Today because it was gorgeous, we wrote outside (where I was attacked by a spider and its web, but that’s another story), and I prepared two possible sunny day writing prompts.

1. Start with this line I/He/She was sitting outside in her hammock, sipping on a lemonade when the strangest thing happened.

2. Almost everybody loves a sunny day, but there are some who prefer rainy, overcast days. Who are those people and what do they have against the sun. (Adapted from writingforward.com by Melissa Donovan)

The first brought on a fantastically imaginative piece by one girl, which she accurately labeled “satirically morbid” and included a drawing.

I chose to start with the second and here’s what I wrote, completely unedited:

Louisa Wheelright had her hair set every Thursday. The curlers were tight against her head, pulling the hair so tightly she couldn’t think of anything but the discomfort. It was relief, really. She could let go of the business worries — concerns that had fallen to her after her husband’s death and which she had never managed to pass on to the young man hired to take his place. Concerns about the investigation and the rumors that still lingered years later though not a single employee had be found to have any Communist leanings. And of course, concerns about Isaac — those concerns were the most numerous, and the hardest to let go. The pull on her hair was like plucking each of those concerns away.

She looked out the window — the sunny sky was becoming overshadowed with clouds. Another concern: the coming rain would ruin her fresh curls.

The astute will see that I totally messed up this prompt. Even though I chose the prompt and had time to think about it before our group met, I still inadvertently inverted it. But hey — that’s okay, that’ll work, whatever you need. When it comes to writing prompts, there is no right or wrong.

What’s important is what I learned. You see, I didn’t just jump in to a new story. I used this prompt in the context of a novel I’m working on right now. Louisa is one of the main character’s grandmothers. Before I wrote this, I didn’t know her name was Louisa. She was just Isaac’s grandmother. More interestingly, I didn’t know that she got her hair set every week. Or that she kind-of likes the pain. That’s a lot to learn about a character for fifteen minutes of work.

Some people swear by character profiles as a way of getting to know a character. Personally I find these too rigid. It’s too easy to get caught up in the details and not have the flexibility to change a character when needed. (She can’t be wearing a print skirt because I wrote right here that she prefers solids!) Doing writing exercises when I’m working on a revision, though, I find invaluable. Most of what I write stays in my notebook, but it allows me to know my characters and inform their choices as I go forward reworking the piece.

And if you prefer the character profiles, well, that’s okay, that’ll work, whatever you need.

I’m a very lucky mom. My husband has been home on paternity leave and my own mother has come to stay with us to help keep our day-to-day life running. When my son went back to daycare, I suddenly found myself with time and an urge to get back to writing. With my new babe asleep by my side, I emailed my agent a very rough draft of a work in progress. I planned how I would do research and writing exercises to prep for a full scale revision this summer. Suddenly, the stories of Stephenie Meyer “typing one-handed with a baby in her lap” did not seem like mythology. Writing with a baby was possible!

Image from http://www.stepheniemeyer.com

Since that day I have done approximately nothing. I find hours go by as I nurse and then hold my baby. By mid-afternoon I'm so tired I need to take a nap. Where has that initial burst of energy gone? And why do I feel such guilt? Guilt that I'm not writing. Guilt when I put the baby down. Guilt when I sleep. Guilt when I stay awake since I'm supposed to be "taking it easy." Guilt that I am not taking advantage of my maternity leave to get some work done.

I can't help but wonder if this is a writer-parent problem or a writer-mother problem. Do male writers feel this push and pull in the same way? Writer-fathers, please chime in.

I will try to blog with more regularity, but I do still want to get some work done on my WIP so that it can, you know, progress. And of course there is that little baby who just now has awakened, demanding more milk.

