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Fact Checking and WFMAD 23

There is a great story in many history books in which John Adams calls the year 1777 “the year of the hangman” because all those sevens lined up together looked like gallows. The implication was that if the British defeated the Patriots in the American Revolution, the Patriot leaders (like Adams) would all hang.

It’s a great quote; vivid, layered, and short.

I wanted to use it in the book I’m working on right now, so I started hunting for a primary source so I could verify the wording. Couldn’t find one. I found many people saying Adams said this, but no one pointed to the evidence that actually proved it. I could not find it in a searchable database of his writing, nor several other collections of his writings.

I turned to an 18th-century expert who writes a terrific blog about the time period: J.L. Bell of Boston 1775. He did his own investigating and came up with some surprises for me. And now I have to find a different quote. Darn.

WFMAD 23

We’re having a minor family emergency here, so this will be short today.

Today’s goal: Write 15 minutes, no matter what else is happening around you.

Today’s mindset: family comes first, but writing is a close second.

Today’s prompt: this is a free association drill. I’d like you to scroll down, down, down, until you get to the magic word of the day. When you do, write about all the images this word conjures in your head. Be specific and detailed in your descriptions. If you get stuck, repeat the word over and over out loud, no matter how silly you feel, and write whatever is flashing through your mind. If you stumble across a particularly vivid image, or one that for whatever reason hits you emotionally, stay with that one and write to your heart’s content.

Scroll down for the magic word…

Keep scrolling…

Almost there…..

Magic word = Spam (the kind you eat, not the kind that clogs your email inbox)

Scribblescribble…

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Showing Fangs, Seeding Ideas & WFMAD 22

Our wood for the winter should arrive this week. Whatever day it gets here is guaranteed to be 90 degrees and humid. It’s a law of physics. Wood needs to be stacked in garage = unseasonably hot weather + new hatching of mosquitoes and deerflies. But it’s comforting in a weird, sweaty way, to know the wood is coming, because it means I can start thinking of cool fall nights with a fire crackling in the fireplace.

Since I have starting fires on the mind, I might as well share my curmudgeonly opinion about whether YA books get enough respect in the field of literature. (Chasing Ray is doing a great job gathering opinions about this.)

This is a generalized opinion, not specifically tied to any one article or blog post. It comes after nearly a decade of being introduced as “the lady who wrote SPEAK.” If you are easily offended or irritated, you should probably change the channel now.

They don’t respect us for writing YA? Who gives a damn what they think? People who don’t understand the significance of YA literature to our culture are either ignorant or they are idiots.

Ignorance I can deal with. Lots of folks have been busy for the last fifteen years. They missed the revolution and are just now beginning to hear about this thing called YA. They lack information. Without information they are not in a position to judge. So if they look down on me for writing books for teenagers, it’s easy to shrug off their opinions because they are grounded in nothing.

Idiots don’t deserve my time or energy. They are the ones who make grand pronouncements on literature, who believe that the best way to educate a 14-year-old who reads below grade level is to shove Great Expectations down his throat. Then, when the kid says that the book sucks and that all books suck, and he reaches for his game controller, they are shocked and appalled at this horrifying, illiterate generation.

Idiots sometimes write dense short stories in which nothing happens that cause a sub-section of erudite inhabitants of Brooklyn to twitter and fawn, but leave the rest of the reading world scratching their heads.

When idiots look down their oh-so-refined noses at the raucous world of children’s and YA literature, it says oodles about the condition of their own spirits without contributing to the discussion at all. So I guess instead of flipping them the bird, I should try and be a little more understanding.

Or maybe not.

Are you sensing something defensive about this rant? Something snarly, cranky, maybe a little over-the-top? Yeah, I’m feeling my adolescent oats. I suspect I always will. That’s part of what makes me an enthusiastically happy YA author. I adore teenagers and I have a lot of empathy for what the culture puts them through. They are disdained, disrespected, patronized, criticized and scorned.

Gee, that’s the same attitude YA authors often run into.

So maybe the ignorant and the idiots are good for us. Maybe we need them to keep snubbing our work and dismissing our dreams because it reminds us what our readers are facing every day.

Any thoughts?

