Deborah Halverson's Blog, page 12

Wizardry Is a Hazardous Endeavor

Last night there was a fierce battle in our home. My young Harry Potter versus a throng of invisible Death Eaters. It was grand, and there would be injuries on both sides. In the process of casting one mighty spell, young Harry wanded himself in the eye. Lacking quick access to Madam Pomfrey and also suffering the ancillary injury of being unable to apparate to the Hogwards infirmary, we did the next best thing: we plopped our wounded wizard into the mini van and drove to the emergency room.

There, intriguingly, the glow-in-the-dark medicine they drip into wounded eyes revealed a vertical corneal abrasion that, lit up like that, resembled the scary snake pupil of Nagini, the snake of He Who Cannot Be Named. You know what that means, don’t you? Voldemort has left another mark on The Boy Who Lived! Thus, today, my little Harry awaits the onset of what surely is his new and very powerful ability to speak Parseltongue.

Dress Like Your Fav Book Character Day

Two photos from Dress Like Your Favorite Book Character Day at school. With two Harrys and a Neville, it looks like a scene from The Deathly Hallows, doesn’t it? Have a happy Friday!

 

What Do a Bear and a Barista Have In Common?

One of the things that I think makes me an effective editor is my experience as a writer. I know what it’s like to be in the word-working trenches, pushing to make creative things happen on the page even when you’re tired or distracted or stressed. I’m all of those things right now as I roll into the final two days before my sons start their three-week school break. As of this morning, Wednesday, I had two chapters to finish writing for my book WRITING THE NEW ADULT NOVEL before that school break kicks in. Luckily, Fate gave me a lovely little goose in the writing kiester in the form of a cute little bear named Rich and an ebulient coffee barista.

After walking my boys to school this morning, I focused hard for an hour, tuning out the world, thinking of nothing but how to write well and entertainingly for the NA audience. My fingers flew across the keyboard. I’m trying so hard with this book, really striving to make it useful and supportive for NA writers. Then, suddenly, I put the period on a sentence, finishing up a section about revising dialogue, and I realized I didn’t know what to type next. I blinked dazedly, then looked up, and blinked dazedly once more. “Well, hello,” I said out loud. There in the chair next to me was a little bear, looking at me with eyes that really belong to my son. The son who owns him. The son who set that little bear there as moral support for me. The son who is so incredibly thoughtful that I could’ve just run to school right then and there and kissed him. My sweet little man was cheering me on through his beloved bear Rich. I felt his energy, I slipped into The Zone, and I was tapping away fiercely at my laptop keyboard once again.

I finished half a chapter this morning at home. Satisfying, but alas, I once again felt an energy sag coming on. So I decided to change my work space in order to change my work pace. I headed to the local B&N Cafe. There, I set myself up at a table with hot tea, and laid out my work supplies. I’d was trying to get in the groove with the writing again, to be earnest and careful yet productive, and was alllllmmmmost there in The Zone when Johnny the Barista stopped by with his clipboard to check in on my customer welfare. He pointed to the book on my table and asked how I liked it. I blinked dazedly a moment, processed his question, then smiled and held up the book and pointed to the author’s name—my name. It was WRITING YOUNG ADULT FICTION FOR DUMMIES. “I like it fine,” I said, “I wrote it.” Well, lawdy people, he went nuts! Shaking my hand, telling me how cool it was to meet a real live author. “Wow! In person!” Boy, that was sure was a shot in the arm. After Johnny and his clipboard scurried off, I slammed through the rest of the chapter, loving the work I did and tickled as pie to be able to say, by the end of the day, that I’d knocked out a whole chapter. Sure, I’ll have to clean it up tomorrow, but the rough draft is there and now the fun of funking up the language and clarifying my points can commence. I figure I’ll even be able to dig into that last chapter mid-day Thursday, on track to finish that one up on Friday before the boys get off for their minimum day. I’ve got my fingers crossed for that, anyway. Plus, I’ve got a plan…

I’m going to write at the B&N cafe. I sure hope Johnny will be working that shift. I’m gonna be setting Rich up in his own chair there, with his own cup of tea, so that the bear and the barista can cheer me through those final pages.

Library Day, The Next Generation

Library day at school. I always loved that day of the week when I was little, didn’t you? You turn in the amazing adventure from last week then wander the rows of shelves, carefully deciding what your adventure for the next week would be. Ooh, I get shivers just remembering the potential of that moment, little me standing at the bookshelf with my hand outstretched, almost almost almoooost touching the new world I’d disappear into this week but not yet. Oh, the potential.

My sons have library day at their school, of course. Different days, since they’re in different classes. Last week, one of my boys was floundering. He’d return a book that hadn’t done much for him, he’d wander around sighing and poking at books that didn’t do much to excite him about the coming week. He’s a voracious reader who’d ripped through the Harry Potter books in the first months of third grade, so he loves fictional adventure as much as his mother, but the shelves he was looking through weren’t calling to him. They weren’t holding out a helping of fictional wow like candies on a platter. Not for him. He’d limply picked up something below his reading level that a year or two ago would’ve had him rushing to the checkout desk to check it out and to class to read it and thinking, “Ooh, yes.” Instead, he stood there with it, his body saying, “Eh. Okay.” Apparently he’d gone through this same “Eh. Okay.” experience the week before. And oddly, the week before that.

