I’m so excited to be at my drawing table again. My most recent revision of my YA manuscript is safely with my agent, and I’m working on a new dummy for a picture book that she’s interested in. Here’s some of the wonderful mess of the process.
Category: About Me
More photos: The Lobster Ride!
On Sunday last… I rode in the Maine Bike Coalition Lobster Ride. The event allows riders to choose their poison: 15, 30, 50, or 100 miles. (I’m up to 30 although my husband would have much preferred 50 or 100.) The entry fees go to help lobby for improved bike infrastructure in Maine, and to build a positive relationship between bikers and car drivers. You might be surprised by how anti-bike some people can be.
I did not ride this.
Or any of these wonderful vintage bikes from the Owl’s Head Transportation Museum.
Here’s me with my modern, light weight carbon fiber FELT bike.
Which rides like a dream so that I could ham it up with the Lobster Queen at the end of 30 miles!
The Photo Journalism Continues- Monhegan Island
Yesterday, I posted some pictures of my journey to NYC in hopes that I’d make up for the huge lag in written posts that I’ve made this summer. Today, I’m taking you on a virtual tour of Monhegan Island and Midcoast Maine.
I bid on the ferry ride and stay at the “Trailing Yew” inn through the Maine Women’s Lobby auction. MWL is doing amazing things to support women and families in Maine and I thank them!
First stop: Mt. Batte in Camden. Think… Down to the Sea With Mr. McGee.
My cairn from the rocky mountain top at the end of a lovely hike. My husband and I were pleased to find wild blueberries nestled amongst the rocks and nibbled just like SAl. Or were they tremendous mouthfuls like Little Bear?!?
In Rockland… a fabulous dinner at FOG Bar and Cafe. BBQ Tofu topped with tempura pickle strips on a bed of cilantro pesto cauliflower.
Followed by breakfast at the Atlantic Baking Company…
YUM!!!
On the ferry to Monhegan from Port Clyde.
The view from our room at The Trailing Yew. Fabulous food, a great group of artist visitors, and oil lamps. So fun!
The island was all abloom with flowers– the air full of sea roses and balsam scent. These climbing roses caught my eye.
Me on “Pebble Beach.” The “pebbles” were more like boulders or as we said, dinosaur eggs.
So majestic and magical! We hiked the trails all around the island and let me tell you… it was some strenuous hiking.
A wonderful sunset on a VERY hot day. Good-by Monhegan. We’ll be back!
Summer Blog-lag and A photographic apology
It has been a busy summer of trips both expected and unexpected. My constant travels have taken me away from social media which is a mixed blessing. On one hand, it feels great to be unplugged and to have relief from the constant stream of information. I’ve made some progress on my WIP, caught up on some reading, and had some wonderful family time.
On the other hand, I feel guilty not to be contributing to said constant stream. “My blog readers will go elsewhere for pithy observations, book reviews, and industry buzz.” C’est la vie.
If you need time-wasting excuses, I’ll be posting pictures from my recent adventures over the next few days. Enjoy! Then go read, write, draw, and enjoy the summer outside unplugged.
Trip One: To NYC
I went to NYC to be with my brother who has been quite ill. Happily, he is making steady if slow progress towards healing. I did take one morning to visit THE A,B,C’S OF IT: WHY CHILDREN’S BOOKS MATTER, a free exhibit at the NY Public Library. If you get a chance, please visit. Fabulous artifacts (primers from the 1600’s) and great history of children’s books and how they’ve changed to meet the educational philosophy of the times.
Who doesn’t love the iconic NYPublic Library Lions?
So happy to see my friend Michelle Knudsen’s fabulous book, Library Lion, in the display case!
New Yorkers! You are so lucky to have this amazing temple to the book!
Winnie-the-Pooh and friends took a journey from their usual spot in the children’s room to be in the A, B, C’s exhibit!
The wonderful Wanda Gag. (Rhymes with fog.) I’d never seen her picture and was struck with the thought that perhaps Kirsten Cappy of Curious City Books is Wanda Gag reincarnated.
Original sketches for Alice in Wonderland!
Striking fold-out book about the tsunami in Southeast Asia.
Original artwork of Mainer, Ashley Bryan. See video below for more….
