Guest Blogger~KATIE CARROLL: The Cover Art Process for Elixir Bound (or Why I Love My Cover So Much!)

Please welcome Katie Carroll to the blog as her exciting new YA novel Elixir Bound hits the shelves.  Today, Katie shares her cover journey with us. 

Thanks, Mary Ann, for having me today.  I like to call this post the Cover Art Process for Elixir Bound (or Why I Love My Cover So Much!).

I was lucky enough as a MuseItUp author to have a little input (mostly in the form of an author questionnaire) when it came to the cover of Elixir Bound. That’s not to say that I can take any credit for how gorgeous it is. All that credit goes to my cover artist C.K. Volnek.

The beauty of what she did was to take some of my thoughts on what types of covers I like (I happened to cite the American cover for Melina Marchetta’s Froi of the Exiles as one that caught my eye of late) and a few key elements of the story and integrate them into an engrossing and detailed cover that in no way looks crowded or busy. If I knew how she was specifically able to do this, I would probably quit writing and become a cover artist myself (not really, I would never quit writing).

What I can tell you are some of the details I gave her and how they showed up in the cover. (I’ll be honest, this post is really just an excuse to let me point out all the cool things on the cover!) Elixir Bound is essentially about Katora’s quest to retrieve the main ingredient to her family’s secret healing Elixir so she can take over as guardian.

Let’s start with character. Katora is definitely the central element on the cover. I expected to be asked about how she looks, but what I didn’t expect was to be asked about her personality. The three words I chose to describe her: stubborn, confident, independent. I think the model depicting Katora was a great fit. Her expression and body language were just right. So character: check!

Let’s move onto plot. The subject of the quest is the Elixir, which is prominently represented in the left-hand corner near the title. The objective of the quest is to find the Elixir’s main ingredient, which just happens to come from the tiny white flowers vining their way along the edges. So plot: check!

Next let’s discuss setting. Most of the journey takes places in a forest. The background gives you a sense of the rustic setting with the tree to the right and the mysterious doorway-type thing behind Katora (is it a cave, the entrance to a tomb?). I like how it sets a mood, but doesn’t get too specific because when I read, I like to let my own imagination fill in those details. Have you noticed the mountain range at the bottom of the cover? Did you notice its shape? The mountain range is aptly called The Sleeping Giant and I was so thrilled to see it included on the cover. So setting: double check! 

And finally, my favorite aspect of the cover…my name, of course! It’s been my dream for so many years to see my name on the cover of a book and I couldn’t be more pleased with the result.

A little more about Elixir Bound:

Katora Kase is next in line to take over as guardian to a secret and powerful healing Elixir. Now she must journey into the wilds of Faway Forest to find the ingredient that gives the Elixir its potency. Even though she has her sister and brother, an old family friend, and the handsome son of a mapmaker as companions, she feels alone.

For it is her decision alone whether or not to bind herself to the Elixir to serve and protect it until it chooses a new guardian. The forest hosts many dangers, including wicked beings who will stop at nothing to gain power, but the biggest danger Katora may face is whether or not to open up her heart to love.

Elixir Bound is available for pre-order for your Kindle, Nook, PC, or other device from the MuseItUp Publishing website. Look for it after August 31, 2012 on Amazon, the Barnes and Noble e-book store, and other online e-book retailers.

A little about the author:

Katie L. Carroll began writing after her 16-year-old sister unexpectedly passed away. Writing was a way for Katie to help her sister live on in the pages of a story. It also made her realize that she wanted to pursue writing as a career. In addition to penning novels for teens and kids, she edits puzzle magazines, plays soccer, and collects signed copies of books. Katie lives in Connecticut with her husband and son.

To learn more about Katie, to read her blog, or to contact her, visit her website at www.katielcarroll.com. 

Thanks for sharing your journey with us Katie. We look forward to devouring Elixir Bound!

Wild Life Lessons

It happened again! Another month disappeared and my poor little blog has sat here neglected and lonely. At least I have some good reasons. We took our very first family vacation, for one. Then a trip to North Carolina for Ghost Girl and Ghost Son. And a few other obstacles that I'll not mention here. Suffice it to say, the Ghost Clan has had a busy summer.

By the end of July, our little turf war had ended in a draw with a bushel of twigs and pine straw strewn about the porch and no nest upon the gable. Poor little finches. At least they have a feeder full of seed to share. Of course the hummingbirds are relieved to have the peace and quiet now. I have spent the last several weeks photographing (or trying to) those speedy little birds, a feat which has echoed my writing process in a couple of key ways.

Wildlife photography lets my brain go a little sideways so that I can think about my writing when I'm not really thinking about my writing. Does that make sense? I've sat out in the 102º heat or on the porch or ankle deep in pine needles and sand for hours at a time, hoping for that magical shot of some natural beauty. Laser-focused on that shot, hungry for something stunning, and miserable at the same time. It's a lot like writing. (Yes, I hope you laughed at that). So the first writing lesson I've learned from photography is you have to be willing to be uncomfortable.  I've been on the verge of heat stroke, my feet throbbing and my mouth dry, but I would not give up until I captured something, even a tiny, imperfect scrap of something to work with.

