Nature Abhors Them -- But They're Necessary Once in a While

Today was what I call a Day of Vacuum.* A Day of Vacuum has nothing to do with housework; rather, it's a day when lots of things go wrong, when you screw up repeatedly or get called on your screw-ups deservedly, when painful and annoying things happen, and they all pile up at once. For instance, my day included missing my train both going to and coming from work; being lambasted by someone whom I wronged, and deserving it; sending a group e-mail to important people with an incorrect e-mail address, thanks to autofill, and having to correct it (e.g. sending another e-mail acknowledging I did something stupid); writing catalog copy; a dentist appointment for a filling; another painful personal procedure; worrying about an issue related to my book I should have resolved months ago; being reminded of the endless and ever-growing list of things I have not done and need to do; and on and on. . . .

The main redeeming feature** of this day was that once I realized it was going to be a Day of Vacuum (after the lambasting, when I remembered the dentist appointment), I DECLARED it was a Day of Vacuum, thus embracing the vacuum. And this encouraged me to deal with lots of little vacuumy tasks I've been putting off for a while, and now they're done. The personal procedure, for instance: I chose to do it, because hey, it's a Day of Vacuum. Or when something else went wrong, I shrugged: Day of Vacuum. Once you accept the vacuum and you have this motto, then the refrain becomes almost a comfort: It reminds you that it's just one day, and it will pass.***, ****
_________________________
* [Actually, I call it a Day of Suck, but my mother wouldn't let us use the latter word in its slang sense when I was a teenager, so my sister and I replaced the word then with "vacuum". And in deference to her sensibilities (hi, Mom!), I'll use that term in this post.]
** The other redeeming features: I finished a second-pass line-edit, when the book is more or less in focus and the rest is all pulling the pieces together; excited about a revised manuscript; my filling didn't hurt or require Novocaine . . . and getting to blog, I guess.
*** Or, to put a kidlit spin on it: Today was a difficult day, but tomorrow will be better. (Even in Australia.)
**** ETA: After I posted this at nearly 1 a.m., I decided to knock off one more task and write an e-mail regarding the program for an upcoming writer's conference. Finished it, hit "send": The computer system ate it. At which point there was nothing to do but go to bed to make the day be over.

Thought for the Day

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.
                                           --  Father Pedro Arrupe, S. J.

My First Review of SECOND SIGHT!

Rose Green was kind enough to take me up on last week's offer of a review e-copy of Second Sight, and she just posted a wonderful review of it on her blog:

Who this book is for: the intermediate to advanced writer, preferably someone who has already completed (or at least is deeply into) a first draft. There is definitely a hole in the market for books for intermediate writers, the ones who are past the introductory stages of how a book is put together but who don’t yet have an agent or editor of their own to guide them. It’s full of practical suggestions for deep revision, for finding those “electric fence emotions” (as she describes the raw feelings of middle school) and pulling them forward to connect with readers in a real, believable way. The book itself is written with authority; not just because of Klein’s editor hat, but because she herself is an excellent writer, particularly gifted at pinpointing and expressing plot structure, voice, characterization—in short, the underpinnings of a novel.

Glory! Thank you, Rose.

The designer and I should hash out the final details on the cover this week, and the book will go to print as soon as that's done, making it available for sale in early February, I hope. If you have a blog and you'd be interested in hosting me to talk about the book -- a Q&A or a guest post or whatever you like -- feel free to contact me at asterisk.bks at gmail dot com. All very exciting!

A Ramble: Eastern Standard Time

When I glanced back over the 2010 posts on Brooklyn Arden, I felt a little depressed, because I blogged less often and about less-thoughtful things this past year than I have in any year since the blog’s inception in 2005. Not that I expect readers missed me much, by any means, but writing here is one of the ways I think, and the lack of blogging was a sign of how little I felt like writing, and how little time I had to think for pleasure, if that makes sense, in 2010. . . . I wrote a lot of speeches and editorial letters and other important things, many of which turned out well, I’m glad to say, and of course I did all the revising on my book; but that wasn’t restful thinking for me, talking out loud about things that interest me—which was how this blog started, as my one-sided continuation of a lost correspondence, and how I always love it most, when it gives me a chance to know what I think when I see what I say, to paraphrase E. M. Forster. So with this post, I hope to start a tradition of letting myself write for one hour every Sunday, to put down what’s been happening in my life and on my mind; and if you all find things in it that are useful for you, wonderful, and if not, well, you know what you’re in for with future posts. This one is more of a catch-up, newsy post than I hope most of those future posts will be.

