This is NOT What You Think It Is…but it’s still cool.

NO! I didn't get a publishing deal - this is a self-published version.

I know, I know.  It looks like I miraculously got a publishing deal in the last two weeks, doesn’t it?  Well, I didn’t (not that I’m not working to achieve that goal, but nothing happens by miracle in the publishing business, that’s for sure!).  This is a proof copy that I got for free through CreateSpace as a prize for getting as far as I did in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest.  Free=Good.  It’s a little trippy to see it with the glossy cover and dedication and formatted on the nice book-paper.  I’ve been looking at it digitally and on 8 1/2 X 11 inch paper in notebooks for so long that it was a big step to see it in “real” book form – even if it’s just a proof copy.  The CreateSpace folks do a great job, and if I ever decide to spend the money, take the risk, and self-publish in paper form – I’ll definitely give them a try.  As it stands, if I ever DO self-publish, I’ll definitely be going the e-book route first – more cost effective for the writer, and it’s the up and coming medium.

In other writing news…I received a very nice rejection (#6 : ) from one of my top ten most wanted agencies. (I won’t mention which one – doesn’t seem sporting).  I also submitted my severely cut down query (only 250 words! Yikes!) to Kate Schafer Testerman of the KT Literary Agency, and she gave me some great suggestions for making it more appealing to agents.  I intend to take her sage advice, revamp my query letter, and start with KT Literary.  I love Kate’s blog, and have a great deal of faith in someone with such a sharp sense of humor who also sold Powerless by Matthew Cody (which is both on the Rebecca Caudill Book Award list for 2011-12 AND has some similarities to my own Mojo Fingers).  The query tutoring session was sponsored by Pitch University’s June PitchFest (awesome!).

I just finished a really basic synopsis for Mojo Fingers to send out to my Manuscript Exchange Group in preparation for SCBWI’s Writer’s Retreat weekend (July 8-10).  I’m hoping to get some good experience with a critique group that will hopefully carry into future endeavors.  So far, everyone has been really nice and open-minded.  You can tell we’re all chomping a the bit to get to a weekend full of writing.  The chance to get away and sit by a lake and just write all weekend is really tempting!   I can’t wait!  I’m hoping to get my query letter whipped into shape, and do a much cleaner, more concise job of writing my Mojo Fingers Synopsis in the next two weeks before I leave. That will hopefully leave me the weekend in Springfield wide open to working on new ideas.

I’ve got 4 projects I could be working on that weekend.  I haven’t decided if I want to just work on a whim on whichever piece I feel like working on or if I should really force my nose to the grindstone on just one project.

1.  The favorite piece I’m working on is currently called “The Rude Awakening of Marlon Grunt” about a kid who tries to end his own life, but instead wakes up being able to see and hear his guardian angel.  It’s kind of an updated, teenage version of one of my very favorite movies, “It’s a Wonderful Life” – only set in a Trailer Park in Central Illinois with an emo teenage boy.
2. The second piece I’m working on is tentatively titled “Changing the Jericho Road” – a sci-fi allegory piece about a nation torn by civil war, and some of the kids who are running from the violence.
3. The third piece is the follow-up to Mojo Fingers, and it follows Deandra Timmons’s story.  It’s tentatively titled one of two things, either “Silver-Tongued Diva” or “Rain Maker”.  I can’t decide.  This time, we listen to Deandra navigate the political game at Tillman Middle School as she tries to get herself elected Class President along with the rest of the Bella Vista Social Club.  She has to overcome a Princess Posse candidate, a teacher who is working against her candidacy, and her own need to control what’s going on around her in order to emerge victorious.
4. The fourth piece is my already drafted “Escape from Grace” – a dark, post-apocalyptic adventure novel I wrote last November.  Right now, it’s told in the voice of a 37 year old woman, and wouldn’t work as a YA novel, but I might have a plan to change the voice of the narrator to an 18-year old girl.  I’d need to clean up the story a bit as well.  I know that it needs a lot of work.  I probably should have workshopped this piece rather than Mojo Fingers, but I wasn’t ready to let anyone see this yet without the changes.

