Up for Air

1) Brand new author, 46-year old Clare Vanderpool just won the Newberry with her first book, "Moon Over Manifest",  I read an interview with her and she said it took her 5 years to write while raising her four children.  She grabbed the time while they were watching Sesame Street.  This is the kind of news that should encourage every writer out there, still working their day job,  honing their craft, hungering for more time to write and needing good news every once in a while.  Go, Clare Vanderpool! 2) This from my agent for everyone writing scenes that include school cafeterias: ""Mystery Meat" is overused, has been for years. The phrase in a middle grade ms makes me think Generic. Dig deeper, writers. Cafeteria food is a cliche— as airline food was to stand-up comics years back."

3) My new middle grade remains untitled.  It's actually had three working titles, all worse than the other.  Here they are..."HORSE" (I liken this to someone asking you to describe your child and you say, "Well, he has a head and a body.")"THE SWITCH" (Yes, there is a "switch" that takes place in the story, but this title is also the title of a movie with Jennifer Anniston that got bad reviews.  Not to be confused with "The Help" which was the perfect title for a perfect book.) "PRUNIPER" (The main character's name is Juniper, and her siblings call her variations of her name including "Prune" and "Pruniper".  Would a kid choose to read a book with prune in the title?)
I even paid the 6th grade daughters of a friend of mine to read the manuscript and brainstorm some titles.  They tried hard but had about the same luck as I did.  I will press on.
4) I've been reading an interesting genre of books from Random House called"Stepping Stones".  These are bridge books for the reader who has graduated from early readers but isn't quite ready for middle grade novels.  The word count seems to be 8,000-12,000, which is less than half of a middle grade novel. After Christmas I hardly came up for air as I experimented with this new genre-- writing from early morning through evening.   I submitted the new manuscript this week.  It's an easy-breezy plot line-- all action, no backstory, and geared to the third grade boy who might be a reluctant reader. The big miracle is that I actually like the title, too. 
This was one of the Stepping Stones books.  Nice little mystery with just the right amount of eeriness.
5) One of my biggest fears, outside of flying and my brakes going out in the mountains and the car rolling backwards (!), is being accused of plagiarizing someone's work.  So when I get an idea for a book, one of my first stops is Amazon to see if someone else has had that same idea.  If the storyline seems even remotely close, I don't write it.  With this latest story, I didn't do any checking and decided just to run with it.  I didn't think I'd read anything like it, but I wasn't sure.  So I finished the story, shipped it off and THEN checked Amazon.  Lo and behold, there's a book that shares some similarities but it's for a younger audience and the central conflict is completely different.  Darwin needed to point all this out to me as I stared at the computer screen and hyperventilated.  A few years back, beloved author Helen Lester had a picture book called "Score One for the Sloths" come out months before I had an early reader come out entitled "The Sloths Get a Pet".  I wrote a letter to Helen expressing my concern about her thinking I copied her idea, and she wrote me back such a gracious letter--  "There is certainly room in this world for more than one sloth book."  I know that ideas are out there for everyone, and that it's our unique take on that idea that makes a story our own.  That's what I tell kids, anyway.  
6)  If you struggle with plot more than characterization- stop right now and go plop down your hard-earned cabbage to see the movie "True Grit".  Note how the story launches--within the first minute or so, we know what that main character wants (and wants BADLY), and we can imagine what stands in her way. Then the story unfolds with one huge complication after another.  I saw the John Wayne version of this movie when it came out, but when I say "saw", I mean I was 6 years old and running around with my siblings and cousins at the drive-in theater as my parents watched it in the car.  Go, Coen Brothers!

6)  Enjoy your writing weather, wherever you live.  Nothing better than sub-zero temps and icy roads for hunkering down and focusing! Sorry this post is so long-- this is what happens when we haven't talked for a while!