Why I Keep Wearing The Same 3 Outfits

The Boston Marathon bombings shook me up on a lot of levels. Having run 6 marathons myself, I know what a huge deal it is to cross a marathon finish line. The marathon (any marathon) is a celebration of lengthy, dedicated training.

Well, it's a painful, exhausting celebration, but still.

The senseless violence at the finish line would have shaken me up, regardless, but having some experience with what it means to complete a marathon (and what it means to have people on the sidelines supporting the effort) greatly magnified the impact on me.

And then there were the victims. That sweet-looking 8 year old boy who lost his life, and then all those people who lost limbs. Having researched and written The Running Dream, I'm acutely aware of what adapting to the loss of a limb will mean to these people, and it set me on a mission last week to send them money to help out. There's been good coverage on TV and now it's swirling around the Internet, and their funds are growing. Some even seem full. But I know that it's going to be a life-long physical and financial challenge to attempt to replicate what was ripped from their lives.

Regular readers here know that The Running Dream won the Schneider award for its portrayal of the disability experience. What you probably don't know is that, of all the wonderful, prestigious ALA awards like the Newbery and the Caldecott, etc., the Schneider is one that also comes with a monetary award.

When I got the call, the Schneider committee reminded me of the award and encouraged me to buy a new outfit. I think they must have researched me on the internet and discovered that I'm wearing the same 3 things in all the pictures.

I did not buy a new outfit. (I wore one of my favorite 3 things to the ceremony.) What I did instead was give half of my prize money to charities associated with the people who helped me research The Running Dream. It seemed like the right thing to do.

The other half I squirreled away. Until this week, when I decided to take it, match it, and divide it among the  funds for the victims. It doesn't work out to be much apiece, but it seems like the most appropriate thing to do with what I've got. (So no making fun of my same old outfits, okay?)

Just one more thing: A middle school in New England used The Running Dream as a school-wide read and incorporated it into a several day program that included amputees and inspirational guest speaker / demonstrators. Here's how the article begins...

BEDFORD - Edward Joyce, principal of Ross A. Lurgio Middle School, wanted to remind his students - in light of all that's happened in Boston and its neighboring suburbs this week - that while "there are some bad guys in the world, there's way more good guys."

Amen.

If you're interested in reading more of the article (it's really inspiring), click here.

Thanks for checking in. I really appreciate that you do.

How Sammy Keyes Got Her Name

In response to a question posed a few weeks ago, tonight I make my confession about character names.

The big one first: Why 'Sammy Keyes'?

The 'Sammy' is hard to pin down. When I was a little girl there was a show on TV called Bewitched that I just loved. The (lovely, well-intentioned) witch named Samantha was always getting into trouble with her mortal husband. She's the only "Samantha" I can remember, so I like to think she sort of twitched her nose my way (her method of casting spells) regarding the name.

I didn't make the connection between Samantha Keyes and Samantha Stephens (the witch) until years into the book series, when people kept asking me why I'd picked the name Samantha. And I don't think I'd have chosen that name if there hadn't been the (very cool, in my opinion) nickname Sammy to be derived from it. "Sammy" just seemed to fit my character.

The 'Keyes' part is easy: When I taught high school I had a boy in my 4th period computer science class with that last name, and I lifted it out of my gradebook one early morning while searching for a name. 'Keyes' sounded great with Sammy or Samantha, and it was a perfect name for a sleuth. (I know there's an alternate pronunciation, but my student pronounced his last name with the long 'e' sound, so that's how I say Sammy's last name.)

Which brings us to other names in the series. A lot of them came out of my gradebook. I will share a hard-won nugget of knowledge with you: There are no good names in the phonebook. There are no good names in 10,000 Names for Baby. (Not one!) But there are great names in a teacher's gradebook. And having 6 classes to choose from, well, I had the luxury of snagging a first name from (say) first period and matching it with a last name from (say) fifth period. Almost all the names in the first four Sammy Keyes books are hybrids of names out of my gradebook(s).

Regular readers here already know that I had written the first four Sammy Keyes books before they got picked up by Knopf. And having no experience in what it meant to have an actual book out there, I gave no thought to my name selection methods coming back to bite me. But when the books started coming out, students I'd had as freshmen were popping into my classroom as seniors going, "Hey! Am I Tenille?" "Hey! Am I Monet?" And I'd swallow hard and go, What? No! Are you kidding me?