Add a new camera, and I have a lot more to learn about settings and light and distance. I'm still a green horn and new equipment is just another hill to conquer (and celebrate). So the second thing I have learned about writing through my foray into photography is that you have to be willing to fail...over and over again. You have to be able to stare at the failure and find something valid in it. Experiment, let the moment take you, but always be willing to accept failure when it presents itself and learn from it. Figure out what didn't work and why and explore new options. I got a good dose of that with my latest WIP...just ask my agent!

The bottom line is, if something moves you, if you really want it badly enough, it will always draw you back. You never know what you are willing to slog through or cope with until you give in to that creative pull.  So let yourself get lost in it. Embrace the pain, physical and mental, and give those natural wonders a chance to show you what you can do. You just might surprise yourself.

Turf Wars

*Poof*  There went another month. How does that happen? Oh yeah...I had my head down in my WIP and the rest of the world just went dark. You know how it is with revisions.

I've been watching a little battle with revisions on my front porch as well. After a triple-decker stack of finch nests grew unwieldy (and kind of nasty), Ghost Hunk finally knocked them down off our porch post to clean out the area a bit. I felt a little guilty considering they had raised at least 20 chicks there, but we figured if they wanted to rebuild, those sweet little finches would rebuild. We had no idea, however, that two couples would be doing battle for the same ratty little poop-stained piece of real estate.

Yes, over the last week, I have watched one little pair of finches hoist load after load of grass and flotsam up to the top of that post, only to have someone or something knock it all down. By my most recent count, we've had 7 starts, give or take. (Kind of like my WIP!) At first I was inspired by what I thought was tenacity again the elements and it seemed a wonderful metaphor for what was happening in my writing. Every time the wind blew down the nest, those little birds just picked right up and started building again. It wasn't until the 3rd start or so that I realized there were darker forces at work than the wind.

A second pair of finches has apparently put in their bid for that property and they are none too happy that someone has started building on their claim. There is another empty nest at the opposite end of the porch (next to the driveway), but apparently the traffic pattern is too busy for a growing family's comfort.  Even in the bird world, it's location, location, location. Everybody wants the lot on the cul-de-sac!

So it looks as if I'll be watching this little turf war while I mull over the ever-changing landscape of my WIP. I've ripped out 6 chapters and added 2 new ones from scratch. I've reseeded and reshaped 5 more and hope to have this thing singing before the summer is gone (not likely, but I can dream). A few new characters have moved in and a couple have decided to stay. In those moments when I want to tear my hair out and bang my head against the keyboard, I'll just think of these little finches. They are building a world of their own out there on my porch post. A real world full of danger and territorial urges and new life. With a little luck, a clutch of tiny fuzz--heads will be ready to take their first flight about the time my precious WIP is ready to step out into the real world again.  Here's to the good fight!

Shrinking the Cosmos, a Writer's Guide to the World

That may be a big title for a small idea, but the notion hit me today as I sat munching on my salad and reading Inside Out and Back Again. I realized how differently I see the world now that I am an active writer. Sure, I'm a grown-up too, full of wisdom and introspection (ha!),  but I'm not sure I would take the time to consider the world in the same way if I weren't a writer, no matter what my age.

Of course, I started as a reader. A lover of stories. An explorer of histories. A scientist on a quest. I can't help it. Every day I catch myself examining the smallest bits of the world around me and asking why and why not and what does it all mean? A snippet of conversation overheard at Burger King suddenly becomes a momentous revelation that must be celebrated...somewhere. Out of nowhere, that stupid thing I did in 5th grade makes sense all these years later. As expansive as the universe seems, there is a reason you can find the word microcosm in the dictionary.

I might be taking a little writing break at the café. Some kid walks in dressed like an oompa loompa or a pro wrestler or a Sid Vicious wannabe. Rather than retreat to my comfort zone and chalk it up to drug addiction or mental illness, I ask myself questions like: What did he eat for breakfast? What frightens him the most? What does it feel like to wear that?  What is the last thing his father said to him? Has he ever saved a life? Or lost a life? How many times has he lost his keys in the last month?

The deeper I am buried in a writing project, the more powerful these moments are. The more open I become to the unexpected simply because it is so...human. That is easy to forget. In this time of convenience foods and mass production and social media overload, the truly human has been homogenized and processed out of our curiosity and replaced with a simple like or #epicfail in our minds and then we move on. Life has become so conspicuous. We laugh and watch it go viral, never considering where it came from in the first place. At least it seems that way for many people I've met.

Sure, the whole public persona thing is nothing new, but it has become a much more concerted effort in the modern world. If we really look hard, listen closely, lay our hands on long enough to feel what wriggles beneath the surface, we can know life. Honest to God, painful, joyful, twisted life. As a writer, I always want to know and feel more. I want to understand why and see where that connects to my own experience or what it tells me about the universe.

Marlo Thomas, I hear ya...free to be you and me...right on. But what's behind the performance of you and me?  Always more. Much more. The writer in me will keep asking. She will always put it under the microscope and look for what she knows and then look at what she doesn't know.

