Tag: author advice

Toads, TED talks, and Magical Landscapes: the 2012 NESCBWI Conference

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Sara Zarr giving her keynote. Somehow my only picture from the weekend.

Last Saturday I woke up before sunrise, grabbed my bags, and drove a couple hours to Springfield, MA. Why put so much effort into what would otherwise have been a sleepy Saturday morning? Because I had to get to the NESCBWI conference!

I attended the international SCBWI conference in January, but this was my first regional conference. As with the larger SCBWI conference, there was a fantastic writerly vibe at NESCBWI. Fellow attendees were friendly and enthusiastic; presentations were informative and invigorating; and I left excited to get to work.

It’s a smart idea to have a regional conference. While I loved going to SCBWI in New York, I’m not sure I could make the trip out every year. The New England version is a little more manageable. Also, the workshops I attended felt much more focused on a particular topic. I’m sure regional conferences allow a little more tailoring to what particular attendees want to work on, as opposed to a much larger conference. A few workshops I attended were about setting expectations for your writing career, creating magical worlds, and navigating book contracts. Again, really interesting and helpful stuff.

A few highlights/thoughts/fun moments from NESCBWI:

  • In her keynote speech, Sara Zarr (one of my favorite YA authors) talked about what characters care about. So often we’re asked “What does your character want?” but Sara mentioned that sometimes what you want can just be a symbol for what you care about. I hate the “what does X want?” question; the “what does X care about” makes so much more sense to me. (She also related the writing life to Frog and Toad stories. Loved it!)
  • Also from Sara Zarr: “Let your writing actions speak to your commitment.”
  • Cynthia Lord mentioned there are peaks and valleys in a writing career; it’s not always an upward trajectory. She suggested thinking of the successes and rewards as “gifts” from readers. If someone write a good review about you or wants to give you an award, it’s a gift. Gifts can’t be expected, and as a result there’s way less pressure on you to hit those peaks.
  • Kate Messner shared her TED talk with us (so cool!) and reminded us that sometimes fear lets us know we’re exceeding the artificial limitations we set for ourselves.
  • A behind-the-scenes look at New Yorker covers and comics from Harry Bliss. His keynote made me wish I could illustrate.
  • When creating magical worlds, ask yourself questions like “How would geography affect class structure?” and “What kind of medicine or drugs do they have?” Cinda Williams Chima gave such a great workshop; I felt with major fantasy invigoration.
  • The Apocalypsies/Class of 2012 debut novelists are awesome people. It was great to hear about how weird the first novel experience can be. Special thanks to AC Gaughen and Diana Renn for chatting with me afterward.
  • On a more personal note, I was invited to join a fabulous YA/MG critique group. So excited to start workshopping with such wonderful writers!

If you want even more on NESCBWI, make sure to check out these posts by other attendees/presenters. And if you attended, please share your thoughts/links to blog posts about your NESCBWI experience in the comments.

 

Writer as Curator of Life: E.B White and Writerly Responsibility

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I love this article about E.B. White and the responsibility of an author. A quote from White:

“The writer’s role is what it has always been: he is a custodian, a secretary. Science and technology have perhaps deepened his responsibility but not changed it. In ‘The Ring of Time,’ I wrote: ‘As a writing man, or secretary, I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly or unworldly enchantment, as though I might be held personally responsible if even a small one were to be lost. But it is not easy to communicate anything of this nature.’

A writer must reflect and interpret his society, his world; he must also provide inspiration and guidance and challenge. Much writing today strikes me as deprecating, destructive, and angry. There are good reasons for anger, and I have nothing against anger. But I think some writers have lost their sense of proportion, their sense of humor, and their sense of appreciation. I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they happen to strike me. One role of the writer today is to sound the alarm. The environment is disintegrating, the hour is late, and not much is being done. Instead of carting rocks from the moon, we should be carting the feces out of Lake Erie.”

I think this is particular interesting when paired with E.B. White as a writer of early middle grade novels. I wish I could remember who said this, but within the last year or so I came across a blog post about how middle grade novels are often so full of heart and hope. It sounds like White’s views reflect that. And it’s part of why I like writing for teens–even if there’s a fair amount of anger in a YA novel, it’s not without hope. (Trying to think of a YA novel that doesn’t end with total despair, even if things aren’t perfect or even resolved.)

And I like that White balances out with the idea of “sounding the alarm.” Writing isn’t just meant to convey happy thoughts. We need to be aware of the bad stuff in the world, while also recognizing the good.

Writers Helping Writers

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Love this post by Meg Whalen Turner about how Diana Wynne Jones helped get her published. When Meg was still writing and trying to figure out if she was any good (nice to know she had those thoughts, too!), her husband suggested she send her work to someone whose writing she admired. Diana Wynne Jones came to mind:

“So two of the stories were mailed out and we got distracted by the arrival of a new family member and then one day a blue airmail envelope arrived at the door. It was a lovely letter. It is almost twenty years later and in my mind’s eye, I can still picture the font from an old-school typewriter. Diana liked my stories. That was all that mattered to me and that’s really all I took in the first time I read it. Not until my husband read the whole thing out loud did I realize that Diana Wynne Jones had given me the name of her editor in the United States, Susan Hirschman at Greenwillow Books, and recommended I send my stories to her.”

So I’m sure Meg’s stories were very good and worthy of being passed along. But even so, I think it’s highly unusual and admirable for an established writer to help make that connection for an unpublished stranger. It shows that Diana Wynne Jones really cared about the next generation of MG/YA writers and wanted to open a door for someone with a lot of talent. This story just warmed my heart!

Read the whole post for more on this interaction and how much Diana Wynne Jones meant to Meg Whalen Turner.

