Fragments

Three yays!

2012-01-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

THE FIRST YAY!
So, mine has started with a leap and a skip,remember the haiku picture book I've been working on? Well I sent it off to Schuyler Hooke @ Random House (wonderful guy) last Friday -- yes, that's the first YAY! It's the culmination of a few years work on and off. Including lots of nature shots to try and figure out the species playing in my garden!

This is a California slender salamander I rescued it from the pool.

Each haiku took a long time,getting the syllables to say exactly the right thing, suggest the right tone, create the right mood, then there were rewrites etc. even sketches to see how all the creatures related to each other, and of course lots of time spent poking around the garden!

So, it feels wonderful to have sent it away - the best package I could do, and whatever happens to it I'm pretty proud of it. It feels like it's become it's own thing and I've sent it off into the world. Who knows what will happen now? I'll keep you posted!

THE SECOND YAY?

My friend Veronica Rossi's book came out and she had a book launch party at Rackstraw Books, Danville. It was fab! So packed with people - and what people, Eric Elfman, Lia Keyes, Ellen Hopkins, the YA Muses of course! and so many others there was barely room inside. Gorgeous excited wonderful event - and her book UNDER THE NEVER SKIES is racing up the charts and being made into a movie as we speak! See dreams do come true - you just have to work your butt off first!

THE THIRD YAY!
I'm off to see Laura Marling with my mate Karen and she's playing second fiddle to Andrew Bird, (Laura not Karen!) - know him? I didn't either BUT when we got the tickets they gave us some free music and it's fab - u - lous!! So new music yay! Here's a snippet - and with that I bid you adieu - got some serious revising to do on my Tahoe novel...

A Monster of a Writer - Newbery Ponders

2011-12-14T11:04:00.000-08:00

WARNING CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS BUT REALLY ONLY FROM THE FIRST PAGE

So back again and for my wonderful Adults Read Kids Books club - I am rereading A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. We read the cream of the crop, all possible Newbery Award contenders. I've read a lot of comments about it recently from bloggers I really respect like Jonathan Hunt's, Heavy Medal and Fuse 8 , written by Betsy Bird.

To be honest I expected to like it because I love Patrick Ness's CHAOS WALKING trilogy, The Knife of Never Letting Go, (first book I've ever thrown across the room in a fit at the cliff hanger ending!) The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men. I also had the amazing good luck to meet his US editor - Kaylan Adair at Candlewick - what a gem! It is one of my life's ambitions for her to be my editor - I'm working on it Kaylan - seriously!

When I first read A Monster Calls, I found it almost unbearable in its portrayal of grief, how it clutched at you as you tried to come to terms with something that may or may not be inevitable. My good friend Grace - whom I wrote about earlier in the year, was suffering through chemo in her fight against never ending leukemia as I read this. She died this July. I was pretty raw emotionally.

Connor, the hero of the story is coming to terms with his mother dying. In a word it's bleak. But it is also so tightly written, so magical, so filled with a fabular, surreal dream like quality, that even though I found it gut wrenching, I also loved it.

As I said at the beginning, I'm rereading it and I am stunned by the writing, really.
It's so tightly constructed from the very first sentence...

'The Monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.'

...you know what you're up against. Yet, at the same time there's that tone of weary resignation - 'as they do', don't they always, seen it all before.

In that first short page (only 17 lines) we find out that his dad is unreliable and living somewhere else, Connor wouldn't ever tell his grandma, or his mum, 'obviously' implying the nightmare has something to do with her, or at least is closely connected to her. He feels no support from school and the end sentence, on the first page:

'Absolutely not.' implies he's a) a loner, b) resolute and c) these feelings are nothing new - okay that's my jump - but there's no exclamation mark so it's very level headed, a deliberately strong statement set out on its own like that.

It is a master class of show don't tell. What seem like tiny details, single word choices, lay out the whole story. Darkness, wind, screaming, building up the dramatic tension.

The hook is on line seven - it pulls you through, right to the very end. And even though you know it was sort of inevitable, it is still a shock - which totally mirrors Connor's journey.

No more spoilers - but that's all from the first page. It makes me want to do a Master class on Patrick Ness's writing!

My copy is a Walker Books UK version, according to a comment in response to Johnathan Hunt's blog post, the US dust jacket it's described as:

“An unflinching, darkly funny, and deeply moving story of a boy, his seriously ill mother, and an unexpected monstrous visitor.”

I'd go along with unflinching, and deeply moving, but I wouldn't call it darkly funny.

My UK version simply has quotes for other authors I admire, who's views on this book I completely agree with.

"Exceptional...This is storytelling as it should be - harrowing, lyrical and transcendent." Meg Rosoff

"Compelling...powerful and impressive." Philip Pullman

There have of course been mixed views on this book, and I wonder if it may appeal more to writers because of its impeccable crafting. In the same way a painter will appreciate more, the fine brush strokes, application and composition of a fine art painting.

For me this book is an instant classic, Like Meg Rosoff's, How We Live Now, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, or Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games, works of art which as I writer, I find so inspiring.

Barbados and rain

2011-11-29T14:58:00.000-08:00

A dreamy video - I rediscovered The Real Tuesday Weld today whilst looking for musical Xmas gifts for far flung family members - love this and this...

Which despite being about rain is to me pretty Christmassy!

And here's a gorgeous room with a view..

Despite what you might think from this picture, I experienced pouring rain in Barbados last week - luckily only for an afternoon amazing torrents though turned the Holetown roads into rivers! So as there are no sidewalks anyway we traveled back to Paynes Bay and our hotel by Rasta Bus.

BTW a Rasta bus is bright yellow costs $2 Bajan dollars to anywhere and plays loud reggae music and is normally crammed.

We were only there for four full days, enough time, to get lost on North Bay, see a green monkey, swim with the turtles, eat flying fish and enjoy the warm Caribbean ocean!

I also became addicted to Sudoku and rum punch. Now back to life back to reality...
which is haiku with a novel coming up!

Book talk ----

In case you've been following the Newbery chatter, my bets are on: Amelia Lost , A Monster Calls and, Bluefish as a long but deserving shot. Read them go on I dare ya! Then tell me what you think. For a real up to date knowledgeable Newbery insider blog I recommend you visit here...HeavyMedal a Newbery Book blog from the School Library Journal.

Tahoe & Haiku

2011-11-15T15:47:00.000-08:00

So, yes, two posts in a month, I must be feeling creative. Do you remember way back on Nov 1st when I said I was doing the NANOWRIMO? Well...it's stopped. I realized unlike many fabulous writers I am unable to write several genres at the same time. It's all or nothing and right now I am completely submerged in DAWN IN THE HIDDEN GARDEN (new title!).

I spent the whole weekend writing in Tahoe, with some fabulous writers, Anne Reilly, Lynn Hazen , Ellen Yeomans , and Connie Goldsmith , as guests of the lovely (and multi-talented - you should taste her cocktails!) Pam Turner. A blissful weekend given over to writing walking and critiquing, meeting new people and exchanging ideas.

I feel totally renewed and invigorated. Those amazing peeps were able to push me to new heights, which is what good critiquing is all about!

Now every time I try to think of something else, little poems sneak up on me, or I find myself looking very carefully at nature. Even walking or running I'll see something and think ah ha! Like this morning while running I saw a squirrel which darted up the tree running in spirals and I thought - ha- it skitters not scrabbles, and I'm running around the sports park making up the haiku in my head counting off the syllables with my fingers looking remarkably similar to a first grader doing math!

Later today while trying to fix an elusive worm haiku, I did some garden chores, I know yawn, yawn. I unfolded this piece of blue plastic that we use when we spray paint things - mostly silver, you know usual stuff - but then as it came undone a HUGE lizard darted out, freaking me and Mimi - me because no one expects a 12 inch lizard to be hiding in a tarp, Mimi because it was an animal running at her! It was seriously gorgeous and easily eluded Mimi's feeble huntress efforts as it darted for the rosemary bush.

So, of course there will be a lizard haiku now! The only worry I have about all this rhyme obsession is how much I enjoy it and how the YA I'm working on is disappearing into the background of my mind like a mist covered shadow.

What am I reading? 1Q84, Fracture, The Scorpio Races , Why we Broke Up and Across the Universe . I just finished Blue Fish with Luka - AM- AZ - ING!!!! So sparse and true,
to me a definite Newbery contender up there with A Monster Calls.

And that is all!

Later gator!

Linger on...NANOWRMO and Hugo

2011-11-01T16:34:00.000-07:00

So, I did it!! WOOT! WOOT! draft number 2 of Lottie, now called 'Green Skies,' that's my favourite title so far. It is still a mess, but it's my 278 page 78k word mess and it's coming together.

So that shoved away it's NOV 1st - NANOWRMO - or Write a Novel in a Month, month. I've just started mine and realize I'm going to be listening to a heap of Velvet Underground and Lou Reed while I write it. Another YA of course, and that's all I'm prepared to say.

I'm only writing it for one or two hours a day the rest of my work time is for my haiku pb which has just got some great constructive criticism from Schuyler Hooke - senior editor at Random house - who apart from having great taste, of course, is the smartest, funniest, sweetest guy you'll ever meet!

So few posts this month, I'll just pop in every now and then and share progress, music and random thoughts!

Oh, and I did have the amazing good fortune to run into Veronica Rossi, (and grab an arc of her new YA Under the Never Sky), Katherine Longshore and Thalia Vance - who are 3/5 of YA MUSES!

We were all at The NCIBA trade show in Oakland, where I also got to listen to the multi-talented Brain Selznick and see his amazing art!

AND... a sneak preview of his forthcoming movie - okay it's actually directed by Martin Scorsese, but based on Brian's book, THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET! I'm definitely taking Luka to see this!

NaNoWrMo & Moneyball

2011-10-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

Seaside Breaks

I have been spending a lot of time at Half Moon Bay recently, there's something about watching the ocean that's strangely calming, accentuated by Luka and his friends frantic actions, digging, running around the shore and jumping into the ocean even if it is minus shouldn't-be-alive-degrees.

Watching kids be kids with no clean up involved is heaven, especially with good company! The first time, my friend, Jenni, took us to this totally cool restaurant at a mini airport. This Sunday another friend told me about the sand dollars she finds here and there they were right at our feet! Amazing.

They always look to me like someone came along and wistfully sketched in the markings.

In-between weekend beach dates I've been writing hard. It's all coming together, yay! In fact I'm so motivated that I am actually going to write a new novel in November, while this draft of Black Out, breathes in a draw somewhere. 'Course that's as long as I get this draft finished by Oct 31st.

Who's with me?Lia Keyes for one, she has a brilliant website: www.liakeyes.com with loads of useful writer tips plus links to Plot Whisperer and Story Fix Nail your NaNoWrMo! and.... no really you have to go check out Lia's site!

MONEYBALL

Last summer Luka and I decided to tick 'make a movie with Brad Pitt' off our bucket list and were extra's in MONEYBALL! Yes, seriously, see if you can spot us in the blurred crowd! (I'm wearing a red jacket, Luka has violently blond hair!) It was super fun and we did get to see Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and their kids, as well as Philip Seymor Hoffman, Johna Hill and Robin Wright. We went to see it of course, didn't spot ourselves as we got too involved watching the movie!

OCTOBER????

2011-09-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it isn't quite - but it's so close! How did autumn sneak up like that?

If you want a spooky YA read try my friend Gretchen McNeil's debut - POSSESS, seriously fun read and very atmospheric, located in SF foggy Sunset district and oozing with demon's Catholicism and general exorcist mayhem with a great kick-ass girl protagonist.

I finally got to meet Gretchen at Books Inc. Van Ness, SF last week - what a treat especially with the bonus of meeting a bunch of other very cool writers too.

One of whom has a debut book coming out next year having got her agent and editor through the SCBWI Mills conference last year! Yes, I invited that agent and editor so pleased it worked out for them all. So there wonderful things can and do happen!

So congrats Tamara Ireland Stone - (isn't that a wonderful name?) can't wait to read your debut YA, TIME BETWEEN US.

And me what have I been doing since I declared my amazing progress? I had a whim, that took over three days of thoughts and actions and twirled itself around and became something real - dream to reality in three days!! Nothing to do with writing except it will be amazing - more later - yes I am a tease.

So, writing, a non starter of a week, but tomorrow = vast amounts of re-energized progress I seriously promise you!

Dawn Chorus

2011-09-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

What is it about bird song that shoots such joy through your heart? This English one even makes me feel homesick!!

I am busy researching the Contents content for my Haiku Picture Book - Dawn to Dusk in the Forgotten Garden. It's so much fun to get back to poetry and nature again it feels like I'm on a writing vacation - in the bus man's holiday sense.

I guess it's because my WIP Young Adult book is getting into the gnarly stage both in terms of twisting the plot into a coherent story and because of the angst level the main protagonist is facing.

I took some time out yesterday and visited Towne Center Books with my friend Anne, for an author coffee event with crime writer Catriona McPherson , promoting her new book DANDY GILVER AND THE PROPER TREATMENT OF BLOOD STAINS.

Yes, she is Scottish, a recent implant to California. She was a hoot, really fun to hang out with, great writer, full of very funny tales. And it totally took me out of my week of writing angst. There's that word again!

One thing she said really took root in my mind - what is it you like to do?

Which made me think of my first ten pages struggle and how much I did not like sharing the first ten pages of an unfinished novel whose direction I was unsure of, whose themes were only partially baked. And how much I did love writing poetry, so I had my aha moment - why not send off my unsold but completed haiku picture book instead.

Oh, the relief! Now at least I'll find out why it's not selling, maybe how to fix it and if I'm totally lucky a miracle will happen and an editor will actually buy it.

The first ten pages are for a professional critique at this event - SCBWI Fall Conference @ Mills College, Oakland, CA.

It will be wonderful - I know because I hired the speakers! Two editors, two agents, two awesome writers = one fabulous day! There are still a smattering of tickets left, but you'd better run! Tickets and more info here.

A touch obsessed

2011-08-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

My fellow inkies book comes out TODAY!!! I got a sneak preview and it's wonderful, lyrical, beautifully crafted, skillful world building and inventive characters and can't get the image of the black flower stain out of my head! Seriously you should read it - if you want to know more I interviewed Lena Coakley the author and it's up on today's Enchanted Inkpot - so go check it out!

I realized I have become a little obsessed by travel lately taking every small writing break to search the internet for good deals to Miami, Boston, D.C., Rome and London - pretty eclectic mix! I wonder while we're end up because we're gong somewhere soon i can feel it in my fingertips.

So, school has started and so has a new phase - for me and Luka both - & so far it's brilliant. His first lesson is at 7:30 and he gets himself there, so a quick run then a full days work for me, I can literately feel my inner writer unfurling. Making great headway with this first rewrite, not feeling too hassled to hurry either as my agent has just gone on maternity leave!

I found this very cool short story by Neil Gaiman - click here - which made me want to write a flood of short stories that are exactly 247 words long. Fortunately there's a site for that! 247 Tales which run competitions and everything!

And while I was searching for those links for you I found this...Cat Clarkes Top Ten Books Of Teens Behaving Badly!

Come on who's your favorite badly behaved teen character? I'd have to agree Frankie Laudau-Banks, from the Disreputable History of Frankie Laudau-Banks, by E Lockhart pretty much rocks, but the kids in Ashes take some beating!

Still I think the UK version of 'Skins' is the best teen TV show to look for inspiration when you need some stung out teens against a good music backdrop and the 'Inbetweeners' for just regular goof ball, bored in suburbia teens.

And for realistic younger kids there's the fantastic 'Outnumbered' - simply classic!

Sunflowers

2011-08-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

What is it about Sunflowers that you can't help but smile when you see one - go on I dare you stand in front of a sunflower and DON"T smile!

So, way back in April after New Zealand (see previous blogs) I planted what looked like a very sad little garden BUT... it grew!! It has giant sunflowers pounds of courgettes (zucchinis) yummy golden spuds, yellow and green beans, tomatoes and aubergine (eggplant)!

See...
Yes, those are little lettuces - unfortunately I'm the only one who likes them!

These are the creatures of my garden...

Mimi the nutter who likes to tie herself up in knots getting her long lead stuck just about everywhere while I write at the patio table.

These creatures are much less demanding...

Now school is here and you know what that means, back to full time writing and high temperatures - today 100 degrees. I am working on my new regiment. No choc or wine during the week, running three times, gym twice and writing/revising like a fiend everyday! Today Tahoe & Katrina research, tomorrow goal setting and the first ten pages rewrite. Sleeves rolled up and I'm off!

White handkerchief

2011-08-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

Grace, Cameron and me, preparing our bras for the cause!

Sitting balanced on top of a worn out picnic basket, besides a black top that I never wear, that stubbornly insists it needs ironing anyway, rests a white handkerchief.

