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Technology has come a long way and writers are among the many who have benefited. Gone are the days a writer scribbled her words on paper, replaced by the typewriter. Then to have an electric one, with self-correcting tape was heaven. With a keystroke or two I can spell check, use a thesaurus to find a better word, and easily pick up text and rearrange in a more suitable spot. Of course, future generations will not find our tattered hand-written manuscripts hidden away in some attic, a small price to pay for progress.
Should we need to check accuracy on details in a story, a quick Google search can provide the facts as well as a distraction from the writing at hand. Wikipedia can tell you anything from aardvarks to zebras.
But the real advantage is in the form of social media. There are forums, blogs, and videos for every human endeavor imaginable: quilting, sports, gardening, gaming, and of course, writing. There are how to instructions for drafting, composing, editing, or for writing a query letter or synopsis. You can go online and discover which houses most likely would be interested in your work.
And there are plain old blogs. The Utah Children’s Writers blog is one that comes to mind. Perhaps you’ve read it? Go there and you can find a list of 30 or more other blogs. Most blogs have a link where you can subscribe, which gives you an email and link when a new post goes up.
There are others. You can enjoy the thoughts of local writing goddess, Carol Williams. She is accompanied by and Ann Dee Ellis and Kyra at
http://throwingupwords.wordpress.com/. Sometimes it is the only way.
Another I subscribe to is From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle Grade Authors. These talented writers, including Utah’s own Elissa Cruz, focus primarily works for upper elementary children. Yet they have so much more, including book lists and special pages for children, teachers and librarians, and other writers. The URL is
http://www.fromthemixedupfiles.com/
I really enjoyed hearing Christian Trimmer speak at a recent SCBWI event at The Loft at Congress. Huge thanks to Christian, Linda Bernfeld, Laurie Taddonio, and Flora Doone for putting together such a wonderful event. And free, too! FL SCBWI rocks, and I’m so lucky to be a part of it.
Christian has been in the business for seven years, and absolutely raves about his authors, such as Mo Willems, Stacey Kade, and Robin Mellom. Right now, he said that Disney Hyperion isn’t actively looking for paranormal or much science fiction. He loves books with rich details that find the truth in relationships, like Ditched by Robin Mellom and Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford.
What do editors want? Christian said a great voice, authenticity, and honest emotions. Research helps make the world more believable. Pay attention to the details! This helps make sure that readers can see the scenes, too and adds a layer of credibility.
In almost all his editorial letters, he mentions character motivation. If you can’t see what drives a character, then neither will readers. When you create a character, you want readers to see themselves in that person. You need to have an emotional arc (which helps readers genuinely care about a character) and a narrative arc.
Here are some tips Christian shared with us:
* Build a network—it’s great for support (he could tell our local SCBWI is an extremely supportive group). Seek help with info if you need it.
* Make yourself stand out. Marketing and publicity love when a writer has an active blog and large online following.
* Seek out agents who rep books from authors you admire.
* If you receive several offers, make sure you chat with an editor on the phone before accepting to make sure he or she is the right one for you.
* You need to be prepared to sell books. You have to talk about your books, and try to get your face out in the community to teachers, librarians, and book sellers.
* Envision your entire career—not just selling one book.
* Set real deadlines and be disciplined enough to make them. Write daily!
* Everyone’s pa
I'm thrilled to have an interview with author Bruce Hale up on the Mixed-Up Files site. I've seen him speak at conferences several times, and he's one of the most inspirational and entertaining authors I've met! Hop on over and see his helpful humor writing tips, the books that make him laugh the most, and a fun writing exercise. You'll also have a chance to win a signed copy of DIAL M FOR MONGOOSE! The winner will be chosen by a random generator around 4 pm this afternoon.
From the Mixed-Up Files...of Middle-Grade Authors also has an amazing Skype author visit
giveaway going on! You'll have until October 3rd to enter for a chance to give your favorite class, group, library, or club a full length Skype visit with one of these incredible middle-grade authors:
Bruce Hale (Chet Gecko Mysteries)
Tami Lewis Brown (The Map Of Me),
Erin Moulton (Flutter),
Kathy Erskine (Mockingbird),
Tricia Springstubb (What Happened On Fox Street),
Sarah Aronson (Beyond Lucky),
Uma Krishnaswami (The Grand Plan To Fix Everything),
and
Jennifer Nielsen (Elliot and the Pixie Plot).
I was thrilled to interview Ruth McNally Barshaw, the author and illustrator of the popular Ellie McDoodle series on my latest From The Mixed-Up Files...of Middle Grade Authors post. Wow--Ruth is such an inspiration, and shared so much wonderful advice, how she broke into the business, and a fantastic exercise that's great for adults and kids to use when fleshing out a character. You'll also see three sketches and some info for the 4th Ellie McDoodle book, due out in Spring, 2012.
Leave a comment on the Mixed-Up Files site to enter to win a personalized Ellie book...and Ruth said she'll even add some surprise sketches inside each book! Two winners will be chosen on Thursday, February 24th. I can't wait to see who will win these two awesome prizes.
Ruth's sketches are amazing--and she has tons of them on her website. Here's one Ruth drew of herself that I included in the interview.
I've been busy working on my MG revision--it's getting really close to being done. Wahoo! I'm hoping to post more about the Miami conference soon, but it takes me a while to organize my notes and type everything up, and I've had to concentrate on my revision, the interview, my critique groups, and the FL SCBWI listserv first. A new listserv will be coming out soon...with news about the celebration for the opening of the movie
Beastly, based on Alex Flinn's incredible novel.
My From The Mixed-Up Files post went up today! I love funny books that have a quirky main character with a voice that jumps out at you, so I put together a list of fun books that can help kids make the transition from picture books and early chapter books into middle-grade novels. Are there any books that helped you or a child you know take the leap into middle grade novels? Hop on over and let me know--I'd love to have an even larger list for everyone who is looking for that type of book. I already saw a few suggestions that sound great, and added them to my must-read list!
I added a photo of Lollipop that my girls took. She loves picture books, but is hoping I'll find some great middle-grade novels to read with her.
I think I'm still recovering from all the November excitement...but unfortunately, my computer felt the strain of all those hours of typing and crashed a couple days ago. At least it didn't happen during NaNoWriMo again this year. Most of my work was backed up in e-mails sent to a special manuscript account and a flash drive I update once or twice a month. But I had done an incredible amount of revisions on Mom Wars right before my computer crash and hadn't e-mailed it to myself in a few days. I was thrilled to be able to bring my files up on a laptop using Carbonite...until I discovered that the apostrophe I had in the folder title that holds ALL of my manuscripts, synopses, etc. stopped me from being able to access it on another computer. If any of you are using Carbonite, please make sure you don't have any special characters in your folder titles--they told me that none of these will allow access to files or folders: ~, \, /, |, :, ?, ", ', >, &, <, *, and extra spaces at the end of a folder name in the file name, folder name or the file path, has been known to cause Remote File Access to be unable to locate the file.
I'm pretty sure the tech will be able to save everything, and I managed to e-mail my Mom Wars manuscript to myself right before he took my computer, so I'm really relieved about that! And today I won the battle of the printer. I couldn't figure out which of the many plugs are for my printer and decided to use a wireless connection with my laptop. But...about an hour and a half later, I finally realized that a pop up blocker might have been stopping it from working. Whew! Computer issues are so scary, and I hope this is the last time I'll have to worry about it for a long time...and that all of you don't have any issues.
Please remember to back up your work often...in several different methods, just in case something happens! I've heard a lot of great things about Dropbox, and am thinking about trying it. Do you have a backup method that you love?
How can books I loved as a child remain popular, when society changes so quickly? Nobody had cell phones or internet when I was in elementary school. So how can books written at that time still appeal to today’s kids? I believe the books that stand the test of time have unique characters readers can relate to, cheer for, and fall in love with, combined with situations that kids still have…like annoying siblings, school issues, fights with friends, and trying to see where you fit in our world.
I blogged about this on the Mixed-Up Files...of Middle-Grade Authors site today. I'd love to know why you think some middle-grade books remain popular for over thirty years, and which current books you believe will become timeless. Hop on over and see which book I believe will become timeless, and find out what amazing authors like Lauren Myracle, Wendy Mass, Bruce Hale, Laurie Friedman, and Lisa Yee think about timeless middle-grade books.
Don't forget to check out our second summer giveaway, where one lucky reader will win these three fabulous middle-grade books:
The Reinvention of Edison Thomas by Jacqueline Houtman (ARC)
Mallory Goes Green by Laurie Friedman (hardcover)
A Dog's Way Home by Bobbie Pyron (ARC)
My writing life changed forever in 1983 with my first word processing program, which I "programmed" myself by typing in the program from a computer magazine. We used to do that kind of thing back then. SpeedScript didn't have many features. You could transpose two characters and do basic formatting of text and of the page, once you learned the keystrokes needed to issue commands. No spellcheck or styles or templates or other features I take for granted now. But I could make changes at will and move sentences and paragraphs around, without needing to retype. I could write my drafts on the computer, so there was no more trying to decipher my penmanship, which is never good but gets even worse when writing quickly during creative sprints. And then I could print at a blazing four pages per minute. I've written very little by hand since then.