Wendelin's Jog Blog

The Secret In The Teapot

2012-01-29T19:57:00.000-08:00

Let me start this week's post with an official and enormous Thank You! for all the comments made at last week's post. Wow! I appreciate all the time and energy that went into your suggestions. I have just printed everything out so I can sort through your input in a somewhat sane manner and check who you see as who. This will be very interesting!

BTW, I can't believe I didn't list Officer Borsch. But thank you for picking up on that and adding him.

I should make very clear (and allay the fears of some) that this is all just talk at this point. Nothing is signed. We're just exploring. You know--to see if we have similar vision before moving forward.

So there will be feedback from me later - after I've dissected and digested all your comments. Meanwhile, two comments from last week had to do with "The Schneider" -- The Schneider Family Book Award -- so I want to explain that a little and tell you about my new teapot.

Yes, my new teapot.

First, let me tell you that winning the Schneider is actually a big deal to me, but it's one of those things I have trouble sharing. I just don't ever want to come across as being too big for my britches. And I'm sensitive to the fact that there are plenty of authors out there who held their breath all night last Sunday hoping to get a call from one of the American Library Association committees telling them that their book (which they put their heart and soul and a good year, or two or three or more into writing) had been selected as award-worthy.

So I was one of the lucky few who got a call, but I didn't shout this from the mountain tops or anything. Actually, I told, like, three people. But somehow I'm comfortable telling you guys.

Which says a lot about you guys, and I just want to say thanks for making me feel that way.

Anyway, here we go--what the heck's the Schneider?

Let's back up and say that if last Monday was the "Oscars of Children's Literature" (as some people call it), the Newbery would be "Best Picture", the Caldecott would be...what? "Best Animated Film"? The Printz would be, say, "Best Actor" and the Coretta Scott King award would be "Best Actress" (or whatever attributions you want to ascribe in whatever politically correct terms people now use for female lead.). The Oscars have lots more awards, but there are only a handful that get big attention.

Same in kid lit. There are 18 award categories total, and although people's attention and interest wanes after the Big Four, winning any of them is huge to the recipient. and for me, winning the Schneider Family Book Award which "honors an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience," had me crying happy tears.

It's just nice to have the result of your hard work and passion acknowledged.

So in all future issues of The Running Dream, there will be a blue award seal, and the super cool thing about the SFBA seal is that it is also in Braille.

Awesome, huh?

Which brings me to the teapot.

I like to buy something to remind me of life's happy milestones or accomplishments. I know I'll get a plaque to commemorate winning the Schneider, but I'm not a plaque hanger. I keep them in a bookshelf. Or behind the door. Or under the couch. And every great once-in-a-while, I'll come upon one and go, oh, yeah! Then back it goes. Into the bookshelf. Or behind the door. Or under the couch.

And I'm not going to enlarge, say, my book jacket with the SFBA seal, mat it with three layers and frame it and hang that.

Please.

But I do think it is good to remind yourself of the happy moments and savor them. So this week when I happened upon this teapot in a shop window, I knew it would be the perfect thing to commemorate the event . Blue, circular, with raised symbols, it looks enough like the SFBA seal to remind me as I pour my afternoon tea, but looks only like a (wow, where'd you get that really cool) teapot to anyone else.

It's symbolic.

A secret.

No one will know.

Except, that is, me and you.

Who Do You See As Sammy Keyes?

2012-01-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

Thanks for checking in! Here as promised is the paperback cover for Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack. I LOVE this cover! I think it's a perfect capture of Justice Jack, and I think it's so Rolling Stone, the way the artwork overlaps the KEYES. My favorite paperback cover so far!

So you regular followers have now been privy to both the hardcover and the paperback artwork...and the book's not even out yet! The hardcover is slated for May 2012 and the paperback? I think it's due out in November. But the thinking ahead, working ahead, planning ahead is all necessary if we're going to stick to our schedule and have things done right.

So along those thinking-ahead lines, I've decided that you are the group to ask the BIG question:

What actress do you see as being the best screen version of Sammy Keyes?

As you know, I've been quite hesitant about this whole Sammy to TV prospect. But there is a well-established producer who is an actual fan of Sammy's (as in he's--gasp--read the books and loves her), and has been steadfastly keeping tabs with me over the years, hoping something would eventually work out.

What became of paramount importance to me (after a sobering reality check involving what optioning 'a property' [the Sammy books] really meant) was the integrity and quality completion of the book series. Sure it's nice to have Hollywood people interested in developing your books to film, but allowing them to do so is a crap shoot. Maybe it'll come out great and help the books...maybe it will be awful and create an unshakable association.

But, once again, I met with this producer, and, once again, I came away more positively inclined about his potential care and handling of Sammy Keyes as a TV series.

He always asks me who I see as various characters, and, honestly? Sammy is the Sammy in my head, and there's nobody who could fill that image 100% Besides, I don't follow the industry. I don't know who's who, so I would LOVE your input / help.

Let's start by my telling you that the producer likes Bailee Madison and thinks in a couple of years (which is how long these things take, at a minimum) she would make a great Sammy. So what do you think? Who do you like? Not just for Sammy, but for any / all of these main characters:

Sammy:

Casey

Grams:

Hudson
Heather:
Billy!:
Marissa:
Holly:
Dot:

Lana:

Warren:

Others?

Just copy the list, paste it in a comment, and write in your vote for any or all of them. I will check them out and pass them along. Thinking caps, people! If we want this to develop in a direction we like, we've got to give input while they're soliciting it.

Thanks for your comments, thoughts, and input!

Hot Pink Trailer

2012-01-15T21:39:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true.

I lived in a hot pink trailer.

It was, as my brother would have said, "Funky-do."

And not actually hot pink, that's just what Robin and Ben, the friends who let me live in it, affectionately called it. But it was pink with black accents and if I remember correctly, cool black and white diamond linoleum.

It was long and narrow and boxy and had it's own unique smell, but there was something uber cool about it. Definitely "vintage," but, more importantly, a place for me to stay. It was parked in the back of my friends' large, sandy lot, behind their house and amidst eucalyptus trees, and if I could use only one word to describe how I felt living in a funky-do (not-so hot) pink trailer, it would be grateful.

The challenge at the end of each of the previous posts has been to identify in which book the place (or in the case of Max, the concept) wound up. This week I'll have to tell you which book the hot pink trailer appears in because it hasn't been published yet--it's in Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack. And because I'm a big believer and remembering the people who have helped me through my life, the dedication in Justice Jack will be to Robin & Ben.

Now, if you've read the previous posts about my nightmarish living experiences, you'll recognize that this one doesn't quite fit the mold. A funky-do trailer does not measure up to dangling black widows or psycho landlords, and I would never dream of dedicating a book to someone like Max. But this brings me to the reason behind telling you these stories about places I've lived.

In writing, place can be as much a character as the people in your story. I know that many of you aspire to be published, and, as you almost certainly already know, being a writer can make for scrappy living. So what I want to encourage you with this week is the reality that hard times (and funky-do landlords and living quarters) will give you much more to work with as far as setting and character than a smooth, easy life or a swanky apartment where the toilet always flushes and you've never had to wield a plunger or patch the roof or smash a black widow spider.

Or, for that matter, escape a man who thought you were his long lost Athena.

So if you're someone who's going through a tough time, chin up! Just think of all the material you're collecting! There are so many things in my books that come from life off the smooth lane. And they include so many things I know how to do because I had to figure them out or do them to 'survive'. Many I cursed or hated or asked myself why me? But now that I have survived I have those real life experiences (and funky-do places) to draw from. Sammy is Sammy because I didn't lead a smooth-lane life. Scary times, hard times, strange people, scrapes with the law...all of it gives you character which can't help but transfer into your characters.

So take notes. Take pictures. Remember the smells and the sounds and the pain. Get through the dark days of your life and then use them to make your own light.

It's the only way you can look back and smile.

Narrow Escape

2012-01-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

I have a little trepidation about sharing this story with you because it's the only time where I've (quasi) fictionalized an actual situation for one of my books and didn't change the name of the main antagonist.

His name was Max.

With that simple statement, I know that some of you are already on to which one of my books he wound up in. And if you are, I hope you're screaming, "Oh my God!" because, yes, Max and Max are frighteningly similar.

It started innocently enough. A room to rent in a new condo for only $100 / month.

Including utilities.

I was a college student trying to make it on a very tight budget, so I really wanted this room and was very excited when I got myself an interview.

Did it matter that it was a single man renting out the room?

Uh, yes.

But he was old! (Sixty at least. Maybe seventy!) And he was well mannered (and clean shaven), stylish (for an old guy), professional (he ran his broker business out of his home), and very pleasant.

Obviously harmless!

In exchange for such a reasonable rent he said he would appreciate it if I could answer the phone as his "secretary" on occasions when I was home and he had errands to run. Also, perhaps I could play tennis with him.

Tennis?

Yes, there was a clubhouse with a gym and courts. He was a member. He'd get me a membership, too.

Yes!

Also, he liked that I was into healthy eating, and wondered if perhaps I could help him learn to prepare tasty vegetables.

No problem!

He offered me the place on the spot. It was definitely too good to be true, but there it was, true! I wrote him a check and moved in that weekend. And for the first month, everything was amazing! He'd even take me out to lunch once a week to "catch up."

It was like living with a cool, old grandpa. One who could still play tennis!

Then one lunch he began talking about the untapped power of the mind. An interesting subject, until the conversation veered into the moving of objects with your mind. He believed, given enough concentration, one could bend spoons with their mind and he had, he claimed, actually done it.

Not wanting to be impolite (or closed minded) I asked if he could demonstrate.

He could not, he said, and it frustrated him greatly because he had done it, knew it could be done, yet could not repeat it.

A little red flag went up, but I swatted it back down. This was just a case of an old guy with a dream-memory that seemed real. Who doesn't have those?

But there was a shift happening in the household. I started noticing him watching me. I sensed he was thinking things he wasn't saying, and he appeared out of nowhere on several occasions, really startling me.

Then he asked me for a picture of myself. I had headshots. He wanted one, but wouldn't say why.

Yes, it creeped me out, but rather than move out, I hid the pictures behind the cork board I had pinned to a wall in my room above the desk.

Then came our weekly lunch. I didn't want to go, but I did anyway, and that's when the weirdness escalated: In a previous life, he told me, the great love of his life, Athena, and he had been torn apart. He'd been traveling through the ages, life after life, in search of her and at long last he had found her back. He gazed at me through his glasses, held my hand and told me that he was beside himself with joy.

I was his long lost Athena.

What do you say to THAT?

I withdrew my hand, assured him that I was NOT his long lost Athena, that I had no recollections of previous lives whatsoever, and that there was no future US.

I should have walked out of the restaurant and abandoned all my stuff at the condo, but he had driven, it was too far to walk, and he seemed to have accepted my rejection with grace.

But the minute we got back to the condo I started packing. Because if a deluded old guy thinks you're his long lost love from a previous life and he's been wandering eternity in search of you, what is the logical next step so that your lives re-sync?

Simultaneous death.

I locked my door, and was shaking as I packed my things. And as I yanked the cork board off the wall, I discovered that my pictures were missing.

He had found them.

Behind the cork board?

HOW?

I looked around for a camera, but at that point, I just wanted OUT. So I gathered what I could carry in one trip, abandoned the rest, and made my escape.

And years later, still grateful to have survived, I put him in a book.

What book?

The Locker Room

2012-01-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012 to all of you!

I have a couple of other subjects I kinda want to write about, but I did promise I'd get back to the mini series I'd started before the holidays. So, channeling my editor, I will try not to take too many asides before getting to the point of this mini series. (A point which does exist, believe it or not.)

Not that I'll share the point at this juncture, because then what would be the purpose of telling these stories? You'd already know the point.

Which you may well already anyway.

But asides aside, the journey to the point takes us to a two month span where I was between places to live. It covered, not coincidentally, the same span of time when I was unemployed.

If you go to school and work at a school, those summer months can be tricky.

So yes, I was a college student, and the way I pieced together paying for college was by being the PE teacher at a private elementary school across town. I scheduled my classes around my job, and reported to work daily (because at the time physical education was considered to be a vital component to a child's development).

This school is now a pricey private school with an upper school, a lower school, headmasters and mistresses and rich clientele galore. At the time, the rich kids in town all went there, but--aside from its setting near a golf course in an exclusive part of town--it didn't look like much. Especially the "locker room" which was located across from the sports fields at the lowest point of the property. The "locker room" was more like a large shack with a tiny office, a modest-sized room which housed the PE equipment, along with a few toilets, sinks, and showers.

Well, it may have been modest (and musty and drafty), but at the end of the school year, I was allowed to keep the keys to it as I'd volunteered to paint the office over the summer. It's not like they had anything to lose my letting me keep the keys--there was nothing of any real value inside the building. Especially not to headmasters and mistresses and people who are accustomed to vacationing in Paris.

Or to me, even.

No, the value to me was the building. After all, it had a toilet and a sink and a shower...and exercise mats to sleep on.

All I needed was a sleeping bag and a pillow and presto, I'd save myself 2 months of rent.

The theory of this was excellent. The reality, not so much. I had a bright blue car (my own doing), very distinctive in its ugliness, and although I could drive it off the pavement and around behind the building, hiding it back there was suspicious in and of itself.

And although the locker room had lights, which was nice, it also had windows so people outside could see the lights on and wonder, why are there lights on in that shack? And hey--what's that distinctively ugly car doing tucked away around the building?

Plus, during the day, there were gardeners. And...people. I didn't know who they were, or what business they had at the school. But they'd drive past in their Mercedes and I'd wonder, Why aren't you in Paris?

So I stayed away during the day (which was harder than it might seem and a lot less fun than it should have been) and lived by flashlight at night.

And I worried the whole time about getting busted.

And fired.

I should make clear here that I did have other options. Looking back I wonder, Why didn't you just go home? But I wanted to be independent and this was the manner in which I approached independence. Besides, if I had gone home, I would never have fictionalized the core of this experience and put it in...what book?

That's your question for the week!

It's Christmas!

2011-12-25T18:25:00.000-08:00

No post this week--Merry Christmas everyone!
(Would love to hear about your holiday celebrations if you'd like to share!)
Back to our regular programming next Sunday--see you then!

The Diary

2011-12-18T19:45:00.000-08:00

I know I’m in the middle of a Mini Horror Stories Blitz about places I’ve lived, but today was a milestone day--my son’s 18th birthday—and this is the year he got The Diary.

I did one for his brother, too, and really, they’re mostly just mommy mush. You know—entries about how adorable they are or what new milestone they’d reached, clear through their academic or sports or music accomplishments…that sort of thing.

I tried to just leave what I’d written over the years alone and allow the enthusiasm of being Mom override the critical self-evaluation of being Author. But as I was reading through the pages, preparing the text to take to the book binder, I found myself cringing over the number of times I’d used the word “awesome.” So I did do some snipping, but the end result is still more like a home movie than something anyone (besides the star) would actually want to see. That’s okay. It’s just for him, anyway. Mommihood gets a pass on real editing.

Now, in keeping this diary, I didn’t go back and reread it as I went. I would just add something to the end of the Word doc and close the file until the next time. The text added up over the years to more than 200 pages, but I confess to not remembering what was in those pages until I “edited” the entire thing a couple of months ago.

Being reminded of his little childhood antics and his first bike ride and how he came “from the Land With No R’s” brought back a flood of happy memories, but it was also interesting to read about things I'd said I was putting in for “historical perspective” –things like dreaming of getting a book deal, recording music, wish-wish-wishing we could move out of our rundown rental and into a house of our own—because it was all in the voice of someone who had no way of knowing what the future actually held.

I could dive back into the Mini Horror Story Blitz here and tell you about that rental, but despite the recurring mold, the peeling plaster, the leaky roof and the dangerous neighborhood, that little rental wasn’t one of the places I’d intended to tell you about.

Maybe because it was a place I lived after Mark and I got married and love makes anyplace bearable--even if you have to share it with bugs and drips and drafts and dead cats.

Yeah. Let me stop right there.

Or maybe I should promise that someday I'll tell you about Dead Cat Bob and his clones, but not today

Today I’m feeling like a little excerpt from my son’s diary might serve a better purpose: to give those of you who dream big dreams to not give up hope. As I’ve learned from my own experiences, if you hold onto your dream and just keep working toward it, eventually your day will come. So here’s me talking to my very young son about my very big dream, not knowing if or when my day would ever come. (The excerpt picks up after I’ve explained what a typical working-mom day was like for me, and that Mark had already had many articles published by various music magazines, and had just landed his first sci-fi story in Aboriginal magazine.)

Me, I weigh in with the most words written for no money, but I keep telling myself that will change. Right now, Walking on Sensitive Grass and Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief are under consideration at HarperCollins Publishers, but the editor there is just taking her sweet time and I'm getting really frustrated. It's been over a year since I submitted the rewrite for Sensitive Grass and a good 6 months since I submitted Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief and was told that she'd get back to me "soon." So, what I've done is start on Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man and right before Christmas I sent her the first three chapters. I hope to hear from her very soon. Meanwhile, I'll try to keep writing, but it's slow going with this chronic lack of sleep.

As you know there’s a happy ending to this, but at the time I didn’t know what the outcome would be. And as it turned out, I still had a while to wait. The Sammy Keyes series wasn’t picked up until after I’d written the first four books. Still, day to day, I didn’t know that it would take so long. Day to day I just kept hoping that today would be the day.

So whatever your dream, wherever you may be wishing you didn’t live, keep working, keep believing.

Eventually, it will be your day.

Living Quarters (Mini) Horror

2011-12-11T19:45:00.000-08:00

Continuing from last week’s theme, I find myself realizing that the second place I was going to relate to you has never made it into a book. Probably because it’s not really that unique. Anyone who’s had roommates will likely say, oh, that’s nothing! So I probably should skip it altogether, but I tell you what—instead, I’ll use it as an invitation to have you tell me your favorite living quarters horror story.

Actually, the Place That Hasn’t Made It Into A Book might do so at some point because it was weird in a fairly normal way…which can be deceptively insidious. I rented a room (inside the house this time) from a family—a husband, wife, and two high-school-aged daughters. The room was cute, the rent was cheap, and the family seemed nice.

It didn’t take long, however, for me to realize that the girls resented me being there—one of them eventually confessed that this was true but assured me that it wasn’t me—they just didn’t like strangers in their home and were mad at their mother for bringing in a renter.

So yeah. Awkward.

And even though I had been told that I could have full use of the kitchen, it also became clear that the mom was very proprietary about her kitchen. Any time I used it I was chastised for not cleaning up adequately. I was tidy, don’t get me wrong. I just hadn’t grown up in a household where you dried the sink after you cleaned your dishes, or folded the dishtowel before hanging it inside the drying ring. It was always something, to the point where I rarely used the kitchen. One evening, however, after daring to make some popcorn, the mom called me down from my room. “Wendelin, I need to see you immediately.” So down the stairs I ran and what was so urgent? A single kernel of corn. It was under the toaster oven and I have no idea how it got there, but she did the “big reveal” and what could I say? I apologized, cleaned it up, and that was the last time I used the kitchen.

Which was the intended goal, I’m sure.

What really put this place over the top was that one afternoon I was home studying (I was in graduate school at the time) and coming from the room beneath me I could hear a loud thumping. And then screaming! And then loud, obscene swearing and more cries and thumping!

So I tore downstairs and I flung open the door to the room, sure that someone was in the middle of getting murdered, only what I found was the mom and a man I’d never seen before wielding big foam bats.

“May I help you?” the mom asks as I’m standing there with my jaw dropped.

“I thought someone was getting murdered!”

“Oh, no. I’m conducting an aggression therapy session. Now, if you don’t mind….?”

I lasted there four months, and yeah, she kept my cleaning deposit.

Next week’s place will be a little more extreme…and it definitely wound up in a book. And the week following will be downright creepy (and probably much too long) and you Sammy fans will definitely recognize what book it wound up in.

Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to hearing living quarter horrors from you!

Scary Roommate #1

2011-12-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

There is a long, convoluted thought behind this decision, and I'm not sure why I think anyone might be interested...but I'm going ahead with it anyway. You'll have to follow along for the next few weeks for this to really make sense because it's much too long to put down in one post.

So I'm starting off tame and ending up crazed, and your job is to tell me if you recognize where the real life event I relate was fictionalized and put into one of my books.

Or maybe more than one of my books!

All these mini stories are true, and all have to do with places I've, uh, resided.

This week's story takes place in a garage. This was no converted garage. It was your basic, swing-up door variety, with not even a service sink, let alone bathroom.

If you're wondering what in the world I was doing, living in a garage, well, I'll just simplify it by saying, Hard times.

There are no nightlights in garages. I guess I could have rigged something up, but I kept telling myself I wasn't staying. I had a desk lamp that I'd switch on, but other than that, it was me, some basic supplies, a backpacking mat and a down sleeping bag.

Oh.

And a black widow spider.

Just one.

I think.

The garage was actually fairly new, and the only junk in it was me and my minimal stuff. And at first I didn't know about the spider because it wouldn't show itself when the door was up. But one morning I did notice it, and boy did it freak me out. I slept with that monster dangling above me? It wasn't, like, lurking in a corner. It was right there! Above my sleeping bag! It could have dropped down and...and...creepy-crawled all over me! Or, what if I was sleeping on my back with my mouth open?

Aaaaaaagh!

I t tried to catch it. Or, you know, smash it. But I didn't exactly have a broom or long-handled weapon to work with and the sneaky booger got away.

I stuffed my bag back in its sack, worried that it would otherwise crawl inside it and lay in wait while I was away. (I had developed a phobia of black widows long before this garage--developed over the years by them dropping out of attics and roof tiles and air conditioning units.Oh. And there was the one that dropped out of the workstation at a hair salon right past my knee!) Anyway, when I came back that night I checked all over for the spider and it was nowhere to be found. I went to bed, but the garage was pitch black when the light was off, so I would never be able to see if it was rappelling down it's sticky thread to come chomp on me. So I kept clicking on the light, kept checking the rafters. Eventually I fell asleep, but in the morning when my alarm went off and I clicked on the light, there it was again, dangling overhead.

Aaaaaaaagh!

To make a very long, sleepless story short, I never did catch that sneaky spider. Instead, I moved out.

To where I'll tell you next week. For now, recognize anything in this story?

Wendelin in Triptych

2011-11-27T21:51:00.000-08:00

Hi, everyone – Mark here, subbing for Lady Wendelin. (Okay, when the boys were little we had a kid’s book about a knight and a dragon and a fair princess named Lady Wendolyn. It stuck. Kinda like the little boy named Patrick down the street, who our oldest called “Saint Patrick” for the longest time. Or our friend Mary, who the boys called “Mary-Mary”, from the nursery rhyme…)

I’m writing to provide a semi-external perspective on Wendelin’s writing process… and because I told her I had what might be an interesting blog topic, after I cobbled this pic together last night.

See, even though the 1st and 3rd frames look identical, they’re not - all three photos were taken in the order shown, a few minutes apart. And she had no idea I was photographing her, as she was working away late Friday night on the ‘SK and the Wayward Parents’. (She was in the dining room, and I was in the kitchen supposedly doing dishes. But I was watching her work - as I am wont to do - and something just caught my eye and I thought I’d take a few pics.) Then, when I looked at them last night, I was taken by the back-and-forth nature of the photos: She’d sit back and think. Then she’d write some. Then more thinking. Then more writing. Etc…

This struck me as a metaphor for the whole creative process. We’ve all heard ‘Writing is Rewriting’. And of course, ‘Writing is Hard Work’. (Both true.) But it also occurred to me that ‘Writing is Thinking’. (I suppose this is a big “DUH!” to most of you, but I’m known to make these very obvious discoveries, which everyone else already knows. Like, I’ll come in from the outside on a sunny day and announce, “Hey, you know the sky is really blue!”)

So, by ‘thinking’ I don’t necessarily mean the analytical kind, where you fall out of the creative flow, but more a mulling over – either what you’ve just written or are about to write - holding the words in your head like stones in your hand, rolling them around and around and trying to get them to fit together smoothly. And not being afraid to toss them back in the stream and fish out some new ones, if they’re not quite right.

Wendelin has talked about the concept of ‘do a chapter, do a chore’. Sometimes, if you’re stuck, it’s good to get away from the keyboard and go do some relatively mindless task for a while. But really, this may just be ‘thinking’ on another level, allowing your subconscious to get into the game.

But regardless, good writing doesn’t seem to be a linear task, at least not for those I know who do it. It’s more like a tennis match, whacking that ball back-and-forth, only you’re playing on both sides of the net.

So, look at the 1st and 3rd frames. That’s where the real writing is happening…

Tennessee

2011-11-20T20:32:00.000-08:00

I’ve just returned home from a week-long visit to Tennessee, where I did presentations at four middle schools and four elementary schools and one university.

I think.

Well, I’m sure about the number of universities.

I really like doing school visits—I like the kids, and the teachers and librarians do a fantastic job prepping the students for Author Day. It’s the traveling that kills me! I’ve shared tales from the road before, but I have a few more to add to my storybook of travel horrors. Or, more accurately, exhausting inconveniences. This time there was a semi-truck overturned on the interstate between Nashville and Knoxville. Add an hour to the two and a half hour trip. I kept reminding myself that I was inconvenienced, not dead, like the semi driver may very well have been. They were stacking the panels of the rig as we finally inched past. I don’t know what he’d been hauling, but the truck trailer seemed to be reduced to compact stacks of metal parts.

Needless to say, with two flights and a very long drive (through a time zone change, even) it was late night by the time I checked into the hotel.

But the next morning the travel was behind me and the fun began. Each school has a “host” who sees you through your day—or as this week shaped up, your half day with them. They pick you up at the hotel (a better guarantee that you will actually appear at the school and not get yourself lost in a rental car) and before long you’ve got your computer talking to their projection system and the kids are filing in, anxious to hear what you have to say.

Now, I have to hand it to the elementary schools—they get their students excited. The kids see me in the hall and whisper, Is that her? Or a brave one will be dispatched to ask, “Are you Miss Van Draanen?”

When I say yes, one of two things happens: They scamper off squealing, or they hesitate, then charge at me with a hug.

Who cares about a little travel delay when that’s the reception you get!

The middle schools usually come with a warning or apology from the host about the hour or the group. Depends on what sort of middle school it is. If the kids are 7th & 8th, they can be a little sleepy if it’s a morning assembly. Or a little chatty if it’s an afternoon assembly. Or a little, uh, distant. I mean, come on. It’s an author. How exciting can it be?

I love presenting to 7th / 8th – they may be my favorite group ‘cause they transform from sleepy and / or distant to engaged and laughing. My view is you just have to remember what it was like to be them. Jump around a little. Tell a story. Wake…them…up.

After my spastic presentation Monday morning, the 8th graders gave me a standing O. It started with the boys. The ones who’d sat at the back of the room. The ones who’d come in dragging. And then it spread forward and it about made me cry from happiness. There’s nothing like a spontaneous standing O from a bunch of eighth graders to set your mood for the whole week.

So the schools were great, but by the end of a week of three spastic presentations each day (well, I controlled myself a little at the university, so that one wasn’t as spastic) I was pretty exhausted and looking forward to getting home to my own bed.

The trip home started okay—my saintly host drove me the two and a half hours back to the airport, and fortunately there were no accidents or delays on the way. But when I checked in at the airport I learned that my flight was delayed because the original aircraft had been held up by bad weather conditions in San Francisco.

(SFO, you should just give it up. All over the country there are delays because of you We're tired of it! Wake up! You've got fog! It's not going away! Let San Jose have your business, already!)

Anyway, that was the beginning of the end. The flight got me in too late to catch my connection home, because I was on different carriers for each leg of the trip and the carriers had different terminals which required me to go outside, then back through security. By the time I’d reached the second terminal my flight had already lifted off. The next flight out wasn’t until 8 AM, so I was stuck at 11 PM at a ticket counter where I was told that people often spent the time waiting in a little cordoned off area of plastic chairs as I wouldn’t be allowed to go to my gate until 4:30 AM.

Thanks.

I guess I could have gone back to the first carrier and asked them to put me up in a hotel room, but I didn’t want a stupid hotel room or to get up early and endure possible flight delays and more security screening and airport food. I wanted to go home and was willing to drive the four hours to get there.

Unfortunately, Hertz wanted over $300 for a rental car.

Fortunately, Avis only wanted $30.

So I got on the Avis shuttle and was transported to the Avis rental car lot where I got a car, a map, and a bottle of tea and hit the road.

Tennessee time, it was almost 6 AM by the time I hit the pillow.

Still. It was a great week. There’s just something about the kids that makes all the travel headaches worth it.

Thanks for checking in – see you next week!