This time, two weeks ago, I was clutching it, mopping up stray tears. It was loaned in that timeless gentlemanly like fashion of passing to a woman who finds herself, despite her stoic Englishness, weeping, then laughing then weeping, in waves really and often both at the same time. You see this was "Grace Mina Navalta's memorial service, and Grace meant the world to me.

I think in retrospect this half year of piddling about writing and not and being so easily diverted with newspaper articles and research and anything really, but always being ready to call Grace and chat with Grace and laugh at Grace was because she needed me and I needed her.

She always had a funny story that she just had to tell me, and even at the end when the calls and visits were more philosophical meaning of life, family and what if and can I share this with you type conversations, where I'd listen and try to help negotiate the way through life when we're handed some very tough cards to deal with, I'd look forward to those calls.

I was not ready for the last call.

My last call to Grace was a voice message that said something like..."Hey, Grace I know my last call was bonkers, feel free to ignore it, hope you're feeling okay. I know this is all horrid but chin up and all that crap."

She would have laughed. But instead her sister called me back on Grace's phone half an hour later to tell me Grace was in hospital with her family around her, and to expect the worse soon. No, I was not expecting a call like that.

Is it a coincidence that the keyring, green with little gold flowers, that Grace insisted on me taking fell off my key chain that day?

When I went to visit her grave, a week later, I made a crack about inadvertently flashing Grace in my low riding jeans as Cameron and I tidied up her grave, propping up vases that had fallen over, weeding out the dead flowers adding fresh ones. Once I got home I realized I had a little flat object in my back pocket and there it was again, the same keyring along for the ride. Coincidence or not Grace would have found it funny and thinking about her made me smile.

The day she died all I could write was this:

It comes in waves
leaving me breathless
I can't believe you've gone.

It still catches me like that sometimes, like when I drive past the cinema and see the last film we saw together - Midnight in Paris - is still playing.
Then I remember us saying - We'll Always Have Paris , and laughing.

I think it will always be hard like that, but in-between when I think of Grace, I think of things I want to share. I think of all the stories we have and all the good times and mostly I think of her laugh and wish I could still hear it.

My friend Cameron wrote this column in " Pleasanton Patch if you want to know what the remainder of The Literary Lushes did that day. Yes, Grace was a writer and a fine one too.

I am writing again and soon there will be more blogs about writing and photos of cats and flowers and skies.

But just for now, I want to thank Grace for being a part of my life, with all the pain and joy that brings.

The Awesomeness of New Zealand, Mike Jung and P.J. Hoover's Book Give Away Contest!

2011-05-30T18:01:00.001-07:00

Part One The Awesomeness of New Zealand

So, yes it's been a while since the last post but it is the same month -- not too shabby!

First, New Zealand was amazing and finally here are some pictures!

This is a Kaka - I really really wanted to see a Kakapo but sadly it was not to be - they are very hard to find as they are so endangered kind of like Kiwis, but we got lucky.

And here is a bad picture I took of a Kiwi being weighed to see if it was big enough to go with the other bigger kiwis, I apparently had a brain seizure and couldn't remember how to use my camera anymore.

This is my 'stereotypical' shot of NZ, sheep and iced mountains.

But my favourite photos are of the sea, like this one of Whale Bay...surfers paradise.

But best of all we got to see our lovely friends and their growing family and hang out and catch up and relax together. And as mentioned in the previous post get house and garden envy and be inspired towards a more creative life and dig up your tiny patch of a yard and plant veggies and flows and an apple tree in their honor.

I will add NZ photos gradually maybe in theme slots of 3, over the next few weeks.

PART 2 the awesomeness of Mike Jung aka Captain Stupendous

So Mike Jung spoke for me at SCBWI Beyond the Bay on Saturday in Walnut Creek and it was brilliant, great crowd great energy and loads of fun and to find out more go to his blog -- he even includes lots of really useful as in fabulous links to videos and other intriguing places.

Part Three - P. J. Hoovers awesome book give away

This is P.J.s new book Solstice and it's just almost coming out and if you go here to her blog like RIGHT NOW! you could win a whole heap of books not just her's but one of four gift packages loaded with books it is phenomenal!! Like an early b'day present but better! Yes, better than chocolate cake!
Seriously, go and check it out!

Digging & Brooding

2011-05-09T17:35:00.000-07:00

So, yes, I've been away - to the land of pies, fish and chips and Milo, sheep, kiwis and kakas - and it was amazing!

Pictures soon I promise!

Meanwhile we stayed with our friends Heather & Lee and their kids, Jack, Lily & Luke for a while and they live on in a gorgeous converted barn in the middle of a giant plot of land with veggie patches, mini vineyards, wandering guinea fowl and chickens. Pots of lavender and geraniums and it made me think surely we can dig up a tiny bit of land and plant a tree?

Gourmet apple tree - 4 in 1!

So the day after we came back Luka and I went to Alden Lane Nursery to choose an apple tree, Luka decided on a 4 in 1 gourmet apple tree and I set to work! Margaret lent me her rioter tiller and I started digging. It felt so good to do something that was physical and that gave immediate results- the opposite to writing a novel really, writing is so mental (in all ways) demanding lots of brooding, deep thinking, trust, faith and patience - such patience!!

This little patch of brown is going to be awash with green!

After a week little shoots are poking their way out of the ground - the purple ones are my favorites. Who knew Beets would have purple shoots? The sunflowers are exploding from their seeds and a lone courgette is reaching for the sky.

It is immensely satisfying to have something that grows before your eyes.

Meanwhile the novel...oh yes the novel, the thing is I got back to it felt stymied and knew the beginning plot just didn't make sense so I've been brooding on it while digging and coming up with ideas and solutions then before I knew it I was thinking about the novel nearly all the time and have rewritten vast chunks and it is so much better, the plot tighter and the characters are going 'no not like that he wouldn't do that he'd do this and no I am not a minor player you will meet me later and I will prove pivotal!' I love it when characters lead the way.

So raring to go sleeves rolled up and silence in the house then the phone call.
Luka is having trouble breathing - poor lamb, allergies, asthma and a cold no relief so he's been off since Thursday so Friday became --- drum roll----Creative Friday!!

And how long have I been saying I'd do this? Since January. I did paint the Freecycle chairs but now it's really taken off: rosemary & lavender wreaths, dried lavender bunches, new plantings in the previously dead zone, vases of roses and lavender, and Meyer Marmalade - yes I had a Martha moment. It was exhausting but fun!

My partner said it reminded him of the gardens in the Wickerman movie - I was thrilled by that - Yay for pagan sixties pageantry and mayhem! This year is looking up.

surf shacks & parcel tax

2011-03-29T18:09:00.000-07:00

Spring is here but my mood's all dark cloud!

That's been my week.
Trying hard to book surf shacks and cabins and B&B's and calling sick friends, and booking flights and interviewing people about parcel tax and why nobody can be bothered to volunteer anymore and what if there's an earthquake here, and isn't it so awful what happened in Japan and to the Japanese, - yes absolutely, and why am I writing a book where that kind of thing happens, because it's horrific when it's real.

And come up for air - before - I HAVEN'T DONE ANY WRITING THIS WEEK!!!

Really not much better than last week or the week before - will Beyond the Bay (SCBWI event in Walnut Creek) be okay? I'm on my own. OMG there's going to be a ton of people and I'm on my own - which of course I wasn't because in the end have you noticed? people always step up to help and they're the best!

And it was wonderful, Deborah Underwood - How to Write a Picture Book in less than 600 words, with a great audience. It's no fluke that she's on the NY Times Best Seller list.

So now the article is in and out - emailed to the editor posted online (see here).
And I'm picking up my week again.

Carol reminded me today it's goals time, and I really, really, really, need to just stick to this one simple thing...write everyday. My writing has to come first. So really in my case that means JUST SAY NO. Gasp. And I intend to start right away.
God, that sounded lame - did that sound lame to you???

I didn't reach my goal, nowhere near. Finish this wreck in time for the Inksters to read by Easter - was I out of my mind?

Did you ever feel like you should just jack in a book you'd already spent a year on?
Okay, gathering my wits and off I go....*dust storm*.

Voice quest

2011-03-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

So this was Asilomar - magic, where I attended a SCBWI writing conference, met lots of new friends and drank with old ones and learnt loads of inspiring new things and heard awesome speakers like David Wiesner and Cynthia Lord and tried hard to imagine who Fred Farr was apart from obviously a hugely influential figure in children's literature - or at least Pacific Grove.

I came back full of determination to write and cocoon and write some more and lots of things happened that tripped me up, mini hurdles as life goes, but I managed to get through so now I'm on a roll except I am having voice angst. Yes I am losing my voice due to a nasty hesitant sneaky kind of cold but I'm also having difficulty finding Lottie's voice.

Meanwhile...on this quest for her voice other minor characters are rebelling and claiming much large parts for themselves than I'd originally planned for them so, even though this is not a rough and I feel like I should be more serious and not playing but absolutely sticking to some kind of rough outline, this story is having none of it. It does make for an interesting journey though!

Meanwhile...also on this voice quest I am reading loads of YA right now Will Grayson Will Grayson - such fabulous voices.
Before I Fall - so compelling - a non-stopper even at over 500 pages (ish!) and Turtle in Paradise - Middle Grade - a lesson in finely crafted story telling.

So daytimes are spent plugged in to my play list wrestling characters to the ground and evenings are spent curled up with a YA.

And there's my life on the horizon -- SCBWI Beyond the Bay this weekend with Deborah Underwood , Wondercon in San Francisco April 1st-3rd, Spring Break, and quite possibly
NEW ZEALAND - YEAH!!!

Amost cocooning

2011-02-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

This is Lotus Flower from King of Limbs - yes that is Thom Yorke dancing.

Okay, so I'm venturing into cocoon mode to get really into to the voice of my main character - Lottie - this involves not really going out much, drinking lots of red wine in the evenings while I work, taking notes, walking along muttering to myself as I go to pick up Luka from school and looking well quite frankly extremely uncoordinated, if not downright messy.

But the main thing that helps me is MUSIC and so.....drum roll....I am ecstatic to announce The King of Limbs Radiohead's new album just got released in time for my protagonist cocooning party - yes at times it is a party inside my head and sometimes, quite frankly, it's a haunted morgue and trust me, you don't want to go there!

So, yes I will be buying the album and listening to it over and over and over again along with Arcade Fire and Florence and the Machine - did I mention I have tickets for Flo?
TICKETS YAY!!

I am struggling with the beginning of my rewrite right now, I think it's too slow and then I think I want to ease you in and I've been reading a ton of YA lately that's set in the present tense which adds a certain urgency to the proceedings and you are pulled along whether you feel inclined to go or not, so maybe I'll try that style for a couple of chapters and see if it rings true for Lottie or not.

Fortunately I will have time to ponder this over the weekend as I'm off to lovely Asliomar for the annual SCBWI SF conference, I don't even mind that it may snow for the first time since 1976 at home in P'town while I'm away! I expect a rainy, friendly, ocean-side conference and to be inspired, renewed and to meet lots of new people and some old friends. Not to mention the party car I'm driving down in!

Hail and blossoms

2011-02-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

Sigur Ros - is the perfect sound track for a day of hail and soggy blossoms!

As listened to here by a lot of cold people in identical sweaters!

This weekend I ran up to Tahoe - wrote a lot of my WIP YA and made new friends - Jenni Holm and her delicious 3 yr old daughter, while staying with my good friend Pam Turner . It's a good job I didn't know that Jenni was an award winning children's author on the way up or I might have been overawed and tongue tied, instead we had a brilliant time on the four + hour journey - probably because she is totally cool, and her little girl rocks.

Much work was done, wine consumed, 30 Rock watched, and of course there was lots of great conversation!

Back to reality today figuring out the 'Third Day' and why it needs to start with a bang and not a mutter! It is so good to be in deep revisions, though I feel a cocoon mode coming on BUT next weekend I'm at SCBWI Asilomar so not much chance of shutting myself away there. I'm expecting a full on fun fest!

Some sad news about Borders if you haven't already heard - they're closing 200 stores including the one in my town - and while I fully support my local indie Towne Center Books and all indies they're is a place for Borders too. Meanwhile a Cost Price Books is opening across the freeway - great - good luck with getting staff picks there!
In case you want to know how indies are managing to survive check out my recent article in the Patch.

Finally sneak preview of SCBWI Beyond The Bay - March stars the fabulous Deborah Underwood . I predict a LOUD meeting! More details very soon!
Yay - I am so thrilled to finally snatch her!

February!

2011-02-06T18:01:00.001-08:00

Can't believe it already? and outside it's 78 degrees and so sunny - well was sunny now it's twilight, and we're watching the last quarter if the super bowl apparently it's very important that the Packers win. No don't tell me the score!!

I have a new fav show - and I really didn't expect it to be good but it's so funny, seriously it shouldn't be and if I explain it it will sound so bad so just check this clip out instead from An Idiot Abroad.

Okay if I tell you it's written and produced by Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant you know what to expect!

I had a horrid weeks writing it just evaporated into a twisted orb of anxiety over a title that really doesn't matter right now as it will probably change ten times anyway. I'm seriously feeling like I need to cocoon myself for a few weeks and really get down to it. I've lost the power of focus, concentration and motivation! I am officially a mush brain. But not tomorrow!! Tomorrow I will be tied to a table writing like a demon.

Listening to...Florence and the Machine,

and Arcade Fire

Just count yourself lucky you can't hear me howling along to it!!

An Indie bound week

2011-01-30T20:55:00.000-08:00

Bob Barner author illustrator, one of the lovely people I met this week.

I have been trying to write this week but it all went pear shaped - I mean for my personal writing - that thing I'm supposed to be doing the most, right?

So, first I had this idea for an article around Towne Center Books as it was celebrating its 13th birthday but then I thought why just TCB? Why not all the indie book stores in our area? I was pretty gutted to realize we only have four left in the area as Dublin and Livermore now have zero.

So, after some hurried calls on Monday, I spent Tuesday and Wednesday meeting the owners and managers of four indie book stores, Towne Center - I know not exactly hard to organize as I love Judy and see her all the time, but I also met Diane and Rich Van Tassell of Bay Books - man that's a long books store, Michael and his awesome staff at Rakestraw , and Genevieve and her staff at Read . I loved that all the stores were so unique - each with their own style and personality. So I can't say I'm sorry I spent the week on non-fiction.

I even ended up going to SF for dinner with Random House thanks to Judy and with my new friend Cheryl at Rakestraw that I'd met just the day before and about 20 top notch indie book sellers from the SF Bay area.

You know, booksellers are amazing people with so much passion and knowledge. It was like a brain massage just to be chatting with them. It was really cool to met John Stephens the author of Emerald Atlas - whose book Random House were promoting - he used to work on Gossip Girl and the O.C. I was expecting a pretentious git but he was actually really nice and genuine and funny and smart. I'm afraid I haven't read the book. it was so popular all the Advanced Readers Copies disappeared! it's out this April and all the ARC had done a runner but here's a trailer.

As if that wasn't enough excitement I went out to lunch on Friday with a slew of my fav peeps. I know, I know, it was creative Friday and I still haven't even touched the chairs that are supposed to be a gorgeous green right now. But I did have a lovely time with Kathy Shepler, Pamela Turner, Deborah Underwood, Anne Reilly, Ginger Wadsworth and Ying Compestine. Pam had booked 'Gather' wonderful company, wonderful food!
Yum, maybe Friday should be meet lovely people day.

Still tomorrow is Monday and I can get back to work, after I've sorted out my music to write to of course!

Priorities

2011-01-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

In December Drinking Horchata - Vampire Weekend I'm singing this a lot in my head these days, it being my happy 'up' Spring is coming song.

Listening to music while I write, sitting in the sun, preferably with my cat nearby, low table piled up with reference books, tea, or coffee easily within reach and complete silence everywhere in the house = happy writing.

But sometimes I find it's not so much procrastination as juggling priorities or struggling to figure out what they should be. Should I go into Luka's class tomorrow for an hour and help with writing or should I be following up contacts for an article I've promised for Sunday? It's a cool article on indie books stores in the Tri-Valley area and how they're staying afloat in this economic climate where even big box stores like Borders are flailing but it means at least four interviews and loads of photos.

Should I be pitching more articles to feed my book habit or concentrating solely on my fiction projects? Should I be doing an MA or writing my way to polished skills? Should I be writing my YA or my MG or researching Solar Max?

See how it quickly reaches that slightly manic tone? Top tips greatly received!!

I do feel good about Happening Fridays - so far I have acquired a worn set of wooden chairs and a mini table that are ripe for repainting and turning into something rather gorgeous to sit and watch the world go by from my front porch - you know for when I'm writing outside in Spring.

Something I am trying to prioritize is friends. I know I need to get back to three urgent emails from important friends ( I mean to me - Mat & Jeff!) which I've let slide. But I'm trying!

I did go out with Karen & Anne into the city last night - it's important to live a little too not to prioritize the fun out of your life!

And then I took it too far by coming home, drinking more red wine and watching Spartacus with Adam until the wee hours of the morning. Sleep - now that's my priority right now!

