A day I'll never forget

It was a cold, February day. A Wednesday. 

That morning, I was doing some grocery shopping in Safeway when my phone rang. It wasn't a phone number I recognized right off the bat. I answered to discover it was the husband of my friend, Lisa. When I heard his voice, I instantly knew.

My friend had passed away that morning from pancreatic cancer. She was only 47 years old.

I was devastated she was gone, but also thankful she was no longer in pain. After we hung up, I stared at my cart of half the groceries I had intended to buy wondering what to do next. I called my husband. He asked if he should come and drive me home. I said, "No, I'll just go check out now with what I have. I think I'll be okay."

I remember so clearly wondering what to say when the clerk asked, "How are you today?" Do I tell him, I thought? No. Of course you don't tell him. You say fine like everyone does 99% of the time, even if they aren't fine, because it's silly small talk, and that's what you're supposed to do.

"Fine," I said. 

I held my breath, telling myself to hold back the tears. That I could do that. It was just three minutes. Hang on for three minutes. You can lose it in the car. But not here. Not here, not here, not here.

I made it to the car. And I cried. My husband pulled up just before I was about to pull out of the parking lot. He'd driven the five minutes from work to make sure I was okay. He followed me home. We put the groceries away. I cried some more. I called my friend, Suzanne. She came over and it was good to have a friend to be sad with.

And then, another phone call. This time, from my agent. My book, then titled IMPOSSIBLY SMALL, had officially sold. I had a publisher and an editor I was excited to work with. Except, how could I rejoice when I was so incredibly sad at the loss of my friend? I explained to my agent what had happened, and she was kind and understanding, as I knew she would be. It's hard to be happy when your heart has just been shattered into a million pieces.

Previously, Lisa would have been one of the first ones to hear my good news. But she was gone. I couldn't tell her.

It's been five years. Five years without Lisa. And five years since I got the call that my first foray into fantasy would be published. The title has changed. There was a lot of revision. And there were beautiful illustrations added to make the story even more special. I think Lisa would love this book. She'd especially love the hummingbirds at the heart of the story, named Peace and Pax. One of the last emails she sent me simply said this:

Isn't it so pretty today?
I'm sitting here watching the birds and squirrels.

It's so strange how five years can feel like just yesterday, and like a million years ago, all at the same time.

My dear friend and this book are forever linked. So today I just want to tell her -- look, Lisa, it's a real, live, beautiful book.

Book Trailer and Launch Party for The Girl in the Tower

Here it is, the book trailer I made myself!

And I would like to invite you
to my book launch party...

Where: Powell's Books, Cedar Hills, Beaverton, OR

When: Sunday, April 3nd, 2:00 p.m.

I'm gonna share some stories,

read a little bit from the book

and serve you cookies!!

(If you aren't local, please note you can pre-order a signed copy!)

I can't believe release day is just eight days away.
I'm crossing my fingers it may be in stores
this weekend for people who might like
to put a pretty little book in an Easter basket.

It's like a painting by Nicoletta Ceccoli with a book attached!

I'm so incredibly busy. I'm actually working right now, at 7:00 at night, something I rarely do but I have a lot going on and so, it's necessary. But never mind about that.

What I want to tell you is that I got a BEAUTIFUL book in the mail today! My editor sent me a copy hot off the presses. And I have a few photos to share with you. I wish I could show you every gorgeous page with Nicoletta Ceccoli's amazing illustrations, but I should probably give you a reason to check out the book for yourself, right?

Okay, back to this PowerPoint presentation that isn't going to create itself. Have a great week!

Spring!

"She turned to the sunlight

And shook her yellow head,

And whispered to her neighbor,

'Winter is dead.'"

~A.A. Milne

 

"It is spring again.

The earth is like a child

who knows poems by heart."

~Ranier Maria Rilke

The most important thing a writer must learn to do

That probably reads like a click bait headline. Oh well. I'm keeping it. I like it. And I completely one hundred percent believe what I'm about to tell you IS the most important thing a writer must learn to do.

 I wonder, right now, what do you *think* it is?

Write every day, even when you don't want to? No way. I don't believe that.

Develop a thick skin? Not this either, although of course this is true, but you've heard it a million times.

Write a FANTASTIC story in order to get it published? Nope. Because I'm not even talking about writing to get published.

I'm talking about writing wherever you are on the path of being a writer. Maybe you're just playing around right now. Writing to see how it feels. See what it looks like for you. Or maybe you are one that's been doing this for a while, and you're thinking about querying agents soon. Maybe you're like me and you've published some books, had some successes and some failures, and you're wondering - what's next?

There's one thing you have to do and keep doing no matter if you've never published a book or published a hundred books.

You have to learn to write with doubt. 

I feel like I could make a rhyme about that.

Figure it out,
all writers learn to write with doubt.

I did an author visit at a middle school one time and I LOVED this wall of poetry they made in honor of my visit. Do you think those students worried about me reading the poem they had written and that would be hanging on the wall in the room where I'd be speaking? Of course. Do you think any of them were afraid I might not like what they'd written? Absolutely. But you know what? They somehow managed to DO IT ANYWAY.

