reality sinks in. Or maybe risk another few years of possibly arthritis-inducing physical work.  If not, pity our poor neighbors because it’s entirely possible our back yard shed will take on a decidedly hemp-like scent over the next few months.   

 

 

 

It’s Nomination Season

The Willow Award Lists are up and I’m happy to say The Art of Getting Stared At has been nominated in the Snow Willow category. It’s a lovely honor and I’m in terrific company. Check out the entire list of nominees here:  http://willowawards.ca/

The Saskatchewan-based Willow Awards were established in 2001to promote reading by granting an annual “Willow Award” to a Canadian or Saskatchewan book.  Students vote on the nominated titles in three categories: the Shining Willow for young readers; the Diamond Willow for upper elementary students; and the Snow Willow for readers in grades 7 – 9.

Voting will take place over the coming year with the winners announced around this time next year.

Happy reading, students. You have lots of good books to choose from!

And Now For Something Completely Different

I’ve been thinking about the pros and cons of self-publishing for a long time.  When it comes to traditional publishers, I’ve worked with some of the best. They’ve done more for my books than I could ever do on my own.  They’ve edited, they’ve promoted, they’ve distributed. Sure, there’ve been glitches (and times when I wondered what kind of rabbit hole I’d fallen into) but show me an endeavor without glitches and I’ll show you a fairy tale.

So the idea of publishing a book on my own didn’t hold much appeal. I love the writing and the editorial process, but the business and promotional side of things? Not so much. And I knew if I ventured down the self-publishing highway, I’d have to wear those hats occasionally.  Since I’m already wearing a few too many hats, it was an easy choice to say no.

But I had this book. Note the word ‘but.’  That but is a big but.  It’s the equivalent of a teenager saying ‘but it was just that one time’ or a confirmed bachelorette saying ‘but I met this guy.’   It’s a but that leads to change.

I first wrote WHAT LAINEY SEES years ago. It received very positive attention from a number of editors. One wanted to buy it and held onto the manuscript for a year only to be overruled by her publisher.  In the end, there were two main reasons he said no.

First, WHAT LAINEY SEES is a hybrid. It’s the kind of novel marketing departments don’t know what to do with. It’s a romance with suspense and paranormal elements. It’s both contemporary and historical. It’s not time travel, which is an established category, it’s more of a time slip novel, where two distinctly different story lines play out at the same time.  Time slip is a quirky, barely-there genre. Publishers prefer a sure thing over quirky, particularly from a mid-list author.

An even bigger hurdle had to do with Native Americans.  As the story unfolds, Lainey Hughes starts remembering life as a Native American woman living in the Pacific Northwest. She believes the memories from that life could stop a terrible tragedy from occurring today. But the one man who can help her is a man who doesn’t believe in her visions – the Native American lover who died in her arms centuries earlier.  Native Americans, I was told repeatedly, don’t sell.  One editor even went so far as to suggest I lose the Natives and use another culture, another time period (I think she suggested Scotland; Diana Gabaldon was big at the time).

I couldn’t – and didn’t – do that. The Native American element was intrinsic to the novel. So I put the novel aside for a number of years. But like a sliver that won’t go away, WHAT LAINEY SEES remained with me.  I wanted it published. I wanted people to read it.  So I took the manuscript back out, rewrote and updated where I needed to, and weighed my options.  Since I didn’t have the patience to listen to more editorial feedback about how I needed to replace the Native Americans with Vikings . . . or make the time slip less time slip and more time travel, I decided to publish it myself.

From the cover design process, to working with an editor followed by a formatter, it’s been quite a process. It’s given me even greater respect for traditional publishers. It’s opened my eyes to a world that’s not going away – direct, author-controlled publishing. And it’s made me grateful for the many friends and colleagues who traveled the road before me and were so willing to share their stories and expertise as I bumbled along.

Is self-publishing the future for me? It’s one probable future, but traditional publishing remains my future too.  I’m a hybrid . . . like WHAT LAINEY SEES.  It’s up on Amazon. If you have a minute, check it out: http://www.amazon.com/What-Lainey-Sees-Laura-Tobias-ebook/dp/B00UZK92M2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1427395698&sr=1-1&keywords=what+lainey+sees

 

Yes, It’s True

And it’s only Wednesday. If your week has been as crazy as mine, pick up a good book and forget things for a while.   I’m picking up not one but two books.  I’m deep into revisions on Stepping Out and as soon as they’re done, I’m back to One Good Deed, which I hope to have finished in early April.

