Answers to your questions!

Here are Kate's answers to a few of your questions!

 

Melissa Cairns:    Kate, I'm an elementary school librarian and also an aspiring children's book author. Your writing is an amazing inspiration to me and my students alike. We read your books avidly! What advice do you have for aspiring writers out there as far as the writing/publication process goes? How did you make your start in publication? Thanks for taking the time to answer my question-- my students and I look forward to your answer!

 

Hi Melissa, thanks for all those compliments.  And thank you for reading.  Let's see.  I'll start with "how did you get your start" part of your question.  I got my start when I talked to a Candlewick sales rep and said something like "I love everything Candlewick publishes, but I can't get in the door with my manuscripts because I've never been published and I don't have an agent."  And that Candlewick rep (Linda Nelson (bless her)) said: "If you give me a manuscript; I'll get it to an editor."  And she did.    It was a picture book manuscript and Candlewick ultimately rejected it, but in the meantime, I had started working on a novel about a girl and a dog.  And the editors at Candlewick said that they would be willing to read that novel.  So.  All of this was after a *lot* of rejection (some 400 rejection letters) and a lot of writing and hoping and reading.  Which gets me to the first part of your question . . . advice for aspiring writers.   .  I read my way through (literally) a warehouse full of children's books.  And I wrote and wrote and wrote.  And this still is the best advice I have for people (kids and adults) who want to write: Read.  Write.  Every day. It's advice that I am comfortable giving because it's advice I give to myself every ding-danging morning.

 

Eric VanRaepenbusch:  Kate, What is your favorite birthday memory or tradition? Kind of a strange question but I have a blog that follows my family's reading adventures celebrating children's authors birthdays. During your birthday week this year my daughter and I read Edward Tulane. She loved it!

 

Eric!  Hi!  My favorite birthday memory.  Hmmm . . . in fifth grade, for my birthday, I had the slumber party to end all slumber parties.  We (six of us) stayed up all night.  We put on my mother's "shoes of her youth" and danced to all her Arthur Murray Dance records.  It was grand.  Birthdays now involve scrabble games and cheesecakes made with honey and good, good friends.  I like the idea, very much, of celebrating a birthday by reading aloud the same book every year.

 

Dawn Olson   Hi Kate: When you need to "get out of your head" and relax, what authors do you like to read?

 

Hi Dawn, every afternoon I try to make time to sit down with a notebook and a book.  I call those afternoon sessions "cogitation."  The books I like to read during that "get out of my head time" are anthologies: Best American Non-required Reading is one of my favorites.  Also, literary magazines like Tin House and Granta and A Public Space.

Danny Ray Pilkington:   Hi Kate, do you have special music you listen to while writing. Love your books. Hope to see you in Delaware again someday.

    

Hi Danny Ray.  (I love that name).  For every book, I have different music that I put on when I write.  For  Edward Tulane it was Rachmaninoff's *Vocalise* played over and over.  For Because of Winn-Dixie, it was Van Morrison's *Enlightenment.*  It takes me awhile to find the right music, but once I do, I stick to it.  And hey: Delaware was great.  Thank you for being there.

 

Marcia Dressel   How do you get over first chapter fear? I've promised myself to try NaNoWriMo this year and I'm scared to start!

 

Hi Marcia,  How is it going with NaNoWriMo?  (I like that because it sounds like the name of a summer camp).  I have first chapter fear, too.  Actually, I have every kind of fear imaginable.  So, every day the first thing I do is write before I terrify myself out of doing it.  Why don't you try getting up early in the morning and see if that makes it easier.  Also, don't think of it as "the first chapter;" think of it as: "a little writing i'm going to do."

 

Pat Sharon:   Kate, Woof! Your characters have stayed with me from the first book of yours that I read. Do any of your characters come back to want to tell more- or another - story?

 

Pat!  How are you?  Huh?  Woof, right back to you.  Let's see: do the characters come back?  Hmmm.  A few years ago, I would have said that if I told the story right then they wouldn't need to come back.  But now I believe that anything is possible.  For instance, I thought I was done with Mercy Watson; but seemingly, she ain't done with me.  We'll see what happens.  Stay tuned.

 

Please feel free to continue to submit questions for Kate; she'll try to answer a few each week. - The Candlewick Team