So, it’s going to be a full two weeks and then a great writing-packed weekend!  In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying some of my own reading in pursuit of my 50 books for the summer (although I’m falling a little behind this week).  I’ll update you on that later this week.

 

The Summer of 50 Books

This summer as a staff of educators, we issued a challenge to our students – asking them to read at least 6 books over the summer to combat the evil “Summer Slide” of knowledge from their brains to…wherever knowledge goes when it dribbles out of your brain. We said we, as a staff, would read 500 books, and asked them to beat that number. For my part, I promised to read at least 50 books this summer.  Furthermore, I challenged my matriculating sixth-graders (now Pre-Seventh-Graders) that if they beat my number (meaning 51 or more) this summer, that I would spring for Frappucinos in the fall.  The gauntlet was thrown, now let’s see who picks it up!

Therefore, The Summer of Fifty Books has begun. (I even waited until after the last bell on the last day of school to even begin reading my 50 books, so there’d be no question that I’m only using my summertime for this)!  Speaking of which, I need to start pounding these out!  After today, I’m pretty sure I’ll have #8 (and possibly #9 if I stay up late), done – but I know that I want to stay on track – plus it’s a good excuse to come in from puttering in the yard and not turning on the television.

In last week’s blog entry, I listed the titles of my first three books finished, but here are my updates (and a couple of short reviews) of some of the next four books I finished:

4) 6/15/11  Powerless by Matthew Cody (Middle Grade/Young Adult)

Imagine moving to a new town, only to discover that all of your new friends have superpowers, and well…you don’t.  12 year old Daniel Corrigan has his own mad sleuthing skills that have nothing to do with superpowers, but might save his new friends from losing theirs, since a shadowy villain seems to be stealing their powers the night they turn 13.  Growing older was never so scary.

This was a good little romp, a quick read.  It starts out pretty slowly, but I like the characters and the concept quite a bit.  The kids are unique and interesting, and the story line is just winding enough to keep readers interested without losing them or speaking down to them.  While the characters might exhibit comic book powers, their motivations and choices are rooted in real emotions and relationships, which was refreshing.  My only beef with the book is that the dialogue for the kids is kind of wooden and sounds like an adult wrote it.  A good summer read, especially if you like comic book superheroes.  This is on the Rebecca Caudill nomination list for this coming year.

5) 6/16/11  13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher (Young Adult)

Hannah Baker is dead.  When her classmate and crush, Clay Jenson, receives a box of audiotapes on his doorstep a couple of weeks after her tragic suicide, he discovers the reasons why she made that fatal choice.  But Clay isn’t alone – he is just one of the people mentioned on the tapes, and he is charged with listening to Hannah’s voice explaining how it all happened and why, then passing the tapes onto the next person on the list. This book is written as what Hannah had to say on those tapes and what Clay is thinking as he listens to them, remembers what happened from his own perspective.

This book is a huge hit, and for good reason – it’s really original, it’s written extremely well – dramatic and poignant without getting mired in its own darkness –  and it forces the reader to consider all their own misconceptions about how peoples’ reputations are made and spread.  This was an example of how people themselves become the greatest mysteries to unfold in a well-written story – why did Hannah do it?  How does Clay fit in?  What was the straw that broke the camel’s back?  Did anyone possibly see it coming?  Who else is on the list and why?  Best of all, it makes readers truly understand two things: 1) How even the most throw-away comment or slight can effect ripples in someone else’s world – your words and actions have consequences.  AND 2) To judge someone else based on “what you’ve heard” is one of the greatest disservices you can do to yourself and that person.  I loved this book, but it’s not for the faint of heart.  Some caveats: It contains a scene involving a date-rape, and there is, of course, the very real suicide of the main character that is everpresent, yet still manages to jump out and smack you on the nose every once in a while – making your eyes sting with tears when you remember that this vital, interesting, complex young woman is already gone.  I read this book in one sitting – not because it was terribly short (it’s not – it’s just the right size) – but because it was so compelling – you HAVE to find out the answers.