And wouldn't it be awesome if our kids did that a little more? So often their cruelty comes from fear of the unknown. The unknown is not what lies in the other kid, either.

Starting Over From the Middle

Has it really been nearly a month since I last posted? Egads! In that month, I have spent far too many hours creating two Southparkian videos on plagiarism for work, begun work on the next WIP and received editorial feedback on the one I just finished, which has carved out a whole new summer plan for me. Hence the title of this post.

I knew there were good things about the WIP, but it also never sat quite right with me. I fell into an old trap. An amateur mistake. I tried to start at the beginning.  I had way too many ideas and none of them had reached maturity yet.

The good news is, there is good, salvageable material here. The bad news is, I've already hacked 20k words and started in a completely different place.  The great news is, I like it! I have a better sense of things, a stronger sense of direction.

My agent rocks. She is completely right in her criticism and I am embarrassed that I turned in such schlock. I lost my way and got dug in so deep I had to look up to catch the subway back to reality.  I know it's still in me, that awesome book. I just got bogged down with details and research and too many ideas. She reminded me that I had a very particular audience to think of.  I kept, thinking "go big or stay home," but I forgot to actually do the work. So, I'm jumping into the middle of the story, the juicy, dangerous stuff, and starting over.  With a fresh new look at things, it's time to dig out and kick some YA ass.

I hope all of our #wipmadness pals are hanging in there!

#WIPMADNESS Final April Check-in

As I am sure many of you are doing, I'm scratching my head wondering where in the world did April go? I hope it was productive for all you wipsters, out there.  I just got word that my agent is done reading the WIP I finished in March and is in the process of writing up her notes for me. It looks as if the May Madness will be all about revisions.

April was a good month for pre-writing and I accomplished a lot. I spent time thinking about my characters and the plot while I researched some critical elements of the story. Journaling through it brought me that beautiful "Aha!" moment when I discovered my main character's emotional arc for the story. Now I have something more concrete to shoot for when I start the actual writing.  While I have no word count for the month, I do have a hatful of magic to launch me into the next leg of the journey.

Thank you all for sticking with me through the madness and I look forward to keeping it all going with you over on Angelina's blog throughout the month of May.  Rock on, Wipsters!

#WIPMADNESS April Check-in Week 4

How in the world did week #4 get here so fast? This month has been about balance. With the last WIP done and in the hands of my agent, I have spent the last few weeks journaling through my new WIP and handling a rush of work at the day job. It is the last week of classes here, so I have a pile of students all clamoring for help on their final projects.  It seems that I just start to lose myself in a character exploration when some forlorn undergrad crawls into my lab, gasping for that last-minute miracle. Alas...I won't write the paper for you, kid. I have my own writing to do!

And what do you suppose is the #1 issue with the student writing I saw last week (college freshman, sophomores, and juniors)? PLAGIARISM.  Scratch that. The #1 issue with student writing is that they have no idea how to THINK. I will refrain from my ever-growing tirade about NCLB and the whole teach-to-the-test mentality, but suffice it to say a significant portion of our young people cannot think, which is why so many refuse to learn the difference between researched support and plagiarism. It's devastating!

How many 1st-person narrators in YA books are thinkers?  I have yet to encounter one who isn't. And of course the kids who read YA are the thinkers or they wouldn't be reading independently. So why are so many kids content to coast? Is it the pressure or fear of failure encouraged by a tyrannical system? Do they just want to make sure they have someone else to blame? Or is it just a severe lack of creativity (both in the teachers and the kids)?

It can be very deflating to keep beating the same drum, but I am shocked at how many of our college students cannot think critically or write with any sense of personal stakes. All I can say is thank God for the arts and I pray that they don't get cut from primary and secondary schools anywhere because at least that is one place where students are encouraged to push the boundaries. And thank God for those amazing teachers out there (in all subjects) who refuse to be boxed in by a test. If you teach them how to think, they will nail that test. End of story.

Oops. I guess I did fall into a bit of a mini-tirade. I'll stop there and head back into WIP country.  How has your week been, wipsters? I hope the #wipmadness has been good to you.

#WIPMADNESS April Check-In Week 3

It's another morning-after-insomnia Monday and I'm running character sketches through my brain.  That may be why sleep eluded me last night. Too many ideas that would not take a break. As I'm scurrying about trying to lay out the details and backstory of my main character, one question nags me:  what is this book going to be about?  Seriously. What is its final raison d'être?

Have you ever launched into a project with a wisp of a notion but had no idea where it would end up? I don't know that I would say my current predicament is quite that extreme, but I am wrestling with two different possibilities and finding it hard to reconcile them. It is a ghost story, as mine tend to be, but this one is going to be more than that. This time I really want the character to drive the story in a way I haven't developed before.  How do I do that?

That's what all the research and sketching is for.  I've written about how every story finds its moment. It will be told when it is ready.  The problem is I'm just a little too impatient about this one. So it is back to the journal and the preliminary doodling for now.

How has the madness treated everyone this week?

#WIPMADNESS April Check-In Week 2

Week 2 took me all over the place, figuratively and literally. I started the week with a few good days in my WIP journal, working out the main character and some logistics of this new project. I think I have a name for her and some deep backstory details. I'm chipping away at the surface and digging deep.

