Winter Comfort Reads

'Tis the season for cozy blankets, hot chocolate, and holiday comfort reads. Are there books that you re-read every year because it's part of your winter tradition? Fellow editor pal Martha and I talked about this a few years back , and she posted this and ever since then I've been accutely aware that there are certain books that just FEEL like Christmastime to me.

The Christmas Dolls. This one's top of my list, because despite the fact that I'm not nine years old any more, my inner reader often is. I'm not even sure when or where I acquired this book (which is long since out-of-print, though you can still find it on used book sites), but it's battered from years of re-reads. As it 1980s-tastic cover makes clear, this is a tale of orphans, snowstorms, dolls, & a very special Christmas Eve mission. It's also got a perfect--if utterly implausible--happy ending that arrives just in time, with a touch of Christmas magic. I can't really explain why out of all the books, THIS is the holiday story that imprinted on me as a lifelong favorite, but there you have it--it makes me suspend all disbelief & just believe in the goodness of people, & what more could you wish for in a holiday story, really?

(This is the copy I had as a kid.)




(This is the current cover. Much better!)

Angels &Other Strangers

This short story collection was on my family's bookshelves when I was a kid. Each time I re-read it, I'm reminded all over again of Katherine Paterson's incredible power as a storyteller &observer of the world: novel or short-story, she delivers honest, timeless truths about how important hope is, &how much, as people, we need each other.    

  

Little Women
The first line couldn't be more engaging, could it? "'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,' Jo grumbled, lying on the rug." It's Victorian-era Christmas warmth and miracles and hope and family love in all its glory!

(I do confess that some years I skip the re-read and go for one of the movie versions instead.)

 

And finally, one of my own! A Christmas Goodnight is a modern classic in my mind; the perfect hybrid between Goodnight Moon and the familiar Nativity story. My illustrator Sarah Jane Wright shows some of her wonderful interior artwork here (though her contest mentioned in that post is no longer live), and I talk about the process from the editorial side here. The thing I perhaps love most about this book is that ever since I first began working with this text over 5 years ago, it unconsciously runs through my mind over and over at Midnight Mass each year. I'm a biased editor and all, but if you're looking for a new Christmas picture book to add to your family's collection, it's pretty perfect for sharing, reading aloud, and for talking with kids about the connections between the long-ago Nativity story & their own lives.

What are YOUR holiday/winter comfort reasons? Share them in the comments!

You Tell Me: The Home Library Dilemma

At the SCBWI-Rocky Mountains Conference I spoke at a few weeks ago, organizer Todd Tuell posed a great dinnertime question that I've been chewing on ever since.

Imagine that your entire home library is destroyed (anguish! woe!) in a fire or flood or some such disaster. None of the books are recoverable. When it's time to start rebuilding your library: what are the very first two books (one picture book, one novel) that you'd want to put on your new shelves?

After much internal conflict and mental re-shelving, I think mine would be Blueberries for Sal and Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. With a veryveryclose third being Charlotte's Web.

What about you?

Five articles worth reading this week

1. This great article that talks about the neurological effects of reading. If you're a brain science nerd like I am (for me it boils down to a fascination with understanding the things that make us human), or simply someone who likes when reading/storytelling make news, you'll probably appreciate this, too.
        Sample: "A psychologist...concluded that there was substantial overlap in the brain networks used to understand stories and the networks used to navigate interactions with other individuals — in particular, interactions in which we’re trying to figure out the thoughts and feelings of others. Scientists call this capacity of the brain to construct a map of other people’s intentions “theory of mind.” Narratives offer a unique opportunity to engage this capacity, as we identify with characters’ longings and frustrations, guess at their hidden motives and track their encounters with friends and enemies, neighbors and lovers." 

2. The text of a commencement speech given to West Point grads three years ago. It's long, but offers a really compelling definition of leadership by way of also discussing the critical roles of vision, solitude, courage, introspection, literature, and friendship.
        Sample (which isn't talking about writing fiction, but oh, how it could be!): "I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing."

3. A legendary magician offers his career secrets via an email exchange with a young admirer. I want to quote like six different passages from this, so really, you should just go read it, even though it, too, is lengthy. It's not about writing, but it IS about the creative life and I suspect you'll see the links just as I do. After all, making magic and making stories have a lot in common.... 
        Sample: "Surprise me. That's it. Place 2 and 2 right in front of my nose, but make me think I'm seeing 5. Then reveal the truth, 4!, and surprise me. Now, don't underestimate me, like the rest of the magicians of the world. Don't fool yourself into thinking that I've never seen a set of linking rings before and I'll be oh-so-stunned because you can "link" them. Bullshit. Here's how surprise works. While holding my attention, you withold basic plot information. Feed it to me little by little.  Make me try and figure out what's going on.  Tease me in one direction. Throw in a false ending.  Then turn it around and flip me over."