Next I headed over to Boston. com where I found “Young adult novels heating up the charts.” All those paranormal romances and boarding school fantasy novels? They’re pretty much saving publishing. The article compares the sales of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (600,000 copies) to Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay (1.3 million). So there’s certainly a monetary incentive for publishers to go after those books that Bruns and Grimes decry. As far as mainstream media covering YA goes, this article was pretty good, especially in its lack of hand-wringing about what these books are doing to our children (making them read, that’s what!). I was annoyed, though, by the reasons given for the popularity of YA books: essentially, YA books center on self-involved protagonists and we are all self-involved these days. “How often” asks the article, “do adults get to think only about themselves”? While indeed there is an inward focus in YA novels, and an emphasis on growth (aka coming of age), neither the teens I know nor the teens I write and read about fit this narrow model.

Taken together it seems that YA is in a state of material growth but depravity of content. While I, too, often roll my eyes at the similarities amongst stories that I come across in review journals, I don’t think we need to declare a state of emergency yet. I once saw television producer Tom Fontana speak and he said, “The best thing about television is also the worst thing about television: there’s something for everybody.” Such is the case with YA literature (and all literature, really). Yes, there is a lot of stuff out there that seems to lack originality, but there’s also much to celebrate: unique voices, unusual stories, characters who become our friends. Below I share my list of cross-over titles that don’t fall into the mold.

First, though, I want to get back to the essential point in Grimes’ piece. The problem, she writes, is not that the unoriginal books exist, but rather what books don’t exist because of them. She makes a strong argument that by writing these copycats, authors are depriving themselves of the opportunity to write what they are truly meant to write:

No one can keep you from pouring your creative energy into cloning someone else’s original idea, of course. But if you do, chances are you’ll have little self or soul left to produce, and enjoy, the brilliance of your own original creations. And, by the way, your original idea is priceless, simply because it is yours. . . .write your own story, not somebody else’s. In the end, you’ll be proud of yourself for having done so.

So here it is, your Read Write list for today: young adult novels that appeal to adults without being cookie cutter copies. As writers, I think we’d all love to appeal to as many readers as possible. Here are books that show you can do so while still following Grimes’ advice to write your own story.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is innovative not just for his use of found photographs — which are creepy and touching at the same time — but for tying a story of loss, hope, and loneliness to a paranormal thriller. (Note: I’m not actually sure if this was published as YA. Priced at $17.99 it would seem to be, but I think the publishers are keeping it purposefully ambiguous to tie into that crossover market).

When I did study abroad in Northern Ireland, my friends and I would pass around Nick Hornby books. We’d giggle and read aloud our favorite parts; we’d use the humor of the books as inside-jokes amongst ourselves. I wish we’d had Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison then — though we probably would have been kicked off the trains for laughing too loudly.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart. Man, I love this book. In her 2009 Printz honor acceptance speech, Lockhart reported that she’d heard Frankie called borderline psychotic and a feminist hero. I’m definitely in the feminist hero camp. At the risk of being hyperbolic, never has a book dealing with class and gender been so funny.

Sometimes a book that might seem to fit the form — an orphan, a boarding school — is anything but. Circus Galacticus by Deva Fagan is that book. Admittedly I have not read this since it was in drafts, but I adored it — and I don’t think it was just my love of circuses talking. Orphan Trix is stuck at a snobby boarding school, but when the Circus Galacticus comes to town, she sees her chance for escape. The wildly imaginative setting puts this one ahead of the pack.

Finally, I hesitate to put The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean on the list because it is indescribable. Here’s how WorldCat does it:

Taken to Antarctica by the man she thinks of as her uncle for what she believes to be a vacation, Symone–a troubled fourteen year old–discovers that he is dangerously obsessed with seeking Symme’s Hole, an opening that supposedly leads into the center of a hollow Earth.

As I’m revising my next book, The Water Castle, I’ve had to remind myself of this several times. I can’t just have a character staring up at the clouds and ruminating about life and how to fix a wagon wheel. While of course there is time for quiet reflection, story and tension happen when one character rubs up against one another.

I took a class this past summer with Monica Wood, and one of my fellow students was working on a book about a character on a quest through Africa. Wood recommended that the character have a foil, and as soon as the writer started adding this new character to the mix, the already strong story came alive.

So, why does Hatchet, the 1998 Newbery Honor winner by Gary Paulsen, work so well?