Every time I start a new book, I have doubts. I am scared. I am worried it won't be good enough. But I understand it is part of being a writer. It shows I care about the work I'm doing, and that's not a bad thing. The difficulty is in learning how to manage the fear.

In her book BIG MAGIC, Liz Gilbert tells us to tell Fear it is welcome to come along with us, but it does not get to drive the car. No, if it wants to come along, it has to sit in the backseat and be quiet.

I think I've always thought of Doubt as this pesky little thing on my shoulder that won't go away. It really likes my shoulder, and so it sits there. And when it starts whispering ugly things in my ear, I have a choice as to whether I listen or not. It's completely up to me. I have the power - Doubt does NOT have the power. It simply has messages, messages that often times aren't even true.

Often, Doubt is loudest when I sit down to start my work for the day. Opening the document is often the hardest part, yes? But once you just do it, and you let your characters talk to you, Doubt tends to quiet down.

I get so many notes and emails from kids and teens asking me - how do I write when I'm scared? Scared it won't be good enough? Scared I don't know what I'm doing? Scared people will say bad things if I even manage to somehow show it to someone?

I wish I could say there is a magic trick writers use to make the fear and doubt go away, but there isn't. The truth is, every writer who has finished a book managed to figure out how to send it to the back seat or to write with it sitting on their shoulder.

You can't avoid it. You simply have to figure out for yourself how to write with it.

Happy March - hope you have a great month!

Ten 2016 MG Books to be Excited About!

My favorite kind of book is the kind that makes you laugh and/or cry! While it's hard to know for sure if these books will do that, based on the description and/or the author's previous works, these are the ones I'm betting on.

Middle-Grade Novels

The Pages Between Us by Lindsey Leavitt and Robin Mellom (HarperCollins, 2/9/16) - Told in letters, posters, blog posts, homework assignments, and more, The Pages Between Us is a totally fun, totally earnest snapshot of middle grade friendship—and what it truly means to be there for someone during the ups, downs, and everything in between. Piper and Olivia have been best friends since…well, forever. But they're distressed to find that their new middle school schedules aren't giving them enough together-time. Luckily, an idea sparks when Piper finds a cute, sparkly notebook to disguise as her "French Class" homework. It's genius—now the two BFFs can stick together all the time. And document their adventures—you know, for anthropology's sake. But as the two navigate the tricky new world of sixth grade, they realize that they may need to branch out more than they originally thought. Their notebook, once a life raft, begins to feel like a big responsibility. Can they grow up, without growing apart?



All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook by Leslie Connor (HarperCollins, Tegan Books, 3/1/16) - Eleven-year-old Perry must trade a prison that feels like home for a home that feels like a prison when an ambitious district attorney has him yanked from the minimum-security correctional facility where he was raised. While learning to navigate on the outside, Perry resolves to reunite with his mother, and in the process, discovers the deepest truths about his mother’s conviction.





Far From Fair by Elana K. Arnold (HMH Books for Young Readers, 3/1/16) - Odette Zyskowski has a list: Things That Aren’t Fair. At the top of the list is her parents’ decision to take the family on the road in an ugly RV they’ve nicknamed the Coach. There’s nothing fair about leaving California and living in the cramped Coach with her par­ents and exasperating younger brother, sharing one stupid cell phone among the four of them. And there’s definitely nothing fair about what they find when they reach Grandma Sissy's house, hundreds of miles later. Most days it seems as if everything in Odette’s life is far from fair. Is there a way for her to make things right?

The Girl in the Well is Me by Karen Rivers (Algonquin, 3/16/16) - Longing to be one of the popular girls in her new town, Kammie Summers has fallen into a well during a (fake) initiation into their club. Now Kammie’s trapped in the dark, counting the hours, waiting to be rescued. (The Girls have gone for help, haven’t they?)  As hours pass, Kammie’s real-life predicament mixes with memories of the best and worst moments of her life so far, including the awful reasons her family moved to this new town in the first place. And as she begins to feel hungry and thirsty and light-headed, Kammie starts to imagine she has company, including a French-speaking coyote and goats that just might be zombies.



Booked by Kwame Alexander (HMH Books for Young Readers, 4/5/16) - In this follow-up to the Newbery-winning novel THE CROSSOVER,  soccer, family, love, and friendship, take center stage as twelve-year-old Nick learns the power of words as he wrestles with problems at home, stands up to a bully, and tries to impress the girl of his dreams. Helping him along are his best friend and sometimes teammate Coby, and The Mac, a rapping librarian who gives Nick inspiring books to read.  