Meanwhile, my May trip to Ontario for CCBC Book week is shaping up.  It looks like I’ll be visiting Guelph, Waterloo, Stratford and Woodstock before jetting west where I’ll spend a few days in Manitoba before coming home.

It’s going to be a busy spring.  I’m counting on it.

A Bit of Lovely News

 I figured I needed more coffee when I opened up Facebook one morning last week to find a friend congratulating me for making the CLA YA book of the year short list.  I was stunned.  But sure enough, The Art of Getting Stared At has been shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association’s YA Book of the Year along with 9 other terrific titles.

It’s a huge honour.  I’m sure you’ve heard that same line from other award nominees. You’ve probably thought, ‘yeah, riiiight. Can’t they think of something more original to say?’

Actually no. Because it is an honour and a thrill and it’s wonderful to think a book you worked hard on for many months will quite possibly reach more readers because of the publicity.

The Canadian Library Association has been recognizing the work of young adult authors since 1980. They also hand out awards in two other categories: to an outstanding illustrator of a children’s book, and to the author of an outstanding children’s book for readers 12 years and younger.

The winner of the YA Book of the Year, and the Honour Books, will be announced during the week of April 20th. The award itself will be presented at the CLA’s annual conference in Ottawa in early June.  Like I said, I’m in wonderful company. Here are the other nine nominated titles. There’s some great reading on this list:

The Death of Us, by Alice Kuipers (Harper Collins)  http://www.alicekuipers.com/

The Gospel Truth, by Caroline Pignat (Red Deer Press) http://www.carolinepignat.com/

Moon at Nine, by Deborah Ellis (Pajama Press) http://deborahellis.com/

Rabbit Ears, by Maggie DeVries (Harper Collins) http://www.maggiedevries.com/

This One Summer, by Mariko & Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood) http://jilliantamaki.com/books/this-one-summer/

Twisted, by Lisa Harrington (DCB) http://lisaharrington.ca/

Unspeakable, by Caroline Pignat (Penguin Random House) http://www.carolinepignat.com/

The Voice Inside My Head, by S.J. Laidlaw (Tundra) http://www.sjlaidlaw.com/

What We Hide, by Marthe Jocelyn (Tundra) http://www.marthejocelyn.com/

My March Reads

If you’re a little behind on your start to 2015, call yourself a Roman and don’t worry about it. The early Romans considered March 1st the first day of the New Year. It was only when things changed to the Gregorian calendar that January was given the honor. Personally, March feels like a fresh start given that I’m cleaning out the greenhouse, pulling out the seed flats, planting tomatoes and sweet peas and herbs.  I’m also mulling a new writing project since I’m in the final stages of a YA that’s been on my plate for quite a while. New beginnings are everywhere.

But when I’m not writing or seeding, I’m reading. Here’s what I’m dipping into this month:

At the gym: King Peggy, An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Nation by Peggielene Bartels

On the Kindle: A Cry From the Deep by Diana Stevan

By the bed: A Long Time Gone by Karen White

Books read to date 2015:   16

 

The End . . . is Really the Beginning

I’m doing the last bit of fiddling with Stepping Out before handing the manuscript off to the editor at Orca.  This book will be released as part of their Limelights Series. There’s always a sense of accomplishment at this stage of the game. And a feeling of completion too.

But, in fact, this particular end is the beginning of a process that goes on for many months.  From here, the next step is waiting for editorial feedback and tackling the revision notes. There are always revision notes, and there’s never any way to tell ahead of time how complex they’ll be.   I never sweat it. I happen to love revising (I usually revise at least once and often multiple times before sending a manuscript in), and I welcome feedback, so, for the most part, editorial revisions are a guaranteed good time. At this stage, the heavy lifting (fresh writing) is done; it’s a matter of fine tuning.

Once I’m finished with the editorial revisions, there’s generally a stretch of down time until I see page proofs and then get a glimpse of the cover. It’s always exciting to see what kind of visual the art department comes up with.

Some time after page proofs and the cover comes the actual release day . . . then the official book launch . . . followed by professional reviews . . . and the most important thing of all: reader feedback.

So as I type ‘the end’,  I can’t help thinking of my readers who, a year or two from now, will pick up Stepping Out and start at the beginning.

In my world, the end is the start of good things to come.