Thoughts and Whims and Acronyms

Today was an exhausting but satisfying day, highlighted by two marathon in-person discussions with a translator and an illustrator, respectively. I sent my line-edit of the translation to said translator just before I went to England; he returned it to me on Monday with his comments; and we spent two and a half hours today happily hashing out our remaining points of disagreement, from word choices ("rashness" vs. "stupidity") to sentence structures to whether we really needed that detail about the house. The illustrator is writing her first picture book; every draft gets closer and tighter, but it isn't quite there yet, so we sat down to figure out the problems and brainstorm solutions. We test-drove a few of the TRUCKs (Techniques of Revision Used by Cheryl Klein*) I'm going to discuss this weekend, and I was pleased that they seemed to help . . . fingers crossed the Michigan audience finds them useful as well!

• I figured out today that SQUID could be an acronym too: Submissions, Queries, and Useful (or Unsolicited :-) ) Interesting Documents. Hee! (I originally intended to change the code word every four months or so, just for the hell of it, but SQUID has proven too likeable and durable to let go -- I check my mailbox and think "Oh, four SQUIDs.")
• I just accepted an invitation to speak at the Los Angeles SCBWI Spring Speakers Day on April 14, 2007. I'll also appear at the Pennsylvania SCBWI Meet-the-Editors Program on June 5, 2007.
• The PSUMC Children's Books and Religion group will meet again on Sunday, October 29, at 3 p.m. to discuss Skellig by David Almond. All are welcome to attend.
• The lovely Monica Edinger (teacher, author, and children's books maven) has a blog at last: Educating Alice.
• An interesting article by Anita Silvey in SLJ about YA fiction and trends.
• If you haven't seen the Fuse #8 discussion of SCBWI, it's been fascinating. I haven't joined in because I would mostly just say what Alvina said (though I have signed up two manuscripts I found at conferences), but all you writer-members may want to check it out.
• My friend and former Carleton Quiz Bowl teammate Steve Jenkins will be on Jeopardy! next Wednesday, October 11.
• I finally finished Lonesome Dove: loved it -- the first book that's actually made me cry in years -- but what a depressing ending! Now reading Brainiac; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which is marvelous, all show and no tell); and The Silver Chair, which I'm liking possibly the best of all the Narnia I've read thus far.
• I switched over to Blogger beta last night, so now I get to tag things! Hurrah!
• Pride and Prejudice: the Rap (gacked from AustenBlog)

All right, back to editing my talk!
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* Note not "originated by Cheryl Klein"; I am using other people's wisdom right and left. I also contemplated TRACKED (Techniques of Revision and Analysis Cheryl Klein Employs Daily), TUCKER (Techniques Used by Cheryl Klein for Editorial Revision), and MUCKER (Methods . . . -- the acronym my authors probably find most appropriate).

Frog's Day Out

Hey, guys! I'm having a great time here in New York. A couple weeks ago, Cheryl took me for a grand day out. First we rode the F train into Manhattan . . .

Then we stopped to see my friends Patience and Fortitude at the New York Public Library.

My favorite musical? "SpamAlot"! (The French get exactly what's coming to them.) Cheryl and I had cheesecake at Junior's after our matinee.

Then we strolled through Times Square . . .
and caught the R train down to the Brooklyn Bridge. It's a beaut!

We finished the day off with a Mets game at Shea Stadium. I really tried to grab this one fly ball (because boy, I love catching flies!) . . . but it turns out I couldn't let go of my mallet. Darn.I'm having so much fun, I think I could stay in New York forever! Wish you were here!

Love,

The Frog

Running and Resolutions

It's hard to express how much I used to hate exercise. My father is a former high-school cross-country coach, and much of my adolescent rebellion was tied up in being as sedentary as possible. (Passive-aggressive, with emphasis on the "passive"; Holden Caulfield had nothing on me.) In high school I got B's in gym -- given that I was aiming for a 4.0, I saw this as all the more reason to give it up once I finished freshman P.E. And in college I took the four phys-ed courses necessary to get the requirement out of the way, no more, never more.

But over time, my attitude changed. I fell in love with walking cities when I studied abroad in England, and got to know New York via long hikes in random directions. I joined the Scholastic Corporate Challenge team as a walker and dared to try a little jogging between strolls. Then I started dating a runner, and his influence and encouragement made me first interested, then active. My father bought me a pair of running shoes (barely restraining his excitement); my boyfriend and I started taking Saturday-morning runs; and we were out walking one winter day when he said, "I bet you couldn't run a 10K."

I said, "Excuse me?"

"I bet you couldn't run a 10K."

"I could so!" I said. "Maybe not right now, but I could totally run a 10K if I wanted to." He laughed, reached over, and started poking the front of my peacoat. "What do you think you're doing?"