Hatchet has always been a go-to recommendation for me, especially for reluctant readers, even though I had never read it. When I started work at my new school where the book is required summer reading for sixth graders, I decided it was time to get on board.

The story concerns thirteen year-old Brian who finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness after his plane crashes. It’s just him and his hatchet struggling to survive. Now survival stories are their own beast, and the conflict is one of those tropes we all learned about in middle school: man versus nature. Much of the conflict in the story comes from the hostile environment and Brian’s own inexperience in the wild.

But there is a lot of time in Brian’s head, too. Sometimes he’s chastising himself, sometimes he’s planning, and sometimes he’s recollecting the good and bad of his life. Why it works, I think, is the balance that Paulsen strikes. High tension moments are balanced by these more reflective sections. If the book were all action all of the time, then it would be too intense, like the finale of a fireworks show without the buildup.

His memories of his parent’s failing marriage serve a purpose, too: to make Brian more relatable to readers. Few teens and tweens have had to survive on their own in the wilderness, but, sadly, many have had to deal with infidelity and divorce. Just when Brian’s story may seem too far removed from the average reader’s experience, these thought about family reconnect Brian and the reader.

So should I put that scene of a boy lying in a field, staring up at the clouds and thinking about how he could fix a wagon wheel? No, it’s much better to see him actually working on the wheel. But, Hatchet reminds me that even in a high action story, there is a place and a reason for taking a pause.

I have never participated in NaNoWriMo before, but that hasn’t kept me from being deeply cynical about it. This is probably because December always found the writerly listservs to which I subscribe bombarded with questions like, “I finished my novel in November. How do I get an agent?” I would roll my eyes, but others would patiently explain that perhaps a little revision was in order first. I understood their enthusiasm: when I finish a draft of a novel, I want everyone to read it, too. But, I know that it’s not actually ready yet, and a good waiting period for all readers — myself included — is in order. I guess that’s why I was unimpressed by the idea of writing a whole novel in a month. How good could a book written in 30 days actually be?

My ideas about NaNoWriMo started to change as I met more people who had come out of the month with (eventually) working and successful novels. I also took the approach for the first time of writing what I called a “skeleton draft”: the bones of the story to which I would go back and add flesh. Since I’m an adder-onner rather than a pruner,  this approach actually makes sense to me. So, while I took longer than a month to write my draft, I was starting to see how such an exercise could be useful.

I’m also a huge believer that you don’t become a writer by thinking or dreaming or plotting or talking about writing. You become a writer by sitting down and writing. NaNoWriMo provides the structure that people need to make writing a habit.

What really made me come around to the idea of NaNoWriMo, though, was hearing an interview with Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus,  on NPR’s All Thing Considered. She spoke about how she used NaNoWriMo two years in a row to build the world of her novel. To me this seems a perfect use of the month. True, it’s not actually writing a novel. But committing to writing 50k words that explore your world — that seems a priceless luxury.

Now that I’ve decided that NaNoWriMo may not be so bad after all, I would love to participate. However, this year I’m working on revisions of The Water Castle. I’d love to get those done by the end of the month. NaNoRevMo? Maybe next year I will jump in with both feet.

In the meantime, our booklist today will be books that came out of NaNoWriMo. Perhaps the best known success story is Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. The Hub highlights more. Here are several more, some with tips from the authors, that I hope will inspire you to take the plunge.

• Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. See her Bookduck interview in which she dispels my misconception about the project: “There’s often a misconception that NaNo is about writing a book in a month. I mean, National Novel Writing Month. It’s there in the title! But that’s really not what it’s about. It’s about creating a first, very very rough draft that you can eventually — with a lot of hard work — turn into a novel.”
• My fellow Mainer Deva Fagan wrote the first 50,000 words of Fortune’s Folly in 2003, finishing her rough draft in December. She did a guest post on why it worked for her that year — and why it didn’t in a subsequent year, for Abby the Librarian, who ran a series on NaNoWriMo.
• Sydney Salter has had two successes with NaNoWriMo books: My Big Nose & Other Natural Disasters and Swoon at Your Own Risk. Like Deva, she worked into December to finish her drafts.
• Cindy Pon told me: “i wrote 35k of Silver Phoenix (the dreaded middle) using nano in 2006. i never used it with the intention of completing 50k in a month. i only wanted to push myself through the middle and establish a good writing routine. i wrote for about 40 minutes a night, 5 days a week, and averaged between 1k to 1800 words in those 40 minutes. i would say at least 28k of those words i wrote stayed in the novel.”
• At 19, Jessica Burkhart took part in NaNoWriMo and wrote what would become the first in her twelve book Canterwood Crest Series. If you’re a member, you can read her story at MediaBistro.
• If it weren’t for NaNoWriMo, it’s possible that Carrie Ryan’s bestselling Forest of Hands and Teeth would not exist: “It was the rule that says you have to start something new that made me write Forest — I already had several other projects going and so I had to come up with something new.”