6) 6/17/11  Camo Girl by Kekla Magoon (Middle Grade/Young Adult)

Set in the modern-day suburbs of Las Vegas, Ella (Camo Girl) Cartwright finds herself caught between two worlds. She is drawn to the popular new boy, Bailey—the only other black student in the school—but also loyal to her BFF Zachary, a geeky boy whose social status, like hers, is bottom-rung, and with whom she has shared an incomparable friendship.  ~From the Amazon.com Product Description

All three share the loss of their fathers for some reason, and Ella struggles with the outcast status she’s earned at school because of her friendship with Z and the skin condition, vitiligo, which gives her a skin tone that is patchy and bi-colored – rather like camouflage – hence the nickname the bullies have given her.   She is forced to confront her issues about her appearance, her choices about friendships, and most seriously – the growing problem behaviors that Z is exhibiting. 

I’ll admit, I hadn’t had this book on my list for summer, but it was recommended to me by a trusted friend, and I’m glad she did.  She suggested that it was comparable to one of my all-time favorite books about many of the same themes, Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick.  In comparison, I think Camo Girl is more current in its language and the diversity of its characters.  The writing is just spare enough that it doesn’t force a picture of the characters down your throat, and allows reader to both use their imaginations and inhabit the characters because they are so relatable.  The one thing it lacked that I felt Freak the Mighty did well was inject humor into the situation – allowing the reader the release of laughter, drawing them further in, getting them to love the character just that little bit more. The story was well-paced and one that follows a recognizable thread for many readers – the changing of friendships, the loss of a loved-one, the feelings of being out of control or somehow fooling ourselves that we can control an out-of-control situation. Kekla Magoon has a different book on the Caudill list for this year (The Rock and the River) which I’ll be reading later on.  Her writing has heart, from what I’ve seen – a huge selling-point for me.

7) 6/18/11  Lords of Desire by Sally Mackenzie, et. al. (Romance)

Next Blog…Writing Updates

 

Reactions about 90-Second Newbery’s and New Notes from the Moleskine

I received a lovely response email from the extremely busy author, James Kennedy, who has been absolutely inundated with entries into the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival.  He was so kind as to respond a bit to each of the six videos.  I thought it only right to pass on his reactions to my students who performed all of the real work involved in making the productions happen.  (Since this is the only avenue I really have to reach them over the summer – here you go, Ladies and Gentlemen).

From Author, James Kennedy (6/11/11):

Dear Jessica,

Oh hooray! These look great! Thanks so much for sending them along. I just got off vacation and I’m crushed under an avalanche of unanswered email (including a couple dozen other 90 seconds Newbery videos! I’m astonished at the volume of the response!), but I will get these up on my website very soon. And as soon as I do that, I will notify you!

There’s a lot to like in these videos!

I particularly liked the kid in Alex’s The Dark is Rising who played the Dark Rider and Roger Staunton. His line “So, how’s your flute going?” cracked me up. Also, seeing the cast perform “I Want To Know What Love Is” both delighted me . . . and scarred me for life.

Elizabeth’s My Side of the Mountain was also hilarious, especially the Twilight frame to it (“I love you, Edward!”). And I also liked “Once, when I was a boy, I ran away and I got on a ship for Singapore and . . . ” “OK, Pa,” and the kid gets up and leaves. Does justice to the plot of the book too! The hopeless last line (“We’re going to force you to stop living in your tree and build a house where you’re going to live and there’s nothing you can do about it until you’re 18!” “Aw, man!”) is bleakly amusing as well. Great job!

Laurel’s The Dark is Rising was entertaining too. Why is it that the Dark Rider is always the most watchable character? I liked [him] “and frankly, I am creepy” and the way [he] twiddled [his] fingers. “Will! You have beaten the dark, and it can no longer overpower the light!” “Yay!” I agree: yay!

Luc’s Hatchet was fun too. What a great idea to do it in the style of a John Hughes-style 1980s montage music video! It was lucky for Brian that the berry bush was conveniently labeled “berry bush.” I also have great affection for the human tornado who came rushing into the scene.

Somewhere in the Darkness had a really good performance of the main character, and it was creatively shot and staged!

