My Little Town

Great to be back in New Jersey for a while, especially today when the temperature is 82, the humidity is about zero, the clouds are high and puffy, and the birds are singing.

So now that you've got the picture, here's what I want to tell you about living in this small town. It's not that I have anything against city dwelling. In fact, I'd hate living too far away from city civilization as I know it. So North Jersey, as we're known here, is a perfect spot to spend the summer, especially this summer. On the train line to NYC, plus there are still a few places where Everybody Knows Your Name.

Like the library where I worked. Make that libraries. I popped into my public library to do a little research this morning and discovered my former backdoor neighbor is now the children's librarian. 500 children's tags lined the front shelves, each one representing a young reader enrolled in the summer reading program. How can we possibly consider cutting funding to libraries? This one was packed with readers!

A lot of my former work colleagues are still there and of course I couldn't resist sharing that this July has been one of my favorite months ever. So many new, wonderful things!

They already have me signed up to do an Author Visit when Scholastic publishes my book. I warned them not to bake the cookies just yet. Book birthing can take a while.

Then off to the deli for a Turkey Sloppy Joe, a treat known only to New Jerseyans. If you don't know this sandwich, click here for pictures and history. And no, there is no ground beef or fork involved.

As I crossed the Post Office Plaza, one of my outstanding, most favorite library volunteers from my 10 years at Kent Place School, in the next town over, waved. She just happened to be driving by and we promised to meet for coffee and a catch-up very soon.

My former next-door neighbor joined me as we crossed the library walkway. Her two boys, all grown up now, remembered my dog Barley. How he used to eat grass in the backyard. That's the kind of thing that would stick with a 4-year-old, isn't it?

Did I say this is a small town? Does a population of 20,000 qualify or is it the feeling you get when crossing Main Street? All the strollers, the shoppers walking home, the recognizable police officer directing traffic turning left out of Kings Supermarket. Flags flying, flowers in boxes, sun shining.

Enjoy your weekend, wherever you are.


Related post: A Bright September Day

Summer Suppers

One thing I love about living in New Jersey all summer long is our local Farmers Markets. Each little burg has one. I can hit Madison on Thursday, Chatham on Saturday and the biggest of all, Summit on Sunday mornings. Jersey corn and tomatoes, fresh fish from "down the shore" and even chocolate pastries that remind me of Paris, sort of. The good food never stops!

A recent, delightful dinner at the home of my old Baltimore friends inspired me to cook a grilled vegetable, feta and orzo salad a la Barefoot Contessa. That same friend also made a yummy corn salad that night. Her corn was Maryland, possibly Eastern Shore, and was as good as our Silver Queen here in New Jersey.

For even more on our local markets, check out Kitchen Goddess Lee Hilton's Spoon and Ink food blog. She, too, has a terrific corn salad recipe to share.

Serving salads for supper in the summer (wow, check that alliteration) is what my other Kitchen Goddess friend Ivy calls her "cool plates." Except she says Coooool Plates and makes them sound very special. When really it was just too hot to cook! (Which it totally is this summer.)

Then again, anything my friend Ivy or my friend Lee cooks is very special.

So pull out a good book and find a shady spot. Then buy some local produce, make your family a cooool plate, and enjoy the summer!

A Good Blog...

My turn over at the Southern Writers Blog. Click here to get there. The optional topic this time was setting so I had a chance to use my friend Julie's shoes. If that doesn't get you over there, how about the picture...

Stay cool, everybody!

The Help: The Movie

Yes, I had a few problems with the book, and you can read my comments and those of a few friends who grew up with me during that era on this blogpost about the book. One of the most telling comments I've heard, from an amazing writer whose new book about the era I truly admire? If nothing else, The Help's bestseller status has opened up a dialog on the topic that didn't exist before.
I'd second that.

But still, it's pretty exciting having a movie made right up the road a piece from my hometown (Why is it we consider the place we grew up and spent our formative years, no matter where we wander, as our hometown? There's even been a slight debate going on in our family about where your Facebook hometown should be, and we've come down solidly on the side of where we lived as kids, the place we have strongest and best memories. But that's another story..)

So from what I understand, the movie of The Help is being filmed mostly in Greenwood, Mississippi. There's a terrific independent bookstore right in the middle of town, Turnrow Books, and if you want to follow the news, follow their blog for frequent updates.

Right now, here's what I know. The movie has been cast. The director, Tate Taylor, is a friend of the author and a Mississippi native. They are scoping out the area for authentic accents and locales. (I know this because my most authentic friends have been interviewed, and they still talk just like all of us homegrown Mississippians started out talking before our accents got bastardized!)

Here's what the Turnrow Books blog says about the cast:

For those fans of the book dying to know who will play whom, we've heard a bit of casting: Emma Stone (Zombieland, Superbad) will play Skeeter, Viola Davis (an Oscar nominee for Doubt) will play Aibileen, Bryce Dallas Howard (the upcoming third Twilight movie, Eclipse) will play Hilly, and Octavia Spencer, who toured and read with Stockett during her initial book tour, is rumored to be playing Minny.

I think most of this has now been verified by DreamWorks.
Stay tuned for updates.

Words, words, words

I do love words, their derivation and usage- and mis-use!
This word-of-the-day is one I've never heard, read, used or even remotely known about. Contumely?
What?

Now I'm thinking of a word that made me smile on a recent cab ride to the airport. With a very loquacious driver. He told me every detail of his 17-year-old daughter's life, including how he was teaching her to drive. He was the better person to teach her because his wife was such a backside driver. That's what he said: backside driver. Now I just love that!

Can't you totally see a character in a book misusing Backseat Driver like that?? He was a great guy, so entertaining. I wanted to write down everything he said.

Quote of the Day

(My grandmother's version was a tad different...)

"If you can't say something nice about somebody, say the bad stuff really fast."
Mary's mom on In Plain Sight, season finale.

No-Nos for Writers

And while I'm on the subject of so-called rules...
click on over to Kirby Larson's great post on what bugs her in kids' books and this one on what makes a good children's novel.

I just copied them both, printed and plan to post them in a place where I'll read as I write!

Great reminders.

Rules for Writers

Here's a good one from Janet Fitch. Of course, you might think there are no rules for writers, but truly, you'd be wrong. This book blog from the LA Times also links to the "rules" Elmore Leonard came up with a while back. I agree with Fitch's thoughts more than I did Leonard's...

Her rule about clichés struck a scary chord:

When you’re writing, anything you’ve ever heard or read before is a cliché. They can be combinations of words: Cold sweat. Fire-engine red, or phrases: on the same page, level playing field, or metaphors: big as a house. So quiet you could hear a pin drop. Sometimes things themselves are cliches: fuzzy dice, pink flamingo lawn ornaments, long blonde hair. Just keep asking yourself, “Honestly, have I ever seen this before?” Even if Shakespeare wrote it, or Virginia Woolf, it’s a cliché.