• Holidays! In the last ten days, I visited these cities in order:  New York; Belton, Missouri; Treynor, Iowa; Belton, Missouri; Hemet, California; Santa Barbara, California; Los Angeles, California; New York, and as much as I love all the people in all the other places mentioned, I am very glad to be home again. 
• And in truly major news, James and I won the Frog again in team play! (The Frog, for those of you joining us just now, is the traveling trophy in my family's Killer Klein Croquet Tournament; and Killer Klein Croquet is basically croquet meets Calvinball, played with great enthusiasm and emotion and no skill whatsoever. See prior reports under the "Frog" label at right.) I thus become the winningest KKCT champion ever -- neener neener neener, family! -- at least until James and I have the chance to defend his Brooklyn sojourn in May.
• (And I have now set an impressively high bar for maturity in these Rambles by actually saying "neener neener neener." Look for "I know you are, but what am I?" in future posts.)
• True Grit contains probably my favorite scene from any film this year:  Mattie Ross’s negotiation with the horse trader, her calmly wearing him down till she gets exactly what she wants and a thank-you for it. Its well-written rat-a-tat dialogue between two equally matched opponents reminded me of one of my favorite film scenes of all time, the opening exchanges between James Bond and Vesper Lynd on the train in Casino Royale (“How was your lamb?” “Skewered. One sympathizes.”)—though True Grit was much less sexy, of course. Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld are getting all the awards buzz, as far as I can tell, but I loved Matt Damon for investing the at-first-foppish La Boeuf with real dignity and character. I would have liked a bit more emotional payoff at the end, I think, but so the Coen Brothers go.
• Black Swan was a potentially fascinating movie about the quest for perfection in ballet and its mental cost, made risible (to use J. Hoberman’s word) by ham-handed horror-movie plotting, details, and filmmaking techniques. Also, Darren Aronofsky has apparently never met a close-up of a bloody [insert your own body part here] that he didn’t like. But other than that, it was beautifully shot, and it made me want to see Swan Lake, which I never have. . . .
• One of the good things in 2010:  I fell in love with making homemade granola, inspired by the amazingly simple Mark Bittman recipe in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (where he recommends toasting the oats and nuts first, which I endorse). The recipe is easy, tasty, and capable of endless variations; my version tonight has dried cherries, sunflower seeds, almonds, vanilla, and molasses as a sweetener (though the all-time best sweetener truly is maple syrup, I think). If you have suggestions for mix-ins, I’m happy to hear them.
• Congratulations to Erin McCahan and I Now Pronounce You Someone Else for the book’s being named a Cybils YA finalist! I love, love, love romantic comedy, which is partly why I wanted to publish INPYSE; but it’s a category that doesn’t get recognized much come awards time, because the seeming lightness of the atmosphere and subject matter (and, perhaps, the fact that it’s a genre most often about, created by and consumed by women) make it easy to blow it off in the face of IMPORTANT books or movies about war or boxing or dystopias or whatall. But the real subject matter of all good romantic comedies are relationships and moral values; and the atmosphere in which those things are made coherent, consistent, realistic, and amusing, and in which they matter, even in the face of war or boxing or whatall, is in fact incredibly hard to create and sustain. Erin not only accomplishes that creation, she walks the line between the development of a relationship and the development of a self, and sharp wit and real pain, with truly impressive skill; and as an editor and romantic comedy fan, I wanted to say thank you to the Cybils judges for recognizing that accomplishment. 
• If you have a blog or other publication and you'd be interested in reviewing my book, Second Sight:  An Editor's Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults, please e-mail me at asterisk.bks at gmail dot com with your name, blog address, and any other pertinent information. Not all respondents will be sent copies of the book, but all interest is appreciated.  
• Pleasure reading this holiday:  Jennifer Crusie’s Maybe This Time (devoured in 36 hours over the Christmas weekend) and George R. R. Martin’s A Clash of Kings. At a going-out-of-business sale, I bought a second copy of J-Crusie's Welcome to Temptation, probably my favorite contemporary romance novel ever; The Audacity to Win, David Plouffe’s memoir of managing the Obama campaign, for 2008 nostalgia in the face of 2011 House horror; and Story by Robert McKee, because I’ve always felt like a bit of fake for talking about McKeean principles (well, really Aristotelian ones) without ever having read his actual book, and now this shall be corrected. 
• My New Year's Resolutions have always been less about specific behaviors I want to have than specific things I want to accomplish:  to run a 10K, to learn to knit, to try three new cuisines . . . all of which lead in turn to those specific behaviors, as I have to run regularly to be ready for a 10K, I have to develop a new skill with the knitting, I have to get out of the house more in order to find the cuisines. I haven’t created a proper list since 2006 or so, but this year I want to try it again, to help get myself back on track. So I want to run another half-marathon; finish the baby blanket I started knitting in, um, 2007 (and haven’t touched since then, for the record--this is not a monster blanket four years in the making); publish my book (which should go to print as soon as the designer and I hash out the final details on the cover); eat less sugar; finish reading War and Peace; and write these Rambles once a week. Best of luck with your new year and resolutions as well!