And Shiloh with sock puppets! A masterstroke! I never expected how satisfying it would be to watch sock-puppets kung-fu fighting. Also, when a sock puppet says, “do I look like an idiot?” maybe it’s best not to answer. I like the way the sock puppets get drunk, and the “Get a life, people!” at the end was priceless.

Great work all around! Thanks so much for sending these my way, and I’m looking forward to putting them up soon!

James

Isn’t he a gem?

I just got back from Bloomington-Normal, where I spent the evening enjoying Heartland Theatre’s 10-Minute play festival performances.  They were really, really stellar this year, and I was glad to have even gotten to the top sixteen final round in such creative and talented company.  I got cut, but I can see why each and every one of these wonderful shows was chosen to be performed.  It was an exciting, funny, and thought-provoking collection of work.

It seems every time I drive back and forth to Bloomington to visit, I have creative breakthroughs in my own writing during the drive.  (This strange habit of inspiration on the move was the driving force {pun intended} behind getting the travelling Moleskine notebook since I was using scraps of paper that began to make my car and totebags look like the inside of an office wastecan.)

This trip was no different.  I have already come up with some interesting pieces of ideas for next year’s 10-minute play theme “Playing Games”, and I had a breakthrough about the plot structure for a romance novel I’ve been stewing about for a while.  Time to get those ideas down.  But first, the most recent entries from said Moleskine (including the beginning of my finished books for summer – my goal is 50):

Notes from the Moleskine:

Summer Books Finished –

1. 6/8 Storm Born by Richelle Mead
2. 6/9 Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton
3. 6/11 The Naked King by Sally Mackenzie

• Adri – purple and red yarn (thick & fluffy)
• “bett-uh” vs. “bay-tuh” fish pronunciation.  Spreading the Gospel of Beta
• Cooper’s Hawk, Burr Ridge
• Scarletti’s in Downer’s Grove – Main St. and the train tracks
• Every Day’s a Sundae
• Guardian Angel – Carrie Winthrop – pretty, seemingly well-adjusted girl – mainstream
• Box of Rain – Grateful Dead…ephemeral
• Seventh Grade – The Year I Was An Alien

10-Minutes – 2012 – Idea Pieces

1. Older Hockey players
2. Gamer dating
3. Grown-up Slumber Party (Truth or Dare, I’ve Never, and other games)
4. Scavenger Hunt
5. Monday-Morning Quarterbacking
6. Sisters in a nursing home – lifelong rivals
7. A play on “This is Your Life” as a game show “These Are Your Exes”/”Ex-Games”

• Gibbs (Sonny) Nielsen:  Ex-musician, now an organic farmer
• MC – Earth elemental – trying to get him to play for a fundraiser
• She phones, he says no – she pursues to farm – he agrees
• He pursues her with his fiddle

 

90-Second Newbery Videos and An Object Lesson In Artists’ Rights

Today was the last day of the school year, and I finally had the time to sit down and figure out the mechanics of uploading all the videos my students made for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, sponsored by author James Kennedy (what do you mean, you haven’t read his “Order of the Odd-Fish” yet? Go! Right now! Go read it! This blog will still be here when you get back!) and both the New York and Chicago Public Libraries (woot! big ups for libraries!).  I promised my students that the videos would be available here, so here are 5 out of the 6 final videos.

What happened to the sixth, you say?  Well, this is a great opportunity for us to all learn a little bit about artists’ rights and the controversy surrounding the use of copyrighted material in video-sharing websites like youtube.  See, the sixth video, (a sock-puppet melodrama spoofing the Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Newbery winner, Shiloh), contained a song owned by UMG – Universal Music Group – a large media/music conglomerate that owns the copyrights to the songs of many of your favorite artists – like, say…”Axel F” by Crazy Frog, for instance.  In order to use that song in any capacity other than to listen to it, you have to obtain permission from their corporate offices.

We did not do that.  Therefore, UMG exercised their legal right to ask youtube to take down that video.  They did.  So, tomorrow, I will be returning to school to find a different way to end that particular video.  Hopefully, the rest of the videos will not face the same issues.

