The count down to the release of Wolfproof has begun. While the “street date” is Oct 1^st, I’m learning that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be available on that day. It does mean it will be available around that time! So if you don’t see it on Amazon on the first, don’t panic; it will be there soon.

So much of life is “hurry up and wait,” and we tend to devalue the waiting. But amazing things happen and often go unnoticed while we are focused on the next deadline. We forget to notice all of the small joys around us.

Here are a few things I’ve noted lately:

A wonderfully witty and challenging book, The Probability of God, by Steve Unwin.<

How many good, kind friends are happy to celebrate our successes with us. The teachers in my district and my friends are so encouraging and supportive that I may as well have a New York Times bestseller!

How fall is the perfect bicycling weather.

A lovely quote from the writer Barbara Brown Taylor as told by Katherine Paterson in the book Shouts and Whispers,” A story does not ask for decison; instead it asks for identification, which is how tranformation begins.”

The wonderful e-postcards available on Endicott Studio’s website. They have the best in fantasy art!

If you haven’t done this already, click the Greenman face in the middle of my home page. A poem, The Greenman, should pop up. This little poem has been published in a number of places since it was first written several years ago. It was first published in The Journal of Speculative Poetry, a great place for fantasy poems, and then reprinted in Margins, a journal of magical realism http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/margin/ ,and collected in the WPA anthology Pontoon 8.

Yesterday I found out that The Greenman poem, along with another of my fantasy poems Wolfproof, won honorable mention for The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2006 Vol 18. Honorable mention means my name is listed in the book even though my poems aren’t printed there. I’m quite an admirer of this imaginative anthology. Just being mentioned in it, makes me feel like I’m rubbing shoulders with some of the most creative writers today. Greenman will be the featured poem on Endicott Studios’s wild and wonderful fantasy site on Sept. 24^th, http://www.endicott-studio.com/ If you’ve never visited Endicott Studio, you need to do so right away, for the art work alone!

Where story ideas come from

It’s funny, but the Greenman character from the poem refused to leave after the poem was written. He kept rustling in my imagination. I’ve always been a fan of fantasy, especially the kind that comes knocking at your door and won’t leave you alone until you answer. So, the Greenman became one of the first characters in Wolfproof, my soon to be released novel. And yes, the title Wolfproof came from a poem as well, a poem based on the story of The Three Little Pigs. When students ask me where ideas come from, one of the many answers I give them, is poems.

The character for the Greenman poem came from a carving in Oxford, England. I looked up, and his face was peering back down at me. Story ideas are all around; they’re in today’s newspaper, in the sentence you overhear on the bus, and in the face you glimpse in a crowd. A writer’s notebook and a sharp eye help. Keep asking what if, and you may find yourself with a character who refuses to let go!

For those of us who have been students or teachers for a very long time, the New Year officially starts in Sept. when pencils get sharpened, class lists are posted, and those big yellow dinosaurs begin to rumble through town. January 1st is just a blip on the calendar; we all know when the year really starts.

So, in honor of the new year, some rituals and resolutions. First, it is time for me to get back to regular blogging-enough vacationing. In fact, I started back to my school job-supporting gifted and talented students, and their teachers, at Enterprise Middle School. 

I’ve also been thinking about New Year, (read fall), rituals. On Oct. 5th, at Santoro’s Bookstore in Seattle, the Northwest is debuting some of its writers’ fall titles. I am happy to say I’ll be there talking about Wolfproof, and I look forward to hearing about other YA and children’s novels that are new this year. One of the questions the orginizers asked is: Do you have a favorite fall ritual? And I have a confession to make; I do.

There is a certain time in the fall when the weather is just about to change, the light is more golden and the scent of frost is in the air. You know what I’m talking about–a time when something seems like it’s about to happen. When my kids were little, we used to mark that time with “the fall dance.” We’d go out in the yard and dance for joy. It’s been a long time since I’ve done the fall dance, but I always think of it on fall days when I get that twitchy feeling and my heart leaps just a little. Who knows what might be just around the corner?