(Aside: like many of my best internet discoveries, items #3 and #4 on this list came to my attention via my pal @brainpicker. If you're not following her or reading her blog, you should be, as she is a constant treasure-trove of interestingness and inspiration.)

4. I don't always agree with Laura Miller's Salon.com articles about publishing, but this look inside publishing the juggernaut otherwise known as The Hunger Games is one of the best journalistic looks I've seen at the strategic, carefully-layered work it takes to build success in the kids' book world. Even more importantly, it emphasizes what I tend to think is and always will be the most important truth of the industry, no matter how it morphs: the children's book world is a business built on personal relationships.
        Sample:  "It’s hard to imagine the first book in any adult series being greeted with a comparable level of grass-roots hoopla: buzzed, booktalked and big-mouthed for months before it appeared on any bookstore display table . . . "We got it in the hands of the right people. That’s what publishers do,” van Straaten said. "You’re leveraging one thing to build the next thing. You need the enthusiasm internally to convince that first layer of gatekeepers. Once you have the kudos of those people, you can get these people, and so on.'"

5. Um, actually, my list only goes up to number four today. So you tell me: what article did you find recently that others should read? Leave links in the comments, and thanks!

Let's Talk About Middle Grade!

 

A couple days ago, literary agent pal Michael Bourret and I got to talking about middle grade books--about what makes the great ones so great, and about how we're both eternally hungry to discover that kind of memorable middle grade for our own respective lists. And the more we chatted, the more we thought it would be an interesting conversation to have "out loud."

So in a week or two, we're going to have a two-part blog conversation about middle grade (or as some folks call 'em, tween books); the first half on the Dystel & Goderich Literary Agency blog, and the second half right here on 10 Block Walk. In other words, exciting bloggish times are ahead, oh readers!

But first, we want to know: what curiosities and questions do you have about the writing and craft (and publishing) of MG books? Leave a comment here, or on Michael's post today on the D&G blog (or tweet me or Michael) and we'll use some of your comments as jumping-off points for our upcoming chats.

P.S. No question's too big, too small, or too silly!

You Tell Me: One Book (to rule them all)

I was chatting with one of my talented book creators today, and as we work toward narrowing in and understanding what her next book is trying to become, intriguingly, we both--separately--found ourselves asking the the same question: if she could only ever publish one more book, what would she want it to be about?

Interesting how it's a question with the kind of urgency that brings all of one's creative efforts into a new light, isn't it? (Warning: it can turn your efforts unnecessarily earnest, too, and that's not always the right answer for every writer, so take the whole question with some salt).

In any case, I'm turning it over to you to mull over in the comments, or just for yourself independently: if you got only one shot--or only one more shot--at this whole publishing thing, what would that One Book (TO RULE THEM ALL Ahem. Couldn't resist! I blame my brothers.) be about? And once you've found that answer, how does knowing it affect your creative process?

And does this picture make you giggle as much as it does me?

Summer (Vacation) Reading List

I head out on vacation in a few short weeks (once we're past ALA, that is, where I hope to see some of you fine folk). But it's never too early to start thinking about what books I should take on vacation with me! Here's what I'm planning so far:

(I always like to take a volume of poetry on vacation, because I find few things more luxurious than whiling away a summer afternoon overlooking the ocean with a glass of wine and a book of poetry. And though I know and love her "greatest hits," I'm curious to see what I think of lesser-known Millay.)

(You better believe I'm going to do whatever it takes to get my grubby little hands on this at ALA, b/c if it's anything like Anna and the French Kiss, it'll be the perfect vacation read.)

(A colleague whose taste and editorial skills I quite admire edited Breadcrumbs, and I've been wanting to read it since the moment I heard about it--but I've been waiting till I had time to really savor it. It's a retelling of The Snow Queen. I adore retellings and The Snow Queen is my very favorite fairytale (so heartbreaking! so magical!), so I am primed to love this.

(Is it redundant to read travel writing while traveling? Perhaps, but both my editor self and my rookie travel writer self are excited for this one. "A sense of place" is one of the things I fall hardest for in any kind of writing, so a book devoted to that idea itself sounds delicious. Add that to it being a volume of general inspiration and craft-talk by some travel writing greats, and I'm totally sold.)