The controversy, of course, is whether or not it really is an infringement on the artist’s rights (using it in another creative endeavor without the artists permission), or if it is merely a large corporation demanding a payoff wherever they can get it.  Whatever your views, I will be fixing the video this week so that it doesn’t continue to infringe on UMG’s rights.

Here is the first of the remaining videos (I can only post one video per day apparently, so I’ll post the rest in subsequent blogs – one per day – but I’ll provide the links to the rest below):

The Dark Is Rising (The Alex Version)

Links to the other five videos:

 

My Side of the Mountain

The Dark is Rising (The Laurel Version)

Hatchet

Somewhere in the Darkness

Shiloh

 

New Toys, New Tries, and A New Attitude

I’m writing from my brand new laptop at the Starbucks.  I went with a MacBook this time since it’s somewhat less prone to viruses, trojans, and the like and it also can run Scrivener – writing software that I’ve been dying to try.  I have downloaded it and hope to take it on its debut drive tonight. (I’ll have to make this quick if I intend to actually do that!)  So far, I really am enjoying the Mac.  It’s just enough like a PC that I’m not suffering any major PC withdrawal symptoms.

I read a great article in Writer’s Digest this month concerning how to rate where you are in your “Quest to Be Published” and what to do if you’re stuck in a rut.  From how they’re speaking, they’re talking about 3 years as a “short” wait for the process to get jumpstarted or accomplished.  This just confirms what I’m fine with – it’s going to take time.  It is, however, harder and harder to explain to those wonderful colleagues, students, friends, and family that while I am enormously grateful for their good wishes and support that it’s probably not going to happen tomorrow.  Or this summer.  Or even next year.  In fact, Mojo Fingers might never get published, but it might be the jumping-off piece to getting another work published.  Most importantly, all respected sources of professional advice concerning this process urge me not to drag my feet waiting for something to happen on the same piece of work.  Keep at it, but keep going.  Work on other writing.  Read, write, and get better at it.  Great advice.

In that vein, I decided to enter a short fiction competition.  The First Annual Midwest Short Fiction competition through Northwest Missouri State University and The Laurel Review.  I didn’t have time to start something new and revise it to the point it needed to be at before the deadline, so I started looking in my “unsubmitted” archives and pulled up “Junkers”.  This story was my first attempt at National Novel Writing Month.  I actually started it in 2002, and never got beyond 30 pages.  I just wasn’t sure where I wanted the characters to go.  And it’s ALL about the characters, this one.  I dusted it off, discovered a through-line in just the pieces I’d already written – but for a much shorter story than I had intended at its inception.  So, I cut, tweaked, re-wrote, refashioned, and pinched it on the bum a bit, and wouldn’t you know it?  I finally had a place for this piece that I loved so much and felt so guilty for orphaning.  Suddenly, it is reborn as a short story.  Even if it doesn’t make it past the first round of readers, I will still be proud that it got to make the journey.

In theatre news, the husband and I recently went to the Chicago Center for Performing Arts and saw Bailiwick Theatre’s version of the musical, “Passing Strange”.  It featured my FAVORITE Chicago band, JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound – with Jayson (JC) Brooks playing the central character of the Narrator.  It was absolutely stupendous.  A really strong cast, great pacing, and the brain-bending material of the show made for a wonderfully energetic Saturday matinee show.  (I KNOW – A MATINEE and we were DANCING in the aisles at the end!)  Without a doubt, all of the actors held their own, but the band stole the show.  JC managed to take the material he was given and make it personal to himself, to us – the audience, and make it feel as authentic as if it were just another concert that had taken a really bizarre left turn in reality.  I loved it.  They always sound even better live than they do in recordings.

Here’s my favorite JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound song, a remake of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco’s “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”.  Some of my students really dig this song as well:

Some new Notes From the Moleskine:

• The Burning of the Bread – The day before Passover begins, getting rid of all the leavened products in the house – but also getting rid of personality traits that are too “leavened”, like arrogance, selfishness, or self-centeredness.
• White Mystery (another Chicago Band):

“Here’s a message
For all you girls.
Raise your fist up!
Punch a hole in the world!”