Swinging Through Darkness

2011-11-13T20:32:00.000-08:00

I hate to get information about my own books from Amazon.

Like, shouldn’t I be the first to know?

Or, at least, somewhere in the top ten?

I was actually at the Amazon site because I’d been given some good news—The Running Dream has been named one of Amazon’s Best Books for 2011 in the Young Adult category, so I was checking that out.

But then I happened upon the hardcover art for Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack, which—as you can see—is a bit of a stylistic departure from the rest of the series. I’d seen (and commented on) the initial sketches, but this was the first I’d seen the final art, and it caught me off guard. Partly because it looks collage-y instead of painted, and I wasn’t expecting that. My reaction was rooted in how the art fit with the rest of the series, coupled with a knee-jerk annoyance at seeing it for the first time on-line.

I tried to tell myself to let it go—that it was a done deal and there was nothing I could do about it.

And what is it I wanted to do, anyway?

I recognized that I was probably hurt more than anything, which I told myself was childish, but I kept staring at the Amazon page and the situation festered. I was feeling overlooked and undervalued and just…irritated.

My son came in and saw me brooding and asked what was wrong. So I told him. And his advice was that I should call the person in charge and talk about it. I told him it wouldn’t change anything, and that I would just come across as whiny and needy (and I don’t want to come across as whiny or needy!).

He persisted, though, and had made good headway in convincing me to call—to the point where I actually said I would--but just then FedEx drove up.

I like our regular FedEx driver. She’s friendly and competent and she’s been navigating our driveway for years without complaint. I can see her coming from my office window, so whenever I can, I go out and thank her i in person. And since my son had just convinced me to make a call I was feeling cowardly about, I took the FedEx truck as a welcome (albeit temporary) escape.

The FedEx lady handed over a box, and started chatting about having seen me on the news the previous week. She was her usual upbeat self and told me she had a grandson she reads to—he’s only two, but she love-love-loves to read to him—something he won’t be able to do for himself for a while, not, it turns out, because he’s two, but because he’s blind.

Blind?

This was the first I’d heard of the grandson, but my heart immediately went out to her.

She was in grandma mode, though, and having none of my sympathy. She whipped out her iPhone and showed me a video of her grandson swinging, and while I watched him go back and forth she told me he’d been born with detached retinas and that he would likely never be able to see, but then went on to talk excitedly about how he’s started walking by holding his palms against the walls, and how he’s the sweetest dearest thing.

“He doesn’t know anything else,” she said, putting her phone away. “So he’s happy.” Then she teared up a little and said, “It’s been hard on my son, though,” and it came out that in his two short years of life her grandson has already been through four eye surgeries and there will have to be ongoing surgeries as he grows—something about scar tissue and pressure and headaches.

I said whatever positive things I could think to say to her (like how blessed the boy was to have her for a grandma), but when she was gone I just stood there feeling like an ass.

How many lessons do I need about not sweating the small stuff?

Haven’t I had plenty already?

Why do I need these refresher courses?

Maybe I didn't like the way things were handled, but good grief. So what? It’s art, not life and death.

And, more to the point, I was born with eyes that can see it.

Slap Me Silly!

2011-11-06T19:53:00.000-08:00

Have I told you that the Sammy Keyes book I'm working on now is the "Heather" book?

No?

How could I have kept that from you?

Maybe because I didn't know myself just how much of a Heather book it would be?

No, that's a cop out.

I knew.

But now that I'm in the middle of it?

Wow. Is this interesting?

I don't mean to imply that the book is written in the voice of Heather. What I mean is that she's in the main plot, not just a subplot, and in this book we're getting to the bottom of why she is the way she is.

As you can imagine, this is taking a lot of digging.

But before you ever pierce your spade into the ground, there's the whole ordeal of finding "X-Marks-the-Spot."

In the case of Heather, it's been 15 books of figuring out where to start digging.

And now that I've started I'm reminded of digging a hole at the beach. Sand falls in, little crabs appear out of nowhere, you run into rocks and old bottle caps and baby shoes...then the sand gets darker and colder and slowly water starts seeping in.

I should maybe clarify that no, there's not actually something buried in this book--we've had enough of that with Dead Giveaway and Night of Skulls, right? The only thing buried in this case is what's inside Heather's head, and digging down to it has been fascinating.

And (confession time) during this week's writing (and digging), I came upon something that made me tear up.

Me? Tear up over Heather?

Slap me silly! Heather's a beast! And after everything she's put Sammy through? How could anyone (especially me!) tear up over Heather???

But it's true, I did. And although it was temporary, I do still have a long way to go before I quit digging. And if water's already seeping in?

Somebody send me a paddle!

Art and an Excerpt, Good Citizens!

2011-10-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

I hope you all had a fun pre-Halloween weekend! We dressed up as musketeers and went to a couple of parties and saw lots of things that reminded me of Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls. One house had transformed their yard into a pathway through tombstones with a grave dug out to hold a real zombie person poised to spring to life and scare the candy out of you! (If I’d have had Night of Skulls with me I would have done a reverse trick-or-treat and given them a book.)

Speaking of Night of Skulls, some of you wrote such nice comments about it here at the blog and since it's just come out and there aren't a lot of reviews of it yet, if you'd like to post yours at Amazon or elsewhere, that would be great!

Moving away from Halloween, several of you commented that after you'd devoured Night of Skulls you were depressed by the prospect of having to wait-wait-wait for Sammy’s next adventure. Well, how about I cheer you up with some art and an excerpt from Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack?

Let's start with art. Karl Edwards is the artist for the paperback covers, and his process is to submit several preliminary sketches of the main cover drawing to Random House--check out the six versions of "Justice Jack" on the left. These preliminary sketches get passed around and one is selected as the favorite, and then Karl does his magic and creates the final, full-color rendering.

You may recall from a previous post that for Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher poor Karl was tortured by us changing our minds. How do you illustrate the Wedding Crasher? Who was the Wedding Crasher?

Not something I wanted to give away on the cover!

So with that book we went round and round trying to figure out what the image should be, and Karl got caught in the middle. This time, a key reason I wanted to keep “Justice Jack “in the title was so there would be an obvious image for Karl to work with for the paperback. And when his sketches came in I was so happy we did! One of the goals of the paperback art is to capture the humor of the Sammy Keyes books, and this one is sure going to do that—what a hoot!

Now, you’ve only heard me talk about Justice Jack. (For like, what? A year now? Sorry.)

I remember telling you about him when he was just a fledgling idea without a name. Remember that? I said he was “a kinda loser guy” who fancied himself a superhero.

But other than that, I don’t think I’ve given you much physical description, so there’s no way you’ll be able to tell which of Karl’s sketches best represents Justice Jack.

But you know what?

I have the power to fix that.

The POWER.

(Yeah.)

Before I paste in the excerpt, let me explain that in this scene Sammy & Friends are at Dot DeVries house. (Did I hear a chorus of yays? I know some of you have missed Dot.) And, back inside the Land of Blue, the Dutch celebration of Sinterklaas is underway. All you really have to know for this excerpt to make sense is that Sinterklaas looks like St. Nicholas (or a pointy-hatted Santa Claus).

And now (drum roll please)… here we go!

----------

The man on the porch does have long hair like Dot described Sinterklaas, but it’s black, not white. And he is wearing red and gold like Sinterklaas, but I’m pretty sure what he’s wearing is not something Sinterklaas would be caught dead in.

It’s Spandex.

Or, you know, some other stretchy, Morphsuit-ish fabric.

And over his stretchy-looking red-and-gold body suit he’s wearing tall black boots that have buckles everywhere, red knee and arm pads, and a gold chest plate that looks like a cross between a hotrod grill and a catcher’s chest protector. And in the middle of the chest plate there’s a big red “J” with a black lightning bolt behind it.

Topping all that off are heavy gold gloves, a Roman centurion helmet, and a black mask across his eyes. And around his waist is a utility belt.

You know—like Batman wears?

Only instead of high-tech Bat-gadgets in his utility belt, this weirdo’s got a hammer, a flashlight, and a slingshot.

I almost say, Hey, Halloween was over a month ago! But even though he’d need to do some serious lifting to be mistaken for a real superhero, from the way he’s standing and from the jut of his jaw, I’m getting the feeling that he actually believes he’s a superhero.

----------

So there you go! Art and an excerpt. I hope you enjoy going through this process with me. It’s fun to share it with you, so thanks for tuning in—see you next week!

Typewriters & Avocados

2011-10-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

I know that a lot of people who visit this blog are aspiring writers, and I think one of those Dream Moments in an aspiring writer's mind is The Book Signing. It's a moment where you finally get to share the physical result of years of work (and, likely, even more years of pressing on through the daunting weight of rejections).

Your first book signing will be a big celebration that your friends and family are excited to attend and that your local media will be happy to support. Getting your first book published is a huge deal and people from all corners of your life get that, and get behind that.

After 28 books?

People from all corners of your life get that this is what you do...that it's your job. Sort of like they have a job they go to every day, only they don't get to have the celebratory signings like you do. And you'd better get that, too--after the first few books your friends and family shouldn't be expected to prop up your career. (But for the first few, you bet!)

And this is where a new kind of hard work for the author comes in--you've got to solicit press. At least I consider it hard work because I seriously don't enjoy it.

Scratch that, I verge on HATING it.

The nice thing about your publisher springing for a national tour is that the publicity department gets involved in getting your book (and you) print coverage and TV spots and radio interviews. I've been lucky to have been toured many times, so I've seen first hand what a huge job it is for the publicist to coordinate all of this.

The reality, however, is that only a small percentage of authors get toured, so it then falls on the author to do a lot of the publicity. Blog tours have become popular and I think they're a brilliant way for an author to gain some traction--at least on the Web. But for most authors, they start with the local book signings and try to drum up interest in their own backyard, which they hope will be spread by word of mouth to neighboring areas, etc.

So for local signings, it's up to the author to contact the newspapers and the TV stations and get them to run a story on your new book and signing--preferably before the signing so people know about it and show up.

And that's the key--if people show up, your signing is successful and the bookstore will be happy to have you back. If nobody shows up and the book store has ordered in a good quantity of your book...well they won't volunteer this information, but those extra books are going to be returned to the publisher and the book store will be more wary about having you back for another signing.

So it's your job to get the word out to people who are a) not related to you, and b) not your core group of friends, but instead c) your fan base or newcomers who may truly be interested in what it is you've written.
This means you have to...
1) write a compelling press release--one page or less
2) get a good digital photo of your book jacket
3) get in touch with the right people at the various media outlets.
4) follow up without being a pest.

Per #3: If there's someone at a particular outlet that you've worked with over the years, this can be fun. Usually, however, it's someone who's worked there less than a year, is overworked, and has no clue who you are.

Per #4: This can be a real balancing act. Me, I'd rather just step down from the rope.

There are lots of publications about how to go about doing this whole press thing, and my point here isn't to go into all the how-to's of it, but more to explain that this is part of being an author--something you don't really think about before your first book comes out. And if you're okay with the inevitable mistakes and misrepresentations that seem to go hand-in-hand with news coverage; if after a dozen books—or two dozen— you don’t mind answering, “So, what got you into writing?” from someone who hasn’t read a word of what you’ve written, then maybe you won't mind it.

What keeps me trying is that in the end, people show up. This weekend I saw some old friends, some familiar faces, and some new people. People who are crazy for Sammy Keyes. People who have read every book I've written. People who already knew what got me into writing and just want me to assure them I'll keep doing it. People who were moved by a book and want to just shake my hand and thank me. People who heard I stuck with it through ten years of rejections and want me to know that they're on their fifth year and hanging in there. People who were students of mine, or the parents of students of mine. People who bring pictures of their kids and grandkids and share a memory of how a book of mine has bonded their family.

And then there are the people who bring things. Sometimes flowers, sometimes letters, sometimes drawings.

Sometimes just an excited hug.

At this weekend's signings I received all of those things, plus some avocados.

I love avocados.

But the coolest gift I received was a fat black ring of skeleton keyes.

Whoops! Keys.

The ring is big enough to fit over my hand, and if you've already read Night of Skulls you understand the dual significance of this gift.

The coolest thing I signed was a typewriter.

A typewriter!

When I do school visits my policy is to only sign books because if I stray from that pretty soon I'm signing foreheads and shoes. I just tell the students that if I do one scrap I have to be fair and do everyone's scrap, so I can't do any scraps. Or body parts.

But at public book signings I'm okay with signing other things. I did a few autograph books and three casts this weekend (2 were purple). I'd have signed a pumpkin if someone had brought one in.

Instead, a writer brought in an ancient typewriter--one he's had some of his favorite authors sign, most notably Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury's book Dandelion Wine is what inspired me to write my first published work--How I Survived Being A Girl. So the idea that my name is signed on the same typewriter as Ray Bradbury’s is, to me, awesome. (And that this writer wanted my name to be signed on the same typewriter as Ray Bradbury is double awesome!) My autograph's on the side, which you can't see in the picture I posted...but it's there!

So this is a long and sorta rambling way of saying that sometimes parts of our jobs require us to do things we would rather not, but if we make ourselves do them anyway, the net result can make it worth the effort.

I've got the hugs and the avocados and the keys…and a picture of an awesome typewriter to prove it.

Let The Son Shine In!

2011-10-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

My sons are both awesome, but today was Colton's day. He's been training for months to run his first marathon, and today was the big day. Mark and I trained with him.-how else is a college student going to get up every Saturday at 6:00 AM to go for the week's "long run" -- a distance that stretches up to 20 miles a few weeks before "race day"?

He confessed today that he "tapererd early." Meaning that for the past two weeks, instead of reducing his mid-week runs like the schedule dictated, he just didn't do them.

"It was too hot."

Also, the carbo-loading he did this past week at his dorm included eating an entire box of Captain Crunch, another of Cocoa Puffs, and another of Honey Bunches of Oats.

Not smart. Especially when you need to keep your intestines...uh...streamlined.

Anyway, today proved (once again) that attitude is everything. Colton's super smart (although he did not apply his intelligence to his marathon prep this past week), and really, really nice. He may look like a shred metal guitar player (because he is) but he has got to be one of the kindest, gentlest people on this planet.

He's also got this wonderful enthusiasm for certain things, and today that shone through in a big way. "This is gonna be fun," he kept saying.when we got him out of bed at 5:30 this morning, and he continued to say it all the way to the starting line.

You think so, I thought to myself, because you've never done a marathon. They hurt. A lot. Why am I doing this again? Who's stupid idea was this? Oh,yeah. Yours.

Then off we went, me keeping the pace because we'd agreed to run as a family and I am the undisputed boat anchor. At mile eight Colton's still yammering. Wow, look at this scenery! (It was beautiful.) Wow! This is so much fun! (No comment.) Thank you SO much for doing this with me. This is the best time I've had in ages! (Poor, poor you.)

At mile 20 he's still excited, but when I ask him how he can still have so much energy, he tells me that he's just trying to keep a positive attitude. Then he says, "I didn't hit the wall like I did in training. Did you hit the wall!" (Yeah, about eight miles ago.) "I was sort of looking forward to hitting the wall so I could really see what it's like to go inside my mind and pull up my reserves."

Yup, attitude is everything.

Still. At Mile 22 I'm completely wilted. The sun has broken through and is baking me into the asphalt. My feet are blistered and my intestines are duking it out, making me nauseous. (Maybe I should have had some Captain Crunch.) And then Colton suddenly charges ahead and then scrambles up a steep embankment onto a field.

"What's he doing?" I ask Mark.

Mark just shakes his head. "I have no idea."

"Wow, that was really stupid," Colton says when he joins us again. "I was just seeing what I still had in me, but I think I'm going to fall over now."

Mark and I just shake our heads at him. But Colton's still staying positive, acting like he's actually pleased to have legs of lead. "Are yours sore, Mom?" (Thud-thud-thud.) "Because my legs are whoa! Jelly!"

When we finally crossed the finish line at 26.2 miles and Colton got his first marathon medal slung around his neck, he turned and thanked me for being the pace keeper. "I'd have been sprinting and walking if it wasn't for you." And when I tried to apologize for slowing him down he said, "Are you kidding? I couldn't have done this any faster."

I know there are lots of things I should be updating about Sammy Keyes, but they'll have to wait a week. This post is dedicated to Colton--an inspiring human being, and an an awesome son.

And The Winning Number Is...

2011-10-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it is NOT thirteen. Sorry to the over thirty of you who guessed that number, but pfew to me, because I would have had to have a run off and would feel bad about not being able to send each of you a book.

I liked the explanation some of you sent regarding why 13 was your choice--especially the ones that referred to Sammy's recurring age.

So thirteen was the most frequently guessed number, followed by seven, which is also not The Number.

Interesting that the two numbers guessed most were the "lucky" number and the "unlucky" number.

The numbers NOBODY guessed were one and three.

Fortunately, neither was The Number.

Although three was a contender.

I do like the number three.

And a lot of you also guessed four, and your explanation was based on the first four books and the last four books...I really liked that.

But the winning number was also not four, sorry.

So, good grief, why don't I tell you already?

Yeah, sorry. I know--you've been waiting all week.

Cutting to the chase: the winning number is nine.

As in 9.

There were five correct guesses, but two of them did not include mailing addresses. Sigh. What am I supposed to do with you? The instructions were really clear and really easy. And I have three books to give away. Five minus two-with-no-addresses equals three.

Okay, right now The Nines are freaking out. Did I send my address?! Please! I was just excited!

Yeah, yeah, I know. And I like that you're excited. And maybe a little forgetful. It reminds me of my mad scientist son. So fine. I'll e-mail you back and the subject will be HEY SPACE CASE!- and if you e-mail me your address, I'll scare up a book for you.

Boo!

Congratulations to those of you who won--if you sent me your address I'll autograph your book and get it in the mail tomorrow. And thank you to everyone who submitted a guess, and especially for the nice comments you included. I wish you could all have won a book! Maybe we'll do this again in May when Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack comes out.

Whether you won or not, I hope you enjoy Night of Skulls (which comes out on Tuesday).

See you next Sunday!

The Ugly Dirty Shredded Rubber Chicken (and a Book Giveaway)

2011-10-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

As those of you who follow my weekly postings know, last night was the Risky Whippet "concert." I mentioned before that someone was threatening to record parts of it. They did. So I have a two minute YouTube link for you, which you will either find cool or ridiculous. Hey. It's rock and roll. Anyway, if you watch it you're bound to notice and eventually discern that that ugly yellow thing dangling from the ceiling in front of my face is a rubber chicken.

Yes, that's right--an ugly, dirty, shredded rubber chicken

So, you ask, what is an ugly, dirty, shredded rubber chicken doing dangling in front of the stage (by a chain, no less)?

No, I didn't put it there.

And neither did Billy Pratt.

And yeah, I was wondering the same thing myself. It was gross and I really wanted to take it down. I mean, how was I supposed to concentrate on my hard-spun lyrics with a ugly rubber chicken dangling in front of my face?

The bar owner knew what I was thinking. "Don't touch the chicken," he growled at me. "Ya gotta work around the chicken. All bands do."

Of course I asked what the significance of the chicken was, and was told, basically, that it was good luck.

A dirty shredded rubber chicken hung by it's neck on a chain in front of your stage signifies good luck?

Mark knew I was about to pop off so he pulled me away and told me, Look, Wendelin. Just deal with the chicken.

So we set up our gear and rocked the house and I guess the chicken worked because everything went great. I even got a round of cheers when (to my younger son's chagrin) I introduced the band as our family and identified myself as "the mom."

"Yeah, Mom!" the chicken heads at the bar shouted.

Anyway, if you want to see the two minute "sampler" on YouTube and check out the dangling chicken for yourself, here's the link.

And now onto the reason most of you have tuned in to this week's blog babblings--the Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls giveaway contest.

Actually, it's not a contest. I did a contest last time. This time I'm just going to make it luck-based. (Influenced, I'm afraid, by the chicken.)

As (I hope) you know, there are going to be 18 books in the Sammy Keyes series, so simply pick a number between 1-18, inclusive, and send it, along with your name and mailing address, to mail@exercisetherighttoread.org Put NIGHT OF SKULLS GUESS in the subject line.

This is NOT A RACE. You may send in your e-mail anytime between now and Saturday, October 8th. I'll go through the entries on Sunday the 9th and announce the answer during next week's post. I have three books to give away, so if more than three of you guess the correct number I'll either scare up more books or have a run off contest. The only hint I have about this number is that I like it. That's it.

So dangle an ugly rubber chicken in front of your face and send me a number!

Counting to Twelve

2011-09-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

Late again!

We took four teens to see a Bright Eyes concert last night. And I had a baby shower at the house during the day.

Good excuses!

It does not pay to stress about things. I keep reminding myself of this, but it's slow to sink in. When I first offered up my house for this shower, the head count was going to be "ten or twelve" -- something I could manage. Then the pregnancy had complications, the baby came early, (he's doing great!), and suddenly people were asking if they could come, too,and the count zoomed up to twenty. All week I stressed about where I was going to seat twenty people -- the deck would have been great, but it was Sog City all week and not an option. So I spent Saturday moving furniture, adding chairs, you know, stressing.

And yesterday the sun broke through and everyone wanted to be out on the deck.

Which I had, of course, not cleaned.

So, see? All that stress and for what? I really need to just go with the flow more.

I will try to apply this to our gig on October 1st. I'm rhythmically impaired. I can't seem to count to twelve. And when you're doing songs based on 12-bar progression, counting to twelve is important.

Unless, as my drummer husband says, you "just feel it."

When you're Type-A, just feeling it collides with counting to twelve, and you find yourself lost at eleven-and-a-half going, Now?

Never mind. They all laugh at me. You're probably laughing at me, too. That's okay. I laugh at myself.

Only not when I'm lost somewhere between eight and twelve and I've got to jump in singing.

Anyway, see? I'm getting myself all stressed, and for what? It's a bar. We're going on at 11. At that stage people there will probably have trouble counting to four.

(But they probably know how to feel it.)

Anyway, some of you asked for details, so I'll add the poster. We'll do originals, plus covers by Social Distortion, Papa Roach, The Who, Alice in Chains, Jet, Sixx AM...you get the picture...it's gonna be loud. Someone's threatening to record it. I'll let you know.

Double-anyway. Onto something you may actually be interested in: I have a few early copies of Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls! Next week I will post a giveaway contest...or maybe not a contest but something. So check back here next Sunday (I won't be late, promise), and we'll figure out how to give a couple of you faithful followers a copy of the new book.

Until then, count to twelve for me!

The Bad Part About Good Habits

2011-09-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

Hi, guys! Mark here, sitting in for Wendelin because she’s up to her neck with the latest SK manuscript, where Sammy is up to HER neck, getting in trouble in Las Vegas in what I affectionately refer to as Sammy Keyes and the Wayward Parents. (Ever notice how sometimes the parents act like children, which of course means that the children have to act like parents? But that’s a topic for another time, mi amigos!)

What’s on my mind at the moment are habits. Both kinds… the good ones we all aspire to acquire, and the bad ones that are oh-so-easy to pick up and darn near impossible to let go. Bad habits are certainly more fun, but I want to talk about good ones because lately I’ve been trying to divine their secrets…

The good thing about a habit (assuming it’s a good habit) is that once it in fact becomes a habit, you don’t have to struggle with the ‘Should I or shouldn’t I?’ issue every day, as it becomes an automatic part of your life. Cool.

The bad part about good habits, however, is that they can be a beast to make into an actual habit.

Sometimes that beast can be almost un-tamable. (Anyone tried quitting smoking lately?) However, there is a secret. (Actually, it’s more like a helpful methodology. However, doesn’t ‘SECRET’ sound way more interesting than ‘HELPFUL METHODOLOGY’? I thought so, too…) And the secret is this: You do NOT have to force yourself to do the desirable/healthy/intelligent/mature/successful behavior forever. Nope. You just need to force yourself to do it for the indeterminate-but relatively-short period of time it takes for the desired behavior to become a true habit.

After that, it’s automatic, right? Easy money, honey!

And it really helps (uh, I mean, here’s another secret!) if you can put a strategy in place whereby the desired behavior is pretty much unavoidable during the habit-forming stage.

Case in point…

Wendelin has mentioned that we (as a family) are training for a marathon. This will be the first marathon for both of our boys. The older one is really looking forward to it, and joins us on our group training runs with a smile and zero complaints. The younger one… not so much. At first, he tried to say he wasn’t going to do it. Until I reminded him that he committed to doing this, and only after we had everyone’s commitment did Wendelin move some already-scheduled speaking engagements so we could run a marathon as a family. Then, he’d go on the early runs (marathon training is a four-month endeavor) very begrudgingly, complaining the whole way, and walking half the time. We just put on our ‘happy face’ and laughed when he complained, like he’d just told the world’s funniest joke.

Finally, after several weeks of this, his body started getting used to the running and his fitness level improved, and instead of being the boat anchor, he and I actually ran ahead of the others on a few runs, and he was like, “Hey guys, keep us with us!” (Ahh, the glory of youth…)

And most recently, on a Friday evening when we had a 12-miler scheduled for the next morning (usually a cause for much verbal dissention) he said, “Ya know, I’m actually looking forward to tomorrow’s run.”

HALLELUJAH…!!!

I knew (okay, hoped) that if he stuck with it through that magic ‘indeterminate-but relatively-short period of time’, he would arrive at this juncture. And the thing that helped facilitate his sticking with it was a strict schedule (and occasional reminders that he was required to honor his commitment).

Once you’re past that stage, the part of the human brain that likes things in an orderly, repeated, constant, and consistent pattern takes over, and makes the motivational piece of the self-improvement puzzle that much easier to deal with.

At least, that’s my hypothesis until proven otherwise. (IOW, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…)

Here’s hoping all your newly acquired habits are good ones!

Electronic Editing (and a small sample of Justice Jack!)

2011-09-11T20:55:00.000-07:00

Whenever I have a conversation with Nancy (my editor) about her job I learn something new. Maybe I was ignorant when she acquired my first book, but I didn't even realize back then that editors negotiate contracts. I thought they, you know, edited. Turns out editing's only a small fraction of their duties. I should ask Nancy to do a guest post sometime to explain...or even just list...what she as an editor does. I know some of you would find it fascinating.

For now I'll just give you a few interesting tidbits from our conversation.

First, apparently a lot of authors don't use the traditional guidelines for submitting manuscripts. You know, Times New Roman, double spaced, one-inch margins, header with name, book title, and page number, printed single sided in black ink on standard white 20# paper?

It's in every beginner's guide to submission.

Granted she doesn't work with many beginners anymore, but she's gotten pages submitted on onionskin parchment.

No, I'm not kidding.

I remember my dad using that stuff in the typewriter with carbon paper...or to include an extra page in an airletter for overseas.

So whoever this author was, he must've been pretty "established" for her to put up with that.

And pretty old.

But she also gets books e-mailed chapter by chapter as they get completed.Which means she has to consolidate the chapters into a manageable file herself.

Where's the author's rewrite process if this is how they submit it?

Unique fonts, not using Word, no electronic file available whatsoever (so she has to retype the thing?!)...I told her I couldn't believe she put up with it, but she said that one of the things she likes about her job is that all her authors are so different. They have their own personalities and ways of doing things, and she likes to allow them to breathe as artists.

A very noble attitude given the extra work it causes her. I'd want to tell the Wordless guy, Get with the program, man! I can't be retyping your novel because you can't be bothered to take a class! Wake up Rip Van Wordless, it's 2011!

Anyway (deep breath) this recent conversation about the seemingly endless scope of Nancy's job was precipitated by my feeling befuddled by a new editing process she had asked me to try for the post-copy-edited manuscript of Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack.

(Yes, we settled on Power.)

The manuscript came back to me as a Word doc with "tracked" notes from the copy editor and Nancy, with the idea being that I would comment, and change what I wanted on the computer and e-mail it back.

Save paper. Save time.

Murder your eyes.

After reading three chapters on screen I realized I wasn't reading the book as I always do (because there are always little mistakes that sneak through the process and I make it a point to read it each time). Instead I was jumping from markup to markup, trying to decipher what it is they were talking about.

Here's a little example :-)

Fortunately Nancy had had the foresight to also send me a hardcopy of the electronically marked-up manuscript. We're under a little time crunch and just in case I didn't adapt well to the electronic process, she said I could just mark up the hardcopy with pencil (like I always do), send it back, and she would enter the changes for me.

This was before our conversation, and, not liking the process, I put aside my computer and got to work with a pencil. I do have lots of other pressures in my life right now, and this whole new electronic editing business seemed tedious and like something I just was not interested in learning at the moment.

Still. When I'd finally made it through the 300-page hardcopy, I called Nancy to let her know that the 8-page pdf she'd sent me titled "How to Review and Mark Electronically" (which I'd wasted paper printing) didn't match my version of Word and that I didn't know how I was going to be able to get this done. I also told her exactly what I didn't like about the process.

