Naming Names

Choosing names is a lot more fun than picking a title. Early on I learned from the best. My friend and critique buddy, Leslie Guccione, guided me as I wrote a mid-grade novel in my first critique group. At first the sisters were named Virginia and Alice Ann. Nope, kids might be confused by Virginia. Even though the story takes place in 1964 and Virginia was more popular then, we (my critique group) decided most kids nowadays think of Virginia as a state. Then Jesslyn popped into my head, and it was the perfect name for a bossy, big sister. Alice Ann was working just fine until I read a new book, set in approximately the same time, with a main character named--you guessed it-- Alice Ann! So Alice Ann became Gloriana, Glory for short. Great name changes. Both girls grew into their names and were better for it.

In my current manuscript, the character is a 12-year-old boy who longs to play the piano. His uncle forbids him to, but he manages to find a way around Uncle Chester's rules. He started out as Shelton. Don't ask. The name appeared to me. I began this manuscript in the amazing Writing for Children class at the New School, taught by Bunny Gabel. A Southerner like me, she understands how wonderfully unusual Southern names might be but she pointed out that, on the first page of the earliest version, she didn't have a clear idea of whether Shelton was male or female. It took me over a year to go back to the drawing board and find him a new name. This piano-playing character is now named Theo, short for Thelonious Monk Smith. Destiny!

I love names, collect them in my head and in notebooks and on pieces of paper tucked into boxes. Southerners seem particularly adept at names. Names like Squirrel (it's true!), double-named girls, Big Jack and Little Jack (my brother and dad). Play around with the USA DeepSouth website if you want to know everything there is to know about Southern names.


Perhaps choosing the perfect name for a character is my way of avoiding the perfect plot. I could create names forever, but without a problem to solve, thorny issues to get in the way, and an interesting backstory, it's just a group of kids and their grownups sitting on the porch under the ceiling fan.

My Meme

I've been tagged by Barbara O'Connor, for the following meme:


1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.

2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.

3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 3 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.

4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What were you doing ten years ago?
Hard at work at my library at the Kent Place School.

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
1. Finish the review I'mwriting for the Christian Science Monitor on a wonderful book: HUNGRY FOR PARIS.

2. Take a walk.

3. Go to my Writers' Group.

4. Fly to Tampa.

5. Pack for my friend Patty's daughter's wedding.

What are some snacks you enjoy?
Pita sea salt crackers
Nuts
Greek yogurt

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
Wow. Give me a minute.

What are three of your bad habits?
Bossing people around (Hey, I'm a Leo.)
No tolerance for people who are habitually late.
Reading in bed with a bag of pita chips.

What are five places where you have lived?
Cleveland, Mississippi
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Newport, R.I.
Baltimore, MD
Chatham, NJ
St. Petersburg, FL

(whoops, that was six. And I had to leave out a few.)

What are five jobs you have had?
Lifeguard/ swimming instructor
Camp Counselor
Library assistant at the Harvard Medical School library
School librarian
Writer

What people do you want to tag?
Wendy Mass, Greg Neri, Janet McLaughlin

Title Picking

Titles are really hard for me. I latch onto one that should be considered a "working title" and then abolished forever, and I can't let it go. This is the case of my mid-grade ms about Sister Cockersole and the Rest Easy Boarding House. Originally it was known (only to me) as Train Doctor. Don't ask. Then it became Pretty Nearly, which has a nice ring. But some thought that meant nothing (some, obviously not Southern). So I'm going with Sixteen Rules for Living at the Rest Easy. At least for now.

I put that title into Lulu's titlescorer. A handy little gadget, probably useless in the real world, but kind of fun. Having read about it in The Writer Magazine, I figured it might be legit. So I filled in the blanks and tried out Sixteen Rules for Living at the Rest Easy. Turns out my novel has a 14 % chance of becoming a best seller with that title. But I'm not sure the folks at Lulu are up on the latest kids' book titles. How to Steal a Dog. Higher Power of Lucky. Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You.

I could go on and on with the funny, quirky, often very long titles writers give their books for kids.

Titles for essays are easier. And often get changed so it doesn't seem to matter that much what I title an essay. Editors, especially newspaper editors, have a real knack for writing catchy titles.

I like what Linda George advises in an article on the ICL website- Titles should be fun to say out loud. I think I need more alliteration. More fun. Back to work on my Sixteen Rules thing.

Book Groups

My original Book Group lasted 25 years. Can you believe that? We finally fell apart as some of us moved and some of us decided eating and chatting was more fun than talking about books. But a new group quickly rose from those embers and is still going strong.

I was asked to edit the Under the Covers column for Skirt! Magazine a few years ago and have almost never lacked friends, family, friends of friends and complete strangers willing and eager to tell me about their Book Groups.