• Changing the Jericho Road – the idea that instead of trying to find enough Good Samaritans to take care of all the travellers injured by bandits on the Jericho Road and picking up the wretched AFTER they are beaten – instead, changing the road itself.
• What if someone were a funeral director, but only presided over pet funerals?
• Rafael Sadiq “Stone Rollin'”
• Boys and Boots – where do I get that song?
• What if you woke up, expecting to be in heaven, and found yourself in someone else’s living room?
• Junkers through-line:  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure – people too.
• Gleaners of the suburban harvest: broken appliances, twisted bicycle frames, bent hubcaps, bags of aluminum cans and siding, construction leftovers.
• *\sar-doo-dle-dom\ noun, mechanically contrived plot structure and stereotyped or unrealistic characterization in drama

 

Getting Back on the Merry-Go-Round

Drama Club is done for the year.  Our cast party was yesterday, and I couldn’t have had a better time with a more creative group of people!  We busted out some new improv games, ate, cleaned, laughed, got nostalgic, and generally had a good time.  I was very impressed with how some of our new talent is really beginning to shine.  I can’t wait to see what next year’s group will be like.

Now that things are beginning to slow down a little (not so’s you’d really notice, but such is life until June 8th), I have started getting back down to the business of pursuing my next writing project(s) and finding an agent/publisher who will take me on.  I have been in contact with the most gracious puslishing gurus, Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry (The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published; http://www.thebookdoctors.com/ ) who are taking a look at the Mojo Fingers manuscript and my list of possible agents and giving me their feedback.

Several of my students from last year who haven’t had a chance to read my novel have asked for copies or are now in the process of reading it.  I’m looking forward to their feedback.

I just signed up for a SCBWI event (Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illutstrators) in July that will be a great little working mini-vacation.  It’s a writing retreat in Springfield, IL by the lake.  Three days of as much writing as I can fit in, critique groups, and meals with other writers.  I’m looking forward to it. 

I’m currently grading scripts my honors students have written for their 90-Second Newbery films.  I like them so much, that I think I’m going to cajole my niece and nephews (who I will be hanging out with a LOT) into choosing a book to read together this summer and writing a script for us to film and submit to James Kennedy’s awesom-azing contest for them.  If you haven’t heard about this, go see James Kennedy’s really spectacular blog: http://jameskennedy.com/category/blog/ .  (Check out his “feud” with the wonderful Neal Gaiman – you will laugh until you weep.)  There are some really spectacular examples of 90-Second Newbery entries, not to mention all the other cool stuff he has on there for his book, The Order of the Odd-Fish. 

James Kennedy's hilarious book for lovers of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Lemony Snicket and the like.

 

I’m also looking at self-publishing.  There used to be such a stigma attached to publishing your own work.  However, the more I use my Nook e-reader, the more I realize that a lot of the genre fiction I’m reading is self-published.  More and more young people are getting e-readers.  I’m thinking it might be a good idea to get Mojo Fingers out there on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.  That might become a project this summer as well as querying agents/publishers for Mojo Fingers.

I’m still waffling on what my next project should be.  I’m working on three right now.  Before the summer really gets going, I’m  thinking I need to choose one to really focus on.  BTW, in case you hadn’t heard – Nanowrimo is offering a summer camp for those of us who would like to write a novel in a month other than November (I’m thinking HECK YEAH!).  So, for more info, check out the Nanowrimo website: http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/4032185

 

The Godfather Should’ve Eaten Ninjabread Cookies, Not Cannoli

I’ve “gone to the mattresses” this week.  In work parlance, that means “I’ve got my plate so full I’m just putting my nose to the grindstone until it’s all done.

So, the writing has taken a back seat to the teaching and the directing for this week. 

Next week, though…watch out!

I’ve been having a marvelous time watching our Drama Club students work their behinds off this week to put on our spring play, “Arnold R. Schmidlapp’s Psychedelic Odyssey”. 

This week has brought about some delightful new terms, such as “Troy McClure-ing” and “Ninjabread Cookies”.  I’ve been laughing as I do the tech week freak.

While, it’s still giving me gray hair to go through tech week, I am at least prepared – just having had it dyed on Sunday (Take THAT stress-aging!!!).  Tomorrow – it’s all about the kids. 