So that's a start, but I think I might have room in my bags for just a few more books. So...help me out! What have you read lately--any genre!--that was un-put-downable, or that made you stop and think, or that made you laugh, or that you just flat-out loved?

Vacation, vicariously. And also, writing.

I confess, it's a mite hard to come back to work after a week's vacation involving peaceful, miles-away-from-NYC moments like this:

and blazingly lovely sunsets over distant mountain-tops like this.

Okay, but I also confess that I'm leaving out all the days and nights where it rained and rained and rained, making highly-anticipated events like late night ghost stories around a campfire wholly impossible. (Despite the lovely fire pit that taunted us daily with its too-damp firewood.)

This weather tragedy, in turn, forced us to use up an entire bag of jumbo marshmallows playing Chubby Bunny instead of using them for s'mores/toasting purposes. And oh, how I would love to post those photos, but Travel Companion would disown me if I did so, given that few people look entirely flattering with nine jumbo marshmallows stuffed in their mouths. (For the record, I wussed out after six jumbo marshmallows, but mostly because I was laughing too hard to continue.)

But despite too much rain, a happy and creatively fulfilling vacation was enjoyed. And despite the foreboding signs that warned us that The Lone Zombie might be lurking in the woods around us,

(Beware of prowling zombies!)

we stumbled (err, deliberately off-roaded in the rental car) our way into some delightfully unanticipated scenic overlooks.

All of which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes (if you've heard the "Traveler or Tourist" talk I sometimes give at writers' conferences, you've heard this one before): 

 “Happiness on holiday often only comes when we get lost—in the alleys behind the great museum, in a market off the Grand Canal, in olive groves beyond the guidebook recommended town. We are suddenly among people that are not “extras” in a travelogue, but simply themselves. We shed our tourist guise and rediscover living.”— Australian poet Pam Brown

I'm convinced that the best traveling memories are often found in the moments we do not (and usually cannot) plan. The moments where we "get lost." Or when we're forced away from our plans entirely--say, by rain or zombies or an alluring not-quite-a path, wanting to be explored. 

And so very often, the same premise holds true in writing, too. (You knew I'd bring all this back around to books and writing and editing somehow, didn't you?) Sometimes, it's the wholly unplanned-for plot twists, the previously-unanticipated character developments, the subtle details that were never even conceived-of in your outline or original draft, that come to matter most. They can slip in quietly but become critical elements or perfect lines or most-beloved scenes in a book. And when you're forced to discard your initial perceptions of what you thought a story would be, sometimes you get the delight of seeing it transform into something else--something more fully alive and blazingly memorable than you even initially imagined it could be. (Okay, the truth is, sometimes unanticipated tangents are just dead-ends or rabbit holes that lead you wildly, unproductively astray. But I hope that at least sometimes, you also get the glorious kind of unplanned results, too!)

So, you tell me--what's one of your best entirely unplanned-but-memorable traveling stories? Or, for the writers--one of your completely-unexpected-but-later-deemed-brilliant story shifts that changed everything about what you thought you were writing? Or both? Tell me in the comments!

Your central story; My central story

A few posts back on this blog, you heard me talk about #reverb10, an annual, month-long online reflection project. Here's a bit more about it, from the website:

Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. With Reverb 10 - and the 31 prompts our authors have created for you - you'll have support on your journey.You can commit and start at any time and respond to the prompts in any way you wish - this project is designed for you to discover what needs discovering, however's best for you.

The organizers asked me to contribute one of the month's reflection prompts, and today my prompt goes live for several thousand bloggers and writers to consider. Even if you didn't participate in #reverb10, I think it's a pretty fascinating question to ponder in general, and I welcome your thoughts and responses in the comments section.

December 31 – Core Story. What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.)

Here is what you must know about me: I believe in stories.

I believe they have the power to shape us, to change us, to heal us, to teach us, to connect us. And more.

 There are other things that I believe in powerfully and passionately, too--the capacity for faith is a gift that has been alive in me my whole life, manifesting itself differently as I've grown and come to understand it more. (And it took a number of years for me to fully grasp that the things I believe in most won't always resonate or matter in the same way to others, and that that's okay.) But when I attempt to boil everything down to its simplest, most uncomplicated form, over and over, I come back to stories. Stories are universal. Stories are at the core of everything. Stories matter because they help us catalog and clarify our lives and experiences. Stories matter because we matter: I believe stories teach us how to be human--and how to be better humans, more fully human, even. And really, what is more important than that?

