country living – Page 9 – Laurie Halse Anderson

June 20, 2008

A slight delay…

Yesterday was a loooooooong day that stretched into the night, and I still didn’t get everything done that I had hoped. So my post about The Very Nearly Perfect Thing will be a little delayed. I think I’ll make a video to explain it and hope to put it up late today or tomorrow.

First, sad news: Tasha Tudor has died. I have long admired her work and really appreciate how she chose to live her extraordinary life. The linked article refers to her need to make money from her art to support her children after a divorce. She said “the wolf at the door is very good for people” because she felt she would not have developed her talents without the need to pay bills. That is a very healthy perspective.

Thank you very much to everyone who turned out for last night’s Readergirlz chat! Mitali Perkins will be posting excerpts on her blog very soon. I’ll link to it as soon as it’s up.

We had a little rain yesterday and were given a beautiful gift at the end.

Breathtaking.

Especially because the rainbow ended (or began?) in our garden. (Photo credit: BH aka Scot Larrabee)

Good Solstice, everyone.

April 28, 2008

Counting raindrops and boxes on the calendar

Happy is the gardener who gets her plants in the ground and her tools put away before the rain starts.

I couldn’t help myself. I jumped the gun this weekend. The broccoli I planted will be fine when the temperatures drop below freezing later this week. It won’t bother the pansies either, though the hollyhocks are already trembling. The lettuce and peas I sowed are hardy enough to push through snow.

But I fear for the tomatoes. I put them out several weeks too early in a fit of blind optimism and while hallucinating about fresh tomato, basil, and mozzarella sandwiches. Maybe I could build them little bonfires or quick knit them all a blanket. Stay tuned….

Besides gardening (in a cloud of punkies so thick I had to work with a shawl wrapped around my head), the other fun thing this weekend was our nine-mile run around Cazenovia Lake with our Team in Training teammates. I’ve reached my fund raising goal and my Beloved Husband is 80% of the way there — he only needs another $485. Our bribery offer of free books and other goodies still stands if you donate (scroll down the linked post for the details.)

Several important dates are sprinting towards us:
48 days until the Lake Placid Half-Marathon
60 days until ALA
146 days until the Philadelphia Distance Run
176 days until the release of CHAINS and my book tour (I got a preview of the tour plans last week, but I can’t talk about it until the details are finalized.)

Looking backwards now:
2008 Resolution Tracker
Week 16 – Miles Run: 14.5, YTD: 329.25 (gone through another pair of sneakers!)
Week 16 – Days Written: 7, YTD: 118

This is Day 119 of 2008. We’re just about one-third of the way through the year. Does that seems possible?

April 18, 2008

It’s Almost Spring

I dashed outside the Cave of Revision this morning and it’s true: it is almost Spring up here on the tundra. In fact, I think it will happen today, while I am deeply buried in my story.

I won’t be able to haunt the Forest with my camera to pounce on the Absolute Moment, so here is the closest I can come to proving this to you.

Here the Creature With Fangs poses next to one of the last piles of snow we have.

Next: daffodils on the brink of blooming. (Yes, those daffodils, mentioned in ’06!) I tried to get the CWF to pose here, too, but she was more interested in crushing the plants with her paws. I threw a stick in the other direction and snapped this shot.

Thank you to everyone who donated to my husband’s Race for Cancer. There is still time to help our cause and get some of the free LHA goodies mentioned earlier this week (scroll to bottom of post).

Attention New England SCBWI Conference attenders! Today is Day 5 of my 21-Day Writing Challenge. How’s it going for you? I’d love to hear what you’re doing – leave a note in the Comments section and pass the word along to the other folks who were there.

OK, back into the Cave I go.

March 21, 2008

Spring on the tundra

Mary Pearson posted gorgeous spring photos yesterday.

Since it was, officially, Spring, i.e. the Vernal Equinox, i.e. Ostara, and I was well enough to get off the couch, I went in search of proof of the event in my own backyard.

I didn’t find much. Down south in Syracuse, they have grass and mud. Up here on the tundra?

Not so much. This is the end of my driveway. The driveway itself is slushy mud, which is a good sign, but there is still snow on the roof of the house.

::stares at Mary’s pictures again::

Here are my daffodils.

My Beloved Husband noticed my pout and scanned the horizon for signs of Spring. “Look!” he shouted, pointing to a small building on the farm down the hill.

I squinted. Put on my glasses. Squinted some more.

“No,” I shook my head. “You can’t fool me. We are going to be trapped in winter for months. And I’ll get the flu again. And we’ll lose power. And… and… and…”

He stuffed me into my (winter) coat and drove me down the road for a closer look.

He was right. Spring really is here.

Because that’s not smoke. That is the sweetest steam in the world pouring out of the sugar shack. The maple sap is running in the Forest. The farmers are collecting the sap and boiling – right inside that wonderful building – into maple syrup.

The Trees are wise. They know. It is Spring.

I feel much, much better now.

March 10, 2008

Another reason why I love my Honda Fit & husband

Saturday night’s storm knocked out our electricity and there was so much snow, we couldn’t get out the driveway. Normally this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I promised an editor a bunch of stuff would be delivered this morning and the battery on my laptop was drained dry. Big problem, frantic author.

Beloved Husband to the rescue! Scot is an old school Yankee tinkerer, a slightly-aged Boy Scout who loves improvising, and he saved the day.

He turned my little red car into an office.

First he cracked open the doors of the garage so I wouldn’t asphyxiate. Turned on my lovely car (it often gets 40 miles per gallon, btw) and cranked the heat. Plugged the inverter into the 12-volt jack (the thing we used to call a cigarette lighter). Plugged my laptop into the inverter. Carried down all of my research books and stacked them on the passenger seat. Fired up the laptop.

I worked out there all morning, enjoyed the tea that Scot brought out at 10:30am. When the power came back on at lunchtime, I moved into the house and kept working without missing a beat. Wrote until dinner and a little bit after that and accomplished my goal.

As promised, this week I’ll answer some of the writing process questions. that you guys have sent in. Today’s questions come from who writes: Do you ever have to adjust the overall pacing of the story, and if so how do you approach that?

Once the stinky first draft is done, I do a lot of tinkering with the pacing. It takes a little time to get the perspective that allows me to see the entire story, but once I can, I examine each thread of the story to make sure the events that pull it forward unfold in a way that makes sense, both for that thread and for the larger story. I make a time line of events on a huge sheet of paper. Once I see things on the time line, I usually make changes; speeding up some sections, slowing down others.

How do you think through making a character change over the course of a novel?

To be honest, I don’t give that part much thought. I focus on creating situations that force the character out of her/his comfort zone, raising the emotional stakes as I go along. If I’ve developed conflicts that are organic and in keeping with the character’s world, her/his response to the conflicts will naturally lead to internal growth.

More tomorrow. Right now I have more writing to do, and a long run later if I’m a very good girl. It’s ten degrees outside… I’ll be running on a treadmill.