Apropos of Nothing

Except I just bought the xkcd book as a Christmas present to myself and in appreciation to its creator for being awesome, and this is always a useful reminder:

Video: Trent Reedy & I Discuss WORDS IN THE DUST

When I was in Boise, Idaho, in September for the Idaho SCBWI conference, author Trent Reedy drove over from Spokane to film a video for the Scholastic Librarian Preview Webcast, promoting his wonderful novel Words in the Dust.

During a break in our formal video shoot, Trent and I talked at a little more length and in a little more depth about the book, its backstory, how it was written and edited, his friendship with Katherine Paterson (who wrote a lovely introduction for the book), and sundry other topics. You can see that conversation in two parts here:

(Aren't those just the most attractive stills ever?) There will be more excitement with this book coming later this week; in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this glimpse of the most excellent Trent and the book, and our conversation.

Next Kidlit Drink Night: Monday, December 13

Our next NYC Kidlit Drinks Night will be next Monday, December 13, starting at 6:30 p.m., at Faces & Names, 159 W. 54th St. at 8th Ave. (Apologies for the short notice.) Fortify yourself against the winter with a hot toddy, or, if you're overheating from being too bundled up, you can pretend it's summer with a nice G&T. Either way, we shall talk books, share end-of-year favorites, catch up with friends, and otherwise engage in holiday cheer.

And:  We will once again be doing a holiday book drive for a worthy cause -- the Children for Children Ongoing Book Drive, in partnership with Project Cicero. Please bring new and gently used children's books for grades K-12. As these books will be directed to New York City public schools and preschools, books featuring characters of color are especially appreciated, but ALL books are welcome and will find good homes. See the link above for more information.

Hope to see you next Monday, and happy December in the meantime! And if you would like to be on our notification list for future drink nights, just send us an e-mail at nyckidlitdrinks@gmail.com.