 

It's rare that a week goes by when I don't tell someone (sometimes shyly, sometimes bursting with pride) that I have my dream job. Because as an editor of children's and young adult books, I work with others who believe as I do, that stories matter enormously--and that they matter first and perhaps most, when we are becoming: when we are small children, and then bigger children; and when we are in the awkward stage between being children and being teenagers; and when we are teenagers, and then bigger teenagers; and even when we are in the awkward stage between being teenagers and being adults. In all of those phases, we are becoming the sort of humans we will be, at our core, for the rest of always. And if the stories that I help nurture and produce can ultimately interject more compassion, more hope, more truth into the core of many (or even a few) human beings--then I have more than "a dream job," I have an immensely privileged life.

But the sharing of stories belongs to everyone. And the truth is, we are always becoming, and not only as children or young adults. Because we all need to tell our stories, and we all need to hear stories, too. The stories change, we change--but the need for stories, for narratives by which to guide and inspire and challenge one another, I think that's a constant. Or at least it is for me.

I didn't participate in #reverb10 as much as I intended to this past month.Well...no. Correction. I didn't blog or tweet public responses to the posts as much as I intended to. I pondered each prompt, mulling some over for days internally, discussing others with friends in-person. Most of all, though, I found myself wanting to speak/write less and listen more. And I think that's okay, that there are times to speak and times to be silent and both build us--and our own stories--up in different ways. Here is what I did more than I expected to this past month, though: I kept an open search on the #reverb10 hashtag all month long and clicked link after link after link each day, reading the open-hearted sharing of so many strangers. And I'm more human because of each link, because of those stories. I hope you are, too.

Stories connect us in remarkable ways; the internet connects us in remarkable ways, too. And so perhaps it's no wonder that #reverb10 was powerful for its participants: it did something exponential within and among its participants. And I'm the polar opposite of a math whiz, but if I recall, the mathematical meaning of exponents is that you raise one element to the power of another element. And so...I suspect that stories raised to the power of connectivity equal community, whether fleeting or permanent. And stories raised to the power of connectivity create, or at least help to uncover, meaning. Stories raised to the power of connectivity reveal something beautifully elemental, a sense of ourselves in relationship to the world and its people around us.

The creation and sharing of stories: Something so simple becomes exponential in the most mind-boggling of ways, so quickly: simply by living, the possibility opens up for stories, and for the resulting recognition and discovery and connectivity and potential and inspiration and power. And in examining stories, we discover ourselves, we discover our humanity, and the depths are endless. How amazing. How beautiful.

This, then, is the central story at the core of me: I believe in stories. I believe in them with all my heart. And I will never stop wanting to hear more of them.

Getting back to the blog, and asking questions

Next summer, I'm putting up a "Gone Fishing" sign on my blog, I think: I'll have lots less guilt about meaning to post, but not quite actually getting it done. And I almost just typed that I wasn't really fishing all summer, I was mostly busy editing up a storm (and can't wait till I can show you all the good books I've been working on)--but then I remembered that I actually DID go fishing this summer! See?

(For realz. I caught that guy, and some of his other friends, too!)

I promise I'll tell you my summer fishing adventure story in a belated but still-hopefully-lovely "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" post very soon.

For now, though, I decided to cannonball back into blogging with a deep-ish post. This one was inspired by a recent email from my college friend, Jeremy, who is a campus minister in Michigan. He wrote, in part, "I'm looking at the use of questions [in my work]. Good questions stick in our minds and we come back to them regularly. They move us out of our normal ways of thinking and being. Good questions can help us to look at the truth of things and challenge us to go deeper. What was the best question you've been asked recently? Why has it stuck with you?"

And that got me thinking about questions, which are something I'm really fond of. I heartily agree with my friend that good questions help us get to the truth of things and challenge us into deeper ideas, and I think that a good book--like every kind of art--is one way of asking and creating forums for such questions. In fact, that's probably part of why I like books and their creators and bookish people in general so much: they're always stirring up interesting questions and conversations. And I think books for kids and teens ask some of the best, most important questions!

So, friends, two questions that I'll now turn over to you: feel free to answer either of them in the comments section!
    Question One: What was the best question you've been asked recently, & why has it stayed with you?
    Question Two: Writers and artists, what questions do your stories ask?

The best of friends

Today is my best friend's birthday. We've been best friends since the first grade, as evidenced by our inseparability in this first grade class photo. (Awww!)

(Note the properly-folded hands. We were *very* well-behaved first graders.)

