Day Two - Inspiration and Perspiration

My main goal this week is to add emotional depth to my characters. Particularly the protagonist of my middle grade mystery, Maple.
Since this is a mystery, Maple doesn't have to be quite as touchy-feely as say, a coming-of-age protagonist might be, but she does need to have emotions and react to situations. Otherwise, she'd be a perfect, crime-solving computer. (hmmm.....there's a future book idea)
When we exchanged what we have so far, Steve also loaned me a book he thought might help me in the character development arena: The Writer's Guide to Character Traits by Linda N. Edelstein, PhD. The book "includes profiles of human behaviors and personality types." The author is a psychologist, so it is fairly detailed and in depth.
But I have to admit, what intrigues me most is the cover. You've got to check this out.

I know the resolution isn't too good - maybe I'll resort to taking a picture of the actual book.

Talk about identity crisis! But this can happen when writers try to pack too many quirks into one character - you end up with the Queen of England drinking beer and wearing cowboy boots while holding a meat cleaver and playing the guitar. Okay, so probably any writer would notice before it went that far. (the recent reprint has a calm blue background and puzzle pieces coming together to form a woman's eyes - probably sells better, but not nearly as interesting)

But it is something to keep in mind. We are all more than what we appear to be on the surface. (at least I hope I'm more than the frazzled writer who often forgets to put on her makeup and stumbles in high heels)

On to the inspiration part. Last night I attended the OKC SCBWI monthly schmooze. Up and coming illustrator Jerry Bennett shared an illustrator's perspective on picture books and graphic novels. He urged all of us to allow our imaginations to create a sense of atmosphere. He also showed us his portfolio and I was really blown away by his work. I hope I am lucky enough to be paired with someone as talented as Jerry when my book gets published. (even young adult novels have cover illustrations)

And, I was excited to learn....(drum roll) there is someone else reading this blog! Fellow writer Larry Mike Garmon from Altus is accepting the challenge to write more during Spring Break. Welcome to the Pact!

Okay, enough procrastinating, Maple's got a mystery to solve! I've got to get back to work.

Spring Break Writing Pact

What could be more young adult (or middle grade) than making a pact?
Call it what you like - a dare, a bet, a promise. A challenge, even. I hope to call it motivating.
My longtime friend and writing buddy, Steve Wedel has accepted my invitation to participate in an all-out writing week. We'll be plotting, developing characters and pounding the keyboards all week on the way to meeting our respective goals.
I'm focusing on adding emotional depth to a manuscript that is already complete as far as plot goes. Steve is trudging through that soggy middle that plagues so many writers.
Will we triumph?
Check back later in the week for updates.

Eternal - now in paperback

ETERNAL by Cynthia Leitich Smith, published by Candlewick, 2009, paperback 2010.

From the jacket copy:

At last, Miranda is the life of the party: all she had to do was die.

Elevated and adopted by none other than the reigning King of the Mantle of Dracul, Miranda goes from high-school theater wannabe to glamorous royal fiend overnight.

Meanwhile, her reckless and adoring guardian angel, Zachary, demoted to human guise as the princess’s personal assistant, has his work cut out for him trying to save his girl’s soul and plan the Master’s fast-approaching Death Day gala.

In alternating points of view, Miranda and Zachary navigate a cut-throat eternal aristocracy as they play out a dangerous and darkly hilarious love story for the ages.

From July 2009 through January 2010, I had the honor and privilege to work with Cynthia Leitich Smith as my faculty advisor during my second semester at Vermont College in the Writing for Children and Young Adults program. I was a Cynthia fan before I ever started the program. You might think, "well, of course you would choose her as an advisor." But it's not that simple. Advisors are assigned through a type of lottery. Students put down a certain number of faculty - in that case I think it was four or five and somehow a committee of faculty plays matchmaker and assigns a faculty member for each student.
There is a Zen sort of saying associated with the process "you get the advisor you need when you need them."  This was certainly true in my case. With Cynthia's encouragement and keen guidance, I was able to plow through an entire first draft of a young adult historical mystery. Both my confidence and my skills blossomed with Cynthia's enthusiastic tutelage.
(I didn't feel comfortable posting all that praise while she was still my advisor, but now that our semester together is over, I can gush freely.)