Friday happenings!

2011-01-16T17:37:00.001-08:00

One of the best presents I ever got was a camera on my 18th - not just a point and shoot but a real 35mm Olympus OM10. This camera and I traveled the world together grew up together, and recorded everything, Egypt, Prague, France, and the US until the tragic day when the curtain behind the lens started to ruck. *Sigh* I was pretty gutted but hopeful - hubby got me a new camera for my next birthday. Problem -- it was about 20 years later and didn't have the easy to use light meter of the OM10 -- it had about a trillion settings that I had no idea how to use. Solution? Get a digital SLR camera to practice on until I got back into the swing of taking manual photos.

Of course all that happened was I took some amazing and some not so, photos with my lovely Nikon but I've NEVER really got to grips with the whole manual side - I don't have time to read the manual. I don't have time to wander around taking different kinds of shots etc etc. Well now I'm making time.

And once I had this FRIDAY HAPPENING idea I realized I'd loved making impromptu wreaths from old grape vines this winter, and should make more designs.

And after really enjoying the creative process of making hand made Christmas cards I realized what I need in my life, apart from writing, in fact to feed my writing, was creative days off. So Fridays now are happening days, walks in the wild days, taking the camera apart and putting it back together days, poetry at dawn days.

Watch this space!

Dancing into the frost

2011-01-10T19:39:00.000-08:00

This is what I look like dancing - oops what I meant was this is what I was dancing to.

Hey, okay I'm a day late! That's because I spent all day yesterday buying an XBOX and then dancing. Dance Central is so silly and fun. The best is seeing how terrible you look dancing on the video camera half way through. Still, Luka and hubby are enjoying Joyrider and Halo and some sport thing and secretly dancing behind my back - seriously it's completely true I'll get footage for you.

Unfortunately it is not good for everyone - good for me because I get cold easily and it's a good warm up without taking me too far away from my writing desk - but Luka fainted - probably his blood sugar level and hubby got very sick and had to spend today in bed nursing his fever.
I got to spend my first day of researching driving back and forth between school and doctors. However I did manage to squeeze in time to carry on critiquing Pamela Turner's first fantasy YA - it is huge - brilliant but huge!

Newbery Winner 2011!

Well this week is all about the ALA awards no doubt you've heard the results, if not click on ALA up there.

Our adults read kids books group for the first time since I joined did not pick the same winner at our Mock Newbery as the real Newbery judges. There were so many amazing books published this year each different in style and genre it was incredibly hard to choose the most deserving actually it was incredibly hard to find the time to read them all!

Having seen our fearless leader Kathy Shepler lugging boxes and boxes of books and knowing that she read over 500 in her duties as a Newbery Award Judge I am in awe of her supreme reading, critiquing and analyzing powers!
Way to go Kathy!
I bet she's completely knackered and asleep after all the excitement of the weekend.

Here are some Kid reads that got under my skin - in a good way in 2010
Boneshaker - (Kate's one)
Dreamer
Keeper
Picture the Dead
Snooky
The Quiet Book
Countdown
The Ninth Ward

Here's to another year of wonderful reads!

MOG happy new year!!

2011-01-03T21:04:00.000-08:00

This is not MOG but Mimi making her new years resolution to try liking cat nip

So MOG was supposed to read OMG but I left it as it pretty much depicts everything that's been going wrong with my blogging prowess lately! Mog as in Mog the Cat! Great stories but hardly earth shattering news breaking mind boggling stuff...

What was I doing on New Year's Eve? Writing this... article

Can you spot me? Can you, can you? No? That's because I was taking the photo!

It's a New Year and the third day of that and three being my lucky and most favorite number I don't feel too bad in telling you I was thinking of quitting the blog.

I know, I know, three of you have fainted and the other has done a runner but seriously, does it change your life? Does it even add a smile? Had you pretty much given up on me ever coming back into this virtual room again????

Well here I am - in fact I ran in and gave a big twirl because I CAN'T wait to get this year started and blogging will take a back set to writing and inventing and creating but I promise to make a guest appearance at least once a week. Phew, now I have collapsed onto the big red squashy sofa with my legs flung sideways.

So best of 2010? Making new pals like Mike Yung and Denise Fournier, hanging out with old ones, like Mat Churchill, the lovely Catherine Davis, writing another YA, a pb and meeting so many amazing people like Amii-Joan Paquette and Joe Cepeda and Hawaii and San Antonio and Tahoe. Writing and people and travel.

The worst? I don't wanna go there.

So now what?? Write, write, write? Sure but also connect, wonder and wander, plant a beautiful garden and watch it bloom, explore new forms of creativity and keep it real - as in connect with real people have real conversations and read real books -loads or them!

Quentin's Fairy Encounters

2010-12-15T14:32:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, A WHOLE MONTH OF BLOGGING MISSED!
I apologize heartily but look I was in Hawaii!
Studying octopus plants!
And talking to emerald lizards!

And flying with dolphins.

And because of that I know have a brain squashed with new ideas which are just bulging out of my ears and I am truly excited about 2011!
No good news on Jake (The Dark Side of Serenity) yet or my Haiku Pb but I have not lost hope indeed I send them on my way with blessings to earn their keep cap in hand!
And now I am going to be writing up a storm on all sorts of new projects -even though they are unlikely to sell being rhymes and pb which means I'm flying solo sans agent.

But most importantly I am so excited about these new ideas especially Quentin's Fairy Encounters - it's like a blast of icy air rushing through my brain!
So that's it for now folks but I will be back much much much sooner than last time!!

2010-10-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

This is what I'm listening to and this is what I'm remembering! An awesome night out at the Greek. But in reality I am sitting - well lying on my couch, laptop on my lap Marmite on toast and a cup of Chamomile tea, 1000 words down another thou to go and it feels good!

LOST IN THE FOREST

2010-10-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

Small Gargoyle shot in Lord Byron's house Nottinghamshire England.

Writing, writing, writing...that's my excuse for why no blog in over a month!! OVER A MONTH! What have I been doing? Well... I've been writing and so lost in the forest it's really a journey I've been taking with my protag Lottie, running away from catastrophe, and trying to locate the rest of her family as the authorities try to relocate her!
I have so nearly finished I can see the ending and just need to draw a tiny but dramatic bridge to get there. A swinging bridge maybe. So, seriously one more week and I'm through, time to throw it in the drawer and walk away Renee, at least until I get back from Hawaii - yes HAWAII in Nov.

Also I've just finished helping to host the SCBWI MILLS event which was great! Wonderful speakers (Joe Cepeda, Bruce Hale,
Ginger Wadsworth, Pam S. Turner, Caryn Wiseman, Ammi-Joan Paquette, Lisa Yoskowitz, Kaylan Adair, and Tim Myers ) as in really prepared, had loads of interesting and relevant things to say and were super nice people! AND Mike Jung aka Captain Stupendious! my Facebook pal and cool writer and designer extraordinaire was there briefly so we finally met! You should defiantly read his blog it is so funny and apt and soon no doubt it will be adorned with pictures of his gorgeous 4 year old and her new baby sibling :-).
No news on THE DARK SIDE OF SERENITY yet or the DREAMING GARDEN - I go from fiercely hopeful to philosophical to morose. But mostly I'm so excited about my current project I've not been thinking on the finished orphans too much.

I have followed Lisa Yoskowitz advice and started reading Hold Still by Nina LaCour - and she's right it's amazing!!

Right back to the gargoyle costume - how do yo make a costume from paper mache, cardboard and paper bags??? I don't know. If we succeed I'll share the results with you!

99 pages

2010-09-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I've been beyond elusive lately! First hiding out at Green Gulch in Marin county then behind the shadow of the impending book club - 121 kids, 35+ parents, takes some organizing, but mostly I've been writing and reading. Yes, I am working hard.
45,000 words on my new YA, I've placed named it Lottie and it's going okay right now -- sometimes wonderfully, sometimes like walking through thick sewage. Mondays are always the worst. But I can always tell when it is evolving well, and breathing for itself, the first is when I no longer have to have complete silence and utter isolation, and the second is when the book has a play list. Yay, I now have a play list and it's so soothing to write to.

Laura Marling, Feist, The Shins, Bjork, Gorllaz , Radiohead, Bat for Lashes , yes, a little eclectic but spot the hidden themes and you'll get to the heart of the book -- the big theme. Winner gets a prize - seriously, I'll send you a cool book!

And here's an interesting way to see if you're going to like a book the page 99 test as reported in today's Guardian UK - I think writers should use this on their own work - I will once I get there, is this middle a muddly great mess of something wonderful and illuminating? As every page should aspire to be! The actual website isn't up until next month - so I'll repost it then too. The Page 99 Test .

I've been reading - Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford - splendid historical stuff, and very amusing - as recommended by Teresa and Mat, and Never Let Me Go - an amazing book by Kazuo Ishiguro. Soon to be what looks like a great film here's a trailer. I can't wait to see it!

Hatchling Tales

2010-09-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

This is where my new story is set..

I have a hatchling tale, at least that’s how I see it, a shy chick, just a few minutes out of its egg. Fluffy and fragile it could fall off the edge at any minute.

It’s actually a week and a half old and growing by 2000 words a day! Imagine, like an elephant or a blue whale except any moment I might chop off its tail or its nose.

Yes, it’s a Young Adult (YA) novel first draft. And they need to be gently enticed along with regular watering, (thinking) and feeding (writing goal of words per day no matter what) and lots of sun (belief that you can write) and you need to do it in a clean safe environment (a room of one’s own) and then maybe at the end of three months a little fluffy cute chick will emerge all yellow and singing of rainbows – or maybe it will be dull grey and squarky – but hey, you’ve read The ugly ducking right?

That first draft may look ugly but you’re going to help it grow into something beautiful, right?

Weirdly enough my friend Sandra just wrote on her Facebook today that she has a genuine dove chick that her boys found - she's trying to keep it alive with a heating pad, a tank and some tender loving care. I feel our destinies are entwined!

I am on target writing 2000 words a day, as recommended by Stephen King , so far I have 18,000 down - the goal is to have a crappy, i.e. vaguely readable (just by me) version of Glimmer by Xmas.
No words at weekends too hard with all the family activity, but I am going to try and write from Hawaii in the Fall. It's fun to be inventing again!

Once more a new year...

2010-08-18T11:34:00.001-07:00

Luka in Yosemite - those lazy days of summer are almost over!

I know it's not Jan but it is back to school and falling leaves and autumn dew - well almost and that means...silent house. Just the tick, tick of the clock the pad, pad, of cat paws softly up to mischief and the tap, tap, tap of finger tips on keyboards.
Yes, mine!!! September is back to work month and I am so excited because I'm starting a new YA!

Catch up on Dark Side of Serenity my dystopian YA (Little Brother meets The Trueman Show)- it's out there on many editors' desks. The rejections that have come in have been pretty stellar - as in, it's not quite right for us but v. close. Lots of useful and hopeful advice - some editors read it in one go, as it was that exciting! Another said it was the most truly dystopian YA s/he'd read. So, it's all good and I am HOPEFUL, seriously hopeful that it will sell this summer.

In the meantime I need to crack on and get back to it and while I was perusing the excellent Madwoman in the Forest blog I followed Laurie Halse Anderson's advice and wrote for 15 mins. There happened to be a black out at the time which helped tremendously! And after listing all the reasons I hadn't written much over summer I started writing an idea, well it kind of arose from within like a bubbling vapor.
And now I aim to have a rough draft of YA no.3 by Xmas.

So...I've been reading On Writing by Stephen King to get me back in the grove, and The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson because I think I'm the only person on the planet who hasn't yet and I've been watching lot's of Wallander , Factory Girl, Mad Men, Rubicon and tonight it's Dexter session 4!
Here's a season 5 teaser!

Maybe it's because I was immersing myself in Stevie K, but I found a website called I Write Like - you paste a bit of your writing and it matches your writing style to one of 40 well known authors. I write like Stephen King! Cool - I thought! If only I could sell as well as him.

And just in case you wondered about MONEYBALL the movie - yes we are extras! Watch out for me in a bright red jacket sitting next to Luka with fluffy blonde hair. The only ones with no Oakland As stuff on. The day was llllooonnnggg like waiting for a delayed plane long. But Brad was there and seemed actually very nice, v.focused while acting and chatty and sociable with his co-actors when not. At the end he waved to everyone, and Angelina walked onto the pitch with their kids - so sweet! And Jonah Hill came out and chatted to the extras. Jonah also seemed like a really nice guy with lots of time for his fans. So cool way to while a way a day.

Serendipity

2010-08-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back a friend of mine sent what I assumed was a joke post -- Be in A Movie With Brad Pitt !

She sent it with links and everything. Being cautious - (yes, I have been caught in that web) I copied the link and pasted it on Firefox and it took me to it too - a REAL SITE! I really could be in a movie with Brad Pit and Philip Seymour Hoffman , and some other guy called Jonah Hill who I think was in Get Him to the Greek with the lovely -Russell Brand - now if he was there, that would be awesome! (Am I seriously in the minority thinking Brand would be way more fun to hang with than Pitt?)

So tomorrow Luka and I are going to be extras in a movie shooting on location right here in Oakland.

Downside: we have to be there at 6:30 - 6:frigging 30!! Don't tell me any of the stars will shine that early!

Upside: we get to be in a movie, see all the backstage action, watch how a movie is shot - slow and laboriously I'm guessing, and we may possibly get paid walk on parts. I think that's about as likely as being run over on the way to BART - but hey anything's possible.

And the really cool thing is if I were paid as an extra and it led to more work I'd finally have a side occupation to fund my writing habit!

I can't tell you anything about the film except we have to dress warm. Luka's yellow padded jacket looks like a size six on him, but at 7pm this evening - when I'd given up all hope of dressing him decently - a UPS van screeched up and behold a vision in brown walked to our front door carefully holding the scared BODEN bag! Luka's padded jacket was here! So if you ever get a chance to watch MONEYBALL look for a boy with blond fuzzy hair in an emerald green padded jacket and his slightly taller mum in a geranium one. We should clash beautifully!

And all this actually has a point - when adventure comes your way, seize it, you never know where it may take you!

Drag me hooting & howling!

2010-07-22T15:21:00.000-07:00

I feel like this about blogging sometimes - I mean what have I got to say? I'm waiting, my life is in limbo??? (Summer of ms on sub!) Now I know you don't want breakfast details and walks around the park. So I wait. Greg Pincus seems to have had the same problem this week, except his silence was due to being very, very, busy!

One of these days I'm going to select the top word that comes out on spell check instead of the correct one - just to see how it flows!

But today I've been thinking about music and how important it is to my creative process. I'm listening to Hooting & Howling by the Wild Beasts and I Speak Because I Can by Laura Marling. I need some new music to transport my thoughts to an unknown foreign, delirious and darkly atmospheric place. There to find the words and images sitting on the bank or in the shadows of an alley way waiting for me to come sweep them up and transplant them into my writing hand.

Sometimes it seems like my hands write and not my brain. My thoughts are so excited that they actually wait ready, at the tips of my fingers, like swimmers taking their mark to dive on to the screen.

I've also been inspired down this musical path by the BBC show THE CHOIR led my this amazing guy Gareth Malone, who transforms ordinary English North London school kids into a choir, good enough to compete in China. It's really not about the choir so much as hopes and aspirations and the way these kids lives are transformed by something so simple. It is an incredibly moving show which pretty much shocked me, being stone of heart and all. You'll need tissues by the end!!

You'll get hooked and then you'll want to know what's on Gareth's ipod? Like I did and look, here it is - a wonderful mix of old and new! Gareth's Personal Playlist.

This coming weekend hosts some cool, cool, cool TV - the last DOCTOR WHO episode of what has proved to be a fabulous season, a brand new BEING HUMAN , and MAD MEN . Woot! WOOT!
And yes I know I'm a sad sap staying in and watching TV but with the new TRUE BLOOD dancing on the table courtesy of Netflix what else do you expect?

Talking of vampires and other dark matters I am having a full on Gothic moment. Right now it's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson and THE FALL by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan. I've seen the film of Hill House, but I had no idea how sublimely the book was written, talk about setting as character! And THE FALL has deliciously villainous vampires evil to the core, no teen hotties in this world and that's so refreshing.

And finally I had the good fortune to be listening to NPR when David Mitchell the writer was being interviewed, what and interesting guy. Totally made me want to read his newest book, A THOUSAND AUTUMNS... and all his old ones, like GHOST ATLAS.

And I'll fade out on Laura Marling because I love her!

War Horse

2010-07-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

A recently reclaimed friend of mine showed me a clip of War Horse --

To my shame I've only just discovered Micheal Morpurgo, I guess it's something to do with teaching younger children in the UK. Here, in the US, he's virtually unheard of.

I read this article in The Guardian UK today and it totally resonated in that I should change my life type of way.

