Deborah Halverson's Blog, page 5
February 6, 2019
Now I Want to Host a Silent Reading Party
So clever. Strangers gather in a comfy place to read in silence among fellow lovers of reading.
But is it weird? The people who started this practice worried that it might be. But they threw the party anyway … and people came. And loved it!
“Now we hear from people that they can’t fit reading time into their lives, and this gives them the excuse to do it. People tell us they love being around other readers, getting a break from high-contact socializing, getting affirmation that other people love books too. And there’s something special about the silence, too. We so rarely sit quietly with strangers. It’s restorative, almost church-like. It’s really beautiful to look around and see a room full of people who’ve made time in their lives to read together. It gives you faith in our species.
Sounds great to me. Here’s Book Riot‘s link if you want to read more about it, or see how to put your own Silent Reading Party together. Happy reading!
January 29, 2019
More Than an Award List
So many fabulous books are published each year, but only a few can make the lists. So use the list as your key to fab book discovery. Type the award-winning book you love into online retailer sites, then look at the Other Customers Also Bought recs that come with it to find more great reads!
An award list makes a great To Read list. But don’t let it stop there.
This link has your first starter discovery list: The famous ALA awards list, announced every January to celebrate fabulous books published for young people the previous year. You know, that Caldecott and Newbery books, selected by librarians. There are plenty of other awards, less well known perhaps but maybe exactly your cup o’tea. Check ’em out, then discover more. Happy reading!
November 27, 2018
Editing Afield Means Happy Surprises
Sometimes I edit at home, but often I pack up my stuff and to go a nearby B&N cafe to work at a table there, surrounded by books. Some days I’ll pick a table by a window to catch a glimpse of the garden outside, but just as often I sit at a table alongside the Libros para Ninos section. Today, I looked at the shelf next to me and spotted Besibol en Abril y Otros Cuentos, the Spanish language edition of Baseball in April and Other Stories. What a fabulous, inspiring surprise! If you don’t know Gary Soto‘s books, you’re missing out. Writing touching, insightful, entertaining, and well-lauded books, he’s brought his Mexican American experience to universal stories about growing up since late 80s, 90s. It’s my honor to have worked with him on some of his books. (Though not Baseball in April, darn it.)
I’m feeling inspired now. I’ll wrap up my editing for the day and tuck into my own WIP. And when I get home, I’ll tuck into my copy of Baseball in April for a great read.
October 31, 2018
Happy Halloween!
One of these days I’ll get a jump on Halloween and plan a book-related costume for myself. This year, I brought out an old favorite of mine… and the blue uniform I sewed for my Star Trek: Enterprise fan (HE got a jump on Halloween). Our Halloween co-stars are Scary Goblin and Random Star Trek guy — story-bought costumes I was happy to fork out for rather than sew. There’s only so much jumping this family seamstress can do!
Hope your Halloween is full of sweet fun!
October 18, 2018
Deborah’s Tip for Character Development on Fab “Cynsations” Blog
I’m honored to be a Guest Blogger on the amazing Cynsations blog today, with my post “Deborah Halverson on Viewing Narrative Beats as ‘Revelatory’ Beats in MG/YA Fiction.” There so much power and potential in those moments between lines of dialogue — the beats. I explore that in the guest post. Here’s a snippet: “Perhaps we writers drop in those generic actions because we’re so focused on getting the first scenes in place; perhaps we’re just not seeing those beats for the opportunities they are. ‘Oh, what treasure troves those little actions can be!’“
October 14, 2018
New Look for DearEditor.com
My website designer and I have been hard at work all summer on a little something fun: a fresh new look for DearEditor.com, my writers’ advice website. I unveiled the redesign today. Huzzah!
It’s been a labor of love. This designer, Theresa, was the first person I told of my plans to create the site, way back in 2008. Would it be a blog? Would it be a website? I wasn’t sure how it would function. I posed the concept to her and she didn’t hesitate: It’s a weblog and I’ll make it for you. Then she was all in. She took my design and made it web ready. Over the years she reworked the coding, switched-out old plug-ins and added entirely new ones, etc., as the internet evolved and mobile phones changed how websites function. The site stayed the same on the outside. Finally, recoding just wasn’t cutting it anymore. We were tired of patching, and internet programming had just changed so much. Plus, I’d also developed new features for the site that didn’t jive with the original format, and I just wanted something fresh. So, we decided to start from scratch. The fruit of our labors went live last week in a soft launch to work out the kinks, and it went official today with the big announcement.
To add to the celebration, I decided to give away a free edit of a picture book manuscript and a free partial edit of a novel manuscript via Rafflecopter in today’s announcement post on DearEditor.com. (The giveaway entry deadline is October 22, 2018.) I like to do giveaways when big things happen, and for me, this is a big thing. Long live DearEditor.com 2.0!
