Dispatches from New York (In which I Wander the City Streets with my Best Friend, Brave the Cold to Take a Picture, Gush Like A Goofball to my Author Idol, and Remember Why I Love to Write for Children. PS. I also learn Julie Andrews' secret to writer's block)

The past four days I've been in NYC for an awesome SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) conference and my head is still spinning with the cool stuff I learned and the amazing people I met and chatted with (mostly in the long restroom lines between sessions). Now I'm home and contemplating the two tons of laundry I've got to do while watching the snow fall from my writerly perch on the couch, sweet doggie curled up on my lap.

Sometimes I fear that I border on agoraphobic. I live in my pajamas, for example. I rarely leave my home except to walk sweet doggie and/or cart my teen daughter around town. Soon I will not even do that. She has her driver's permit! She is counting down the days to getting her license! I am both relieved and appalled! My point is that I rarely take trips to New York City to shmooze with fellow book writers. It's costly. I know I will have to, um, wear non-pajama-like clothing. I enjoy this solitary curling up on the sofa kind of life where I get to write and read all day. When I chat with other writers, it is a virtual style of chatting, where I can plan out what I want to say and NOT say and generally present myself as a much cooler younger hipper version of my actual self (the one in the pajamas on the couch surrounded by laundry piles).

But, oh! I loved going to this conference. I could probably write 20 blog posts about all of the things I learned and all of the people I met. In fact, maybe I WILL write 20 posts, but for now, here is an overview before I forget:

1. The best thing about the trip was meeting up with my long time critique partner Donna. If you've been following this blog, you know that I met her in the port-a-potty line at another conference five years ago, and we have been emailing each other daily ever since, sharing our writing goals, critiquing each other's work, basking in each other's successes and sobbing over each other's near successes. I love Donna and simply would not be where I am in this writing journey without her. We spent two days together wandering around NYC. We drank coffee in a funky cafe. Shared a bottle of champagne at an elegant Italian restaurant. Sat on a bench near Central Park and made guesses about which passersby were native New Yorkers. Trekked like, 50 blocks up to the Simon & Schuster building in frigid blustery weather so Donna could take my picture with my dying cellphone.

I brought a stack of postcards printed up by my publishing company with me, but when push came to shove, I was feeling chicken-y about handing them out to strangers. Donna grabbed most of the stack and did the work for me. One of the highlights of my trip was talking to a fellow writer and noticing halfway through our conversation that he had a copy of MY postcard folded up and placed prominently in his name badge. (Donna had already gotten to him, you see.)

2. I don't know why I always forget how inspiring the speakers at these conferences are. I am a shameless author groupie. In fact I signed up for this particular conference specifically so I could see Meg Rosoff, the author of one of my favorite books of all time, How I Live Now. I read this novel a few years ago when I was at a low point, despairing about my chances for publication and feeling pessimistic about the state of YA literature in general. I was in a weird book slump, having the bad luck to pick up meh book after meh book, and then I picked up How I Live Now and was blown away. The book is brilliant and heartbreaking and funny. Impossible to characterize, so I won't. But it renewed my faith in writing and what good writing can do. I will never be as good of a writer as Meg Rosoff, but thank God, writers like Meg Rosoff exist in the world, is all I can say. Yes, I realize I am gushing like a goofball.

You should have seen me in NYC when I sat in the audience while Meg Rosoff gave the keynote speech. I laughed. I cried. I gave her a standing ovation. And you should have seen me when I spied Meg Rosoff standing at the bar, like, ten feet away from me, surrounded by Meg Rosoff groupies. I wanted to go up to her, but I didn't want to come off looking like a Meg Rosoff groupie. Donna suggested I go buy myself a drink so I could sidle closer. She gave me cash (I never carry cash) so I could buy a crazy expensive drink. I sidled. I forked over the 14 dollars for a drink. My eyes met Meg Rosoff's eyes. Boldly (yet shakily) I introduced myself. I told her I once reviewed her book. She kindly pretended that she remembered that review. I told her how much I loved her speech and her books. I told her I'd read her blog post about how she was 46 years old when she published How I Live Now and that was inspiring to me because I will be, um, 46 years old when my first book comes out in the fall.

She said, "Oh. What is the title of your book?"

I said "Thin Space" at the same moment that Donna, my loyal wingman, miraculously appeared at my side, postcard in hand. Donna pressed my postcard into Meg Rosoff's hand and Meg Rosoff said "The book cover is lovely."