The best and hardest part of my week took me on a journey north. All the way to Pennsylvania! Coming from southwest Georgia, that's quite a haul. But sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.  My not-so-angsty teenage son and my tween daughter really needed a visit to our old home town outside Lancaster, PA. So a 15-hour drive on Thursday (starting at 3:00 am) got us there just in time to start spring break with the best friends who have never been replaced. Watching my kids shine with their old buddies totally made the 30+ hours of driving I've done in the last 4 days worth it. Plus, I got to take in some of my favorite natural sights, like this little gal up here. (I'm pretty sure it's a gal, considering the subsequent photo frames and the mystery dance her partner did with her!)

That's the WIP journey, too. Finding my way through research and soul-searching those characters and ideas will eventually uncover something golden.  

So where has your WIP journey led you this week?

#WIPMADNESS April check-in, Week 1

Happy April, Wipsters! March Madness was truly on fire, and I want say thanks again to all the fabulous people who hosted and who participated. I'll be hosting the April edition right here on Mondays. Let's start by setting some goals for the month.

Goal #1—Since I was so fortunate as to finish my WIP in March, I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks brainstorming my next project. I know the subject, but I don't have a clear idea where it is going yet, so the first step is a shiny new journal. I have journaled through my last few projects, especially in the early planning stages. It helps me to get my head around the idea and explore the problems/research/plot points/characters... So that is where I begin.

Goal #2—READ. I need to catch up on some reading, which will help me decide on point of view and approach for this next book. It will also give my brain a break.  I'm going to start with LIAR by Justine Larbalestier. I just read John Green's amazing The Fault in our Stars, and bawled my head off, so I need something a little different. TFIOS was amazing, beautiful, and so on point, and it made me miss Indy a little bit. I know exactly where 86th and Ditch is and the Art museum and Castleton Mall (aka Hassleton) are. Which brings me to another goal:

Goal #3—Decide when and where the next book will take place.

As I await the edits from my agent, and hope she likes the ms enough to give me edits, I'll be pulling my thoughts together for the next big thing.

Where does everyone else plan to go in their journey this month?

Interview with New York Times Bestselling author Heather Graham

What a thrilling way to start spring break! This morning, I was truly delighted to talk to best-selling author Heather Graham, whose new paranormal thriller The Unseen hits bookstores this week.  

MA:  After reading and loving The Unseen, I have to ask, have you ever had a ghost encounter?

HG:  I can’t say I’ve walked down a misty street and run into a ghost. My mother was born in Ireland and they believed in everything.  I grew up around her family and my grandmother watched us. If we were misbehaving, she would threaten us with “The banshee will be getting you in the outhouse!” She did such a good job with it. We were teenagers and we didn’t even have an outhouse, but she could threaten us so well.

But a friend of mine in Florida had an experience. He is this big 6’4 cop in Dade County. He was on the scene of a really horrible accident on I-95. There were ten cars involved and a gas spill, so the main objective was to get the humans out of there.  He got a man out of the front seat of one car and the man was hysterical and begged him to go back and get his daughter. My friend hadn’t seen the little girl, but he dropped the man off with the paramedic and went back and found the terrified little girl hiding under the seats in back of the car.  So he got the little girl out and brought her to the paramedic and asked the paramedic how the father was doing. The paramedic looked at him as if he were crazy and said, “What do you mean? The man was dead on impact. His neck was broken.” I knew this guy really well and he would have scoffed at a story like this before, but this experience really shook him tremendously.  

When it comes to ghosts, we don’t know. No one knows what comes after life.There is nobody out there that can prove anything to me, so I love to think of the possibilities. I take it with a grain of salt and have fun with it.

MA:  When you were a teenager, what did you read?

HG: My parents were immigrants and they brought a lot of books with them. That was the main thing they brought.  Most of it was history—history of Ireland, the British Isles, the Norse invasion.  Lots of non-fiction and history. My mom was also an avid reader of Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt, Phyllis Whitney, Dorothy Eden, the gothic writers. That probably influenced me a lot. I love Dickens too.

MA: I think it's safe to say you like research. 

HG: I love it! That's a major perk to being a writer.  Research really is a bonus to writing. For The Unseen, I spent a lot of time looking at Texas Rangers and I went out with a friend of mine who is a US. Marshall. I read everything I could find on the Alamo, too. I remember I had been in Texas for a business meeting a while back. The kids were with me for that trip and the babysitter had a problem so I had to run back to the hotel. It was late. On my way there, I went past the Alamo in the middle of the night, when the moon was out and the place was dead quiet. I just stopped there and I don't know how to say it, but you just feel history.

MA:  I totally get that.  What do you read now?

HG:   EVERYTHING. I think a good book is a good book. Genre doesn't really mean anything to me. 

MA:  I love that you have a band called The Slush Pile. Once you started writing, what was your path to publication like? 