He was still laughing. "I'm pushing your buttons."

Needless to say, he was both annoying and wrong, and obviously had to be proven so. So I put "Run a 10K" on my 2004 Resolution List, and that December, after much training and swearing, I ran a 10K. (The boyfriend ran it with me, and kindly admitted he was mistaken afterward.) I didn't do anything longer than my marathon lark last year, but for 2006 I decided I wanted to challenge myself again, and "Run a half-marathon" went on the Resolutions.



So this very small picture is a very big deal: me at the end of my first half-marathon this morning in Central Park. It was by far the longest distance I've ever run, and the crowning event of three months of regular training (also a big deal, as I usually have the self-discipline of a Jack Russell terrier). It rained the entire race, beginning with a cold downpour while we were waiting for the starting horn and occasionally varying to "heavy spit," "steady sprinkling," and "cats and dogs"; but after the initial soaking, this actually wasn't too bad, as it kept me cool and gave me something to think about besides how much farther I had to run.* Likewise I concentrated a lot on my music: "Sunday in the Park with George" for the first loop around the park, my Running playlist for the second, with "Superstition" to kick me up the Harlem Meer hill and "Mr. Brightside" to speed my last mile to the finish. My final time was 2:09:26 (a 9:52 per mile pace), 3002nd out of 4275 participants. As I hoped just to complete the thing, I am quite pleased to have turned in a sub-10-minute-mile performance, and also pretty tired. But yay for being done with the Resolution, and for growing and changing and challenges.

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* Another source of contemplation: At about the seven-mile mark, I gave myself a pep talk that went like this: "You're running thirteen miles in the rain. Finish this race, and you will be the most badass of all the badass people in the world. You will be more badass than Samuel L. Jackson. You will be more badass than Shaft." But then I had to shut my mouth -- both for the audacity of the thought, and because I couldn't think of anyone more badass than Shaft. The race ended; I came home, took a shower, and collapsed on my bed, and an "Alias" rerun was on TV. And there was my answer: I was more badass than Jack Bristow. (But don't tell him I said that. )

Saturday Afternoon Roundup

• Alvina has a wonderful post on her editorial process over on Blue Rose Girls. If you want to know the kind of work a good editor puts in on a novel, check it out.
• The Children's Book Bloggers' Drinks Night on Thursday was a smashing success, with thirty-something people happily talking work, writing, books, and the business. (I was also delightfully surprised by a visit from my college Quiz Bowl coach, Eric Hillemann, who was in town for archives research.) Look for another Drinks Night (or should we call it "the Happy Bunnies Hour"?) in a month or two.
• Speaking of Eric, I'm now reading Brainiac by Ken Jennings, the guy who won 74 games in a row on Jeopardy! a few years ago. The book is terrific -- a Word Freak for trivia hounds, well-written, substantive, and funny -- and it has a whole chapter on Eric and the Carleton Quiz Bowl team (winners of the 1999 NAQT undergraduate championship, thank you very much).
• I bought five books at stoop sales this morning: Longitude by Dava Sobel, which I've heard much praised; Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, a Resolution Book for this year; V. by Thomas Pynchon, because I was thinking of having Pynchon on my Resolution list for next year; The Big Love by Sarah Dunn, which is hands-down the funniest and truest chick-lit novel I've ever read, and which I already own but I bought again because I lent my copy to someone and I can't remember who and even if I get it back, it's good to have an extra copy to lend out; and Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian, which ditto (except replacing "hands-down the funniest and truest chick-lit novel" with "the first book in a series I love madly").
• Phrase Origin of the Day: The term "hands-down" comes from horse racing, where "A hands-down victory is one that is so assured that a jockey can drop his hands and relax his grip on the reins as he approaches the line." (Courtesy of this.)
• Open House New York has its annual tour weekend next week. In years past I've climbed to the top of the Grand Army Plaza arch in Brooklyn and the Jefferson Market Library water tower in Greenwich Village; both of those options are available again this year, alongside mansions, museums, and multiple other fascinating architectural sites.
• Finally, an instruction from the Oklahoma Library Association (courtesy Bullfrog): "Read, Y'All!"

Quotation of the Day

Courtesy of A.Word.A.Day:

"A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity." -- Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and writer (1884-1962)

Drinks Night Reminder & Editorial Metaphor

A reminder for all you NYC folk: The Children's Book Bloggers Night is this Thursday at Sweet & Vicious, near the intersection of Spring Street and the Bowery (6 to Spring St., B/D/F/V to Broadway-Lafayette, N/R to Prince). The weather should be pleasant and they have a nice garden in back, so come have a drink and hang out with Betsy and me, starting roundabout 6 p.m. Hope to see you there!