You’re a writer and you have to invent it from scratch, all by yourself. That’s why writing is a lot of work, and demands unflinching honesty.

Whew. That is a lot of hard work, a tall order to fill (whoops! Cliche police!) . And I wonder if, in writing for kids, although equally hard, you might be able to get away with a few clichés. Fuzzy dice? How many kids have heard of that one? And really, pink flamingo lawn ornaments?

Farther vs. Further

Truly, I do know the difference. But maybe Southerners use them more interchangeably than others, and guess what- thankfully, there are those with more credibility than I who've decided it doesn't matter- that they've come to be so confused and exchanged that it's now acceptable just to give up on the differences.

Like this blog entry, from The Word Blog. citing several dictionary entries.

The OED says that farther is usually reserved for use as the comparative of far (ie. measureable distance) while further is applied to figurative, unmeasurable distances or extents like time or metaphorical distance.

CanOx says that farther is simply a variant spelling of further.

Fowler’s Modern English Usage speculates that farther will become less and less common until further becomes the universally applied term.

The Chicago Manual of Style supports the distinction of meaning as set out in the above definitions.

And Merriam-Webster’s also agrees with the above definitions.

But maybe I'll go with Fowler, stick to further, and be done with it. Just the other day in an interview, John Grisham used further when he meant up the road a piece, and nobody batted an eye. Oh, wait, he's from the South.

So, is it a Southern thing, a new convention, or just plain incorrect grammar?

Author Interview

You can learn a lot about writing from author interviews like this. Especially if you've read and reviewed the book carefully. Rita Williams-Garcia's novel for young readers really intrigued me. Historical fiction at its very best. So to read how she used her research to fill in the pieces, just enough to give the book its flavor yet not overwhelm, check that great post over at Story Sleuths, which is a blog worth following if you've ever wondered just how writers put their thoughts together.

Here's a bit of my take on the novel.

Rita Williams-Garcia’s knowledge of the period is extensive. Her ability to describe this remarkable time and place (1968 Oakland, California) so that young readers understand the circumstances surrounding the Black Panthers and the American political climate is pitch perfect. Her child-friendly references— from President Kennedy to Cassius Clay to Mighty Mouse— make the story wondrous. This is historical fiction at its very best.

You can read more of what I had to say by following this link to my review in the Christian Science Monitor or to Joyce Moyer Hostetter's blog about history and how the stories are told.

What to Read Now?

As if I didn't have a stack of books waiting for me...
But these Independent Bookstore best-selling lists always have something that surprises me.
For example, Elegance of the Hedgehog? Still hanging in there? (sitting by my bedside, awaiting completion. Oh, dear!)

Here's the latest trade paperback list, which is all I need for summer reading:

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION
1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, Vintage
2. The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson, Vintage
3. Little Bee, by Chris Cleave, S&S
4. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese, Vintage
5. Tinkers, by Paul Harding, Bellevue Literary Press
6. That Old Cape Magic, by Richard Russo, Vintage
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein, Harper
8. Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann, Random House
9. A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick, Algonquin
10. South of Broad, by Pat Conroy, Dial
11. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, Europa Editions
12. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford, Ballantine
13. Sarah's Key, by Tatiana De Rosnay, St. Martin's Griffin
14. Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, Random House
15. Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving, Ballantine
ON THE RISE:
20. An Echo in the Bone, by Diana Gabaldon, Bantam
Gabaldon's bestselling Outlander novel is now available in paperback.

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION
1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, Penguin
2. Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers, Vintage
3. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, by Rhoda Janzen, Holt
4. Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin, Penguin
5. Food Rules, by Michael Pollan, Penguin
6. Half the Sky, by Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, Vintage
7. Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder, Random House
8. Shop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew B. Crawford, Penguin
9. Manhood for Amateurs, by Michael Chabon, Harper Perennial
10. The Lost City of Z, by David Grann, Vintage
11. The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, Scribner
12. The Road to Serfdom, by Friedrich A.Von Hayek, University of Chicago Press
13. Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, by Chelsea Handler, Simon Spotlight
14. The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, Penguin
15. The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Random House
ON THE RISE:
17. I'm Down: A Memoir, by Mishna Wolff, St. Martin's Griffin
Wolff's winning memoir of her father, a white man who truly believed he was black.

Bookshelves!

This site is the greatest! And what a name: Bookshelf Porn... for people who "heart" bookshelves. I heart books. But bookshelves are fun, too.

In the past few days I've visited shelves filled with books written in French, carefully organized and actually read by the owner. A brand new library, all gifts- a tiny baby's board books, not yet read- but soon! A real live library, the kind you check books out of and I'm never far away from, shelves of metal, filled to overflowing.

But nothing remotely resembling these foldaway bookshelves...

Life Imitating Art? Or at least the beauty and order of it?

"This is kind of like life. Life is all about balance. Then you just have to step back and take it all in."

Leslie Davis Guccione, on the occasion of rearranging my corner cupboard for the third time. A masterful job that we had stepped back to admire.

I'd removed some of the blue, left all of the silver on one shelf, had the creamer and sugar bowl off kilter. She fixed it.

Leslie also has an amazing ability to look at my writing this way.

It's good to have friends who can put your Stuff in perspective, isn't it?

Write What You Know?

When dreaming up a big July 4th parade and celebration scene, all I had to do was shut my eyes and visualize the town I've lived in and out of for a long time.

And it is way north of the Mason Dixon line.

Although the fiction I write takes place in the South, this little 'burg is in New Jersey. Sometimes living here felt like a throwback to the 1950s, a place kids safely walked to town and parents sat on front steps or back decks gossiping and laughing. My friend Kay and I walked our dogs all over, on every side street and leafy playground. I worked in the public library on Main Street where I met all the quirky residents and observed their reading habits (but my lips are still sealed).

I knew what my town looked like.

The string of small boroughs on the Midtown Direct train line to NYC melt into each other so that you can drive from Summit to Chatham to Madison to Morristown and find great restaurants with good bread, an overly-sufficient number of banks and nail salons, and enough quaintness to go around. Flags always fly and flowers fill the tasteful pots outside storefronts. Just a great place to imagine any number of characters drifting through the neighborhoods.

So when I needed an Independence Day parade, even though the setting might be 1964 Mississippi, yesterday's annual Fireman's Parade and Fireworks Display in Chatham, New Jersey filled the bill quite nicely.

Preparation starts on the day before the parade, with the reserving of seats... And nobody bothers them.