After I stopped teaching, I tried the phonebook and 10,000 Names For Baby again, but still, there were no good names. (Not one!) So I graduated from gradebooks to yearbooks. (I found great names in my sons' yearbooks.)

While we're on the subject of names...there is one name in the last Sammy Keyes book that will not come out of a gradebook or a yearbook, or the phonebook (or 10,000 Names for Baby). We're going to do a contest. I'll let you know as things develop, but we thought it would be a fun thing to do for Sammy Keyes and the Kiss Goodbye. We're going to have to figure out just what the contest will be soon, but it will be a Random House run event, so not only here at the blog. (You know I'll keep you posted here, but also remember to check in at the Sammy Keyes FaceBook page.)

Meanwhile, share how you got your name--are you named after someone? (My mom swears she didn't make mine up, but I'm pretty sure it was also not in 10,000 Names For Baby.)

Thanks for checking in. See you in the comments!

Give Sammy a Clue!

It's my son's birthday!

I have to pack for a trip!

The water heater is leaking!

So I'm out of time, but have a fun idea...

In Killer Cruise, there's a Clue (game) revival of sorts, and the Sammy & Co. change the names of the Clue cast to people on the ship, and then go a little wild with the game.

If you've never played (the board game), it's solution structure is: "It was so-and-so in the such-and-such, with a this-and-that."

Person, Place, Weapon.

So, "It was Professor Plum, in the library, with a revolver.

(Only I always go: It was Professor Plum! In the library! With a revolver!)

There are 6 names, 6 locations, and 6 weapons. My "fun idea" is for you guys to come up with 6 of each, relevant to Sammy and Friends (or enemies!).

Or do just one (like) It was Heather! In the bathroom! With a cigarette! (Well, that's pretty silly, but you get the idea.)

I think we'll all get a kick out of what everyone else presents. So play!

And meanwhile, It was Wendelin! In a bookstore! With a pen!

Thanks for checking in. See you soon!

Sammy's Birthday! (And a FB Page is Born)

In honor of Sammy's birthday, I'm posting a day early.

Regular followers of this blog will recall a contest we did last year where the challenge was to figure out Sammy's birthday. Since the date was never stated in any of the books, it required the analysis of several books to determine what day our troublemakin' Aries was born. :-)

That was a fun contest. Lots of participation! And great detective work, too.

(Well, there were the entries that were total stabs in the dark, but they came out and said, This is a total stab in the dark, but..., which I found to be fun, too!)

Anyway, April 6th is the day and, today being April 6, I wanted to alert you to two things:

1) there is finally an official publisher-sponsored Sammy Keyes FaceBook page. I promised it months ago, but, Random House being a big corporation, well, there were delays.

...and....

2) there's a birthday survey at the page, which I know you will all get a kick out of (and I hope you'll all vote on).

The FB page will not take the place of this blog. This is where I, you know, talk to you! And listen to you! And share stuff of much greater depth than what you'll find on a FaceBook post.

But I hope you'll all go to the page and "like" it, and participate, and even "share" it with your friends. It'll only be fun if people go there and chime in, and you guys are the truest, bluest :-) so I hope you'll play along. (Leave comments, do surveys, enter contests...there's lots of stuff planned and it will be an active place clear through the publication of the final Sammy Keyes book.)

There's supposed to be a migration of other Sammy Keyes FB pages over to the official one this weekend. (There were/are several, and someone created a page on Mrs. Wedgewood, if you can believe that!) But before that happens I wanted to tell you guys about it, because it seems only right that you should be the "first" to know.

Here's the link to the new page. I hope you'll help us make it a fun place to visit! http://www.facebook.com/sammykeyesbooks

Happy Birthday to Sammy!

Some Mystery Questions Answered

In keeping my promise to answer some of the questions posed in comments over the last few weeks, tonight I'll focus on a couple of the Mystery Questions.

Q) How are you able to come up with a mystery different from all the rest for each book?