Unidentified Suburban Object by Mike Jung (Arthur A. Levine Books, 4/16/16) - The next person who compares Chloe Cho with famous violinist Abigail Yang is going to HEAR it. Chloe has just about had it with people not knowing the difference between someone who's Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. She's had it with people thinking that everything she does well -- getting good grades, winning first chair in the orchestra, et CETera -- are because she's ASIAN. Of course, her own parents don't want to have anything to DO with their Korean background. Any time Chloe asks them a question they change the subject. They seem perfectly happy to be the only Asian family in town. It's only when Chloe's with her best friend, Shelly, that she doesn't feel like a total alien. Then a new teacher comes to town: Ms. Lee. She's Korean American, and for the first time Chloe has a person to talk to who seems to understand completely. For Ms. Lee's class, Chloe finally gets to explore her family history. But what she unearths is light-years away from what she expected.

The Seventh Wish by Kate Messner (Bloomsbury, 7/7/16) - A magic-fish fairy tale retelling set in a modern-day ice fishing community, THE SEVENTH WISH is the story of 12-year-old Charlie Brennan, who catches a wish-granting fish, only to find that her wishes go terribly (and hilariously) wrong at first. After things finally turn around, Charlie’s family discovers her older sister is struggling with addiction, and Charlie learns some things can’t be fixed, even with wishing.

Still a Work in Progress by Jo Knowles (Candlewick Press, 8/1/16) - "Please stop standing on the toilet seats" is one of many requests found in the "Suggestion Box" at Noah's small, rural middle school. Here, life seems pretty simple, especially for Noah's two best friends. Their biggest problems are avoiding girls who have crushes on them and figuring out how to dance during the fast part of "Stairway to Heaven." When it comes to girls, Ryan claims to know everything, and Sam doesn’t seem to know anything. But they both agree Noah's older sister Emma is perfect. Emma has always outshone Noah, and he's mostly OK with that. It's only in art class, where Noah is somehow able to coax beautiful forms out of blocks of clay, that he feels special. But the truth is, Emma is far from perfect. The family tip-toes around the issue, afraid The Thing They Don't Talk About could happen again. When Emma starts to show signs that she’s struggling, it's clear that nothing is going to be simple anytime soon. Noah will have to reconsider what’s important, who matters, and how to make his way in a complicated world where, it seems, his art isn’t the only thing that's still a work in progress.

Two Naomis by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich & Audrey Vernick (Balzer & Bray, 9/13/16) - Two girls of the same age, with the same name, live in the same city. And their parents are dating. They must learn how to forge their own identities and a new definition of family, even as they negotiate the preservation of their own routines and cultural traditions. 

Wish by Barbara O'Connor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 11/1/16) Eleven-year-old Charlie Reese has been making the same secret wish every day since fourth grade. She even has a list of all the ways there are to make the wish, such as cutting off the pointed end of a slice of pie and wishing on it as she takes the last bite. But when she is sent to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to live with family she barely knows, it seems unlikely that her wish will ever come true. That is until she meets Wishbone, a skinny stray dog who captures her heart, and Howard, a neighbor boy who proves surprising in lots of ways. Suddenly Charlie is in serious danger of discovering that what she thought she wanted may not be what she needs at all.

Any middle-grade novels you're particularly excited about this year? Would love to hear about them!

On Creating

Yesterday I started a new book. At this point, it's not a new thing. In fact, it's quite a familiar thing -- pulling up a blank page with the intention of filling it with words that will become a new book. I've actually been doing it for a long, long time. The photo below is a peek of a "book" I made when I was 7 or 8 years old about a rabbit who gives a valentine to a lion. Why a rabbit and a lion, you ask? Well, because those were two animals I knew how to draw, of course. These days, I don't draw pictures to go with the words, which takes a lot of pressure off, let me tell you, and I usually type my story on a computer. But it isn't any less fun, starting a new book. I usually think something along the lines of - "Okay, here I go. Let's do this!"

After I opened a new document, I typed my name in the upper left hand corner, followed by my phone number and email address, although it's probably not necessary since my agent certainly knows how to reach me. But it's habit, and I think, in a way, I like doing it. It says, this is mine. This is my story that I'm going to create from a blank page. From nothing. I'm doing this - ME!!!

This is the thing that slays me about art, of any kind - at first, there is nothing. And then the artist does their thing, and voila - a thing exists where nothing was before. Whatever you do, whether it's drawing or painting or writing or web design or photography or cooking or sewing or crocheting or sculpting or video making or songwriting or (insert your thing here), I hope you take a moment every once in a while to marvel in the fact that you are a creator. And even if you dance or act or sing or play an instrument or perform in some way that doesn't necessarily leave something tangible behind, you are creating. And here's the thing about creating -- you are living such an interesting life by doing so. It's true, right?

When I am creating, I am not worried about politics in that moment. I'm not worried about health issues. I'm not worried about money. I am creating, and my focus is there. I have a vision, and I am in a special place that exists only in my mind. I am so thankful for the ability to create. I hope you are too. And if, like me, you question your talent or abilities every now and then, or every five minutes some days, remember that there are so many worse things we could be doing than doing our best to create something good in the world. Whatever the outcome, we are creating. And that is so completely awesome.