working on it.
This agent wrote a whole blog to answer a question I asked last week. I am not even submitting to her. I love kid book people.
Jennifer Represents...: But What About the Second Week of April?
Here is another great blog about SCBWI LA 2010. These bloggers are bettern me. Thanks to them for spreading the good word!
Or, the beginning of a novel.
The zookeepers have it all planned: nocturnal visits and predawn breakfasts. It could be fun or then again, it could just be a really bad night of sleep.
Word of the day: Prehensile: grasping, as in a monkey's tail.
Peace to all and to all a good night!
Help.
I'm having trouble writing.
Since January, I’ve been teaching fulltime and I can only find minutes a day to write. When I do, I think it sucks. Rather, it does suck. Now, I'm staring at the mouth end of another weekend and I’m fearful that the suckosity is going to crawl to a new nadir.
Then I realized I had writer friends to ask. So, what to do?
It's amazing how much time I have on my hands. I think I had some senility issues with all those tabs up there to click on. I would be writing something in Word. Then I would stop and click on dictionary.com, and four hours later, I would return to a blinking cursor in the middle of the document.
It was like walking into a room and forgetting why I was there.
A little more writing/thinking time and less clicking time. NaNoRevisMo. Anyone?
In other news...
1. Stocks are up and that's good for business. Yeah team! With the exception of Borders Book Group, which trades at $1.94. Can you say bankruptcy?
2. I have been teaching English at a school down the street. It's a blast being with the kids. And my English is pretty damn good! I had forgetten.
Writing blogs no one will read is weirdly fun.
More later.
Pope and Eliot have been replaced by Plant and Bono. Stairway to Heaven is today's Kubla Khan.
These days, poetry readings are not packed, but humans haven't lost their love of words in poetic form. Now we pack football stadiums. Instead of a reading, someone sings.
This video is from U2's Barcelona show where a Rumi poem is written in green in support of Iran's free elections. Poetry with a purpose.
Finally, here are the words/lyrics from U2's poem/song. I like the Roar line.
BREATHE
16th of June, nine 0 five, door bell rings
Man at the door says if I want to stay alive a bit longer
There's a few things I need you to know. Three
Coming from a long line of travelling sales people on my mother's side
I wasn't gonna buy just anyone's cockatoo
So why would I invite a complete stranger into my home
Would you?
These days are better than that
These days are better than that
Every day I die again, and again I'm reborn
Every day I have to find the courage
To walk out into the street
With arms out
Got a love you can't defeat
Neither down or out
There's nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now
16th of June, Chinese stocks are going up
And I'm coming down with some new Asian virus
Ju Ju man, Ju Ju man
Doc says you're fine, or dying
Please
Nine 0 nine, St John Divine, on the line, my pulse is fine
But I'm running down the road like loose electricity
While the band in my head plays a striptease
The roar that lies on the other side of silence
The forest fire that is fear so deny it
Walk out into the street
Sing your heart out
The people we meet
Will not be drowned out
There's nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now
Yeah, yeah
We are people borne of sound
The songs are in our eyes
Gonna wear them like a crown
Walk out, into the sunburst street
Sing your heart out, sing my heart out
I've found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it's all that I found
And I can breathe
Breathe now
Here's another place to add to the list. A must?
An agent asked me to sign up at LinkedIn instead of Facebook. S/he was right. The business of publishing.
But how to put it all together?
In fifth grade science, the kids study animals' production cycle: Do I produce or consume?
Recently, I switched to Google Reader for consuming blogs. Reading is a boat load easier but commenting is ... uh… yeah. GR takes blogodom to a higher level of lurkosity. I blog therefore I lurk.
Here's some cream of what I've lurked on since the SCBWI LA 09 GLAMFEST last month.
At the conference Wendy Loggia (Delacorte) gave a speech about seven things that would kick you out of her request pile.
She brought out tomes, dusty binders full of data and rejections going back to the 12 Century. (BTW: The eleven hundreds mark the seminal point in rejection letters. Rejects were banned in the Dark Ages).
She noted seven things, but number four seemed to rise to the top of the foam.
Debbie Ohi has the complete list. And of course, Team Blog got it all here including these 1984ish lines: "She will google people who have submitted their work and read their blogs as part of her research to make her decision."
Waterboarding, caning, and googling…. Welcome to my nightmare!!!
There have been others to chime in on the subject. The killah agent, Janet Reid, said, "You're not invisible, no matter what the guy selling the cloak at Platform [9 ¾ ] said to you."
Shaun Hutchins (Deathday Letters coming out from Simon Pulse in the spring.) fires back with an anti-watch what you say piece. "If no one tells me I suck, I'll never get better."
President Obiwankinobi told kids to watch what they post on FB.
And even more.
Chris Richman and Michael Stearns have been Facebloging in lieu of blahbloging on the subject. If you're not a FB fan of UpStart Crow, you should be.
Got to go post this...
There was more than just the fun. There was real business going on.
I don't know if it was my energy or if I was "ready" or something, but the agents and editors at SCBWI LA GLAMFEST 09 were different this time.
They were not only gracious and accessible this year, but a hint of something else flashed in their eyes. In everyone's eyes. Every single person at this conference on both sides of the desk seemed hungry.
Like we were going to take over the world with good kid books!
We're in the catbird seat here, people. Children's/YA market share is increasing and that's good. The quality of submissions (our competition) is getting better and better, which only makes for better books.
Write on.
First, Miley Cyrus. (OMG y'all: she looks just like Hannah Montana)!!!
My eleven-year old son is with me. He rolls his eyes. Miley stares back and our eyes travel up to The Sisterhood pants, then over to Nick and Nora then La Cliquée, dead centre, and finally leaping up from the base, the support ... Twilight
The Whim woman on the third shelf winks at us, then Miley again and we light on The Calder Game by Blue Balliet, whom we think is Lemony Snicket posing as a woman. But not a bad book. But we've both already read it.
We stay and dig a little. Hidden away Prada & Prejudice. And there's Untamed, Rrrair. Warriors.
What would I like to see?
Anything that moves. The Three Musketeers, Sherman Alexie, Alex Rider, Gordon Korman, 39 Clues, Haddix, Madame Bovary, The Crime Travelers, Percy Jackson, Hemingway, The Young James Bond, Fred Tries to Kill the Moon, Whimpy Kid
As far as writing for kids goes, I think they are starving for stories outside of their home cultures. My own stories are Jason Bourne for kids (boys, in particular). Fun. Fast. But quelque chose de different.
Mitali Perkins writes about this cultural divide. She inspired today's blog. You can check her out at http://www.mitaliblog.com/2009/07/ya-books-and-global-poverty.html