I'm now working on my SCBWI talk for next weekend, "The Art of Detection: One Editor's Tips on Analyzing and Revising Your Novel" (that title from memory and therefore possibly mistaken). The topic comes from the excellent advice you, my dear readers, gave me way back in June; the title from Sherlock Holmes's opus on his craft, as the conference has a mystery theme. And I will be talking about some ways you might take a step back from your work -- the same distance an editor has -- think about its strengths and weaknesses, and determine how you might enhance the one and remove or disguise the other.

I hope that's what I'll do, anyway, because I love talking about editing and how stories work, and good LORD I can get easily distracted from my point as I'm doing it. I'm not sure this is going to go in the talk (here's a little sneak preview if it is), but this is my favorite metaphor about editing:

Editing is like rebalancing the tires on your car. The goal is to take the reader on a journey from point A to point B, but to do that in a smooth, straightforward manner, all the wheels on the book need to be in balance. The four wheels are the character wheel, the plot wheel, the writing wheel, and the point wheel: who are these people, what who they are makes happen, how the story is told, and what it all means. The editor looks at how each of these wheels are contributing to the forward motion of the overall vehicle and suggests inflating, deflating, or changing the tires as necessary.

• Sometimes you have to fill out or change characters to give the action credibility. The boy goes into a murderous rage when he sees the dead cat -- why? Perhaps he needs a backstory where, say, his abusive father kicked the family cat right before he killed the boy's mother, and so the boy is flashing back to that painful moment when he sees the dead cat and that's what drives him to attack the bully who killed the cat. Or something like that. (Note that the character tire cannot be overinflated: Only rarely does a writer need to know less about an important character, although that does not mean that the writer needs to tell the reader everything s/he knows.)
• Sometimes you have to revise the action because it's illogical according to the logic of the book (particularly the magical logic in a fantasy), because it doesn't jibe with what we know of the character, because your protagonist isn't driving the action, or because nothing is really happening and it's boring.
• Sometimes you have to change the point of view. Or cut out dead-weight prose that's cluttering the scene or a joke. Or dramatize a scene that's told to us, or tell us a scene that doesn't deserve the weight of being dramatized for us. Or change or cut words or sentence structures that are repeating too closely and therefore jarring to the ear. (Yes, we do go into this much minute detail.)
• And there needs to be a point--not a moral, but an effect or thought the writer is going toward, which the reader feels or understands after having read the book. Usually the protagonist will be discovering this point as well in the course of the action; and the fact that s/he does so causes things to change for him/her in the novel.

And these are just a few examples of all the things that can need to be thought about or revised in a manuscript. . . . Indeed, there are so many ways books can go wrong that I'm sometimes amazed there are so many that go right in the end, and end in delight for us all -- Millicent Min, Girl Genius; The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie, by Jaclyn Moriarty; the Casson and Exiles novels by Hilary McKay; Because of Winn-Dixie; and many others.

And of course -- very important -- it needs to be new, through the voice, the story, the characters, the perspective: something true and of the writer's own. I was running this morning in Prospect Park and "Move On" from Sunday in the Park with George came on my iPod:

Look at what you've done,
Then at what you want
Not at where you are, what you'll be . . .

Anything you do
Let it come from you
Then it will be true.
Give us more to see . . .

That is what I want to see in submissions, and what I want to help my authors achieve in their books.

Five Pictures from a Fabulous Vacation

Katy in a punt. Katy and I were celebrating multiple happy occasions this trip: her engagement; my 28th birthday; the completion of her dissertation; and our ten-year anniversary of being best friends. On Saturday, Katy took me out for a picnic in a punt: a baguette, sharp cheddar, tart apples, Cornish pasties, McVitie's, dark chocolate pastilles, water and lemonade (which I insisted on having in honor of Lord Peter and Harriet, though ours was non-synthetic). Katy did all the punting, while I sat and watched the ducks and the undergraduates float by, and we talked and talked and talked. We went up the Cherwell to a pub called the Victoria Arms, where we each had a glass of Pimm's, then came back down for dinner with her fiance Josh and a wonderful bonfire with McVitie's s'mores. (Directions: 1. Toast one marshmallow to the bursting point. 2. Quickly remove the marshmallow from the stick and place it on a chocolate-side-up McVitie. 3. Place another McVitie on top, chocolate side down, and squash to make the chocolate melt. 4. Eat quickly, and don't be ashamed to lick your fingers.)

Me on a stile. On Sunday, Katy and I journeyed by train and bus up to the Peak District in Derbyshire. We held my official birthday dinner at the Rutland Arms Hotel in Bakewell (an inn where Jane Austen herself stayed during a visit to the county in 1811) and slept that night in a B&B. The next day, we set off on a five-mile trek over the Dales, which occasioned considerable good-natured sisterly bickering over the map (Katy held it), our route (I didn't trust her), if it would rain (it didn't), and whether we would reach our destination in time for afternoon tea (of paramount concern to both of us). As it turned out, I was right that our route was not the one marked on the map, but we agreed that the map was stupid and our way was better, as we saw a great deal of beautiful Derbyshire countryside (and sheep) and still reached Chatsworth by 1 p.m. -- plenty of time for tea.