To all those participating in NaNoWriMo 2011 — good luck and get writing!

The Westing Game

When my middle school book group decided to read Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game as our first selection, I was excited to go back to a book that I hadn’t read since I myself was in middle school (I astounded my students by telling them the book was almost as old as I was). The Westing Game was actually a book I started several times as a child. I knew exactly where it was in the UNH Library, which was my hometown library at the time, and every so often I would pick it up and try again.

As I re-read the book, I realized why I had so much trouble getting into the book as a child: there are just so many characters introduced in just a few pages. That’s writing 101, isn’t it? Don’t introduce too many characters at once, you’ll overwhelm your readers. Perhaps, though, that was Raskin’s intent. As a reader, you’re unsteady on your feet from the first page of this mystery where everyone is not who they appear to be.

In this children’s book, there is really only one child: Turtle. Another rule broken: you can’t fill a children’s book with adult characters. My sympathies were definitely different as an adult reader. Most of my middle school students related to Turtle, who I found a bit petulant. They thought Mr. Hoo was hilarious, while I  found him bitter and cruel to his wife. On the flip side, I felt tremendous sympathy for Angela, who struggled to be a bright, independent woman in a world that valued her only for her prettiness, but my students — and I imagine my young self — found her a bit bland. The point is, that while these characters were much older than the intended audience, they were still engaging characters, and that’s what really matters.

When I asked my students why they thought this book has stood the test of time, they said it was because Raskin didn’t included too many time specific elements in it. While this is true on the surface, the book is concerned with diversity in a way that I think was very much of its time. Still, they were right that it had a timeless feel.

There’s often pushback against Newbery winners, and lately they’ve been much aligned as books no one wants to read (see, for example, Laura Miller’s piece on the National Book Awards in which she unfavorably compares the awards to the Newbery Medals saying both have “come to indicate a book that somebody else thinks you ought to read, whether you like it or not.”) The Westing Game, though, is a book that children want to read. Even though it’s difficult. Even though it’s not strictly about  them. If critics are right about the Newbery Awards — and I’m not sure they are — in 1979, at least, they got it right with a book that, on first glance, seems to have gotten it wrong.

As I completed a draft of a current WIP I once again found myself looking to the past. As I had written the draft, I found myself forcing in references to modern technology such as computers and cell phones. When I read back over it, those references felt jarring and out of place. This is a historical novel I finally admitted. But, since I had not gone into it with that intent, I needed to go back and decide what time period it fell into. I knew that it was somewhere between my mother’s childhood (1950s) and mine (1980s), and I settled on the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Image source: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/457149657

Then I read Countdown by Deborah Wiles.

And I despaired. No book ever again in the future of writing for children could be written about that time period. Her multigenre approach and interweaving of details into the next — not to mention the story itself — was just perfect. The interplay of narrative and history was devastating. How could I even think of trying to write a book aimed at the same age group and set in the same time?

I eventually got over myself and then thought more critically about the right time period for the book. Now I’m leaning toward a slightly earlier era, but still in the ball park. Rather than intimidate me, now Wiles’ book serves as an inspiration of historical fiction done right.