WFMAD Day 22

Today’s goal: Hasn’t changed. Write for 15 minutes. Don’t stress about the number of words you produce. Your brain is not a factory making word-widgets.

Today’s mindset: hopeful

Today’s prompt: I’m thinking ahead to what seeds I want to order for the garden next year. (BTW, if anyone has had success with using nematodes to control Japanese beetles, please tell me about it.)

I keep a gardening journal. As ideas come up for long-terms gardening adventures, I write them down. I need to ponder some ideas for years before I can really see the best way to execute them.

The same thing goes for books. There is a Future Projects file on my computer that is huge, and notebooks stuffed with ideas. These are the seed packets for my writing for the next decade.

Use your fifteen minutes today to write down seed-ideas for your writing for the next ten years. Let your imagination go wild.

Scribblescribble…

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Magic Monday & WFMAD 21

My weekend was a quick research trip, lots of library time, weeding the garden when the rain stopped, and – last night while hanging out with the family – cracking open dried cherry pits so the meat inside the pit could be added to the dark cherry liqueur I am brewing up for Christmas time.

This dog was the funniest thing I saw while researching.

I think his owner was reenacting a soldier from the British 24th Regiment of Foot. Which means the dog belongs to the 24th Regiment of Paw, of course.

WFMAD Day 21

The headshrinkers say it takes 21 days to form a new habit. If you have written every day for the last 21 days, then congratulations. Poof! You made it. You have a new writing habit! Like all habits, this one needs constant watering and attention, so please remember to write tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, etc., etc.

If you haven’t been able to write for 21 days in a row, write down the reasons why – what interfered? I know for a lot of you the answer is “vacation.” Nothing wrong with that. But if you couldn’t make the time to write when your time was truly your own, what’s it going to be like when you’re back in your work routine?

I’m not scolding here. This is all about helping you reprioritize a little so you can make the time to follow your writing dream. We have ten days left in the Challenge. Imagine that from now until the end of the month, each one of your waking hours represents $1,000. Think of your choices about spending your time as money-spending choices. Be mindful where you spend your everything.

Today’s goal: Write for 15 minutes.

Today’s mindset: fresh-start

Today’s prompt: if you fall off a horse, you have to get back on again or else, what’s the point? Start fresh today by choosing a different place to write in. Putting your body in a different space to write can help your mind be open to new ideas and perspectives.

Today I’d like you to write about your writing dream – what are you trying to accomplish? Be specific and detailed. If you are a calender-based person, what do you want to accomplish by January 1st? If you are a season-based person (like me), what do you want to have done by the Winter Solstice (December 21st)?

Scribblescribble…

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More Getting Published Stories & WFMAD Day 20

It finally rained last night and I slept in. I feel like declaring today to be a national holiday.

Another faithful reader of the blog posed a few publication questions yesterday: Have you ever spent time (be it weeks, or months) on a story proposal to the publisher and they (for whatever reason) turned it down?

If so, how did you feel about it having put all that time and effort into it and then have it get slapped down?

Or….do you suggest ideas that may interest you and submit it to them first so that you don’t waste any time on it?

Funny you should ask, because yes, I’ve gone through that. I am one of those folks who has acres of rejection letters from just about every publisher in America. Nobody likes rejection.

When I was breaking into this field, I must have proposed at least fifty different non-fiction book ideas to various and sundry publishers. With the crystal-clear glasses of hindsight, I can see now that most of them were bad ideas. Some of them were good ideas, but I either a) did a poor job explaining how the book would be structured or b) because I was still a pre-published author, no one was going to take a chance on me, so I should have written the whole thing without a contract and then tried to sell it.

Let me tell you the story behind INDEPENDENT DAMES. It started in the mid-1990s. I wanted to write a book that would highlight the Revolutionary War exploits of six unknown heroines, and I wanted the book to put the roles of women and girls in the Revolution in context of the larger war and society.

Nobody wanted the book. They all sent me form rejections. I had done a fair amount of research and had enormous files stuffed with information, but I realized the idea wasn’t going anywhere, so I packed them away in my drawer.