In her honor, I thought I'd do a salute to books about best-friendship. In no particular order, and just off the top of my head, here are a few wonderful tributes to friendship--and to the ways friends love us at our best and worst, and help us grow, and change, and become, and learn to recognize our truest selves.

Toot and Puddle *** Gossie and Gertie *** Best Friends for Frances

Charlotte's Web *** Anne of Green Gables *** A Little Princess *** Bridge to Terabithia

Say Goodnight, Gracie *** Sweethearts *** Before I Fall

But I'm sure I'm missing about a million stories that belong on this list! So you tell me: what are some of your favorite books about friendship?

"Web 2.0 is like a pyramid scheme"

Some of the most fascinating relationships and discoveries of my professional life have come to me via social media over the last few years. If you were to talk to me in person, you'd hear me vehemently defend the real goodness out there, and the fact that I think social media's benefits far outweigh its flaws. Even just a few years into it all, I've got a closet-full of personal examples of friendships, insights, joys, opportunities, and true delights that have come my way via the internets. And the truth is, I kinda think that one of the points of life is to have meaningful relationships and make meaningful connections between them, and call me crazy, but I've found and made a good handful of those via the internet.

And yet, and yet... *whispers* sometimes, the internet, and twitter, and facebook, and goodreads and email and whatever the new social media invention-of-the-week is, and even this blog...and all the people they entail...it is all exhausting. Which is perhaps why this article, passed along by smart, thoughtful agent Holly Root, with the explanation of "why we're all more and less connected all at once" really echoed for me. I don't agree with everything in it (and if you're language-sensitive, be warned that there are some sailor-worthy swears in here), and I don't think I'm as fatalistic about it all as this article's author is, either, but there are more than a few truths here, to be sure.

Which parts rang true for you? And what do we do about it all, anyway? Lemme know your thoughts in the comments; this is bound to be an interesting conversation!

A Conversation on Resonance & Responsibility

Resonance and connectivity are things that I look for a lot as an editor, things that I ask writers to pursue in their storytelling, urging them to open up their stories as wide as possible. Doing so can lead to one of the most powerful kinds of writing, in my mind: when a book reaches beyond merely telling about a particular set of characters, and becomes a story that echoes as familiar and personal and true in the hearts and minds of all different kinds of readers. If, as creators of stories, we recognize and believe that stories are what connect us, then of course that potential for deep connection is one we want to make the most of, right? And if we're lucky, the connections do, in fact, emerge: between readers and characters, between readers and their classmates/friends/family members/fellow humans, and sometimes between readers and authors, too.

But what happens, once the connection is made? Do we talk enough--or at all--about what that can mean, especially for writers of deeply resonant and real (but also sometimes deeply painful) stories?

We talk a lot about "responsibility" in children's and YA books, and one of the fascinating things about that word is that, like any word, it means something different to different people. To some, it means militant safe-guarding of young readers from stories that may, ultimately, shape them, even in the slightest of ways, into a different person than they were previously. But to most of us working in publishing, whether as writers or industry folk, "responsibility," especially in the context of YA, usually translates best to "honesty."

Most of us remember what it was like to be a teen, and we know teens today, too. And the truth is, growing up is (still) hard, and (still) confusing, and it isn't always safe, and sometimes it's positively cruel, but every teen has to stumble through it somehow. And if there are books that might help him/her do so with a little more certainty or a little less loneliness, so much the better. In a way, it means we're all in this together: authors and agents, editors and publishers, librarians and teachers, with all the other invisible walls between our linked-but-separate professions broken down. We're all in it together for every single teen who might, just might, reach for a book while seeking to answer some variation of the questions that we still remember asking ourselves: How, exactly, do we learn to grow up? To become human? To survive the turbulent mess of fears and glories and heartbreaks and changes that any kind of significant becoming entails? To find out which things actually matter, to understand what part of everything is true?

My Jesuit university extolled an ideal that's at the heart of their mission/philosophy of education, and that ended up at the heart of me, too: cura personalis, or "care for the whole person." In other words, it's not enough to care for or feed a person physically, you must also look after his/her unique emotional, spiritual, and mental needs and hungers, too; we must offer a deep respect for everything that makes a person human. In this way, we can help others--and ourselves--them grow, by refusing to segment a person into only the elements we might feel comfortable seeing. Ultimately, if reaching outward, you cannot only give attention to singular aspects of a person's full humanity, or you have failed to truly care for them after all. It's a philosophy that I think can offer a deeper meaning to, but demand a deeper responsibility from, any profession: from doctors to social workers to teachers to writers of books for teens. Because we do care for those we encounter, and deeply: writers care for the teens who will read their books, and editors care for those teens, too--and also for the authors, caught somewhere in the middle of this chain of connectivity.

Which brings me to the question that Janet Reid is asking on her blog today. It's not a question that I have any answer to (would that I did!) but I agree with her that it's an important one for all of us to weigh, and to think about in terms of today's social media-driven world. What happens when a teen does find a story that speaks to him/her powerfully, and that book becomes a lifeline--when a reader reaches out, believing the author has the answers he/she is seeking, or wanting a continuation of what felt like a deeply personal connection? And then in turn, what's an author to do when that same sense of immediacy that we extol in writing for teens comes through in a reader's communications--when they email/blog comment/Facebook message/MySpace post/Tweet/etc, etc. an author offering their own story, brimming with vulnerability and then desperately--or even just hopefully--await an answer, a meaningful response, a deeper connection, a promise that there's a way past whatever moment they're in the midst of living? And how does an author begin to shoulder that responsibility, that hunger, that need on the part of readers, somewhere in the midst of the other work of being a writer?

Media is so often blamed when things go wrong in the lives of damaged, hurting, unhappy, teens. We blame tragedies on the influence of violent video games and movies; we blame magazines for encouraging hopelessly unrealistic self-images. In the resoundingly opposite direction, it's long been the stance of children's/YA book folks that the greatest thing we can--and do!--offer to teens is hope, in the form of stories. But social media has changed--or at least, slightly shifted--so many other aspects of publishing that I guess we shouldn't be surprised that it's changed the author-reader relationship in some regards, too. And I don't think that new-media-heightened hope for connection is an aspect of the job that a writer can simply chose to turn away from and ignore--I don't think writers of books for teens would choose to do that, or I don't think they'd bother writing for teens at all. So somehow, it seems that a writer's job isn't just to serve words and stories and characters anymore--it's also to serve the searching/freely-sharing/sometimes-broken readers who come barreling, virtually, into their in-boxes. And for writers, that fact is powerful and beautiful and utterly overwheming, all at once, or so I suspect.

So what's the next step? It's a two-pronged query, I think: one set of answers may spell out some ways writers can best respond to teens who, though virtual strangers, are craving connection in a way that validates/orients/respects/sometimes even rescues them. But the other part both precedes and follows that, and it's for all of us: How do we (agents, editors, publishers, fellow writers, booksellers, educators, and the children's publishing community as a whole) equip writers to receive the stream of stories teens offer in return for the books they've just read?

It's a big question. I welcome your thoughts.

You Tell Me: What Did You Discover in 2009?

Oh, dear. I seem to have fallen down almost completely on blogging last month (not to mention on my self-assigned monthly-photo journal "a picture speaks a thousand words" game). I blame the two nearly back-to-back sinus infections that arrived as part of my December joys, not to mention general holiday chaos. But ah, well. The New Year is about starting fresh with good intentions, not fretting about the past, right? Right! And, purely by coincidence, it turns out that this is my 50th blog post, which feels like exactly the right place to start the new year!

Speaking of the New Year, lots of people have been doing great, detailed year-end round-ups about 2009. In the interest of actually getting this posted sooner rather than never, I'm gonna skip most of the deep introspection, because one of my, deep, dark secrets is that I love making ponderous lists and if I let myself, I'll spend way, way, too much time thinking and rambling on about them. But suffice it to say that, for me, 2009 included both some "best of times and worst of times," as I'm sure it did for most folks. One thing that's solidly in the "best" category from the past year, though, is this evolution of this blog, its readers, and the outlet it offers me (and I hope others, too!) for "thinking out loud" about publishing, about the creative life, and about all the places art and life intersect and converge. So, if you're reading this, thanks for a being a part of all that. If you've contributed to the conversation at one point or another, or in many spots, thanks all the more. And if you're a reader who hasn't spoken up yet, please do! (Unless you're a spammer. In which case, please head out the door marked "2009" and don't come back, ever.)

One thing I do like to ponder at year's-end, though, is the question of how--and via what mediums--my life has totally altered in ways I wouldn't have even guessed it could. What things have become a part of the fiber of my daily life that I couldn't have imagined, even a year or two before, would become a part of my life at all?

Over the last few years, I must say, there have been an increasing number of tech-type things falling into this category. I'm not the earliest of early adopters, but I'm increasingly surrounded by early-adopter types, and I am opinionated, so usually* once I've heard about something a few times, I tend to want to try it out so I can have my own thoughts about it. And if I like it, I then tend to crow about from the rafters to anyone who will listen. A few examples from the past handful of years? Google Reader, which lets me to consume blogs in a completely different, and far, far more productive way that I'd ever have conceived was possible back when I first started paying attention to blogs. RSS feeds = brilliant. Etsy, the craft website that started taking all my spare pennies back around 2006, but has kinda made up for it by leading me to wonderfully talented illustrators. And, yeah, Facebook, which shook up my world in all kinds of interesting ways, too, just as its done for pretty much all of us. And on the decidedly non-tech side, I'll go with a few more luxurious discoveries, including tea-as-a-genuinely-pleasing-alternate-form-of-caffeine-to-coffee, the joys of knitting, and the knowledge that many museums in New York have recommended donation amounts, not carved-in-stone, exorbitantly-expensive fees.

Leaping to the more recent past, though...so what were my best discoveries of 2009? Four spring to mind:

1. My e-reader. E-readers have certainly complicated publishing over the past year (to put it mildly), but from a totally different perspective, i.e., the quality of life for your average publishing employee, wow. They've changed everything. I use mine primarily for manuscript-reading, and as such, it's no exaggeration that it's changed my life. I joke that it's even changed my fashion--I kinda feel like I'm suddenly inside an infomercial now, but the truth is, just a little over a year ago, I used to carry a separate bag to and from work, every single day, in which I would carry hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of paper. Often, I was too worn from simply lugging all that paper around to even want to read any of it on the subway or when I got home! And truth be told, I'm not sure how I would have survived this year's uptick of less editors/more books to edit, hurry, faster/more agents/more agented submissions to read, and hurry, faster, there, too, without the e-reader. Also, someday, I'll tell my own assistant how once upon a time, I used to read all my manuscripts on paper, and she will look at me like I am SO FREAKING OLD. (And then I'll cry.)

2. Twitter. I admit it, I held out on Twitter for quite awhile, but I ultimately caved and joined just around this time last year, because I wanted to see what it was like to follow the ALA Newbery/Caldecott Announcements in real-time. A year and 2,000+ tweets later, I have to say that the day-to-day dialogues, conversations, and connections formed via Twitter prove to be more valuable everyday. Twitter's constant steam of engaging conversation among smart, savvy people helps me to constantly THINK about new, interesting things in new, interesting ways, which I think is utterly essential in a time of change like our industry is facing. But there's a simpler side to it, too. The truth is, the world's full of fascinating/creative/thought-provoking/ hilarious people, and I love how many new ones I've found or gotten to know better via Twitter.

3. My $20 crockpot from Target. Yeah, I know, it's decidedly non-tech, and I'm several decades behind the curve on this one, but seriously? You throw in bunch of raw ingredients--pretty much ANY random raw ingredients you can think of--and then turn it on and go away/go to sleep/go to work and come back to, like, a week's worth of delicious-smelling meals? MAGIC.

4. Ireland. My trip to Dublin this summer, though brief, was a glorious checkmark on my life's to-do list, and a definite highlight of 2009. It's a whole land of storytellers--what's not to love? And seeing a new place and then coming back with new eyes to my own life anew (to paraphrase Marcel Proust a bit)? Priceless.

Okay! Enough nattering from me. (See, I warned you. List-making makes me ramble!) What were some of YOUR best discoveries in 2009? From places to tools to objects to books to tech-type stuff to...well, you tell me!


* ahem. Disclaimer: Most of the time. Or at least sometimes. And Occasionally I stubbornly swear-up-and-down that I'll never-ever try something, only to eat my words later. See also: Facebook and Twitter, and probably lots of other things I've conveniently forgotten about once protesting against.

You Tell Me: What's Your Anthem?

Anyone who follows me on Twitter or Facebook (or who knows me in real life) has probably already gotten a dose of my mad love for this first season of GLEE. Glee takes me back to my own high school theater club memories and a point in time when belting out the lyrics of showtunes--whether from the stage, or backstage, or up-and-down the hallways after school, or in a car with my friends, or at home in front of my mirror--seemed like the perfect solution to every moment of high school drama. Thinking about it with just a little emotional distance now, I suppose the best explanation I can give is that musicals are all about highs and lows, about the moments when the intensity of life is so far beyond mere words that one must simply burst into song to come anywhere close to expressing it. In short, they're the perfect match for the utter and ongoing angst of high school/teen life! :)