Here’s a list of some other historical fiction titles that I find to be of merit.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead: It’s easy to forget that this book his historical fiction since it has a timeless quality. Plus there’s the, well, I don’t want to give anything away. The touches of history are both subtle and natural, such as the device that her mother is preparing to be on “The $20,000 Pyramid”. The history never overwhelms the story, which I think is a danger of writing historical fiction. You do so much research that you want to get every. last. detail. into the story. Stead nicely avoids falling into that trap.

The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt: Hopefully with its new cover this one will be getting even more love from students. Set in 1967, it’s about a boy who spends his Wednesday afternoons studying Shakespeare with his teacher while all the other students are at Catechism or Hebrew School. Sounds like a laugh riot, right? Well, it really, really is. Holling has a witty way of looking at things that keeps the story engaging even as historical events — the peace movement and the Vietnam War — barge into his life. Cameos by historical figures are a lot of fun in this one.

Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey: This is one that my agent sent me and I found myself quite drawn in. Set in the Regency era, it is the story of Violet, whose mother is a fake medium. Violet, to her horror, discovers that she herself actually has the gift. What I like about this is that if you were to ask me to assign it a genre that genre would be paranormal, not historical fiction which shows that history can work anywhere. Also, while there have been a number of books set in this time period, I haven’t seen one that delves into the Spiritualist movement, something I personally find very interesting.

One of the ideas I had for a recurring post was book lists related to a writing-related issue. This might be a stylistic issue, an internal struggle, or just some news story that catches my eye. So, without further ado, I give you Read Write: Booklists for Writers.

Film poster for Young Guns - Copyright 2003, 20th Century Fox. Does Megan love this movie? Yes, yes she does.

The National Book Foundation just announced it’s 5 Under 35, and amongst them was Young Adult author John Corey Whaley. I have not yet had the chance to read Where Things Come Back, but after reading the description, I desperately want to. Reading Rants calls it “Weird, wonderful, and rare”, which is exactly what I look for in a book.

I’m glad that the National Book Foundation was audience age-blind when picking writers to honor. As Sara Zarr puts it, “young adult authors are not the J.V. team of literature.” I have to admit that announcements like this make me a little sad because I am barreling toward 35 myself, and therefore, it seems, no longer a young author. The Young Lion’s Award, too, is for authors up to 35. Not that I ever expected to win these awards, but I don’t like seeing things taken off the table. I feel like I’m just hitting my stride as a writer and as a person, so it’s a bit of hand-smack to hear that I’m actually on my way down. Ah, well, the folks at the MacArthur Foundation can still keep me in mind.

At any rate, in honor of John Corey Whaley’s nomination, here are some authors who made their mark at a young age.

S.E. Hinton was 16 in 1967 when she published The Outsiders, perhaps that’s why the emotions are so palpable, and why it still resonates with teens.

Jackson Pearce was only 25 when she published As You Wish. Sister’s Red and Sweetly followed soon after.

Homeschooled wonderkid Chrisopher Paolini was still in his teens when Eragon hit shelves. And though he managed to graduate by age fifteen, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes has him beat in the publishing race, selling her first book to a major publisher at age fourteen.

Ned Vizzini was writing for The New York Press while still in high school, and his columns were collected into his first book, Teen Angst? Naaah . . . His fourth book, The Other Normals, will be out next fall.

Wondering how Gordon Korman has managed to publish so many fantastic books? It helps that his first book, This Can’t be Happening at Macdonald Hall! was published when he was only fourteen.

All of these writers can be inspirations for teens, though I sometimes fear that they give teen writers misconceptions about the publishing world. Who are your favorite writers in their teens and twenties?

1. It can take a while to find your voice. Both Melissa Walker and Joyce Valenza admitted to floundering for a while. For me this was extremely reassuring, and I hope others were reassured as well.

2. You can’t know who your audience is until you have an audience. The best way to build an audience?

3. Be yourself. Write about what interests you in a way that you find natural. There is no one way to blog. Everyone I spoke with said this in one way or another.

4. You don’t need to share your whole self. Being open, honest, and friendly does not mean you need to share the details of your home life, your work, or your political views.