Maybe because I too spent my childhood summers roaming free on my
Grandparents diary farm, and I am carrying the gloom of 'waiting' to break out in the published world. I too taught in the inner city and enjoyed the teaching way more than the politics and paper work that go with it.

Now I feel I'm on a cusp, either it was all totally worth it and part of the rich tapestry of becoming a writer or I've floundered about these last few years and need to reclaim some sort of worthwhile direction. Moving to the US was bold but what of the ten years since?

So here's my new years declaration: by December I will look back and know I did something worthwhile this year, I polished my craft, and became a better writer regardless of if I got published, I was bold and true to myself and enhanced the creative lives of children, either directly through my creative writing classes and the breakfast book club or indirectly through my writing.
Time to knuckle down!

PS Amy in London you have to go and see War Horse!!!

July 4th

2010-07-04T10:01:00.001-07:00

These fireworks look like exploding daisies.

Firework eruption over Alameda County Fair Pleasanton 2010.

Okay, so this being 4th of July morning these pictures were not tonight's! But they were from this years Alameda County Fair, and as I went round the fair scrapping my hot flip flops from one whizzing ride to the next I did think of a good friend whose family I always ran into here. This year there is a Moellering space in Pleasanton, for Amy Moellering and partial family (some chicks have flown the cope already) are starting their big adventure TODAY!! Yes, as I write they are landing - no wait - they landed while I slept as they are now 8 hrs ahead! They time traveled to London. And they began their year long adventure in Blighty. Happy fourth Amy! I expect to be the only person in England to say that today as the rest of England will be basking in glorious hot weather watching Wimbledon, drinking Pimms and pints in blissful ignorance of July 4th - a mere blip in the annals of British History of wars lost and won.

Big SHOUT out to my friend and fellow Enchanted Inkpotter - or Inkie
Gretchen McNeil on her BIG news - more when it is no longer top secret!!

I had some cracking rejections -as in very constructive and interesting and almost there including one editor who said it was the most truly dystopian novel they'd read. I think that's very cool, a rejection still though....still nothing ventured nothing gained, I await hopefully in the shadows.
My dream would be to be a 2012er with Gretchen and this is how I'd feel!

looking forward to rejections

2010-06-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

First a HUGE shout out to Heidi Kling and Cynthia Omolulu, for their fantastic presentation yesterday at SCBWI Beyond the Bay in Walnut Creek.

Nuggets:
-Don't worry if after you've got an agent your first book doesn't sell - just keep on writing and maybe your next or your next or your next will.
- Save half of your advance for marketing and travel - you'll need it to attend all the conferences, signings etc.
- The first thing an interested editor or agent will do is Google you, make sure there's something interesting for them to find. - Google yourself to keep an eye on what pops up on you!
- The internet is your friend from finding a network of supportive writers, to creating a buzz on your new book - get out there, read blogs comment on blogs Twitter and make sure you have a space, website or blog for people to find you.

Thank you to everyone who attended. You made my b'day really special - loved the singing too!

So, to rejections
My rapidly almost manically written picture book manuscript left the building - between May 26th and June 4th. I focused all my stressing out energy on writing 'In the Dreaming Garden,' and it became a wonderfully fun project. I was so immersed I'd think of it all the time, walking to pick Luka up from school trying to figure out the exact word for the perfect shade of green. Mumbling to myself no doubt!

And then the thrill of completion and researching the perfect publishing house and crafting the query letters for every perfect fit. And after not doing this for two years it was so exciting! Now, it is a picture book - hard sale - in Haiku - even harder. My agent didn't want to rep it - which is fine, as she's a YA wiz, I really would have been surprised if she had. So I hit the road running and am seriously looking forward to gathering the rejections - of course it would be amazing and fabulous if it sold, but the journey itself was a blast! So far One very nice rejection. I'll keep you posted!

Things I learned
no more auto rejections not even form letters, if they don't like it SILENCE is their message.
NO SASE (well almost none) if we don't like it we are too busy to filling a letter and send it out -- I don't blame them, remember they are inundated with slush, if you talk to most editors and agents the submission keep on increasing but unfortunately the quality isn't. This makes it even harder to be noticed even if your manuscript is fantastic - two words - slush fatigue!
Closed to non-agented I had the impression that most publishers were closed to non-agented writers these days, BUT happily I found a number of very well regarded houses willing to accept unsolicited manuscripts.

My agent has started sending out The Dark Side of
Serenity and YES I am super excited as I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book - actually I love the main character, Jake, and feel like I'm rooting for a real person here, like he's going to turn round and thank me when he gets his story told, seriously, I think he will. I'll get a sea glass bottle in mottled green full of moon rocks and I'll know that it's from him. Just the idea makes me smile.

Night has fallen, the cicadas are signing and my wine is calling - Amigos de las buenas noches!

Blissed out!

2010-06-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

After a few days in Tahoe thanks to my wonderful friend and fellow Inkster Pamela Turner, I feel totally blissed out!

It also helps that I've finished The Dark Side of Serenity, my brilliant agent, Tamar Rydzinski, is sending it out. And yes! I am super excited - but realistic after last times close calls, still one can but dream and wait with baited brief and jump in the phone every time it rings - okay I'm not really doing that.

Now I'm going to focus on enjoying the SCBWI Beyond the Bay event at Walnut Creek St.Paul's church hall, with Heidi & Cynthia, next Sat 26th - my b'day 2:00-4:00. If you like cupcakes come!! Details in post below.

And my planning my writing workshops, and tutoring and moddeling around this new idea that sprang at me while running the other day -yes another YA.

Plus, you never know I might hear back something positive on my picture book, which to be honest in the excitement of finishing a novel and being really happy with it I'd almost forgotten about!

This is how I feel right now - blissed out and peaceful like this sunset!

event with musical interlude

2010-06-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

JUNE 26th!!! Keep that date free. I'm hosting a SCBWI event in Walnut Creek. And you're all invited!! (Okay you do have to pay $10 SCBWI members $15 non members)
Two debut YA authors, Heidi Kling author of Sea and Cynthia Omololu author of Dirty Little Secrets will be sharing their writing journeys from idea to sale, editing, book release and marketing. There will be cupcakes - seriously I'm not just trying to lure you!

And now for the musical interlude

This is the Gorillaz, one of my favourite (sic) bands to listen to right now, actually I love watching them, they are so organic with their guest artists milling around.
For more on music authors write to check out The Enchanted Inkpot.

I so want to fly to Glastonbury and see Gorillaz headline on my birthday!!! But realistically I'd have to fly to England and earn mega bucks which I do not. Still one can dream.

This clip is from Friday's Jonathan Ross show - I adore Johnathan Ross, he's so funny and self mocking and humble and smart. You never know quite what's going to happen!

This is my favourite moment...

Comedic moments are necessary in the waiting game!

I actually sent out my haiku picture book 'In the Dreaming Garden' this week. I would say watch the rejections fly in but
publishers get so many submissions these days they've stopped replying unless they want to buy it, and then they call or email - actually I think most just call.
And Picture books don't sell well, and neither does poetry, so it's not a winning combo - still I loved writing it.

procrastination reminder

2010-05-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

Directly quoted from the Guardian UK where you will find many other writers talking about writing... but as you know I love Neil Gaiman so here's his writing advice.

1 Write.

2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

4 Put it aside. Read it pretending you've never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.

5 Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

6 Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

7 Laugh at your own jokes.

8 The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

Now go write!

Luka's incredible night with Peter Pan

2010-05-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

This is Peter Pan, photo by Mat Churchill - producer, and friend.

This is a tiny teaser part of the query I sent to a popular kids mag --

A hundred years after the original Peter Pan hit the stage he soars into our digital times!

Following a successful run in London, a truly original production of Peter Pan has landed in San Francisco. Featuring a 360-degree video projection, puppets, CGI and 22 actors, real flying sequences in a one of a kind purpose built theater, this is a bold 21st century retelling of a classic tale.

And so forth, so obviously Luka had a wonderful birthday treat last night!

In his words it was an 'incredible birthday' probably due to three things,
1) We got to see "Peter Pan -thanks to Mat & Teresa, who are just brilliant, and the show itself is amazing, really fun, loads of action, great acting and amazing effects, old fashioned skillful ones like puppets and trap doors and innovative stage design and modern ones like CGI 360 degrees wrapped around the tent theatre and some very clever slight of hand -seriously if you can go, or are thinking you might go, -you must! (And it's super cool for teens and date nights too!) Check it out on youtube here or listen to Mat talk about it "here...
And seeing it online or on a TV special does not compare to being there!

2) Because at intermission Mat let Luka knock himself out with an enormous lolly and a bag of candy - he knows the way to Luka's heart!
3) I made him pancakes for breakfast - and yes, that does sound positively lame in comparison!

The day after

2010-05-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

By Martin Rowson, Guardian UK

So what happened???? Nothing and everything. Clegg, leading the Lib Dems (yellow) lived up to his color, and disappeared from the race as did his party. Conservatives won kind of, but not with enough votes to have a majority, Labor lost BUT are still in power right now and may be able to cut a deal with the Lib Dems and remain in power -- not sure I have that bit right, I mean surely if you win more votes you rule right?

No it's called a hung parliament which could be a brilliant thing for this current crisis if all three parties could just focus on getting Britain out of its financial mess - or a disaster if they fall into bickering - we'll just have to wait and see.

One things for sure - we live in interesting times!

Voting Day!

2010-05-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

This cartoon by Chris Riddell from the Guardian UK

I feel quite out of it really, but tomorrow - probably today in UK time - it's voting day and for the first time in a long time - like decades - it actually seems to be a three horse race. Labor (in red) who've been reigning since 1997 - yes, since the last century! Tory (true blue) who are remembered with fear and trepidation for Thatcher in the 80s and early 90s and now ta daaaaaaaaa! the Liberal Democrats (yellow) -who?? Oh, that party you vote for when you live in a Labor area and don't want them to get in , or live in a Tory area but don't want them to get in? Yes, the very same! Apparently they've got real, (well according to some sources) and are going for it with Nick Clegg their valiant leader putting a fresh new zing into the race.
Tomorrow looks like an interesting day!

Writing news

This picture by me on an iphone - I discovered they are great for close up shots!

And I am writing poetry. Seriously, in the garden, pen on paper. For some reason I have to be computer free for the brain to truly sink into that poetic grove. Gazing at the scenery helps too, of course, and the patterns of light and shadow and the sound of murmuring bees. I have decided murmur is one of my favourite (sic) words.

It is also very therapeutic while waiting for the next flurry of activity, which will arrive once my agent's feedback hits my inbox!

Steam punk corner

2010-04-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

I finally did it! The final completion of steam punk corner aka our mail box area. I had been looking for a suitable sign, after legions of magazine sellers/religion peddlers/alarm sales people and yes, even girl scout cookie sellers came bashing at our door -- something to politely suggest they don't. In fact, what they should do, just quietly before they're spotted, is back up and run away! Ha, ha, aha!

The art is by Dave Correia I picked up his postcard at the Wondercon - he has some really fabulous stuff. I can feel a short story brewing from this wonderful eyeless clockwork owl. When I am rich and famous I will buy some of his original work and have it displayed all over the house!

Massive Attack - my voodoo charm worked! The albums (3 vinyl + 1 CD + 1 art book) arrived and even better Massive Attack are playing at the Warfield this May yay!! It is perfect for re-writing Jake to.

But as I am waiting for the verdict on that from my agent I am listening to the clock ticking and bird song instead. And scribbling out Haiku.

Then I found this, and imagined London and started to feel terribly envious of my friend who is off to live there for a year.

A Blur snack.

Yay -Tracey's back!!!

2010-04-14T16:01:00.001-07:00

Tracey Thorn / 'Oh, The Divorces!'bybuzzinfly
Tracey's Back!
Can't wait to hear her new solo album,Love and it's Opposite alas no tour plan. Now that would be an awesome artist to see at Cafe Du Nord!

Which reminds me...I am still waiting for my Massive Attack mega fantastic pack.. I do love them, but I fear the closest I'll get to owning a piece of their new album (yes I ordered vinyl) is post a clip of it here from youtube!

Kitty news, she's fine and sleeping a lot.

Writing news, it is wonderful when your job is to really pay attention, get up at dawn and figure out the color of the light splitting the sky, ponder why one dove likes the sun while the other anchors itself down in the stony cracked shade? Why does the burnt orange sparrow flick seed out of the house while its dun colored mate eats it? And the burning question, will the Mallards choose our pool as their permanent hatchery, or is it just target practice? And yes it's all work!

Simmering in the background are Jake questions of teen control techniques, mind reading and thanks to Fresh Air on npr today The Surprising Strengths of the Middle Aged Brain.

Shameless promotion!

2010-04-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Of Peter Pan in SF taking off extremely soon and looking like a heap of fun. You know I wouldn't plug it if I didn't believe it was going to be fantastic. How do I know? I've seen behind the scenes and it looks magical. And okay, the producer is a very old - oh, that sounds wrong! not so very old friend of mine who I've just reconnected with and, phew he's just as lovely as he used to be, which is very, and having seen the footage from London. I know it's gonna be good!

Another friend of mine, also not old, but very dear, is Deborah Underwood who has a trio of excellent books out this spring,GRANNY GOMEZ AND JIGSAW, A BALLOON FOR ISABEL and THE QUIET BOOK.

-- BUT DISMAY HORROR!!!! Despite THE QUIET BOOK having amazing reviews, one major chain has run out of money to stock it!! Head straight over to your local indie and get it, demand it! Beg for it! Okay, don't beg, but seriously it is soooooo gorgeous.

I saw this article in Publishers Weekly yesterday, confirming the dire state of the book store/publishing companies relationship. Without a good deal of credit and trust the whole buying books wholesale breaks down and if it can happen to a major player it can happen to anyone.

Okay back to the grind stone, actually organizing tomorrow's breakfast book club, that's another 120 books fresh from the local indie book store. Mmmmmmmm love that new book smell!

A snippet of magic

2010-04-12T21:03:00.000-07:00

From the wonderful Neil Gaiman, a new work with Charles Vess, true writing inspiration!

I finished the latest working of Jake, now The Dark Side is Serenity, and am now working on something very unlike me, a picture book which just snuck up and refuses to pipe down.
It will never sell as it's a patch work of rhyme and my agent doesn't do pbs...but alas it needs to be written so write it I will.

This is the poor kitty, who swallowed a band, a head band, twice at least, judging by her stomach contents, and it didn't agree with her at all, and so now she has a zipper tummy and is a bit sad. It may have been a good idea to actually put in a real zipper for easier access next time, though a little uncomfortable and not as cute as her regular spotty tummy.

So I spent the day in the guest room with her, a green sofa and a blank TV screen. She's not allowed to play or jump, but it was strangely calming being in there with sleepy kitty, I got loads of thinking done -- that's work in writer speak --no really it is!

Tomorrow I am meeting a friend I haven't seen since we were 18/19 -we didn't fall out just kind of lost touch and now he is in SF, he made me the best mix tape ever and introduced me to The Velvet Underground and Iggy so this should be interesting!

Wonder world

2010-04-05T20:16:00.001-07:00

What's going on here you may ask, (or not I guess depending where you live) well it's a typical day in SF. This weekend spot light on the Moscone Center, just SOMA. Yes!!!
It was the Wondercon and it was fun and pretty wonderful if you don't mind lots of crowds - they were interesting crowds though, so we didn't mind at all. And if we'd stayed longer we could ahve seen the whole cast of KICK ASS!! But the various kinder who came with us went from Comic/Japanese robot lust to dropping from hunger/thirst and exhaustion.

I almost didn't make it, I nearly...died!! It would have been excruciatingly embarrassing death by jelly bean --see it even sounds like a B-movie, but I seriously nearly did. And who saved me as my voice hovered between death and a rattle and I realized this bean was not for shifting?? I'll tell you.

Luka didn't really get what was happening until I told him get Daddy --then he ran and said Mummies choking on an egg, but he didn't really convey a sense of urgency so it took my husband some time to click that it was an emergency situation and come running out by which time I'd managed to try the Heimlich on myself over the kitchen sink which didn't come out and then cough and cough and splutter.

Luckily the bean came before my lungs and I'm still here. Wow, just typing that was exhausting!

I leave you with a sneak peak of my fav chat show host's screenwriting wife's new movie coming soon ---how's that for a rambling intro? And who is the chat show host???
Answers in comments please!

PS I am never I mean NEVER eating a jelly bean again!

Glitter Beach

2010-03-24T11:55:00.001-07:00

My unexpected favourite track from Gorillaz new album, Plastic Beach.

Fantastic to work on revisions to!
Yes, I am working and working and working on 'Jake' aka 'Surviving Peaceville,' and it feels good! And when this draft is finished and sent to Tamar - my wonderful agent, I'll start tracking down Mark E. Smith & The Fall. Oh, and plant a vegetable garden and an apple tree and build a shade structure and clean, I guess... Mmmmm, back to the keyboard, my refuge from reality!