She totally got where I was coming from and we then had a little talk about why she had chosen me to try this process on (flattery will get your author to try again) and how she would never ask Wordless or Onionskin to attempt this. Then, because her version of Word is similar to mine, she was able to walk me through a few of the changes. She helped me add comments...explained how to substitute one word for another...taught me what the different modes showed or didn't show.... Soon I had the hang of it, and I realized that, even though it was still a little scary, it was really pretty straight forward.

She again offered to do it for me, but at this point she'd told me about Onionskin and Wordless and I realized that if I didn't step forward, one day I'd be my own version of Onionskin (I plan to live a very long time, okay?). She also told me that although Random House is just converting to this, other houses have already established this as standard procedure. So I got off the phone and got to work, and within a few hours I'd entered all the changes and had the manuscript e-mailed back to her.

So I've stepped forward, and next time I'm sure it will seem easy, but not without the hardcopy.

That goes forward with me.

Escape From Sin City

2011-09-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I did not get thrown in jail.

Unfortunately, Las Vegas needs a big detention facility for its serious, accidental, and notorious criminals.

It's the Clark County Detention Center and it's huge.

Apparently O.J. Simpson is there.

But the young man running the security station has a ten year old daughter who is into reading mysteries, so when I told him who I was and why I was trying to get into jail he was all over helping us.

In a sometimes confused, is-this-reality-you're-talking-or-are-you-making-this-up? sort of way.

Poor guy. I do talk about my characters like they're real.

Anyway, I found out some important information, even though it was from outside the holding tank. (Which is as far as a 13 or 14 year old will be allowed to get anyhow.)

(Go ahead, pick a character. Any character.)

(Well, okay, not Hudson. He's 73. I mean any character of appropriate age. You know.)

And then, as luck would have it, across the street from the cagey CCDC--a mere parking lot away--we spotted a wedding chapel.

With a drive through window!

I squealed, I was so excited. Mark and I were with another couple who had flown in to Las Vegas to join us on this adventure. I'll call them Bill and Loraine to protect their identities. (After all, no one would guess that I'd use their real names right? I mean, if I said I was making up names, that's what I'd be doing, right? Right.)

Anyway, Bill and Loraine are fans of the Bellagio (as are many of you apparently!) and Cirque du Soleil shows--you know, the more high end stuff. I warned them that this wasn't going to be a high-end excursion. That we were there to check out bad shows, tacky wedding chapels, forbidden corridors, and the jail.

Loraine couldn't wait.

So when I spotted the wedding chapel, she squealed, too. And then we dragged the men to this drive-through facility and got an awesome tour of the inside of the chapel. You can get married in the little room downstairs. Or a churchy looking big one upstairs. Or on the rooftop! With Astroturf and a little arch bridge. (The photographers blue-screen out the CCDC in the background. for no extra charge.)

And, if you want, Elvis can marry you.

Loraine and I came away from our extensive chapel tour thinking that it was actually a lot nicer than a drive-by facility first seemed.

The boys just wanted to get out of there!

Speaking of Elvis--we ran into a few of those (as you can see from the picture). They all wear that white getup. And, yeah, that little Elvis cracked me up. It would be interesting to know his story.

We saw bad shows, got nosy in back corridors, took tons of pictures, and had the good fortune of asking the right person to show us around behind stage at a club. There were all sorts of rooms, offices, VIP sections, sky boxes, and loading docks that I had no clue existed. From the front the venue looks almost small, but as you probably already know, nothing's small in Vegas.

(Well, except that one Elvis impersonator.)

So it was a very fruitful trip and I'm excited to get Sammy off the plane and into Las Vegas's McCarran Airport (which we also took lots of pictures of). And even though I'm pretty sure I won't be using all the information I gathered, it's better to have too much than not enough. Especially since I'm not a fan of Sin City and have no desire to go back.

Unless maybe it's to the Bellagio.

Still. How could staying at a posh hotel compare to a Sammy Keyes romp through the city?

Watch out Las Vegas, here she comes!

Viva Las Vegas!

2011-08-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

I should have started packing earlier. My maps are not together, my equipment is still charging, the laundry is taking forever to dry, and it’s going to be 110 degrees in Las Vegas tomorrow!

I really, really don’t want to go.

But that’s where Sammy’s headed (I’ve just about got her on a plane…it wasn’t easy!) and I have to go do what Sammy’s going to go and do or how can I write about it?

No fancy casinos for me.

Gotta hit the seedy side of town.

Well, there are a lot of those in Las Vegas, but you know.

And I’ve got to go to one of those tacky wedding chapels.

And see an Elvis impersonator in action.

And get back stage.

And on the roof.

I don’t know of what, but of something!

Sammy always winds up on the roof.

Then there’s the jail.

I’ve really got to go to jail.

No, I’m not giving away the plot. You think you’ve got this figured out, but uh-uh-uh! How can you? I don’t even know what that girl is going to get into!

But the roof?

And jail?

Foregone conclusions.

Maybe Elvis will bail her out.

You know who I’m talking about!

And if you don’t you’ve picked the wrong week to check out this blog.

I’m packing.

I’ve got no time to explain.

Viva Las Vegas!

Book It!

2011-08-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about deadlines. They're everywhere, in one form or another. Bills, taxes, getting your car smogged, the morning bell at school, getting to work on time...

Then there are the things in life we want to do, and because we want to do them, we don't associate them with deadlines. For one thing, there's that word dead inside it. The word has an ominous feel. It just doesn't fit with the notion of enjoyable things. For another, if we want to do it, it's probably something that can wait...or is entirely optional.

The result is, those enjoyable things get pushed to the bottom of our list because, of course, the items with deadlines are more pressing.

I've been saying for years that I need to learn some more cover songs to round out our set of original songs. Not only would it be good for me, it would be fun and would allow our band to play out more. But that's one of those After-such-and-such things...it's something that can wait until other deadlines are met.

Trouble is, the deadlines of everyday living are never all met.

There will always be more chores, more bills, more taxes.

Pretty soon you're having to smog your car again.

Pretty soon you're dead.

So Mark decided that what we needed was a deadline--a way to make what we want to do as pressing as things we have to do.

So he booked us a bar gig.

"You did what?" I squeaked when he told me.

"We've got five weeks to learn twenty more songs."

It took me two days to truly comprehend that a) he wasn't kidding, and b) he wasn't cancelling.

Now, for Mark this is no big deal. He's played drums in professional bands his whole life. He knows his way around hundreds of songs, and if he doesn't know a song he can totally fake it. And the boys are young and energetic with sponge-like brains and don't have bills to pay and laundry to fold. Nothing is more important to them than music, so they are all over this new deadline.

Me? I've mostly stuck to writing and playing original songs. I'm comfortable with them. You understand a song if you write it. You know the chords and when to come in and how it's arranged...it's yours. Plus you wrote it for a reason--it means something to you.

But outside of that? Well, for starters, I'm rhythmically challenged.

Hello? Wasn't that the one?

Mark is so patient.

And then I have to remember all the words.

Words are important!

But half the time they don't make any sense.

"It's rock and roll, Wendelin, get over it."

Sigh.

Anyway, we've been woodshedding in the studio, and to my great surprise, I actually can sing songs like "Helter Skelter", and "Life is Beautiful" (Sixx AM). I've always thought maybe I could and that someday I'd try, but this deadline has forced me to get over my nerves and doubts and belt it out.

It's also been great therapy. This has been one stressful summer with zero vacation time, so being forced to do something I really love is probably the best thing Mark could have done for me.

So my little advice to you is to give yourself a deadline to do something you've been wanting to do but haven't made time for. Book yourself a gig. Or a poetry reading. Or a lunch date. Or a 10K.

What is it you wish you had time for?

Pick a date, a venue, a race, and book it!

Ka-Pow!

2011-08-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

I loved all the input last week about the new Sammy Keyes title. Some of the suggestions were really good. I just wish they fit with the story! The word that still goes best with the story--or theme--is "Power"--it just doesn't sound as good as some of the other words.

Mark's sick to death of me talking about it -- a first, by the way. He's usually patient and will continue to think until the skinny lady sings, but after literally months of this he's done. And who can blame him?

I did hear back from Nancy...something along the lines of "I give up! You can have Power!" I think that may have to do with how the word goes well with the preliminary art sketch. Justice Jack dominates the center of the cover and instead of the usual diagonal or straight-edged icon sections, Jack's in a jagged KA-POW! type segment. Pretty cool!

But rather than take her concession and run with it, I told her I was still thinking about it.

And I have been.

Only now I'm distracted by having started on Sammy 16.

This is totally unfair, isn't it? Night of Skulls hasn't even come out yet, I've been talking for months about Justice Jack, and now I'm starting on...do you trust me with a title?

You shouldn't.

But Mark's calling it Sammy Keyes and the Wayward Parents.

Just so you know.

I actually think it's a funny title, although I'm stickin' with Sammy 16 for now (or Sammy Next-to-Next-to-Last), but the point is, the developing story has sort of usurped my mental chugging regarding Sammy Keyes and the Whatever of Justice Jack.

So it'll probably be Power.

Unless I have a bolt of inspiration. Maybe in the middle of the night. Or, if I get sick, while my fever is breaking like what happened when I was pregnant and wanting to name our baby Jagger. But that's another story. And unfortunately for the title, I don't expect to be running a fever in the coming week. If a bolt strikes from elsewhere, however, I'll be sure to let you know!

Meanwhile I just want to say that I had a blast reading (and considering) each suggestion made. What a great group!

See you next week!

The Ballad, Call, Power, Legend, and Curse of the Title

2011-08-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

Nothing’s done ‘til it’s done, and then you may wish it was undone.

Aaagh!

Sometimes titles are so easy. Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen—poof! There it was and everyone loved it. Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy—how can you argue with a song that keeps looping through your brain? Confessions of a Serial Kisser—everyone was in stitches.

But this one?

The one with the kinda loser guy who turned out to be super funny and uses the moniker Justice Jack?

Ay-ay-ay.

The title has to start with ‘Sammy Keyes and the’—the ‘the’ has to be there. The first four Sammys were named with a ‘the’ and after that it just seemed weird not to have one. You can’t go and switch it up. Sammy Keyes and Justice Jack sounds lame. Like, what are they? Going out?

The ‘the’ has to be there.

And I’m kinda very stuck on having ‘Justice Jack’ in the title.

I just like it.

Nancy (my editor, for you newbies) isn’t as invested in including Jack in the cover.

She’s sorta partial to ‘Masked Maniac.’

Which would work very nicely with a simple ‘the,’ it’s true.

But I’m kinda very stuck on ‘Justice Jack.’

I’ve gone through SO many variations trying to find the perfect fit to capture the essence of this story. It’s been like naming Moustache Mary. I couldn’t figure out what word went best with it. I was partial to Sammy Keyes and the Spirit of Moustache Mary, but Nancy thought it sounded like an airplane. When I finally struck on “Curse” I felt this enormous sense of relief. Like, yes. That is the perfect word.

After that was settled we went round and round about the spelling of mustache. I really wanted the ‘o’.

I just liked it, okay?

Who knew titles were such battle grounds, huh?

Anyway, part of the challenge with both ‘the Curse of Moustache Mary’ and ‘the ______ of Justice Jack' is working with the space constraints. The word that fits in the blank cannot take up much room because of the design of the jacket.

I had settled on ‘Power’ but there’s something about it that Nancy isn’t keen on. And I do have ‘Power Potion’ and ‘the Greatest Power’ in the Gecko & Sticky titles.

That’s a different series, but it does influence my decision. Like, maybe ‘Power’ isn’t the best choice after all. I know I wouldn’t name another book with ‘Run’ in it – I have Runaway, The Running Dream, and Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf. I’m done with running. So maybe I should be done with ‘Power,’ too.

Then I came up with ‘Call’ as a nice substitute.

Nancy's reception to the change was cool at best.

Sigh.

Now, you’d think that an author could just say, This is the title of my book and you keep your mitts off! And if this had been one of those love-it-from-the-get-go titles, well, Nancy would have probably loved it from the get-go, too and we wouldn’t be swimming around in title stew.

But we need to decide!

Like, yesterday!

So I brainstormed some more with Mark and we’re now liking ‘Legend’ as the fill-in-the-blank word. Physically it’s a little long, but only one more letter than Power, which is the same length as Curse, which we know fits.

We actually like ‘Ballad’ but there is no song in the story (silly me!) so it would make no sense. Too bad.

Anyway, I sent the new title to Nancy on Monday and her reaction?

I haven’t heard a peep.

Which means that she’s still wanting Masked Maniac.

(After 25 books with her I’ve learned to interpret the silence.)

And of course you have no idea what this story is about (except that it’s about a kinda loser guy who is very funny and goes by the name of Justice Jack) so you can’t help me!

Maybe next week I’ll have an official title for you.

(But don’t hold your breath!)

Random Tidbits

2011-07-31T21:29:00.000-07:00

Random updates and tidbits this week!

This round of rewriting Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack is done. I know I'll see it again when the copy editor takes a crack at it, but for now, off it goes.

Oh. Those of you who are into the business of writing may be interested in payment structure. It used to be you received 50% of your advance upon signing, and then 50% upon "acceptance"...acceptance being at the stage where your editor says "cool beans" and passes the manuscript off to the copy editor.

In other words, now.

(Assuming, of course, that she says "cool beans" which, by the way, is an expression I adopted from her.)

But with "the economy" there's been a restructuring of payment so now it's 1/3 on signing, 1/3 on acceptance, and 1/3 on publication.

Next tidbit:

I'm "training" for a new marathon. It's more like slogging out the miles. Those of you who have followed along here know that every marathon I run I swear is my last. And I really thought the last one was.

But then my son said he was thinking he'd like to train this summer for his first marathon.

And then my other son said he'd do it, too.

So the 4 of us are doing a "family marathon" where we'll all run together for Exercise the Right to Read with the goal of crossing the finish line together.

But my younger son is having second (third and fourth) thoughts. So getting him up in the morning to do our runs has been...challenging.

After all, it's summer and, more to the point, he's a teenager.

Today our training chart called for a 12 miler -- the furthest distance yet. So I mapped a route that I thought might help keep our reluctant runner trucking along...including a detour to his girlfriend's house. I'm happy to report that it went fairly well and that we can check off the 12 mi in the box on the refrigerator.

(Don't tell my son, but I'm sore and tired and wondering why in the world I'm doing this again.)

Next tidbit:

Risky Whippet (family rock band!) played at a party this week--just a handful of songs but it was loud and raucous and fun.

Next:
My sons have been having a "do you remember" summer and decided they wanted to watch The Sword & the Stone VHS video from their childhood.

Uh...oops.

I donated that to Goodwill.

"What about our other videos?"

"Uh...donated. We could get your favorites on DVD?"

"No! It's not the same!"

Talk about being in the dog house. But this week I got my hands on 10 old VHS Disney movies from a girl who was having a yard sale.

Yes!

So I'm mostly out of the dog house. For now, anyway.

(I wonder if they'll get nostalgic over their Beanie Babies...)

Finally:

Every day I tell myself I've got to respond to the comments from the last few weeks. Some of them are so good! And every night I fall into bed telling myself I'll respond tomorrow. I will! soon, promise! Meanwhile, know I always appreciate that you visit me here and send me comments.

All for now. Good night!

Bloodied and Blind

2011-07-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

It’s rewrite time!

Already.

Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack returned to my doorstep this week with a two and a half page letter from Nancy attached.

I once received a 15 page editorial letter from Nancy. (That was for Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary when I had a full time job teaching, my kids were tiny, and I was seriously frayed from trying to keep it all together.) So I know—a two-and-a-half page editorial letter isn’t bad.

Besides, I don’t read the letter right away.

It’s full of work, and I know it.

Instead, I go straight to the manuscript and flip through it page by page, ignoring all the little red marks that do not say HA! or NICE! or GREAT!

I live from HA! to HA! if you must know. It’s what keeps me going through the daunting process of analyzing three hundred pages of edits, especially after spending the past six months re-writing the same manuscript into what I hoped was a state of perfection.

Well, near perfection, anyway.

But now here it is, back on my desk, bloodied.

Actually. the pencil she used may be red, but it’s a faint red. I’m not sure if her glasses have gotten stronger of if I just need a pair myself, but some places the writing is so small and faint that I can’t help but wonder if she was on her bed, recovering from a nasty flu, or perhaps a migraine that stress from tardy manuscripts has been known to trigger.

Regardless, I don’t want to read the faint stuff at first anyway, so at this stage I’m perfectly fine with not being able to see it. I focus on only the HAs and NICEs and GREATs in their glorious swoopy red circles so I can gather into my psyche the strength needed to lift a magnifying glass and face all the scribbled suggestions.

But after I’ve soaked in all the good stuff, I still don’t read the letter.

I boycott it.

I'm not yet ready to face what’s wrong with what I’ve written.

So I shove the letter along with the manuscript inside a desk drawer and let the good stuff settle in for a day or two.

It needs time to get securely attached.

Really, it does.

And then, finally, when the good stuff is settled and secure (and can claim squatter’s rights on my emotional state), I pull open the drawer and face the work.

First I read the letter.

Then I let out a big sigh of relief.

Not so bad.

Then I re-read the letter, this time making notes about broad-picture corrections and needed additions (or adjustments in tone).

Then I take a deep breath, roll up my sleeves, and start on page one of the manuscript, grateful that I’ve got an editor who is still willing to show such attention to detail and give me such astute feedback—even on the 15th book in a series.

Crazed and Confused

2011-07-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

Years ago when we moved into our house, Mark’s parents gave us an old “petticoat table” as a house warming present. It was an antique and looked like it had been banging around in garages for the last hundred years. The finish was crazed, the marble dull and cracked, and although it had claw feet which I liked, it was not something I was wild about having in the entry hall of our new house.

Now, I knew from early in our relationship that Mark’s parents were into antiques.

I was not.

I couldn’t get past the smell. The four of us would go check out some barn full of antiques somewhere, and the minute we walked in I’d want to leave. Maybe it’s because antiques are just old and have been stored in the basement and the attic and the shed and the garage (because, hey, nobody really wants them in their house!) Or maybe it’s because antique furniture was stuffed with horse hair and hundred year old horse hair can’t smell anything but bad. (What is horse hair anyway? From the tails? What are they thinking, stuffing furniture with horsey tails. Giddy up?)

Anyway, the point is, antique “warehouses” smell, and then there’s the issue of springs. Do not sit on antique furniture. If it doesn’t crumble underneath you, it fights back.

Boing!

The seats are full of perilously bound springs. You have to worry about placing your bottom down carefully and just so, or risk getting goosed by an old rusty spring (wrapped in stinky horse hair).

Now, I might have appreciated the wood and the unique carvings on some of the furniture if it wasn’t for the fact that antique collectors insist that you can’t remove the “patina.” (Also known as crazing.) Crazing is a combination of dust, decay, and wood finish. It’s like the shellac (which, by the way, is made from a secretion of the female lac bug) in a state of cloudy decay makes the piece more valuable than if it’s stripped and newly finished. After all, it would be a crime to get rid of all that history of neglect and garage storage.

So, yeah, the last thing I wanted in my brand new house was a crazed old petticoat table.

And besides, a petticoat table?

What the heck'sa petticoat table?

And who’s wearing petticoats around here?

(Just so I don’t leave these questions unanswered, 1) the table is about three and a half feet tall, four feet wide, and two feet deep with a mirror against its back wall which dainty ladies could use to check their petticoats before leaving the house. 2) Nobody.)

So no, I didn’t want the senseless, ugly, crazed, outdated, smelly thing in my house.

But my in-laws are awesome and I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.

After all, in their view they were giving us a family heirloom.

A rare and wondrous treasure.

One with valuable patina.

Anyway, Mark, being Mark, saw the potential in this piece of firewood and decided to commit a cardinal sin:

He stripped the thing and refinished it.

Weeks later what emerged from our garage was a breathtaking piece of furniture. (The picture doesn't even begin to do it justice.) It with beautiful, matching grain, stunning feet, and a finely polished (but still historically weathered) marble top.

For the first time I found myself really appreciated wood.

It wasn’t just for building fires!

You could do more with it than frame a house!

You could create furniture that was truly art.

That was our first piece of furniture and now our house is full of antiques. We’ve collected “firewood” furniture which Mark (and a really great upholsterer who’s happy to get rid of horsehair) have brought back to life. Not only is the reworked furniture beautiful, but I like the thought that the people who put such care and artistry into creating it have their work appreciated all over again.

I’ve been told that I make, uh, off beat connections, and I confess that the reason I’m babbling about petticoat tables and stripping antiques is because I realize that I myself am “crazed.” The petticoat table is a good reminder that sometimes you have to let go of the past to really shine in the present.

Underneath the crazing there’s life.

Blood: Lost In Translation

2011-07-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

I have always loved the melody to the French National Anthem (La Marseillaise). It’s spirited and uplifting and memorable. And although I was familiar with the sound of the words and could mimic the opening lines, I had no idea what any of it meant. But hearing it recently (don’t ask), I recognized a word:

Sang.

Not as in sing-sang-sung—that’s English.

No, this word forms half in your throat and half through your nose…. Sang.

The reason I recognized this word is that my book Swear to Howdy has been translated into French and the title is Pacte de Sang.

Pact of Blood.

So I got curious and looked up the words to the French National Anthem.

First the direct translation:

FRENCH NATIONAL ANTHEM
(Direct Translation)

Arise, children of the Fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!

Against us of the tyranny

The bloody banner is raised, (repeat)

Do you hear, in the countryside,

The roar of those ferocious soldiers?

They're coming right into your arms

To slit off the throats your sons and your companions!

To arms, citizens,

Form your battalions,

Let's march, let's march!

That a tainted blood

Water our furrows!

Holy smokes! I know many national anthems were written in times of war, but...when a French citizen wins a gold medal at the Olympics in 2012, these are still the words the French hear in their heads?

And then I remembered that several stanzas into our American National Anthem there are some pretty, uh, robust lyrics (look it up)…but not in the first stanza (the only one anyone knows) and nothing like this!

Upon further search, I found the “English Versification” of the French National Anthem, which, beginning with the same French words, winds up this way:

FRENCH NATIONAL ANTHEM:

(English Versification)

Ye sons of France, awake to glory,
Hark, hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives and white-haired grandsires.

Behold their tears and hear their cries! (repeat)

Shall hateful tyrants, mischiefs breeding,

With hireling hosts, a ruffian band,

Affright and desolate the land,

While peace and liberty lie bleeding?

To arms, to arms, ye brave!

The avenging sword unsheath,

March on, march on!

All hearts resolv'd

On victory or death!

Wow. How completely different the tone and meaning of the same words can wind up, depending on the translation.

We authors allow our works to be translated into foreign languages with the agreement that translations stay true to the story. Still, after my little eye-opening adventure with the French National Anthem, I can’t help but wonder what sort of story Swear to Howdy—Pacte de Sang—is to the French who read it. Since learning French is nowhere near my bucket list, I’ll likely never know.

And maybe that’s just as well.

The Dandelion Seed

2011-07-03T20:31:00.000-07:00

After Mark and I finished our morning run yesterday we realized that we were out of both milk and money. So before going home we got in the truck and made a quick detour to the grocery store where our bank has an ATM.

I’m no beauty queen to begin with, but after my morning run? Please. Hide me. So I sent Mark in to the store alone, and while I waited for him to return I happened to notice a dandelion seed in the empty parking slot beside me.

It was a joyful seed. Bright white and frisky, tumbling over and over, spinning and lifting off a little before landing again, going round and round the asphalt beside me. It danced and did cartwheels, played with sunlight, and seemed to celebrate just being.

The more I watched it, the more it mesmerized me. I kept waiting for it to dash off, or lift off and be gone. It was so exuberant and full of life that I just knew it was meant to frolic beyond the confines of a supermarket parking lot.

And then it got caught in a little puddle. Some fluid or another from the car that had previously parked in the slot beside me. Maybe it was oil. Or tranny fluid. Maybe water.

I watched it struggle, hoping the fluid was water. A dandelion seed could break free from water. Water wouldn’t hurt its delicate little fuzzy arms. If it could catch enough wind it could lift off and dance once more.

The seed strained and pulled in the breeze and my heart caught for a moment when it tumbled forward. But the seed only made it to the edge of the fluid before being held back again.

And there it sat, straining.

And there I sat, watching.

Come on, I thought. You can do it!

I told myself that I was being silly. Why did I care about this little dandelion seed? Dandelions are weeds, aren’t they? They get sprayed and yanked and cursed.

But this seed had spunk. A real zest for life. And I hated to see it stuck in the puddle. I hated to see it give up. With each passing minute the spirit of this little ball of life was dying, I could feel it. Soon another car would come along and park in the slot. The seed would be shadowed.

Splatted.

Crushed.

Before it had even had a chance to really live its life, it would be crushed.

I saw Mark approaching with a small load of groceries (and, presumably, money). I smiled at him through the glass and reached back to open the rear door. I tried to block the dandelion seed from my mind. I told myself that there are billions of them around the planet.

What did this one matter?

But as Mark started to close the back door I called out to him and he popped his head back in and said, “Yes?”

I pointed, feeling ridiculous. “Could you pick up that dandelion seed?”

He didn’t go “Huh?” and look at me like I was a lunatic. He just closed the door, picked up the seed and held it out to me with a smile.

I shook my head. “Just set it free.”

He did, and there it went on a gust of wind, up, up and away.

When he got inside the truck I told him, “Sorry. I know that was silly.”

He started the motor and smiled at me. “No it wasn’t. I totally get it.” And as he backed out of our slot he said, “Sometimes little things are metaphors for the bigger things in life.”

And so they are.

The Care and Feeding of Fan Mail

2011-06-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

It took a solid week, but it’s finally done. Pfew. First I sorted. I actually hired my son to help me with the sorting. Flipped mail in one pile, Sammy Keyes mail in another, Shredderman in another, and then Runaway, Kisser, Swear to Howdy, and The Gecko & Sticky each in their own. And after they were sorted by book, the stacks were sorted by state. I’ve learned over the years that people from the same school will all send separate letters (and enclose no SASEs) and you wind up going, hey wait a minute—didn’t I write this address on another envelope fifteen minutes ago? Better to bundle them by school first and ship the replies off together in one big envelope.

Anyway, sorting took nearly a day. Then I had to update my reply letters. And seeing how I have different letters for each of the books / series, there was a lot of updating to do. Plus I had to update the page with a list of book titles and their short descriptions (because people often ask if I’ve written any other books besides the one they’re writing about).
And after printing like mad (and running out of ink TWICE) I gathered my bookmarks and posters and window clings and envelopes and pens and Sharpies and stamps and postage scale and paperclips, and I looked at the enormous pile in front of me and got to work.

I tried hiring my son to address the envelopes, but I gave up on that. My sons can’t seem to address envelopes. The balance of it comes out all wrong. There’s e-mail. Who needs envelopes? Why lower? (Because that’s where the postman looks for it.) What’s wrong with up here? (That’s the stamp zone. Besides It just looks wrong up there.) Where? Here? (No. You need to start in the middle. The MIDDLE. Or maybe a little above. No! That’s the stamp zone! Stay out of the stamp zone! Here. I’ll make a little mark.) I’m not a kid, Mom!

It’s been a battle with every birthday / Christmas thank you note session since they were four. The center of an envelope has some sort of force field around it which my sons can apparently not penetrate.
So he got “fired” and I got “hired” and it was an inky week of addressing and writing personal notes on the general letter (specific to the book being written about).

And here, for your laughing pleasure, are a few excerpts from around the country:

• “My favorite part is when Joey ate the fish.” (Boy in Missouri—he’s talking about a live goldfish in Swear to Howdy)

• “This book also made me have so many mixed emotions my heart was bound to erupt like a volcano covering my whole body in lava composed of different feelings.” (Girl [duh] in New Jersey, re: Flipped)

• “Anyway, I just had to write to you instead of calling you at 10:49 PM like Nolan did to Mr. Green.” (Boy in Washington, Shredderman)

• “Can you write a book about a gothic gorilla?” (Girl in New Mexico)

• “I have 1 dog, 3 cats’, 2 fish tanks (1 is an 80 gallon fish tank.), and 4 people (including me). Don’t you think that’s a lot of pets? I sure do. Lots of pet food. Don’t you think?" (Boy in Minnesota)

• “For my project I need information about you and your job, too. You can also send me some books and materials, too. Also, I finished a book and would like some advice on how to get it published. Send that at the same time.” (Girl from Indiana)

• “I loved the voice! Such feeling! Such voice! Such mind-picturing images! I love it all!” (Girl from Arizona, re: Flipped)

• “Obviously this book wasn’t for me. Because of the lack of livened things up and the characters being so boring. I didn’t like the book. I would greatly appreciate if you would write back.” (A boy from Arizona, re: Flipped)

And then there were the gems. The ones that kept me slogging through the assigned author letters. The ones that made me feel like what I do really does matter. Here are a couple excerpts to encourage those of you who write – because what you do does (and will) matter:

“As I was reading the last few pages, I felt as if I could do something with my life. I felt like life had a huge purpose. It was as if I was lifted from the hole I was in to start with. I love how Evangeline realizes she only needs to be who she is, and learn to forgive, to truly be happy.” (Regarding Confessions of a Serial Kisser)

“I am the oldest of four. My mother has bipolar and she did drugs for a while and my father was never really there…then the time came when we were put into foster care. .. While reading your book it made me think of one social worker I had named Margret. She was just like Julianna and she made a huge impact in my life. Because of your book I realized I wanted to do something so I can impact people’s lives and make them feel the way I did when I read your book.” (Regarding Flipped)

All the sorting, time, materials and postage…in the end, it’s worth it.

Brief Delirious Delusions

2011-06-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

Writers experience episodes of delirious delusion.

I'm done! Yippee!

And then quicker than you can say whiplash, you're rewriting again, fact-checking again, reaching for another glimpse of your delusion.

Worse than the mechanics of rewriting is the doubt that creeps in when editing a manuscript. Especially in a series, when you have a whole body of work to keep consistent.

You ask yourself, Why didn't I keep better notes?

Is it 'Senior High-rise' or 'Senior Highrise'?

Did Billy Pratt ever see Hudson's car before?

When's Mikey's birthday? Is he still eight, or is he now nine?

On the heels of submitting Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack, Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls landed on my desk. THUMP! 303 pages of what was supposed to be a breeze of a check-over. (Or is it check over?) Nancy (my editor, for those of you who are new to this) said that the copy editor had found very little to mark up on this second pass through the manuscript. "It's very clean." She even told me she was sure it would be fine if I didn't look it over.

It was tempting, especially since the schedule for getting the book finished up is tight and I'd have to turn it around quickly. But I insisted on taking another look at it. (And now you know why I'm a day late with this blog post.) I started optimistically enough, with a little stack of blue Post-its (or is it Post-Its?) and the notion that I would plow right through, leaving only a handful of pages flagged.

I held back on the little tweaks because, good grief, you can tweak a 300 page manuscript forever and still find places to tweak some more. But after a while I was cutting my little Post-its into slices and--still holding back on the minuscule tweaks--plastering skinny blue flags all over the place.

The scary thing is that after all the rewriting I've done, after Nancy read it over several times, after two different copy editors scoured it for errors (both in syntax and logic) I still found mistakes. Mistakes that would have been very embarrassing if the book had gone to press with them still there.

Mistakes that, as those of you who follow this know, are in the bound galleys.

For instance: hawking vs hocking. I'm surprised that one of the copy editors didn't catch that one.. The difference is subtle, but still, the definitions are clear. (This has to do with pawning, by the way, not loogies) And it's one of those mistakes that--should it have made it to press--would have bugged me big time!

So it took me much longer than it should have to go through the manuscript, but the lesson for me is, always give it another look if you have the opportunity. I may be nearing the end of this series, but this is no time to slack off!

For you Sammiacs, I feel sorta bad that there are two whole installments now that you can't see yet, but at least you know there won't be big pockets of time between "episodes" any more. I'd tell you that I'm plotting the next one (because, good grief, my deadline is in December!) but you might shoot me. And besides, I really have to answer fan mail. (If one of these letters in these sacks by my desk is yours, I'm SO sorry for the delay--it's just been hard to keep up with everything that's been piling up on my desk and in my life.) Maybe next week I'll post some funny lines from the mail--it can be very entertaining. Meanwhile, thanks for checking in and for the fun comments from last week. I really do enjoy you guys!

Justice Jack Prologue

2011-06-12T19:54:00.000-07:00

Okay you Sammiacs!

I put the final touches on Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack today!

282 pages of crazy fun.

(And did you notice, the title is still being tweaked?)

And because I am bleary-eyed and still have miles of un-fun to go before I sleep, this is just a quick check in to say Hi and thank you for your enthused comments from last week … and deliver to you the Prologue (first manuscript page). Hope it makes you chuckle over Sammys past. What a wild ride this has been.

Until next week, THANK YOU for checking in!

Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack

Wendelin Van Draanen

Prologue

     The City of Santa Martina has some odd ducks swimming in its waters. There’s Madame Nashira the fortune teller that lives in the Heavenly Hotel. There’s the Elvis impersonator who works nights at Maynard’s Market. There’s the Psycho Kitty Queen who used to be a beauty queen but now has a gazillion cats and looks like a ninety year old Barbie.

     We’ve also got a cockeyed taxidermist, a whole school of pro-wrestling maniacs, Dusty Mike who hangs out at the graveyard, and a hunched old lady who likes to walk her two-hundred pound pet pig.

     And that’s not even taking into account all the bikers and gang guys and—oh yeah! How could I forget?

     Heather Acosta.

     So really, I thought I’d seen it all. I thought this crazy town couldn’t surprise me with anything new.

     And then I met Justice Jack.

Permission Denied!

2011-06-05T21:50:00.000-07:00

Music’s a big part of my life, so it winds up slipping into my stories from time to time. Often I make up my own song for the story, or I’ll simply use the lyrics as written by the artist(s). The “permissions” people at Random House always clear using someone else’s copyrighted work with the copyright owner(s), and up until Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls (coming out in September), there has never been a problem being granted permission.

But cut Sammy and friends loose in the Santa Martina Cemetery on Halloween night, and this is what happens to a popular song…(Caution, you are about to read an unauthorized excerpt!)

***

“You know, the guy in costume? The one who lost his candy bag?” I look at Billy. “Where is it, anyway?”

Billy pats his pillowcase. “If I see him, I’ll give it back.”

Casey snorts. “Sure you will.”

“Dude, I’m serious. I’m no sugar-lootin’ ghoul. I’m a good ghoul!”

Casey chuckles, and then quietly he starts singing,

“He’s a good ghoul, loves his mama,

“Loves Jesus and America, too.

“He’s a good ghoul, crazy for Elvis,

“Loves horses and zarapes, too….”

And Billy chimes in louder with,

“’Cause I’m free! Free fallin’!

“Yeah, I’m free! Free fallin’!”

“Are you guys crazy?” Marissa says. “Do you want that guy with the shovel to hear you?”

“He won’t hear us,” Billy says. “He’s long gone.”

“What song was that?” I ask, because it was pretty obvious they weren’t just making it up.

Holly turns to me. “‘Free Fallin’, Tom Petty.”

Casey nods. “Also covered by John Mayer.”

Marissa and I give each other a Never-heard-of-it shrug, but very quietly Holly says, “My mom used to sing it.”

So now Marissa and I look at each other like, Oh, maaaaan, because to make a long, sad story short, Holly’s real mom is dead and Holly has no idea if she’s buried, or cremated, or what happened to her because Holly and her mom were homeless and her mom was a junkie and when Holly was, like, ten, she found her mother dead from an overdose. And since Holly was just a kid with no relatives and no money, she wound up in foster care.

Anyway, the point is, I know it really bothers Holly that she doesn’t know what happened to her mom’s body, and all of a sudden I’m feeling awful for Holly. I mean, maybe nobody visits these graves we’re walking by anymore, but at least at one point someone cared enough to bury them and put up a grave marker, right?

Thankfully Holly seems to be thinking nice thoughts about her mother because she gives a little smile and says, “But when my mom sang it, there were no ‘ghouls’ or ‘zarapes’ in the lyrics. It was ‘girls’ and ‘boyfriends’.”

Now I’m hoping Billy won’t say anything that’s meant to be funny but winds up being hurtful because I don’t know how much he knows about Holly and her mom and their awful past. But before he can say anything at all, Marissa changes the subject, “How are we going to get out of here, anyway?”

Casey points across the new section. “I’m thinking we’ll make a break for it across there and climb the fence.”

Marissa looks at him, horrified. “You’re serious?”

“Sure, why not? ”

Now, I knew it wasn’t the “make a break for it” part that was the problem. And I knew climbing the wall section of the fence wasn’t the problem, either. It was the wrought iron posts on top of the wall section that were the problem.

Specifically the pointy spears at the tippy top of each post.

See, Marissa has a history of getting stuck on fences that don’t have spears, so I didn’t even want to picture what might happen on one that did.

“Trust me,” I tell Casey. “You do not want Marissa to climb the fence.”

***

I ran the excerpt a little long because some of you have been asking for one...so there you go!

Anyway, I thought the change in lyrics was fun but apparently holders of the copyright disagreed.

Permission denied!

They’re not required to give a reason. And it’s their right to say, Nah, we don’t want you putting ghouls in for girls or zarapes for boyfriends.

The copyright rules do allow for the use of two lines of a song without permission. The interesting question with a song is, what constitutes two lines?

The other interesting thing is that the advanced reader copies were printed and sent out months ago, full of mistakes (as usual) and copyright infringements (uh-oh). I know there’s a value to the uncorrected proofs—that some people collect them because they’re fairly rare, and scholars like to compare ARCs to the final book. And usually I’m of the mind that there’s just not enough shelf space in my life to care about ARCs after the final book is out. (Although I do have a black & white ARC of Hotel Thief, which I admit is pretty cool.) But with the change in cover art (as I posted about before), the error (it was a mistake in the mystery, which I realized after the ARCs had gone to press) and the copyright problem with “Free Fallin’” the Night of Skulls ARC would probably be interesting to anyone who follows such things.

So yes, I changed the above excerpt. I had to! And I was under pressure to do so quickly because (as these things usually go) the book is supposed to go to press any day now. So when the actual book comes out check back here and compare the passages, if you care.

Oh, and if you do you’ll notice there are other changes in the passage because the excerpt above is from my file before it went through editing and copyediting, and before I added that The Almost also covered the song. So this is like the original finished manuscript text…which (even though it had been rewritten about 20 times at that point) was obviously not nearly finished!

I hope some of you found this at least somewhat interesting (and / or enjoyed the sneak peek at the upcoming book). Permissions is one of those little areas in publishing that you don’t spend much time thinking until you receive a Permission Denied, but it can mess up your writing schedule in a big way!

Thanks for checking in! See you next week.

When Elvis Pops Into the Market

2011-05-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

An Elvis impersonator works nights at Maynard’s Market.

He was one of those people who popped into Sammy Keyes’ world several books ago. I wasn’t expecting him, but suddenly there he was behind the counter. Often characters like this get deleted, but this one made me laugh, so I kept him.

After all, laughter is king.

At least in my book.

(Stop me already!)

Anyway, the thing with characters in a series is that you can’t have all of them in every book. And after fourteen books, Sammy’s dealt with a lot of people. So it’s inevitable that a character will appear in one book, and then never be seen again. Especially if they’ve had a fatal mishap. Like, say, being scared to death by a girl sneaking up the fire escape of a seniors building. Or croaking from a highball of bitterness and old age. Or being clonked on the head by a can of refried beans.

Oh, wait. I killed that guy off (in Snake Eyes) but then I changed my mind. Which was a tough decision because I really enjoyed clonking him on the head with a can of refried beans and I didn’t like him and I wanted very much for him to stay dead.

I remember exactly where I was when I killed him off: Chugging through New Jersey on the Amtrak while on book tour. I remember because there was a guy sitting next to me who, when he found out I was an author, kept trying to talk to me. But I was in the middle of hurling around cans of beans and, really, you don’t interrupt a writer when they’re in the midst of hurling around beans!

It can get messy.

When I just couldn’t take his interruptions anymore, I very politely said, I’m sorry, but I really need to concentrate.

Actually, in deference to the truth, it was more a high-pitched, Can’t you see I’m trying to kill someone off?

Whatever. At that point I became a weirdo and he escaped to another seat leaving Sammy free to hurl the can and kill the creep (the one in the book).

I must have been in one of those moods, because I thought killing a creep with a can of beans was the funniest thing ever. It tickled my funny bone for days. Maybe even weeks. But somewhere along the storyline I realized that killing the guy—with or without beans—wasn’t furthering the plot; that it was actually making it messy and complicated.

After all, there are consequences to killing someone, with or without a can of beans.

Anyway, the point is, (hm, let me check, what was the point?)… Oh, yeah! Some people appear in one book in a series and never show their bean-bonked face again. If they’re dead, there’s no bringing them back. (Not if you’re going to be fair to your readers—I hate books that do that ta-da thing where, ooooh, they weren’t really dead. Totally unfair. Cheater. Go write for a soap why don’t you?)

So if they’re dead, they’re dead and there’s no bringing them back. But usually characters make it through alive (and, presumably, remain alive in subsequent titles) only they can’t all be seen again because it’s just too much to carry along.

But then there are the characters that appear when you didn’t expect them (or invite them) and rather than fade away, they pop back in from time to time, going, Remember me?

And you go, Yeah, I remember you. What are you doing back here?

And then they start talking in Elvis songs.

And you go, Oh, that’s right. You work the night shift at Maynard’s and everything you say is (pretty much) the title of a song Elvis Presley sang.

I like you!

You crack me up!

And before you know it the Elvis impersonator has you doing things like researching Elvis, which, having parents from The Netherlands, was not someone played or embraced while you were growing up, and, in fact, was not someone whose songs you really know.

And you spend days learning about Elvis and his songs and soon the Elvis impersonator at Maynard’s Market has a huge vocabulary (of song titles, and song titles only) and he is totally making you bust up with the things he says. And after a long day of writing you discover that in two pages you managed to have your Elvis say the cleverest, funniest things and use dozens of titles.

And then you realize that Elvis didn’t pop in and say, “Hey, little mama,” just to make you laugh.

He’s there for a reason!

Which won’t show itself to anyone but you until the next book, but YOU know!

So you smile extra hard at your two pages and dozens of song titles and feel happy and clever and elevated from the darker things in life.

All because Elvis popped into the market.

The Hazards of Cutting Out Early

2011-05-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

I give pretty spastic presentations when I talk to kids.

Make that very.

I try to remember what it was like to be forced to sit on my bottom for an hour crammed between sharp elbows and suspicious odors. I try to remember what it was like to listen to some adult drone on about the importance of a subject like, say, reading. I try to remember what it was like to be a kid.

And then I force from my mind the fact that there are adults in the room and just go for it.

From pretty early on the kids all think I’m a little crazy.

Better than them thinking I’m boring.

Last week I visited six libraries (and a school) where kids were bussed in to see “the author of Shredderman.” The whole community read Shredderman: Secret Identity, and many of the kids were given free books. The mayor of one of the bigger towns hosts a golf tournament every year and for the past few years he’s been donating money to this program.

Now, maybe I should have realized that the man in the sharp green suit at the back of the room during one of my presentations was this mayor, but I was trying to block adults from my mind.

Especially sharp-dressed ones who may very well not remember what it was like to have to sit on the floor for an hour next to sharp elbows and questionable odors.

Besides, I have experience with mayors and I know—they never stick around. They read their proclamation or dedication or whatever, then flash their toothy smiles and make a practiced exit as soon as politically possible.

I recently had that experience in the town of “Santa Martina.” I was the keynote speaker at a breakfast and the mayor was also at the head table, there to read a proclamation and be an official presence. And actually, I was kinda sweating it out, wondering, Does he know? Does he know that I totally make fun of “the mayor of Santa Martina” in the Sammy Keyes books? Does he know that Sammy describes him as a softball fanatic who dips to one knee as he passes by the softball statue in the foyer of City Hall? Does he know his mayor-ness is translated into 20 different languages and that kids around the globe have a definite (and quite comedic) impression of “the mayor of Santa Martina”?

As it turns out, almost certainly not. And that is almost certainly because he doesn’t stick around after reading his proclamation to hear the keynote and learn that his town is (barely) fictionalized and enjoyed by kids around the world.

After all, they’re just “kid books” and he also almost certainly doesn’t remember being one or anything remotely associated with sharp elbows or questionable odors.

Well, unless you count his cologne as questionable.

Which you very well could.

Actually, he may know now, because after he made his speedy exit I got up and told the entire audience about it and our chorus became “That’s what he gets for cutting out early!”

It was glorious fun.

And surely a guarantee that he will never offer me keys to the city.

But hey, that’s okay.

I’ve got the Keyes.

But the point here is that, having experience with mayors, I was not expecting any mayor to hang out for a whole hour watching me spazz out and tell wild stories.

Surely there were ribbons to cut somewhere.

But the mayor who provided funding for this literacy event did stick around. He didn’t even have a proclamation to read. He just came. And when it was over he shook my hand and from his comments he clearly understood that what I do is just a backdoor approach to getting kids interested in reading and writing…while also giving adults the courage to not give up on their own dreams.

Not something you’d ever understand if you cut out early.

Fake It 'Til I Fly!

2011-05-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve promised a Sammy update, so here we go!

First off, to the recurring question of publishing dates: I actually have a schedule, but please keep in mind that this is the schedule that will be kept if I prove to be superhuman, which I don’t claim to be.

But I will continue to try.

Or fake it ‘til I fly!

Or whatever.

Second off, let me state that I’ve entered a tough stretch of life. Not getting into details or trying to drum up sympathy or anything (I am fine), I just share this with you because I discovered unexpected refuge in returning to Sammy’s world and following her headlong through another wacky adventure. When I’m with Sammy I actually do forget other pressures, think outside my situation, and laugh.

And what a relief it is to laugh.

I was on book tour years ago, sitting on the floor at the United gate so I could plug my computer into an outlet and work on a Shredderman book that was under deadline, when my editor happened to call to see how I was doing. I gave her an update, then shared that I was working hard to meet my deadline. When she found out that I was on the floor writing she said, “I can’t imagine that it’s going to be any good!”

Now, she didn’t mean it like that. It just sort of slipped out. And I completely understood what she did mean. Piecing together a story by stealing time when you can find it, either on the floor at a gate or crammed into sardine class, or before bed after a day of presentations and signings, you wouldn’t think that it could possibly come out well.

But somehow it came out great!

And surprisingly funny.

And now I’m in a place where there is so much going on in my life that I feel like any moment I’ll short circuit. But I have a deadline (2 weeks ago!) and a schedule to keep so I do what I can when I can. I take my laptop with me and write six lines of dialog at the doctor’s office. Six more with a cat in my lap and my computer teetering on the edge of the arm of a chair while my mother dozes on the couch.

If Nancy saw me I’m sure she’d think, “I can’t imagine it’s going to be any good!”

But that’s the incredible thing about this book.

It’s hilarious!

So maybe this is just the way I balance my life. Maybe I create the humor that’s missing to help me carry on in the real world. Whatever the reason, Sammy Keyes and the Lure of Justice Jack is going to be the funniest Sammy yet.

How lucky I am to have that girl in my life.

And now, the (hardcover) release schedule!

Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls: September 2011
Sammy Keyes and the Lure of Justice Jack (still the working title btw): May 2012
Sammy Keyes #16: January 2013
Sammy Keyes #17: September 2013
Sammy Keyes # 18 (the last one!) : Fall 2014

Thanks for checking in. See you here next week (when I think it will be time to tell you what I’ve been up to with the Elvis Impersonator).

Bug's Life

2011-05-09T19:37:00.001-07:00

Down and out with a bug!

See you next week!

Stay healthy!

A Rusty, Broken, Stinky Tricycle

2011-05-01T21:29:00.000-07:00

When an LMS at a middle school in Oklahoma sent e-mails regarding a package she’d shipped, I knew I was in for a treat. Something about the package was very special, I could tell. Plus she’d hinted that the students at her school were super excited for me to receive it.

So I checked my porch for it daily, assuring her that it takes a little time to get here from Oklahoma. But after ten days of checking, I was starting to get a little concerned too.

“Something happened to it,” she fretted. “I can just tell.” She was kicking herself for not insuring it. Or getting a tracking number. Or, you know, shepherding it to my door.

“Don’t worry,” I told her, “it’ll show up.”

And it did!

There was a big square of cardboard affixed to the box with her name in the return address spot, so I knew this was The Box. So before I even opened it, I zipped upstairs and wrote her an e-mail letting her know it had arrived.

Then I opened it, and what I found was a tricycle.

An old, rusty, bent, broken tricycle.

And it smelled bad, too.

I pondered for a moment the significance of the tricycle and the possible reason this school would be so excited to send me a smelly bucket of rusty trike parts.

A skateboard would have made sense. But I have no book with a tricycle in it. Rusty or otherwise. And although our house is furnished with refurbished antiques, this trike was not the look we’re going for, either inside or outside.

So…what the heck?

Then I saw a letter inside the box from the United States Postal Service.

It was a poorly zeroxed form letter that reminds me very much of the over-copied rejection letters I received from publishers when I was starting out as a writer.

It reads:

Date: (blank)

Dear Postal Customer:

During the processing of your package the contents became unsecured and required rewrapping. We realize your mail is important to you (yada yada…) If the contents of your parcel is [sic] not satisfactorily accounted for (send us a detailed description yada yada to): PO Box 44161 Atlanta, GA We sincerely regret any inconvenience to you. (No signature, contact name or number of any kind.)

So great. Somehow whatever this school sent me got turned into a rusty tricycle.

I took a picture of the trike and e-mailed it to the LMS (since all the world except the USPS has such communication avenues) and, just in case, I asked if this is what was supposed to arrive.

She wrote back immediately and her answer was the one I was expecting:

NO!

The kids at the school had made a “quillow”—a blanket that folds into itself and can also be used as a pillow (or stadium seat, or back prop, etc.)—that had a RUNAWAY graphic in the center of it to celebrate my book and the units they’ve done around it. There was also supposed to be a “The Running Dream” backpack that the students had sewn, plus some peanut brittle.

Someone somewhere received a quillow, a backpack, and some homemade peanut brittle, and I got their nasty, rusty tricycle.

The LMS tried to find a way other than the PO Box to contact the Atlanta Recovery Center, and there is none. And of course writing a non-person at a government agency is going to result in nothing but wasted postage. (I am in awe of how they cover all their bases here.) Still, rather than give in to the frustration of this, the kids at the school decided they wanted to redo the gifts.

So they sewed me another quillow, another backpack, and baked me some more peanut brittle.

And this time they sent it UPS, and it got here without any hocus-pocus.

Issues with government agencies aside, the real nugget in this experience is that the school didn’t give up. The kids dived back in and did the whole thing again. And the teachers made time for them to come in and use the equipment to do so. The LMS sent me pictures of boys and girls working at the machines, fabricating these gifts for me. And what’s ironic about all of this is that this school is in a “lower socio-economic” segment of their region and with redistricting going on right now parents of kids who will be newly assigned to this school next year are protesting mightily. They are concerned about the school-wide Title I program, about having their kids in the oldest building in the district, and about subjecting them to a very diverse student population.

It reminds me of Jessica’s school in The Running Dream—it may not have had the greatest equipment, and the parents might have wished for their students to be in a more affluent district or a school with flashier credentials, but in the end it was the actions inside the school—the pulling together as a family against all odds--that made the school one where students truly triumphed. Sometimes it’s the creative ways around what you don’t have that illuminates what you do, and it’s usually through struggle that kids grow into compassionate, contributing adults.

Unpacking the beautiful quillow and backpack was also a good reminder that if at first you don’t succeed (or if your hard work gets transformed into a rusty tricycle), don’t give up. Try again.

All kids should be so lucky to attend a school that models and supports this.

Hate Mail!

2011-04-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

Usually the letters and messages I receive from people are positive.

But not always!

Sometimes I receive (drum roll, please….) hate mail!

I answer my mail. (Although I am SO behind right now because of my deadline and it’s making me a little anxious.) I especially love the letters that aren’t assigned by teachers because I know the motivation to write to me is pure. (Even if they want me to send an autographed picture.) (Or an autographed book.) (Or to get a role in the upcoming Sammy Keyes movie [which is NOT in the works at this time, and which I could NOT do anyway, even if it were]. It’s all okay because I know that they’re legitimately enthused.)

(BTW, and just for the record, I am also NOT a bookstore, so don’t get any funny ideas.)

(Do we have enough parentheticals here?)

(Sheez!)

Anyway, I also appreciate the “assignment” letters—the ones where a language arts teacher has the students write their favorite author and tell them what they liked (and maybe didn’t like) about a particular book. (There must be a nationwide language arts teacher template for these letters because the structure is very often the same. It starts with something about the student—their hobbies and their pets and their families and what sports or clubs or TV shows they like—then moves on to what they liked about your story, and then asks you—even though they’re sure you’re very busy—to answer their list of questions [which can range from one to a hundred depending (usually) on whether a boy or a girl is writing.])

(Parentheticals rock!)

Double anyway, I LOVE the teachers who have their students include a self addressed stamped envelope for the reply because when you get hundreds of these like I do it makes it SO much easier (not to mention cost-reducing) if there’s a SASE. (Publishing reality: If I get 40 cents for every paperback book that sells, and it costs me 44 cents [and rising] in postage alone to reply to an assignment…well, you can understand many authors’ reluctance to write back.)

But I do write back (even if deadlines waylay me sometimes) because I remind myself that if I was the kid writing and I never heard back from my favorite-author-in-the-whole-wide-world, well, I’d be disappointed.

(Even if it was an assignment my teacher made me do.)

Sometimes a kid who’s been given an assignment will write that they weren’t wild about my book. Fine. Fair enough. So I figure that they don’t really mean it when they say to please write back. I mean, they didn’t really like my writing, so why ask for more, right? They’re just trying to finish working the formula their teacher gave them for writing an author.

One of the two “hate mails” I received this week sort of falls in this “dreaded assignment” category. The poor kid just didn’t get Flipped, hated the two points of view, hated the “boringness” of it, hated the chick on the cover. This student didn’t pull punches either. BAM-BAM-BAM! They let me have it. And then I got a litany of things I could do to make the book better. BAM-BAM-BAM!

Like I’m going to start over and publish it again?

But then, in closing, this student asked me to please-please-please write back.

Cracked me up.

The other message was more along the lines of true hate—something I don’t get much of to tell you the truth. But this woman did not like the way Swear to Howdy began (I swear to howdy it’s hilarious, but obviously this woman does not have my sense of humor. And obviously she’s not a teenage boy.)

Even though this book has generated some amazing fan mail, she said that after reading the first few pages she wanted to return the book but instead did the world a service by shredding it.

(I think we can all feel a little safer tonight.)

Now, there was a time I would have written these haters back. There was a time I would have presented a defense. I don’t like to be misunderstood, or have my work misunderstood.

And nobody likes to feel hated.

But you know what? I finally get that there are people in this world who will never like you, no matter what you do or how much you try.

(And you double-know-what? There are some people who if they did like me I’d be worried. Like, what kind of a jerk am I that that jerk likes me?)

The same thing applies to your art—there’s just no pleasing everybody.

What it boils down to is acceptance.

I accept that not everyone’s going to like me.

I accept that not everyone’s going to like my work.

The best defense is to just let it go.

Stop The Clock!

2011-04-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

There's a four book contract on my desk and it's making me sad.

Mark laughed at me when I told him.

He's been waiting a while for a one-book contract to come through.

So yeah, it's pretty silly that a four-book contract would make anyone sad, but it's for the final four Sammys and The End is coming at me like a freight train. Choo-choo. (Boo-hoo!)

Maybe I won't sign them! I'm going to miss my first deadline anyway, so why sign something you can't fulfill.

But my agent extended my grace period in the contract(s) so dang. I don't have that excuse.

The contracts arrived on my oldest son's twentieth birthday.

I cannot believe he's twenty!

TWENTY!

He can't believe it, either, and decided Disneyland was the place to go to avoid facing the end of his "childhood." So that's where we went this weekend!

So where do I go to avoid facing the end of Sammy? Disneyland doesn't seem right. And she's not "18" yet (the number of books). She's not even 15! She's only 14.5! She's still a kid. I have a lot of time left!

That's what I said about my son.

Maybe if I wrote sloooooower I could avoid this ending for a while.

But time just keeps marching, man, and my son's already twenty.

And these contracts are sitting here on my desk ticking.

But then there's Mark, in the next room, laughing, keeping it all in perspective.

Silly girl.

He's twenty. He's happy. He's healthy.

Silly girl.

It's a four-book contract and you're sad?

Wedding Crasher Art Process

2011-04-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

Hi there and thanks for checking in! Before I get going on this week's post I want to thank everyone who left such nice comments last week. This community is so positive and supportive and I know I've said it before but, once again, I appreciate you!

(I also know there are questions in last week's comments and I will get back to those asap.)