5. Be a part of the community. This was the aspect that Joyce Valenza most stressed with me, saying that in her long career as a librarian, she’s never felt more connected than she does at this moment. Yet being part of the community, in its various online forms, can be overwhelming. Dr. Valenza wrote about this in a recent VOYA piece. For me, I find I use Facebook mostly for family and, frankly, rarely update my author page. Twitter seems to be the province of people with much more free internet time than I have. With Google+, though, I feel like I’m finding my way a little bit better. I think the circles really help me to focus my attention.

6. Structure can help. Whether it’s a goal of writing a certain number of times per week, regular features, or deadlines, a little structure goes a long way in keeping the blog posts flowing.

Talking with these fabulous women has of course made me think, and I have some new ideas for this blog that I hope to roll out soon. My goal is to write at least once a week from now until the end of the year. We’ll see how it goes.

MFB: When and why did you start blogging?

JH: I started blogging late in 2007. My main reason was that it seemed like fun. On a secondary level, I did think maybe I could network also. But the format really appealed to me: short, essay-like messages that you could post on your own schedule, with or without pictures, videos, links, etc. It’s quite versatile, which is why I think blogs are still around.

MFB: When I read your blog, I know I am going to get something smart, something to which you’ve given a lot of consideration. I know you also have a very lighthearted side. Did you make a conscious decision to have a more thoughtful rather than silly blog?

JH: Well, thank you! The tone of my blog isn’t planned; it’s more of a natural feeling. I definitely do some silly posts from time to time, and I am even sillier on Twitter, but mostly I use my blog as a place to process ideas about writing—ideas that may be helpful to other writers, or interesting to readers.

MFB: You focus primarily on the writing life, both technique and the philosophy and psychology of being a writer. Was this always your intent or did you grow into that focus?

JH: When I started blogging, I did think consciously about what my focus would be. I asked myself: What do I care about enough to write about it on a long-term basis? What has the breadth and depth necessary to sustain a blog? What’s relevant to my online presence as a writer? The answer was: books, reading, and writing itself.

I’ve come to realize that many writers blog about writing. For that reason, if I had another topic that met all my criteria, I might have gone with that instead. But one advantage to blogging about writing is that it isn’t a craft you just learn once and master and that’s it. It can sustain a blog indefinitely. There’s so much to know that I find myself constantly learning new things, relearning and reminding myself of other things, rummaging through the vast writer’s toolbox to find those tools I picked up somewhere and now have occasion to use.

Another joy of having a blog is that when I read a book I love, I now have my own little platform to use to rave about it. And when I decided to raise funds for libraries, I again used my blogging platform. 

MFB: Are there ever topics that interest you but you don’t write about on your blog? If so, why?

JH: Absolutely. For example, I’m passionate about politics. But I decided early on that to discuss politics is to invite political debate. Which is a great thing to do, but political issues are so powerful a topic that they tend to take over a blog. There are good political blogs out there; I didn’t want mine to go that direction. I do respect writers who choose to blog about politics, however. I’m not saying writers shouldn’t, only that I thought it wouldn’t work for me.

Other topics off limits: my family, my day job, private details about my publishing contracts. Just common-sense privacy. One reason I mention my cat so much on the blog is that he doesn’t have the same privacy issues as, say, my husband or my parents or my stepchild.
MFB: Do you have any advice for beginning bloggers?

JH: Have fun and do what feels right to you. There is no one right way to do this. If you write about what interests you and interact with other bloggers, your audience will find you.

I also think it’s a good idea to reply to comments—I try to reply to every non-spam comment I get, and I love interacting with my readers. But again, you don’t have to do that. It might be a good idea to post your policy. For example, if you don’t respond to comments but you do read them all, I think people appreciate knowing that.
MFB: Have you learned or been surprised by anything in your blogging?

JH: One thing is that you can never be sure how your posts will be received. You may sweat over a deeply-felt post that you think will rock the blogosphere, and it gets a kind of neutral response. Then you might toss some joke about cabbage soup up on the web one night when you’re too tired to think up anything more clever, and it gets rave comments and links galore.

I just keep putting ideas out there, and let people make of them what they will.

Thank you, Jennifer!