Flying Home

2010-03-17T10:04:00.001-07:00

So I'm back from a whirlwind week in England. I saw Bright Star on the flight back. It was so subtle and dream like and has a wonderful quote for writers everywhere,'it may look to you like we do nothing but stare and dream but this is our work, we are finding the muse...' okay that's the quote as I remembered it. It reminded me of this poem,

Leisure
by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stop and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

Not time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

And makes me think, surely as writers it is our task to also be dreamers to think
beyond the horizon, to be bold and brave and travel where others may not enter.
Of course we need our BIC -- butt in chair -- time to collect and gather and craft our writing, but we should never feel ashamed of pondering, musing, or dreaming, because that is the essence of who we are.

Friday rain

2010-02-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

Why does it always rain on Fridays??? Just as I was feeling springy rain plummets from the sky.

I know looks like Japan right? It's actually my front yard in the rain - sigh.
So what's new this week? Well the lovely Jeff Stone is on tour right now, sweeping through the San Francisco Bay area, and fingers crossed I'll actually be able to catch up with him over dinner, and he'll get to meet Luka! Jeff's last book, Dragon, of the Five Ancestors series is out with Random House so look out for him near you, especially if your kids are into martial arts or China.

I found these really great writing tips from Elmore Leonard and not wanting to plagiarize the whole article from Guardian UK here's a link, and here's the essence of his advice for writers....
'My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.'

Michael Morpurgo and Zadie Smith and Sarah Waters also have some great insights.

And finally courtesy of the wonderful Neil Gaiman, (if you Tweet & Write you should follow him!) a cheery clip of Amanda Palmer (his betrothed) singing The Vegimite Song!!

What more could you ask for on a windy rainy night?

Asilomar, cats and writing

2010-02-23T13:18:00.000-08:00

See how cute this little minx looks? Well she is and she isn't! Can someone, preferably a writer, explain how they manage to get any writing done, with out
an eager helper sitting, running across, or chewing on the laptop? She's curled up here like a little golden fluff ball pretending to be asleep. But if I move she'll leap on me!

Perhaps that's why writers like cats...because kittens are crazy!

Okay, enough moaning. Last weekend I was at SCBWI Asilomar and it was fabulous.
All the talks were great with actual nuggets, golden nuggets of stash-awayable info.
I learned:

- Ken Wright @ Writer's House is a lovely person and if you write non-fiction, mg, YA (not fantasy) he is a great agent.
- Sarah Davies is also a brilliant agent, articulate, with an extremely clear vision of what she wants from a writer. She also has a wealth of knowledge of Children's books in the US and the UK.
- Deborah Underwood is wonderful at giving insightful talks on picture books.
- Ellen Klages is sharp as a whip, a riot and I'd love to go out for a drink with her.
- Gary Schmidt is as good a talker as he is a writer -- meaning he blows you away.
- Greg Pincus is a very funny poet and a fine blogger and will help you have a Happy Accident. You can join him at #kidchat on twitter on Tuesday nights from 6 pacific time, I'll be there too.
- It is always a good idea to take a power nap when you can so you can drink all night and still make it home in one piece on Sunday.
- The best things happen on the periphery, the strangers you sit with at dinner the people you drink with at night, the people you chat with in line, that's were you make real connections and really grow as a person and as a writer.
And that's how come I got to meet c.j. omololu and read her stunning debut novel, Dirty Little Secrets!

Oh yes...and it's a rather bad idea to go running in the dark at 6 the morning before driving off at 11:30am to a conference, as you might just trip over a paving slab in the dark, smash down and gash your chin. And if you did do that you probably won't have a wonderful friend who happens to be an ER doctor who can glue it up for you. And then you'd have to sit through a three day conference meeting all sorts of wonderful agents, editors, authors and illustrators with a mega scare on your chin. Knowing that the only advantage you have is you can say "I really enjoyed meeting you at Asilomar, I'm the one with the bloody scare on my chin, when you write your query letter.

Yes, I do feel a lot better now thank you!

This is my favorite quote from the conference:

There is no way of writing well and writing easily..

Sarah Davies quoted this but couldn't remember who said it, anyone?

Finally here is a list of all the faculties favorite books of last year,

1. When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead)

2. Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Story (Adam Rex) -- LOVE this title!

3. The True Meaning of Smekday

4. Tales of Outer Suburbia

5. Red Sings from the Tree Tops

6. All the World (Liz Garten Scanlon)

7. Lips Touch (Lani Taylor)

8. How to Say Good-bye in Robot (Natalie Standiford)

9. Charles and Emma (Deborah Heiligman)

10. Ages and Angels (Adam Gopnik)

11. Tender Morsels

12. The Hotel Under the Sand

13. Diego, Bigger Than Life

14. Jeremy Draws a Monster (Peter McCarty)

15. Henry in Love (Peter McCarty)

OH AND YES!!!! I've finally sent Jake, aka Surviving Peaceville, or Dead Friends Don't Count, to my lovely agent Tamar! I await with baited breath and twisted fingers.

Children's Books: Apocalypse Now

2010-02-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

Children's Books: Apocalypse Now: " Sure, teens are still reading about vampires, but end-of-the-..."

Laura & The Wheel

2010-02-07T11:30:00.001-08:00

This clip was taken by someone almost next to me, Laura Marling, with guests, The Wheel, and Pete Roe -who is also a dab had at magic, playing at the Swedish American Hall SF. Laura is amazing, playing most new stuff that makes me want to rush and buy here new album - Goodbye England Covered in Snow, alas it's not out until March.
Her support band were really good and the Castro SF crowd (roughly 300) created a very cool vibe too. Wonderfully fun night out! If Laura Marling is playing anywhere near you, go!! BTW Laura is the most amazing whistler, incredibly talented singer-song writer and was super nice. Plus the Swedish American Hall is a tiny cosy venue. This was my best gig since Radiohead at Rock City, Nottingham.

This is The Wheel, her support band with an excellent album on sale.

Last night was an awesome night!!!!

I have been very quiet due to writing and revising like a fiend, will blog more once it's over soon very soon!

Spi...der pi...ig

2010-01-11T17:31:00.000-08:00

Luka and I can't get this song out of our heads! Obviously I need to get serious as this no way for YA writer to behave when she should be concentrating on reviewing her Jake crits.
BUT I have been in major consumer mode today and got myself a lovely shiny new iphone to go with my dirty old Mac. Well it's a pretty new Mac actually and just slightly unclean which is what you'd expect from someone who writes on it for hours a day right?

PS cat - Mimi, doing her best to disrupt family life - in the nicest possible way, racing around the house bouncing off furniture, flipping in the air, biting and scratching little knees - and pausing to consider if it really is such a good idea to pounce on the open dishwasher.

Laura Marling's coming to SF!!

2010-01-09T16:52:00.000-08:00

I am so excited, Laura is an amazing singer/songwriter, so if you can scrap yourself off the couch and get down to the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco on Feb 6th. For the rest of the world check her tour dates here. And yes this is shameless promotion of one of my fav singers!

2010 -- Living in the space age!

2009-12-31T19:38:00.000-08:00

It feels so weird to be in 2010, seriously as a kid who studied 1984 in 1984! Bizarre.
Still one of my resoutions reconnect to new music again, ive been a little slack this year.

Here's the UK favs according to teh Guardian - I know what do they know -please send suggestions here! But it's usually a good place to start.

So here' Fever Ray

Here's The xx -- really like this..

Animal Collective

Happy New Year!! May all your good dreams come too.

Last of the year

2009-12-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

I love Terry Pratchett, and this question, do you believe in God or just the belief in Gods? And all the more interesting if you've read Nation and know what a crucial role religion plays in that books culture.

There's some more wonderful interviews with him here from The Guardian UK

So why the silence this month? Nothing to say? Well apart from the usual holiday time drama, presents to buy, things to decorate family birthdays etc. I've been working my butt off on Jake and have finally -- by Dec 24th actually completed it enough to send to my lovely Inksters to get feedback. Next step polish & fix any disasters and send it off to Tamar, my agent by the end of Jan.

Next? Lots of research on old England, druids, pagans, and folk tales. More on that as it develops.

Other news? Luka got a kitten called Mimi for Christmas! I finally feel like a 'real' writer with a cat in the house - except in the early hours of the morning when she's going bonkers and waking Luka up much to his distress by licking his face and bouncing on him.

Happy holidays to both of you and thanks for being my avid readers!

On the first day of December...

2009-12-01T12:00:00.001-08:00

We made this!!

Okay, it wasn't the first it was the 29th, but Luka and I made this fabulous house together, and it tastes great too. The hands are holding it in place as at the time the roof was sagging and neither the toffee or the royal icing were doing their job. For a moment there we thought we'd have to resort to hot glue but instead we went to good old string.

That's my top tip, when your gingerbread house sags scaffold it with garden twine.

I remembered to give Luka his Lego advent calender just as was leaving for school.
Here's one for the literary amongst you, courtesy of The Guardian UK.

Literary Advent Calendar

This article, KEY WORKERS, intrigued me, why some writer's prefer to use typewriters and which kinds they use. I especially liked the visual image of Jack Kerouac typing at 100 words a minute. I use my mac, and I'm forever changing words around, the order, the words, putting them back slashing them out again, but when I really need to work something out, I have to do pen and paper. that's why I have all this little notebooks scattered around the place, one for every project. I know Neil Gaiman writes his out freehand in beautiful note books first, then types it all up, and Brain Jacques writes it all out perfectly the first time!! Gasp!

I don't know if my hands could take handwriting 60000+ words out anymore. Perhaps I should try it for my next novel.

Jake is alternately limping and galloping along, chapter 34 now! And every week I think I'll finish. But better to get it right than finished I think.

Jane Austen died at 41 and look at the legacy she left! Here I am a tad older with one finished novel one almost finished novel and one rough draft of a novel under my belt.
Better crack on!

Last of all imagine this...falling out of love with Haruki Murakumi!
I love his work, it's like visiting another planet or traveling to the city that Bladerunner's set in.

Now I just want to see that film again, I'm pretty sure it's my all time favourite.

What books did you used to love that now leave you cold???
The only one I've come across lately are Swallows and Amazons, I loved it as a kid but it was pretty dull reading out loud now. Has it dated or me?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/nov/27/falling-out-of-love-with-murakami

book stores

2009-11-27T19:00:00.001-08:00

From Guardian UK

And here is what it all might lead to.... more indie books stores. At least this article in today's Guardian thinks so. I hope so I really do, in fact in another life, or maybe in this one, I'd love to have my own bookstore.

And look more happy news just in time for Christmas... celebrity memoirs are no longer hot cakes but selling pretty sluggishly! This from The Independent UK

Have a break next weekend if you live in the SF area and come visit me at SCBWI Beyond The Bay with special guest Deborah Davis, helping talk us through the writing doldrums..how to keep up the motivation, fun and inspiration when you're on your second third or forty fourth revision. It's Dec 5th 2-4 Walnut Creek St Paul's Church $10 for SCBWI members $15 for non-members. Spend the afternoon on yourself!

The Monster mash

2009-11-22T15:52:00.001-08:00

Untitled from Mcnally Robinson Booksellers on Vimeo.

And this is why we didn't get to win!! But wahoo Winnipeg your party was rockin!!

Okay now on post 299 can you believe I've entertained my two constant readers all this time?? I actually had enough to say for over two years! So I feel I need a change don;t know what don't know how but watch this space, meanwhile I'm off to edit Chpt 31 - I know I know I thought it was done but the end needs to change just a little and then boom into chpt 32 I swing!

The beginning of the end

2009-11-16T14:31:00.000-08:00

I can't wait to see this, Doctor Who the cream of British Sci-fi, but I'm so sad that there's only three episodes left staring David Tennant as Doctor Who. I know there's been many doctors but his was so funny, and sensitive, brave, scared, crazy, and plain mad. What a brilliant run for a brilliant actor, I guess it's best to come out on top, every one's favourite (sic) Doctor, rather than fade away, but we'll miss him!

Here's a little Doctor tribute..in case you have no clue what you've been missing!

You know you've let your child watch too much Sci-fi when he says kids singing
Ladybird Ladybird or Happy Birthday sound creepy and remind him of Torchwood!

Oh just in case you've never seen Torchwood either ...you really should Netflix Doctor Who (from season 2, 2005) and Torchwood so you don't miss the best sci-fi of the noughties!

Fantasy book store

2009-11-09T16:47:00.000-08:00

Judy Wheeler owner and bookseller at Towne Center Books, Pleasanton, if it wasn't there life would be much sadder!

I stumbled across this article in The Guardian UK today, and it reminded me of the lovely bookstore in Nottingham with its piles of books and funny little corners that I loved spending my time dawdling in, and how when I revisited it ten years later it had a very uncomfortable cafe at the top with bright white lights and cold dry cheese sandwiches which once snapped in a microwave became stale glue-cheese sandwiches. That was my research trip of cake and coffee because I couldn't find or afford much else to eat! It was of course a Waterstones.

I feel blessed to have a great indie bookstore near by, but hear stories from many writers on their books being vetoed by the sales team even after the editors and marketing have made their minds up to take it on, or the book is set in England which at the last editorial meeting become just too big a stumbling block, after all whoever heard of books set in England selling to the US market?

I have to say though I don't believe, as this article suggests, that the Kindle etc. will bring about the death of books, I think it will coexist happily in fact expand the audience and maybe inject some new inventive life into the publishing market. I adore books as objects, as wonderful companions to be stuffed into bags, under the bed, on top of the loo and passed forward from fried to friend and back again, but the Kindle offers a portable experience and instant gratification and if someone wants your book right now in the palm of their hand and they can get it, and you get paid what's so wrong about that -- environmentally too we do use an awful lot of trees, though I'm not sure if mass production of Kindles is very green either.

But back to the plot, I fantasize about having a two story bookstore, children's books, travel and non-fiction, cupcakes and coffee downstairs, wine and desserts upstairs with literature, poetry and plays. An soft couches everywhere somewhere in a city like Boston, or Winchester -- now if only I could find a sponsor!

On the saga of Jake, now titled Surviving Peaceville,I'm on chpt 31 and all is upside down. I've given it a good shaking heading up to the climax. My goal is to finish it this week.

The Graveyard Book Party competition ends today -- the posting of pictures etc at eats and the results come out on the 16th of November keep your fingers crossed for our party at Towne Center Books!

Wild Things 2

2009-10-20T17:35:00.001-07:00

So in the Guardian today it seems that Where the Wild Things are - the movie - has caused a Rumpus.

And today I found myself talking about it to a teacher, a great teacher, who'd sent her four year old off with her husband to see it. Her four year old loved it, my nine year old loved it. But they both got something totally different from it. It is an emotional film, it deals with feelings of hurt and betrayal love and honor and fear, loneliness and humiliation. Luka kept saying, I know how he feels, all the way through. He really related to it and the behavior was true kid raw emotions un-Disinyfied, and maybe that's the problem, maybe we've been so busy bubble wrapping our kids in Disney Life we've forgotten they can handle the real thing too. The four year old just loved the monsters!
If you're thinking of going do, it's a 'real' movie, complex honest and illuminating.

Here be wild things

2009-10-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

Luka and I just went to see this and it was wonderful, very free spirited, amazing kid actor as in natural and no trying to be a good kid actor, great monsters and costumes amazing sets, a lot more emotional (especially for Luka) than I had expected. Go and see it -- take a wild thing with you for maximum effect!

Anne Frank & Banned Books

2009-10-03T19:37:00.001-07:00

Posted by The Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam -- the only known footage of Anne. That's her leaning over a balcony. Definitely one of the more amazing uses of youtube.

More details in today's Guardian UK

On the theme of oppression, today marks the last day of Banned Books Week, as I told Luka today, if you want to find a quick list of mostly amazing and relevant books look at the top 100 banned books list and you'll find all the classics -- from The Great Gatsby to A Wrinkle in Time, and the scary thing is it hasn't stopped.

Only recently best selling and IMHO talented author, Ellen Hopkins was turned away from a scheduled school appearance because of parental objections. I would like to know why teachers and librarians are given such little credit and why parents are given so much sway on educational matters. I mean would they dream of boycotting a doctor - oh, yeah, I'm sure these days they would, every one feels lie they're an expert on everything -- welcome to the age of web. The 21st century, where creationism, and censorship are rife, welcome to the second dark age.

On the positive side banned books almost always get a boast in sales once they're announced, like And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell based on the true story of two gay penguins hatching an egg.
'Richardson himself said today that it was "regrettable that some parents believe reading a true story about two male penguins hatching an egg will damage their children's moral development". "They are entitled to express their beliefs, but not to inflict them on others," he added.'

I think that last sentence is applicable to us all, especially when it results in the watering down of science and art education.

Here are the top ten banned childrens' books in America -- so you can make sure to read them!

1. And Tango Makes Three , by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

2. His Dark Materials trilogy , by Philip Pullman

3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle

4. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz

5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya

6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar

8. Uncle Bobby's Wedding, by Sarah S Brannen

9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper

Enjoy!!