HG:  At the time, I didn't know anyone. I knew nothing about publishing. I bought Writer's Digest and The Writer's Market and just started sending things out there. It took me a couple of years. The first things I sold were short horror stories. I couldn't really make any money on those. Then I sold some category romances. I also joined the Romance Writers of America. For someone just starting out now, it is an invaluable resource because groups have more power than the individual. I think writers are the most generous people in the world. They are so giving and they have so many different contacts that you would never have on your own. 

MA: A few years ago, you organized the Writers for New Orleans Conference. Tell us how that started.

HG:  We had just filmed a ghost trailer there when Katrina hit in Florida and Lousiana that same week. I couldn’t wait to get back. I was terrified of what might have happened to the city. I had friends there who said the American people had been wonderful after the storm—not the government...they really screwed them up—but what they really needed to do was get back to work. So I thought we should have a writers conference. It was really for any kind of writers, not just romance or horror. We just wanted people to come and support New Orleans and her writers. I have friends who host parties and we do dinner theatre on Saturday night. It has been a labor of love and it’s really tremendous fun too. We had to change our dates this year, so it might be a little tough since it is in December. But it would make a great Christmas present! 

MA:  Aside from joining organizations like RWA, HWA, and MWA, what advice do you have for writers?

HG: READ, read, read. Of all the people I know who are writing, whether they have degrees out the kazoo or just made it through high school, the one thing they have is that they love to read.  Even as writers, they never forgot to read. So many people will say, "Oh, I'm too busy. I don't have time to read anymore." But if you don't read anymore, you forget why you love writing so much.

Thank you so much, Heather, for taking the time to chat. I am absolutely looking into the Writers for New Orleans Conference and may even bring Ghost Hunk along if we can swing it. In the meantime, I have quite a to-be-read list building.  

Gray Matter

Adolescence is a time when what should be and what is come crashing together in a world flooded with swirling hormones and shifting perceptions. That is the challenge of writing books for teenagers. As I look at my characters, I am constantly asking questions like:

• What does she expect?
• Why does she expect that?
• Is it fair?
• What does that mean?
• How does she rationalize that?
• How does it affect her?
• How does it affect other characters?
• Why is it different?
• How would she change it?
• What difference can she make?
• Where is the justice?
• Why is it important?

If the answers are too easy, then I'm not sure I'm doing it right.

I finally figured out that the hardest part of being a teenager for me was the barrage of grayness that came the minute my hormones were launched. No longer were the big questions a simple matter of a black or white answer. Suddenly my moral and social landscape had gone all gray.

In my battle for self-discovery, I was an unarmed civilian stumbling through a dusty minefield of choices. There was no map to me. No schematic with neat little dots marking where all the bombs were buried so I could navigate my way safely to adulthood, which to most teenagers means freedom.

(Who am I kidding? After the hormones kick in, there is no safety, ever. Of course, I didn't realize that until I reached about...40.)

As I read some tween and MG novels to my 11-year-old daughter, I see her perception struggling to hold on to the black and white. Allie Finkle isn't always right, but my daughter is outraged when other characters are so clearly wrong. Her sense of justice is still holding out for the clear answer. But I see the color wheels turning and those answers are a little bit harder to find.

My almost-15-year-old son, on the other hand, crossed that valley quite a while ago. He is painting his social consciousness with a much more nuanced brush and is cautiously stepping into the arena of boy-girl relationships. He has no map. Just a vague destination. But he marches onward with amazing determination. He is one of those rare kids who has decided very early that he and no one else is going to choose who he is.

As I revise my latest WIP, I need to remember to pay attention to the gray matter, to leave some things unanswered, to let my characters choose badly sometimes. Adolescence is not devoid of conviction or even lacking in direction (for some, anyway). Teenagers are not the clueless wanderers so many stereotypes try to portray.  They are just us...at our most human.

Writer's Intuition — Part I

When it comes to women's intuition, even Ghost Hunk has been converted from a skeptic to a true believer.  He has learned over the years to trust my intuition no matter how wacky it may seem.  And of course, it's almost always right.  But what about writer's intuition?  There are many facets to this wonder of the creative process, but for this post I'm going to tackle the question of the new project and how do you balance your WIP(s) and your inspirations.  When in the process are you thinking of your next book?

I've known writers who juggle a handful of manuscripts in various states of repair all at one time, but I have enough in my life to sort out, so that won't ever be me.  I tend to be a monogamous WIPster, a one-WIP-at-a-time kind of gal (excluding editor/agent revisions, of course).  I have, however, developed a sort of rhythm about these things.  I don't really know when the WIP is almost ready until I've had that ZING of inspiration for the next novel.  But I can't get that zing until the WIP is in the right place either.

I guess that's what I mean by writer's intuition.  The whole process is completely subconscious, lodged somewhere in that mystical land where the heart/gut sends invisible smoke signals to the brain and they figure out who is going to lead the search party and when.  Then you have the wind and the rain and everything else that can get in the way...

My poor WIP has been wheezing along for the last two months, inching its way towards the final hurrah but not quite getting up enough steam to make it over the hill.  Meanwhile, my writer's intuition has been sorting through the odd possibility or two for the next project.  On several occasions, I thought I may have struck gold but it turned out to be nothing more than pyrite and my WIP still lumbered along.