I thanked her, blabbered for another minute about I don't know what, and then Donna and I drifted away and giggled like lunatics at the cupcake table.

3. Other speakers at this conference were inspiring too. Margaret Peterson Haddix, author of 30 books for children and fellow Ohioan, talked about the importance of stories in a world where books may be going out of style. I laughed and cried during her talk too. I was in awe of illustrators Shaun Tan and Mo Willems, great artists and thought-provoking and hilarious and moving speakers. These people reminded me why I love being part of the children's writers and illustrators community.

Sometimes--shockingly--we are disparaged. There are many people who actually believe that writing for children is somehow lesser than writing for adults, as if children don't deserve good literature, as if writing for younger humans is easier. Meg Rosoff spoke about this. She said something like, ask people you know what their favorite books are; ask them which books they read more than once and which books they remember and love. Chances are these books are children's books. They come into your life when you are still being formed and they change you. It is an awesome responsibility, she said, to be a writer for children. And there is nothing lesser or easy about it.

4. I guess I should mention that Julie Andrews was one of the speakers at the conference too. Julie Andrews wrote dozens of books with her stepdaughter and the two of them gave a presentation about how they collaborate on their many projects. OH MY GOD JULIE ANDREWS IS HERE, was something I heard quite a bit over the past few days. I also heard this: oh my god, julie andrews is here. 

She's a celebrity author, and it's not hard to wonder if she was given a break; if things were, in fact, easy for her in the publication journey. Yeah. Most assuredly. Still, it was cool to see the woman and to hear her talk in her familiar lilting Sound of  Music voice. At one point she mentioned that when she's stuck in a story, she will get up and go to the bathroom, and she nearly always finds the solution. The tweeters in the back of the conference hall were tweeting up a storm. Julie Andrews goes to the bathroom!! They tweeted, excitedly. And we all shared a collective laugh and sense of camaraderie with Julie Andrews, just another fellow writer for children.

5. Because I am like Julie Andrews, I went to the bathroom a lot during the conference. I met people in line who are just starting out on this potentially long and potentially soul-crushing journey. I slipped them my postcard and told them they should keep writing and working and dreaming. I met other people who have books out already and I picked their brains about publicity and social media and balancing writing with these other obligations. (Also, I slipped them my postcard.) I attended a session given by a veteran editor who once rejected something I wrote. She was beautiful and brilliant, reading passages from books she loved and talking about voice and texture and narrative layers. I went to a session presented by a newby editor-turned-agent, who was beautiful and brilliant and too new to have ever rejected me.

6. One night I wandered into a panel discussion on LGBTQ characters in children's literature. More on this in another post, but I was fascinated by the discussion and then amazed when I realized that the writers presenting just happened to be Jane Yolen, Bruce Coville, and Ellen Hopkins. I almost fell out of my chair.

7. On the flight home I chatted it up with a new friend--a YA writer just starting out. I gave her my last post card and then I settled into my cramped plane seat and read a young adult novel called Ask the Passengers by A. S. King. More on this book later, but holy moly, it was amazing. The main character, like so many of us humans, is struggling--with who she is, with what the point of life is, with what she wants to be and do. Sometimes, in despair, she lies outside on her picnic table and looks up at the sky. She waits for a plane to fly by and she sends the anonymous passengers in the plane her love.

I sat on my plane, reading about this girl and her painful and heartbreaking and hilarious story. For several hours she was real to me. When I closed the book, I was crying. I looked out the dark window and thought about the writer A. S. King. I imagined that I was flying over her in the dark, and I sent her my gratitude and love.  

Not Just Any High School Party (A Review of Adele Griffin's All You Never Wanted)

Some books are easier than others to pitch in a sentence or two. Take the new YA novel Every Day by David Levithan: Every morning the main character wakes up in someone else's body and must live the day out as that person. Kind of a Quantum Leap meets Ground Hog's Day. Editors (and the publishing company marketing team) love high concept books like this. It's way easier to sell a book that you can explain in a few seconds. Writers conferences I've been to even hold sessions about crafting what they call elevator pitches. (Just in case you ever find yourself on an elevator with the agent of your dreams--how can you best sum up your manuscript in the time it takes before you get to the next floor?)