A Mid-Line-Edit Ramble on Line-Editing

I am thirty-five pages from the end of a first-draft line-edit of one of my amazing Spring 2012 novels, and I wanted to stop and put down some thoughts quickly about the work of editing, because they're thoughts I have every time I line-edit a book, but I never pause to write them out as I should. So here they are:

Line-edit:  The process of reading the manuscript line by line, word by word, and examining all of it for rightness and flow:  that these are the right words, the right thoughts, the right lines, and that they link up together in a way that coheres emotionally for the Imaginary Reader, that leads him or her clearly through the plot action and the protagonist's emotional development. The goal is as T. S. Eliot says: "where every word is at home, / Taking its place to support the others / . . . / The complete consort dancing together." I love line-editing, as it's the most intense kind of literary conversation possible: all the close-reading I did as an English major combined with the opportunity to say to the author "Did you mean this?" and "I felt that -- was that what you wanted?", the conversation between two people working for the same ends; and knowing, or at least hoping always, that I'm helping the author to make the book better, to make an even more amazing book happen.

The Imaginary Reader: This is the reader I am editing the book for. Sometimes this Imaginary Reader is me -- I didn't understand the link between this emotion or that one, or it makes no sense to me for this character to suddenly do this or say that, or some pronoun or thought isn't clear to me. But just as often the Imaginary Reader is someone else, someone who isn't as invested in the book as I am, who hasn't read the text before (as I have, so I know what's coming and why everything matters) and who won't read it three or four times over again (though I hope said reader will reread the book, the world is crowded with books crying out to us, and we should all be thankful for even one reading). And of course, as I'm a children's and YA book editor, I must remember the qualities of those Imaginary children and teenage readers versus my qualities as an adult reader -- if they have less attention span than I do or more, whether they'd want all that detail that bores me, if this vocabulary is too hard or too easy for the likely age of said reader, if they'll get the reference to "The Tempest" there (and if not, should we explain it somehow?), whether it matters whether they get the reference to "The Tempest" or whether they can just pass right over it, grow into it later.

It's important that the editor's view of the Imaginary Reader line up with the author's, at least in the large outlines; because otherwise the editor will suggest changes that the author finds utterly useless or stupid. I know I sometimes suggest changes designed to make the book accessible to as wide a swath of certain Imaginary Readers as possible, because goodness knows I'd like the book to sell to as many Imaginary Readers as possible! But a book that will appeal to every Imaginary Reader would probably turn out bland as romaine lettuce, and the certainness of those "certain Imaginary Readers" is important -- that the author and I should choose which Imaginary Readers are our primary audience (their reading level, their interests, their cultural references) and shape the book for them. But still, I can't help thinking it's good to have breadcrumbs for readers outside that swath. . . . This is something I think about, and wrestle with, every line-edit, leaving the ultimate decisions up to the authors each time.

(There is an entire interesting speech to be written about how each of us in the publishing process envision the Imaginary Reader, and how that affects the decisions we make at each stage:  writers, in what stories they choose to tell; editors, in what books they want to acquire; Acquisition committees and bookstore buyers, in what kind of books they think they can sell, and therefore the kind of books they take under their roofs; editors (again) in how they edit and write flap copy; book designers and marketers, in how they design jackets and form marketing plans to appeal to said Readers. And the supreme satisfaction when a book does find its perfect Imaginary Reader, or a perfect reader, period:  someone who gets it, who gives it a good review or recommends it to a friend or writes a letter saying "I read this and loved it:  Thank you." No sweeter moment for anyone in the process than that.)

The Process. I wrote "first-draft line-edit" above because I line-edit a book in three stages:  First I read it to get the whole in my head, how the plot progresses and the characters develop. I make notes on any big things that might need to change, especially any emotional angles that might need to be played out more in the plot. Then I do my first-draft word-by-word workthrough, careful and slow, writing comments (explanations of suggestions, compliments, questions) on some things as I go and in other cases just suggesting changes. I can be so laissez-faire comments-wise because I then do a second-draft readthrough to be sure all the suggestions make sense and feel good to me as a reader, and to address Inconsistent Editor issues below; and I fill in the rest of the comments then. Generally then I do one more sweep to pick up any outstanding questions or fill in notes on larger issues.