Then last week it happened.  The Zinger. It stuck me right between the eyes and deep in my heart because the subject is so close to home.  Amazingly, the WIP suddenly picked up steam too.  I got clarity and momentum all in one day!  I don't think the Zinger would have found me if I hadn't reached a certain point in my WIP, and I couldn't have cut that lodestone loose and revived my WIP unless I had met my Zinger.  It's all in the timing.

I know...this post wreaks of bad metaphors, but I'm saving the good stuff for the novels!  So how do you balance your WIPs and inspirations?  

So long 2011...

I am sitting down to finish off my WIP, but had to take a minute to bid farewell to 2011.  Though a lot less eventful than 2009 or 2010, it has brought its share of doubts and joys and mixed blessings.

I've seen my son weather the last gasps of middle school to blossom into an amazing young man in high school. I've always loved hanging out with him, no matter what age, but so many of us approaching middle age get those pangs of missing the babies we once had.  For me, that lasts about a blink and then I am wide-eyed and staring at this witty, wonderful, cultural explorer who has been shipwrecked in a wasteland and refuses to let that stunt his growth in any way.  I love you, Ghost Son.

I've watched my daughter grow into a young lady, excel at academics, process intense grief when her beloved pet died in her arms, and wrestle with the demons of puberty mixed with a processing disorder that has rocked her little world out of focus. We have managed some great feats in the past, and I know we can get through adolescence together.  It won't be easy, but we know that in the midst of all the chaos, our beautiful girl is still in there.  I love you, Ghost Daughter.

I've been surprised by unexpected turbulence in a rock solid man as middle-age hit him smack in the face.  I'll just say that a mid-life crisis can happen to anyone, no matter how steady or logical, and if you keep your head, you can get through it.  He is still and always will be the only one for me.  I love you, Ghost Hunk.  All day long.

As for this Ghost Girl, I'm still discovering who I am as a writer, still fighting to pull it all together.  This novel has taken me longer than anticipated to write, but I'm hoping it will be worth the wait.  So here's to a shiny book deal and phenomenal things all around for the whole Ghost Clan in 2012!

Justice? What happened to "Hang 'Em High?"

Warning:  Rant to follow.  This post has nothing to do with writing, though it is more fantastical than fiction.  No names will be mentioned, but the facts are accurate.




In the old days of the wild west, horse thieves could be hanged for their crime.  Apparently in the 21st century, they get a cruise as well as huge profits on their stolen booty.  There is a reason that horse people have a bad name and this woman is the poster child...though she should be on a wanted poster.  Is there no justice anymore?

A dear friend of mine has two beautiful girls. The oldest is my own daughter's best friend.  With their daddy on active duty and their best friend moving away, as well as other stressors, these girls have had enough to deal with without their ponies being stolen...by someone they knew and trusted.

A woman who should have served as a role model and an instructor betrayed them all and stole their 2 ponies, selling one across state lines and the other to a family who is also a victim in all of this.  What do the police do?  Almost nothing.  "It just isn't a priority."  It has been almost 2 years since the theft occurred and roughly 18 months since the truth of it came out.  Still this woman is walking around free and trading horses and offering lessons.

As a professional member of USEF and PHSA, she should be held to a high moral standard.  I have recently discovered that they don't care about moral or professional standards as long as their membership dues are paid.  So this criminal can continue to profit from her elicit activities because the police don't have the time to deal with it and the professional organizations don't care about the unethical and even criminal behavior of their members.

Of course civil court could get involved, which means even more financial and emotional hardship for a family who has done nothing wrong.  I am stymied.  Let is not forget that two little girls are the victims here.  Two horse-crazy, loving, and innocent girls who until now had not learned that adults cannot be trusted.

No one has been murdered.  This is true.  This woman is not running the biggest meth operation in three counties.  But does that make her any less guilty of a crime against two little girls?  Given the money involved and the interstate transfer of stolen goods, she is guilty of a felony.  We have positive proof, even recorded confessions, but no one will do anything.

Perhaps it is a good thing that I no longer have a horse.  That I no longer rub elbows with such sleazy horse traders as this. I have lamented my loss for the last ten years and ached to be among horses again, but not if it means dealing with conniving, lying, thieving delinquents like this woman.

As for the response by law enforcement, God forbid my house gets broken into.  It may not rate high enough on the attention scale for the police to respond.

Meanwhile, two little girls have seen how it works.  Get screwed by one adult and then take it up the butt again by the adults who are supposed to help you.  

I have only one word for the women involved in this crime and the so-called authorities who are supposed to protect us from them:  DISGUSTED

Creative Urges

We are all familiar with the basic biological urges:  hunger, thirst, sex drive, etc.  As a writer, I wonder how many people feel that same sort of inescapable drive towards creative endeavors.  We all need to eat, but some people have an overwhelming need to satisfy not just the need for sustenance to keep the body functioning, but the need to satisfy the spiritual desire for a savory experience.  It is not enough to simply put food in their mouths.  Eating must be an event.  They are not complete without a sensual taste experience.

I think creativity can act just like that sort of hunger.  It was my son who got me thinking about this.  He is one of those kids who has many talents and will eventually be paralyzed by the number of choices he has until he finally breaks through and chooses one talent to pursue.  All of his talents are traditionally creative.  Music, art, writing.  I see that same sort of restlessness that I had at his age.  The difference is, he is embracing the journey and reveling in the exploration, while I worried about making the wrong choice and being mediocre at everything rather than really talented at one thing.  I so admire him for that.

But I continue to field these deep-seated urges to create.  I wish I could sing well.  I have these emotions and ideas that I just want to embrace through song...but I'm not very good at singing.  I ache to paint, to immerse myself in color and shape it into something that reveals some great truth...but I'm not that great at painting or drawing.  I long to satisfy my eye for composition and the hidden magic behind the ordinary flotsam we see all around us...but so far, I'm an amateur at photography.

In all of this is a gut-level, inescapable urge to feel something so deeply that it takes a part of you with it when you finally release it into the wild.  But it takes confidence to be able to reach that pinnacle.  It takes talent.  It takes great risk.  Perhaps its like the adrenalin junkies who base jump or skydive.  That urge cannot be satisfied unless you risk it all and lay it all out there, good or bad. I had to sound so cliché, but it is liberating.

Comedians are often good at that.  Imagine how terrifying that must be, because humor is a very personal and spiritual phenomenon.  You lay out truths (sometimes half-truths) and ask us to laugh at ourselves and at you.  I imagine it must be addictive.  And cathartic.

Maybe that's it.  All these creative pursuits allow us to free something that has been held captive for far too long.  Simple words cannot go far enough or even approach the truth of it.  It takes more than words set together in a straight line. It takes a medium that dares us to dig down to the roots of it all. To mess it all up, fill it with emotion, and spread it all around.

I know, I know...this post is rambling a bit.  But I guess that is just where my urge has taken me.  It's not a perfectly constructed plate of food—apologies to Tom and Padma—nor a flawlessly executed work of art. It's easy to forget that even the most talented creative types have a process. I hope that someday I can hone my writing into that creative expression that fills my soul and truly satisfies.  Even if it only satisfies me.

The Digital Revolution—Not an End, but a Means

At the SCBWI Southern Breeze WIK conference this weekend, I had the great pleasure of attending four truly relevant workshops.  One presentation, in particular, altered the course of a significant grudge I have held against e-readers and tablets.  I'm no luddite, but some things are just sacred.   Rubin Pfeffer, former Senior VP of children's publishing at  S&S and currently an agent at East/West Literary Agency, gave the specter of E-Publishing a whole new look and eased some of my anxiety that I may have missed my chance to publish the way I had always dreamed—as a real, paper and binding book.

He started by taking us through the development of media through history, from radio to film to television to the internet, and pointed out that while technology has changed, none of these vehicles for creativity has gone into extinction.  To the contrary, such revolutions have brought about innovations that have not only created enormous opportunity but expanded the media in ways that reach an even broader audience.  With e-books, enhanced e-books, and apps, the possibilities are staggering.

I know, I know.  At first I felt that technology cheapened our enterprise, that it somehow denigrated the sanctity of the book.  I still feel a little twinge of that pain, but I truly believe that the book as we know it will not die, not completely.  The way we publish in general, however, will definitely change.  Contracts, marketing, development.  The business model simply must change.

As I listened to Mr. Pfeffer describe how the new technology is evolving and what implications it has for our creativity, I started thinking of all the new possibilities and mourned the fading biblio-empire a little bit less.  Change is difficult...and inevitable.  We will all go through some growing pains, but I hope they will be truly growing pains.  That we will stretch ourselves a  little more and seize the opportunity to connect with our audience in ways that will enrich their relationship with literature and maybe even whet their appetite for more.

It will not be long before the number of e-books sold outpaces the traditional paper book, but that does not mean an end to good books.  Technology is simply a means by which we can share our stories with even more readers.  If their eyes are glued to a glowing screen and their fingers agile at finessing a touch pad, let is meet them where they are, where we can engage them in a variety of ways.

I can imagine the terror that those first screen actors felt when silent movies gave way to the talkies.  Some embraced the revolution and honed a new side of their craft, while others slinked away into obscurity.  Think of how much richer the experience is, how those who embraced it discovered a new voice.  I will always cherish my romantic ideal and dream of holding that beautiful hard-bound book in my hands, but I will also relish the knowledge that my story is in the hands of the young people for whom I wrote it, in whatever way it reaches them.

I would rather have my kids' eyes locked on a screen that leads them through a path of beautifully sculpted words and into challenging revelations than one that dulls their mind and entrances them with the likes of a giggling sponge or lowers them into the mire of some alternate universe that claims to be "reality tv."

RIP Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

Today, the internet is flooded with tributes to Steve Jobs, who passed away last night.  When I heard the news I wanted to cry as if I had lost a close friend.  There are several reasons why the news hit me this way, but I'll name three:

• Steve Jobs was a pioneer who defined the world I lived in precisely at the time of my "awakening."  I was among the first students who learned about computers on an Apple back in the late 1970's, when the Apple had just opened the door to personal computing for everyday people.  In college, the little Mac brought the world of computing into my dorm room and eventually made my old electric typewriter, dropped and busted by a "friend" during senior finals, obsolete.  I was exactly the audience who grew with the company, who saw a true pioneer, a genius, define the way people interacted with computers.  He personalized them with an uncanny intuition for how people think.  Not just smart people...all people.  "Visionary" almost seems too hackneyed to describe his gifts.