This is a carefully constructed column created from banned books.
A closer look at a tiny section of the stack.
The plaque underneath the column.
Good-bye lions… good-bye library!
Tomorrow, midcoast Maine and Monhegan Island.
Ashley Bryan video:
Big Announcement!
I promised you all that I’d post an announcement yesterday and even though it was the longest day of the year (Happy Summer Solstice), I didn’t post. Perhaps you are reading this on your tablet next to some pool, or you’ve just dropped off some child at camp and you’ve decided to check your email… whatever the situation, please forgive me and thank you for coming back during your weekend.
I’m so proud to announce that I’ve signed with Alexandra Penfold of Upstart Crow Literary. I love this explanation of the agency name Upstart Crow from their website:
To begin with, it is an insult slung at the young Shakespeare in 1592 by older, more-established, but less successful playwright Robert Greene. His obvious irritation at the younger artist’s pluck and nerve is, we think, typical of the response of the old guard toward any new talent. There is something in the phrase that speaks of courage and brio and daring, and we feel we should all be upstart crows when it comes to our writing and our work.
I wish I could say that I was a young artist, but my journey has been too long to claim that. (Ten years? Thirteen?) What is courageous, however, is to persevere despite the obstacles, and daring to dive into craft and care more about the journey than the outcome. I had finally gotten to that point. I had finally reignited my love of writing for writing sake. I had decided to open up my schedule and say to the universe (often aloud into the trees around my home) writing is my priority. That was when good things started to happen. First, the PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award and now representation by Upstart Crow.
Of course this is just another step in my writing journey, but I couldn’t be more pleased than to have the smart, savvy, connected, experienced, communicative, compassionate Alexandra Penfold on the journey with me.
Sporty Girl Books blog debuts tomorrow June 1st!
When I saw on Twitter that my friends Kris Asselin and Stacy Mozer were starting Sporty Girl Books group blog:
“…devoted to girls (and the people who love them) who love reading, writing, talking, watching, and playing sports.
I said sign me up! Well, no. That’s not what I said at all. I said, “I’d love to do a guest post every once in a while.” But if you know me, and many of you do, you know that I have problems with one word. “No.” So when they said, do you want to join the group, you’ll only have to post once-a-month. I said, “Sure!”
You know what? I am not sorry at all. Kris and Stacy also recruited Robin Hall another up and coming writer, yoga instructor, rock climber and all around athlete, and I’ve had a blast getting to know her. Over the last weeks we’ve hammered out a new logo (see below), content ideas and blogging schedule (we’ll each post once-a-month).
At SPORTY GIRL, we want to give all girls the chance to love, watch, play, read, and write about the sports they love. We look forward to the day when the words, “You play like a girl,” is the best compliment anyone can receive.
The blog debuts tomorrow, June 1st and you can expect interviews with authors, profiles of girl athletes, book reviews, essays, current event tie-ins, and (drum roll please) GIVEAWAYS! In fact, to start things off we’ll have a rafflecopter giveaway of some of our favorite and new sporty girl books. The contest will run through the month. What do you have to do? Follow the Sporty Girl Books blog and our Twitter feed @SportyGirlBooks. For extra points you can follow our personal blogs and Twitter feed as well.
Most important we need you to spread the word to all the sporty girls in your life. We’d love for the girls to be involved in the blog. In the “Your Stories” section of the blog, girls can write about their own athletic stories, good or bad. (All stories will be reviewed before publication.)
So come visit us, enter the giveaway, and spread the word!
Into the Woods- And Back Again
I wonder what it would be like to live in Seattle. After eight days of grey skies and rain we experienced sunshine yesterday. It actually started on Sunday with a glimmer. A quick parting and rejoining of cloud cover that triggered a gulp of breath on my part. “Oh my, God,” I said, ” I think that was sunshine.” This while my husband and I made way to LL Bean after a walk in the woods where we saw these lovely lady slipper flowers. (If I’ve got that wrong and they are something else, please correct me in the comments.) I’ve seen one or two together many times but I’ve never seven as in the picture on the right. They seemed to be popping up everywhere (along with mushrooms) in the saturated woodland floor. The tree leaves had just exploded as well and were that wonderful springtime yellow-green against wet, black bark. So amazing. Just five days ago there were twigs, and branches, and buds, and rain, and rain, and rain. Today there is hope.
