Busy, busy, busy week visiting schools and meeting kids. Today I have to catch up on a week of mail and paperwork and pack. I leave for Ohio tomorrow. Will try to fill you in one what I saw and learned this week later – I took some photos, too.
Plus, I just received The Best Tee Shirt In The World from an awesome YA librarian in SC. Details later!!!
::dives back into paper mountain::
The research for the speech I gave on Thursday wound up taking a lot longer than I thought it would, but it was worth every minute. The speech was about literacy and literature in Central New York (which I call the Heart of New York), and included one of my patented rants about how we Americans should not rest until everyone in our country is functionally literate. I gave the speech to a room of very nice people – the folks who head up local charities and libraries, as well as the business groups which donate to both. So, yeah, I was preaching to the choir. It was great.
(If anyone cares, I’ll post a link to the speech tomorrow.)
One of the highlights of the afternoon was seeing my fifth grade math teacher again, Mrs. Williams. She was the most beautiful teacher at my elementary school, and all of us girls had mad crushes on her. I didn’t even care that she taught math, I just wanted to be like her – dignified, elegant – when I grew up. I still do. I also met a girl (I think her name was Tiiso) who is a fourth-grader at that same elementary school – Ed Smith. That was fun and she was adorable.)
Hung out with my mom all morning, feeding her doughnuts and pumping her for stories about WWII, and what it was like to be a country girl and go to Brooklyn at age 18. She has great stories to tell. My ongoing war with Medicare on her behalf might reach a peaceful resolution, but I’m waiting until I see everything in writing before I believe it.
This afternoon I’m writing and mentally preparing for this evening’s games. Tomorrow I head towards Buffalo. I’ll be speaking at the Lancaster Middle School on Monday and the Lancaster High School on Tuesday.
This is the most enlightening and mind-opening essay I have read in a very long time. Please read it. Along with essays like that, I’ve been chewing my way through fantasy novels that I missed the last two decades. Neil Gaiman is still my #1 Author, but now I’m into Diana Wynne Jones. I tried to finish Charles DeLint’s Trader, but didn’t love it. Can someone recommend another one of his books to me?
Working on a speech today… more tomorrow.
Crystal writes: I am doing a research project for english. I was just wondering what your favorite food was.
Popcorn.
Lauren K. writes: I’m an eight grader at Clifton T. Barkalow Middle School in Freehold New Jersey. I am doing a book report on a book you wrote. The book is Speak. About the repot, their is a part of the report is about the author. I was wondering if you could help me. If you do, it would really help. Here are some of the questions that you might be able to help me with:
How many books have you written? 23, think.
What do you enjoy to do? Writing, reading, hanging out with my family and friends.
What inspired you to start writing? A rather lively imagination.
What is your favorite book out of all the books you have written? I’m proud of all of them.
If you could give one piece of advice to young writers, what would it be? Be nice to your parents. If you are going to try and make a career out of writing fiction, you will wind up living in their basement for a long time.
Where do you like to write? In my attic.
Where do you get your ideas for a story from? Everywhere!!
Tom writes: Hello, Ms. Anderson. Have you ever/Would you ever post the query letter that eventually led to the publication of Speak? It would not only be entertaining, but could also serve as a model for those reading your LJ who are in the query-writing process.
That is a great question, but I’m afraid I don’t have it anymore. (I submitted SPEAK in 1997.) My query letters tended to be very brief: A paragraph with (I hoped) an interesting one- or two sentence summary of the book, a paragraph that briefly detailed my writing qualifications, and a paragraph that said thank you for considering my work. Let me point out for the record that SPEAK was plucked from the slush pile. I sold my first 4 picture books, my series, 2 novels, and a couple of work-for-hire jobs without an agent.
Kashia writes: I believe that you met my teacher at a conference recently. She was so happy to meet you and I wanted to hear everything about it. To my surprise she was really nervous to meet you. I never would have thought of my teacher as a nervous person before. She really looks up to you maybe even more than myself.
But any way I was wondering what procedures you took to get your book published? was it hard? Did you have to go through a lot of editors and stuff or can you simply walk into a publishing office and say “I want to get a book published.” And did you start out with picture books or was Speak your first book? And the last thing I was wondering is how old were you when you realized you wanted to be a writer? I am very interested in what you had to do to become a writer!!
I did it the old-fashioned way. I borrowed books from the library that taught me about the publication process (librarians rock), I borrowed more books from the library that had lists of publishers’ names and addresses, I wrote manuscripts and sent them to publishers. The first four years I was writing books for kids, I got rejected – over and over and over again. But I kept trying to improve my skills and it paid off. I started out with picture books because my kids were little back them. (I was about 30 years old when I decided to try and write for kids.) If you want to be a writer, you need a good day job to pay the bills, a passion for storytelling, a willingness to learn about craft, a wicked stubborn streak, and patience.
George Mason. George Mason?
::sighs deeply::
OK, this is the hand we’ve been dealt. I’m hoping for UCLA vs. Florida. (If that happens, cousin Sue, I’ll bet you a cup of tea that UCLA will win.) Big shout-out to my Georgetown boys for making us all proud to wear blue and grey again.
Is there life after basketball? Not really, unless you count the reading and writing stuff. I made it home from CA in one piece and will post photos of the gorgeous Cerritos library later. Today I’m writing WIP2 and when the right patch of shade hits the front lawn, I’m going to rake dead leaves and pick up sticks. BH says we might have a bonfire tonight. That will be cool.
Good news about Oklahoma – the concept of parental freedom to choose for their children might not be dead! Here is an update from an Oklahoma librarian, which I took from the ASIF blog:
“HB 2158 has been assigned to the education subcommittee of the appropriations committee of the State Senate. This committee has until April 7 to take action on the bill. If the measure comes out of committee and is scheduled for Senate debate, then we’ll be doing another letter/e-mail/phone call campaign to state senators. The good news is that the Senate leadership has assured our Oklahoma Library Association lobbyist that HB 2158 will not come out of committee — it may not even make it on an agenda for discussion. Administration tells us to remain “watchful” though, as the issue is far from over. While the bill might be dead, it is possible that another piece of legislation could be amended with the language of HB 2158.”
If you live in Oklahoma, please research this bill and contact your state representatives and senators with your opinion!!
Quote du jour: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke (1729-1797)