Tuesday Tivia

2009-09-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

This made me smile this morning from the Guardian UK -- obviously not because Bush didn't give Rowling the medal but the first comment -- "I'm surprised she didn't turn Bush into a toad," - priceless!

This is how Jackman and Craig deal with a cell phone ringing at their live show -- stay in character and embarrass the hell out of the phones owner - who stayed stum, I bet his ears were scarlet though!
Jackman and Craig live on Broadway, now that I'd LOVE to see!

Feeling very Tuesday morning-ish today. Gloomy clouds over P'town, and I'm in a maudlin mood,which in my perverse world could actually mean a good writing day.

Okay not feeling sad now, but happy ginned and relaxed, going to watch Minority Report and read Devil's Kiss!
Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda

I've been so eager to read this, ever since the buzz from the UK and now Sarwat's an inkie too (The Enchanted Ink Pot) how could I not?

View all my reviews >>

so all about skins day!

2009-09-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

This is a brilliant video that totally captures the Skins episode 8 aired last night on BBC America , my favorite so far. Effy is such an interesting complex character and the acting on this show is really stellar. Much of the writing is done by teens which explains the rawness and truth of the story lines, and the sometimes incredibly unbelievable reactions of the adults.

The music used an integral part of the whole Skins experience and I just found this brilliant website , set up by the music director, enough new music to keep me and Jake happy for some time. I bought the MP3 of Skins soundtrack season 3 today and have been happy tapping along to it -- working on Jake - aka Surviving Peaceville. It's so much easier to just call it Jake since it's all from his POV and it's him living in my head!

BEAK

2009-09-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

BEAK, This needs to be in the soundtrack to Surviving Peaceville The new title of Work in Progress (W-I-P) previously referred to as Jake. It's my Young Adult novel now on it's fifth rewrite and going very well, except I am beginning to long for some more moody music to write to.

Beak are, Billy Fuller, Matt Williams and Geoff Barrow (Portishead)formed in January 2009 by three Bristol musicians. Their music is very clear and pure sounding with under currents of menace. They remind me of Joy Division. What do you think?

I can't get this song out of my head so perhaps I need this to write too as well.
Hey I'm sitting writing this in my new library and I can't tell you how happy I am to see all my books lined up like little friends smiling and waving at me!

Intriguing

2009-09-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

Intriguing huh? Everyone on the planet blanks out at exactly the same time...I will be watching this!

The age of stupid....

2009-09-21T22:23:00.001-07:00

HAPPY AUTUMN, these are true Parisian, Norte Dame gargoyles -- honestly!

See this: The AGE of STUPID an event from last night which I discovered about two hours after it happened. This is how it happened.

So having opened this up only 2 hrs late tonight I do feel stupid stupid stupid -- that'll learn me not to open up Radiohead's blog more often... Thom Yorke rarely says anything stupid. In fact he's witty, smart and down right enlightening.

I am NOT posting this on Monday as I am working on Jake with a fat glass of red. BUT I would have put it up in BOLD had I found it in time to tell you all - yes all three of you--- to go go and see this!

Other stupid things I did today, walked around all afternoon with a lump of salad dressing on my chin... mmm tasteful. Note to friends please tell me next time!

Now I'll just post any responses from the main event and look out for it on Netflix - sigh, such is suburban life - or maybe it's just my so called life. Which reminds me, that was some awesome show!

What am I watching now I'm out of TRUE BLOOD? Breaking Bad -- and it's so good, High school, chemistry teacher gets cancer and starts cooking up meth -- you know there's a good story in there!

THE INFORMATION TIPPING POINT!!!

2009-09-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

The GREAT news is we have our new bookcase after hours of hard labor I managed to fit it together, only to find out I'd put one piece n the wrong way and so of course it took mere minutes to fix once I had my handy helper thee. Anyhow it looks way better. The small case is for non-fiction the bigger for everything else. Once Luka has finished categorizing his library I'll give you a close up guide to our unique sorting system!

Luka's and my books merge which I feel is only fitting for a children's lit writer.

That's the happy side, the sad side is I can't seem to get my naughty little apple - the new shiny one, to recognize my Nikon 70. It hates importing pictures and once those heinous things are imported there is no simple way to get them through 'share' onto 'pictures' and out into my blog.

If there is a picture above this you should know it probably took all of Saturday to get it up there! I did it, I did it, happy jumping here!

Totally unrelated but something else annoying/worrying is the GOOGLE search engine. I do Google myself every now and then -come on don't tell me you haven't. I actually do it to check what come sup first in my case Redroom and Jacket flap and this blog which is fine except it send s me into a panic of I must update mode and then I freak because really I should be working on Jake instead.

HOWEVER this time there were 9 pages of me -- and that's not great because it had stuff like my Amazon wish list -- that's never happened before and it's very hard to bring it down. Also it's not nine pages of awesome stuff it's nine pages of the same info which should take up two at a stretch, being pointlessly repeated over and over in slightly varying ways, which really freaks me out because if you were seriously researching something what hope do you have? There's a deluge of information so it looks like you're getting a ton of hits. Oh and after posting pages of my published articles the SCBWI has me as Keelylp No published articles - so just be careful out there!

I think it's here really and it's sad and scary, THE INFORMATION TIPPING POINT!!! From now on it is harder to find what you are looking for on the internet because you have to weave your way through so much rubbish. What does this mean? I don't know maybe BING is on to something though I haven't tried that yet, perhaps should right now.

In the meantime be very careful to make your info private unless you want the whole world to read your wish list! Okay it wasn't too bad, The Sandman (Neil Gaiman) and the Girl with the Silver Eyes, if you must know ;-).

On Neil Gaiman, Towne Center Books are going to have an awesome Graveyard Book party on September 23rd! How do I know? I'm helping to organize it so ideas right back at me plllleeeaassse!

The Prince's Rainforests Project

2009-09-09T14:09:00.001-07:00

The Prince's Rainforests Project

Shared via AddThis

My dream library -okay, it's Neil Gaiman's.

2009-09-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Shelfari which is an awesome blog! (okay, technically nicked)

Compare and contrast!!

Not much comparison...Neil Gaiman's library -- is my idea of HEAVEN!
And this pile of books- what's left after the book shelf exploded some months ago is pathetic. So, this weekend we came up with a plan and soon (rubs hands with glee) I too will have walls lined with books, starting with one big book case at a time. happy Happy Fall to me :-).

As summer whimpers out and fall descends I caught myself thinking of this song..
Summer Skin, Death Cab for Cutie, perfect for remembering summers past...and dreaming of summers to come.

Kings & Queens

2009-08-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

Jamie's New album Kings and Queen's is out Sept 7th, sounds really good to me. This is what I listen to sometimes when I need some extra energy in Jake's scenes. Here's Jamie T being interviewed in today's Guardian UK.

Today working on chapter 7 yay. Coming together a little better since I took my dream editors advice,-- literally she appeared in a dream and showed me how easy it was to fix my plot, unfortunately all the little notes she took vanished when I woke, still I did have enough sense to grasp her main idea. Mmm, taking advice from a dream character, was she me, if she was does that mean I'm going mad? I guess what ever works!

Another sanity saver is DEXTER!! Yay out on Netflix and soooo good, also Thursday nights is now officially SKINS night, definitely bloody good and essential for all you YA writers and readers!

Poppet heads out...

2009-08-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

just like the rest of the kids round here poppets heading back to school -- this is happy/sad. Happy because now I can get tons of writing done, sad because, well I'll miss him, he's very funny and makes a great adventure buddy but I guess we both have things to do now.

You can get this poppet and loads of other really sweet poppets, I covert blue steam punk girl, over here on Etsy. They're by Lisa Snelling Clark who is amazingly talented and I yearn to buy her big angel with skulls picture...after my first book sell, maybe!

I have high hopes for Jake now and I keep forgetting to tell you about the Enchanted Inkpot which is simply a fabulousa website for all things YA Fantasy and Sci-fi run by some supremely talented authors with hangers on like me :-). I've joined their Inkies Write group in the hope I'll be shamed into writing veraciously all day long. in fact I can't wait to write all day long I feel myself straining at the bit!

Buried treasure and TV gold

2009-08-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

This is from Wired.com an article that covers the finds from a peat bog, which include 270 kegs of bog butter. Why? Why preserve butter? Was it an offer to the peat gods? There's also a wheel made from a single piece of oak that dates back to 2700 BC, and swords and murder weapons, bodies with holes drilled into their skulls. It makes this fantasy writers mind whiz around in overdrive with story ideas. It just goes to show, nothing you create in fiction is ever weirder than the truth!
(Or even than the 'turtle',which is what spell checker mistook my bad rendition of truth to be!)

And another type of treasure was reunited with it's maker recently. Remember Masquerade by Kit Williams?

When people all over the world tried to decipher the clues in a beautifully illustrated picture book? Well it turns out the finder was a friend of a friend of the daughter of the man who witnessed it being buried -- or something like that -- and it was sold and ended up in Egypt, and now it's back in the hands of its creator. Makes me feel really old as it was 30 years ago and I remember the craze! Here's more for you youngsters who don't know what I'm talking about ;-)

Funniest recent moment on TV? Jonathan Ross making Vin Diesel speak after breathing in helium -- I know we are way out of date out here in outer suburbia!

sand

2009-08-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

I found this yesterday attached to a Neil Gaiman Tweet, then again today in the Guardian, and maybe many of you have sen it, if not take a look. It's so beautiful and completely different. Oh and it's from the Ukraine's version of I've got talent.

Gaiman wins the Hugo!

2009-08-10T20:11:00.001-07:00

Neil Gaiman's Newberry prize winner, the Graveyard Book has just won the Hugo!
For more ponification on his being a worthy winner see here .
To see Neil's comments, fresh from his blog click here

I believe it's very well deserved, especially on listening to it again on audio, after reading it hot off the press a few months ago. Neil is a gracious deserving kind of guy, obviously talented but also humble and most giving of his time. He never rushes his fans, signing for them for hours and never seems grouchy - even at a breakfast reading (before coffee that's really tough!). Neil thinks that Neal Stephenson's novel Anathem should of won, so I'm going to rush out and read that.

While we're talking about The Graveyard Book, there is a competition, details below, for indie bookstores to throw a brilliantly creative wonderland of a party themed round the book - and I promised Judy I'd help organize one at Towne Center Books. The winner gets Neil to come to a reading! So ideas please????

ENTRY
To enter the Contest, you must be an independent bookseller; you must host an in-store Halloween Party, with The Graveyard Book as the theme, between September 30, 2009 and November 1, 2009; and you must submit event photographs or a video, along with a brief paragraph describing the Party, to graveyardbookcontest@harpercollins.com by November 6, 2009 (9:00 p.m. PST). Contact your HarperCollins Sales Representative to discuss using cooperative advertising funds for the Party.
Entries with photographs must include at least three (3) but no more than five (5) photographs. Photographs must be provided in .jpg format and as attachments to the entry email. Video entries may not exceed 120 seconds in length; must be provided in .mov or .flv format; and may not exceed a file size of 75 MB. Only one (1) entry per qualified bookseller is permitted.
All entries must be accompanied by a brief paragraph (100 words max) highlighting the details of the Party: Name of store, location of store, number of attendees, overview of Party, special promotions or features. Paragraph may be included within the body of the entry email or attached as a separate Word document.
PRIZES
One (1) Grand Prize winner will be offered an opportunity to host an exclusive Appearance by author Neil Gaiman at the bookstore. The Appearance will most likely consist of a reading, book signing, question-and-answer session, etc. Specific details of the Appearance are to be determined, based upon the location, space limitations, and other requirements of the winning bookstore. The date, time, and duration of the Appearance depends upon the Author’s schedule. The Sponsor and Author currently project that he will be available in December 2009. If the Grand Prize winner cannot host the Appearance during that month, or if the Author cancels a scheduled Appearance, then the Sponsor and Author will endeavor to select and offer the Grand Prize winner a mutually acceptable alternate date for the Appearance.
Five (5) First Prize winners will each receive five (5) signed copies of The Graveyard Book in hardcover and a customized video greeting from the Author. The specific details (content, length, delivery date, etc.) of the customized video greetings are to be determined by the Sponsor and Author.
Five (5) Second Prize winners will each receive one (1) signed copy of The Graveyard Book in hardcover and a tagged video greeting from the Author. The specific details (content, length, delivery date, etc.) of the tagged video greetings are to be determined by the Sponsor and Author.
All prizes will be awarded, provided there are at least eleven (11) qualified entrants.
SELECTION AND NOTIFICATION OF WINNERS
The Contest winners will be selected by the Sponsor and Author in their sole discretion based upon the following criteria:
(i) Overall creativity of the Party, as demonstrated by the invitations, signage, decorations, activities, entertainment, and refreshments.
(ii) Customer attendance and response (i.e., enthusiasm, costumes, participation).
(iii) Ability to capture and represent the spirit of The Graveyard Book.

Fangs - this is not for your pre-teen Twilight fans.

2009-08-05T20:13:00.001-07:00

I've been immersing myself with Vampires - yes, again and it seems like I'm not the only one, but it does raise a few questions, like what happened to Vampires are so Dead - as pronounced by my T-shirt at last years Twilight Book 4 midnight party? What happened to the great Zombie take over? But most important of all what happened to the rules?

Do Vampires always have to co-exist with Werewolves? In Twilight and Being Human seems so, so if we're mixing them up why not anything else, like pixies or evil faeries I think evil faeries would be awesome like the Torchwood ones!

You can always trust the writers at Doctor Who and Torchwood to mix things up a little, (thanks Steven Moffat and Russell T Davies amongst many) --- but back to Vampires.

So Saturday nights have turned into Being Human nights, (BBC America) I love this show. It's funny in a self mocking way, yet pretty intelligent and at times almost moving. A show where you're rooting for the Ghost the Vampire and the Werewolf who share an apartment together, because as the ghosts says, there's monsters out there! So true. The werewolf changing scene is great until you see the end result, a puppet black dog which looks frankly sad but in it's own way adorably kitsch.

And sorry Twilight fans but Mitchell the vamp is way more interesting than Edward!

On Being Human, vampires prefer the dark, need to drink blood but can resist most of the time, you make a vampire by biting someone and your eyes go black when you're feeling blood thirsty. But what I'm most thankful is they haven't tried to do the whole vampires jerking about on stop go motion action which is frankly a little tedious unless the grudge factor really seeps into every aspect for the production, like it does in True Blood. You just know the original reel is blood splattered!

- I guess by grudge I mean in a blood under your fingernails, ripped pantyhose, stained gussets type of way -- that's what I love about True Blood -- the whole Southern Comfort depths of Louisiana, moss dripping, gator snapping weirdos lurking atmosphere.

The opening credits are the best since Dexter.

True blood is mostly fabulous escapism, American Gothic meets Jane Eyre (Sookie)in the swamps of Louisiana with a little vodo thrown in. My favourite characters are, Tara who's all attitude and whip sassy, and her gay cousin, Lafayette who is just awesome. Sookie the main character the 'victim' can hear peoples thoughts. Sometimes she shines then she'll be so girlie and pathetic she deserves to be slowly bled by her vamp boyfriend Bill. A true parasite. I think I'm supposed to like him but he's pasty and creepy you can never quiet pin his character down, which of course is what makes it enjoyable.
Oh, yeah, and again with the werewolf! Vamp and werewolf both want Sookie - naturally. Is this all Stephenie Meyers fault? Were Vamps and wolves linked together before her? I'd love to know. In TB vamps made up the rumors, so again if it's all untrue why hide at night? Why is the cross, garlic and mirror thing not true but you can't face the sun, is it because we live in a post religious world? What's going on? You can teleport from place to place exist for centuries but you cant face the sunlight unless it's an inadvertently brightly lit scene, which let's face it happens a lot in TB so if I can't tell if it's day or night why hasn't Bill shriveled up and died yet?

Finally here's a New Moon preview, taped by someone at Comicon, I love the roadhouse quality of this complete with jerky camera, side angle and cheering crowds. A bare chested Jake is obviously a sight to behold, compared to Edward, which as you surely know would blind you!

So where do these myths come originate? The werewolf is the hairy embodiment of a full blooded male? The vampire as a combination of forbidden love and sex wrapped up in death? The exotic and the unattainable mixed with the elixir of life. You can be young and beautiful for ever as long as you don't mind being dead, or you could choose the werewolf. He'll love you forever, or at least until you get old and die as long as he doesn't go crazy in the full moon before that, bite you and leave you looking like road kill. Mmm...

Oh, and in case you want more thoughts, here's an excellent article on the whole vamp phenomena by Guillermo del Toro (one of my fav directors) and Chuck Hogan who just co-wrote a novel, featuring, yep - you guessed it...vampires!

The cupboard of glowing parts.

2009-07-28T14:07:00.001-07:00

On the light side... I never knew Palin was a poet! Bet she didn't either.

