Meeting Authors

This weekend I was able to meet and chat with several children’s authors at the WNY Children’s Book Expo hosted by Monkey See, MonkeyDo, a local independent book store.

I must say that the highlight was meeting children’s author Virginia Kroll.

I have waited at least 15 years to meet her ever since reading her picture book Naomi Knows It’s Springtime. Not only is it a beautiful, heart-felt book, but for years I used it to help me teach poetry and imagery. Too many times, writers depend on sight when describing, but this entire book depends on every sense but sight! It’s one of those books, whose lesson has stuck with me.

Virginia Kroll was wonderful enough to share her process for writing this book with me. She told me she wrote index cards for each sense. The sight one filled up fast and full. She threw it out! What was left was the basis for the book.

I’m not going to give the ending away. If you’re looking for wonderful picture books, look to Virginia Kroll. She’s a wonderful person and a wonderful children’s writer!

Work With Your Characters

Writing Tip # 6:  Characters will often take off in directions you, as a writer, don’t intend.

I was writing on Eye of the Peacock this past weekend. Aubrey, my 21^st century protagonist, had just had her first dinner with the owner of the estate that is the 1906 setting of the story. It was a big dinner – big – and she’s a skinny kid.

Aubrey was really battling with me at the start of the next chapter. She wanted to skip the breakfast she was expected to attend and go walking in the gardens. I kept insisting she go to breakfast as planned. The woman was expecting her to be there. She was a guest in the house. It would be rude for her to not show up. Aubrey was insisting it was going to be another big meal. She didn’t eat like that.

As the writer, I had to find a reason for her to go to breakfast. It finally came to me last night. The owner of the estate is going to be reading a newspaper at breakfast, and the piece of history that needs to be woven into the book is going to show up in the headline.

As a writer, your characters are going to disagree with you, challenge you, and want to take on a life of their own. Don’t try to totally control them. Sometimes they have good ideas. But watch it. Make every move work toward your story’s end.

Times are Changing

Sci Fi Author Martin Wilsey
already has his copy!

It has begun!

People are buying Relic!

Until now, this was a personal quest, a private journey. But things have changed. Now it’s about my readers. I always knew it was, but now they’re really there!

I’ve signed my first copies – one purchased by a dear friend and another for an 8-year-old. It is surreal. It is daunting. I am writing for young people, and I feel an obligation not to disappoint them.




Friends have been a wonderful support in Relic's opening days!

I hope they all get to love Sam and root for her as she struggles with all the changes in her life. I hope they giggle at quirky Mrs. Van Dansk, and wonder about the girl with the chestnut hair.

I’m working with three local book stores to arrange book signings and author talks. There are so many stories about the writing of this book that I would love to share.

Purchase your copy of Relic by clicking here, or on the cover on the right side of my blog!

Author Talks

I make it a habit to listen to as many author talks as possible. Every time I manage to glean something – maybe a nugget of wisdom, maybe a writing tip, maybe a just a comment that validates a moment in my writing process.

Sometimes I’m lucky enough to hear authors in person. On Saturday November 14, more than 30 authors will be talking and signing books at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo at a gathering hosted by one of my favorite books stores, Monkey See Monkey Do.

Other times, I just catch great interviews on NPR. Just in the last few weeks, I’ve been able to hear interviews with Lauren Groff,  JK Rowling (as Robert Galbraith) and Margaret Atwood. In the interview with Lauren Groff, readers were able to ask the author questions. One reader commented that it seemed she wrote her newest book “like her hands were on fire.” The comment made me chuckle. The prior evening I had spent about a half hour writing. I was laboring over every word. I think, all told, I added nine words to the manuscript. My hands were definitely not on fire!

What If?

Writing Tip #5:  One of the best tools a writer has is the question “What if?”

Sometimes characters in a story fight you as you try to form them, as you try to manipulate their world. When that happens, play What If?  What if she liked him? What if she wasn’t allowed to like him? Or…What if she didn’t like him, but he liked her? What if she liked him but he was in trouble with the law? What if they were fated to meet, fell in loved and were sucked up into a UFO for alien experimentation?

Go crazy! Consider any scenario. What If allows me to break down walls that might be inhibiting my imagination. Somewhere along the way, I’ll often find the situation that will work, and my characters and I will be on our way again.

I am Pleased to Announce...

The publication of Relic, a middle grade supernatural mystery!

It is available on Amazon as a paperback for $8.99.

   For 12-year-old Samantha Whitaker, her parents’ dream of running a country
inn – which she calls “The Ick,” is pure torture.

  After purchasing a strange item in an antique shop just to annoy her mother, Samantha makes a desperate attempt to flee the small village by stealing her parents’ car – only to crash it when an odd village girl darts in front of her…then disappears.

  Despite Samantha’s resistance, a local girl named Twyla befriends her and aids her in looking for the missing girl. Her search leads Samantha to learn about a famous former
occupant – village benefactor, patron of the arts, and suffragette Olivia Ainsley Wagner Roth – who, according to the previous owner, still haunts the inn.

   An unusual relic, a hidden diary, an unfinished letter. Will Samantha’s supernatural sleuthing bring answers to a village mystery that has strange parallels to her own life?

Enjoy!

Vita Sudatio Interrumpitur

Life gets interrupted. Or should I say writing does. At least mine does at this time of year.

The start of the school year is always a hectic time. As a teacher, there are always high expectations, learning 120+ new names and faces, new demands of the profession, plus the stress of transition wear – but that’s an entirely different topic. Then there’s my family. In my house, we balance three different school districts and four different schools, dance, piano and family time.

So where does writing fit in? Fortunately, the start of the school year also means the monthly meetings of my writing group, so I have the welcomed pressure of writing for them.

Relic is also in its final stages, although I am surprised at how long those last few teeny tweaks take. My students are excited for me, and that warms my heart. While I wait for the (hopefully) final proof, I’m scoping out locations for book signings and possibly a book launch party! Stay tuned!