Reading with Open Eyes

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As part of TLT’s Why YA series, author John Corey Whaley talks about why what YA fiction means to him. One of my favorite parts:

“But one thing we all have is the memory of being a teenager.  We remember how it felt, how awesome it was sometimes and how much it sucked other times.  We remember discovering things for ourselves and making mistakes we knew better than to make in the first place.  We all share so few things, but being a teenager and knowing what it means to be one is a damn important one…They’re just waiting to grow up and become more bruised and cynical by the ways of the world.  I write YA because teenagers read with open eyes and, you know what? Maybe more adults should do the same.”

High five, John Corey Whaley. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I think YA could easily be classified as coming-of-age novels. So many great works of literature–To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Piece, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, etc.–are about first encounters with the larger, complicated world and having to come to terms with oneself. As a teen, so much is new and imbued with importance. Why wouldn’t someone one to write about those experiences?

Poetry as Play for Young Readers

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From PBS Parents, US Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis shares his thoughts on why poetry is important for young readers and how you can share the power of poetry. He says:

“The rhythm and rhymes can help children develop a love a language—and a love of reading. Once kids begin flexing their writing muscles, poetry can spark their creativity and let their imaginations soar!

You can read newspapers and magazines all you want, but nowhere else are you going to find words taken to such beautiful and sometimes absurd extremes as in poetry.”

Although I’m always a supporter of prose, I like the idea that poetry lets kids explore sounds and play with language. Because of the short form and having to take such care with each word, I think picture books are pretty close to poetry already. Expanding into poetry shouldn’t be that much of a leap for kids.

Click through to check out suggestions for reading and more PBS Parents resources related to poetry (like Martha Speaks: Martha’s Rhyme Time game).

(image: State Library of Queensland, Australia)

Who You Are and How You Got Here

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I find two things deceptively hard to write: thank you notes and author bios. The bio should be easy, right? You know who you are and what your accomplishments are. It’s only a few sentences. But striking the right tone while still getting across the necessary information is a challenge.

Recently I stumbled across Jami Gold’s post about author bios and getting the right tone. She shares a lot of helpful/fun links on the topic, and her hilarious post makes me feel a lot less stressed about the whole process. Still, Jami has some suggestions for the basics:

If we look at author bios from a reader’s perspective, the “what to include” recipe is:

  • Start with an indication of type of writer (genre, tone, etc.)
  • Stir in something to sound relatable (habits, where live, pets, family, etc.)
  • Sprinkle with contact information for blog, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. (this also helps with being relatable)
  • Add humor and/or voice
  • Prepare in a way to show we can tell a story

Additional things we can include when applicable:

  • If we’re agented, mention our agent information.
  • If we’re debuting, mention our book and release date.
  • If we’re multi-published, mention some of our books.

My bio on this site is pretty generic, so I might use these suggestions to craft a more fun version and add that to the bio page. I also have a reading coming up in a few weeks–more on that later!–and need to come up with a version for the reading organizers to use. I’ll share my results on the blog.

Anyone else have good author bio tips or examples?

Young Writers and Novels That Will Never See the Light of Day

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The New York Times seems determined to goad children’s/YA writers. Last week it was whether or not adults should read YA. This week it’s about young writers whose parents pay to get their books published. It brings up questions of self-publication and, when these publications cost several thousand dollars, what it means for these kids who want to be writers.

YA author Maureen Johnson has a very thoughtful response to this article, and I very much agree with her comments. She talks about how fantastic it is that kids are writing, but has issues with the idea of publication at that age. In very short:

“I have no problem with the writing part. I am for the writing part. I also like the idea that the kids are reading their stories out and sharing them. I like all of that! What I object to is this commodification of the process that gets you the label published. And this is a label we are all trying to sort out now, because published is a word that sort of gives you the laurel wreath, isn’t it? It used to mean that someone read your work, judged it worthy, worked on it, and printed it at great expense. It meant that there was the high possibility of rejection, and perseverance.”

I was the kind of kid who wrote a lot, too. Between middle and high school, I finished four “novels,” and worked on two others, and wrote a bunch of short stories. They were awful. I’m sure they were perfectly fine for a middle/high schooler, but they were nowhere near publishable. Of course, whenever I was busy at work I imagined getting my stories published and being super famous. I would be a teenage author like S.E. Hinton! It was just a matter of time! Now I am so glad that no one saw these early so-called novels. If I haven’t tossed them yet, they certainly won’t see the light of day any time soon. I can’t even imagine that early work following me around now. And I still gained so much from the act of writing, even if nothing actually came of these stories.

If parents want to encourage their kids as young writers, that’s great. Get them a ton of notebooks and pens; get them word-processing software; subscribe them to journals like Cicada and take them to the library so they can devour books. Ask them about their work or get them to apply to a young writers workshop. At this age, it’s enough just to be writing. There’s joy in the writing. Why do kids need to be published right now to feel any satisfaction from writing?

Even Laurie Halse Anderson Needs Persistence

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You know Laurie Halse Anderson, author of highly-acclaimed YA novel, Speak, as well as other equally moving and successful books? Apparently her historical novel, Fever 1793, didn’t have an easy road to publication even with all of her authorial success. On her Tumblr, Anderson says:

“The research and writing took seven years. Thirteen publishers rejected it…I lost track of the number of revisions. 14? 112? Whatever, it took a long time and needed a lot of work. This book was my apprentice piece.”

I think Anderson is an amazing writer, so it’s shocking to see that she would have had to work so hard and face so much rejection with Fever 1793. Fortunately, she kept at it:

“It has sold more than one million copies in the United States, won all kinds of shiny awards, is a standard part of elementary and middle school curriculum, and has been translated into Catalan, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish.”

Lesson learned? Persistence pays off, and even amazing, super successful writers face challenges. Keep going, writers!