This little guy and his brother appear to be orphans about 8 weeks old. After several attempts he took an almond out of my hand. We found the two of them tottering around our tree crying pitifully–maybe there will be a squirrel in my next book. What would Beatrix Potter do?

If you’re writing fiction you will hear, sooner rather than later, a lot of advice about beginnings.  It will make you tremble. It is enough to keep even the bravest writer from every touching  finger to key.  You will read features like Poets and Writers “Page One” with anxiety rather than delight as the worry worm niggles its way into your mind. You will be told that agents and editors read only the first page, maybe only the first papragraph. The balance of your writing career hangs on those first few lines.

Michael Stearns at Upstart Crow Literary   has posted a netcast on Great Beginnings that Break Rules. Maybe it will kill the worm. Beginnings are important, but there is no one right beginning for every book.  Authors have led me into great stories in many different ways.

Let me nominate an old favorite, Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle. “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy…”

Feel free to share some others.

is goodYou will read

With all the hubbub about beginnings

When I told members of my writing group that the new novel I’m writing, the one they’ll be commenting on,  is Steampunk, I was met with blank stares. So what is Steampunk?

Think The League of Extraordinainry Gentlemen, think Golden Compass, Victorian Industrial Revolution or Dystopian with a touch of steam, craftsmanship, fantastical machines and wonder. A visual is always helpful. I think of Sherlock Holmes’s cape swirling  into the London fog. Check out  the CGSociety’s lovely art challenge Steampunk Myths and Legends . Click on the winners link to soak up some steampunk atmosphere.

And if you find yourself needing more, there’s Steampunk Magazine.

Off to polish my brass goggles.

 or

So, the husband just returned from three weeks in Mongolia. Meanwhile the daughter

and parrot are settling into Columbia, MO and the son is in Israel, last known location the shore of Galilee.

I’m on the front porch writing.

It looks like my first round of edits will arrive just when I start to teach classes. Isn’t that the way things work? Nothing happening. Then everything all at once! In life we can’t control the pace at which the plot advances; in writing we can.

Pacing is how fast the story carries you along, and there is no one right pace for every story. Fast- paced stories are not always better. Different stories need different pacing. A slower pace can let the reader become immersed in another time, another place. Stephen King in his book On Writing says that he likes “a slower pace and a bigger, higher build.”

The trick is finding the pace that holds your reader captivated. It means combining action and dialogue with description and reflection, which tend to slow the narrative down. Readers need a balance in a story just as they do in their lives.

Different audiences need different rhythms too. In middle-grade and YA novels pacing and voice are two of the most important considerations. Books can be long, think H.P. and George RR Martin, but they have to be paced so that there is always something going on. Longer books just mean that we get to spend more time with the characters immersed in their worlds. Let’s see if I can pull it off when the Wolfproof Trilogy become two books rather than three.

As I walking along the Columbia River the other morning a large deer followed by six others sprang out of the bushes no more than three feet in front of me. They bounded across the path and into the river. It was an amazing sight.

Ok, so I’m a big believer in signs and portents. Maybe it comes from growing up in an Irish Catholic family who still believed in the little people or maybe I read too many of the wrong kind of books as a kid, but when a herd of deer appear out of no where to gamble right in front of me, or when a single pelican floats close to shore and fixes me with one jeweled eye, I think the world is up to something.

BTW, did you know that a group of apes is called a  shrewdness of apes? Of course you did, you’re remarkable. Have an auspicious Monday.

The deed is finally done. This week I signed a contract with Abrams/Amulet for a two book deal. And what are these books? They are the three books in the Wolfproof Trilogy combined into two. Yes, the third book is complete and does take place in Scotland. So, those of you who’ve read Wolfproof and Travelers’ Market will have to wait a bit for the new release.

Here’s what I know. The two new books will have different titles and covers than the previous books. Why? Because they are being released with a larger publisher, will be edited, and  reformatted.  You’ll want to read the new and improved versions!

What I don’t know. Lots of things, but specifically, how the three manuscripts will be divided to form two books, the exact release dates and/or titles.

I’m excited and ready to get to work! Several people have asked what’s next. I’m well into a new story–steampunk setting, and, of course, a little bit of myth and mystery.

What a  journey it’s been!