Oak Hill Young Writers Inspire
Last night I spoke at the annual awards ceremony and author’s reception for the Oak Hill Young Writers’ Club in Sabattus, Maine. I knew that the event would give me a chance to brush up on my public speaking skills before my award reception Sunday evening. I knew that the event would give me a chance to see what my Creative Bookings clients were experiencing. I knew the event would be my chance to inspire a group of kids who were interested in the thing that I love most.
What I didn’t realize is how much they would inspire me.
The Oak Hill Young Writers’ Club started with a handful of children at a single school and have since grown to one hundred children throughout the the school district. The teachers and volunteers leading the charge are passionate about children and passionate about writing. They see cuts in school budgets year after year and have “band[ed] together to become a foundation of support for [the] children.” Through business and community donations, volunteers, and the kindness of local authors, they have focussed their energy on making writing appealing and cool for students through club meetings, writing contests, and scholarships.
After the speakers, I was honored to watch the attending young authors receive their t-shirts and certificates of participation for the year. The contest winners received their prizes. Their smiles, and the pride on their parent’s faces, lit up the room. In that moment, I was reminded of the pure joy of writing without the expectation of publication or money or awards.
I wish for you all a day of writing without ego.
#amrevising
I made a chart with the first sentences of each of my chapters yesterday. That’s right folks, I am revising again. My reading at the PEN New England award ceremony is 12 days (and a wake-up) away and then… THEN!… my YA manuscript will be submitted to publishers as the award winner.
The upcoming award triggers my Impostor Syndrome (See a great blog post about this at PubCrawl.) but the love from participants at his weekend’s New England SCBWI conference put those fears to rest. Still, I know that I’ve been working a lot on those first 20 pages one sends with their query and not at all on the other 200 pages. I wanted to do a polish on the entire manuscript.
One of the comments I had from an agent who declined was that the writing was too “diaristic.” The comment has been niggling at me, as comments that ring true do, but I hadn’t been able to pinpoint the problem. Time away from the story, and inspiration from the conference have allowed me to see it fresh this week– thus the chart.
My chart revealed many things. I have three chapters where my character “woke up”, many that include time or setting markers, and a significant number that try to catch the reader up on what happened just before the chapter starts (backstory). Diaristic.
Just as cartoon character runs in place before they shoot forward, I’ve written these throw away sentences to tell the reader what is going on.
(I wanted to put a video here but all I could find was this sound clip. Still funny.)
What would be more effective? Sentences with emotional resonance that grab the reader so that when they finish the previous chapter, and are about to go to sleep, they peek at the next chapter, read the sentence and say to themselves, “Just one more.”
In a future post, I’ll show you all the spreadsheet with the old and new first chapter sentences. For now, I #amrevising.
Get your head in the game.
It is the Wednesday after vacation, and I’m having a hard time getting my head in the game. I haven’t written in a while due to work I’ve been doing for Creative Bookings but each day I don’t write feels like a tiny puzzle piece of me gets shoved under the couch by mistake– lost until someone discovers it in a mound of dust bunnies, dog toys, and lone sweaty boy socks. Luckily, NESCBWI is coming up. I know I can count on the conference for 1 part inspiration, 2 parts love and support, and 1 part alone time.
The change in weather has been especially difficult. Driving home on the east coast I went from summer and palm trees in Florida, to beautiful wild flowers in South Carolina, to dogwood trees in Virginia, to redbud trees in Maryland, to new leaves and flowering fruit trees in New York City…
Look at how beautiful Central Park was!
to forsythia in Connecticut, to um… tree limbs that barely have buds in Maine. It’s been cold and crappy here. Anyway. As my father says. Buck up, Sport!
OTHER RANDOM NYC PICS:
Everybody wants something in New York City. This squirrel was totally hamming it up for us. I missed the picture when s/he stood up on her/his hind legs, but you get the eagerness here, right?
Oh, Lego engineers. You are full of awesome. By the way, Liberty Island is closed until July 4th and Ellis Island is closed indefinitely due to Hurricane Sandy.
Creative Chaos 