Float-building begins early.
Since Washington probably slept here (not on this particular float, but in our town), the Chatham Historical Society recreated the scene nicely:



I have more pictures of the fireman on their trucks, the Scouts, the swim teams, the marching bands. But I'll leave that to your imagination. Hope you are celebrating wherever you are reading this. July 4th is a great holiday, filled with possibility, hot dogs, flags, swimming parties, birthday cakes decorated with blueberries and strawberries. Happy Birthday USA!













Related post: A Beautiful September Day

Happy July 4th!

On this weekend of picnicking and sharing fried chicken and pimento cheese and whatever else strikes your fancy, this quote by one of my favorite food writers strikes my fancy:

"Southerners can't stand to eat alone. If we're going to cook a mess of greens we want to eat them with a mess of people." --Julia Reed


Related post: Julia Reed and Me

The Healing Spell

I've been thinking a lot about Louisiana lately. Haven't we all? Growing up in Mississippi, I often visited New Orleans and southern Louisiana with my family. Later, my daughter lived there, married a native, and we visited even more. Once New Orleans speaks to you, it doesn't shut up.

When I was a working school librarian, in at least five schools over my career (hey, what can I tell you? We moved a lot...), I tried to help teachers find relevant books to share with their students. A big part of a school librarian's job is to match books with kid readers. Maybe that's the most satisfying thing we do. And it's something I can't let go of as a writer and a book reviewer. I keep thinking about whether what I'm reading and writing would appeal to actual kids, would help them understand the world, would entertain them, introduce a place they might not know. All those good things.

I especially love it when a book helps readers make sense of what's going on in the larger community. What better way to do that than through a good story.

That's why Kimberley Griffiths Little's new novel touched me so.

The Healing Spell centers around young Livie and her family who live in what we always thought of as Cajun country. Her father makes his living fishing. Her relationship with her mother has always been strained. Livie is what was once called a tomboy-- she likes fishing with her daddy a lot better than she likes shopping for Sunday School shoes with her mama. When an accident sends her mother into a coma, her dad insists on bringing her home, hoping for a miracle recovery. The entire family is impacted, but especially Livie who fears she was somehow responsible.

There's a lot for young readers to wrap their minds around in this novel. The magical realism near the end presents a good talking point that an adult might want to explore, or perhaps that kids will accept with the thrill of a shiver up their spines.

Kimberley Griffiths Little has done an amazing job making her characters believable. They are complicated and confused. Just like a lot of real kids we all know and love. Livie's guilt, her relationship with her sisters, her love for her dad, her ambiguous feelings for the aunt who moves in to help and sets the family off kilter-- all great characters, well done.

But truly the amazing thing about this story is the setting, the Louisiana it evokes. There's a little bit of voodoo magic, there's music and dancing, there's the swamp. After reading The Healing Spell, you understand how wrecking this one very important part of our environment will change so many lives.

Right now over at A Good Blog is Hard to Find, where I congregate with a whole bunch of really excellent southern writers, the optional blog topic is setting. A lot has been said by greater authorities than I on the topic of setting as character, and I really can't add much to that subject except to say how true it is.

But I like the way Man Martin ended his blog post over there last week:

I’m thinking of a line from C S Lewis or somebody that a fish does not believe in water until it’s pulled out of it. Lewis meant to suggest by analogy the existence of God, but I wanted to apply it to the concept of setting, that setting is not only background, but foreground, above-ground, and underground. That it envelopes, surrounds, and infuses us.

That's exactly how I feel about this new middle grade/ young YA novel: the setting surrounds, envelopes and infuses. Which brings me right back to how important, right now, this book should be to teachers and librarians trying to help their readers make sense of southern Louisiana, the Gulf Coast, life in a fisherman's family.

And what an unexpected treat- it has one of the best trailers I've ever seen in a book for young readers. Great music, well done. Check it out:

Summer Time...

It's been so hot, even in New Jersey, this week that all I can do is sit still, dreaming up ways to stay cool. I know, I know. Writing while sweating is supposed to be good. After all, didn't my home state of Mississippi produce more accomplished writers than almost any other? And that was pre-airconditioning.

Although I'm not writing, I am reading- a perfect summertime activity if ever there was one. And just now I stumbled across this posting from my group blog A Good Blog is Hard to Find. Rereading it made me think this hot June day would be a perfect time to share it here. If the picture doesn't send you searching for a cold frozen treat, nothing will...


Photo credit: Scott Keeler, St. Petersburg Times


Details, Details (or What Sno-Cones Have Taught Me About Writing)
This season’s blog theme is What Writing Has Taught Me About Life. No, we don’t have to do the assignment. We can blog about anything that catches our fancy. After all, it’s not 8th grade math class. But I was always a bit of a teacher's pet, even did the extra credit stuff. I take these “voluntary” assignments seriously.

But not too seriously. So in honor of summer, I’ve turned my assignment around.

By the time I took to writing professionally, giving up another career to write, I had already learned a lot about life—and not from writing. So today I’m thinking instead about what life has taught me about writing.

Specifically, what eating Sno-cones teaches me about writing fiction.

Stay with me here. By studying Sno-cones carefully, I understand the importance of detail, the use of emotion, the seriousness of research, and the tricks to finding the perfect image in every word. And getting it right.

First off, is it Sno-cones or Snow Cones or Sno-balls? (Or some might make a case for Italian Ice, but if we are setting the story in the South, they would be dead wrong.)

In Mississippi, where I grew up, kids ate Sno-cones, spelled like that. And I didn’t think much about it. Then a couple from New Orleans opened a Sno-ball (spelled like that) stand a short drive from my Florida neighborhood. My transplanted Louisiana relatives were ecstatic. I was confused.

These Sno-balls looked like the summer treats of my childhood—the paper cups, squished to overflowing, that turned to soupy liquid when most of the ice is munched away. But then the proprietor of the Sno-ball stand asked if I wanted cream on top. Cream? On a Sno-cone? No, here they’re selling Sno-balls and sure, I’ll try the cream.

So right off the bat, Sno-cones have taught me the importance of research and fact checking, even in fiction. Not to mention spelling. Most of the time, you can’t fool your readers with mistaken details. Especially if the details are part of their history.

Now I’m working on a kids’ novel set in Florida, in the summer. Small-town Florida, a place where kids ride their bikes to the Sno-cone stand. Where they drip orange and purple all over their white shorts, just like my friend Eileen remembered when I asked around for Sno-cone stories.

Life— in the form of a frozen treat-- teaches me that memories are an important component of fiction.