My honest hope is that they just get up there and have a great time on stage. 

If that doesn’t work, I’ll leave the gun and take the cannoli. 

Mmmmm….cannoli.

 

The Results, The Aftermath, and The Getting Back On of Horses

I sort of suspected that I wouldn’t move on to the next round in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, but I had hoped that it might cross just the right desk in this competition to make to the final 50.  I found out Tuesday morning that it had not moved on in the competition, and kept expecting to feel more upset.  (I was actually much more bummed that I was cut from the final rounds of two of my 10-minute play competitions earlier this month). I waited for the crash that comes after the rejection of your work, and it just has not materialized yet.  Perhaps this is for the following reasons:

1. I feel pretty doggone good about beating out 4,750 other YA entries to get where I did. 
2. I read many of the excerpts from the other contestants and really felt like I was honored to be among their company
3. I’m kind of relieved to not have to wait any longer to find out what’s going to happen – I can move on with getting Mojo Fingers published via a more traditional route (query letters, The Book Doctors, and perfecting my manuscript).
4. I’m fully “gone to the mattresses” (a term from the movie “The Godfather” that in modern parlance means blocking out the rest of the world to go to war with all the work you have to do) this week and next week due to the spring play
5. I received a really positive (if starkly written) review by Publishers Weekly which I, hopefully, can parlay into a selling point in my queries to agents, and a nice plug on my website (Note to Self:  Put it on website). It sort of made me feel like I was in 51st place instead of 250th. 

Here’s the Review, hot off the CreateSpace ABNA presses:

ABNA Publisher Weekly Reviewer

Joey Tate is a fat girl who has lost her only friend, Kristen, to the clique of popular girls led by the detestable Madison. Joey struggles in school, partly, perhaps, because her father is leaving. Isolated and picked on, she befriends the janitor, Toefingers Bartkowiak, whose toes have replaced his amputated fingers. Joey, who Toefingers bestows with the nickname MoJo to boost her confidence, is entered into a lunch group for struggling kids unofficially called the Bellavista Club. There she makes new friends and works together with them to create a comic book, since she has an aptitude for drawing. The group is shocked to see that Joey’s doodles appear to be coming true. The kids are well characterized and the book does a nice job of developing them and their attitudes. At its heart, this is a feel-good story about finding friends and feeling comfortable in one’s own skin, and it tells that story well.

Nice, right?

In fact, (to whinge like an ungrateful wretch for just a moment), it sort of reeks of “nice”.  Like I’d somehow written a lost storyline about the Waltons or the Cosbys, or that the reviewer was being kind.  (Wow. I should probably not dissect this. Leave well enough alone, Wisniewski!)  Still, I sort of wish they’d been meaner – told me what I could have fixed that might take it to the next level, you know?  Blatant moment of ingratitude over.

So, today was our districts writers conference, and I was truly honored to spend the day with such motivated and creative students.  I’m hoping that my presentation, if not the scintillating 30 minute infotainment experience it might have been, was at least useful and gave them a sense that “If I can do it, so can you.”  I have work to do on that presentation (a lot, to be honest) before I’d ever even consider taking it on the road to someplace where I don’t know the kids or the kids are not all motivated writers like today’s impressive crowd.

I got the opportunity to have lunch with (and give driving directions to) James Kennedy, author of Order of the Odd-Fish, performer, stalker of Neil Gaiman (check out his fake feud with Gaiman on his website – Hilarious!)creator of the Dome of Doom and the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, and all-around gargantuanly creative thinker.  http://jameskennedy.com/  This is the second event in a year that I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with him, and he was so pleasant and helpful and honest about his own publishing experiences, that I was relieved to hear about his own rocky road to success – it makes me feel like I’m on the right track.  I was also excited to hear about his next book, which he is still editing.  If it is half as intelligent, original, and laugh-out-loud funny as Odd-Fish, it will be a joy to spread the good word for him. 

What’s next?

Back on the horse, friends and neighbors. I’ll be contacting The Book Doctors again to see if they’ve had a chance to take a look at the list of possible agents I sent and the manuscript I sent so I can start querying again soon. 

