The Cybils are Back--Nominate Your Favorite Children's & YA Book(s) of 2007

The Cybils, kidlitosphere's first literacy awards, are back. For more info and to nominate your favorite children's and YA books for 2007, surf on over to the Cybils blog.

First Annual Kidlitosphere Conference

Boy do I wish my schedule allowed me to attend this conference today. I've been online with some of these folks for nearly two years now because of my work with Edge of the Forest, and would love the opportunity to meet, greet and hug my cyber colleagues. Sigh.

Writer-ly Report--Burning Water In the Zone

Well, dang, I haven't burned water in months. It happened yesterday. (The equivalent of it anyway.)

I was deep into KM--so deep that I forgot I had a family. When the time came to pick my youngest up from school...well, let's just say she called me from the office a half hour after school let out to give me grief.

A fight scene was to blame. It's a turning point in the story, the place where my main character realizes there be monsters in the world. Blades were crossing, blood was flowing, and wham, the phone rang.

Crap, do I lose more mom points if I admit that I nearly let the answering machine pick up rather than risk losing the zone I'd entered? Call it fate, luck, or a guilty muse that didn't want me jailed for neglect (not until after this current rewrite anyway.) Whatever the reason, I took the call.

Thankfully S--herself an aspiring writer--is understanding about her mom's obsession.

Note to self: set an alarm next time.

edited at 11:48 p.m.

Never-Ending Stories, Fantasies about Fantasy Writing, and Honoring the Process

I'm up to my eyeballs in copy. In addition to finishing up my submissions for the upcoming issue of Edge of the Forest and coordinating the PR needs for the SCBWI-Illinois chapter's annual Prairie Writer's Day conference, I'm now the point person for PR for our church.

Thankfully, writing media releases comes easily for me since this is how I made my living for 20-plus years. But doing so takes precious time away from my writing writing.

KM falls into this category. The project's gone on for so long that at times it feels like the never-ending story. I should know better than to complain about the timing. Each one of us has our own own trajectory, tempered by the lives we lead.

I try to remind myself that as writers, not only do we write to live, we also need to live to write. And if this is true, doesn't it follow that living to write means honoring where we are?

Looks good on paper, and looking back on the last couple of years, I can't deny the impact life's "little" diversions have had on my writing. Most telling is the very real fact that after graduation from Vermont College, I lost a year and half because of E's second aneurysm surgery and recovery.

All forward motion was not wasted, however. In between doctor visits and rehab, I continued my re-visioning of KM--though at times doing so felt like backward progress--and I launched this blog (thanks to gentle urgings from author/blogger extraordinaire Cynthia Leitich Smith), and wrote an essay that's now part of the Special Gifts anthology.

I should honor where I am. Yet, more often than I'd like to admit, I envy other writers the luxury of immersing themselves in their stories 24/7. Rather than tearing themselves away from the keyboard to chauffeur their kids to the next activity or help with homework, they've the uninterrupted time they need to enter their project/characters/world so completely that they can identify the holes, throughlines, and beat of their prose, and do so in record time.

Even so, I can't help but wonder where my writing would be without my life to inform it. Would my characters whisper in my ear with the same urgency and conviction? Would I have found the voice my essay needed to catch an editor's eye? Would I appreciate my uninterrupted butt in chair time the way I do now?

Months ago, I borrowed a mantra from my yoga teacher, J, appying it to my writer's life in a way that centered and energized me. It's time I plastered the saying on my computer again.

Honor the process.

On Deadline

In the works this week:

1. E-interviews for Edge of the Forest columns A Day in the Life and What's in Their Backpack.

2. Critique group submission. My goal this week is to write through another two or three chapters by Friday. So far so good on making that goal.

3. Prairie Writer's Day PR prep. With the big day fast-approaching, I've a butt load of work left to do in order to help make this year's conference the best ever from a PR standpoint.

Current read: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. My only complaint (and it's a small one at that) is that by the time I crawl under the covers to commune with the strange and wonderful world Clarke has created, I need a magnifying glass to read the small print. Alas, the bane of most every aging boomer I meet: the growing need for bigger print books. Sigh.

Writing Breakthroughs, Hummingbirds, and Critique Group

Critique group meets tomorrow. After E's most recent illness (she was sick the weekend before last and part of last week), I'm looking forward to adult time, the chance to spy the last hummingbirds of the season in J's garden, and, of course, feedback on my most recent KM chapters.

I've been a writing maniac lately, racing through this current rewrite in record personal speed. Some of the contributing factors:

1. I've written and rewritten this puppy so many times from so many points of view that it was just plain time.

2. I've been told there's something about the well water we drink in town.

3. And, on a more serious note, I'm convinced the myriad puzzle pieces of this project finally came together after taking Dennis Foley's Plotting the Novel class.

Whatever the reason, I bless it and raise a cyber glass of wine (one I've been chilling for the time I finally pulled KM out of this proverbial rut).

Here's to the process and my muse. (It's bloody well time!)

Explore the Forest

Gacked from Big A little a's blog:

The September issue of The Edge of the Forest is now live. We have many exciting features for you, as well as interviews, reviews, and much, much more. In short, here's what's in store this month:

*An interview with Phil Bildner, by Camille Powell.
*An appreciation of Patrick McDowell's picture books, by Adrienne Furness.
*I discuss Anglo-American versions of Baba Yaga tales in Baba Yaga Heads West
*Liz Burns reviews Barry Lyga's Fanboy and Boy Toy.
*Kim Winters talks being on retreat in A Day in the Life
*Betsy Bird (A Fuse #8 Production) tells us What's in their Backpacks?
*Robin Brande is this month's Blogging Writer
*Sounds from the Forest talks with Mary Anne Hoberman and Deborah Freedman (Brought to you by Just One More Book!!)
*Reviews in all categories—from Picture book to Young Adult.

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