Meanwhile, I think you'll find this week's entry fascinating because it's the inside scoop on the cover art process. I've mentioned in several entries how the writing process is in some ways more a re-writing process, and I think it's worth noting that this is often the case with the artwork as well. (And, extending the concept, with anything creative.)

To the left is the cover for the paperback edition of Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher (which I believe comes out in May). I received the proof in the mail last week and busted up, even though I'd seen previous sketches and had a pretty good idea of what it would look like. Still, seeing it as a finished cover was really fun.

So how am I planning to explain all the steps involved in getting to this cover when I'm not the artist?

I'm not.

I'm going to let Karl Edwards, the illustrator for the Sammy paperbacks explain via his blog post. For those of you interested in art or illustration, this is an invaluable look at the process. For those of you who are just Sammy Keyes fans and want to see what the poor artist had to go through to make us all happy, you'll see the previous renditions (and Sammy on a motorcycle!). For those of you who have already read Wedding Crasher in hardcover, you'll see that all the sketches took liberties with the storyline, and that is because capturing the essence of this story with a single image (note that all the covers have just that), was a tough job.

So until next week, I'm delighted to introduce you to Karl Edwards, his blog, and his fascinating overview of the cover art process. Enjoy!

PS If you like Karl's entry be sure to leave him a comment--it's always nice to get positive feedback and you guys are great at that!

It's Always A Big Deal

2011-04-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

We just returned from an author friend's book release party. (Sherry Shahan for Purple Daze--a free-verse YA novel with "mature" content.) It was a 60's themed bash in keeping with the new book's Vietnam era setting, and it was nice to see so many of her friends celebrate her newest achievement, even though she has many books already in print.

Books are like babies. Everyone makes a fuss over the first one and showers you with congratulations and gifts (well, the actual buying of your book anyway), but after you've had a few, people (understandably) start losing track. The fussing fades away because it's no longer a novelty, it's just what you do.

So if you're the tenth child in a family, there will probably be few pictures of you, and lots of hand-me-down everythings.

But it takes just as much energy to build that tenth child as it did to build the first. Actually more, because you now have those other nine to tend to and keep on track.

So it's still a big deal to you, and still as big an accomplishment. And even if it has grown into "what you do," each book that follows that first one is just as special. (And something people who are praying for their first book would kill for!) The difference is, you can't expect the rest of the world to do cartwheels for you. It becomes your job to throw the celebration, and why not? You deserve to celebrate, and it's a lot more fun with others around you.

I never met an author before becoming one, and Sherry was one of the first published authors I got to know. So it was really great to see her decked out in hippie gear and taking time to celebrate what I know was several years of hard work.

It was also good to talk to other people at the party--a nice reset on appreciating the good fortune of having even one book published. There was a woman there who told me how my talk at a local writer's organization ten years before had stuck with her.

I'm like, Hello? What in the world did I say?

Turns out, words of encouragement. About sticking to it. She said that my ten years of rejection served as encouragement to her. She's now very close to getting her first book picked up by a major publisher and she said that once she does she'll pass the same encouragement on to others.

Final thought: Sometimes when things fall into your lap--or they just happened for you easily--you don't truly appreciate that there's cause for celebration. But it's not lost on the person who's been trying for years and years. So if you're one of them, hang in there and visualize your first book bash. Then your second. And your third.

And invite me, would you?

It's a big deal.

It's always a big deal.

Weeds in the Garden of Happiness

2011-03-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

In The Running Dream, Jessica talks about her ‘garden of worthiness’ and how difficult it is to keep weeds out of it. This has to do with her losing a leg and feeling that the boy she likes—or any boy, for that matter—could never fall in love with her because of her handicap.

It occurred to me today that weeds also spring up quickly in one’s garden of happiness—that you have to be willing to tend to your happiness—to stay on top of it—or craggy weeds will crop up and take over.

Have you ever noticed that about weeds? They grow so fast. And really, they take no encouragement whatsoever. One day there’s a little sprig (which you probably don’t think you have to pull out right then), and the next time you look it’s sucked the nutrients right out of the soil and become an ugly, spiky-leaved monster of a plant, choking out your delicate flowers.

Being happy requires work. It’s not something you just are. It’s something you work toward. Something you fight for. Something that needs to be maintained. It is really easy to let the negative infiltrate the positive. Keeping negativity out requires due diligence, and a willingness to be resented.

After all, misery loves company.

We grow up hearing the term ‘success’ used to describe people who have reached a certain level of status in their field, or a certain level of cha-ching in their bank account. And those things may be a measure of success in the traditional sense, but I think viewing things that way misrepresents what success really is.

I think success should be measured by your degree of happiness. So no matter what you do or how much or little money you have, if you are happy, you are successful. (This, of course, has nothing to do with people who are suffering from clinical depression or a chemical imbalance or some emotional trauma or whatnot.)

The interesting revelation I had this week was that if I had to explain what made me happy, I would start with my family—my husband, my kids….then I would say playing racquetball! Playing in the band! Going down the water slides!

But that really, those are just little rushes. What makes me happy at the end of each day is knowing that I made someone else happy. Knowing that I did something—no matter how small—that made the world a better place. I like looking back on my day and feeling that it was an honorable one—one where I was kind and compassionate and that I appreciated the gift of this day of living and the good things and people in it.

An old friend sent around this quote: “There comes a time in life, when you walk away from all the drama & people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad, & focus on the good. So, love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy.”

That sums it up pretty nicely, I think. It’s sometimes hard to face the fact that there are things in life we just can’t change, but when we do, it frees us. That craggy, spiky-leafed plant is never gonna bloom, no matter how much we may wish it would.

So stop wishing.

Go weed your garden.

There’s nothing wrong with being happy.

Night of Skulls Art

2011-03-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

Hi! Thanks for checking in. I was hoping to have some art info for you about Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls, and ta-da! Here we go.

I received dust jackets in the mail along with some other items (like fan mail that continues to pile up in my drawer--I really need to take a few days and answer it, but it's a major undertaking and I have a book due in May so aaaaargh!)

Anyway, I had seen the preliminary sketch of the jacket and really liked it. Right away you know it's definitely a Sammy Keyes book, but the wedged sections are a nice switch from the usual rectangular divisions.

What didn't quite resonate with me was the color scheme. Night of Skulls is definitely a Halloween story and it seemed this color scheme was more Fourth of July-ish. But there they were--finished jackets. And since I do NOT like to quibble about the small stuff, and since I know art is one of those touchy areas, I considered saying nothing about it. But since the book doesn't come out for another 6 or 7 months, I decided to ask Nancy if it was possible to switch the color scheme to orange and purple on the on the off chance that it wasn't too late. And ta-da! Just like that it's orange and purple.

I know this is short, but that's all for tonight. Unfortunately I spent WAY too much time trying to get these images transferred, loaded and formatted. (Does anyone know how to position art next to text in Blogger--it's driving me batty!) I'd love to hear your thoughts on the new cover. See you soon!

Anything's Better Than Nothing

2011-03-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

Hi. Mark here, subbing for my darling Wendelin because she’s in the middle of dealing with Justice Jack, and hey—you know how it can go with those sorta-loser guys.

It seems like we humans can tend to set ourselves up for failure before we even start a new endeavor, because we feel like everything’s an all-or-nothing proposition, and somehow there’s something wrong with taking what’s referred to in corporate circles as a “graded approach”. (Code for doing something “good enough”, rather than close-to-perfect.) This can be problematic for productive/creative types. Like, say… writers and runners.

Let’s take running. (And running can be a metaphor for any activity in your life that you do because it’s both ‘good for you’ and makes you feel good.) Runners tend to follow a routine. Frequently a highly-structured routine, involving a written training program. (Talk to a guy who’s in his third month of a marathon training program. “Hey Steve, wanna go see that great new movie tonight?” “Love to, but I can’t. I have to do 17 miles at 10-K race pace +60 sec per mile. 800-meter intervals on Tuesday, lactate threshold run on Wednesday, and hill repeats on Thursday. But I start my taper in five weeks—I think I have a free hour then.”) And they frequently feel that they’re a failure if they miss or modify even a single day of the program. What’s wrong with this picture?

Oh, I get the need to follow the program. Believe me, I do. Left to my own devices, I’ll run six days a week. Happily. (Yeah, I’ve been to those 12-step meetings. You know—the ones where you walk into the meeting in the church basement and everyone’s sitting on folding chairs arranged in a circle. They go around the group, and when they get to me I raise my hand and say, “Hi, I’m Mark. And… I’m a runner.” And all these skinny guys and girls in their Asics and finisher’s T-shirts smile and say in unison, “Hi, Mark!”)
So I understand the need for structure. But real life does NOT leave us to our own devices. It has plans of its own, and they sometimes don’t take into account our own plans. This is when you have to step back and re-assess. Take a deep breath and say it with me: anything’s better than nothing.

As an example, both Wendelin and I have been very busy lately, with work-related stuff. So much so that, for the first time in memory, I’m relegated to running only on weekends, for the most part. Is this optimum? No. Would this be what I’d choose, in that elusive ‘perfect world’ we hear so much about but never see? No. But, should I feel like a sorta-loser guy because I’m running two days a week instead of, say, five? Well, I shouldn’t, but the truth is, sometimes I do. Sorta. So as an antidote, instead of beating myself up for what I’m not doing, I try to consciously give myself credit for what I am doing. I tell myself, “Good for you… at least you did something!” Because (say it with me) anything’s better than nothing.

Same deal with writing. In that Fictional World of Loving Perfection, we’d sit down every single day and crank out our one-to-three thousand words of absolutely brilliant prose. Before lunch. And looking darned good doing it, too. Well, not me. Not today. Today life intruded and I hit a grand total of 243 words. (I know, because I just checked. And because I know you’re thinking it, I also checked and it turns out that I’ve already written over 600 words on this blog entry. And in significantly less time, believe me. Which tells you something about the nature of blogging vs. writing fiction. But that’s a subject for another time…)

Don’t get me wrong. I think there’s real value in writing on a regularly scheduled basis—keeps your head in the story, so you don’t have to re-familiarize yourself with your characters every time you jump back into it. But far more important is to do something—anything—rather than sit there and bemoan the fact that you have to try and cram your writing (or whatever your particular creative outlet is) in between all the chores of daily life.

Consider—many people have zero creative output. And get zero exercise. Don’t let yourself be one of them simply because you don’t have the time to do an “A” job of everything. Every single sentence you write, and every single minute you get your heart into its target range, is good for you.

So take it easy on yourself. Allow yourself to take that graded approach. Sometimes a B+… or maybe even a solid “C”… really is Good Enough.

Because really, anything is better than nothing.

Author Magazine

2011-03-06T19:59:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid I thought authors were either really, really old, or dead. And since I had zero interest in being either of those, I had zero interest in becoming an author. Had any of my schools had an Author Day program, I'm sure my perception would have changed radically, but I didn't meet any authors at all until after my first book came out.

The Internet was also not ubiquitous back then, so the closest you could get to an author was the little mug shot at the back of the book…if there was on there.

And if there was, it certainly looked like someone really, really old (as most adults do when you’re a kid), and like it was taken a really, really long time ago (who would ever wear their hair like that?), and oddly posed (what’s with the hand under the chin thing? Do all authors have weak necks in need of support? Are their brains that heavy?).

So no, meeting or becoming an author was not on my wish list.

It’s amazing how times have changed—not just for me and my perceptions, but for what’s available as resources.

For those of you who are aspiring authors, or just have authors you wish to meet someday, I have good news for you: There’s a website of author interviews (mostly video interviews) that I discovered in January when I was in Seattle on book tour for The Running Dream. The host, Bill Kenower, interviewed me for “Author Magazine” an online source for writers (or people interested in authors) who want to get information about the writing process from the people who have been successfully published.

Here is the link to my video interview on Author Magazine

And here is a link to a list of links to other authors archived on the site. (Among the authors you’ll find the likes of Nora Ephron, Louis Sacar, Henry Winkler, Ridley Pearson, and Polly Horvath…it’s very cool!)

That’s all for this week – I hope you enjoy the links. (And I hope there are some not-so-old and very much alive authors you’re excited to see there!) As Bill Kenower would say, Enjoy!

A Thrashed Draft

2011-02-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

If you're a regular visitor to this blog you know that I'm working on the 15th Sammy Keyes book and that it will feature a 'kinda loser guy,' who, at last mention here, didn't have a name.

Well, he does now. His name is Justice Jack, and he absolutely cracks me up. I'm not going to give any more details about him here, but it struck me as I was ripping the fourth rewrite of Chapter 5 in half that what I'd just torn up demonstrated more about writing that I could possibly explain.

So I taped it back together and scanned it in, and for any of you aspiring writers, I think it serves as a great illustration of how you're just not done until you're done...and that may take a lot of doing.

After my third pass through this chapter, I thought it was in really good shape. So, just to feel good about my new chapter, I thought I'd read through it one more time. And look! I butchered it. Again!

The shocking thing is that this is very much what the page looked like after my first rewrite. And my second. And the third!

How can that be?

It just is. It's what makes a book readable.

Well, that page isn't readable--it's a mess! But this is how it's done. Or, at least, this is how I work.

A couple of things if you actually look at the scan:

1) The header says "Cult of Justice Jack" -- that's just the working title. It won't be Cult. I'm not sure what it will be yet, so that's just a place holder word for now.

2) You'll see that much of what is scribbled on this page has to do with weaving in the mention of a college fund. One little (seemingly inconsequential) idea can really mess up a page!

Hope you enjoyed a peek at the process (or, at least, my process). See you next week!

Thank You Caradith

2011-02-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

I wrote a post a few months back titled The Power of Small about how Flipped came into the hands of director Rob Reiner. I was reminded of "the power of small" this week when I the following quote came into my in-box:

“I read The Running Dream on my way to the World Championships. I nearly missed my flight for reading it and inhaled it before I touched down. It’s a truly touching story that feels very real.” Katrin Green, Paralympic Gold Medalist

Katrin lost her foot when she was five. She was in a farming accident in her homeland of Germany. She now lives in the United States and runs with a prosthetic leg (just like Jessica in The Running Dream), and she won a gold medal in the Beijing Paralympics. (The Paralympics always take place shortly after the Olympics but get very little news coverage, which I'm hoping is something that changes in the years ahead.)

Katrin was not someone I knew personally. Nor was she a friend of a friend of a friend.

So how did I wind up with this amazing quote from her?

We go back to The Power of Small.

Back, once again, to a librarian.

Caradith Craven is a LMS at a middle school in Oklahoma. She set up my first school visit several years ago, and I went back to Oklahoma to visit again after her school won the Exercise the Right to Read challenge.

Caradith is a powerhouse of action. She transforms her library and hallways with displays and artwork reflecting the visiting author's books, but through her actions she also transforms kids. She guides and nurtures and makes even the toughest kids feel like they have a safe-haven in her library. (I know this because she sends me little stories about special kids, underscoring how my books resonated with them, but I know the reality is that it's not my books as much as it is Caradith -- she takes the time and has the patience to connect with them and find out what books will work for them.)

When The Running Dream came out, Caradith once again sprang into action. She loved the book so much that she convinced her school to try their first "all-school" read (meaning that everyone from the principal to the teachers to the janitorial staff reads the same book). In this case (and since the book is only available in hard cover), each teacher reads part of the book each day to their students in (say) first period. Other schools have done this with my books Flipped and Runaway, and I love the concept of an all-school read because it's a bonding experience for the entire school.

The picture I've included is from Caradith (she's on the bottom row, third from the right), and as you can see, she also had T-shirts made. (She sent me one and the entire 7th grade class had autographed it.)

So yeah, this'll make an author swell with happiness. You just look at that picture and go, wow. But she didn't stop there. She took a copy of my book and went to Sabolich--a prosthetic manufacturer which has a facility near the town where she lives. And she went in and asked to talk to the marketing director.

Hello? The marketing director?

Well, she gave the marketing director the book and told her she had to read it. Which, amazingly, she did. And, it turned out, she loved it too. So (condensing the story here) the marketing director gave it to one of Sabolich's sponsored athletes--Katrin Green--who happened to be catching a flight to the World Championships. The quote above is the result of that.

So, once again, I'm reminded that one person can make a big difference in our lives, but the really interesting thing to me is something more intangible than that:

We never know who that person might be.

Hold A Mighty Heart!

2011-02-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

I remember when my mom was 'large with life' with my sister, people would ask if she was hoping for a boy or a girl. Her answer was always, "As long as it's healthy, it doesn't matter."

I thought that was just her being polite. Of course the baby was healthy! And it better be a girl 'cause doggone it I already had two brothers and I needed an ally!

My wish came true, and that was a very happy day in my life, but it wasn't until not that long ago that I truly understood the wisdom of my mother's words.

I think it's good that as we women go through the building of babies (which is what I like to call it), we're blissfully unaware of everything that can go wrong. We ponder names. We nest. We debate the merits of different strollers and cribs and color schemes. We grow bigger and bigger until really, all we want is our body back. Then we endure labor and scream out such profound things as "I wish I were a marsupial!" and in the end we forget the pain and gaze upon our perfect little miracle with love and awe, still blissfully unaware of the many things that, in a cruel twist of fate, could have gone wrong.

When our second son was born he had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.

Twice.

I was in the midst of pushing when the nurse descended on me with an oxygen mask. I told her I didn't want it and she said, "It's for the baby."

I didn't understand the depths of the significance of this, but I sucked in oxygen, and in the next few minutes the doctor un-looped my son's neck and, with a final push, our son came into the world completely healthy.

We were immediately swept up in the miracle of new life, not fully aware of the bullet we had dodged until years later when my husband came home from work with the story of a colleague's son who was severely handicapped and forever bound to a wheelchair because the umbilical cord had strangled the oxygen from his brain during birth.

For those of you who have read Flipped, I'm sure you now see that the story line of Uncle David (Daniel in the movie) comes from a very personal place. And it's not that I ever intended to share this story in a blog post, but something happened this week that has compelled me to do so.

I got an e-mail from a girl in China who had seen the Flipped movie.

She and her boyfriend have been in love for three years but they have not been able to allow themselves to be happy because of a "pragmatic problem"--her boyfriend has a "retarded older brother"--one who was born with the umbilical cord around his neck.

The parents were allowed by the Chinese government to have a second son (the boyfriend) so that he could, in the Chinese custom, care for his parents (and, in this case, also the older brother). Which means that, if she goes ahead and marries the man she loves, she marries into the responsibility of caring for the brother.

In her letter she wrote that after seeing how the Baker family maintained their strength and kindness and still loved each other despite what they'd been through with Uncle David she was encouraged to "face the difficulties in life and try my best to hold a mighty heart!"

To hold a mighty heart.

What an exquisite expression.

And what a extraordinary experience for me to see my blissful ignorance grow into an understanding of my good fortune and blossom into a novel, then became a movie that crossed the seas and gave courage to a young woman in China.

Cookie Warfare.

2011-02-06T20:57:00.000-08:00

One fun part of the writing process is weaving funny events from your real life into your stories. Especially when the reality is stranger than fiction and everyone assumes you just made it up.

Sssh!

This is the case with the Sammy Keyes book I'm working on now. As those of you who read the series know, Dot DeVries is one of Sammy's friends, and her parents are from Holland.

My son has asked me in the past why Dot was even one of Sammy's friends because she doesn't have a big role in most of the books, and he has a point. But the reality is, it's hard to have scenes with too many friends. The dialog gets bogged down with attributions, and it just gets messy and cumbersome.

So it's true that Dot has taken a back seat for many of the books, but I couldn't just write her out because I've known since the fifth book that Sammy would be going to Dot's house the first week of December of this (her eighth grade) year for the DeVries' Dutch celebration of Sinter Klaas.

That was ten books ago.

It's finally time!

Now, the way the traditional Dutch family celebrates Sinter Klaas is a MUCH milder version of the one the Van Draanen family ramped up to when we were teenagers. Traditionally, you put your shoes out by the fireplace with carrots and apples for Sinter Klaas's horse and sing a little Dutch song. In the morning Sinter Klaas has exchanged the carrots and apples for Dutch treats. This goes on for the first four days of December, and on the 5th of December Sinter Klaas tosses cookies through the ceiling and leaves a small gift for you at the door.

Yes, that's right. Cookies come through the ceiling.

Now, I'm not going to go into the details of how this happens or my family's adaptation of this quaint custom, but I will tell you that what you'll read about in the story is very much how the events played out in the Van Draanen household.

It starts with carrots in the shoes and ends in cookie warfare.

I'm sure anyone reading the story (Dutch or not) would think the scenes are the result of an overly active imagination on the author's part, but I know (and my family will know), that, yeah, that was pretty much the way we "celebrated."

I like this part of writing. The slipping in of scenes--or even just phrases--that are like a private tribute to special people or a special time in your life. And even though my husband's not Dutch, we've carried on the Van Draanen adaptation of Sinter Klaas here at home. It's just fun.

Actually, wild is a much better description.

And throughout the year as I find little cookies in light fixtures and on top of hutches and behind the refrigerator, it reminds me of fun times, now and then.

So I'm looking forward to having this "cultural activity" documented in a book. I think it'll be pretty cool on several levels, including being able to point to the book and say "Read Chapter 3" to my sons' future wives.

After all, it's important that they understand what they're getting into.

Dutch or not, there's no getting out of cookie warfare.

Er, I mean Sinter Klaas.

Floaties in the Ocean of No

2011-01-30T19:44:00.000-08:00

My husband's a pretty remarkable guy. He's one of those rare people who helps you find the best within you. I've seen his invisible power work on all sorts of people. It's a combination of optimism, sincerity, and strength. He Thinks You Can and somehow, almost miraculously, you discover that indeed you can.

Being around him is just good for you.

I get a lot of credit for my success (which is very nice), but the simple truth is that the difference between success and failure is the ability to endure failure long enough to achieve success.

One little yes in the Ocean of No can save you.

But after you've been adrift for a while, it's easy to begin doubting that a yes actually exists.

The Ocean of No is vast.

And cold.

And can easily swallow you up.

I swam around in the Ocean of No for ten years looking for someone to say Yes, we'll publish you. People ask me how I survived it, and I usually tell them one part of the truth: I didn't know it would take ten years.

Each day I thought: Today could be the day.

But the other part of that truth is that during all that swimming in publishing's Ocean of No, I was wearing little floaties.

You know, those arm bands that keep innocent young people (who are too naive to understand that people do drown in Ocean of No) afloat?

In his helpful, quiet way, Mark slipped on those floaties--he kept me believing that what I was doing was good and important, and that, hey, today could be the day.

And then one day, almost miraculously, it was.

I look back on the me that met him and realize that he's done a lot more than buoy me through the Ocean of No. He's helped me become more reasoned and empathetic and giving. And when I'm upset about something like I was this week, he makes me get in his little Rowboat of Reason and paddles me across my choppy waters to a calmer place where he helps me sort through things until I feel better.

For all the praise and acclaim I get, I know the truth--I'm the me I am because of him.

I just wanted you to know.

Home, Sweet Home

2011-01-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

There was no room for ruby slippers in my carry-on, and the Converse didn't seem to have any transport magic in them, but the United puddle-jumper was on time and San Francisco had clear skies, and I got a fantastic sky view of the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, and the City as the pilot circled and banked and gave us quite a show on the final flight of The Running Dream tour. I came home to flowers and a welcome-home cake and an impressively tidy house. And I just didn't want to stop hugging m'boys. If you've been following my posts for the past two weeks, you know that going on a book tour like this is not the glamorous excursion one might think. It's a lot of hard work. School visits during the day, presentations at bookstores at night. And it all starts to blur together, which can be disturbing. What day is it? What is my hotel room number? Who is my driver today? It gets pretty lonely. I only had one meal in the company of people I knew. The rest were on the run or in my room....or just skipped. So seeing familiar faces, or getting little comments on the blog, or mail in my in-box...it all helped more than you can imagine. Thinking back on the bright spots, here are some that buoyed me along:

Having a former student show up at a Chicago booksigning. It was nice to just sit and chat and talk about writing. It was also great to see him again!
Meeting my "twisty-tie" pen-pal and her family who drove 2 hours to meet me at a library event in St. Charles.
Getting a picture of my two darling nieces (who I think are actually second cousins?) from my cousin in California (the picture posted) to let me know they'd bought the book and were reading!
Getting messages from Mark and Roberta and Caradith and Elizabeth and Brenda and Greg and Mary-Mary and MaryLou...just checking up, checking in. Friends indeed!
Seeing The Wadhams! Blueberry Hill Diner! Chuck Berry! The Duck Room! Burgers and PIE!
Meeting optimistic4ever -- good grief. I can't believe you weren't going to tell me!
Discovering "Amy" is...Amy! Good grief. I can't believe I can be so dense.
Walking into Hicklebee's and hearing our Risky Whippet CD blaring over the speakers.
My "homecoming" at Hicklebee's -- what a store, what a staff, what a home-away-from-home.
Hugging Walter.
Having my cousin Rolf and his family and dad show up at a booksigning. It's really nice when family doubles as friends and makes the effort to turn out.
Having people in three different cities come because they read my post on John Scalzi's blog.
Discovering that the two couples with big bags sitting near the front of the room during a bookstore event were collectors...and had first printings of all of my books--even How I Survived Being A Girl.
Meeting Amanda and seeing Ryan. (who I met at an airport years ago)...and reading their package of letterboxing fun (Sammy Keyes and the Ham Sandwich!).
Having a principal tell me I was a "firestorm of inspiration."
Reading the comments posted on this blog--thank you for following along and for taking the time to write.
Discovering that the audience at my last bookstore event held two sets of three-generation Sammy Keyes readers--Grandma, Mom, and Daughter--all having read every book.
Hugging Mark at the airport.

Thanks to everybody, vocal or not, who traveled along with me through the past two weeks' posts. And thanks to my awesome in-laws for holding down the fort while I was away. It's good to be home.

For next week, if you're curious about some aspect of touring that I didn't touch on in the last two weeks, ask away -- I'll do my best to answer.

See you then!

Countdown!

2011-01-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

Couldn't sleep. Up at 3:00, lift to airport at 5:30, just arrived in San Francisco. It's SUNNY! Looking forward to the school event today -- Walter Mayes' school for those of you who know the thespian and Giant Storyteller. Then Hicklebee's bookstore tonight--I love Hicklebee's and the staff! Then one more event tomorrow and I get to go HOME, kiss all my boys, and COLLAPSE. Can't wait!

Seattle

2011-01-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

I missed yesterday, sorry! I arrived late, crashed, woke up super early because I was still on St. Louis time, made myself get up and go for a run along the waterfront. It was cold and dark, but gorgeous with all the lights and a view of the Space Needle. Then it was go-go-go all day, doing school visits and then a video interview before an evening book signing at Third Place Books. My cousin and his family showed up to tonight's signing--it was so nice to see them! There were two collectors in the audience who had stacks of first printings for me to sign. One of them even had a first printing of How I Survived Being A Girl--cool! There was also someone whom I'd met at the Phoenix airport a couple of years ago, and a person who'd read my piece in the Scalzi blog -- actually she was the second person who came to a signing on this tour because of the Scalzi blog. It's interesting (and a little strange) how immediately bonding that is. Now I'm back at the hotel, eating crumbs from a scone and nuts because it's too late (and I'm too tired) to go get any dinner. Lame post, I know. I could tell you about the deranged guy who was shouting at runners as they went by the naked statue in an enormous fountain by the waterfront this morning, but I'm too tired. Much, much too tired! Thanks for checking in on me. It's nice to know you care. G'night!