The Inconsistent Editor. This word-by-word examination takes a lot of time, as you might imagine, and thus most of my line-edits happen over a long period and in a wide variety of circumstances -- sometimes late at night, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes on planes, or in the office, or (my favorite place) at home on one of my couches, with sparkling water or tea at my side. (Right now it's a glass of sparkling water.) What this ends up meaning is that I edit with varying attention spans and in a wide variety of moods:  Sometimes I am tired or stressed or grouchy and thus not reading with as much generosity or closeness as I should, and sometimes I'm as alert as a squirrel to every nut of nuance, with as much affection for the text and author as said squirrel might have for its winter stockpile. (This is a simile I would certainly question in a manuscript, but I'm leaving it in this blog post because it amuses me.) Thus I need those second- and third-draft runthroughs to be sure my authors are getting me at my best and squirreliest, with all evidence of less bright-eyed Cheryls safely smoothed away. 

Paper vs. Word. I used to line-edit exclusively on paper, and I loved that, as it made that conversation with the author tangible in the blackness of the print beneath my fingers, the scratch of my pencil on the page. But for the last year -- indeed, almost the last two -- all my line-edits have been in Track Changes in Microsoft Word. There are significant advantages to editing in Track Changes that are nearly identical to the advantages of reading e-books:  easier and neater to mark up (or to erase marks); less paper, which is better for the earth; less weight in my bag (except when I carry my laptop about); swift digital delivery; a search function, which is well-nigh invaluable in tracking repetitions or navigating a manuscript quickly. And the disadvantages are the same too: the loss of the pleasures of tangibility and weight and messiness; the fact that I can't edit during the takeoff and landing of a plane! My affection for editing print is now directed at going over the first-pass proofread text of the book a few stages further on, as that still happens on paper and always will (surely, pray God, I hope).

Handing the Baby Over. I'm always nervous giving a manuscript back to its author, because the author holds the final judgment on my work, because the author is the only one who will ever see my work; and I want very badly to have served him or her well, and more than that, to have served the book well . . . to have edited in line with their vision, or helped them to expand or redirect the vision, if needs be, and to be sure every word contributes to that. I usually feel good about my work when I send the line-edit off -- the satisfaction of a job done to the best of my ability, and completed at last; but I also hold my breath a little until the author writes and says "All's well, edits moving forward, I'll send it back to you at X date."

And then satisfaction when the revision comes back in of seeing the author's replies to my side of the conversation:  the clarity, the tightness, the one word there that makes all the difference. The pleasure of making a beautiful thing, and the pleasure of the work itself:  When I doubt myself or this business, I remember those; and as the song says, they can't take that away from me.

Two Pithy Poems about Existence

(One I have liked since high school, and have been feeling more as I've gotten older; the other discovered in reading a sample translation once, much enjoyed, and never forgotten.)

A Man Said to the Universe
by Stephen Crane

A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."


Untitled
by Polleke
(a character in Guus Kuijer's Polleke series)

When I see a cow,
Then I know that God exists.
But if I say so to the cow,
She starts to moo.

In Which I Make Up for My Lameness with Cute Boys Singing

As far too many of my posts begin:  Apologies for the bloggy silence of late. I spent the last week traveling to Washington, D.C., for the Rally to Restore Sanity; Cape Girardeau, MO, to see my dear friend Katy (who some of you might recognize as the proper heroine of The Bad Mood Banana Cookies, now a terrific professor of history at Southeast Missouri State); home near Kansas City; Manhattan, Kansas, where I talked a lot and stayed at the marvelous Morning Star Bed and Breakfast (highly recommended); and then home again, where my family had a wonderful early Thanksgiving, and my Uncle John won the Frog for the first time ever. The trip marked the culmination of two intense writing projects I'd been laboring over for a while, including the second-pass proofs of Second Sight, and as a result, I've been taking off non-work writing for a bit. But I thought a lot during all the traveling, and I hope to have time and space to put some of those thoughts down soon.

Kidlit Drink Night on Thursday night the 11th, here in Brooklyn. Betsy has the details.

In the meantime, oh my glory! Handsome boys in uniform! Singing acapella! With a star who once played Harry Potter (unauthorized)! The look on Kurt's face! I LOVE this and can't wait to see tonight's episode: