On Going Back into a Revision (again and again and again and again and again)

One of the items on my to-do list this week seems pretty straightforward:

Read rough draft of BLANK. 

(Side note: BLANK is not the actual title of this manuscript, but I have a thing about not talking too specifically about books while I am still hip deep in the weeds with them. Also, this particular project doesn't have a settled upon title at the moment. It's morphed around a lot over the years. Recently, I thought I'd hit upon the perfect title before realizing there was a new YA book out with the same one. Ah well. BLANK it is.)

I don't know if you caught the phrase "over the years." 

I say this with a mixture of embarrassment and defiance: BLANK is a book that I have been writing and rewriting since 2002. I'm not exactly sure how many distinct versions of it there are. It morphs around too, subtly changing and expanding and evolving, so that now it's a much bigger production than I ever dared dream it could be when I first started writing it. 

Nova Ren Suma has this great blog series called The Book of My Heart. In the intro she writes about why her own book Imaginary Girls "holds a distinct and special place" in her heart, and she invites other authors to write about their special books.  

If I ever get my book BLANK right--(whatever right means--I'll know it when I see it--so far I have not seen it)--I will send my response to Nova and ask if she will use it in her series. 

BLANK is without question the book of my heart.  

Every couple of years I write a version, and I share it with my long suffering critique partner Donna, and she gives me a lovely peptalk. 

Rinse. 

Repeat. 

She's learned, you see. The first time, many versions earlier, when I told her I was thinking about going back in, she asked the obvious question: "Why?" 

I stammered for a bit. At that point I hadn't even begun to articulate my obsession. 

Now I've come to the understanding that I have to write this book. It's my story and I'm the only one who can tell it.

Each time I pick it back up, I am refreshed and excited. This is IT, I tell myself. This is the one. And each time I finish, I'm a raw wound, a burned out shell of my former self, vowing never again. If THIS isn't the one, screw it. Forget it. Forget them, those stupid pretend people. 

Until lo and behold, almost like clockwork, those people wake and rise and whisper, and I am compelled to open up the manuscript and try again. 

I thought I was the only one who did this kind of thing--wrote a book over and over--until I came upon an author's note at the back of a novel: 

I have wanted to write about [this] for a very long time. I actually attempted it several times. First while in college, then again right after. I'd almost given up, but a few years ago--after I'd published three novels and really should've known what I was doing -- I threw myself at the legend one more time. And failed again.

The author is Maggie Stiefvater. The book that she's describing is The Scorpio Races, which is pretty much in my top ten favorite books of all time. 

I like to revisit that book. And I like to revisit Maggie Stiefvater's description of the angsty but ultimately successful behind-the-scenes process.  

It's what I've done just now, as I am about to tackle my to-do: 

Read rough draft of BLANK.

I think you may be able to guess what the next item is on the list...

Begin writing. Again. 

(Just one stack of the many many versions.)

The First Annual Jody-intz Awards

Today the American Library Association announced this year’s award-winning books for children and young adults. The ALA held a very exciting ceremony for writers and librarians, and I followed along with them on Twitter and watched the podcast of the event while occasionally drifting into pleasant daydreams where I get that call in the morning (someday in the future when I actually have a published book) from the ALA committee. You may have heard of these awards: the Caldecott Medal, for the most distinguished picture book; the Newbery for the best children’s book (which is typically defined as a book written for readers aged 8 to 12); and the Printz, for the best novel written for young adults. Because I write for young adults and love to read books written for young adults, the Printz is the award I’m most interested in.

While I was waiting for the winner to be announced (and/or falling into lala, coveted-medal-on-my-book-cover, fantasy land) I started making a list of the awards I’d give if anyone at the ALA ever asked me for my opinion.

So here it is, without further ado, the first annual Jody-intz Awards (and at the end, I’ll tell you which book actually won the Printz.):

1. Best Page-Turner. This award goes to the book I read in one long sitting/walking from room to room with it because I could not bear to put it down for one second and then stayed up half the night to finish it. Drum Roll. Ashes by Ilsa Bick, the addictive and heart-stopping tale of an allegedly dying girl who goes on a camping trip when an electromagnetic pulse pulses the world, kills most of humanity, and turns the remainder into flesh-eating zombies. This book is also a runner up for the Biggest Cliff-hanger/Oh Crud, Now I Have to Wait for the Sequel Award. Also receives an honorable mention for Book That Most Inspires You To Hoard Canned Goods. Warning: Clear out your schedule before turning to the first page.
2. Coolest Premise. The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler. Two teens living in the olden days of 1995 log online and discover their Facebook pages fifteen years in the future. What else is there to say about that? A very cool idea that I wish I’d thought of. (P.S. The book lives up to the hype too.)
3. Most Original Voice. I read a ton of YA books so it’s surprising when I come across a voice I’ve never heard before. The winner in this category is Brooklyn, Burning by Steve Brezenoff. The main character is a kid called Kid who tells the story of a warehouse fire in Brooklyn and the growing relationship with a kid named Scout. Oh, and by the way, the reader never learns the genders of either Kid or Scout.
4. Best Teen Love Story—A three-way tie between Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins, Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard, and If I Stay by Gayle Forman. If you love love stories and either hated Twilight and crave an alternative or loved Twilight and crave an alternative, read any of these. Or all of these. Sigh.
5. Best World I’d Love to Fall Into. Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. This book could be a runner up in the Best Love Story category too, now that I think about it. The setting is a remote island where every year killer horses rise up out of the sea and the townspeople risk their lives to race them. This is one of those old-fashioned books that takes its time, developing the cast of complicated and quirky characters and building the intricate plot. When I knew I was coming to the end, I read slower so I could stay in the fully realized, luscious world just a little bit longer.
6. I guess I should follow up this award with one for World I Wouldn’t Want to Fall Into. And this honor easily goes to Ashfall, by Mike Mullin. Yeah, let’s just say it’s a bleak landscape after the super volcano hidden under Yellowstone erupts and destroys most of the country. (Runner up in the page turners and canned good categories too.)
7. New Writer to Watch. This is a tie between Jennifer Castle, author of the beautifully written novel The Beginning of After, about a girl coping in the year after her parents die (note: it is NOT as dark as it sounds), and Emily M. Danforth, author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post, about a girl coping with her realization that she is a lesbian (note: it is not as dark as it sounds). Because both writers know how to tell a really good story and I can't wait to see what books they write next.
8. Awesome Series. There are so many to pick from in this category because, if you’ve spent any time perusing the YA section in your local bookstore (which I hope you do), series are very big these days. The award goes to Ally Condie’s Matched series, a thought-provoking, dystopian story of a girl growing up in what seems to be a perfect world. The sequel, Crossed, accomplishes what all writers of successful series dream of: it ups the ante while at the same time carrying through everything loyal readers of the first book loved.
9. Writer I Wish I Could Be. Another tie. First, Sara Zarr, author of this year’s moving and brilliant How To Save a Life (and for her entire body of work –Story of a Girl and Sweethearts and Once Was Lost—all I can say is I bow down to her talent. Ditto to Lauren Myracle for her moving and brilliant novel (that should have won a National Book Award!) Shine. (Love her other novels too, especially Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks and had the great honor of meeting Lauren at a book signing. Full disclosure: a picture of the two of us is my screen-saver on my cellphone.)
10. Novel That Changed the Way I View the World. Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley. The story of a boy in a small dying town whose brother goes missing, and a disturbed kid obsessed with the Book of Enoch, and the appearance of the thought to be extinct Lazarus bird. You might just discover the meaning of life in this one.

And maybe that’s what the ALA committee was thinking when they awarded it this year’s Printz Award.

Musings on Carnivorous Horses

I am not a horse person. I know many people are. There’s a whole genre of horse-related books that I’ve never read. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Black Beauty. I didn’t read that one either.

So I really had no desire to read the book The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. Something about the cover. I hate to say I judge a book by one, but it’s true. The picture on the front didn’t grab me. It’s a girl riding on a horse, in kind of a cartoon-like style. In addition to not being a horse person, I’m not an artistic person. I don’t pretend to know what goes into the design of a book cover. I just know what appeals to me and what doesn’t. This one fell into the second category. I was sitting at one of my favorite places in the world, Cover to Cover, a children’s bookstore in Columbus, and I had an array of new books to choose from, advanced review copies piled in front of me. I kept passing by the horse one, picking it up and putting it back down. In the end the only thing that made me hold onto it was the author’s name. Stiefvater wrote the novel Shiver about a girl who loves a wolf (really a beautiful boy named Sam) that lives in the woods behind her house. That was a good book so finally I took this new one. And, out of some sense of obligation to read it before it comes out officially on October 18, I opened it.

To say that I loved this book is a gross understatement. I spent an afternoon reading it when I should’ve been working on a revision. I am knee deep in major revision of a novel, a novel that for the first time in my life I think might possibly, dare I say it?—be published. (Maybe I shouldn’t have said this. "Scratch that," as Willy Wonka would say. "Reverse it.") Anyway, the last thing I needed to be doing today was curling up with a book.

But I am so glad I did. It reminded what I love about reading and books and children’s books andreading children’s books, and all of that draws me back to my own childhood when one of the only things that kept me going sometimes was the ability to escape into the world of a book.

The Scorpio Races is exactly the type of story I would’ve loved to fall into as a child. Even though, as I said, it’s filled with horses. These aren’t ordinary horses, though. Did I mention that? They’re killer ones based on an ancient myth of horse monsters that swim in the sea and rise up out of the waves to gallop on the shore. And occasionally eat people. The island where they roam builds an entire culture around these horses--catching them, riding them, racing them. The two main characters, a boy named Sean and a girl named Puck, have their own complicated relationship with the horses and eventually with each other. Sean is something of a horse whisperer. He’s a trainer and four time-race winner but he dreams of getting out from under the thumb of the owner, tired of propping up the owner’s worthless son. If Sean wins the next Scorpio race (which involves riding a horse on the beach between the cliffs and the sea while praying that you don’t get eaten or dragged into the water) maybe he can buy his beloved horse and gain his freedom. Puck’s got more serious problems. Her parents are dead (courtesy of, you guessed it, a horse), her older brother’s about to abandon her and her younger brother, and their cottage is about to be repossessed by Sean’s boss. If she rides in the big race (something a girl has never done before) she might win enough money to save her family from ruin.

I am not doing this book justice. The gorgeous language. The description of the sea and the beach and the strange people that inhabit the island. I don’t know where the novel takes place, or when. It doesn’t matter. It’s another world, a place you wish you could drop into and stay.

I don’t think there will be a sequel, something that surprises me (because sequels are so obligatory lately) and it makes me sad. I reached the last page and I wanted the story to keep going. Which reminds me of another favorite pastime I had as a child—rereading my favorite books so I could escape into them again.

It’s something I will certainly do with this one.