How NOT To Interview

2011-01-17T15:57:00.000-08:00

Despite interference from ice, The Running Dream tour has been pretty uneventful. I get where I’m supposed to go, the equipment all works….things go as The Schedule says they should. Until today. Today I was escorted to Booksource in St. Louis, a wholesale retailer that had me sign a gazillion books for stock. The people were nice and everything went great. The Schedule said they would take me out to lunch afterwards, which they did, mindful of the fact that I needed to be back at my hotel by 1:00 to do a live phone interview with Atlanta-based “Americas Web Radio” (rescheduled from last week when no one could get to the station because of the ice). We got seated immediately, placed our orders fairly soon thereafter, and relaxed…everything was going according plan. Then my phone rang. As I clicked it on I noticed the time was 12:00. “Hello, this is Tom from Americas Web Radio, are you ready to do your interview?” “But it’s only—” and then I realized that it was an hour later in Atlanta. The Schedule was messed up! I gave him a quick rundown of the situation, excused myself from the table, and scooted out of the noisy restaurant and into the bar. And then I realized we’d been disconnected. So I hit redial and when Tom answered he informed me that he’d just put me on hold while the host, Lisa, did the introduction. He went “dead” again, and I held on. The bar was suddenly filling with people and was loud, so I went into the small foyer, but groups of people were stompping in in their snow gear and loud voices. Lisa was now on, but I could barely hear her. So I moved into the snow room up front and shivered through a few questions, until loud people started filing in there, too. I ducked back inside desperately looking for a quiet space, all the while trying to discuss The Running Dream with some level of cohesive intelligence. I finally found a back staircase. It was a straight flight up with a “lift” along the side – you know a single motorized chair for people who cannot walk up stairs. The rails of the lift apparatus narrowed the staircase by about a third, and with me standing there passage was pretty tight. Fortunately, nobody went up or down for a while, My open ear was plugged tight with my finger, and it was a strain to hear, but at least I could answer the questions, and was able to talk to Lisa for a whole 10 minutes without interruption. Then big men in parkas started lugging up huge coolers. When the first one appeared I just squeezed up against the lift rails to get out of the way. Then the second guy arrived carrying something even bigger. And the third. And I’m trying to stay out of the way, hear what’s being said, and answer questions without sounding like anything’s wrong. Finally I went the other half of the distance up the stairs, sat on the little chair at the top of the lift to make room for these hulking guys and their giant coolers, and that’s when I saw that the room at the top of the stairs wasn’t an office, but a room with table and chairs—like an upstairs annex to the restaurant—and after the hulking guys left, there was nobody in it. So I went inside, found a corner, faced the wall and hunkered down with my finger in one ear and my cell phone cranked up to maximum volume against the other. For about three minutes it was quiet in the room. Then the sheet metal started arriving. Big sheets of it, boinging and banging around behind me. Now, the whole time I’m answering questions I’m trying to ignore the sound and I’m hoping they can’t hear it in the radio station studio, but after the drills started Lisa asks me, “What is that noise?” So, live on the air, I recounted everything I’d done to try to conduct this interview. Lisa was great about it, and I managed to make it through a total of four 15-minute segments. Who knows what it sounded like to people listening? I’m told it’ll be posted as a podcast online later, but I don’t think I want to hear! The women I was supposed to have lunch with were very nice and understanding about their disappearing guest (my escort explained the situation) and I’m glad they went ahead and ate without me. After all this I really needed to get out for a run, and since Forest Park is right near my hotel, I bundled up in three shirts (don’t have a sweatshirt) shorts (don’t have sweats) 3 headbands (two over my ears, one around my neck) and mittens, and headed around the park. Despite the snow and the brrrrr temps, it was a lovely run. I went past a zoo and an outdoor ice skating facility. I saw beautiful architecture and a 1904 (?) World’s Fair building. And then I took a wrong turn and wound up facing what you see in the picture posted. A little bit scary, but hey, I had my phone (which I took the picture with) and my speedy (although frost-bitten) legs to get me out of any potentially dangerous situation. And see? Here I am, safe and sound (and finally warm!) telling you about it. The day’s not over though—I have an event at a Border’s store tonight and who knows what--whoops! The Schedule says it's in 45 minutes! And I’m still in my running clothes! Tomorrow Seattle—see you then!

Why Else Would A Whippet Be Risky?

2011-01-16T15:58:00.000-08:00

Today marks the end of the first week of The Running Dream tour.

Half done!

Well, if you count Atlanta, which was sort of a non-start.

Now, just because it's Sunday doesn't mean I got the day off. Not only were there official engagements, I don't seem to know how to give myself time off.

I was very disciplined this morning and worked on Sammy 15 (working title today, which may change tomorrow because that's how working titles are: SK&the Slingshot Vigilante). Then I had a well-attended event at St. Charles, MO public library (about 45 minutes by car away) where a wide range of ages and types showed up to hear me speak. There were boys with Shredderman books, college girls with Sammy Keyes (I love that they're still reading Sammy!) and everything in between. The parents asked lots of questions, too, and several of them told me afterwards how glad they are that I write edgy books that resonate with their teens "without resorting to crass content."

Amputated legs, yes.

Sex and cussing, no.

A very minor--make that extremely minor--segment of my slide show touches on "Fun Stuff" and includes a picture of our band. Then I give away a Risky Whippet EP to someone who "does not like Justin Bieber" (because anyone who likes Justin Bieber would hate Risky Whippet).

Giving away stuff for free is always fun, but what's been really surprising to me is how one little EP can generate so much interest from a room full of teens. How'd you get on iTunes? Do you really play? Does your son have a girlfriend? Does your dog pee in your house?

Huh?

Well...why is he risky?

Anyway, tonight I'm actually forcing myself to do something that's not book related.

I'm going to the movies.

Now, if the movie house were across the highway, I wouldn't do it, but it's right downstairs inside the hotel. I've never seen anything like it. For two days I've been going down the elevator and along a looooong tile hallway past the front of the glassed-in theater lobby to the front hotel lobby and out to my transportation, but tonight I'm going to go down the elevator and stop at the theater to see The Fighter (the only Golden Globe best picture nominee I haven't seen).

I realize this is not a big deal to probably any of you, but to me?

Not exactly risky, but definitely radical.

Maybe I'll even buy some popcorn.

Ozzy & The Situation

2011-01-15T18:53:00.000-08:00

I've made it to St. Louis! I caught an early flight out of Chicago this morning, did a library event this afternoon, then was taken to dinner at the Blueberry Hill Diner--a rock 'n' roll type diner that will be hosting the one and only Chuck Berry in their "Duck Room" on Wednesday night. Too bad it's Saturday! Plus, it's already sold out. Go Chuck, go, go, go! Now a little tour insight, for those of you who may be curious: The publishing house uses a driver to get the author to their events. (Can't trust us to know where we're going!) Sometimes this is a car service--a black "town car"--most commonly used for those early or late trips to or from the airport. Sometimes this is the region's sales rep--the person who is very familiar with the area and the book stores and your books. Sometimes this is an "escort" - someone from a private company that drives you to the venue, stays through the presentations, and helps process the books as they get autographed. The car service is nice, but there's usually little conversation between you and the driver. The sales reps are fun because they work for the same company you do and there's always tons to talk about. And sometimes you go on wild adventures, getting lost, or whatever, and it's all okay because, hey, you were yakking and laughing and nowadays you just turn on the GPS and get back on track. But so far on this tour--except for trips to the airport--it's been all escorts. Escorts are all different. Some have big personalities, some are rather quiet. Some drive SUVs, some drive BMWs, some dress up, some don't, some meticulously vacuum their car, some don't...but they've all had a huge variety of people sitting in their passenger seat, and although, as professionals, they never "dish" about other clients, they will, if asked, share the positive things they've experienced while transporting "stars." And I like to ask! So here are a few things I've learned so far this trip: Ozzy Osborne is the sweetest man you'd ever want to meet. "The Situation" is very polite. Everyone--including J.K Rowling--has had dismal attendance at signings when they're first starting out. All little nuggets, I think. Anyway, that's it for today--off to check in at home, then get some sleep. It's been a long day!

What's "The Big Idea"?

2011-01-13T19:23:00.000-08:00

Yay! A day that went as scheduled. Two school visits and an evening book signing. I'm beat. But happy! Any of you who are writers, or want to be writers, may already know about John Scalzi's blog. If not let me introduce you to it by linking you to my guest post on The Big Idea which is basically his "column" where authors tell the story behind the story they've written. The posts can be very interesting and it gives an insight into the minds of writers. It's not a forum to "sell" your book--it's a place where you share your inspiration and process. Early day tomorrow, so I'm calling it a night. Thanks for checking in!

Abandon Ship!

2011-01-12T19:06:00.000-08:00

Well, abandon Atlanta, anyway. Sorry Atlanta! I couldn't get to either event today, so they got me to the airport and flew me into Chicago. This hotel boasts $15 tomato soup. I'm sure it's the "torn basil" they garnish it with that makes it so pricey. Imagine what it would cost if they garnished it with "cut basil." Wow. The labor involved would make it astronomical. I eat basil right off the potted plant at home. So does my older son. We play chess, eat whatever goes good with basil....like pizza or grilled cheese or, hey, tomato soup!-- and then yank leaves and munch. I'd probably muzzle up to it like a deer if he wasn't there. Love the stuff. I've got to stop thinking about home because it's only been 2 (LONG) days and I'm already homesick. Big day tomorrow! See you then!

Trapped! (Or, At Least, Iced-In)

2011-01-11T17:15:00.000-08:00

The only touring I did today was of the hotel. Roads are iced over, schools are closed...hard to do the scheduled events with no way for anyone to get to them.

Tomorrow doesn't look much better. Low tonight is supposed to be 18, which means any ice that may have begun to melt will refreeze, and the high won't reach 32, so it'll stay ice all day.

I was told today that this has never happened in Atlanta before -- that usually when it's icy, the temps get up high enough to melt it -- so their road clearing system isn't what it might be in areas where they're used to these weather conditions.

The picture posted was the view from the fitness center -- which was packed with people looking for something to do while they're stranded in the hotel!

I spent a lot of the day researching Sammy 15 and tried to be productive. I'm definitely grateful that I'm stuck in a hotel and not at the airport like a lot of people are.

We'll see what tomorrow brings!

Safely in Atlanta

2011-01-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

I made it! And what's weird is that for a day that we were all thinking was going to be nothin' but trouble, everything went smoothly. I can't say as much for people traveling on the roads of Atlanta last night because during our trek from the airport to the hotel we passed by at least 6 cars skidded out on the freeway in the snow. My driver said they'd been there since the big storm last night. They're just in the lanes of the "freeway" which was icy and snowy and had a max speed tonight of about 25. I felt like I was in some end-of-the-world movie -- snowy roads, cars abandoned, big city buildings, and us, crawling along the freeway at 25 mph with nobody else around. Yeah, it was a little eerie! The driver was very careful, but we did slip slide a little. He told me his name, but each time we skidded a little I wanted to pinch my nose and say "Skidworth!" You have to be a Sponge Bob fan to understand why I think that's so hilarious. Anyway, how lucky am I that my tour started today and not yesterday? Skidworth! Okay. Enough of that. Obviously I'm punchy. Two very interesting chance meetings at the airport today. My connection was in Phoenix, and I've been to Phoenix enough times to know that Terminal 4 of the airport is the Barry M. Goldwater Terminal. It's in big letters outside, and inside. If you're one of my young readers, you almost certainly have no clue who Barry M. Goldwater was, so here's a little history: He was a senator from Arizona who ran for president against Lyndon Johnson in 1964, a year after LBJ took over the presidency following John F. Kennedy's assassinated. His senate seat is now filled by John McCain. Well, today in the Phoenix airport, at the gate for the Atlanta flight there was this guy, probably about 70. (No, it wasn't BMG, he died in 1998.) He was dressed in tasseled loafers, dark slacks, a white shirt, and vest. He was sitting next to me in the terminal, and was on the phone most of the time. Shortly before we began boarding we talked a little -- just pleasant do-you-think-we'll-make-it-to-Atlanta type chit chat. Which led to talk of air travel. Which led to how we don't like it. Which led to him asking me why I...a 'girl' in snow boots, jeans, two sweatshirts, surrounded by carry-on luggage...would have cause to have to travel. Obviously, I don't look like much of a business person. The pink streak, I'm sure, doesn't help. So I told him that I write books--novels, mostly--for kids, and that this was the first day of a book tour. That seemed to really interest him, and then it came out that he'd written a book, too. So I asked what he'd written and he said it was a book based on a journal his dad had kept. "So...was your dad somebody famous?" He nodded. "Barry Goldwater." So, there I am, standing in Barry M. Goldwater Terminal, talking to Barry M. Goldwater's son, whose name turned out to be....Barry M. Goldwater Jr. I continued talking until I left him in first class and made my way back to sardine class, where I somehow jockeyed into an empty aisle seat with no screaming baby next to me (poor dear) and an empty middle seat beside me. (Bonus!) The Window Guy was quiet for about half the trip while I ate and worked, and then we started talking to each other. You know. Small talk. Like, isn't-it-amazing-that-we're-actually-on-our-way-to-Atlanta type chit chat. And then it came out that he's an up-and-coming reality show personality who goes by Bully the Kid. He's an announcer for events based around pit bulls, of all things. It's not dog fighting, it's more the opposite -- he gets dogs that are used for fighting unchained. Smart guy, and a good guy, too. Really solid. We talked about Hollywood and how to keep life real because things are moving really fast for him and oftentimes people skid out of control in those circumstances. Skidworth! Never mind. That was just dumb. But hey, I'm tired and I'm allowed. Wow now it's 12:30 AM Atlanta time. I'd better quit yakking and hit the sheets. Thanks for stopping by. And for worrying about me. I know some of you were and I think that's really sweet of you. But I'm fine. Everything's cool. Cold, actually. Maybe I should turn up the heat before my nose starts dripping icicles. Skidworth! Shut-up, Wendelin, and go to bed. Yes, ma'am! (Skidworth!)

Snow Boots Packed, Check!

2011-01-09T21:47:00.000-08:00

The Running Dream comes out on Tuesday!

My book tour starts tomorrow!

At least I hope it does--I start in Atlanta, and tonight flights were cancelled due to weather.

But my publicist is awesome and on top of it and she's says she'll get me there. And you know what? I believe her!

Just tonight she landed a 5-star review in the Examiner. I love that the reviewer says it's not just a book for young adults -- that adults will love it too. So far, so true!

Also, that video I told you about is also now available -- it's only 90 seconds, but I think it sums up the basic premise beautifully. YouTube trailer

Here's the finalized itinerary for the public appearances during this January Tour. It doesn't seem like much in the way of events, but I'm crazy busy doing school visits before (and sometimes after) what's listed. I can't take a prosthetic leg with me, but Peg-Leg Greg (bless his heart) allowed me to photograph him donning his, so I've got a step-by-step as part of my slide show.

I sent out an announcement asking people who are interested and able to buy a book to please consider doing it on release date (Tuesday, 1/11) because a good early sales rank helps a book gain momentum (and after everything I put into writing this book that would be greatly appreciated!). So if that's you, please visit your local independent bookseller or Amazon Barnes & Noble Powell’s Indiebound And if you know of anyone else who may be interested, please pass this information on! While on tour I will do my best to break the once-a-week protocol at the blog here and update every day. It'll make me feel like I've got company on tour -- and people who stop by here definitely make for good company!

Many thanks for your enthusiasm! See you soon!

* * * * * · “This heart-touching story is a helpful reminder that we must appreciate each day and each blessing.”—Jordan Hasay, four-time USA Track & Field Junior Women’s Champion, 1500m, 2007–2010 · “I felt as if this wonderful young woman was sitting right next to me telling me the story of her year of discovery—her journey of frustration, loss, friendship, laughter, and enlightenment. Running is something you do from your heart.” —Anthony Edwards, award-winning actor, runner, and chairman of Shoe4Africa · "The real magic of The Running Dream is not just the conquest of one individual over a physical limitation. It is the collective good an athletic team can do for themselves, their teammates, and their community. I would certainly recommend The Running Dream to any high school athlete, regardless of the sport."—Ken Reeves, teacher and coach for 35 years, 2-time National High School Cross Country Coach of the Year, 11-time California State Championship Team Coach, 14-time CIF Southern Section Championship Team Coach · “With deep insight and sensitivity, Wendelin Van Draanen explores a profoundly human and liberating concept—to see the person, not the disability—in this wonderful portrait of a girl and her community.” –Marianne Leone, actress, author of Knowing Jesse: A Mother’s Story of Grief, Grace, and Everyday Bliss.

For Samantha

2011-01-02T21:13:00.000-08:00

The idea for The Running Dream scared me at first. I knew the research would be extensive, and not only did I not have time between Sammy Keyes deadlines to learn everything I would need to know to write the story with authenticity, I knew that diving into the subject would be a very emotional undertaking. At first I kept at arm’s length. I absorbed information in an almost clinical fashion, trying to master the necessary jargon and thoroughly understand the process of amputation and rehabilitation. Being the overly teary-eyed person that I am, even that was tough. But all the reading on a subject can’t substitute for real life examples and real time input from people who have been through an experience similar to the one you’re presenting on paper. Which meant I had to find…someone. But who? My main character, Jessica, is a high school track star who loses her leg in a terrible bus accident. I didn’t know anyone like her. I didn’t know anyone with a prosthetic limb. I didn’t even know anyone who knew anyone. (And, as you may recall from Why the Taxidermist is Cockeyed, I’m terrified of making cold calls.) There are a few prosthetists in the area, but not many, and at that point I was still afraid of blowing it. (And as you know from Why the Taxidermist is Cockeyed, I’m pretty good at blowing it.) After another agonizing month of avoidance, my husband produced a name. Someone who knew someone who knew someone. This began a series of dead end leads. People move. Disconnect their phones. Change jobs. You know. Then one morning I was following a tentative lead—another friend of a friend of a friend—and as fate would have it, this friend of a friend of a friend no longer worked there. “Maybe I can help you,” the receptionist said. I remember holding my hand to my face and trying hard not to sigh. Desperate, I told her, “I’m a children’s book author. I’m writing a book about a high school track runner who loses her leg in an accident. I’m hoping to find a prosthetist who’s willing to answer a few questions.” “His schedule’s pretty tight,” she said. “But I’m a below-knee amputee and a dancer. I could probably help you.” When I got over my shock, I laughed and said, “That would be great!” Then I told her my name and asked her what hers was. “Samantha,” she said. So yeah, I about dropped the phone. This angel’s name was Samantha? I told her why the name was significant. “I go by Sammy sometimes too,” she said. “But usually just Sam.” I arranged to take her out to lunch. We ate tostadas at her favorite outdoor patio restaurant and she talked frankly about losing her leg to cancer when she was a child and the things she’d been through growing up and dealt with now, as a young woman. She was sweet and upbeat and told me it was fine if I called her with more questions. Which I did. But since I really also needed to witness the casting of a residual limb (stump) and the building of a prosthetic leg, I also asked if she could arrange a tour of the facility and maybe allow me to sit in on a casting. Samantha was willing, but in the end her boss was not. And when my phone calls and e-mails stopped being returned, I took the hint and began pursuing other avenues. My author copies for The Running Dream arrived shortly after Christmas. I always give away my copies to the people who have helped me shape the book, and in this case that included Samantha. It had probably been a year and a half since I’d spoken to her – maybe two years – but I was excited to finally deliver her copy. For one thing, it’s a beautiful book, for another, as promised, she’s thanked on the Acknowledgements page. So I called the office to see when she’d be working. A voice that I didn’t recognize answered the phone. “Hi,” I said, “Is Samantha there?” “I’m sorry, no,” came the reply. “She passed away earlier this year.” I live in such a happy little world. It hasn’t always been that way, but it is now. And it’s not like I forget or ignore or am oblivious to the agony of others – I just try to wrap myself in the good that is today and hold it close knowing that things really can change in the blink of an eye. Samantha’s death didn’t come in the blink of an eye. Cancer shadowed her her whole life. So the news of her death made me feel oblivious. And neglectful. And so sad. No, life’s not fair, but I mean, come on. Through the new receptionist, I delivered a copy of The Running Dream to Samantha’s family, and I included a little letter that explained my connection to her. I also told them that the character Chloe is fashioned after her. She’s cheerful and sweet and helpful. And probably much braver than I know.

TRD Tour Info

2010-12-27T08:50:00.000-08:00

Book tour is fast approaching. I used to report my little book tour misadventures to my editor and publicist but I think I’ll keep any of those to myself this time. After all, they worry. Or maybe I’ll get lucky and won’t have any to keep anything to myself. It would help, I suppose, if I didn’t get lost jogging and have to climb fences. That way I wouldn’t become like Marissa atop chain-link with underwear flapping around like a flag of surrender. Marissa, at least, knew where she was. Give me the back of the dilapidated Heavenly Hotel over where I wound up any day. So yeah. I can work on controlling fence-climbing urges, but the weather? Not much I can do about that. Chicago in January is not somewhere I’m looking forward to being. There’s really no room for snow boots in carry-on luggage, so maybe I’ll just wear them and hope to not get stuck in Phoenix again. Who’s that crazy girl with a snow jacket and snow boots? It’s like, seventy-five degrees out. That would be the famous author on book tour. She’ll be stuck on a fence before nightfall. Anyway, I received an early copy of The Running Dream a few days ago. It really is a beautiful book. The design team did such a nice job on it. I feel so lucky! And after all this time it’s finally really a book. Happy sigh. Double-anyway, here’s the basic schedule of public appearances (Appearances—I love that word. It’s like poof you appear. No flight delays or fences involved.) The schedule is packed with other events (school visits, mostly) but these are the ones open to the public, starting on the official publication date: Tuesday 1/11: Atlanta--Little Shop of Stories, 4:30 p.m. Wednesday 1/12 Atlanta--Borders, Marietta 7 p.m. Thursday 1/13 Chicago--B&N Skokie at 7:30 p.m. Friday 1/14 Chicago--Anderson’s Bookshop 7 p.m. Saturday 1/15 St. Louis--St. Louis Library, 2 p.m. Sunday 1/16 St. Louis--St. Charles County Library @ 1:30 p.m. Monday 1/17 St. Louis -- Borders, Brentwood 7 p.m. (Tuesday 1/18—school visit and travel) Wednesday 1/19—Seattle--Third Place Books, 7 p.m. (Thursday 1/20—Seattle—no public—only school visits) Friday 1/21—San Jose--Hicklebee’s, 7 p.m. Saturday 1/22—San Francisco--Rakestraw Books, 11:00 a.m. Keep in mind that the city listed represents the vicinity, not necessarily the actual city the bookstore is located. I hope some of these places are near you because what makes book tour worthwhile is meeting the people who love your work…and if you check out this blog, I know you do! Hoping to see you on tour (with no Flag of Surrender showing), Wendelin

Food Fight Birthday!

2010-12-19T22:18:00.001-08:00

I should have said this in a comment last week, but since I didn’t, I’ll say it here: I love how all you guys went with the (kinda loser) guy thing. Something about that was really fun for me and I just want to say thanks :) More about the (kinda loser) guy later, but what I’m wanting to talk about this week is birthdays. Those of you who read last week's comments probably saw that a (definitely nice) dad requested a little birthday wish from me for his (unfortunately sick) daughter whose birthday is today. So I sent a note, and since my son’s birthday was yesterday, it got me thinking how my son has been sick on some of his birthdays, and how miserable that was for him. It also got me thinking about fun birthdays. There were two from my childhood that I remember with great fondness. My mom always baked our cakes, and one year I thought she’d had a little trouble with the baking because my cake was oddly shaped. There was this weird top layer that looked like only part of a layer but it was…I don’t know, just strange. And when I went to cut it, it was like a rock (which was not boding well for the enjoyment of this cake). But then I realized that the top layer was an upside down margarine tub, and once I removed it I discovered that inside the tub was a jewelry box with a darling little necklace. So that was really unexpected and fun and I thought my mother was very clever. The other birthday was one I had after a long battle with my appendix (which ruptured and had me sick for way longer than I should have been). My parents converted our backyard into this elaborate Wild West Adventure Land with booths and gold nuggets and activities…I remember it as being just amazing. But I think the birthday that, uh, takes the cake, was my son’s tenth birthday. Food Fight Birthday! Mind you, this was not a spontaneous chucking (and thankfully not upchucking) of food. This food fight was planned and sanctioned by adults. (Well, at least by someone passing herself off as an adult and her poor accomplice...I mean, husband.) Yup, I got this idea in my head and once it was there, there was no stopping me. I made vast quantities of rice and mixed it with mashed potatoes. I bought huge bags of dinner rolls. I bought cases of whipped cream cans. I made a huge slab of Jell-o cake. There were boxes of cookies and crackers and bags of marshmallows. The kid in me was not thinking about starving kids in Africa. The kid in me thought it was the most awesome idea ever! The day of the party, Mark and I hauled the vats of food, a table, chairs, a boom box, shovels and shields down to the beach (which was deserted because it was cold and cloudy and threatening rain). First we made the kids play some obligatory games…beach golfing, balloon volleyball, ring toss….you know. But really, the ten or so kids who’d come were there for one thing: FOOD FIGHT! So we gave each kid a poncho (because we thought their moms would appreciate that). Then Mark and I split them into teams and cut them loose to dig their foxholes and ready their strategies. And when we finally said GO, those kids cut loose. They hurled food and darted in and out of enemy territory dousing each other with whipped cream. It was wild! Completely out of control! And such fun. The unexpectedly cool thing about the aftermath of this food fight was that the food did not go to waste after all. Not that it went to kids in Africa, but the seagulls swooped in and had the beach spotless before we could load up the table and chairs. The bonus being, no clean up! My son is now 17, and most of that same group of friends will be over tomorrow for a jam session birthday party. (I’m talking music here, not strawberries.) So they’ve outgrown the urge to hurl food (I’m counting on that, anyway), but to this day they all still talk about Food Fight Birthday. If you have a favorite (or least favorite!) party story you’d like to share, I’d love to hear. Meanwhile, may your days be merry and bright, and may at least one birthday in your life be…FOOD FIGHT!

Silly, Silly Me (And An EP)

2010-12-12T21:13:00.000-08:00

It’s always a mistake for me to think I can take a few weeks—or wow, maybe a month—off from writing to enjoy a sense of accomplishment—and maybe recover a little—from having completed a novel. Turning in Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls in November looked like good timing, too, because the last month of the year is always nuts. We hosted Thanksgiving, Mark’s birthday was shortly after, then we celebrated our “Dutch Christmas” which takes the first five days of December and requires a bit of work on my part, and the rest of the month doesn’t get much easier. Our younger son has a birthday in mid-December (which we strive to make unique so it’s not lost in the holiday shuffle), and then there’s the final ramp up to Christmas and New Year’s…by the time we cross the finish line on my birthday in early January, everyone’s exhausted and definitely broke. So I was convinced that it was okay to take December off from writing. After all, I haven’t received any official contract for the last Sammys. What was the hurry, right? So I got busy writing Christmas cards instead. Silly, silly me. Late last week my editor told me that the next Sammy is due in May. May! “June at the very latest.” Good grief. My head’s barely escaped the graveyard mayhem of Night of Skulls. And The Running Dream is coming out in January! I’m going to be away on tour! How am I supposed to get a book done by May? Or even June? But having been ingrained in my youth with my parents' indelible (and often damnable) Immigrant Work Ethic, I know I’ll give it my best shot. Which means buckling down and getting started. Which means an emergency plot-talking-session with Mark. Which means (because we have no road trips planned) going for a long run. Once the broad strokes of a story are painted, it’s not hard for me to fill in the details. But I have to really understand and like the broad strokes. So even though I’ve got the basic idea for each of the final four Sammy’s defined, I need way more than that to begin writing. It’s like the pot of paint is open, but the switch plates haven’t been removed and the trim isn’t masked and there’s no drop cloth on the floor. It is definitely not paint time until everything is ready, ‘cause if you start before everything is ready the cleanup is going to be enormous, and no matter what you hope, the job won’t come out pro. So early Saturday morning Mark and I set out on a ten mile run, and we talked plot. There’s something about the rhythm of running and the inability to do anything else that makes running the perfect vehicle for tossing creative ideas back and forth. The basic idea for Sammy 15 is that there’s this (kinda loser) guy who creates a (very lame) superhero persona and makes it his mission to monitor the mini metropolis of Santa Martina for evildoers. Officer Borsch, of course, thinks he’s a nutcase and a nuisance. Which he is. Sort of. The (kinda loser) guy, however, thinks Sammy is a star. Which she is. Definitely. But she's never actually had a "celebrity moment" before, so this is all a little strange. Maybe even creepy. Anyway, that was my starting point. And it may not seem like much, but that’s pretty typical for me. Sometimes I’ll write a Sammy Keyes book from the crime out, but most often it’s from the character in. The people have to fascinate me to keep me interested, and from them I fashion an event or crime that would fit in with their sub-world or psyche. This (kinda loser) guy—who has yet to be named—fascinates me. And I know I’ll have no trouble sustaining my interest in him through 250 or 300 pages. It’s the events surrounding him that needed to be developed, but after ten miles of running through back roads I'm happy to report that I have some really great (and funny) plot ideas for the mystery thread of Sammy #15. (I also have a huge blister on my pinky toe which I'm going to break down and pop.) Now, when I say that all I was starting with was this idea for a (kinda loser) guy, that’s not really true. There is, of course, the developing thread of plot lines established in previous books. Like the mystery of who Sammy’s dad is and the set-up for the Big Reveal in Book 16. There’s also the dynamics among established characters, and how all the threads will tie together. But after 10 miles on the road, I’m feeling a lot more ready to dip the brush. Which is a huge relief. But still. May? I have a feeling I’m going to be logging a lot of miles between now and then. Switching subjects—I’d promised to let you know when our CD (make that EP) was on iTunes, and it is now. It’s also on Amazon. Just search “Risky Whippet” and you’ll find us. (I’ll post the artwork so you know what it looks like.) Hope you think it’s fun! Post questions if you have them--I'm happy to answer what I can. Thanks so much for checking in. See you next week (when I hope to have details about my tour schedule)!