And, the paperback release of Eternal gives me a great opportunity to discuss my new favorite subject: alternating point of view.
Everyone loves a secret - whether it is something whispered on a playground or gossip passed on at the water color, we long to have private information. This human predilection for secrets is a key component of all fiction. Whether the secrets are global or personal, matters of state or the human heart. Readers pick up books to see what secrets the author has to share with them. When an author uses alternating point of view to tell a story, the secrets increase.

In Eternal, Mariah is unaware that Zachary is her guardian angel. Of course Zachary knows and Cynthia has shared this secret with her readers, but Mariah is kept deliciously in the dark, amping up the tension and suspense in this smart, witty novel. She does a fabulous job of maintaining point of view and when additional information is neccessary, it is creatively presented through blog entries, newspaper ads and letters. Short chapters and tight story make the pace move quickly.

Cynthia also beautifully pays homage to Bram Stoker - something I really loved because I've had a huge crush on Dracula ever since the Frank Langella movie back in the '70s. (yes, I was in elementary school, but I was still fascinated and when I was just a little bit older, I stayed up late and watched the "Creature Features" on Saturday night withe the black and white monster movies from the '50s. The vampire movies were always my favorites.)

So, here is a book trailer for Eternal.

Eternal Trailer

OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS | MySpace Video

And here is a picture I took of the hardcover edition at the Barnes & Noble right here in Oklahoma City - along with Need by Vermont College alum Carrie Jones, which also just came out in paperback.

Finally, if you have even the slightest interest in books for young readers, you should check out Cynthia's blog, Cynsations. Every day she has interviews with authors, editors and agents discussing the world of childrens publishing. Plus, she frequently has contests giving away new cool books.

Writing Contest from Agent Mary Kole

In between reading books for my critical thesis, I've been polishing my manuscript because there are several opportunities coming up that require submitting the opening pages.
I already sent the first five pages to a contest sponsored by the Dallas/Ft. Worth Writers Workshop. The deadline was last week and I didn't want to miss it, so I submitted it before the winter residency at Vermont College.

In some ways that is very sad, because the one hundred books I read and the dozen of essays I wrote during my first two semesters finally gelled during the lectures and discussions I attended on campus. I've come up with a new first sentence filled with mystery and emotion. I hope it will capture a reader's attention in a way my previous opening did not.

But, all is not lost!

I get to send that first sentence and dozens of its followers (up to 500 words) to Mary Kole of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency for the contest she has set up on her Kidlit blog. First prize is a 15-page critique!
Here's the entire lowdown on Mary's contest. It's a great way to get an agent's reaction to your work.
Kidlit Contest

My SCBWI chapter also has a manuscript critique/contest in conjunction with their spring conference. I have another week or so to polish my first ten pages that will then be considered by an agent or two editors. But I won't know the results of that until the conference on March 27. (And I have to wait even longer on the Dallas entry, that's not until April 9!)

Mary Kole says she'll take about a week to consider her entries. That really appeals to my desire for immediate gratification!

Vermont College of Fine Art

I foolishly thought I would be able to keep up with my blog posts during my winter residency at Vermont College.

Silly me.

I barely checked my email during the residency, little alone having the time to post.

Vermont College offers a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis on children and young adult literature. What this means is I spend about ten days on campus in January and then again in July.
In between, I'm home in Oklahoma. Going to work at the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, raising my two amazing daughters, doing my best to be a fun, supportive wife and somehow cramming about twenty-five hours of reading and writing into my schedule each week.

I don't watch television (much).
I don't have a social life.
I don't do housework.

But I do have the first draft of a mystery manuscript that I started in July and finished in December. And for me right now, that's more important than those things I've given up. Most days, my family agrees.

I know some other schools offer variations of this concept for other degrees. But I think it works particularly well for creative endeavors. Writing is such a solitary undertaking.
This truly offers the best of both worlds -- a community offering support and insight as well as time to write.