• I would not be the writer/teacher I am today.  While some people may still prefer to grab a pen and a legal pad and write out their manuscripts in long-hand, I simply could not function without my MacBook Pro.  A pen or pencil could never keep up with my mind when it comes to writing down my stories and ideas.  The computer keyboard at least lets me stumble through the mistakes or type stream-of-consciousness in a way that lets me put it all together with ease later.  My Mac is far more forgiving than a legal pad...and far more durable as well as versatile. Because of my "insanely good" Mac, I have an online community that keeps me sane and never lets me give up. I have a tool that has supported and inspired my creativity both in my writing and in my teaching.  

• My faith in people, in the world, in the wonder that is life would be missing something without Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Wall-E, UP, and all the wonderful Pixar films that owe so much to Steve Jobs.  All due respect and a standing ovation to the writers, but the realization of their vision, what so many of us writers dream of, comes largely from the tools that Steve Jobs offered. For my kids and myself, the simplest emotions still have immeasurable magic. 

As I awakened to my own potential gifts and set my feet on a road with no one particular destination, the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, it has all been there over the years to give me direction. Technology that was more than useful, more than personal.  It was art. And as I discovered the beauties of parenthood and pondered the simplest questions only to realize they are the hardest to answer, Pixar showed me a lifetime of wisdom in less than 90 minutes.  Like so many others of my generation and younger, I can't help but wonder, will it ever be the same?

Thank you, Steve Jobs, and Godspeed...

All My WIP Children

As authors, we often refer to our books as our children.  At conception, those little babes fill us with joy and anticipation.  We imagine their future in every detail and nurture the concept until it is fully formed and ready for the real labor.  Oy!  You think 15 or 20 or 30 hours of labor is tough, try two years!

As each WIP grows, it takes on a personality of its own.  You love them all, but you can't help but compare them sometimes and realize that each one needs a very different kind of discipline.

One WIP has you running non-stop right from the start and you're always excited to see what he's going to do next.  He takes risks and isn't afraid to get a little dirty or scuffed up.  Blunders are just another nugget of gold waiting to be mined.  And he does not like to wait...for anything.  He's that child of wonder who is always discovering some glorious secret that he can't keep.  He inspires you and sucks the life out of you at the same time, but you always know that eventually he will "wow" the world if he gets the chance.

Your next WIP is not so gregarious.  This shy little bud needs more coaxing.  She is brilliant, but hyper critical of herself and afraid to put a foot wrong.  She becomes fixated on some ridiculous detail and can't move on until it is just right.  Yep.  This is your perfectionist.  Completely obsessed with the details. And though you try to hide it, she knows you expect more out of her than the others. Before you know it, those unspoken expectations have spun out of control and cranked up the pressure until performance anxiety almost cripples her.  The best thing to do is take a spa day (or two or three) and have a make-over.  She'll need a heart-to-heart reminder that she is just as awesome as your other WIPs. She's just different.

And somewhere there is that sweet, quiet, parent-pleaser who is just waiting for her chance to shine.  This was your first.  She had to be the test subject, the kid who got to endure all your early parental mistakes and experimental discipline.  There were no hand-me-downs, but her hand-made clothes were a bit cheap and unfinished. You hadn't quite learned how to cut the patterns and sew yet. Amazingly, she still has her dream intact.  She just waits patiently to see if she'll get another chance to go to the ball or the parade or whatever it will turn out to be.  No judgement.  No grudges. Just hope.

It's the shy one who is giving me fits now.  I'm hoping that she is a gifted child in the end, and that these are just her perfectionist growing pains.  That I'll be able to unlock her inhibitions and give her a little more faith in herself so she can really take off.  After the first spa day, she is starting to loosen up a bit.  She is still a little afraid of the big finale, but I think I can get her there.  Soon.

Remembering 9-11-2001

As we sat around the breakfast table this morning, the entire Ghost Family remembered that day ten years ago.  Ghost Son was 4 and Ghost Daughter was 6 months old. I was surprised not by what they did or didn't remember, but by what they understood.  Both of them startled me with their keen perspectives.  Ghost Son shared the details he could remember and talked about how his Civics class discussed things on Friday. He is becoming such an adult already...one who every day gives me boundless hope.

Ghost Daughter talked about how wrong it is to assume that all Muslims are like those people. She was appalled to think that anyone would make such a generalization.  She went on to talk about the impact of those events not only on the people connected to them, but on those who would be collateral damage simply because of the color of their skin or the way they dress or the beliefs they profess.  She understood so much more than I had ever imagined.  More than a lot of 10-year-olds might.

For the Project 365 blog today, I chose not a photograph but a drawing.  The indelible impression of that day on a 4-year-old's world.

That's why I write for young people.  They are amazing...