I had no idea his weekly ritual was playing out this way because he was reading different books at home, books that was excited about and so I thought he was Library Day happy. His teacher picked up on it, though. She spotted him this week, going through the same sulky, mindless poking she’d seen the two previous Library Days, so she hunched her shoulder over playfully to make herself small, tiptoed to a shelf near him, then whispered his name. He looked over. She covered her lips in the universal “shh” sign then crooked her finger, beckoning him over to the shelf. She slid a light blue hardcover from the shelf, one of those ancient-looking library editions. “Look at this book,” she whispered, widening her eyes as if she’d just found a gold coin under a leaf. The Indian in the Cupboard. “My sons loved this book,” she said. My son leaned closer. She turned the cover of the book to face him. “You see that little Indian guy there on the cover? The tiny one?” She pointed. “He comes to life.” My son gasped. He plucked the book from her hands, flipped it over, and scanned the description on the back. His head snapped up, his eyes sparking. “I want to get this one.” “You can. I think you will love it,” she said.

But my son didn’t hear her.

He was already gone.

He was at the checkout desk, bouncing on his toes trying to see how long the line ahead of him was and gauging how fast it was moving, the light blue ancient-looking parcel fairly tingly in his hands. Hurry, hurry, he whispered. His adventure for the week was waiting.

Postcards Get Thumbs Up!

My postcards for WRITING THE NEW ADULT NOVEL just arrived. Yet again, Printplace.com producing quality printing for me. And since a Writer’s Digest Book designer created the image, the whole thing just looks super swell. People, if you need printed materials, I highly recommend Printplace. Eight years after printing my first bookmarks through that company, and I’m still high on it. Double thumbs up!

Deborah at Barnes & Noble Mira Mesa Friday, Nov 22

As part of Barnes & Noble’s Discovery Friday event this Friday, November 22, at 6pm I’ll be part of a lively panel about books for young people with Shannon Messenger, author of the middle grade series Keeper of the Lost Cities and the teen trilogy Let the Sky Fall, and Debra Driza, author of the YA thriller Mila 2.0, the first in a series currently being developed as a series for ABC. The panel will be moderated by fabulous Full Circle Literary agent Taylor Martindale.

Stop on by. B&N is having a big sale that day, they are hosting the Scripps Ranch High School Bookfair, and at 8:30 there will be a special musical performance by Stacey Leathersich.

Barnes & Noble

Mira Mesa MarketCenter

10775 Westview Parkway

San Diego, CA 92126

858-684-3166

Who Knew Motherhood Turns You Into a Punctuation Mark?

Tuesday afternoon…

Son sitting next to me: “Mom, did they have cars when you were a kid?”

Me: “Of course!”

Son sitting on the other side of me: “Oh, you mean like the crank kind, right?”

Me, to the Heavens: Seriously????

 

Wednesday morning…

Me, on the front porch: “Stop stomping all the ants! We’ve got to get to school. I’ll figure out how to take care of them later. Let’s go!”

Thursday morning…

Me, on the front porch: “Who put out a plate of chocolate Cheerios and milk on the porch for the ants?!”

Friday morning…

Me, my dripping arm reaching from the shower, fumbling fruitlessly around the sink counter: “Who took my towel? I just put it here? Who took it? Can someone bring me one? Hello? Hello!?!!!”

Dare I wonder if Friday morning’s event was related to Wednesday or Thursday’s events? Nah . . . my sweet sons wouldn’t do that . . . would they?

image copyright FreeDigitalPhotos.net by pat138241

Happy Halloween!

It wasn’t intentional, but now that I see this photo of us in our get-ups, I see that we’ve got a family theme for this year: “Don’t mess with the Halversons!”

Hope you have a fun Halloween!

 

A Halloween Must

[image error]

Why did I meet my sons after school with a bag of candy corn for each boy, just two days before they'd be swimming in sugar? Because they'd just told me they'd never had candy corn. Unacceptable! Every childhood must include candy corn and I'm thrilled to be the one to introduce it.

Candy corn is Halloween. Period.

Which Halloween candy do you consider inseparable from this holiday?

No Adventure Too Small During School Break

I was startled to turn the corner into my living room this morning and find a teddy bear rescue under way. I stood there a moment, puzzling how that tiny Lego first responder was going to save that huge bear. Then I decided I need to turn on my “eight-year-old boy” brain—and keep it turned on for the duration of Fall Break.

It looks to be an interesting two weeks…

UPDATE: As one would expect, they moved on to rescuing spaceships. That rescue, however, was not successful, and I’ve got a huge gauge in my hardwood floor now to prove it. Sigh.