Remembering in all five senses makes a scene come alive. The cold sticky colors dripping down an arm as we squeezed the paper cup. And white shorts, the worst thing to wear while slurping a Sno-cone. Watermelon and cherry and banana— whether the Sno-cone flavorings actually smell like the fruit they are named for, they taste that way and they evoke a scent. So I’m having my character eating a cherry Sno-cone, always my favorite.

Hot nights under the summer sky, Little League games at the park, the sound of the bell on the truck, the worry over the quarters—saved to pay for a lemon Sno-cone— that slipped through the pocket and are gone forever. Memories seep into stories and emerge as something else, another thing life has taught me about writing.

So I’m including a cold summer treat in my story, and I’ll get the details right. I’ll have to think about what to call it—a Sno-cone or a Sno-ball— but a few more trips to my new Sno-ball place, and I should have it all figured out.

Word After Word After Word

What a fine title!

Click here for a great interview with Patricia MacLachlan. I'm a big fan of a lot of her books. They are well loved by kids and the adults who share them. The 3rd graders at the school where I last worked read Baby, the 4th graders Sarah, Plain and Tall. We had some memorable discussions about those books. I'm looking forward to reading this new one.

When Publishers Weekly interviewed her about the novel being published just this month, Word After Word After Word, they asked how it happens she writes so sparely and can squeeze so much into her shorter works. I love her answer, maybe because having grown up in the South, I tend to use way more words than I need! Revision/ reduction is key. But wouldn't it be nice if I could start off knowing just the right words to use...

Here's her answer to the question about writing sparely. Be sure to read the entire interview. Good stuff.

I think what happens is you write how you grew up. And I was born on the prairie and so everything is kind of spare on the prairie. And so I’m just used to writing in that way. Sarah, Plain and Tall was that way. And most of my fiction is. I like writing small pieces. Somehow it just suits me. My writer’s group laughs that I start to faint when I get to 200 pages—so that’s kind of a standing joke.

The Sky is Everywhere

I've already gone on enough about how much I liked this young adult novel. I especially like when a book surprises me like this one did. So I won't add much to my previous post, except that there's a terrific interview with Jandy Nelson up over at the Tollbooth blog. There are 4 parts, 4 different blog postings. Be sure to scroll through and read them all.

A few things she said will stick with me today as I talk writing with my smart, original, amazing critique group.

Here's a bit of that interview, with Jandy, quoting a book I plan to check out very soon
(And I'm thinking what he says about voice might just hold true for a few other Life Things!):



Obviously not because I wrote it quickly, but because I wrote it like I was talking to myself or a friend and it never occurred to me that voice is just that—who you are but on the page, and so it is who your character is too, right? It’s so simple! That floored me! There’s this fantastic and very helpful and inspiring quote about this by Les Edgerton who wrote Finding Your Voice. He says,


". . . no matter what you write, there’s a good chance that someone else may do the same thing better. There’s only one thing another writer can’t do better than you. And, it only happens to be the most important thing a writer can possess. Yourself. Your voice. They can’t get your personality on their page. And, since a personal voice is the single most important component of writing and the single most important element leading to success, no matter how good the competition may be, you’ve got an edge on them by simply being you."



Related post: The Sky is Everywhere

Countdown

Deborah Wiles' amazing new middle-grade novel about the 60s, her first in a planned trilogy about the decade, is in my hands, and my book review was just published in The Christian Science Monitor. I've grown quite fond of the narrator, Franny. What a totally appealing 11-year-old! I hate to leave her and wonder if she'll make her appearance in the next two books. Somehow, I'm not so sure.

At the heart of this story is the Cuban Missile Crisis. On this topic, I've consulted my siblings, my best friends, anybody I can think of who was in school in Cleveland, Mississippi, with me at the time. We just don't have the memory for the event that Wiles writes about, although many of my contemporaries who lived in other places sure do. Maybe the Mississippi Delta was too isolated to consider itself a target.

But Deborah Wiles has done such a remarkable job of recreating a summer in one family's life, how these historic events touched them, that I feel like I was there ducking and covering, worrying about whether the world was about to blow up. When in fact, I was oblivious. How about you?

Wiles has written so wisely in her blog about the creation of this trilogy-in-progress. I heard her speak a few years ago about Hang the Moon, the next novel in the series, how hard it was to write. I love what she says about that upcoming book:

It was larger than my talent -- and my skills -- when I discovered it.

And how she finally had to trust her own instincts, give up on help, and just write:

And what I have learned in the intervening years is that there is a time to move beyond your teachers and take up your unique voice. It's a little like leaving home. It's a starting-over. You take what works and leave the rest.

I truly understand what she means.

Barbecue!

OK, so I love barbecue. Those trucks by the side of the road. Even the chains, especially if they originate in Memphis. Well, maybe not all the chains. To tell the truth, I want my barbecue to come from a place with a screen door letting the flies in.

I loved reviewing this book. And the Culinate website is filled with all sorts of good things for foodies. Check it out. Sign up for their email. And don't forget to read my review while you're over there.

Memphis Barbecue vs. Carolina 'cue. You be the judge...

And remember a while back when I was making and commenting on coleslaw? I was trying out recipes. All for a good reason. Reviewing a cookbook requires more than just reading and writing.

The Comma Queen

I was once known as the Grammar Queen. I shared that honor with my friend Leslie. We knew the rules, which is important if you want to break them. The comma thing is particularly vexing. Rules change at the drop of a hat. Ditto for dashes.

But writing fiction, and especially creating dialog, requires that you hear where commas are needed and leave them out where they aren't. No matter what Mr. Strunk and Mr. White might think, sometimes, in fiction, you have to break the punctuation rules.

That's why I love this blog post from Cheryl Klein about using commas. It's taken from a book she's about to publish, and I'll be first to check that one out! As Ms. Klein, super editor at Scholastic says:
The ENEMY to sentence rhythm: the wrong punctuation..

Recently I received a critique from a highly regarded agent (not mine!) commenting that I should check for "typos" in my manuscript. Me? The Grammar Queen? I was insulted. But I knew exactly what he referred to-- those commas that separate compound sentences. I'd left them out intentionally. It just didn't sound right.

Joan talked and Julie listened. Glory raced upstairs and Frankie followed her.

Now I know those could use a comma, but it destroys the rhythm of the sentence. At least the way I hear it in my own head's voices! And Cheryl Klein gives even more excellent examples.
It's a short blog post. Click on over there and read. And whether you like serial commas or not, at least we writers need to know what they're intended for in the first place.

You do remember serial commas, don't you?

De-Rotting the Brain

My friend Julie just shared something she heard at a recent lecture by a neuroscientist at Princeton, about staving off brain rot:
Exercise! Exercise! Exercise! And doing things that REALLY challenge your brain - like brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand. (Try it - not easy.)

As I'm pondering jolting the brain cells, getting back into a writing state of mind after a brief sojourn, I think it must be a message (from whom?) that today my Trader Joe's cash register receipt featured this quote, from Dr. Seuss:

I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells.

Now off to bed, to dream of who-knows-what, right after I attempt brushing my teeth with my left hand.

Cake!

Now this is what I need for my midnight snack/ writing diversion.





I bet my friend Lee could whip up some of her famous cookies decorated with favorite book covers...



Click to see more of these delicious books-
Cake Wrecks! Yum!


(Cake picture from Tiffany H., made by The Whole Cake and Caboodle)

Welcome Summer!

I hope writing in the summer isn't like that assigned Summer Reading List some of the students in my realm complained about.

In June, they usually looked upon it with enthusiasm, a new project, a clean slate. Titles much discussed, purchased and carefully laid out, perhaps packed in camp trunks. By mid-summer it had barely been tackled, but the goals were still in place. Then, a few weeks from the dreaded deadline, a sudden push to complete the requirements: three books read in a week!

Actually, most of the readers in my world, myself included, loved nothing better than to curl up with a good book. It was just the required reading of Silas Marner we dreaded.

So with that in mind, I tackle my summer writing project, vowing it will be more Gone With the Wind than Robinson Crusoe (never a favorite of mine). At least in my enthusiasm to embrace it!

Do you have summer writing goals? Or is summer just another season, with more diversions? Is your stack of Writing Books To Read handy? Ready with pristine notebooks to embrace a new idea? Write away! And here's hoping you find a nice hammock, a cool upper bunk, a big shade tree while you're at it.

Historical Fiction, Pt. 2

I seem to be reading a lot of historical fiction lately. Two books written for kids were sent to me by their publishers to review. Countdown, set in the early 1960s, could be one of my favorite books of the year. Turtle in Paradise, a midde-grade novel which takes place during the Great Depression in Key West, features a really fun young narrator whose view of life is perfect for the story.

Historical fiction provides a terrific view of other cultures, other times. Without a book like One Crazy Summer, how would kids experience riding across country when flight attendants were known as stewardesses and phone booths housing pay phones, needing actual money or maybe "reverse the charges" messages, predated cellphones? All the details of past lives and times, right there for them to question and smile over.

The first history I remember came from the Childhood of Famous Americans series. Remember those turquoise or orange books with titles like Abigail Adams: Girl of Colonial Days, Jane Addams: Little Lame Girl, or Robert E. Lee: Young Confederate? Never mind that these people may have actually accomplished something other than their childhood adventures, I loved reading about their escapades as children.



Imagine my dismay when, as a working school librarian, I realized that these books were not truly biographies but were better cataloged as historical fiction. Alas! My own childhood knowledge base, tainted by story.

Truly, it's the story that fascinated me most. Still does. Put it in the context of English kings and queens or the American Civil War, and you have the added benefit of learning a little history while tearing through a terrific tale.

Related post: Writing History

Turtle in Paradise

Here's a fun summer book for middle-grade readers. I posted my review to the Reading, 'Riting & Research Blog before I left on my trek northward. Not much blogging time on the long drive to New Jersey.

TURTLE IN PARADISE is a terrific novel, set on Key West during the Great Depression. I'm a big fan of historical fiction and of Turtle, a wise narrator whom kids will love.

Click on over to read the whole review. And if you have a young reader, looking for a topic not that familiar and a story that's truly fun to read, check out Jennifer Holm's newest book.

Great cover, no?

The Great Fig Fiasco

I'll admit it. I'm a fig fanatic.

My sister just emailed me that her figs are almost ready. Since I've searched my own Florida neighborhood and see nothing but bushy trees and tiny fruit, I'll look forward to traveling to Mississippi in time for fig season. If I hurry, and she's vigilant, I may beat the birds to the feast.

With that on my mind, I just reread my funny fig fiasco story, the first essay I wrote for A Good Blog is Hard to Find. If you need a good laugh, or love a good fig, check it out.

Southerners have a thing for the fuzzy fruit. Whether it's the memory of playing under a grandmother's fig tree, a nice glass of something accompanied by a tasty fig and goat cheese appetizer, or a scary memory featuring glass jars of preserves lined up in the pantry, love 'em or hate 'em, we can't seem to escape figs.

Fig thoughts, anyone?

Quote of the Day

In keeping with my quotation theme from yesterday, can't resist sharing this one.

I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.

-Frank Zappa

(Thanks to kids' writer Barbara O'Connor's blog for that quote!)

My Favorite Quotes

Blogging about them today over at my Southern Writers Group Blog. Here's a sample, from a truly terrific writer, Rick Bragg:

Someday…some Yankee photographer will drive past, see it as quaint, and put a picture of it on a coffee table book. That’s where a big part of the Old South is, on coffee tables in Greenwich Village.

Art of Racing in the Rain, Pt. 2...

Click here for an interesting interview with the author. Mostly about his writing process and the joy of creating a story told from the POV of a very articulate dog.

Related post: Art of Racing in the Rain

Delta Blues

If there's anybody out there who doesn't know where The Delta is, you must not be from Mississippi. Some have claimed it's as much a state of mind as a geographical designation. But for those who may not have set foot in the Mississippi Delta, it's the flat, rich farmland tucked between the Mississippi and the Yazoo rivers, the northwestern part of the state. And it's my birthplace and my heart’s home.



It's also the birthplace of the Blues. Music, that is. And now it's the title of a collection of short stories, edited by Carolyn Haines.



In this very readable collection, James Lee Burke, John Grisham, Les Standiford, Beth Ann Fennelly, and more—a total of twenty of the best Southern writers—link music, crime, passion, the Blues and the Mississippi Delta.



Many of the stories really grabbed me, sent me searching for more by that author.

In Suzanne Hudson’s “All the Way to Memphis,” two unlikely characters set out on a road trip, stopping at Buck’s Diner, a place where time has stopped. A lone waitress saunters to the table offering more tea, calling them honey and sugar and baby, her “blood red fingernails clicking against heavy glass.”

The characters in Lynne Barrett’s “Blues for Veneece” uncover, quite literally, a crime scene one family had hoped was buried forever. In another story, the wife of a captain of the Parchman State Penitentiary dreams of any life but the one she has.

In fact, most of the characters in these stories seem to dream of elsewhere, singing their own Blues tunes to the beat of an ordinary life.

Often played out against a backdrop of murder and misappropriation, the stories tell of second chances and new beginnings, lives wasted and more than a few rescued. Moonlit nights, shape shifting, concealed and un-concealed weapons make appearances, leaving readers with chills running up spines or hearts beating faster.