Of course, the best novels go way beyond the initial concept. If I tell you that John Green's book The Fault in our Stars is a love story about kids with cancer, and you have no idea who John Green is, you might be a tad reluctant to pick up the book. (But please DO pick it up, because you SHOULD know who John Green is. And The Fault in our Stars is brilliant and heartbreaking and yet somehow hilarious).

One of my favorite books of all time, How I Live Now, is hard to pin down in a paragraph, never mind a sentence. I can't even tell you what genre it is. Post Apocalyptic? Fantasy? Romance? Adventure? After I read it, I pretty much just sat there stunned, rereading the last page because I didn't ever want the world of the book to end. It wasn't until later that I wondered how the heck Meg Rosoff managed to snag the attention of an editor. This was her first novel (for which she deservedly won the Printz Award), so she probably had to do a bit of pitching and querying and synopsis-ing.

Maybe you'd call a book like this low-concept. Whenever I come across a good one of these, the only thing I can think to do is stick the book in your hands and say, Trust me, read it!

But because I am attempting to act like a book reviewer, (also I don't know you and have no way to actually stick a book in your hands), I will do my best to describe this awesome book I read the other day, All You Never Wanted by Adele Griffin. (Pathetic digression: I am ashamed to admit that I've never read a book by this author before, never, uh, heard of her until a few weeks ago. Ridiculous, because I pride myself on how much YA fiction I read, and tragic, because Adele Griffin is a really really good writer; I scrolled around her website and it looks like All You Never Wanted is her 18th book! and I've now got to get busy checking all the others out.)

The blurb on the back of the book plays up the sibling rivalry between sisters Alex and Thea. They're living a fairy tale life in upscale Greenwich, Connecticut, (their single mom recently married a bazillionaire tycoon) but there's turmoil under the surface. Older sister Alex is beautiful and popular and seems to have it all. Thea is brilliant and envious, coveting Alex's enviable life, which also includes Alex's boyfriend, and she'll do anything to get it. Cue soap-opera-y music.

But this book is not a soap opera. The narrative moves back and forth between the two sisters' points of view. Yes, Alex is beautiful, but she's struggling big time with crippling anxiety. Her boyfriend's a great guy, sticking by her even though she's falling apart, but on the other hand, he's sort of a loser too. Why does Thea like him so much anyway? And why is a smart girl like Thea using her brainpower in such destructive ways? None of these characters are what they seem.

And here's something funny that just occurred to me: there is a fast-moving, page-turnery plot at the core of this book, but when you scrape away the details, what you're mainly left with is two girls planning a party. But this is like saying that all of Jane Austin's books are about planning weddings.

Oh, there is so much more going on than a party (even though it is a party of epic proportions). I was biting my nails and worrying over these people, because they do seem like real people, watching as the inevitable (yet somehow unexpected) end approached. There is real love (and lust) involved. There's also real drama and heartbreak. And evil. Geez, what people will do to hurt each other, especially the ones closest to them. When I closed the book, I was breathing fast, and my head is still churning with how it all ended up. Not sure how in the world Adele Griffin pitched this manuscript to her editor. Teen drama? Romance? Psychological horror?

Whatever. I give up.

Please. Trust me. Read it. And then give me a call so I can talk about it with someone!

Review of There Is No Dog

My family used to help out at a church where we used to live. Every year they set up a big store where underprivileged people could “shop” for toys and winter clothing. It was very organized, with people lining up outside and getting a number, so only a few could go in at time to choose their gifts. The volunteers would organize the tables by age group and clean up between shifts, then when the shoppers came in, we’d pair up and lead them around, holding garbage bags for the stuff they picked out. It was one of those nice holiday volunteer things you could do to give back to your community and I’d always walk out of there feeling blessed and happy that I could help but also kind of cruddy too at the sight of so much need and desperation. The thing was, all of that stuff was donated, and let’s just say that not everyone has the same definition of “gently used” that I do. A lot of toys were broken or dirty. You’d find coloring books already colored in and puzzles with half the pieces missing.

We were only supposed to allow the people 2 toys per kid (but I am happy to note that there was no limit on books!) and the first thing we’d ask is how many kids they had. Maybe some people inflated the numbers, saying they had ten kids, for example, when they only had four. One thing I really liked about that church was they didn’t request any kind of official verification. We took whatever the person said as the truth.