Video Voodoo

2010-12-05T20:45:00.000-08:00

For a day that I was kind of dreading, today turned out to be pretty cool. Random House arranged for a small crew of film studies students from a nearby university to do a video shoot for The Running Dream at my house today. The plan was for them to interview me about the impetus for writing the book, the research involved, and what I hoped readers would take away from the story. They were also to get B-roll footage of me working at my desk, and more of me running. All of this would be whittled down to 90 seconds (or so) and used for promotional purposes and available on Random House’s dedicated YouTube channel. The trouble with a video interview is that you want to sound unscripted, yet intelligent, but when that red light is on, what comes out of your mouth is either stuttery or stupid. At least that’s how my mouth seems to operate under the glare of the mini red light. The other trouble with a video interview is hair. It just knows. It’s supposed to be perky (or, at least, pleasant) so it becomes immediately sullen. Or rebellious. Or too tired to do anything but just lay there. I’d liken hair on important days to teenagers, but that wouldn’t be fair. Put on some good music and a teenager will come around. I tried that with my hair this morning and it remained sullen and flat. But whatever. It’s just hair. It’s your words that are important, right? What was nice about the guys who showed up—Tony, Aaron, and Kyle—is that they were seasoned enough to know what they were doing, yet young enough to still have that spark. You know—that enthusiasm people have when they believe that what they’re doing matters. So they set up their equipment and we went through the questions my publicist had suggested, but when we were done with that they had me just talk about The Running Dream. You know—a conversation. And I think that was when I forgot about the mini red light and finally relaxed. I love this book, and there’s so much to it and behind it that it’s easier to just talk about it than answer questions about it. An answer should have a beginning and an end and not a bunch of segues and sidetracks. A conversation…well, that’s different. Of course, it’s much harder to edit a conversation than a Q&A, but I’d personally way rather hear someone speak from the heart than hear them hit all the important talking points. Anyway! That was the interview portion of it. What was next was B-roll footage of me working in my office. I’d put all my usual desk clutter in a box and hauled it out of there so there’d be room on my desk for the prosthetic legs I’d borrowed. Let me back up here and say that it’s really cool to have gotten to know the people who have helped you research a book well enough to be comfortable ringing them up and asking, Hey, can I borrow a leg? To the wrong person, that could be a very insensitive (make that crass) question. But to these guys it was, Sure. We got you covered. So covered, in fact that right now there are five prosthetic legs in my office, including a running leg, and a flipper footed one for swimming. The flipper foot is awesome. More about these guys in a future post—I promise you’ll want to meet them. But now I’ve got to focus, not get sidetracked, so back to the mini-video YouTubey thing. The last phase of this adventure was getting footage of me running. Now, the truth is, I was not keen on them videoing me running but when they said it was fine for me to bring the whippets, well, I was suddenly a lot more okay with it. So we drove down to the local campground, and while I leashed up the pups, they hatched their plan—Aaron would ride a skateboard beside me, shooting footage as I ran. A skateboarding videographer? How cool is that? He had this clever counterbalance contraption attached to the camera which served to steady the shot. (It’s that backwards “C” shaped gizmo in the photo.) The dogs and I ran back and forth, back and forth, while Aaron rode beside me, pumping along, shooting video. It felt kinda like being out on a little adventure with Sammy Keyes. So even though it took about 5 hours to shoot what will become a 90 second video, the guys made it fun and interesting, and the day turned out way better than I’d anticipated. Now if they’ll just make me look good and sound smart!

It's Not About The Food

2010-11-28T19:45:00.000-08:00

When I was younger I definitely thought Thanksgiving was about the food. Oh, and time off from school. Actually, it wasn’t all about the food until we were teenagers—at least that’s the way I remember it. My parents are immigrants so Thanksgiving was a very “American” holiday, and my mom wasn’t keen on turkey, so I don’t recall us doing the whole feast thing until we were teenagers and we kids said We want turkey! We still didn’t do the sweet potato and stuffing thing—I remember rice, mushrooms, salad, and rolls. We also didn’t do the whole extended family thing because there wasn’t much family in the States. My mom’s brother and sister immigrated, too, but they probably viewed Thanksgiving much the same way as my mom did. This is all conjecture on my part, but the point is, Thanksgiving became more about traditional foods after I got together with Mark. His relatives crossed the Wild West in covered wagons, so I picture his great-great grandfather tracking down wild turkey with a blunderbuss. It didn’t take long for me to acquire a taste for the traditional Thanksgiving fixin’s (I love stuffing!)and soon we were in the rotation for hosting the meal. And it became about the food—having all the traditional side dishes and condiments and an array of homemade pies and breads and a nicely set table. And yeah, as for most women, it became about the stress, too. Mark’s been saying for years that it’s not about the food (well, except for pumpkin pie—there has to be a pumpkin pie)—it’s about the people. He says it’s about seeing people and just hanging out. Now, I could gripe that that’s because he doesn’t do the shopping or the cooking, but that would be wrong as well as false. He’s actually a great cook (and knows how to make a mean gravy). I could, however, legitimately grumble that it’s because he’s a guy and he doesn’t get the whole stress-for-success aspect of hosting Thanksgiving, but what does that say about me? And since I don’t like to face it when he’s right and I’m wrong, I avoid swimming in those waters. Once I get in I have to admit the Undertow of Truths is just too strong. But I did dip a toe into those waters this year. I cut back on the enormity of the food prep (less dishes, less variety, no homemade bread) and asked other people to bring things. Then I tried to go with the flow and enjoy our guests. Dinner was over before 5:00, but a lot of people hung around until after 9:00, and I hung out with them, just talking and catching up instead of being a maniac hostess trying to clean up. When it was all over, I had to admit that it was very enjoyable and that Mark was right—it really is about the people, not the food. Well, unless stuff’s inedible, and then it’s definitely about the food. It’s also no joke that people can also ruin a Thanksgiving—I’ve experienced that, too. But that’s a separate issue—one that requires a team of psychologists and the couch department of a Furniture Depot. Anyway, if the tradition of the meal is what motivates people to travel long distances to get together, that’s fine. But when hosting the meal starts overshadowing the enjoyment of the company, that’s when it’s good to take a step back and figure out why you’re going through all this effort. Enough musings for now. Here’s hoping you had a nice time with family and / or friends, and that there was enough pie, and that the potatoes weren’t burned. See you next week!

The Other Shoe

2010-11-21T22:03:00.000-08:00

I’ve been promising information about The Running Dream. It should be something I’m dying to talk about, and in some ways it is, but in bigger ways I find myself shying away from it. I don’t even like to summarize what it’s about because the premise sounds so…tortured? It’s not tortured. It’s an uplifting story. I swear! But even mentioning that it’s an uplifting story sounds contrived to me. Like I set out to write some epic tale that will bring you to tears then lift your soul to new, profound heights. Please. I’m not nearly so clever. The only effect I can really gauge is the one a story or character or situation has on me, and the only way I can sustain the energy it takes to complete a novel is if that effect on me is substantial. The main character in The Running Dream is named Jessica Carlisle. She is not me. She wasn’t based, even remotely on me. I ran track in high school, and I ran “Jessica’s race” – the 400 meter – but that is because authors write what they know. I can describe that race with authenticity because I ran it, and remember the pain of the last stretch quite well. But this book was also never a story about running to me. I didn’t set out to write a “sports book.” Running was intended as the vehicle used to present a larger concept. It was like the train that moved me from the depot to my destination. The real story takes place inside the train as it rumbles along the track. But it’s true that the title of the book leads you to believe it’s about running. The track shoes on the cover also give that impression, as does the little detail that the main character is, oh, a track star. So I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise to me that people assume this is a book about running – it’s completely logical. But it leaves me wanting to explain that it’s not actually a book about running, which then gets me describing a story that sounds so…tortured. Which it’s not! It’s uplifting! I swear! Authors are supposed to talk their work up. It’s actually a big part of our job. But if there’s one profession I would never choose for myself, it’s sales. I’d rather shovel dirt for a living. Way. So I’m not going to trumpet the merits of The Running Dream (or any of my other epic tales that will bring you to tears then lift your soul to new, profound heights). But I will tell you that the journey through Jessica’s life had a huge, emotional effect on me, and that during this past week promotional efforts by other people have brought some very strange coincidences to light. Most notably, my track shoes. Let me back up a second and explain that the cover for The Running Dream was presented to me as a finished design. There were several to choose from, but to me, my husband, and my editor, the one that became the jacket was hands down our favorite. It wasn’t the look of the shoes, it was the look and feel of the entire design. I immediately loved it. It wasn’t until this week when there was a request for a picture of my track shoes and I unearthed them from a box in the bowels of my garage that I realized how uncannily like the shoes on the cover they were. It was actually kind of spooky. For a moment I felt like I could have been Jessica. Not her as a person, but that what had happened to her could have happened to me. Because, really, it could happen to any of us. And even though I’d explored this as Jessica when I wrote the story, it made me wonder what life would have been like—how Wendelin would have coped—if it had happened to her. Or, you know, me. And as I sat on the floor in my garage, turning over my petrified track shoes in my hand, I had a fleeting, sort of out-of-body thought that a book like The Running Dream would have helped me through it. As small as a book would be in the enormity of such a crisis, a story like The Running Dream is a reminder that there’s light at the end of our dark tunnels. And light is what we move toward. It’s what keeps us going. Step by step. Thinking all this also made me recognize how grateful I am that—despite the profound effect the writing and research has had on me—I’ve only had to “live” this crisis through Jessica—not live it in real life. So no. Even though Jessica and I ran the same race, even though the shoes on the jacket look very much like my racing shoes, Jessica is not me. She’s just someone who’s run through my life and taken with her a piece of my heart.

Risky Whippet Christmas

2010-11-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

If you’re tuning in this week to find out about The Running Dream, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve got something else on my mind. Christmas cards. Or, really, holiday pictures and the long standing tradition of tension and tears that invariably accompany the taking thereof. It’s in similar territory as the Christmas tree, which is a romanticized icon disguising its true identity—a big bushy pine tree that takes over a great area of your house and sheds needles and demands water and, on occasion, harbors bats. Yes bats. (Or, if you’re lucky, simply ladybugs.) Yes, the Christmas tree fools you into believing it’s a lovely, fragrant presence, so you return to that memory each year. And when it’s standing and all decorated you do forget that between the time you loaded it in (or on) the van and the time you stood back to admire it fully trimmed, there was a lot of yelling and lifting and turning and missing the hole in the stand and spilling water and crookedness. Much, much discussion of crookedness. Oh. And the hiding of the Bald Spot. Honestly. Who picked this tree? But back to the card, which, of course precedes the tree, and, if you’re going for a family picture it takes some doing and planning and, in my case, convincing males that shorts don’t really go with the theme this year. Add to that the complication of dogs and you have a pretty good idea of how I spent my morning. We do have some nice Christmas pictures of our sons and the dogs, but all six of us? It’s never really worked out. There’s lots of advice throwing regarding getting the dogs to behave or look in a certain direction, and in the past we’ve just said, Forget the dogs, and shooed them away to chase down lizards, or avocados, or whatever. But this year the dogs (Bongo and Jazz, our whippets) were a must. Why? Because we’ve finished our “family band” EP and the name we’re using is “Risky Whippet,” and since we’re mailing EPs out in our Christmas card and there’s a picture of one of the dogs (Bongo, if you must know) on the cover, it will make a lot more sense to the recipients if there’s some connection between the EP and the person sending the card. It does take a little clarification, too, because most people don’t know that we have a band. It’s not something we really talk about outside the sphere of people who already know about it. For one thing, it sounds ridiculous. Or people think it’s cute. You play in a band with your kids? (Or, gag, parents?) Or they go, Oh, you’re like the Partridge Family, how cute! And we’re like, Uh, maybe the Partridge Family meets AC/DC? Anyway, it’s loud and it’s rock and who knows if anyone’s gonna like it, but Merry Christmas anyway! But back to the point: The picture had to make sense with the EP, which meant the dogs had to be in it. So I hauled all this Christmas stuff and music stuff out on the deck, slapped on Santa hats (and jingle bell collars) and the 5 males (3 human, 2 furry) had to put up with my little vision. Well, make that 6 because Mark’s (saintly) dad came over and snapped the pix, trying to get us all to a) look at the camera and b) smile. It was a little like a tree with a bat and a bald spot, but that’s okay. We’ve got 59 outtakes (one of which I’ve posted here) and one that’ll go on the card. And when we stumble upon it years from now we won’t remember that the dogs tore up the couch and wanted to hide underneath it, or that the sun was too bright and everybody had way too much advice. We’ll just point and say, Hey! That was our Risky Whippet Christmas, remember that? The rest is just family tradition.

Mary-Mary, Never Contrary

2010-11-07T20:08:00.000-08:00

Today was the Ing NYC Marathon and I’m proud to report that a former student of mine crossed her first marathon finish line. Good for you, Mary-Mary! Her name’s actually just Mary, but we call her Mary-Mary because she babysat the boys when they were little, and my younger son called her that. He did not like us to leave him with babysitters (even though it was usually just so Mark and I could practice with our band in our detached garage), but Mary broke through to him and became his “Mary-Mary.” She was, for the record, never even a little contrary. When Mark and I ran the NYC Marathon three years ago for Exercise the Right to Read, Mary-Mary joined a small group of us at a restaurant on Park Avenue, where I rejuvenated my exhausted body with a bowl of soup. I wish I could have been there for her today. Crossing your first marathon finish line really does make you feel like you can do anything—at least that’s what I’m hoping she’s feeling tonight. Anthony Edwards (who played Mr. Loski in Flipped) also ran NYC today as a vehicle to raise funds for his charity, Shoe4Africa. Mark and I met him for the first time when Flipped was being filmed in Michigan, and since I happened to be wearing my San Francisco marathon shirt, the conversation turned to running pretty quickly. He was fairly new to the sport and had definitely been bitten by the running bug. He’d do a take for a scene for the movie, then come over to us on the sidelines and talk more about running. Then he’d go back and do another take, then return to talk running. It was fun to have such an immediate bond with him. So congrats to Tony too! And Shalane Flanagan…wow! So enough about running, right? What about Night of Skulls? Well, I’m very happy to report that as of this morning it is “done” and submitted to Nancy. It’s 289 pages of headlong adventure woven through the bony fingers of Death. Plus, handing out nicknames like El Zarape, Ruby-Red, the Oversized Eggplant, Shovel Man, Teddy Bear, and the Vampire, Sammy is…well, Sammy! And it was great to spend more time with Billy Pratt. (I love that boy!) So I’m *big sigh of relief* really happy with the way it all turned out, and that it’s turned in. And I’ve got to tell you…I am SO looking forward to NOT sitting at this desk. I have so much to catch up on, and as long as it requires me to stand, stretch, lift, or move, I am looking forward to it. So until next week (when I hope to finally share some info on The Running Dream and the January book tour), thanks for checking in. I’m glad you do!

Boo! (And An Epitaph, Too)

2010-10-31T20:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween! Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls starts with the line, “I love Halloween” –which I do! We live down a long driveway, and don’t get much action at the door, so we’ve been known to go seek it. We’ve sat at the end of the driveway (dressed scary, of course) and given out candy to kids (after scaring them, of course). We don’t always aim to scare. One year my older son dressed up as Slash and played out at the end of the driveway by the snake pit of candy. That was very cool. But this year—in the name of authenticating research—I took a van full of “kids” to the graveyard and snuck around and checked out the pyramid tomb and had a spookin’ good time. My son’s girlfriend wanted to stick close to Mark and me because she hadn’t been to a graveyard before and was kind of creeped out and scared, but first chance I got I hid, then popped out and screamed and scared the stuffing out of her. She trusted me and I gave her a heart attack. I am so bad. On the way home I was thinking about epitaphs and decided that if I were to have one it would say (my name and all that stuff) and then “Rode Shopping Carts ‘Til The End.” That’s how I want to be remembered. How about you? Anyway, despite the spooky adventure in the boneyard, I’m pretty elated (can you tell?) ‘cause I FINALLY made it to the end of Night of Skulls. I sort of hold my breath through the whole process because I really don’t know until I write the last chapter whether the story will actually work. With Sammy it’s such a complicated juggle and the theme has to hold everything together. Plus Sammy’s got to have that moment of clarity about what this has all been about. It’s that moment that gets to me, and really, that’s what I drive for throughout the book. So last week Mark tattled in the comments that I’d been crying, and well, yeah I’d reached that moment and it was such a relief that it had all worked out. Well, I was dealing with a complex barrage of emotions about life and death and friends and family, but I’m blaming it on that moment of clarity. So even though the story has several rewrites yet to come, this is the part I’ve come to love. Plus I’m happy to be crawling out from under this rock. I have been such a recluse, trying to get this book finished! Who knew this “Halloween book” would wrap up on Halloween? Pretty cool. So here’s hoping your night was as fun as Sammy and Friends, and that… Actually, I take that back.

What I should say is here’s hoping you had a safe and sane Halloween and didn’t take any shortcuts through graveyards! Now let’s hear your epitaphs. (And don’t get too serious on me—I might cry!)

The Leg Lady Flies Again!

2010-10-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

It was a big week of traveling for me. I went to New Hampshire and Missouri via Arizona and South Carolina. The grind of traveling is always exhausting, but the school visits and the hosts were great on this trip, and that more than makes up for the gruel of getting there. Although this traveling did remind me of what I’m in for come January when Random House sends me on a two-week book tour for The Running Dream. I have a preliminary list of the main cities I’ll be visiting. Ready? Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, and San Francisco. Any near you? I hope so! Book tour is tough, because you never really unpack. And with air travel being what it is you don’t want to risk getting separated from your luggage, which means you limit yourself to carry-on, which means you’re really sick of what you’re wearing by the time your two weeks is up. That said, if you’re an author lucky enough to have a publisher willing to invest in a book tour for your book, you don’t complain. You say thank you and pack. Authors don’t get paid for touring, by the way. I have some book author friends who were envious (in a very friendly way) that I’d been on tour regularly…until I explained to them that it was like doing two weeks straight of school visits and coming home empty handed. They were shocked. I was happy I could make them feel better. But it’s true—touring’s tough. The thing that makes it worthwhile is meeting people. Especially the ones who’ve collected your books over the years. Sometimes they appear at signings with a grocery sack of books that are read to shreds. Sometimes they have the first printing safely wrapped in a plastic cover. Sometimes they just want to touch me, which is so cute. Well, when it’s a young girl reader, anyway. So I’m psyching myself up for the good parts of tour, and reminding myself that it’s always an adventure. I have some seriously unbelievable stories from being on the road. Some are people-based, but a lot are just happenstance. I used to wonder, why does this stuff happen to me? And my publicist would apologize and panic at the thought of my being locked out on the roof of a building for an hour, but the question really is, who took the wrong turn to get on the roof in the first place? That would be me. And other authors don’t seem to get lost while out jogging, or dropped off at the wrong place, or have curtain rods smash down on them, or have booksellers douse them in catsup. It’s just me. So it must be me. Even when it’s not, somehow I think it still must be. Which (for whatever random reason) reminds me that it would be awesome to bring a prosthetic leg with me on tour. But I can’t see fitting it in a carry-on suitcase. And I can’t see carrying it on, either. But wait--if I wore pants (which of course I would) maybe no one would dare ask me what I was doing boarding a plane with my carry-on suitcase (of proper dimensions) and a computer bag (to be stowed under my seat), and my lunch bag (just a little paper Starbucks bag with handles, containing randomly squirreled away emergency snacks and hand sanitizer), and a big ol’ bulky fake leg. They’d probably just think, Wow…I guess she can’t exactly check her leg…what else is she supposed to do with it? As insurance, I could wear a shirt that says, LEG STORY $20 and see if anyone dares ask why I’m shoving a fake leg on top of their coat and hand luggage in the overhead storage compartment. Instead of forking over $20, they’d probably just look at me sympathetically and offer me their aisle seat. Okay! This might not be so bad! I am definitely psyching myself up for tour. Watch out, Friendly Skies, the Leg Lady’s coming on board.

Hug Me Back Or I Attack!

2010-10-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

I’m reporting in a day early because I won’t be able to get to a computer tomorrow (and I don’t want to be late again!). It’s been a week of lovely feedback about Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher. Thank you to those of you who read it already! Isn’t it amazing how something can take so long and then be over in a day. I’m glad it’s not over over. I really enjoyed the comments on last week’s post, as well as the e-mails that were sent in, and what struck me is how many people expressed a love for Billy Pratt. I laughed my head off when he said the anaconda from Rwanda line so I’m glad I’m not the only one. (Well, okay, I wrote it, but it could only have been because I was channeling Billy Pratt.) Lucky me (because it’s been so much fun to be around him) Billy is one of the five zombies in Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls. Can you guess the other four? (No, not Heather.) (She’s a vampire.) (Of course.) (Not) speaking of Heather, I also cracked up over“target practice” (tee-hee!). Glad some of you did, too! I went back to the cemetery last week to deliver some books to the “graveyard engineers” who have been helping me with research for Night of Skulls. How else are they going to really understand who this Sammy creature is? We also get to see a little of Elyssa—remember her from Runaway Elf? So even though some of you have devoured Wedding Crasher, know that Night of Skulls won’t be such a long wait—and that some of your favorites are back and in rare form! One last thing: I received three more Sammy-Keyes-changed-my-life letters this week. I can’t tell you how wonderful that is to hear. It makes me feel that even in her bleak hours, Sammy’s got friends. That I’ve got friends. We may not actually know each other, yet we know and love Sammy, so somehow we do. Now give me your best guesses on the Five Zombies! See you next week, Wendelin

A Purple River In The Graveyard

2010-10-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

My house is a mess, the cupboards are down to Ramen and some canned goods nobody wants, there are piles of laundry in baskets, and I really need to pay some bills! And I am ridiculously and embarrassingly late replying to e-mails. Tomorrow, I keep telling myself. Tomorrow. So much for my list-making—there are just not enough hours in a day! Not when you’re nearing the end of a Sammy Keyes book. Sheez! I get obsessed. It’s ridiculous. My poor family. I did follow through on my commitment to run a half-marathon today, though. The route took us past the graveyard and that pyramid tomb I wrote about last week so I was able to point out the pyramid to my husband (who ran with me). As you (probably) know, I’ve been graveyard snooping to research Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls, and now I’m all excited because I had the bright idea that climbing the pyramid tomb on Halloween would be a blast. I’ve heard you can see the drive-in theater screen from the top, and now I want to take my kids and their friends and check it out. Wanna come? Anyway, a little random trivia that won’t matter to anyone anywhere but me, but here you go: I’ve discovered purple is the color to edit a manuscript with. I like pencil, but in the late hours (of which I’ve seen plenty of late) it’s easy to miss when entering the changes into the computer. Blue doesn’t show well enough, and I used to use red, but it always reminded me of my teacher days, correcting papers. And I don’t want to feel like I’m a teacher correcting papers. Especially since it makes me feel like an English teacher, and as you (probably) know, English teachers scare me. Bottom line: when I’m correcting my own paper with a red pen and it’s an “English” project, that’s just too much internal conflict for me to handle. Enter the purple Bic ballpoint pen. I love it! Instead of thinking teaching or blood, it reminds me of my purple electric guitar. It’s also bright enough to pop off the page at me as I enter the changes on the computer. I’ve used a river of purple ink this week. It spilled all over the graveyard chapters—which is a lot of the book. The rewrite process can be brutal, and it felt HUGE this time, but things are starting to shape up nicely, so that’s a big relief. And in two days Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher will be out! FINALLY! I know some of you won galleys earlier in the year have already read it (and I must say, you’ve been amazingly good about not giving things away in the comments—thank you!). But for those of you who have been waiting, thank you so very much for anticipating the day for the past, what? Almost year? I hope you like the "special thanks." See you next week!

Facing The Thing

2010-10-04T19:14:00.000-07:00

The thing with a Sammy Keyes book is that it gets very complicated near the end. Actually, it’s complicated all along, but it’s not until the end that the timing of everything matters. It’s like braiding hair, but with ten strands instead of three. You’ve got to concentrate, keep track, and pull each strand evenly because if you don’t one strand will become shorter than the rest and in the end it will mess the whole thing up. And who wants to have some awkward, ugly stump of hair poking out of your rubber band? Not me. The only solution, really, is to figure out where you went wrong, undo the braid to that point and try again. Sometimes what is really wrong is that you decided to use ten strands instead of nine. Nine is so much easier to work with. Three groups of three. It’s always like this at this stage of a Sammy Keyes book, but I always forget that it’s like this, which is maddening because it invariably sends me into a bit of a tailspin and I’m, like, Aaaah! How did this happen??? It’s also the point where it comes out that The Thing I’ve been avoiding for the whole book is the reason my braid is coming out crooked. It is the point at which I finally face up to the fact that if I don’t want a big ugly stump sticking out of my rubber band, I need to suck it up and face The Thing. Of course, first there are the phases of Further Avoidance. This week I further avoided The Thing by driving through graveyards. I really did not know that driving was allowed, but it is. It’s like driving thruogh a little neighborhood of dead people. You can wave and read the headstones and chat with your son about how peculiar the burial ritual is…all from the comfort of your minivan. It’s like being on a little ride at an amusement park without even having been charged admission. That was Phase One of Further Avoidance. I recognized what I was doing, though, so we finally did park and walk around. We had lots of questions that we made up our own answers to…because, obviously, it was easier than facing The Thing. Yes, phase two of Further Avoidance was well under way. And it continued to another graveyard which I thought would be spookier and perhaps have a mausoleum or two to investigate. This time I took both sons and we explored for an hour, answering all our questions with whatever seemed to make sense to us. Plus, there was an enormous pyramid-crypt-thing which was very impressive and fascinating, although of absolutely no use to my story. Yes, I’d entered Phase Three, and it was getting me nowhere fast. Then yesterday Mark and I drove four hours to see a friend in his first starring role in a play—perhaps you’ve heard of it? “Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” Yes, quite right—it’s the one where the barber slits his customers’ necks and turns the corpses into meat pies. Pail after pail of “blood” on stage. Lots of demented screaming. Lots of death. Oh, and an asylum. Then we drove four hours home. On the drive we “talked plot” and I told Mark about my issues and quandaries and ugly, crooked, stumpy braid, and how I just have to finish this book because everywhere I turn it’s all death-death-death! So we talked and talked and talked, and by the time we got home I knew that I had to unbraid and quit avoiding The Thing. So today FINALLY, I made an appointment with the manager of the cemetery and watched them bury a body. The reason I had such an aversion to this is because I went through it once in real life when we buried my brother. I was so grief stricken then that I didn’t notice anything technical about the process—who cared how it was done? But now I really needed to know, and I was just…afraid. The nice thing about today was that the manager and his crew had a great outlook about what they do. Each of them on their own said, “I love my job.” They’re regular guys who see their role at the cemetery as important and valuable, and the manager was very philosophical about the historic significance and importance of graveyards. Plus, one of the crew has a daughter who reads Sammy Keyes, so that didn’t hurt! So it’s with a big sigh of relief that I tell you I’m ready to unbraid and give it a final go. It’s all there, it’s all good, I just need to go back and make it tight!