One Vermont College tradition is for students in each semester to pick a name for their class. This is announced at the beginning of the students' third semester. After several discussion sessions, our group finally decided on The Bat Poets, inspired by Randall Jarrell's delightful book.

During my time on campus, I attend some thought-provoking lectures, participated in a small workshop critique group with five fantastic students - Graduate Clete Smith, Margaret Crocker (entering fourth semester), fellow Bat Poet Barbara Roberts and two second semester students, Stacy Nyikos and Helen Pyne.
Our faculty leader for the workshop was the amazing Julie Larios. I read two of her poetry collections just before residency: The Yellow Elephant and Imaginary Menagerie.

They are both delightful and though the titles point to animals or fanciful creatures, in the end her poems urge us to take a look at ourselves by asking questions like what would a mermaid wish for? Both books are too much fun to miss.
In addition to all the things I learned during this residency at Vermont College, a lot of things happened in the world of childrens literature.
The ALA awards and the Edgar finalists were announced. Thanks to all the reading I've been doing for my graduate work, I've actually read many of these books prior the announcement. I'll be talking about those books and sharing my thoughts on the writing life in coming posts.

Who Really Killed Cock Robin?

 Who Really Killed Cock Robin: An Ecological Mystery   by Jean Craighead George published by HarperCollins, 1971, 1991.

Everything old is new again - Going green may seem like a new trend, but Jean Craighead George was writing about it more than 30 years ago.
Obviously, an environmental message is the cornerstone of this novel. The story is told in third person and follows Tony Isidoro, an eighth grader who has been recruited by the Mayor to solve the mystery of a robin's death. The plot includes politics and corporate interests, along with a hint of government conspiracy. Tony has become interested in bird watching in the absence of his brother Izzy who had been working on a graduate thesis about the local robins before he was drafted into the Army. Tony is invested in this mystery because his brother has asked him to continue his observations. From the time it was written, we can infer that Izzy is likely in Vietnam. But it feels more like he is away at college somewhere instead of in a potentially life-threatening situation. Tony seems much more worried about the environmental impact of the local toxins than about his brother.

But, there are many notable scenes. Tony defies the Mayor and exhumes the robin's corpse following a small funeral. At the end of chapter six, the reader is reassured that Tony is actually a kid when he convinces Mary Alice to go fishing. In this scene, George finesses the environmental information into the story subtly.
 
This classic is a must-read for all budding environmentalists.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose published by Melanie Kroupa Books, an imprint of Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009.

Winner of the 2009 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

From the jacket copy: "On March 2, 1955, a slim, bespectacled teenager refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Shouting 'It's my constitutional right!' as police dragged her off to jail, Claudette Colvin decided she'd had enough of the Jim Crow segregation laws that had angered and puzzled her since she was a young child."





Hoose did an excellent job of integrating quotes from Ms. Colvin with the background information about the time and events. Yet, he doesn't try to inject himself too much into the story.

The second chapter is almost entirely Colvin and the details she shares paint a vivid picture of life in Montgomery in the 1950s. One particular eye-opener: “...they wouldn't let us try anything on. I never went into a fitting roomm like white people did. The saleslady would measure me and then go get the dress or the blouse and bring it out. She'd hold it up and tell me it was a perfect fit and expect my mom to buy it.”
She also relates tracing the shape of their feet on a brown paper bag and taking the outline to the store because they were not allowed to try on the shoes.
A powerful parallel Hoose nailed is the description of the Alabama flag hanging in the courtroom and its similarity to the Confederate flag.  The period photos used generously throughout the text augment the vivid reality feel of this book. Of course, all the pictures are in black and white, subtly underscoring the context of the book.

I highly recommend this book for ages 10 and up. The text is simple enough for older elementary students, yet the unflinching look at segregation will be enough to challenge high schoolers. Would even make a  lovely companion for To Kill a Mockingbird.

Here is a book trailer that includes Claudette Colvin talking about her experience: