Wednesday, February 25, 2009
More editing!
After deciding to completely chuck Chapter Three, I was feeling a little bit out of sorts...panicky! What was I doing? How could I delete so much? This is another huge set back! But then I found myself going back to my prologue and changing it into a short chapter one. Some of the critiques I got from my group were a little hard to stomach at first, but they finally sank in, and I think now that my new product is much much better. So at least I did get something accomplished tonight! I guess since my prologue is now chapter one, I'm technically on chapter four-haha! That's like one of those wierd time jump things. But I'll take it! Chapter five tomorrow then? We shall see...
Another One Bites The Dust!
I was making such great progress today nearing the end of my revision of chapter three and liking it quite well, when it suddenly hit me. Chapter three no longer serves any purpose at all in this draft! :(
In the spirit of killing your darlings...I'm mercifully putting this chapter to sleep. I think some parts of it can be reincarnated into a later chapter, but as it is right now, it's gone!
In the spirit of killing your darlings...I'm mercifully putting this chapter to sleep. I think some parts of it can be reincarnated into a later chapter, but as it is right now, it's gone!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Ew I hate summarizing!
Ok, was I like totally excited a few days ago for getting summary aka query inspiration in the shower?!? Whatever!! I might have gotten inspiration on which segment was good to use in the opening of the query-but as for the rest of the summary...I had to write it and send it off today for my mentoring workshop and ...ick I didn't like it!
And I've had a lot of practice doing this-though I have to keep changing it because I keep changing around the story-and I'm getting better at it, but I also know more about it so I'm more critical about the whole thing and it was just blech!
So I just started writing a parody of my summary and had to delete it because...it didn't sound too far off from what I had actually written-oh no, a bad sign!
And I've had a lot of practice doing this-though I have to keep changing it because I keep changing around the story-and I'm getting better at it, but I also know more about it so I'm more critical about the whole thing and it was just blech!
So I just started writing a parody of my summary and had to delete it because...it didn't sound too far off from what I had actually written-oh no, a bad sign!
Monday, February 23, 2009
It is Almost Spring and Random Update!
This morning was glorious! I woke up without my alarm, it was bright and super sunny and considering the fact that it was Monday, I was exceptionally happy. Spring is going to be here before we know it and summer too. I am SO excited. It just occured to me today that the reason I was so ridiculously excited about the morning sun was not so much because I am totally sick of winter at this point (really, either snow and give me a snow day or go away winter!!),but because of my adventures in Scotland this summer, I kind of missed out on the sun. Because while Scotland is AMAZING (OMG I Love it there!!!)...it's not exactly the sunniest place in the world. So I am uber excited for this summer, no matter what I'm doing. I'm making plans with my sister to finally go to the Philadelphia Folk Festival -the mythic and legendary place where my parents met.
Also, a week after posting my essay on the correlation between going vegetarian/vegan and global warming, there is a mention in the latest issue of Veg News which came in the mail today of Sir Paul McCartney has paired himself up with a Nobel Prize winning scientist to spread the message that going vegetarian can have a HUGE impact on global warming, and that by eating less meat, you are decreasing your carbon footprint on the earth. So that was pretty cool!
Sir Paul McCartney, Super Vegetarian!
And now I need to GUSH! OMG! I discovered these vegan donuts at Nature's Harvest made by nutrilicious check out their website www.nutrilicious.com. They are HEAVEN! I seriously cannot remember being so happy after eating a desert-like-thing in years. They are naturally sweetened with fruit juice (you would never know) and completely vegan. And to anyone who isn't a vegan-I'm almost sure you would love it too, and it's such a better, healthier and more positive choice than that which shall not be named but supposedly is the thing America runs on, cough cough-DD.
And last but not least I'm making a few changes to the first thirty pages of my manuscript and sending it off tomorrow for a mentoring workshop in New Jersey. I'm several more pages into chapter three's revision. This week is supremely less hectic than last week-so I'm expecting to get through chapter four as well, and hopefully chapter five before the weekend is up. Fingers crossed!
Also, a week after posting my essay on the correlation between going vegetarian/vegan and global warming, there is a mention in the latest issue of Veg News which came in the mail today of Sir Paul McCartney has paired himself up with a Nobel Prize winning scientist to spread the message that going vegetarian can have a HUGE impact on global warming, and that by eating less meat, you are decreasing your carbon footprint on the earth. So that was pretty cool!
Sir Paul McCartney, Super Vegetarian!And now I need to GUSH! OMG! I discovered these vegan donuts at Nature's Harvest made by nutrilicious check out their website www.nutrilicious.com. They are HEAVEN! I seriously cannot remember being so happy after eating a desert-like-thing in years. They are naturally sweetened with fruit juice (you would never know) and completely vegan. And to anyone who isn't a vegan-I'm almost sure you would love it too, and it's such a better, healthier and more positive choice than that which shall not be named but supposedly is the thing America runs on, cough cough-DD.
And last but not least I'm making a few changes to the first thirty pages of my manuscript and sending it off tomorrow for a mentoring workshop in New Jersey. I'm several more pages into chapter three's revision. This week is supremely less hectic than last week-so I'm expecting to get through chapter four as well, and hopefully chapter five before the weekend is up. Fingers crossed!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Inspiration, how I love thee!
Anyone who seriously follows my blog (yes, you quiet people who keep reading without leaving comments, and Mom!) knows that I get a bit obsessive about things like first sentences and first chapters because, well, they are pretty damn important and the sorts of things worthy of obsessing over (IF you so choose to obsess over anything at all -and that my friend is a very personal choice!). But I'm getting away with myself.
One thing I very rarely think about and obsess over is the query letter. And that is probably even more important than the first sentence of your book. Because while you hope the first sentence of your book is going to hook your future reader into the story-you need the first line of your query letter to hook an agent or publisher or your book won't exist and no reader anywhere is going to read that first sentence that you dreamt about writing 100 different ways!
The great Lin Oliver of SCBWI fame said to take lots of showers because inspiration comes in the shower. I haven't really kept track of where or when I recieve inspiration but I wouldn't have placed the shower too high on that list, until today when the entire opening of my query just popped into my head.
I think some small part of it may have gotten lost in translation bc I had to actually finish showering and get dry and put clothes on and stuff. But I think I have it, which is good, because I mean to finish this draft and send it off ASAP! And I had better have one hell of an amazing query letter to back up my one hell of an amazing fantabulous story!
So here it is:
As Lilliana packed her bag, her "list-book" fell to the ground, opening to the note she had written to herself weeks before.
"What would you do if you lost your magic power? What would you risk to get it back?"
How seriously she had taken this idea when she wrote it; but back then she was only risking getting in trouble with her dad or with Ruby. She was risking a possible grounding for the weekend. Now, she knew, she wasn’t risking something trivial, she was going to risk everything, more than everything, she was going to risk it all: the lives of her six older sisters and probably her own.
What do you think?
Knowing me I will reconstruct that 100 times, but for now, I'm really quite pleased. I hope I have more showers like that.
So of course school, work and life have gotten me completely off my schedule. Hope to finish the revision of chapter 3 tonight! Also...so excited for the new episode of America's Best Dance Crew!!!!!!! Go Quest Crew!
One thing I very rarely think about and obsess over is the query letter. And that is probably even more important than the first sentence of your book. Because while you hope the first sentence of your book is going to hook your future reader into the story-you need the first line of your query letter to hook an agent or publisher or your book won't exist and no reader anywhere is going to read that first sentence that you dreamt about writing 100 different ways!
The great Lin Oliver of SCBWI fame said to take lots of showers because inspiration comes in the shower. I haven't really kept track of where or when I recieve inspiration but I wouldn't have placed the shower too high on that list, until today when the entire opening of my query just popped into my head.
I think some small part of it may have gotten lost in translation bc I had to actually finish showering and get dry and put clothes on and stuff. But I think I have it, which is good, because I mean to finish this draft and send it off ASAP! And I had better have one hell of an amazing query letter to back up my one hell of an amazing fantabulous story!
So here it is:
As Lilliana packed her bag, her "list-book" fell to the ground, opening to the note she had written to herself weeks before.
"What would you do if you lost your magic power? What would you risk to get it back?"
How seriously she had taken this idea when she wrote it; but back then she was only risking getting in trouble with her dad or with Ruby. She was risking a possible grounding for the weekend. Now, she knew, she wasn’t risking something trivial, she was going to risk everything, more than everything, she was going to risk it all: the lives of her six older sisters and probably her own.
What do you think?
Knowing me I will reconstruct that 100 times, but for now, I'm really quite pleased. I hope I have more showers like that.
So of course school, work and life have gotten me completely off my schedule. Hope to finish the revision of chapter 3 tonight! Also...so excited for the new episode of America's Best Dance Crew!!!!!!! Go Quest Crew!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Why Vegans Are Going to Stop Global Warming!
Anyone who knows me, knows I cannot stand people who try to force their views on others, though proselytizing and expressing opinions are different. And so while I generally do not spend a huge amount of time telling others why I think they should be vegan, I had to write an essay for classing using a classical schema to argue a controversial topic. And so naturally I chose the issue of veganism and global warming. I sometimes want to cry if I walk through the meat section of a supermarket, so I carefully avoid those aisles. But when it comes to the environment, I get heated! So I wanted to post my argument here and I think I'm going to put it in a facebook note as well. So enjoy and feel free to comment.
You cannot call yourself an environmentalist or actually care about global warming if you are not a vegan. With global warming on the rise, appearing more often now in news reports and documentaries like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, more and more Americans are becoming conscious of the current environmental devastation and beginning to do their parts. Recycling is on the rise, more and more people are bringing reusable bags to the supermarket and driving hybrid cars. But there is one major factor in the global warming equation and that is the meat industry.
This essay will prove to you that while all of the above mentioned ways of going green are great, switching to a vegan diet and encouraging others to do so will have the greatest impact on this world threatening situation. After examining the affect of fossil fuels and greenhouse emissions associated with factory farming, as well as how the meat industry impacts the rainforest, you will see that the only way to truly make a significant and positive impact on the planet, to slow down the affects of global warming, is to adopt a vegan diet.
Agriculture accounts for more than 1/3 of the fossil fuels being emitted in the United States. Currently, the emission of fossil fuels is occurring at an alarmingly fast pace, depleting our source faster than we can create more. The emission of these fuels from the earth release carbon monoxide into the air, which is fine in certain amounts, but right now we are experiencing a severe excess. It takes ten times the amount of fossil fuels to produce one calorie of animal protein than a plant protein. With the booming meat industry, we have an excess of poisonous gases in the air, raising the earth’s temperatures, and polluting the air we breathe.
Let’s not forget the entire process surrounding the production of meat. Animals must be transported to the slaughterhouses, often being driven in non-fuel efficient trucks, where during the slaughter process a vast amount of energy is used. From the slaughter house to the processing plants, to the factory, to the supermarket, they may be transported in refrigerated trucks, also depleting the earth of its energy and resources. But we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves here. We cannot raise livestock to eat as food, if we do not produce and transport food for the animals first. And so we have the process being repeated, of consuming energy to produce grains, and transporting the grains to feed these animals. Think about the amount of fossil fuels emitted, and energy consumed the next time you take a bite out of your hamburger.
Here’s something else to consider as you eat your burger. Where did these animals, whom we had to feed, slaughter and transport multiple times before they made it to your dinner table live? Quite possibly in a depleted rain forest from Central America from where America imports about 200 million pounds of beef. Transportation of beef from Central America to the United States don’t forget requires even more energy consumption than simply shopping local. For one hamburger made from a cow grazing on rain forested land, 55 square feet of the forest has been cut down. How about attending a beef and beer party? If you plan for fifty people, that’s 2,750 square feet of the rain forest you can kiss good bye. In the United States alone, over 260 million acres of forest have been chopped down to accommodate the animals being readied for slaughter.
How about those gases other than carbon dioxide leading to global warming like methane and nitrous oxide? Where are they coming from? The agriculture industry is the leading cause of these emissions into the atmosphere. Animal farms are the number one cause of methane release, which is twenty times more potent in trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide is even worse, trapping 300 times the amount of heat as carbon dioxide. And sixty five perfect of its emissions are from the meat, egg, and dairy industries according to the U.N.
Though we are often told about car pooling, taking the bus, and purchasing recycled goods, a 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry released more greenhouse gases than all of the SUVS, cars, planes, and trucks in the entire world, combined. If every American skipped one meal of meat per week they would save in carbon dioxide, the equivalent of taking half a million cars off the U.S. roads. Many environmentalists are encouraging hybrid cars. Hybrid cars are great; they conserves just a little over a ton of carbon dioxide a year. That’s great. What’s even better? A vegan diet conserves one and a half tons of carbon dioxide.
Many might object to a vegan diet, citing the need for protein: that the bible supposedly says it is our duty to eat meat: that we would destroy industries and worsen the economy, and so on. These are all valid arguments that deserve to be fought individually. However, the greatest threat to our lives today is not our protein intake, and it is not how much money we are making. It’s the dangerous destruction of our environment. If we lose our living conditions on earth, none of the above arguments will really matter much. Global warming is a real and serious problem that the world is beginning to combat. While hybrid cars, car-pooling, and reusable shopping bags are all wonderful additions to helping the cause, we need to be effective, we need big results, and we need them now. The only way we can all achieve this is to lessen our consumption of meat. At the very least cutting down on meals of meat will give dramatic results. But to see a new renewed earth, you should seriously consider becoming a vegan today.
Sources:
http://vegetarian.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=vegetarian&cdn=food&tm=18&gps=39_78_1276_631&f=00&tt=12&bt=0&bts=1&zu=http%3A//goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/fossilfuels.htm
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/forestclearcut.htm
You cannot call yourself an environmentalist or actually care about global warming if you are not a vegan. With global warming on the rise, appearing more often now in news reports and documentaries like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, more and more Americans are becoming conscious of the current environmental devastation and beginning to do their parts. Recycling is on the rise, more and more people are bringing reusable bags to the supermarket and driving hybrid cars. But there is one major factor in the global warming equation and that is the meat industry.
This essay will prove to you that while all of the above mentioned ways of going green are great, switching to a vegan diet and encouraging others to do so will have the greatest impact on this world threatening situation. After examining the affect of fossil fuels and greenhouse emissions associated with factory farming, as well as how the meat industry impacts the rainforest, you will see that the only way to truly make a significant and positive impact on the planet, to slow down the affects of global warming, is to adopt a vegan diet.
Agriculture accounts for more than 1/3 of the fossil fuels being emitted in the United States. Currently, the emission of fossil fuels is occurring at an alarmingly fast pace, depleting our source faster than we can create more. The emission of these fuels from the earth release carbon monoxide into the air, which is fine in certain amounts, but right now we are experiencing a severe excess. It takes ten times the amount of fossil fuels to produce one calorie of animal protein than a plant protein. With the booming meat industry, we have an excess of poisonous gases in the air, raising the earth’s temperatures, and polluting the air we breathe.
Let’s not forget the entire process surrounding the production of meat. Animals must be transported to the slaughterhouses, often being driven in non-fuel efficient trucks, where during the slaughter process a vast amount of energy is used. From the slaughter house to the processing plants, to the factory, to the supermarket, they may be transported in refrigerated trucks, also depleting the earth of its energy and resources. But we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves here. We cannot raise livestock to eat as food, if we do not produce and transport food for the animals first. And so we have the process being repeated, of consuming energy to produce grains, and transporting the grains to feed these animals. Think about the amount of fossil fuels emitted, and energy consumed the next time you take a bite out of your hamburger.
Here’s something else to consider as you eat your burger. Where did these animals, whom we had to feed, slaughter and transport multiple times before they made it to your dinner table live? Quite possibly in a depleted rain forest from Central America from where America imports about 200 million pounds of beef. Transportation of beef from Central America to the United States don’t forget requires even more energy consumption than simply shopping local. For one hamburger made from a cow grazing on rain forested land, 55 square feet of the forest has been cut down. How about attending a beef and beer party? If you plan for fifty people, that’s 2,750 square feet of the rain forest you can kiss good bye. In the United States alone, over 260 million acres of forest have been chopped down to accommodate the animals being readied for slaughter.
How about those gases other than carbon dioxide leading to global warming like methane and nitrous oxide? Where are they coming from? The agriculture industry is the leading cause of these emissions into the atmosphere. Animal farms are the number one cause of methane release, which is twenty times more potent in trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide is even worse, trapping 300 times the amount of heat as carbon dioxide. And sixty five perfect of its emissions are from the meat, egg, and dairy industries according to the U.N.
Though we are often told about car pooling, taking the bus, and purchasing recycled goods, a 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry released more greenhouse gases than all of the SUVS, cars, planes, and trucks in the entire world, combined. If every American skipped one meal of meat per week they would save in carbon dioxide, the equivalent of taking half a million cars off the U.S. roads. Many environmentalists are encouraging hybrid cars. Hybrid cars are great; they conserves just a little over a ton of carbon dioxide a year. That’s great. What’s even better? A vegan diet conserves one and a half tons of carbon dioxide.
Many might object to a vegan diet, citing the need for protein: that the bible supposedly says it is our duty to eat meat: that we would destroy industries and worsen the economy, and so on. These are all valid arguments that deserve to be fought individually. However, the greatest threat to our lives today is not our protein intake, and it is not how much money we are making. It’s the dangerous destruction of our environment. If we lose our living conditions on earth, none of the above arguments will really matter much. Global warming is a real and serious problem that the world is beginning to combat. While hybrid cars, car-pooling, and reusable shopping bags are all wonderful additions to helping the cause, we need to be effective, we need big results, and we need them now. The only way we can all achieve this is to lessen our consumption of meat. At the very least cutting down on meals of meat will give dramatic results. But to see a new renewed earth, you should seriously consider becoming a vegan today.
Sources:
http://vegetarian.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=vegetarian&cdn=food&tm=18&gps=39_78_1276_631&f=00&tt=12&bt=0&bts=1&zu=http%3A//goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/fossilfuels.htm
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/forestclearcut.htm
Sunday, February 15, 2009
More things that scare me!
In light of my feelings of Coraline (I LOVED it, but Little Frankie would NOT be ok) I started thinking about all the wierd movies and things on tv that did scare the crap out of me as a kid and here they are!
Howie from the Little Monsters...SCARY!!!!
DAVID BOWIE-AAAAAAHHHH! Really girls, I do not understand the attraction!
SKEKSIS from the Dark Crystal HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDEEEEE!!!!!
Really, any of Jim Henson's creations sent me shaking under my blankets.
Not Kermit-he was ok!
But anything else he thought of...(shudders).So I think I've probably scared you enough and if you are human, shaking in your boots just a tiny bit, so to ease your worries here are some cute adorable bunnies.
Aahhh:-)And on that note...I'm going to revise my prologue!
A little blah, but feeling hopeful
So I finally finally FINALLY moved on from Chapter 1 and in one gloriously beautiful productive evening I mastered chapter two and I'm ready to get moving on three and get back to where I was before so I can achieve my goal of finishing this draft of the manuscript by May (it can happen!). But then I met with my critique group today and things were not so positive on their end about the prologue... :(
Basically, I started with a pretty fantastic info dump (like a 1.5 page info dump) which I thought was pretty good because it used to be like a 3 page info dump and that was some revising right there! I knew I was taking some calculated and unorthodox risks with the order I was presenting things, but now I think I'm going to definitely have to make some changes again. A sentence from the middle of page 2 really needs to be the first thing you read because that's when the action starts (as Donna pointed out-she is the queen of first lines). So I'm kind of in a wierd mood because I know I need to fix somethings but I just wish they were perfect already-le sad. But it's ok. This is why we go to critique groups and revise revise revise!
Hopefully I will kick the prologue's butt tonight after I get back from something fabulous....
MAMMA MIA Sing along at the move theatre!!!! Yes, I with my terrible rock band failing voice am going to go sing Mamma Mia for the next two hours (yay). And then back to work.
Also, I saw Coraline last night and it was FANTASTIC!!! Loved it! It was so well done and beautiful and really frightening (I could not have watched this as a kid), it did remind me of the way movies used to be made, really freaky stuff like The Labyrinth and Dark Crystal. GO see it if you haven't. I might go again, but this time I'm going to see it in 3-D.
Anyway I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend! Hopefully I can report being on Chapter 4 by the end of it:-)
Basically, I started with a pretty fantastic info dump (like a 1.5 page info dump) which I thought was pretty good because it used to be like a 3 page info dump and that was some revising right there! I knew I was taking some calculated and unorthodox risks with the order I was presenting things, but now I think I'm going to definitely have to make some changes again. A sentence from the middle of page 2 really needs to be the first thing you read because that's when the action starts (as Donna pointed out-she is the queen of first lines). So I'm kind of in a wierd mood because I know I need to fix somethings but I just wish they were perfect already-le sad. But it's ok. This is why we go to critique groups and revise revise revise!
Hopefully I will kick the prologue's butt tonight after I get back from something fabulous....
MAMMA MIA Sing along at the move theatre!!!! Yes, I with my terrible rock band failing voice am going to go sing Mamma Mia for the next two hours (yay). And then back to work.
Also, I saw Coraline last night and it was FANTASTIC!!! Loved it! It was so well done and beautiful and really frightening (I could not have watched this as a kid), it did remind me of the way movies used to be made, really freaky stuff like The Labyrinth and Dark Crystal. GO see it if you haven't. I might go again, but this time I'm going to see it in 3-D.
Anyway I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend! Hopefully I can report being on Chapter 4 by the end of it:-)
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Randomness!
So of course after 10 long years of my Song Quest for the song Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil, of which I did a recent epic post recording the trials and tribulations of my search...today, the song comes on the radio again! Same station (clearly one DJ there is a huge fan) and for the first time in 10 years-when the song ends...he announces not only the name of the song, but also the band-which of course I already knew! Go figure...
Monday, February 9, 2009
Crawling towards the finish line
I don't know why but getting chapter one out this time has been painfully slow...painfully...though I am liking what I see better than anything else I've come up with, so I think for sure now I am on the right track. I feel like if I can just get to chapter two (on Wednesday????) than it will be smooth sailing since I know the story now inside and out and know everything that happens and everyone's motivations, though Ryan is sometimes still mysterious, but essentially I know what he's after;)
So...just stopping in so you know I didn't like dissapear or anything. Hopefully I will have more exciting news to report soon!
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: I totally just wrote this blog post in two seconds without even realizing that it was MOMENTOUS...this...is...my...100th blog post! Wo-ow!
Ok back to your regularly scheduled blogging.
Recently Read: The Lovely Bones -ummm-WOW! I cannot WAIT to see Peter Jackson's vision of this come to life
Currently Reading: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2(Still, I know bc I cheated with The Lovely Bones and once I started, it couldn't be stopped)
The Secret Garden (again, for love)
So...just stopping in so you know I didn't like dissapear or anything. Hopefully I will have more exciting news to report soon!
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: I totally just wrote this blog post in two seconds without even realizing that it was MOMENTOUS...this...is...my...100th blog post! Wo-ow!
Ok back to your regularly scheduled blogging.
Recently Read: The Lovely Bones -ummm-WOW! I cannot WAIT to see Peter Jackson's vision of this come to life
Currently Reading: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2(Still, I know bc I cheated with The Lovely Bones and once I started, it couldn't be stopped)
The Secret Garden (again, for love)
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
SCBWI Annual Winter Conference Weekend!
Here's my recap of my weekend in NYC attending the SCBWI Winter Conference. After work on Friday I met up with Sara in Center City-and the shenanigans began early when she told me to meet her at Dunkin Donuts and I totally could not find her and went looking for the Dunkin Donuts outside the station that did not exist.
But we found each other and got to NYC in one piece and then the shenanigans began again when we tried to check into our hotel. Sara found an awesome deal online that apparently was so awesome, everyone in the hotel was giving us looks as in, "you girls don't look rich enough to check in here!" The concierge took like 10 minutes to decide on our room but we got it-a cozy little room on the corner of the 8th floor that was the smallest hotel room I'd ever seen in my life. Was this because of our super online deal? Or because this is standard in NYC? I guess I'll never know--unless I stay in another hotel room in NY-which I guess isn't that unlikely.
Moving on.
So we went out looking for food and ended up at a diner that gave the wierdest appetizers, a random pickle, dressing in a snapple bottle, and also a surprise bit of mozarella in my supposedly plain pasta. Ick.
But anyway, we then planned to go find Cheryl Klein at the Wheeltapper Pub where she was hanging out with other SCBWI-ers. When we walked in, I immediately saw Cheryl, sitting with three guys-actually surrounded by three guys. So we basically spent 20 minutes obsessing over whether or not to go up to her because she looked like she was with close friends or other editors, and we felt really wierd trying to break into their gathering. So after obsessing and freaking out, we decided to leave. This might sound wierd to some people-how nervous we got-but editors and writers are like pop stars and movie stars in our world. So we are walking out, and I take one last glance over in her direction and...it's not Cheryl Klein! OOPS!
SO we ran back inside and found the real SCBWI party in the back of the pub and sat down with Cheryl who was SO nice and so much fun to talk to because we read a lot of the same books. So it was really awesome and exciting to hear her perspective on different books that came out this year. Spending Friday night in a pub talking YA books with someone who is 100% passionate about them is the best!
We retreated to our tiniest-hotel-room-in-NY and went to sleep. Morning came WAY too soon, and the room somehow made my hair curly! So not only was it tiny, it was hair-curling! Wierd!
We got to hear a presentation by Jarrett Krosoczka, an illustrator who gave a hilarious presentation plus a funny mini movie that included cameos by Tomie dePaola, Jane Yolen, Tony DiTerlizzi. Then I went to a breakout session with Michelle Nagler from Bloomsbury who I just loved-she gave an excellent presentation and I liked her style. I followed that with someone from Delacorte at Random House, who was laid off before the presentation and whose presentation I did not really jive with-I'll leave it at that.
We went to lunch, and the hotel wait staff were really accomodating (yay) and brought out an impromptu vegan meal for me (yay!). Jay Asher gave an AMAZING speech about how long it took to get published and how nervous he was to speak (ah proof that this New York Times Best Selling Phenomenon is human).
Sara and I cornered Jay and got him to sign our books-I also became the first person to tell him I broke his book-true story. I lent out my copy of 13 Reasons Why so many times the book actually broke-so I brought my second copy for him to sign. We also cornered Lin Oliver to tell her we love her and thank her for creating SCBWI and she was so sweet and encouraging and really interested in what we were working on and what stage we were in of our writing journey. Now I really want to go the summer conference in LA!
Afterwards, I got to meet some of Sara's college friends and met up with Lauren, aka Balls! Then completely exhausted from the day and from not sleeping late on Saturday we returned to our tiny hair-curling room.
On Sunday, we got to see previews of the SCBWI's new master class videos which look pretty good-and I got to see Linda Sue Park (gasp). Bruce Hale gave a really good talk on writing for middle graders and gave a lot of points that I will share with you because they are always good to keep in mind.
Remember the love: Where's the heart?
Always remember to love writing and know the heart of your story.
And now for a list (woohoo)
1. Grab them with a hook
2. Remind them of beauty
3. Make them laugh
4. Hold up the humor (sometimes its serious)
5. Make them squirm
6. Tell them the truth
7. Go the extra mile
8. Write what you love
The conference was so much fun, it was a blast hanging out all weekend with Sara and getting to spend time with my advisor Gretchen and seeing Marlene again! Marlene is the best-it was because of her that last year we ended up meeting Arthur Levine and walking him to the bathroom and he might come speak at Arcadia. Sara also joined in the bathroom walking club by escorting the editor of Graceling to the loo-hehe!
Anyway it was a really fun weekend-I can't wait for the next conference and getting to work on finishing the 3rd draft of The Seven Sisters Brandywine!
Ooh look it's Dan Radcliffe in Equus!
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