I told one of my friends about this and she rolled her eyes. Obviously people were taking advantage of our good will, she said, and pulling a fast one on us to get more stuff for their kids. But I looked at it this way: if you wanted to stand outside in the cold for three hours to take your turn in front of tables of broken, dirty toys, then I wasn’t about to call you a liar. And anyway, what if it wasn’t a lie? What if the person really did have ten kids? Here. Take another ratty haired Barbie doll, for God’s sake.

It occurred to me later that my viewpoint and my friend’s might pretty much sum up a key difference in how people perceive the world. Do you assume the worst? Seeing it as a tragedy that some bad apples are getting away with being dishonest? Or do you hope for the best? Think, okay, maybe a few people are making up kids, but whatever, a lot of them aren’t, and those are the ones we’re trying to help. This “store” was located at a church after all, and if any place should be erring on the side of too much generosity, it seems to me this is it.

Well, this is probably the longest lead-in to a book review I’ve ever written, and I’m not even sure, exactly, how it relates to the brilliant and irreverent and funny and surprisingly spiritual novel There Is No Dog by Meg Rosoff. Except my lead-in has something to do with religion. And so does Rosoff’s book. Also both have to do with how we view this world and our place in it.

It strikes me that there aren’t many books written for young adults that mention God, never mind that deal with any kind of spirituality. Which is odd because every human (including the teenaged variety) is going to reflect on these topics at one time or another.

Maybe I should mention here another difference in how people perceive the world. Some of us do a lot of questioning, and I guess, some of us don’t. Also there are differences in what we find funny.

I suspect that there are some who won’t find Rosoff’s story of “God” as a lazy, self-centered, sex-obsessed seventeen-year-old boy named Bob all that humorous. To which I would have to say: Oh well, you’re missing out on a really cool book.

So, Bob took over the creation of the earth because apparently no one else wanted the job and now after thousands of years, he’s sort of tired of dealing with it. Luckily he’s got a long-suffering, conscientious assistant named Mr. B who cleans up the bigger messes, but most of the time he’s preoccupied with wooing his latest love interest. Which is too bad for earth, because Bob’s intense moods tend to affect the weather in cataclysmic ways.

The book reads like a fairytale, with multiple characters and lessons and thought-provoking questions. Also lots of funny interactions between teens and their parents, as well as some lovely romantic scenes with Bob and his charming conquest. I had to stop several times to reread a particularly lyrical passage or to think about a funny moment that on second thought was actually pretty profound.

Why are we here? What is the point? Why do good people suffer? What happens to us after we die? While this novel doesn’t presume to answer any of this, it gives us questioning people a whole bunch to think about (and to laugh about too.) Thank God.

Holiday Book Shopping for a Teen? Look no further:

I read a ton of YA books this year and in case anyone’s on the lookout for a good read for the 11 to 16 year old girl in your life, here are some of the best:
(note: most of these are not NEW books. I just happened to read them this year.)

In no particular order

1. Feed by M.T. Anderson. This is a must-read for a teen (or anyone) living in our consumeristic/plugged in society—the characters walk around with computers literally attached to their brains. Buy this for the teen boy in your life as well. Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking. And contains one of the best first lines ever: "We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."

2. Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han. The trend in teen fiction lately seems to be love triangles, as in, teen girl torn between two cute boys. In this book, they’re brothers—the funny, cool friend and the older, brooding guy—who is of course the one the girl longs for. Well-written and funny. There’s also a sequel.

3. Graceling by Kristin Cashore. I’m embarrassed to say why I picked this book up (okay. I’ll tell you. When my book(s) get published, they will be shelved beside Cashore's). Not too shabby placement, because this book is great. It’s fantasy (not usually what I’m drawn to) but so absorbing. Page turner. Great girl character. She’s got the gift of being able to kill people. And there’s a boy. Will she kill him? hmm. Read to find out.

4. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Not too often do you get a well-written page turner. This one’s a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Part Surviver. Part Fahrenheit 451. Two boys and a girl. (again) Strong, resourceful main character figures out how to win a game that’s rigged against her. Everyone in my family read this book. Husband. Teen boy. Teen girl. None of us could put it down. (And there are two sequels that are just as riveting)

5. Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson. Main character is a cross country runner, perfect child, daughter of a minister, trying to run the household while obsessing over getting into MIT (where her mother went). Very cool contrast between her ordinary world and the "catalyst" that blows it all apart. Also want to put in a plug for Twisted and Prom by the same author. Anderson knows and understands teens better than pretty much any YA writer around.

6. Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Starts with a kind of flaky 16 year old girl and then an asteroid hits the moon and all hell breaks loose. Very interesting how the family copes. This book will seriously make you consider stocking up on canned goods.

7. Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. The only zombie book on the list. Totally could not put this one down. My heart was pounding as I read it. Also has a love triangle. (told you this was a trend) Just so happens that one of the guys ends up turning into a zombie. Drat.

8. Thirteen Plus One by Lauren Myracle. This is the fourth book in a great middle grade series. Other books are Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen and all follow the life of the sweet main character and the ups and downs of her middle school years. If you have a middle school aged child, it’s a must-read for both of you. She’ll get a how-to guide to surviving, and you’ll have a nice flashback to your own middle school years.

9. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. I’ve already blogged about this book. Not sure how to categorize it. Fantasy. Post-apocalyptic war story. Love story. Brilliant writing. Won the Printz Award for best YA several years ago, deservedly so.

10. Fallen by Lauren Kate. Pure fun read for the Twilight-obsessed teen who’s sick of Twilight and needs another obsession. This time: fallen angels, another new trend. Bonus: it also includes a love triangle. Strange girl and the competing fallen angels who love her. I read this in one sitting and was relieved to learn there’s a sequel: Torment. (LOVE that title, by the way)

Happy Reading!

Breaking through Writer's Block

As far as writer’s block goes, this one wasn’t so terrible. I was only paralyzed for a week or so. But it was just enough for all the old self-doubts to come crashing back. Why am I doing this? What’s the point of writing these books that no one is ever going to read? What if I can’t write after all? Blah blah blah.

But I’m here to say that I pushed past it. At least for today. The answer, big shocker, was to write. Now I know that sounds counter-intuitive. Writer’s block implies that you can’t write. Like your fingers are in little casts or something or your brain has frozen up and no words will materialize out of the ether. But I had to learn the lesson once again that it wasn’t that I couldn’t write, it was this paralyzing sense that I couldn’t write right. I was so caught up in trying to work out my story that I lost sight of the fact that it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be put down on paper.

Writer’s Block is really about perfectionism. Julie Cameron says in The Artist’s Way: "Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things…Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop… It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough.”

But how do you let go of the crippling feeling that what you’re writing is crap? Answer: write anyway. Quantity not quality. I don’t know who said that. Probably Julie Cameron in The Artist’s Way. (If you’re a writer and you haven’t read this book, go buy it. It’s THE manual for creative people.)

So that’s what I did the past few days. I wrote. Just a bunch of blather. Questions I had about my book. Worries I had about plot holes big enough to drive a tractor-trailer through. Pages of boring backstory. I wrote over 3000 words and kept going. And somehow, miraculously, the process took over and I felt better. It didn’t matter anymore what I was writing, just that I was. In Bird by Bird (another must- have writer manual) Anne Lamott says that whenever she’s stuck she writes about school lunches. She doesn’t know why this helps. It’s simply the act of getting something down on paper. You start talking about the smelly tuna fish sandwiches you ate when you were in second grade or the lukewarm chicken noodle soup spilling out of your thermos and the next thing you know you’re off on some weird tangent that turns out to be the kernel of your next story. Try it. Really. It’s cool. If nothing else you might get new lunch ideas for you kids.

Okay. The second key to my breakthrough is another big shocker: reading. I read a great book, a truly amazing, impossible to put down YA novel that reminded me what the point of it all really is. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff won the Printz Award in 2004.

Don’t know how I missed this. It’s about a fifteen-year-old troubled girl who goes to live with her cousins in England. While she’s there war breaks out and the kids get separated from each other. The book becomes a kind of post-apocalyptic journey as they try to get back together. But this explanation doesn’t do it justice. The girl’s voice is funny and snarky and thoroughly original. There’s a fantasy element too—because the cousins can read minds and understand animals. And it’s a love story. Which seems weird, because we’re talking about two cousins, but somehow it works and you want so much for these kids to find each other again. I literally could not put it down, and I read the whole thing marveling at how brilliantly it was put together while at the same time being caught up in the story and just loving these characters. I finished the book and instead of feeling despair that I will NEVER be able to write this well, I was inspired to write anyway.

Imagine what an awesome thing it is to be able to capture a story and put it out into the world so that even one reader has a life changing experience or even just a couple hours escape into another world.

Hey. It’s enough to keep me going for another day.