A) This is actually the hardest part of developing the story for me. In part that's because I don't want to repeat myself, but in a broader sense it's because I don't want to repeat something another author's done. Not that I've fully succeeded there, but I do strive to make the motive unique, even if the mystery (like, say, who kidnapped the dog) has been done before. I also like the mystery (or, rather, the motive) to be thought-provoking. And relevant to my readers. And edgy! I have no interest in retooling the ol' Where-Did-Sparky-Go? mystery, where Sparky is really Sparkie and is off having baby bunnies (or kitties, or puppies, or hamsters, or alien zombie snails). Everyone knows what Sparky's up to by the end of Chapter 1. Please.)

Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf is probably the closest I've come to writing a cliched mystery, but I thought exploring the motive (and theme) of forgiveness served to keep it from going too far into Cliche Land. Plus that furball dog got buzzed (which is not standard for a missing dog story) and when Sammy opens the box of fuzz (pg 101) and tells the evil owner, "Yup. She's bald," well, I laughed for days. Knocking on the door of Cliche Land is worth it if you can make yourself laugh for days.

So, yeah. Thinking of a unique mystery is very important to me and I very much appreciate the question because it implies that I've been successful. To better answer the question I would add that sometimes I get my ideas from things I've read about -- usually from a  news source or a magazine. Night of Skulls was that way. So was Cold Hard Cash -- the root of the mystery came from articles I read. Not the story itself, just the idea. Reading is a very good thing for writers to do!

Q) (Paraphrasing here...) How do you decide where to plant clues?

A) Another biggie! My goal is to have the mystery unfold in a fair and steady manner. My readers are smart and I know it so I want to make solving the mystery challenging, but not unfair. I hate mysteries where I think I know on page 10 whodunit, and then read another 300 pages to discover that, yup, that's whodunit. I also hate mysteries where I'm really invested in figuring out who the culprit is and suddenly the author brings back a dead character who (miraculously and inexplicably) didn't really die. No clues. No foreshadowing. Just poof, they reappear.

That's CHEATING!

I don't need to be the cleverest person in the room. I don't think there's anything great about being tricky. I want to play by the rules and respect the trust a reader places in an author. I like to feel like we're all in it with Sammy so, ideally, I want my readers to figure out whodunit slightly before Sammy does, To me that's the perfectly executed mystery--one that makes everyone feel smart.

The problem with writing a mystery is that the author can't not know who the culprit is. (Okay, there are those authors who say they don't know whodunit until the sleuth does, and you know what I say to them? You're CHEATERS! You cannot write a fair mystery--drop fair clues and set up a satisfactory unveiling--if you don't know whodunit.)

The other problem is that if you ask someone to read your mystery while you're in the developmental stages, they then know who the culprit is and are not able to reread your mystery with objectivity. You get one shot with them and then they know whodunit. This is why Nancy (my editor) doesn't read a Sammy in the developmental stages. She doesn't get much from me until I'm done. She's a mystery buff and her first read is crucial to finding out if I gave too many clues, gave them too early, or concealed them too well. My question to her is always, "When did you know?" And her answer determines what I do and change. Sometimes it's as small as removing a single word.

That's probably enough for this week. Next week I'll try to address the broader questions posed--about the unfolding story lines within the series and how (and maybe why) those happened. Meanwhile, I'll look forward to seeing you in the comments!

Blessings in Disguise

This week I'm back to answering questions posed in the comment section two weeks ago.  I'll start with one "RowAn" posed: The question posed was: How did the [Sammy Keyes] series begin to take on a life of its own (if you think it did)?

The answer is: I definitely think it did, and it really kind of snuck up on me.

When I started Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief, I was not planning or plotting a series. Sammy was the first to take on a life of her own, and she did that early in Hotel Thief when she punched Heather in the nose. I was like, Whoa! Ouch! YES!

And then, of course, I came to my adult senses and realized Sammy had to pay some consequences.

And the way she paid her consequences made me like her even more.

So Sammy found her way into my heart pretty early on, but it wasn't until I was done with Hotel Thief that I realized I didn't want to leave Sammy in the place where the book ended. After all, she was still living in the Senior Highrise! Her mother was still gone! She didn't know who her dad was!

There was more to find out.

And then came the idea for Skeleton Man, which was based on a spooky house down the street from me and the rumors that the kids in my classroom had whispered about.

So I sent Hotel Thief out to editors and agents and immediately got to work on Skeleton Man. And when Sammy was issued 20 hours of detention due to her use (and abuse) of the school's PA system at the end of that book (again, consequences to pay!) I got the notion that it would be a riot to see her serving her detention with nuns and immediately started on Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy as soon as Skeleton Man was done. Then, once done with Sisters, I started on Runaway Elf. By the time I was done with Elf, I knew I was in trouble -- it had finally dawned on me that I'd been following Sammy through junior high school and we were only four months into her survival of that!

I say in trouble because I may have written 4 books in a series but no publishers were biting.

As many of you already know, I was rejected by publishers for years. But it only takes one yes to annihilate all the no's, and when my yes finally did come I had the wonderful benefit of having written the first four books in the series, which gave me the ability to go back and rewrite like crazy. After four books you have a much better picture of the world you've created, and the characters who inhabit it.  You also have a much better picture of what you're doing and where you're going.

So I began with no plan, but with four books behind me I could see where I was going and could develop a plan and put it in place before Hotel Thief was an actual book.

I very much like having a plan. So although the series did take on a life of its own, it became my job to lead it toward the final book, the final scene. If you have a destination in mind, the whole process becomes easier. I have one in mind for each title, and I've also had a destination in mind for the series as a whole. That doesn't mean that each book hasn't (at times, anyway) taken on a life of its own, because each most certainly has!

After all, these books feature someone we know (and love) as Sidetrack Sammy!

But the destination is still the end goal, and it's my job to get Sammy to it, sidetracks and all.

Like probably every writer out there, I wanted things to happen now. I wanted Hotel Thief snatched up and published the minute I'd finished the first draft! I was very frustrated over the years it took. But sometimes what seems like a curse ends up being a blessing in disguise. I don't think the series would have been as cohesive if Hotel Thiefˆ had been picked up right away. In the end I'm thankful for the rejections and delay. Funny how things turn out.

Justice Jack and Billy Pratt Come Alive

I know there are a lot of Sammy Keyes fans who visit this blog, so I have to share some photos from last week's visit to a middle school in Oklahoma.

The school's theme this year was "superheroes", and the whole student body and staff read Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack as a school-wide read.

That right there is amazing enough (and enough to make any author wildly happy), but these pictures will show you how over-the-top this school went and will say more than I could ever explain.

First up, the principal, dressed as Justice Jack (in the Golden Gloves of Justice!).

Suffice it to say I never had a principal like this! (And the VP was "the Duce"!) Together they MC'd part of the festivities during my visit. (Earlier in the year I was told that they made a big-splash (or crash?) entrance together during a school assembly on a tandem bike--their version of The Highroller).

Another "book excerpt" skit was done by a teacher (who played Elvis) and a student (who played Sammy). They did the scene from Justice Jack where Sammy goes into Maynard's Market and the Elvis impersonator (who only speaks in Elvis song titles) is working the register. (Some of you will recall this exact excerpt from the ARC giveaway contest we had last year.) (It's also the beginning of Chapter 24, in case none of this is bell-ringing in your brain.)

Anyway, this teacher-turned-Elvis had memorized the three pages of Elvis lines from the opening "Hey, little mama!" to the closing "Always stop, look, and listen!".  Incredible!

The kitchen crew also got into the act. They came out and did a crazy rap, with metal whisks banging against pots and pans. The guy in the middle was awesome-crazy! No dreaded "lunch ladies" at this school!

And I know some of you will love this next one (even though it's not the greatest image). It's Sammy and friends led by Casey through the graveyard on Halloween in Sammy Keyes & the Night of Skulls. The part where he's telling the Wild West tale...that just so happens to take place in Oklahoma. (There were tombstones and a whole graveyard set up, which doesn't show, but was way cool!)

In addition to the skits, the school's hallways were covered with Sammy Keyes art. I'm talking from floor to ceiling! It was crazy!  

They also had book cover place mats in the cafeteria...

...and a huge "standee" (made of plywood) of Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City. 

And for the students who participated in the skits and entertainment, the library hosted a luncheon where dessert was cupcake cakes in the shape of Sammy signature items--a skateboard and high-top!

I wish you could have all been there. I know you would have loved it too!