Although the Book Groups are not on the Skirt! website, there are lots of other reasons to visit the site. Essays, especially. I mostly love the essays and have written a couple for the magazine. One of my favorite pieces was about the time my friend Sandra and I had lunch with Andy Warhol. True story. The lunch was arranged by a friend of my friend's. Southerners are like that. The essay started out about that lunch and ended up being about my friend. Essays can be like that.



But back to Book Groups. How strongly women feel about theirs. The friendships they make and the books they read. The food they eat and the gossip. I've discovered that women will travel back to previous addresses to stay in touch with their group. They move and start a new group, unable to bear the thought of not having that connection. Age doesn't seem to be a common denominator. The groups I hear from are multi-generational. Reading books together is a powerful way to make a connection.

Two submissions actually came from a grandmother and her granddaughter. The grandmother was almost 80 and in a group of retirees that didn't read most of the books but loved hearing about them from a proprietor of an independent bookstore. Her granddaughter works in publishing and lives around books all day. She and her friend make up a Book Group, of sorts, consisting of just the two of them. They meet over drinks and discuss what they are reading.

And isn't that enough? A friend, a glass of wine and a good book?

Book Reviewing: Write about what you know (Books!) or what you want to know more about (More Books!)

When I first left librarianing to set off on a writing life, my friend Beth Jacks offered up a suggestion. I could write book reviews about southern books, on her fun website USADeepsouth. Great practice and a good way to read new, interesting books. I love the South, I love reading. I accepted her offer.

About this time, I heard writer Betty Hicks at a New School panel on Writing for Children in New York City. I love these evenings and always take away a gem from whoever is speaking. Betty Hicks mentioned writing reviews as a good excuse to read all the latest kids' books, a way to keep up with the industry. Now that I'd left my connection to kids and books (said job as a school librarian), this seemed like a perfect fit for me. I followed her advice and applied to review books for a Children's Literature website.

Then I discovered Crescent Blues and Jean Marie Ward, editor extraordinaire. Jean Marie would force me to think about verbs like I hadn't thought about them since Mrs. Effie Glassco's senior English class (that would be Cleveland, MS. HIGH SCHOOL senior English). Too many "wases" and she'd reject. And forget that contrary helping verb "has." Passive voice= sinful! So I learned to write tight reviews that were interesting to read or I would be dismissed from the job. Crescent Blues is no longer publishing book reviews but I learned a lot there.

Did I mention the job of book reviewing is no way to earn a living? Just free books, free exposure, and a terrific way to read and think.

Sometimes getting a foot into a book reviewing door can be elusive. I just missed a connection to my local newspaper when they changed Book editors. I've had other near misses, which shall remain nameless. I queried the Christian Science Monitor's editor a couple of times before she accepted one of my favorite new books. Greetings from Nowhere.

So, like most other writing gigs, persistance pays off. It also pays to make deadlines, write well, be honest, stick to your word count, and watch out for all those "to be" verbs! Thanks, Jean Marie.

What I've learned along the way about book reviewing:

1. Read the book, maybe more than once.
2. Sticky notes are your friend.
3. If you review a book by someone you know, or by a publisher/agent/ publicist you are courting, be honest or don't write the review.
4. Book reviews, other than the short evaluations for industry pubs, should be well written and worth reading, even fun/challenging/ eye-opening, just like any good writing.
5. A good review contains a sentence or two about the author, mention of the plot, something juicy about the characters/setting/ style- Is it humorous? laugh-out-loud funny? Snappy dialogue?

Final piece of advice- When the pile by your chair teeters precariously higher than the dog, you have too many books to read.

Reading and Watching

Today was the first ACC Tournament game for my beloved Tarheels. Love, love, love the team this year. I'm amazed to think about how many seasons we've spent in front of the TV watching great teams and ok teams since Jay and I graduated from Chapel Hill. From our student days when we'd sneak into Dr. Fogle's class late, having stood in line to get our tickets, right up to now, we've never not cheered on the basketball teams. Those years in the early 80s when I'd watch with my next-door neighbors, Paula and Charlie. Then the fun games with Nonie and Brooke at their house in Summit. Nonie's daughter's friends claimed it was as much fun watching us watch the 'heels as it was watching the game. Brooke still leaves the TV if they get down by the slightest of margins. All his fault if they're losing, yessireee!

Today I kept getting distracted from the game --pretty hard for me to do-- by a book I'd just picked up at the library. Laurie Halse Anderson's newest YA page-turner, Twisted. I mean, there's no way that book was written by a non-teenaged boy! She really nailed the characters, all of them. Hannah, the perfect rendition of a kid sister/ h.s. freshman. And Tyler. Wow is all I can say.

But of course, I did read mostly during commercials. Had to support the Carolina Blue!

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day, early

I grew up in the South where stories were expected, especially around the dinner table, especially on Sundays. Noontime dinners were a big deal, lots of food, lots of relatives, lots of stories. My grandmother and my father were the best storytellers. So now, without those big family dinners, I just write down the stories. That's probably why I like writing personal essays. Thanks to my writing group mentor Lee, who taught me alot about the genre, I've had some success in publishing a few.