Here is Shaun Tan , author of Tales of Outer Suburbia, as interviewed by The Guardian, a fascinating talented writer/illustrator. I read 'Eric' to my writing class of 1-4th graders today, and they really seemed to get it. Especially the cupboard of glowing parts. You can read it for yourself free here -- then go and buy the book to read the rest!

On the dark side, my Grandad died today, ninety-five and a real sweetie. Our love flies with you Grandad. oxoxo

The Idler & the lazy writer.

2009-07-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

This is music to my ears. For some reason I felt extremely thoughtful and idle today, of course I also felt really guilty until I remembered The Idler and when I looked it up I found this wonderful web site full of brilliant information, ideas and bumberlings.
This manifesto seemed perfect for all writers who double as parents :-) Leave your kids to play on their own and feel free to write away, day dream, or moodle about.

THE MANIFESTO OF THE IDLE PARENT
We reject the idea that parenting requires hard work
We pledge to leave our children alone
We reject the rampant consumerism that invades children from the moment they are born
We read them poetry and fantastic stories without morals
We drink alcohol without guilt
We reject the inner Puritan
We don’t waste money on family days out and holidays
An idle parent is a thrifty parent
An idle parent is a creative parent
We lie in bed for as long as possible
We try not to interfere
We play in the fields and forests
We push them into the garden and shut the door so we can clean the house
We both work as little as possible, particularly when the kids are small
Time is more important than money
Happy mess is better than miserable tidiness
Down with school
We fill the house with music and merriment
We reject health and safety guidelines
We embrace responsibility
There are many paths
More play, less work

And if you really must rise form your stupor do it in a fun way by dancing around to something like this...

Mmm...now I'm in the mood to write.

Oh, the horrors!

2009-07-22T21:43:00.000-07:00

Late night Wednesday entertainment, reminds me of Echo and The Bunnymen through a kaleidoscope or looking backwards into a time machine to the eighties, Grannies disco in Portsmouth and The Scala in Kings Cross -- does that still exist? I used to be a member -sigh - perfect little movie theatre with the tube rumbling along underneath and shaking all the chairs every five minutes, good and dark,smoky and seedy. Perfect.

Yay, just googled Scala London and behold it's a music venue! I'd love to see The Horrors there!

witches & zombies

2009-07-20T09:58:00.001-07:00

Last night after reading the beginning of King Arthur -- (yes, it was very cool explaining to Luka that this was part of his literary heritage and dated back to the year 600!) Luka told me he figured magic was real but not in the way of Harry Potter which was just for fun, he went on to tell me he'd seen a witch once too.

I figured this would have been a long time ago in his fanciful imagination, but no, he described the location in each detail and it turned out to be in front of Notre Dame, by the gargoyles I was admiring. He didn't feel afraid as I was right next to him, but he was very sure and he did make eye contact... spooky!

Zombies no longer the new vampires...remember Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? (If not go back a few blogs) well here's a great article from Publishers Weekly, discussing all things zombie, how we got to zombification of the YA list and a wealth of zombie lit history.

Then bizarrely I found this quote in today's Guardian UK

"We completely understand the public's concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission," said Harry Schoell, the chief executive of Cyclone Power Technologies, one of the companies behind the machine.

This is because there have been rumors that the Pentagon has partly funded research into a flesh-eating robot that powers itself by eating everything in its way, but in fact it just eats vegetation.

Oh, big sigh of relief that's okay then. It won't matter if we send off robots to our enemies that just eat their lands up. There's got to be another story in that!

See, sometimes reality isn't only stranger than fiction it totally surpasses it. Here I am thinking I'm going out on a limb in Jake's weird world, but no, I'm just predicting the future, in fact I bet somewhere in the world there's a real test site just like Jake's.

I already found out to my complete surprise that Ford himself built a pseudo suburban paradise in the Amazon rain forest!! Seriously, I don't even have to make this weird stuff up!! It was called Fordlandia of course.

It failed of course partly because you can't just build an American utopia in a rain forest and expect it to succeed and partly because... well, Ford was off his rocker.

Now for something completely different, someone who's completely sane and wonderful and has always been one of my favourite poets, Seamus Heaney in a lovely Guardian interview, enjoy!

And finally this...a really cool urban pool in a dumpster. Why is it that an urban secret concrete pool party seems so much cooler than my own lovely pool? A case of grass is greener...or asphalt blacker?

Okay, off to write!

Vampire Invasion

2009-07-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

This is the photo from tomorrow's Guardian, on a piece highlighting how many vampire fans come to Forks every year now, over 8000 just in June. The tiny town is doing its best to cash in, Twilight themed merchandise, restaurants and menus, however I read another article recently on how many things Stephenie had got wrong about the Indian tribes that inhabit the region, when I find it I'll post a link here. Basically the tribes are not doing so will on the cashing in side, apparently more to do with their generous giving spirit than a lack of know how.
I found it! here is the blog I was thinking of American Indians Children's Literature for a fascinating account of Twilight's misrepresentation of the Quileute Indians. Of course Twilight was never intended to be anything but a racy fiction romp, but still it raises important questions on the fictionalization of cultural and natural facts. How far when you're writing do you stretch the truth? How much is based on facts then twisted a little or a lot? We all know truth is stranger than fiction and I do not believe fiction writers should be held accountable to the 'facts' but at the same time I do believe fiction set in a factual place reads stronger if the truth of the place is authentic. Wow! talk about twisting myself in knots there. What do you think?

On the subject of vampires I am waiting in anticipation for the first disc of True Blood, the HBO series. We caught a sneaky glance before Comcast realized it had accidentally leaked HBO and STARS to us, then of course they quickly dammed them up.

I have been finishing up plugging the plot holes in Jake, almost all the way through 10 pages to go yay! then the hard work of actually fixing up the poor boy!

Another fabulous feast for your eyes is HELL BOY II - seriously we watched it with Luka the other day, it's our version of a family film and loved-loved-loved it! The effects puppetry, creativity and cinematography are genius. If you're a fan of comic books and Pan's Labyrinth, you'll love it too, directer Guillermo del Toro, is just amazing. I can't wait to see what he's working on next.

The Man with a Thousand Faces

2009-07-11T11:57:00.001-07:00

Lyrics like these are why music is often my favourite muse. We are trying to work out how to play this on piano right now. This is still my hot CD right now!

So, news things I found that I thought you'd enjoy or at least find vaguely intriguing.

This first one, fresh from The Guardian today by David Edgar - well actually yesterday as right now it's tomorrow in the UK! I have to admit appeals to the drama student side of my, the seven main story arcs how Ibsen and Brecht approached different versions of the same basic plot, how Pinter was character led and so forth, basically really interesting stuff, especially if you're a writer and lover of plays, or just losing your way in your plot outline! Seriously, get a G & T, or a double latte and read at your leisure.

The next, also from The Guardian , is why Phillip Pullman among others will not be visiting schools in Britain for the foreseeable future, as any visitors will now need to go through a security check to make sure they're not any danger to children first. Like the equivalent to the FBI finger print screening here in the US, no wait that was because I was a teacher, I don't know of any visiting authors who've had to do that, even worse in the UK the author has to pay the expense as well. Actually that's not even worse that's just salt to the wound. I absolutely agree that staff at all levels who work with children or in a school should be vetted thoroughly, but visitors who will never be alone with the children? Does the mayor have to do this too? I think not, and then really why stop there, shouldn't all parents be vetted too? Who knows what their background hides? This is one of those slippery road to insanity, like banning hoodies.

Finally from Publishers Weekly,Mary Pearson has a very different type of book tour for her new YA The Miles Between, where the book tours alone, through the hands of its fans and ends up at its destination, each fan sends it on to another in a different town, I love this idea, fun, intriguing, the fans gee to write messages on the book, totally interactive and less exhausting for the author, but hopefully just as effective sales and promotion as a book tour. I wonder if the novelty buzz will last for other books or if its a sign of the times that we need to keep on being five steps ahead. Great idea anyhow and I can't wait to read the book myself I LOVED her last one, The Adoration of Jenna Fox.

CVM, and Harry Potter, little jewels...

2009-07-03T10:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.catherynnemvalente.com/fairyland/

These were from today's Guardian, Click the link to see more cast members and how they've changed over the last ten years. TEN YEARS!! That's amazing. The adults really don't look that different, except of course when they've died and been replaced by someone else, but the three main players are really interesting. To me Emma Watson still looks essential the same, a kind of quiet prettiness and intelligence, Daniel looks very different, I mean you can see his nose and mouth are the same but his jaw line's changed, and those eyebrows are verging on ferocious!

Anyway what a life they've had, growing up Potter, I always think it must have been really weird for J.K. Rowling to write books 4,5,6 & 7 knowing who will probably play her characters on film and how as a writer that affects your writing.

Can't wait to see the next one, midnight of course with all the wild fans :-)).

Here is something I stumbled upon, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making . It's a wonderful tale, told only on the internet, by Catheryne M. Valente - fabulous name - and it's donate what you think it's worth. The whole concept is really interesting and the writing, well go and see for yourself. I found the whole website/writing/concept most intriguing.

I think my English is dropping into old style as I've just arisen enthused with Jane Austen - with a Zombie invasion!
Yes, I finally finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and it's very, very good, almost spectacular in its virtually seamless weaving of the finer details of zombies munching on brains or cauliflower and ravening the English countryside against a fine blossoming romance.

Do you know the (teh) is the most commonly misspelled word? I could double my output if my fingers didn't keep stumbling over words!! Is there such a word as misspelt in the US? Or is that an Angloisim? Or a glitch in my vernacular?

Jude as Hamlet, Twitterrage and why you might not want a huge advance.

2009-07-01T14:51:00.001-07:00

I must admit my first reaction was, isn't Jude a little old to play Hamlet, no matter how beautiful he is? Here's more on Hamlet moving to Broadway -- oh the pull of star power!

This is a follow up to John Green's excellent blog 'SparksFlyUp' on why authors shouldn't be paid huge advances. I know that's what we all dream of but I'm persuaded it's not the best thing for the industry or for most authors, unless they are about to be repossessed right now! (Their house that is, not repossessed as in the Exorcist style possessed again.)

Twitter rage -- not a good idea, but easily done, then what? It's up on everything you linked, your blog your facebook page and everyone knows!! And even if you delete it it will be there hiding somewhere forever on someone's hard drive waiting to spring out at opportune moments! You may scoff but here's some authors who've been caught in the moment.

These Brit authors, as far as I know do not suffer from Twitterrage; Philip Pullman, Horrid Henry creator Francesca Simon and former children's laureate Michael Rosen, are doing their best to save school libraries and the librarians who work in them. Shocking to read how few schools in the UK have a full time librarian, but I guess that's the way it's moving here in CA as well. Like these authors say, there is a huge societal price to pay.

J T & Two writing heros...

2009-06-28T17:59:00.001-07:00

Yay! Jamie-T has a new EP out in advance of his forthcoming album and he's touring, only the UK and Ireland unfortunately no wait and Australia maybe he'll put out US dates soon!

This is why I wish I could speak Japanese, one of my fav writers, Haruki Marakami, has a new novel out and it sounds so good, but it's not been translated yet -- sigh, but here read all about it then you an sigh too.

And here is Patrick Ness reveals his short story a prequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go, Viola before the crash!!

I'll only be doing short blogs this week as Luka is in camp so I am working, working, working on JAKE.

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/show/feature/Home/New-World-intro--------------------

Margaritas and wine

2009-06-27T17:57:00.000-07:00

I LOVE this 'Laughing With'song by Regina Spektor. Luka got me her new album FAR, for my b'day and I've been listening to it non-stop ever since. My b'day was great if you take into account that I stumbled from place to place, meeting wonderful friends who put up with me acting like a zombie on meds. I learnt an important thing on my b'day eve -- Margaritas and wine don't mix.

So I got lost in Oakland for a while, managed to nod my head and listen to my lovely patient friends, so sorry! The cards and pressies were lovely. Managed to convince myself that Pam's b'day was a month after mine not a few days after. And generally behaved very badly and collapsed as soon as was politely possible into a suitable stupor.

I did have a fabulous birthday eve, I even read at an open mic! Thanks to Grace's wonderful powers of persuasion. And I have resolved to write write write and get this JAKE into ship shape, oh, and blog more often and actually do something with my linkedin, redbook and jacketflap site presence!

Midsummer...

2009-06-21T15:33:00.000-07:00

Image from today's Guardian... ah, summer. I wish A Midsummer Night's Dream were playing in a park tonight, somewhere I trust it is. So, it's Father's Day and Midsummer. I love the whole idea of midsummer, a night of madness, chaos in the best sense and magic. A night where further north than here, the sun almost doesn't set. The long midsummer nights, where twilight turns to dawn, skipping out the midnight black.

According to The Guardian 30,000 peeps will be celebrating at Stonehenge, one day I have to do that. Crazy that I grew up near there and visited about once NOT at midsummer either. And look today I discovered I'm a pagan!

'All you have to believe to be a pagan, according to the federation, is that each of us has the right to follow our own path (as long as it harms no-one else); that the higher power (or powers) exists; and that nature is to be venerated.' Maybe you are too? Check out this article, it's given me fresh new novel ideas, as in YA not as in original though I guess they are that too! Help me before I drown in my own verbal knottage!

Yesterday we had a very successful SCBWI BEYOND THE BAY event. Judy Wheeler and Bob Ditter of Towne Center Books, gave a talk on how they choose the books that go into their store, which publicity campaigns worked best and which books are awkward to buy.

Rapt audience members, left to right: Kathy Shepler, Pamela Turner, Anne Reilly, Amy Moellering.

They were really informative, and the audience was rapt. I know they said many things but, as Luka was also there and at times hanging off me in a fit of I-need-to-hug-you- moredom, these are the three things that really stood out for me..

1 One word titles are a NO NO!! Just as well I'm not calling JAKE Jake anymore! Judy explained one word titles are really difficult to find in a data base, as anything that contains your one word comes up. This makes it really difficult to find. It's a pain for book store owners, a pain for your customers and equals fewer sales!! Just don't go there!

2 You basically have three months on the shelf and then they pull you off, so yes pre-publicity is great, establish your blog and website but you'd better be out there promoting your book like crazy because if you don't three months later it could be all over!

3 Despite all the trends, novelty packages, celebrity written (I say that in the loosest sense of the word possible) books, children just want to read really good books.

The next Beyond the Bay event is December 5th...mark your calender.

I made that!

2009-06-14T19:41:00.001-07:00

A miracle!!! Cupcakes that worked, icing that didn't curdle! Baking, baking, baking all day long -- what!!!! I've secretly become a housewife -- nah, I just felt like baking, come on it only happens about twice a year!!!

So now, having eaten some apricots in a miraculous homemade crumble -- again a first! And two delightful cupcakes I had to go on Wii Fit. Ten minutes of hula hooping and twenty minutes of various other efforts and here I am freshly damp and ready for the world, G&T in hand! Yes, it is the first weekend of the summer hols.

Number of words written = nil. Thoughts about Jake = twenty. Thoughts on next project = three.

Don't forget SCBWI Beyond the Bay coming at ya next Saturday 20th from sunny Walnut Creek, 2:00 - 4:00 Behind the Books, how to get your book into an indie book store, be there or miss it!

Summer is bringing on an exuberance of exclamation marks.

I am pathetically happy to find that Doctor Who is playing over the summer, June 27th then two more whose dates they are saying cunning that ??? Here's the beebs link

Would you believe me if I told you my dictionary just threw itself off the shelf? It's true it's true must be some subtle get on with your writing message, at least it missed my head. Now on to reading The Last Olympian with Luka -- which is a cracking good book!

writing teachers and teaching writers

2009-06-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

This is the lovely Eoin Colfer and The Guardian UK says, 'The author of the popular Artemis Fowl books, Eoin Colfer, was previously a primary school teacher in Wexford, Ireland. He wrote his first six books while still teaching. In 2002 he won the WHSmith award, children's category, for Artemis Fowl' I always think writers are lovely it's just a fact really. Here's some more teachers who made it big writing...
Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Guardian
Ah, that's what I should have done, kept teaching until I got published! Maybe I'll go and take that CBEST after all. (CBEST for my anglo friends, is an annoying little test I need to teach here, yes I know I have a teaching degree and experience already but what can you do?)

I guess having fun teaching creative writing summer camp will have to surfice for now, talking of which there are still places left, Last week of July first week of August @ Towne Center Books, 9:30-10:30 $20 per day or $75 per week, ages 7-11 and it's all SCI FI this summer!!

Okay, back to reading the Adoration of Jenna Fox before I incur a fine. BTW did I say The Ask and the Answer, by Patrick Ness, is fine fine fine? Wonderful exciting dramatic frustratingly awfully twistery but not quite throw your book across the room ending? Look out for it in the USA comes out in Sept , in the UK what are you waiting for??? It's been available since May!

1984, gorilla's and rhyme

2009-06-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

Image from today's Guardian.