Chatsworth. Why were we so wild to see Chatsworth, you ask? Because Jane Austen likewise visited it on that 1811 trip, right when she was revising Pride and Prejudice, and it is very likely the model for Pemberley:

They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road, with some abruptness, wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; -- and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. . . . Elizabeth was delighted.

And it is lovely. Begun in 1552 by Bess Hardwick and her second husband William Cavendish, it housed Mary Queen of Scots at various times during her imprisonment, and it is still the home of the Cavendish family -- better known as the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. The interiors were gorgeous and luxurious without gratuitous ostentation, and the grounds (originally designed by Capability Brown) included a cascade, a rose garden, a delightful hedge maze (which pleased me very much, as I long ago wrote a P&P fanfic set in a hedge maze at Pemberley), and a Squirting Willow (no doubt cousin to the Whomping variety up north). And the stables have been converted into a restaurant, where we had our delicious, much-anticipated tea.

Mr. Darcy, the statue. In fact, Chatsworth is so lovely and so what Jane Austen had in mind that its exterior, entrance hall, and sculpture gallery served as Pemberley in the 2005 adaptation of P&P. While I have considerable differences with that adaptation, I was very fond of Matthew MacFadyen, and they've kept the plaster bust of him as Mr. Darcy in the sculpture gallery where Keira Knightley-as-Elizabeth sees it in the film. It's displayed next to the dress Keira wore in that scene and real first editions of P&P, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey/Persuasion, which I did not steal, despite my extreme case of book lust. Future visitors to Chatsworth may thank me for my forebearance.

Decadence. Finally, of course, after we came back to Oxford on Tuesday, we had to rent the execrable new P&P and watch it all over again -- which was actually a pleasure, as we'd never seen and snarked at it together. So here we have from right to left: the movie; a glass of Cava sparkling wine; Nutella; strawberries; McVitie's; more wine; and Ben & Jerry's Phish Food. Bliss.

More pictures of our trip, with commentary, are now up on my Flickr page here.

Happy Birthday to Me, and Happy My-Birthday to You!

I have always believed birthdays are days for sleeping late, hanging out with your Favorite People on Earth, eating delicious food, and all other manner of self-indulgence (including this post, in fact). But upon further consideration, I don't think the self-indulgence should end with me; and as the all-powerful Birthday Girl, I grant permission to all of you to eat an extra piece of chocolate, read an extra chapter in that delicious novel, spend an extra half-hour basking in the sun -- in general, do a little something extra of whatever it is you like best. It's on me.

Enjoy the day!

Missing: One Brain.

Soft, pink, moist, with wrinkly bits and a large label that reads "C. KLEIN, PROPRIETRESS." Lost somewhere between Oxford, England and Newark International Airport, likely as a result of too little sleep and too much tromping, talking, fresh air, tea, beer, McVitie's, reading, and general happiness, not too mention air travel and time zones. Results of loss: inability to walk in a straight line, talk in a straight sentence, or think in a straight fashion (not that there's anything wrong with that). Now seeking it out in deepest slumber; more to follow when the missing object has been restored to me. Cheerio.

A Book Emergency Averted

I'm in England now, having jaunted across last night in order to visit my best friend Katy at Oxford, celebrate the completion of her doctoral dissertation ("Felix Fabri and His Audiences: the Pilgrimage Writings of a Dominican Preacher in Late-Medieval Germany"), and meet her charming anarchist fiance Josh. Last night at the airport I realized I hadn't packed properly for the trip -- by which I mean that of the four books I brought with me, I hadn't brought one I was really eager to read, something that would help me survive the many traveling hours ahead; nor could I come up with an appropriate title that might fit the bill. Then I thought "Oh! The Sea of Monsters!" and virtually ran to the airport bookstore to see if I could secure it (the sequel to The Lightning Thief). No such luck, but I did spy Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which I knew Katy hadn't read; so I bought the paperback, reread it myself on the plane (practically purring with pure prose pleasure -- glory, I love Susanna Clarke's writing*), and gave it to Katy with her congratulations-on-finishing-your-thesis gifts this afternoon. And now I'm here and I can raid her bookshelves* for the next five days. Hurrah!
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* And per the ad in the back, she has a short-story collection coming out this fall! The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, Sept. 2006.
** This likely includes a reread of Gaudy Night at some point, given that Oxford always puts me in the mood for it and I got to visit a real SCR this afternoon.