The Christian Science Monitor's Home Forum has published four of my essays, including one about St. Patrick's Day in yesterday's newspaper. Click on it for my friend Barbara's recipe for colcannon, also adapted from Edel's mom's recipe. Yum. Wish I had some right now.

An extra added attraction, or perhaps something to be avoided, is that I was also interviewed about my article. The microphone icon is clickable if you dare. But now I know why my mother always refused to be recorded. My brother-in-law George videotaped every Christmas morning and Mama ran in the opposite direction of that camera. Having heard my own voice on the website, from now on I, too, will shun the microphone.

What would I do without my writing group?

My friend Leslie and I think it was fate that put us together that fall day. I was working at Kent Place School and she was a newly-arrived spouse living on campus. She was a writer, I the librarian. Then we realized we had many more connections--writers we know, books we love, college connections. And we became great friends. Such good friends that when I retired from a long, happy, challenging, fun career, Leslie had the perfect solution for my next life. She knew I loved to write, had published a few journal articles. Join her writers group! she insisted. Work on my novel! Or at least an essay or two.

Kay, Leslie, Lee, Ann and I met every week- that's right, every week-- for over five years. I wrote a mid-grade manuscript, book reviews, a few essays. Leslie mentored with great patience. Then we moved, became quasi snowbirds, or "splitters" as we are often referred to. Splitting our time between New Jersey and Florida. How was I going to survive without a critique group? Enter SCBWI. Now I have two terrific groups. Not to mention the best online critique buddy, AKA as The Logic Police. Life is good. Like yesterday, when I was pulling my hair out over title picking, my Florida group- Teddie, Melissa and Greg- brainstormed titles with me, and they saved the day. Even Leslie, now living in Massachusetts but only a phone call away, weighed in on title choices. Like I said, what would I do without my writers.

What I'm reading now...

My SCBWI bulletin (excellent article about writing query and cover letters), Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo, and a great mid-grade novel. I do love books for kids this age.

Not hot off the press exactly, but so worth reading, Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree. If there’s a truer voice than Emma-Jean’s occasionally clueless, always well-intentioned, kind and smart—in a good way—seventh grade persona, I say let it speak. Otherwise Emma-Jean should rule the day. This first novel by Lauren Tarshis is a gem. Named for the woman who wrote the words on the Statue of Liberty, Emma-Jean doesn’t have much in common with her Middle School classmates. But that doesn’t stop her from coming to the rescue when she finds Colleen sniffling in the girls’ room. Colleen’s problem is a bratty mean girl whom most kids will recognize. Emma-Jean decides to take the challenge and help Colleen, and that’s when the problems begin.

I'm also reading my friend Janet's work-in-progress, my new critique group buddy G. Neri's hot-off-the-press, terrific book, Chess Rumble, and a stack of magazines and newspapers stacked high by my chair, gathering dust, big time.

My Media Bistro Day

My friend Lee has been taking MediaBistro classes since we became writing buddies and hey, she's been published in none other than the New York Times. So what did I have to lose? I signed up for an afternoon workshop, Children's Book and Young Adult Novel Writing, with Joy Peskin. A terrific way to spend a post snow day downtown in the city. Joy is an editor with Penguin and a really good workshop leader. There were 13 of us gathered around the table in that 4th floor walk-up, small room. I sat next to the heater and was warm and toasty. Others shivered near the windows, wrapped in sweaters.

Each of us brought something to read and Joy offered great comments. She was both honest and encouraging, and those two don't always go hand in hand! One comment sounded especially true and I will go right to my manuscript and check this out. She suggested to one writer that her male voice would ring truer if she wrote in short sentences. Makes sense to me. Some of the boys I know, young and old, frequently speak in sentences so short I wonder why they bother to answer me at all...

Begin at the Beginning

OK, so how hard can this be. Write a little about what I read. Discuss the pros and cons of (mostly free) book reviewing I do. Pull my hair out online about how hard it is to write, how under appreciated writing is as a job choice. Post pictures of me with new very short haircut, my dog going for a run (ha, ok an amble) on the beach, my latest failure in the kitchen. Let the games begin!

For starters, I'm reading The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood. I just heard her read a chapter at the Writers in Paradise conference and bought the book on the spot. I'm a big fan. My knitting experience ended with the blanket my grandmother taught me to knit when I was nine years old, but the way Hood tells the stories of the women who gather to share and knit and care for each other is remarkable. I'd saved the book to read on my flight from Tampa to Newark yesterday but I can't stop reading it and worry that there will be no book to read on the trip back to Florida. I can't face a plane trip without a book.

OK, blogging is fun. Just like writing the long emails to my friends and family that they pretend to read but really skim and often ignore. Except for Leslie and Kate, who always read and always answer quickly. Thanks, guys!