I started thinking about all this over the last few days, not long after I downloaded the Glee soundtrack. With apologies to my neighbors, I've listened to the duet of "Defying Gravity" approximately 67 times and counting since last Thursday, my flimsy excuse for that aural behavior being that I never really had a "Wicked" phase, since it came out a good number of years after my own High School Musical experience had passed. On my walk home from the subway last night, listening to it yet again on my ipod (have I mentioned I have a wee tendency to wear out new songs once I get attached to them?) I started thinking about that high school self of mine. Would Molly-in-high-school have liked "Defying Gravity"? Well, yes, of course--up to a point. It's undeniably a great emotional turning point/defining moment kind of song. It gives a nice bounce to your step, makes you stand up a little straighter, a little stronger, a little bolder, makes you eager to belt out those lyrics whether or not you're actually capable of belting all that very well or not--in short, it's kinda the vocal definition of an anthem. But would Molly-in-high-school have loved the song to the point of inhabiting it, of declaring to the world that it, like, totally defined her? As much as my current iTunes play count might hint otherwise now, I think the truth is no--it's a terribly upbeat song, after all, and, truth be told, at 15 and 16, I liked my anthems far more heartrending and melodramatic and tragic ("On My Own," anyone? Or "Someone Else's Story" ?).

Of course, pondering any topic too deeply tends to eventually lead me back in one direction--to books and writing, and Glee and its soundtrack is no exception. It's not a new trend for writers to talk about the playlists they create as they write their novels--the music they feel captures the moods and world of their story. I'm curious, though--if asked directly, what would your book's main character (ooh! or your book's antagonist!) tell you is the song (and it doesn't have to be musical-theatre inspired, of course) that's his or her anthem, that one song that defines the world as she/he sees it, or defines the very core of him/herself? The song that she or he would put on repeat over and over and over when they're feeling lost or alone, or trying to pump up him or herself or a big moment? What song makes your character feel like the songwriter practically crawled inside his or her brain (or heart) and somehow managed to express everything that was in it?

As ever, I love to peek inside writerly brains, so if you're game, tell us in the comments comments about what your main character's (or other characters') anthems would be. And just for kicks, I'd definitely love to hear what your own anthem was when you were in high school, too.

(P.S. Also? If you're a writer who's got a Glee-like manuscript--for the love of Lerner & Lowe, please have your agent send it my way!)

You tell me: What do you know to be true?

In my internet wanderings, I recently came across the blog White Hot Truth. While I don't know its author, writer/entrepreneur/ creative-type Danielle La Porte, I was quite taken with some of her thoughts and reflections. In fact, I'll go off on a tangent here before I even really start, to share a fantastic quote from one of her posts: "Everybody is amazing at something...and your genius is a cousin to your joy." I think she's totally right, on both counts!

But what set off my editor-radar most especially as I prowled through Danielle's blog were two of the "burning questions" that she commonly asks in one form or another, when she interviews her fellow outside-the-box-types (like nonconformists or financial visionaries).

The first: What do you know to be true, unquestionably beyond doubt, certain with every cell of your being, completely, passionately, righteously certain?

And the second: What was the dumbest thing that you used to believe?

One of my first thoughts upon reading these questions was how very much I'd love to pose these same questions to book characters (and their respective writers). Because I think that for a character to feel truly real, the writer has to know--and the reader has to understand--the deeply, sometimes secretively, held things about a character, whether or not they're explicitly a part of the story. So I'm borrowing these vibrant questions (per the disclaimer on Danielle's site that says that republishing her stuff is cool, as long as she's credited), tweaking them a bit, and passing them along as potential inspiration.

So if you're in the mood for a writing exercise, take the main character(s) in whichever book you're working on right now. And wherever you are in the story right now, be it beginning, ending, or murky middle, pause and ponder these questions. (If you're revising, rather than writing, try asking question #1 twice, at both the story's beginning and end, to get a good glimpse--hopefully--of your character's full arc/growth.)

1. What thing(s), minor or monumental, does your character know to be TRUE in this moment? What, for her/him, is unquestionably beyond doubt, certain with every cell of his/her being, beyond all hesitation--simply and inescapably and absolutely true?

2. [This one's my own addition.] Does anyone know that your character believes the above to be true? (Who? Or if not, why not?)

3.What was the dumbest thing that your character once believed to be true that s/he later learned wasn't entirely true...or wasn't true at all?

Ahhh. Good stuff, eh?

Feel like sharing what you uncover? Go for it--I'd be delighted to "meet" some deeply authentic, bare-souled characters in the comments section--or for you to blog about these ideas on your own blog, and post the link back here. And, truth be told, when you're done thinking about these questions for your characters, they're pretty fantastic to ponder for yourself, too....