September 11, 2018
The Power of Books Teams Up with the Power of Love
No “blog post” today. I think this is more a “share post” because I’m going to let it speak for itself: The title of the Dec 2015 article I am quoting is “J.K. Rowling found out her books helped save this baby’s life. Her response was magic.” Below is an excerpt, but read the whole article because this story will give you all the feels.
“Juniper didn’t understand a word of the story, of course. But she could tell us, by the monitor pinging at her bedside, that she loved the parts about Hermione and that she hated the gruff voice of Hagrid the half-giant. When Tom read to her, she breathed better, held her temperature better, seemed generally more content. Tom read every paragraph in a soothing, sing-song voice, and when he stopped, her oxygen levels would plummet and the alarms would blare. “Keep reading!” the nurses would shout.”
September 8, 2018
Hanging with the Gang at SCBWI’s San Diego Chapter
Now that’s how you spend a Saturday afternoon! Today I was honored to hang out with 120 writers and illustrators of books for young readers. We talked all about the publishing business, from Big Picture happenings to the specifics of what we’re writing as individuals. And the best part: The supportiveness of this group’s members for one another. Love my San Diego peers!
One item we talked about were “pitch parties” on Twitter. For those attendees who asked, here are some pitch parties scheduled for what’s left of this year: Oct 25 #PBpitch Nov 7 #Adpit Nov 7 #kidpit Nov 28 #faithpitch. (Already done for this year, but worth noting for next time: #canlitpit, #pit2pub #IWSGpit. and #pitmad.) Generally, the basic rule for a pitch party is this: You tweet a brief pitch for your book using the hashtag on the day of the party, and interested agents will reply to your tweet, asking you to submit to them because they are intrigued and want to see more. Click on the hashtags in this post that interest you, and you can start reading about them and learning how the “parties” play out.
A second item that we talked about was graphic novels for YA and MG readers. Some writers were curious to know what graphic novel manuscripts look like. Author Shannon Hale has blogged about her graphic novel writing process and her manuscript formatting on her website, including this article: Rapunzel’s Revenge: Scripting a Graphic Novel. Shannon’s graphic novels include The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series, illustrated by her brother Dean Hale, and Real Friends, illustrated by LeUyen Pham.
Happy writing, all!
September 7, 2018
My Mom Writes Books? Meh.
Recently, while my sons got their hair cut, I was flipping through my writing craft books, finalizing a presentation. My son picked up Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies.
“You wrote this?” He asked. I nodded, a little puzzled. “Yeah?” he said. ” The whole thing? All by yourself?” Me nodding. “Wow.”
He picked up my other book, Writing New Adult Fiction. “Did you write this one too? Hey, look, that’s your name on it! You did! Wow. Cool.”
I’m not sure what to make of this. My son is 13. My books–including these books–are all around the house. I go to conferences all the time, taking these books with me and often frantically hollering out just before leaving for a conference, “Where’s my box of books? The box with the Dummies books! Someone help me find my box of books!”
Did I just wake up in an alternative universe? HOW is this news to this child?
And that’s the end of my story. I’m not sure what to do with this exchange. He was lovely, showing great interest. He gave me that teen “You’re not so bad” head nod. I felt like I was being assessed in a new way. I dare to think I passed muster. Two wows and a cool. Gotta be good.
July 9, 2018
Hot Dogs, Fireworks, and BIG MOUTH
A human being just age 74 hot dogs—and buns—in ten minutes. Why? Because he could.
That’s the challenge of competitive eating, to see how much of a food you can chow down, as fast as possible, mostly to beat the eaters lined up next to you but also because you thrive on the self-competition. This year’s winner of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, Joey Chestnut, knows plenty about self-competition—he’s bested himself and the eaters at the table ten times before. People flock to Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs in Coney Island, New York, every July 4th to see how many hot dogs and buns Joey’ll pound this time. He’s the most famous competitive eater in the world.
He’s what Shermie Thuff wants to be.
Shermie is the fourteen-year-old guy in my middle grade novel Big Mouth. He aspires to be the best, most famous competitive eater in the world. He trains for it, dreams of it, even imagines his own merchandise and commercials. And you know what they say, If you can picture it, you can do it.
I loved writing this novel. I loved researching the competitive eating world, and I loved the eating I got to do—because if your character wolfs down an ice cream sundae, you should, too, right? Realism, people.
And I love that this book entertains kids. Because when you’re a writer of books for young people, the ultimate reward is your book in the hands of a ravenous reader. For me, that’s a win worthy of fireworks.
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