As if reading this collection for the pure enjoyment of the writing isn’t enough, a portion of the sales will be donated to literacy efforts in the Delta. Well done, on many counts.

Writing Mysteries...

My friend Kay and I once thought we'd like to dip our pens into mystery writing. We both love to read the genre, why not try to write one? Did I say we were brand new to the writing game and had no clue? (pun intended) I've taken a workshop or two since that thought crossed my mind, and I see how hard it is to write a mystery, especially for someone who struggles to come up with plots that don't leave threads hanging and guns on mantlepieces.

So this recent bit from the ICL newsletter written by Jan Fields, made me sit up and take notice. With permission, I'm sharing what I consider a concise, readable, easy-to-follow take on writing mysteries.

Not that I'm planning to write one any time soon, but if I were, this would help. And, hey, maybe it will even help me figure out an easy way to plot any old story.

Feeling Mysterious?

Mysteries have been one of the most popular genre in literature since Poe created the first detective novel. In books, there are even thriving sub-genre, like cozies, hard-boiled detectives, and police procedurals, that have countless fans. Magazines like Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine have been feeding the adult reader's need for short mystery fiction for generations. But what about kids? Do children's magazines still want mysteries or is this the land of books only?

Many children's magazines do want mysteries. Boys' Life, Cricket, Highlights, Hopscotch, and more list mysteries among their acceptable story types. Many editors say they would love to get more good mysteries. So what makes a story good?
* A fresh idea with a clever puzzle.
* Strong characters.
* Lively, real dialogue.

In other words, the same stuff editors want in any story. So why aren't they getting these things in mysteries? Well, mysteries can be kind of tricky. First, you really need to plan a mystery before you start writing it. This flies in the face of the writing style of many (especially many newer writers). Thus, they come up with a possible problem - who took the teacher's special fountain pen? - and they know who the main character will be so they jump in and start writing. But, when the writer doesn't know who took the pen, often the result is (1) a solution that doesn't flow logically from the clues, (2) a solution that flows too logically - making it not a puzzle at all since everyone knew who the villain was well before your 'detective,' or (3) a solution that falls back on old clichés (more on these in a minute.)

How do you plan your mystery? Begin by choosing the age group for the mystery. A mystery for Boys' Life will be very different than a young mystery for Highlights. Boy's Life will be more comfortable with putting the main character in danger and more comfortable with real "crimes." Mysteries for younger children are usually more focused on the puzzle aspect - a child sees or hears something unexpected and investigates to find out what caused it. Mysteries for the youngest reader are often these kind of cause-and-effect puzzles. They challenge the reader's thinking skills but virtually never involve moral questions or danger. So a mystery for a young reader might involve the family acting strangely and the child hearing odd noises - the solution might be that the family was hiding a new puppy to be given to the child for a special event.

Mysteries for older reader are usually more what we think of as "traditional" mysteries. To read a great example of this kind of mystery, check out Joan Lowery Nixon's "A Purr-fect Mystery," originally published in a Scholastic magazine. Notice that this mystery has something you often find in mysteries for young people - a double story problem. The mystery part of the story problem is finding a string of pearls but the personal side of the story problem is the main character's friendless state at the beginning of the story and how working out the mystery also changed the personal side of the plot problem.

The pacing for a magazine mystery is fast - you need to catch reader interest early and keep it throughout the telling. The solution to the mystery should be unexpected and unusual. Some "too common" plots include (1) the haunted house that turns out to be the wind, or a mouse, or some easily explained natural phenomenon mixed with a vivid imagination - if you're going to have a haunted house, make the solution unexpected; (2) the "stolen" item where the thief is either an animal or the owner's own forgetfulness - make your villain unexpected and unusual. If you have to have the thief be a raccoon or a magpie, make the puzzle leading up to the resolution so tricky that we're actually surprised to find a common solution and impressed by the clever path we walked to reach it.

Also, do take care when titling your mystery. I've seen writers who give the ending away (or strongly hint at it) in the title. Make your title interesting and lively but not revealing. The solution to the mystery must be (1) logical from the clues given, (2) elusive so that it requires some work on the part of the reader to figure it out ahead of the main character, and (3) surprising. If we see the end coming from the beginning, you need to dig a little deeper for more twists.

One thing you must keep in mind for magazines is that they are virtually all more conservative than book publishers. Although book mysteries (even for middle readers) sometimes involve deaths or violence - magazine stories almost universally never do. Book mysteries can have the main character doing fairly dangerous stuff, but magazine stories rarely let main character indulge in anything dangerous (at least not mysteries for readers younger than teens.) Book mysteries can also have the main character lying to parents and magazine mysteries rarely do this also (again, sometimes for older kids - but it's still fairly rare and never without consequences.)

So if I haven't scared you off yet -- give a mystery a try. Readers will be glad you did.
Jan Fields
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World's Largest Book Club?

I admit. I'm intrigued.

I know a little about traditional Book Clubs. I edited a monthly magazine column, reading dozens of submissions about mostly women's book groups. I've been in at least two of my own. I mostly like talking with other readers about books we've all read. So maybe I'll hustle on down to my local bookstore and get this one to twitter about.

It's just one step away from the whole One City One Book concept. It might just work.
Click here for a good piece from the Christian Science Monitor's book editor about the undertaking.

A few words from the article:

Gaiman told The Guardian that he's "half-pleased and half-not," because "American Gods" is "a divisive book" and "some people love it, some sort of like it, and some people hate it." Gaiman figures he'll end up spending some time on Twitter himself, "sending helpful or apologetic tweets to people who are stuck, offended, or very, very confused."

(Gaiman may be half right. This morning's comments range from, "Chapter 9...it's just too good to stop at 6. :)" to "well, no book is for everyone :)" ).

Something about discussing a book via twitter has my book antennae going. Is it a good thing, a fun thing, a gimmick?

Character Naming

You'd have to be living in a newspaper/computer/TV-less world this week not to have seen the recent story about the most popular baby names. It was everywhere. Yes, there's the whole Isabella and Jacob thing, as it relates to the Twilight movies and books. But writers have known for a while about the usefulness of baby name sites for choosing character names. Matching a name and a character can change the way you think about your people!

Click here for an interesting post from Darcy Pattison's always helpful writing blog.

Don't forget to check the Social Security Administration site, as she recommends. And ponder her comment about how popular President Obama's girls' names are becoming!

Here's an earlier posting of mine about naming characters in books. Makes me realize how long I've been living with some of my fictional people.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

I don't know what I thought this book was about when I picked it up. Months ago, a friend-- an avid reader and fellow dog-lover-- said I must read it. (Thank you, Pat.) So I bought it, wrapped it up for Christmas, and passed it to my husband. He loved it.