Contemplating The End

2010-09-26T20:23:00.000-07:00

I promised an entry about Sammy, so here we go! First off, for those of you who don’t know, Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher will be released in a couple of weeks. Yay! It will be the 13th of a projected 18 titles—a number that was finalized with my editor about two years ago. I did not originally intend to write a series. I had the idea for a single mystery and thought no further than the end of that story. But as Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief drew to a close, I already wanted to spend more time with Sammy. She was quick-witted, hot-headed, and, underneath it all, broken hearted. She was also in seventh grade, and man, that’s a tough place to leave someone you care about! So when the idea for Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man crept into my mind, I immediately began the ‘sequel’ to Hotel Thief. Midway through the writing of that second book, Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy began to infect my thinking. After all, I knew Sammy’d be slapped with a ton of detention for what she had to do to clear her name in Skeleton Man, and what better place to serve that detention than with nuns at a soup kitchen? So I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, and I found that no matter where the next story took me, there was somewhere else for Sammy to go…and grow. Thirteen books later, I still like her, still want to spend time with her, still want to see how she’ll surprise me next. Now, I say thirteen books because the thirteenth is ready for release, but in actuality I am almost done with Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls…book fourteen…and I find myself in a very emotional place. (Okay, okay, what else is new, right? But that’s how I am and you know that only because you read this blog. Believe me, I don’t let on to my neighbors or even most of my acquaintances.) I think the reason I find myself weirding out about this “place” is because after Night of Skulls there will be four books left. Four. Yes, that’s actually a lot of books…and nearly a thousand pages of writing to do! But I think the four is significant to me because that’s how the series started—with four. Again, you may already know this, but in case not: I didn’t have a contract for Hotel Thief or Skeleton Man or Sisters of Mercy or Runaway Elf…I’d actually be rejected by publishers and agents all over NYC and my response to them was to write the next book in a series they did not want. It was crazy, but I really thought I was onto something with Sammy, and I couldn’t seem to stop her from creeping back into my mind…and out onto paper. With each new book I hoped that one of those publishers who’d asked me to think of them again with my next project, would see Sammy Keyes the way I did. It wasn’t until after the first four books were written that I finally got my “yes,” and the ensuing contract was for all four books. So “four” has significance to me. It was the launch of this wonderful life, the evolution of characters I would have the luxury of getting to know book by book, year by year…it was a license to love Sammy with all my heart because she’d be in my life for as long as I could imagine. But now, here I am, getting ready to face the final four, and what’s been making this increasingly difficult is that I find myself obsessing about the last book. I’ve known for years how I want the last book to be structured, but there’s a new character that keeps appearing in my thoughts, demanding to be written in. One that shouldn’t be in the book because she has no business being there. One that promises to not interfere, but I’m not sure it’s possible for her to do that. Someone I can’t seem to shake. Me. I feel a little Inception-like—if you saw that movie—where I’ve been in my head with Sammy so long that I’m not sure what’s real…or where I belong. And the whole thing makes me weepy and confused, which is ridiculous because I’m still miles away from that 18th book. A thousand pages! All of us know that our time is going to run out eventually. It’s not knowing when The End happens that makes it bearable. And maybe this heightened emotion I’m experiencing is caused in part by the fact that Sammy has spent half of Night of Skulls in a graveyard or a funeral home or trying to understand death and beliefs in the hereafter, but I can’t seem to shake this looming feeling of The End. The consolation here is that Sammy may reach The End (of the series!) before I reach The End (for reals) (which better be how it goes, ‘cause if I reach The End first, how will Sammy get to The End?), but in the end, she will continue to exist much longer than I will. Which is something I can live with. Something that will help me get to—and through—The End.

Labor of Love

2010-09-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

So, to continue the discussion from last week regarding the book-to-movie experience, I want to start with some back story about Flipped the book. I wrote it because I had this idea I wanted to explore, not because I had a contract to write it. And in the process of exploring that idea I became consumed first by Juli, and then (unexpectedly) by Bryce. It became one of those labor of love experiences that was worth all the time and effort and emotion, even if it had never been published. Upon publication it did receive some stars, but also some criticism. Some reviewers thought the character of David (Daniel in the movie) was contrived. (Obviously they didn't know anyone who'd come into this world with the umbilical cord wrapped around their neck.) There was no big push by my publisher, or large marketing budget behind Flipped. But it went out into the world and people started talking about it. One kid passed it onto the next and on and on and on. Word of mouth is what made the book catch on and it became, as my editor later described it, the Little Book That Could. That didn't happen in its "opening weekend" -- it happened over time. Flipped the movie was never supposed to be a blockbuster. It had a small budget (by Hollywood standards) and was a bit of a puzzle to market. And although it performed respectably in the original 3 major cities, its subsequent expansion was to 6 other big cities, and this is where I started to get a little worried. I don't see Flipped as a big city movie. It's quiet. Heartfelt. About real people. I started getting e-mails from people asking why it wasn't playing in their town. Asking if there was something they could do to get it to their town. So I asked people I know at Castle Rock whether there was some clearing house for requests, or how to go about letting these people have their voices be heard. To make a very long story short, I was encouraged to contact the head of Warner Brothers. This seemed excessive to me, but I did wind up e-mailing him and he did e-mail me back a very nice response which lined out some of the reasons for WB's decisions and strategies. I was impressed that he took the time to write such a thoughtful response. But it still left me wishing I could do something to get the movie into places where there were people dying to see it. So I called my local multiplex and was told that if enough people went to the on-line "comments" segment of the chain theater websites and requested a movie, the chains would actually listen. So I put the word out about that, even though I was skeptical. (In my experience it's much easier to affect a change at an independent bookstore than it is a chain bookstore where everything has to go through "corporate.") A few days later Rob Reiner called with the wonderful news that the movie would be opening in 350 theaters. The line kept "dropping" so the next day I called the Castle Rock office to verify that I'd heard correctly and was told that the number was up to over 450 theaters. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not claiming any responsibility for this "sudden expansion." But I was so happy to now have something to work with! So I put out an e-mail to my friends and contacts with a link to a Yahoo site that would allow the user to see if the movie was playing in their area, and I asked them to please pass it on. I heard "I'm on it!" from so many people. Librarians posted it on their list-serves. Friends sent it to their e-mail contacts. Principals told their teachers, teachers told their students. It was SO nice to feel like there was a growing army of people out there helping to spread enthusiasm about the movie, and I have the feeling that things will continue to grow over time. It's still playing in theaters, then it will be out on DVD, and I predict that in time it will prove to be the Little Movie That Could. One more little thought before I call it a night: In order for a book to become a movie, it seems that every star in the universe has to be aligned. And that's for a book that has obvious movie potential! I know that the only reason I'm lucky enough to have had this experience is because Rob Reiner loved the book and wanted to make it into a movie. It was his cache in the industry and his vision that made this a reality. I know that movie making is a business, but I get the sense from him that this was first and foremost a labor of love for him. Which is exactly what the book was for me. (Next week: Sammy!)

Stars and Gripes

2010-09-12T20:33:00.000-07:00

It’s been another interesting week in the book-to-movie experience. Actually, it’s been two, but I didn’t want to talk about it last week. This week I’m okay with it. That’s probably because I know more this week than I knew last week and knowledge is king. Or something like that. If you’ve been following this blog you know that turning a book into a movie takes time. Lots of it. And along with time spent is a building anticipation of the day you are finally going to be able to see it on the silver screen. First, however, come the reviews, and today’s post is about that process. Book publishers release ARCs—advance reader copies—prior to a book’s publication. These are sent out to book reviewers and industry people so that summaries and recommendations can be made about a book prior to its on-sale date. The same basic thing happens with early screenings in the film industry. Production companies arrange screenings, reviewers go, and you keep your fingers crossed that the reviewers like the film and will say glowing things about it. In the book world, reviewers simply summarize and opine, and if you’re lucky, they grace your book with a star. We authors don’t get “three out of four stars” or any such ranking. We get no stars unless our book really stands out in the reviewer’s mind, and then we get one. One little star. But that star is cause for great celebration partly because stars are awarded in a notoriously miserly fashion. Now, if several reviewers all deign to stamp your work with a star, it actually matters because marketing budgets get increased, publicists have more to work with, and the publishing house holds its breath a little in anticipation of big awards being granted. If the reviews are not good, your book’s momentum for success comes to a sad, painful halt, and your book will probably be out of print in short order. If the reviews are mixed—meaning some reviewers like it and others don’t, then it comes down to finding the portion of the population that agrees with the reviewers who like it and selling to them. And the person in charge of doing that will most likely be the author. Over my career, I have gotten mostly positive reviews, and enough stars to keep me happy. But I’ve also been subjected to reviewers who “just don’t get it.” When you have one reviewer giving you a star and another slamming you, you start to see that it’s just subjective—an opinion. But when you realize how much that person’s negative opinion can shape your book’s success, you want to say, hey, wait a minute—what qualifies you to say that? What I’ve learned these past two weeks is that the movie business is very much like the book business. The reviewers give out stars. Or tickets. Or tomatoes. Or thumbs up or down. Or whatever. And marketing strategies are tied to reviews and early box office success. So even if you have good reviews, or good mixed reviews, if you have a “small film” (meaning small production budget) going up against 3-D or huge special effects movies, your initial box office (cash brought it first weekend) might not be enough to warrant further distribution. In other words the big multiplexes—where the majority of people go to see films—don’t want to take it in. With Flipped the movie, a lot of reviewers loved it and there were some wonderful articles in the LA Times and USA Today about it. There were other reviewers who made their cynical opinions quite clear, and the combination resulted in a situation similar to mixed reviews in the book industry. The question then became how do we get the film to that portion of the population that will agree with the reviewers who understand the film? The answer is ongoing, and I’m afraid it’s better left for next week when I have more data. Meanwhile, go see Flipped while you can. It’s a beautiful, heartfelt film, and I'm sure that, unless you're a cynic, you'll agree!

News Flash!

2010-09-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

We interrupt this blog's strict weekly scheduling for a special announcement! I just heard that Flipped will be opening in about 450 cities tomorrow (Friday, Sept. 10th) YAY! If you want to see if Flipped is playing in your area, click on this link, select Friday Sept 10th (when it opens) and type in your zip code and "Flipped". Then take your friends and go see it! Please pass it on! http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes-tickets/movies/1810105848-flipped/

Ch-Check!

2010-09-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

I'm a list maker. It's like my little daily road map, and without it I'm lost. Actually, I'm a lists maker. I have a large, lined Post-it on my (cheap little) portable events calendar. Next to (or, actually, sort of underlapping) that large, lined Post-it is another large, lined Post-it that has a list of things I have to remember to buy. In the kitchen, attached to the side of the refrigerator, is a magnetic pad of paper where another list builds. Usually it says DOG FOOD and MILK. I should just get a pad printed that starts with DOG FOOD and MILK. We go through a crazy amount of DOG FOOD and MILK. What I like about lists is how they make my brain feel. It's so relieved to have a list because once an item's on the list my brain is excused from having to remember it and lets out a happy little cerebral sigh. (Is sounds like, Ahhhhhh, thank you!) So my brain loves the lists, but I--the whole of me--love the ch-check! that I boldly deliver when something on the list is complete. Ch-CHECK! Oh, yeah! I will go so far as to add things to the list after the fact, just so I can go ch-check! I will also use The List to force completion of a task I've been avoiding. See, once the task makes The List, I've got to face it. There it is, amidst a stack of other tasks, and as the ch-check!s mount and I'm left with only a few items remaining, I will finally bite the bullet and do it.

How can a list be so powerful? I mean, it's not a law, or anything, that you have to do everything on your list, but--at least on a day-to-day level--there is nothing more glorious than a list fully checked.

People often ask me how I manage to do so much. Well, I'm not Superwoman or one of those people who don't require much sleep. (I need eight hours minimum.) What I do have, though, is The List. The key is to make your list manageable. Don't write Paint The House on your list. Write: Decide on Color. (next line) Buy the Paint (next line) Mask the Windows in the Living Room (next line) Remove the Switch Covers in the Living Room.... You need a separate line for each semi-major step in each room or you're not getting enough ch-check! therapy. (It is therapy, too, excellent for your soul and your productivity, so don't deny yourself.) Writing a novel is like painting the house. You need to break it down into manageable steps and give yourself ample ch-check! therapy along the way. And since most of us spend our days juggling more than we can really manage, it's easy to have Write Three Pages (or whatever a reasonable goal for your circumstances might be) never make it onto the list. So put it there. Somewhere between Water Plants and Soccer Practice put Write Three Pages. Somewhere between Take Out Trash and Call Landlord put Write Three Pages. If it's something you want to do, add it to the list of things you have to do.

If you're anything like me, it's the only way you'll get it done.

Ch-check!

My "Ms Leone" Letter

2010-08-29T21:20:00.001-07:00

So many incredible, wonderful, big things have happened to me this year, but there’s one seemingly little thing that I hold nearest and dearest. I got a “Ms. Leone” letter. For those of you who haven’t read Runaway, let me explain. Holly Janquell is almost thirteen, living a tortured life, moving from one foster care situation to another, withdrawing or acting out, and hating the world. In an effort to help her, her teacher, Ms. Leone, gives Holly a journal with the well-intentioned advice that writing in it might help her to “turn the page.” Well, Holly thinks Ms. Leone is completely out to lunch. What good is writing when she’s having to deal with people “sani-flushing” her head in a toilet? So at first Holly’s journal entries are just angry rants at Ms. Leone. But after Holly runs away, she starts “talking” to Ms. Leone through the journal, relating her near scrapes and scavenging adventures as she travels across the country toward the coast in her quest to become a “sea gypsy.” The journal becomes Holly’s lifeline and her therapy. She learns to express herself and sort through her emotions, and even tries her hand at poetry. And in the end (spoiler alert!) when she’s in a safe home and has learned to trust again, she decides to send the journal to Ms. Leone with a note saying that she wanted to thank her for helping her turn the page. I had the idea for Runaway for years before I hit on how I wanted to end it. And when I thought of the ending, I got all emotional and weepy and just…overwhelmed. I’m sure that’s partly because I’d been a classroom teacher for fifteen years and receiving a letter like that from a student like Holly would definitely be overwhelming. Teachers put so much into their students, so much into helping them through that year of growth and discovery. Then the kids move on, and that’s it. Off they go, like birds from the nest. My “Ms. Leone” letter didn’t come from one of the many students who’ve fluttered through my classroom. Oh, I’ve gotten really nice notes over the years, and compliments on the positive influence I had in their lives. But that’s not a Ms. Leone letter. It hasn’t traveled through the depths of despair to reach me. My Ms. Leone letter came via e-mail from college student who happened upon Runaway in the library. She finished it in a night, and the letter she wrote me afterwards explained that terrible things had happened in her life and that, like Holly, she uses writing as a form of coping, but that she still has times when she considers ending it all. Reading Runaway, she said, gave her a sense of hope that maybe a good life is out there for her as well, and she signed off by saying, “Know that your work not only inspires, but saves lives.” So yes, Rob Reiner’s made a wonderful film out of my book Flipped. Yes, I’ve got red-hot irons in the fire. But the thing that means the most to me is my “Ms. Leone” letter. None of the “glory” even compares.

A Charmed Weekend

2010-08-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

A year and a half ago I started talking about how when Flipped came out I wanted to have a "Red Carpet Premiere" for my friends and family and people who had been supportive of my writing endeavors. I had no idea what it would take to pull together something like this, but I really liked the idea of creating a Hollywood-style event for the people who have been good to me.

It just seemed like fun.

Well! I didn't know anything about securing the film or renting a theater or whether rental places in this area even had red carpets, but over the past six months I've learned a lot.

Necessary, but by no stretch fun.

Then after we'd finally confirmed a date, a location, and a reel of Flipped, I had a brainstorm.

Or so I thought.

Mark says I can never keep things simple, and he's probably right. But this idea was so...cool, that I just had to do it. So I set up a "matinee" showing that would run before the friends and family showing, and gave "passes" to all the local library branches and whatever schools wanted to participate in raffling off the passes as fundraisers.

This GREATLY complicated things, as I was now dealing with a lot of different entities and their individual needs. I generated fliers, acquired movie posters, designed invitations, and gave presentations at principals' meetings. I became an e-mailing machine.

I also ordered things from party supply companies--why keep it simple when there's so much potential fun to be had?

Well, about three weeks ago, I was a nerve-frayed wreck. There was just too much for me to coordinate. I was losing it. Overwhelmed. A wreck.

I was definitely not having fun yet.

Mark (kind of shaking his head at me, 'cause, you know, I should have kept it simple) suggested that I hire a party planner.

You have to understand that I'm not the party-planner kind. If I can do it, I do do it. But I was to the point of desperation, so he handed me a number and I called.

The party planner was delighted to hear of my upcoming Red Carpet Event, and would have love-love-loved to help, but she would be out of town in August.

She gave me another number.

That woman would also have love-love-loved to help, but she was having a baby in August.

She gave me another number.

That woman was available and not only would she love-love-love to help, but she would do everything from check names off at the party to find me a caterer...for a mere seventy-five dollars an hour.

Seventy-five dollars an hour???

(Mind you there was no mention of the heavy lifting of say, red carpets and chrome posts and plants and such.)

Mark's reaction was the same, and so we shelved the party planner idea and I forged ahead. And as the day of the party grew nearer, a friend came over and helped me stuff 400 plastic eggs with little fuzzy chicks and jelly beans, helped me process (sign) all the books I was giving away as gifts, and helped me write the names of all the guests on stick-down stars that would mock up the Avenue of the Stars.

With that done, I was feeling a little better.

Then I bought plants (cheaper than renting) and ran around for DAYS getting supplies and food (because out-of-towners were invited over to our house for breakfast the following morning), and cleaned my house, and "made over" my son's room for company, and did all that pre-party-prep that turns women into exhausted shells of their formerly perky selves.

Then, a few days before the party, I found out that Madeline Carroll (the lead female--"Juli"in the film) was going to be attending. And that Callan (Bryce) and Israel (Garrett) and Stefanie (Dana) might also be coming.

OMG!

I became a hotel booker and press agent, ringing up the media and finding movie stars places to stay. I didn't know about local press feeding into Los Angeles affiliates, but my journalist friend told me what to ask the stations, and I did. I was on the phone for hours, explaining to journalists that this would be the first time the two leads were at a premiere because at the earlier (Warner Brothers premieres) Callan had been tied up shooting another film and couldn't make it.

This was all very exciting, but it was also stressful for me.

I'm not Warner Brothers.

I don't have a team of professionals helping me.

I'm just me.

Stuffing eggs.

Making my own Avenue of the Stars.

In a little local theater.

In a little town.

And I had four movie stars coming?

I had bought this "City Scape" from one of the on-line party supply companies. We'd measured the distance from the base of the angled outdoor marquee to the sidewalk and had bought this "City Scape" with the intention of using it as a photo backdrop which would hold Flipped posters and be used to snap pictures of each group that entered the theater. But I couldn't assemble it at home because it was too big to transport after it was put together.

So the morning before the party, my son and I arranged to go to the theater before their regular programming and assembled the city scape in the lobby.

Basically, it was black cardboard that needed taping, cross bracing (cardboard tubes), back bracing (cardboard wedges) and little white lights put on. The assembly was actually not bad. It didn't look great, but it wasn't bad. But we were to the point of attaching the Flipped posters when I realized that this mammoth piece of cardboard in the theater lobby was too tall to stand up, too wide to fit out the door, and too cumbersome to store anywhere.

So we wound up folding it along the seams, stuffing it in a back room, and telling the manager we'd be back the next day to put it together outside.

To make a long, very frustrating story short, cardboard and wind don't work well together (unless you're trying to create a Flying City) and the City Scape wound up in the Dumpster.

Then--and this is the day of the party that the City Scape got Dumpsterfied--the manager tells us that a package from Warner Brother had just arrived. It turned out to be a gigantic plastic enlargement of the Flipped poster, which we hung from the marquee as the backdrop. It was perfect! (Thank you WB!!)

Then we rolled out the carpet (and taped it down with red duct tape), put up the velvet ropes, arranged the plants, put on the music, set up the check-in podium, and before long the matinee winners were lining up to get in.

The Flipped stars weren't supposed to arrive until the matinee was well underway, but I didn't actually believe they would show until Callan (Bryce) rolled up to the curb in a black Porsche. Then suddenly Madeline and Stefanie and Israel were there too.

How cool is that???

I'd come up with a timeline and while the press interviewed them in the lobby during the matinee, I had them sign the books I was giving away to any of the matinee kids who had found a gold coin in their stuffed plastic egg (which was buried inside their popcorn).

And when the movie was done playing, I went down to the front of the theater and, one by one, I called down the actors to join me.

The kids who had won tickets through their school or library were so jazzed to be at the movie in the first place -- they'd gotten dressed up, walked the red carpet, had photos taken with me in the lobby and had gotten free popcorn and soda -- but now, right before their eyes, the characters they'd just seen on the big screen were walking through the aisles.

Talk about applause!

Everyone was stunned! Amazed! And in a kind of state of disbelief.

And I felt so happy that I'd been able to coordinate this day for the kids in my community. It really was unbelievable.

As the kids filed out, each stopped for a picture with the group of actors (and got their free book if they had a gold coin). The actors were SO patient and kind to the kids, and even though it took a while to get through everybody, they never complained.

Then we had a short scarf-up-some-food break before we started letting people on the carpet for the friends-and-family showing.

That part was a blast for me. People from New Hampshire, New York, St. Louis, San Diego, the Bay Area were there. People I haven't seen in years were there. And they were all totally glammed up! I got hugs, gave hugs, and my son took each party's picture in front of that amazing banner with the 4 movie stars.

After everyone was seated, I gave out "Fuzzy Awards" -- little Oscar-style statues that I'd super-glued fuzzy chicks to. They went to 12 people who, in one way or another, stood out in the way they'd helped me as a writer.

Then we watched the movie!

And when the credits rolled and my name went by, the theater roared!

Then I gave everyone a movie-tie-in book, and sent them off to an informal after-party meeting place, then tore down the decorations, and rolled up the carpet.

It was an awesome night.

And, in the end, it was SO much fun.

Box Office Insight

2010-08-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

Since I’ve taken you along from the beginning on this book-to-movie process, let me share what I’ve pieced together this week about “box office.” Flipped opened in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Austin last weekend and did “moderately well” at the box office. It averaged around $5,000 at each theater where it was shown, and, to put that in a little perspective, that was slightly better than Angelina Jolie’s Salt did per theater in its opening weekend. Of course, Salt played in a lot more theaters so had a much bigger overall box office, but still. Statistics are for the skewing. Now, if Flipped had had a huge box office, the next phase of this adventure might have been different, but, based on the box office in those three cities, Warner Brothers has decided to release the movie in the following “markets” on August 27th : New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Toronto and Indianapolis. And then, once they see how it performs in those markets, “a decision will be made about further expansion.” The reasoning here seems at odds with the “product” to me. Flipped in not a flashy “big city” film. It’s a heartfelt film, one that I see playing much better in smaller communities than in metropolitan areas. I have to trust that WB knows what it’s doing, but I admit this strategy has me worried. If the film doesn’t connect with city-dwellers, will the rest of the country even get the chance to vote at the box office? There’s not much I can do about it except urge those of you who live in one of those six cities listed above to go see the movie opening weekend (and take all your friends!). Being new to all this, I had no idea how it worked, but now I do…and now you do, too. Meanwhile, I’m focusing on the positive: We’ve got our special Red Carpet Event screening(s) in six days, and I’m really looking forward to doing this for my community and my friends. I have a different long list of things I have to do for each day between now and then. It’s definitely a divide-and-conquer-(or-be-conquered) situation. In addition to hosting both screenings, we have house guests coming Friday, and Sunday we’re having breakfast here for people who have traveled long distances to attend. Which means I have to clean the house! And figure out seating! And get lots of food! And figure out where people are going to sleep! None of which has anything to do with what needs to get done before the Event (which is considerable, given that I never seem to do things the simple way). I am, in short, panicking. So why am spending time writing this blog entry? Because I promised. And because I really appreciate that you check in. I wish all of you could come to our RC Event. Wish me big reserves of energy—I’m gonna need it! It'll all be behind me next Sunday. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Mark and Wendelin Zipping In A Tree

2010-08-08T21:42:00.000-07:00

I’d never been zip-lining before, but for part of our vacation “therapy” that’s exactly what we did. The forest was huge and gorgeous and the mountain men that ran the “Adventure Camp” were great. The actual zipping was fun, but it was being up so high in the trees that I liked the best. It reminded me of being a kid and climbing trees.

And the tree fort we built when I was growing up.

And how much Juli Baker loved her sycamore tree.

I lost track of days, and wasn’t aware that the Flipped movie release in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Austin had happened until I got messages about it.

Seems appropriate that I spent the day way up high in a tree.

We’re on our way home now, so I’ll be able to share some more things with you soon, and posts will go back to normal—or as close to that as I know how to get. (I’ll also make the time to answer comments from previous posts. For now know that, short or long, I always really enjoy reading your comments.)

Tales from Tinsel Town

2010-07-30T20:42:00.000-07:00

This will have to serve as both the follow-up post from last week and this coming Sunday’s post because my schedule’s a little manic right now. Regardless, here’s the info I promised about the Hollywood premiere of Flipped:

The morning of the premiere I’d been asked to participate in a press panel with Rob Reiner and his co-screenwriter and the film’s producer. It was being held at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, which is famous to me only because it seems that lots of interviews I read in Rolling Stone are held at the Four Seasons.

We were given an address of 300 S. Doheny. We arrived on time.

Trouble is, there was no hotel of any kind at that address.

We checked the address.

Yes, it was South Doheny. There was a 302, but no 300.

So where was it?

We called the Warner Brothers publicist who’d set it up with me.

The call rolled over to voice mail.

Fortunately, Mark had the wherewithal to call the Four Seasons, and got through to someone who told him that they were located at…300 S. Doheny.

Mark told them we were at that location and there was no hotel. So the receptionist told him that they were up the street a few blocks at the corner of Doheny and some other street.

What?

But we headed up the street, and seven blocks later, there it was at 400 North Doheny instead of 300 South Doheny. But they tell people they’re located at 300 South Doheny!?

There must be a reason, but you got me.

I guess you’re just supposed to know where the Four Seasons is.

It’s that famous.

Anyway, we did get to the press conference on time and it went really well. Rob is a very comfortable person. He stays on message, but you never get the feeling that he’s selling you something. He’s frank and just tells it like he sees it. I like that.

So we did a half an hour with print journalists and half an hour with (what I think was) radio journalists. Then we said our see-ya-tonights and headed out.

Fast-forward to the premiere: We arrived at 6:30 as instructed, parked in the parking structure, as instructed, and I switched out of my Converse and put on my heels. Mark and my younger son advised against it, but I told them I was going with the heels.

“You’ll be sorry…”

Fortunately we had, by coincidence, parked right alongside one of the women from Castle Rock who’s writing the script for Confessions of a Serial Kisser. And since she’s been to many red carpet premieres, she took us along, walked us to the will call tables, got our tickets and an escort and put us in line to walk the red carpet.

An escort? Yup. You can’t walk it without one. There’s lots of security and people checking tickets and we wound up in line right behind the boy who plays Garrett in the film. That was fun because the boys got to talk and it helped us relax a little.

And when it was our turn, my escort asked how to pronounce my name correctly, then we stepped out from behind the poster partition into a bunch of flashing cameras.

Each person on the carpet has an escort. The escort announces your name and your role in the movie (in my case it was “author of the book”) and then photographers start calling your name, getting you to look at them. The photogs were about 5 deep and it was a little…unnerving. I mean, it was fun for the first few minutes, but it took us about half an hour to go 50 feet. And after the photographers, the news stations with video cameras interview you. A lot of them ask the same questions, but the woman from a Tokyo station surprised me by asking me to give her my “beauty secret”. I told her, “Sweat every day,” and when he looked a little shocked by that, I added, “as in exercise.” Yup there you go—my one and only “beauty secret”. Ha!

Anyway, the boys were greatly relieved to get off the carpet and into the theater, where there were tubs of popcorn and sodas waiting. We found our seats (which were assigned) and admired the theater (it’s big, with beautiful dark blue velvet curtains, a lower level and an upper level), and then it was show time!

The first time I saw Flipped, I think I was in such a strange state that I couldn’t really assess it. But this time I got to enjoy it as a movie and you know what? It’s really good! I thoroughly enjoyed it and now I really want to see it again. It’s like I’m over thinking about how it compares to the book, and can just enjoy it for what it is.

Afterwards we went to a party at a restaurant about 5 blocks away, and talked with people involved in the film. There was a buffet with meat and pasta, but there was also a lot of “kid” food (because the movie did have a lot of kids in it!) including mini milkshakes (served in shot glasses with tiny straws). It was nice to visit with people we’d met when we’d gone out to Michigan to watch them film the movie, and nice to watch people celebrating their accomplishment.

But there was also a lot of … I wouldn’t even call it schmoozing…it was a lot more aggressive than that. We saw managers and agents take their young “talent” around to meet the big wigs, and they’d do the whole, I’m so-and-so, we met at such-and-such, I represent [insert moderately well-know actor names here] and this is [introduce young talent]. I guess that’s just part of “the Biz”, but that is so not me! I don’t even want to talk about my books when people ask me about them because I’m worried that they’ll think I’m trying to “pitch” them. I could never survive in those circles.

This is actually very valuable for me to know. It makes me re-appreciate what I do and where I live and that my family has such a solid and very healthy lifestyle. The red carpet was fun, but it’s nice to be home.

Nice to be back in real shoes.

Now, for those of you who would like to see what it was like, here’s a little 2 minute video that Mark put together of being on the red carpet. Hope you enjoy it! Video Link

Hollywood

2010-07-25T20:54:00.001-07:00

We made it to Hollywood, but the internet connection here is terrible! The premiere of Flipped is tomorrow night. A real post will follow as soon as I'm better connected. I won't be wearing my Converse to the premiere, so keep your fingers crossed that I don't trip! Back with a real post as soon as I can!

Thanks for checking in :-)