Follow the adventures as we move Claire and Coco the parrot  from Seattle, WA to Columbia, MO.  Check our posts for road food on I-80.

First night Richland, WA to Ogden, UT by way of a bakery in Baker City, Oregon and a Basque restaurant in Boise, ID.

Does Benadryl in birdseed work?

Glimpses:

KindlingsFest is a celebration of Art & Ideas where they intersect with the spiritual. The theme this year was C.S. Lewis and Broken Beauty.

“We brush up against understanding only as a moth brushs up against a lighted window.” Dr. Jerry Root

We spent five days on Orcas Island with a community of people related by their love for the arts and their belief that arts are transfomative. They came from near, Seattle, and far, Isle of Wight, and Iowa. And that’s always one of the best parts of being there, meeting like-minded people from  across the globe or at least the country–fimmakers, composers, writers, visuals artists and dramatists.

So what does Christian art look like? Well, first it should should or fail by the same standard as all art. Is it good art? Does it meet an aesthestic standard? Artists must be skillful in their discipline if they hope to have anything to say. And  of course, that’s the beauty of art, it can speak truth from a new direction. Tolkein says that humans are “sub-creators”. We are created to participate in creative ways in a broken universe.

So a few highlights—

Bruce Herman sharing his process as a visual artist, a process of excavation as he discovers his work.

Nigel Goodwin performing Dylan Thomas.

Michael Ward sahring news from Planet Narnia 

And a showing of Rick Stevenson’s Expiration Date.

For pictures of Orcas and some of these fine folks check out my facebook post.

Sometimes the things we’ve been mulling over as we go about our daily lives are the very things we come across somewhere else. Maybe it’s a bit of dialogue spoken by a character in a movie or something a friend says on the morning walk or maybe it’s something we read. However it happens, it always takes my breath away. For a minute I think, “Wow—the universe is conspiring to tell me something, I’d better listen.”

This happened just the other day when I read an interview in Image Journal with Christian Wiman the editor of Poetry. For those of you who don’t know, Poetry is the “it” of poetry journals. It’s been around forever. It’s one of the places most poets aspire to be published some day. And no I haven’t, not yet., Here’s what he said,” We can know no man’s work until we know how, whom, and to what end he did or did not love.” It is so close to a quote I had just copied down for the remake of my website by Wendell Berry  “…the significance (and ultimately the quality) of the work we do is determined by our understanding of the story in which we are taking part.”

             And then Wiman went on to discuss “the- man- behind- the- curtain” effect. If you’ve seen the Wizard of Oz, and who hasn’t, there’s that wonderful line, ”Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” I like it because I think that much of life happens “behind that curtain.” That there are things going on around us all the time that we just can’t see.  We are limited creatures. Wiman says, “What we call reality is utterly conditioned by the limitations of our senses, and that there is some other reality much larger and more complex than we are able to perceive.”There are certain writers who are able to remind of this.  Wiman continues,”They are, for the briefest of instants, perceiving something of reality as it truly is.”  It has become cliché in poetry circles to talk about that moment when the ordinary reveals the extraordinary, but the extraordinary is reality. We live in an invaded universe. At one point in time the Extraordinary did invade the ordinary and nothing has been the same since. Every day we live with the reality of multiple dimensions, things are always going on behind the curtain.  Every story, every poem that reminds of this, speaks truth. 

I’ve never been good at keeping secrets, just ask my kids. That’s why my website has remained silent for so long! But now, as many of you know…drum roll…I have accepted an offer from Amulet/Abrams to publish Wolfproof, Traveler’s Market and the just completed third book of the trilogy—which takes place in Scotland and involves a very cool  map cipher.  The books will look different and the three may be consolidated into two fatter volumes.

Other changes are coming….the website will have a new look.  I happen to know some pretty amazing artist and animator types.

 And a new top secret book is in the works.

 So while I was waiting for all this to play out, I needed some basic survival techniques. Usually  books  get me through tough times,  but this time, I  confess to being hooked on several old T.V.series. Seriouosly, these got me through waiting for editors: BSG, thanks to the Cadds and Brennan and John. And Freaks and Geeks, thanks to Bertha. Just to let you know I’m not always so low brow. The last  series  I was hooked on was Slings and Arrows and it had Shakepeare in the storyline…

What gets you through?