But still, a book told from the POV of a dog, about car racing? Please. It continued to wait on my bookshelf.

Last weekend as I was about to face a long plane ride with no book, I panicked. My airplane books must be paperback and light. Kind of like the way I travel. I grabbed THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN just moments before I zipped my carry-on shut. And am I ever glad I read this one.

The book is a family story, a meditation on all things good, a funny laugh, a warm glass of milk. It made me cry (which is so embarrassing on a middle seat) and it made me smile a lot.

Here's just one small quote, among many, that I love. This one appeals to the writer in me, possibly his only musing on that topic.

Enzo the dog, talking:

I loved it when he talked to me like that. Dragging out the drama. Ratcheting up the anticipation. I've always found great pleasure in the narrative tease. But then, I'm a dramatist. For me, a good story is all about setting up expectations and delivering on them in an exciting and surprising way.

Put this one on your list, dog lover or not. Great book. And not just a Great Airplane Book.

One Crazy Summer

That's the title of a great middle grade novel I just reviewed, posted at Joyce Hostetter's blogs.

Set in Oakland, California, in 1968, One Crazy Summer is funny, warm, fascinating historical fiction about the Black Panthers (sort of). Told in the unforgettable voice of 11-year-old Delphine, it's a book that I keep thinking about. Rita Williams-Garcia has really scored with this one.

And I love what she says in a Horn Book interview, linked at Joyce's blog, about writing historical fiction:
I’m hoping younger readers will uncover more personal stories through the “live historians” in their homes and neighborhoods.

And, because she also writes for the YA market:

I like my younger readers to discover more; I like my older readers to wrestle with more.

Well said. And a book worth reading.

In Honor of the Final Season...

"There's a difference between doing nothing and waiting."
John Locke, on a recent episode of LOST.



Writers who are waiting are really thinking, brainstorming, trying, pretending, rejecting, accepting, fiddling, reading.
So waiting for the muse is a lot different from doing nothing. No matter that they look the same.

(I'm not sure anymore what John Locke is up to...)

Practicing To Be Perfect

Over the past few days I've been offered lots of pats on the back, much appreciated. And the most notable congrats coming my way seem to agree: One thing it takes to move your writing along the road to publication, besides that whole 'butt in chair" thing, is perseverance. Blame my parents who disapproved of throwing in the towel till you'd exhausted all possibilities, blame my writing groups who kept pushing me, whatever. This quote keeps rolling around in my head so I had to share.

Thanks to one of my favorite kids' writers Linda Urban, writing about revising, for the Malcolm Gladwell quote, from an interview he gave about his book Outliers:

"Talent is the desire to practice, right? It is that you love something so much that you are willing to sacrifice and commit to that -- whatever it is -- task, game, sport, etc."

MY Agent!

In answer to all my writing buddies who've been emailing to ask whether I've touched ground this week, the answer is no. I'm still pinching myself over the amazing news that came late last week. The terrific, delightful, smart Linda Pratt of the Fogelman Agency is now mine (ok, mine and a few others, but still...). Yay! Agents make the book world go round and I'm hoping she'll find a happy home for my middle-grade historical fiction novel.

(For my non-writing buddies, this is a big step in the right direction, but it doesn't mean you'll be reading this novel in a month or two! Still crossing fingers and toes though. Stay tuned.)

James Beard Awards

Did I say how much I love cookbooks? Not necessarily for cooking, mind you, but my shelves are filled with them, mostly for looking.

This week the James Beard Foundation announced its awards. Wow. John Besh's new cookbook is on the list. Must check that one out.

And while you're there seeing who won this year, don't miss all the restaurant and chef awards. Many from places I know and love, or plan to visit soon: Washington DC, Chicago, NYC, NOLA.
That best new restaurant category is always intriguing.

And yay for John T. Edge's Oxford American magazine writing award. Now not only will I have to scope around for those cookbook winners, I can see I'll be searching for a few magazine essays also.

It's a long list, always fun to peruse!

Edgar Awards Announced

Happy to report a book I reviewed and loved has just won a 2010 Edgar Award. Click here for the entire list of winners and nominees (winners in red). The only book on the winners list that I've read is THE LAST CHILD, by North Carolina writer John Hart. (It's a page turner.)

Now my list of mystery books to read is expanding. And just yesterday I bought the newest Elizabeth George book. Not to mention the possibility of a new Kate Atkinson mystery arriving this summer. I think I should just put everything aside and read for a while...

Related post: First in line for The Last Child

A Poem to End Poetry Month

Just because April has ended, we don't have to stop reading poetry. And because I like the poems of Wallace Stevens, and because talented kids' book writer Jo Knowles wrote such a thoughtful blogpost about this one, I'll share it here, putting an exclamation point at the end of Poetry Month. Vowing to read more, all year round.



The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm
By Wallace Stevens

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

Bank Street Book List

I think finding your book on this particular list would be a tremendous honor. I've known some of the folks who pick these titles and know how hard they work at it and how discriminating they are. So congrats to all of the writers who made the grade. This is a terrific tool for school librarians, parents, anybody who buys kids' books= a list divided by ages and by genres. Here's how the website describes the book:

One of the most comprehensive annotated book lists for children, aged infant-14. The Committee reviews over 6000 titles each year for accuracy and literary quality and considers their emotional impact on children. It chooses the best 600 books, both fiction and nonfiction, which it lists according to age and category.

Put a Poem in Your Pocket today

Did you know today is National Poem in Your Pocket Day, something that was such fun to celebrate when I was surrounded by enthusiastic kids in my days of school librarianing. Have you shared a poem this month? Do you have a poem in your pocket today?

If I were still strolling the school hallways, carrying a favorite short poem in my pocket, ready to read or share at a moment's notice, this is what it would be, the final verse from So Much Happiness

Since there is no place large enough

To contain so much happiness,

You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you

Into everything you touch. You are not responsible.

You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit

For the moon, but continues to hold it, and to share it,

And in that way, be known.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~


But if I should need a poem to inspire me today, though I hardly need inspiring on a day like this, I might choose this one, from e.e. cummings, to put a thoughtful end to Poetry Month:

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

~ e.e. cummings ~

The Sky Is Everywhere

Have you ever just not wanted to read a book? Maybe it's the timing. It might be the cover or the publicity material or the subject matter, but you can't seem to get past the title page.

I like Young Adult books, generally speaking, but I had read four in a row, actually five now that I think about it. I'd loved one (Natalie Standiford's How To Say Goodbye in Robot), halfway through I had put one aside to read later (Will Grayson, Will Grayson), I had reviewed one for publication and was zipping through another, a lighter fare for sure.