I am immensely pleased to see Anthony Browne is now the laureate for childrens' literature, a great choice to take over form the lovely and wonderful Michael Rosen. I used to love using Browne's books in the classroom, deceptively simple, they are beautiful, gentle, surreal and emotional works of art.

This is of course from youtube but there's a bunch of really cool authors like Andy Stanton and Rick Riordan up there on something called the readingzone.com - you should go and play there!

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of Orwell's 1984 being published, can you imagine what he'd make of the world today? All his visions came true and more and what would his version of 2084 read like?

I was watching a Sci channel show the other night with Luka and sig 1, all about the house of the future and I just couldn't stop thinking about this Ray Bradbury story that I read for English in 1983 -- There Will Come Soft Rains - another of those wonderful attic finds on my last adventure in England. I always loved this story the quietness of the machines going about their everyday duties with the shadows of the dead all around. I know I was a macabre child.

While I write this a live bunny is roaming our kitchen, or maybe she's just peeping out from her cage. We're babysitting bunny for four weeks. Look out for tales of her thrilling and wild adventures! For extreme thrill seekers click on the bunny suicides link instead.

Beach huts and blackbirds

2009-06-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

Beach huts on Hayling Island, one of the many small pleasures I'd forgotten about. Another is the song of the British blackbird so chirpy high spirited and lyrical calling across my parents garden all day,it makes my own home with it's little bee buzzings and hummingbird squeals seem very small and quiet. Almost apologetic.

I come home with fresh eyes to see the failing of myself as a gardener, with the plants either overgrown, crawling out of their boundaries, smothering others or completely limp with the exhaustion of growing for a yellow thumbed gardener. And my writing seems to have suffered the same way, unfocused since finishing Jake, I'm turning in circles chasing vague ideas in opposite directions. I truly thought the holiday would help me recharge but it seems it's only helped me to come undone!

One wonderful thing this visit has given me is a renewed love of poetry. I watched an amazing documentary, My Life in Verse, part of a poetry series on BBC, with Sheila Hancock (wife of John Thaw) on how poetry profoundly effected and helped her during her depression following the death of her husband John. It was so incredible moving and also uplifting. To find solace in the darkest of times. One poem she read was The Sick Rose.

- Funny videos are here
This totally made me want to hunt out my Songs of Innocence and Experience, by William Blake again, another was by Philip Larkin, which all just made me hungry for poetry like my undergrad days.

It also made me wonder, what was I doing really with my life?

One unsold novel of dubious quality, one WIP, no articles because I am too lazy to dream up and queries, and really would rather write novels, and a series of spectacular careers, crash and burn style events, as in just when I get am doing really well, reaching the top etc. etc. I have a burning desire to leave that field!

Leaving that thought for a moment, I climbed into my parents loft and poked around my boxes and boxes of books left temporarily for our short visit to the US, the first box I opened contained, For Esme with Love and Squalor, Lorca plays, Innocence and Experience and Philip Larkin's Witsun Weddings, it was like the box had been calling me, and I'd heard it. Silly I know, but it was an amazingly comforting find. Needless to say our bags coming back were much heavier with all the loot I found in the book boxes. So what now? A week of indulgence, reading poetry clearing my brain shaking off the jet lag, planing my kids writing class, organizing the SCBWI Beyond the Bay event,(link coming soon!)and reading all your wonderful blogs, then next week, back up to full speed -- writing like a demon.

I can't see myself leaving my life long passion it would be like leaving myself.

On that morbid note, I have sad news, I just found out an old school friend of mine, Lisa Booth, has died. A fellow mischievous maker in French, lender to me of her much better wardrobe, a beautiful, jubilant wonderful person whose face I can conjure immediately, even though we lost touch a million years ago, she died too young and is much missed.

Swallows & cupcakes

2009-05-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

So, finally with two days to go before I return, I'm blogging. London was brilliant, sunshine and showers, London Eye was gorgeous. Luka decided he wanted to live there, and then Paris was just beautiful, and grand, and relaxing and sunny and perfect. Luka got to see the Mona Lisa and climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and I got to share Montmatre and the winding walkways of Paris, and of course glace!

SCBWI Beyond the Bay June 20th Judy and Bob of Towne Center Books will be talking about buying, choosing and selling books for their indie book store. It will be a fun informative presentation with time for Q&A and should be interesting to anyone who writes or illustrates kids books, come with questions and smiles!

Here in Havant, Hants, blackbirds are stealing cherries and squirrels are stealing bird food. Swallows and butterflies - painted ladies are flying around (The butterflies are off course from Africa) and cupcakes from the Swallow Bakery are being consumed, which just makes me want to buy Eloise's cupcake recipe book and start baking. This is a bad idea as; a) I am really bad at baking and b) I am terrible at making icing.

It doesn't get dark here this time of year until 10 p.m. and the birds sing their chorus at 3 a.m. which is exuberantly glorious if you love birds but not great for sleeping when your times been turned upside down. I am sure Luka and I will just have
sorted our rhythms out completely when we'll have to time turn all over again.

See we are already in the age of tiem and space travel!

PS

2009-05-12T14:13:00.001-07:00

Just had to share this cool little peek into Neil's world found floundering around on Neil Gaiman's web of wonders...courtesy of The Guardian, ten intriguing questons. There I feel better already.

Birthdays Books and Facebook

2009-05-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

HAPPY NINTH BIRTHDAY LUKA!!! Here he is with his favorite place behind him, Hawaii - or my interpretation of it.

Okay so I've been missing in action for some time,no lists Sunday due to me reading and reading the awesome YA Pam Turner's given us Inksters to crit. And due to the fact I had a party to organize Sat - very cool scavenger hunt ice cream and mass swim, and then the passport crisis, which is still pending and fingers crossed will be okay. Please all of you check your passports are current preferably before you book your next trip abroad!
www.allfacebook.com This is a really cool site I found run by Nick O'Neil on all things Facebook, like an online Facebook manual but better, a great site for all the new possibilities facebook offers, FB news and many gadgets as well as spot-on how to advice.

MAJOR BREAKING NEWS!!! The wonderful Kathy Shepler is officially on the Newberry committee for 2011!! Hooray! She is an absolute gem of a person with an enormous depth of knowledge in the world of children's literature, librarian extraordinaire and a fabulously warm generous person! Oh, and leader of our wonderful Oakland book group.

I have finally finished the flyers for my children's creative writing workshop which will be M-F last week of July and the first week of August from 9:30-10:30 @ Town Center Books Pleasanton, checks payable to them, $75 per week or $20 per session, for ages 7-11. No offense 12 + if you want a class just let me know! I am really excited because this years theme is SCI-FI and as you know I've just finished the fourth draft of my sci-fi/urban fantasy novel Dead Friend's Don't Count!! I Love Sci-Fi!!

And lastly here is a very cool article in today's Guardian, Sub Plots --as in subterranean. All about 10 novels set below ground. I love the sound of Haweswater by Sarah Hall, spooky little village under the water, coming back to break the surface.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/11/top-10-subterranean-books

10 rediscovered/discovered kid books

2009-05-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

Set designed by Luka!

Okay, so last list for now...books I've rediscovered/discovered with Luka.

-Harry Potter of course! My fav is the third one, but the first is pretty remarkable too especially when you've read them all and see all the clues she'd already littered way back at the beginning...where they subconscious, retroactive, or plain genius? And why is it on a search the movie fills almost the whole google page before the book gets a mention?
- Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
-Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie I absolutely LOVED this book, I'd never read it as a child and had no idea it was so witty!
- The Secret Garden, this is just a treasure Frances Hodgson Burnett
-Treasure Island Robert Louis Stephenson -what a thriller! Luka and I were spellbound.
- Winnie-the-Pooh, seriously I had not realized until endless readings and listening to it taped and read by Stephen Fry, Judy Dench and Jane Horricks (who is the BEST piglet) what an absolute gem this is quietly wise and so funny. So how come Disney's official Pooh bear website is the one that comes up first and then tons of stuff none of which is anything to do with A.A. Milne?????
Oh no it's beginning to look like I've force fed Luka classics all his little life so here's some newer ones we love.
-The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan- brilliant
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman- So beautifully spooky and twisted in the nicest possible way.
--Coraline just about perfect
- Only You Can Save Mankind (and the Johnny trilogy) awesome finally I've discovered the wonders of Terry Pratchett!

And every time I write one of these lists it just reminds me I should have one for YA one for short stories ahh!! Maybe Sunday should be list day!

For Esme—With Love and Squalor, and Other Stories by J.D. Salinger

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I named my first cat after Esme, and my fav short story ever is a Perfect Day for Bananafish. What a wonderful writer/genius this man was.

View all my reviews.
I have no idea what this will look like but since I've been playing around all day with Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop, when good reads said do this and add it to your blog I complied!

For all you FBs and Ts I stumbled upon this great site for all things FB and I've been playing around with Hyperwords, which is kind of useful but I think could be ravishing if I gave it a little more time.

Top ten adolescent books...

2009-05-03T08:50:00.001-07:00

Okay, I know I promised THE NEXT DAY I said, but...the next day I went to the Vivarium, to look at panther chameleons and played around in Berkeley, and then fell asleep while pretending to read What I saw and how I Lied - by Judy Blundell. No reflection on the book. The book is very compelling so far with a great voice.

Then I spent some time worrying about TweetDeck, for some reason half of my screen is just black and I can't see my fav people Tweet :-( it's most distressing.

So, enough whimpering, here --- drum roll --- are my top ten stories/novels from when I was 12-18. I'm doing this from memory, which being pretty fractured means I am bound to miss some very important ones out!

Again in no particular order:

The Great Gatsby, F.Scott Fitzgerald
The Cut Glass Bowl, F.Scott Fitzgerald
1984, George Orwell
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
Brave New World, Adolf Huxley
Metamorphosis, Kafka
A Perfect Day for Bananafish, J.D Salinger
The Outsider, Albert Camus ( This seems to be called The Stranger in the US, very hard to get past wiki/Powell books etc. to find my memory was actually right! Internet 'truths' can be very elusive.)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Age Of Reason, Jean-Paul Sartre. Of course I had to read the next two in the trilogy too, but this is the one that started my intro into the world of existentialism. Oh how I wanted to read them in French -- if only I spoke the language!

Which pretty much reflects adolescent angst -- journey into the unknown, loss of youth, innocence, social justice, and death! This is kind of interesting -- does it reflect in any way the person you are to become?

I have to give my parents huge kudos here, all of these authors were waiting for me to pluck from the extensive lounge library, along with gems like Graham Greene, Ursula Le Guin, and Raymond Carver. Access to books was the key to my discoveries and life long passion for reading. Which only goes to show, you can NEVER have too many books!

Come on then, spill the beans your teenage self favourites?

Childhood favourites

2009-04-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I promised my top ten kids books but, the problem is there's books I love now, new ones like the Graveyard Book and The Knife of Never Letting Go and then there's new and old ones I've discovered by reading or buying them for Luka and then there's my childhood favorites, so I figure it's only fair to separate them out.

So here is my childhood top ten a mixed bag of the books I remember being totally thrilled by -- in no particular order.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase , by Joan Aiken. I especially loved the night scenes -- being chased thorugh the snows by the wolves.

The Children of Green Knowe, by Lucy M. Boston. this whole series is just bliss, but the idea of being in this starnge haunted house and making friends with ghost children that you're related to is just pure magic.

Linnets & Valerians, by Elizabeth Goudge. This book terrified me, I haven't read it in ages but I seem to recall it had loads of witch craft and magical properties of trees in it!

The Silver Crown, Robert C. O'Brien. So she wakes and finds a silver crown on her pillow and then the whole world seems to tilt and she's thrown into this amazing fantasy world which seeps into the real world in a pretty scary way.

Greenwitch, (Dark is Rising series,) Susan Cooper what's not to love about these, Arthurian mysteries, dark against light, magic and strange happenings, child heroes that save the world but in an understated intelligent way.

The Changeling, Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I used to rush home form school to read this, it was like I'd found forbidden fruit at the library and it had to be devoured!

The Hobbit, J.R. Tolkien
Ahh, what can you say about this story? Classic mastery and magical, of course my favourite parts involve the skeleton horse men!

The Water-Babies, Charles Kingsley 1863~ I had no idea it was that old! I had a copy with the most gorgeous illustrations. I loved the whole idea of dying and becoming something completely different completely clean, ditching the grimy world with your grimy skin.

Stig of the Dump, Clive King. Come on running around free in a dangerous dump and making friends with a prehistoric man--wonderful!

Man it's hard to just choose 10 but these all made a HUGE impact on me!
Not so strange to find myself writing spooky/fantasy adventure stories then!

What about you? Remember any you LOVED or HATED?

The Elements of Style

2009-04-28T08:53:00.001-07:00

This is Ursula herself, Unknown/Copywrite Bettman/Carlis taken in 1985.
Ursula K Le Guin's novel POWERS, the third book in the Annals of the Western Shore saga, has been awarded the Nebula prize for best fantasy Young Adult novel of the year. At 79 Ursula has written 22 novels, 100+ short stories, 7 books of poetry and 12 books for kids -- she's just brilliant hence the photo. Who better to adorn pride of blog space?

I have finally finished draft 4 of Jake--hooray --gasp---applause! Now titled Dead Friends Don't Count. And I'm really pleased with it, and I love Jake, and I love the ending. But I know I probably have a few more drafts to go to get it perfect, which is how you want to read it, right? It is fun to go about with a fifteen year old's voice in your head though, especially a witty, disdainfully insane one!

One slight concern...do you remember when I was writing the first draft, how I'd write things and then they'd happen for real? The power cut that happened in the mall the afternoon that I'd written it into Jake that morning? The crashed car outside my house the night after I'd written a crash scene? I'd kind of forgotten as it was a while ago, and then last night I was just polishing up the manuscript when I realized it happened again. In Jake at the climax everyone's wearing gas masks. Gulp. On the news, Mexico City, everyone's wearing little blue masks. Now my masks are full on gas masks but still it makes you think -- and yes, my masks were invented before swine flu hit the news, but only by a few days. So, if any of you start hearing about a quarantine dome please let me know!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STRUNK & WHITE!! The Elements of Style is one of the first books I bought when I decided to write seriously. (Not to be confused with Luka's book Elements with Style which is actually a really cool manga style book all about the elements of the periodic table.) I don't mean serious writing but to take my writing seriously. This is a mini bible for writers, now 50 years old, and still elegantly relevant today. Here is a more indepth look by NPR --gotta love those peeps.

The Guardian reported earlier in the week on an espresso book machine. It prints on demand, and has been touted as the best thing since the printing press. However, the word on the SCBWI Britain, listserv, from people who went to stare is that it has a few teething problems, like paper jams and skewed printing. I'll see if I have time to check it out while I'm in London.

Yes, London and Paris here I come!! As long as the borders aren't closed down to Americans in the next three weeks. More nearer the time otherwise I'll get fidgety and breathless with excitement.

What else, okay a slew of interesting articles on kids books, a top ten list of children's books from UK children's literature laureates. Harry didn't make it but there's some really great picks in here ...

What are your top ten children's books? I'll share mine tomorrow.

Also here is a really interesting article on why it's important for bad things to happen in children's books. In a word it's empowering. For many more check here .

And finally I leave you with some Tuesday poetry, being as it's still April, poetry month, though I like the idea of poetry Friday better, something to look forward to at the beginning of the weekend! Here's Michael-lovely-Rosen and Andrew Motion discussing kids poetry in the Guardian UK.

Here is Michael Rosen live...well kind of!

Green Day and French Laundry

2009-04-21T16:32:00.000-07:00

Happy green day!

We are so lucky living where we do, that we can zoom down to Monterey Aquarium, one of our favorite places to connect with the amazing oceanic world. I grew up by the ocean, I went to a school where I could day dream out the math room window and stare at the grey-green English channel. We skived and spent our time in at holiday camps drinking cherry brandies....oops I've digressed. Main thing, I love coming here and watching Luka fall in love with all things ocean too.

To celebrate Earth day we're going to watch Pole to Pole narrated by the awesome David Attenborough, the incredible British naturalist who actually came up with the whole idea of Planet earth and the driving concern about preserving our environments.

The man who saved the world.... okay he's trying check out The Ethical Man, he's so very very green and pretty funny too in a trying to save the world without being terribly earnest kind of way.

Also on all things GREEN, my friend and awesome author Pam Turner has just won well I'll put it in her own words...Yesterday my biography of wildlife biologist George Schaller, A LIFE IN THE WILD, won the Northern California Book Award for Children's Literature. I was, to be honest, quite stunned. It's an open category that includes just about anything written for children--picture books, novels, informational books, etc. Generally informational books have a hard time competing with fiction for literary awards, so I was very, very pleased when my book made the nominee list. You can also follow her on her blog, she just started it yesterday!

I haven't been blogging much as I'm racing on with Jake, now with a brilliant new title! All will be revealed in time...
What is it?