I am often amazed by the riches that surround me everyday. We live with an embarrassment of riches. This week I feel compelled to share several of these:

Three, are marvelous book I’ve recently read and think you should too.

Marcello in the Real World,  So Brave, Young and Handsome and Paper Towns.

The next is a wonderful interview with Guillermo del Toro in Wired Magazine. “I tried to take genre premises and explore them obliquely, where the fantastic is either tangential or illuminates reality in a different way.”

and …Neil Gaiman will receive the Chicago Tribune Young Adult

 Book Prize at noon June 6

Happy exploring!

Interview in Wired Magazine with gGuillermo del Toro

Last weekend I attended the SCBWI WA conference in Seattle, and I’m probably the very last attendee to blog about it. I picture the white rabbit holding  out his lovely pocket watch to remind me, “You’re late! You’re late!”

So to bansih the rabbit…and share a few standout moments for me…

Deb Lund’s wonderful poem about her inner critic. We all have one, some of us have several who show up in different disguises. Tame that critic,; get her to work for you!  Hopefully Deb will post her poem.

Krista Marino , editor at Delacorte, and Nathan Bransford, agent, did a remarkable job with first pages critiques, sharing some of their personal dislikes: they shy away from  first person present voice, and some of what they both love: beautiful language,  voice, interesting settings and great details.

Krista was one of the reasons I came to the conference. She’s a sharp, insightful editor who ” doesn’t do cute,”  loves a classic storytelling feel, and quirkiness with a bit of wit. She has a keen sense for picking the right books.

Sarah Shumway, Katherine Tegen Books, informally polled editors about characteristics they look for in writing. No surprise, the #1 answer was voice, followed by writing style and execution. In submissions, editors look for promotion connections and knowledge of the market. Writers need to be business savy.

Who can resist  editor  Connie Hsu when she says ,“I only like stories with dead animals…There are plenty of other editors who like their animals, you know, breathing.”

Nancy, librarian action figure,  Pearl shared the best ways to get your book reviewed and reminded us all that luck is a part of the success equation for writers. Sometimes the publishing fairy drops a little fairy dust on a writer’s head and her books become magic. Nancy looks for beautiful language, an emotional connection and character driven novels. A bit of cleverness helps too. She says writers should “learn from the best,” not just follow trends, and read widely.

Upcoming writers to watch: Claire  Willey.  She is polishing up a YA  dystopian manuscript with an intriguing and very original plot. Watch for her.

Click here to read my poem “Parrot in Winter” that came out today in The Other Journal. There’s also an audio link, so you can hear me read the poem. That infamous bird, Coco McQuerry, and a long spate of gray in February inspired the poem. I really do have a trunk of dress-up clothes and I’m expecting an occasion to don that frock coat and my dancing shoes.

The Other Journal describes itself as a journal at the “intersection of theology and culture.” Articles in the Aesthetics issue that caught my eye include: Altars to Unknown Gods: A Christian Approach to Contemporary Art :: Daniel A. Siedell , My Body for You: Meditations on Sacrifice as a Theme in Contemporary Art :: Bruce Herman and a review of Paul Mariani’s latest Sea Billows Rolling: A Review of Paul Mariani’s Deaths & Transfigurations .

Happy Reading!

Travelers’ Market received a nice compliments recently;  it was selected as book of the month for the Catholic Moms’ Book Club.

I’ve been finishing the third book in the trilogy, Destiny Stone.  It’s  now complete.  Okay–I never really stop tinkering until the very last minute when my publisher says, “enough!”

Writing the last book in a trilogy is an interesting experience.  I had to tie up all the loose ends from the previous stories, and I wanted to be sure that  each of the character made one last appearance. More than either of the previous books, Destiny Stone is a quest.  Timothy, Sarah and Jessica search for the ancient Stone of Destiny with the help of a map cipher. Remember the map Mr. Twig gives them at the end of Travelers’ Market?  That map begins a quest that leads the three to Scotland and to the ancient site of  McBeth’s castle.  Readers will be able to help the three solve the cipher.

Of course, stories never really end with the last page.  Astute readers will notice that there is more to Timothy and Jessica’s story and to Sarah’s that happens after the book cover closes, but that, dear reader,  is left to your imagination. I hope that there will be word of them again some day, because I would like to see what kind of grown ups they become.