Over the next five years, I had a number of picture books and novels come out. At Simon & Schuster, I published FEVER 1793 and the editors there knew loved American History. They also knew (because of my earlier picture book, TURKEY POX (now out of print)) that I loved Thanksgiving. One of the editors suggested I investigate the exploits of Sarah Josepha Hale. There was no promise, no contract. I researched and wrote and researched and wrote and sold THANK YOU, SARAH to those editors a couple years later.

SARAH (illustrated by Matt Faulkner) turned out so well, the editors asked if I had another historical subject I’d like to pursue with the same illustrator and format. I brought up the idea about women in the American Revolution, thinking about that treasure chest laying in my file cabinet. The editor liked the concept, but encouraged me to go beyond six women, far beyond. I went home and did oodles more research and wound up with eighty-nine women and girls. I put together a giant proposal, including biographical information on each woman, sent it in and was offered a contract.

Which is a long story. I guess the moral is, don’t throw out your old files and keep moving forward.

Note for next week: Colleen at Chasing Ray has suggested we use this week to discuss some of the issues that have been brewing in the kidlitosphere. Are you interested?

WFMAD Day 20

Today’s goal: Write for 15 minutes. Then take a nap.

Today’s mindset: adapting to overcome.

Today’s prompt: This combines observation with perspective.

1. Describe what your house or backyard looks/feels/smells like to a four-year-old. Don’t write more than four paragraphs.

2. Now describe the same place from the Point Of View of a fourteen-year-old.

3. Now describe the same place from the POV of an eighty-year-old.

Scribblescribble…

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More Financial Truth and WFMAD Day 19

Yesterday post about the financial realities of writing provoked a lot of comment. Has SCBWI ever done a workshop about this? It’s the kind of practical nuts-and-bolts stuff people should know, IMHO.

In response to the post, a Constant Reader on MySpace posed this question: When you go to conferences- like the ALA and such- do you pay your own way and use that as business expenses come tax-time or does your publisher/etc ever pay for it (like if you were the one that won the Newbery that year)? Do groups ever pay you to come, like if you are speaking at an event?”

These days (I’ve been writing for 16 years and have published 6 picture books, 6 novels, and a 12-book series) the publishers pay my way to big conferences such as American Library Association, International Reading Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. But not every year. They pick and choose from their authors depended on if that person has a new book out, and the distance (= cost!) of getting said author to the event.

We are not paid for our time or for presenting at these big events. On my recent ALA trip, I was gone from home for five days. Two of those days were so jam-packed with book-and-librarian stuff I was only able to sneak in an hour of work. The other days I was able to work on the new book a fair amount. (That’s why I didn’t go play at Disneyland.) I have gotten much better at working on planes and in airports, too.

If you like speaking in public and are good at it, you can ask to present at state and regional conferences of librarians and teachers, and, of course, you can visit schools. If you are just starting out, you’ll probably have to pay your own expenses, and they won’t pay you a speaking fee. If you’re a good speaker and your reputation grows, you’ll gradually be offered an honorarium, and sometimes they’ll pay your expenses. Legitimate business expenses associated with this kind of travel are tax-deductible, but please, please consult with a tax professional about this.

In addition to conferences, I used to spend 60 – 100 days a year visiting schools. That’s how I paid my bills. It was fun and I loved it, but it wicked ate into writing time. (I’m on a hiatus from school visits right now – I promised my publishers I’d focus on writing for a while.) I always arranged my own travel, but a lot of authors rely on people like Catherine Balkin to set up their appearances and coordinate travel details.

What other facts of the writing life do you want to know?

WFMAD Day 19!

Today’s goal: Write for 15 minutes. Try to avoid melting.

Today’s mindset: humid

Today’s prompt: If you’re going to do this prompt, don’t scroll down to Part Two until you’ve completed Part One.

1. Write a list of five objects between the size of a hardback book and a toaster oven. Describe each item in glorious, precise detail.

scroll down for Part Two…

keep scrolling….

almost there…..

2. Imagine you’re on a vacation on a remote island; wo weeks and no electricity. You do have ample food and clean water, and a safe shelter, and you are fairly comfortable, but there are no stores around. You open your suitcase and instead of the clothes you packed, you find your 5 objects sitting there.

Write about what you’re going to do with them.

Scribblescribble…