But this one was about a sister who had died, so even though the publicist who sent it to me and a member of my critique group whose judgment I trust both seemed to think it was going to be a hit, still I resisted. I just wasn't in the mood for a death book about a talented musician and a new boy in town. I couldn't seem to pick it up and read a single page.

Then I did.

Wow. This is without a shade of doubt one of the most beautifully-written novels I've read all spring, bar none. And to think of it as about death just doesn't do the story justice.

I love the way the story unfolds, the poems 17-year-old Lennie leaves on to-go cups, scrawls on tree branches, the backs of flyers--as tributes to her older sister Bailey. Bailey's death is handled tastefully, thoughtfully, almost off-screen as it were. It's what happens to the people who still love her that make the story so touching.

The true love story that's underneath the sad one is possibly the most realistic portrayal of young love I've read in a while. OK, maybe I don't read a ton of YA love stories, but I just sense this one is going to resonate with readers, girls and boys, their parents- anybody who picks up this book and finds themselves unable to put it back down.

Actually, there are many levels of love going on in The Sky is Everywhere. Lennie's grandmother surely must rate as the most intriguing, patient, understanding, interesting grandparent to grace a young readers' book in a while. She totally gets her granddaughter in a way that all inter-generational families wish they could, yet she knows how to let Lennie find her own way. Plus she's just one fascinating lady- an artist, a rose grower, a taker-in of lost and confused souls. And then there's the uncle who completes the family threesome, another multi-dimensional character if ever there was one.

But truly, in this book, it's all about the writing. Like this passage, when Lennie finally goes to the attic where she's packed up her sister's things:

I haven't been up here in years. I don't like the tombishness, the burned smell of the trapped heat, the lack of air. It always seems so sad too, full of everything abandoned and forgotten...This is what I've been avoiding for months now. I take a deep breath, look around. There's only one window, so I decide, despite the fact that the area around it is packed in with boxes and mountains of bric-a-brac, that Bailey's things should go where the sun will at least seep in each day.

Yes, there's teenage angst, a moment or two of sex, an uncle's pot smoking and growing, and a pretty funny night of drinking expensive French wine--normal teen behavior that's not really condoned or criticized by anybody other than the characters it affects most.

At heart this story is tender and--to use an old-fashioned word you don't often hear describing Young Adult novels anymore- even heartfelt.

So now when I receive a book from a publisher that claims it's an "extraordinary debut novel that celebrates love while offering a heartbreakingly articulate portrait of grief," I'll read over grief and focus on the celebrates love part if I'm in a place where reading one more book about a sibling's death isn't what I'm looking for at that moment.

I'm glad I eventually picked this one up. Because once opened, I couldn't put it down.

Doing the Dishes While Writing?

"The best time for planning a book is when you're doing the dishes." -Agatha Christie

I wonder if Christie had a TV in front of her sink like I do.

In the Old Days of Writing, I suspect there was more often a window with a view, perhaps a bird feeder, something outside worth pondering? Maybe mindless TV counts as silence though? If so, I have a lot of that in my life.

For more on the subject, click on over to Kristi Holl's Writer's First Aid blog on savoring silence. There's a link to follow and some good thoughts for writers:

"We live in such a noisy world. Whenever we’re driving or folding laundry or jogging, it’s tempting to always have our iPods or cell phones in our ears, or the TV or radio on in the background. How desperately we avoid having a few moments of silence!”

But these moments of silence are important. So much of the “writing” and “processing” that we do requires silence.

So, what's outside your window? What do you reflect on while washing dishes? I'm going to work on more silence, quiet time for planning writing.

This is my artist friend Eileen's birdhouse. Though it's inside for admiring, not outside her dishwashing window, if it were outside my window, I might be inspired just pondering that doorknob perch.



Related posts: Resolutions
Bookish Birdhouses

Friday Night Lights

Since my absolute favorite TV show started life as a book, I think I can justify this blog post.

I don't know how anybody who grew up under football's Friday bright nights could not love this show. All the drama of those high school games, the handsome quarterback (or in my case running back), the snobby cheerleaders (I was not one and none exist in my memory of our fighting Wildcats), the bands at halftime, the coaches. Oh, wow. If you love a good story, terrific writing and acting--whether you love high school sports or not-- it doesn't matter. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is just the best drama on TV, bar none.

And lucky you who love it as much as I, as the new season is about to begin on NBC, today's New York Times has the most terrific article about the show.

A few memorable lines from today's Times piece, in case you can't get to it:

“Friday Night Lights” stands out in other ways too. In a television world in which network shows are full of speeches, “Friday Night Lights” embraces the silences. “A lot of times on this show, it’s about what we don’t say, or what we are trying to say with our faces, not words, which is sort of how it works in life,” (a quote from one of the young actors)

And this about Coach Taylor and his wife,
And for all of the show’s hotheaded teen romances, it is the chronic love affair called marriage that gets the most air time. The relationship between the Taylors reminds many of the best parts of marriage, in which the injury to the one is felt by both, and victories, sweet and fleeting, are held in common.

Oh, and by the way, I've seen the new season on Direct TV and it may be the best ever. And if you've missed the previous seasons? Rumor has it you can watch on the show's website. But really, it doesn't matter. Just jump in with Season 4 on May 7. You won't be sorry.

My Day...

OK, when I started this blog, I promised: No Navel Gazing! No reporting in on what I was eating for lunch, how late I stayed up watching American Idol, or even what I was planting in my garden. I know, I know, I've broken that promise and deviated from my platform. But I've mostly stuck with writing, books, and whatever connection they make to my daily life.

So that's why this cupcake is here.

Today I met my writing cohort Teddie for a cupcake and, as my wonderful Irish friend Edel always says, a chinwag. I love chinwags. We caught up and munched on a red velvet cupcake and a lemon flavored one. We were not overly impressed, but there was a breeze and nobody was around but us and the checkers-playing old guys in front of the cigar shop. So we wagged our chins and enjoyed our day.

Then I came home and spent the rest of the afternoon reading what I predict will be this year's Newbery Award winning book. You heard it here first.

I'm reviewing it for The Christian Science Monitor. It's coming to bookstores May 1. I think the writer is coming to my favorite D.C. bookstore, Politics and Prose, very close to its release date, so if you're there and you want to meet her, check their website. Also, she's signing at Books of Wonder soon, a great kids' bookstore in NYC.

This book is the first of a trilogy of books about the 60s, for middle-grade and older, a documentary novel for kids that truly I couldn't stop reading. It's Deborah Wiles' amazing new book, COUNTDOWN. Wow.

An all-around super nice Friday. Doesn't get much better than that. How about you?