I’ll be looking for more ways to punch up that letter, finish writing a tight synopsis, and continue making revisions on the manuscript. 

I’ll be starting my new novel(s). and I’m tempted to get out Escape From Grace and start hacking away at that (that’s got quite a bit of heavy revision and complete revamping of areas of it coming).  I was giving one the young writers today a rundown of the storyline, and couldn’t help but fall a little bit back in love with the idea again.  I know the execution (as it stands) is flawed, but I might have left it to stew long enough (since November, right?) that I might be ready to see it with some fresh eyes.  Don’t remember which book I’m talking about?  Here’s my old blog about it, excerpts and all! http://mrswisniewskinanowrimo.blogspot.com/

It’s time to start taking some of my own advice – Finish Things!

 

Hot L Baltimore…A Lesson in Lanford Wilson

Meeeeeehhhmmmmmmorrrrrreeeeezzz…like the corners of my mind.  Misty water-colored…(you get the idea)

Every once in a while, you experience deja-vu while sitting in the audience watching a show, but usually it’s because you’ve done the actual show or been in the situation yourself before. I’m no longer an actor (at least, I don’t do any acting nowadays on a stage), but “The Hot L Baltimore” was a trip down memory lane in SO many ways.

This last Wednesday, the husband and I made our familiar trek to N. Halsted Ave. to see Lanford Wilson’s “Hot L Baltimore” on the Steppenwolf mainstage.  We were really anticipating this show since we’d gotten to meet some of the cast a few months ago, and they had fairly sparkled while just talking about the play, so we knew we were in for a treat.  Also, I’ve loved everything I’ve seen directed by the amazing Tina Landau since we first began to buy season tickets at Steppenwolf eight years ago.

Entering the theatre 15 minutes before the show, we realized that the performance had already begun – the lights just weren’t down yet.  Actors already populated the amazing set designed by James Schuette (imagine cutting a grand old hotel in half and being able to open the first two floors (rooms and lobby) like a dollhouse – that’s exactly what it felt like), going about their daily business as residents of the shoddy grand dame of downtown Baltimore, The Hotel Baltimore (hence the title – missing the “e”).  Set on Memorial Day in 1973 (a very good year, if I do say so myself), the TV and radio blare period broadcasts, the characters interact naturally, and by the time the lights actually go down on the audience the actors are merely continuing action already in motion.

The story is based around the lives of the motley band of folk living in the rundown old place.  This is definitely adult theatre – not for the faint of heart, since violence, sexual content, and nudity are all a part of the show.  The current batch of citizens include two elderly persons, a sister and her mentally challenged brother trying to get to Utah on no money, three wildly different prostitutes, a young night manager, a less young day manager and his sour-faced assistant, and one singing ghost.  Visitors to the hotel include the mother of a deceased/disappeared resident, the grandson of a different deceased/disappeared resident, and a customer of one of the ladies of the night.  The citizens of this downtrodden community have just found out that The Hotel Baltimore is to be torn down to make way for gentrification efforts. 

Playwright Lanford Wilson just recently passed on March 24th of this year.  And it is a great loss.  He was a great talent – utilizing pacing and dialogue in revolutionary ways, as well as providing a true-view slice of the seedier sides life most theatregoers will never experience for themselves. If you’ve ever seen one of Wilson’s most famous works, Balm in Gilead, you will immediately be able to draw parallels between the storylines and character arcs.  I studied this work while an acting student at Illinois State University, and spent hours trying to learn how do nothing on stage and portray it well and realistically- a requirement for actors performing Wilson’s work.

In true Wilson style, the main characters are strong and sympathetic – we are able to fall in love with all the hotel’s denizens (warts and all), and the villain in the piece is truly dastardly – the march of time.  Also true to Wilson’s form, there is no happy ending here, although we find the same joy of the moment in gallows humor and everyday smiles that his characters do.  Like David Mamet, Lanford Wilson is a master of timing and dialogue – often two or more conversations are happening onstage simultaneously, and while it feels like “word salad” at first, after a while it’s easy to sit back and let it wash over you, absorbing the bits and pieces you need to understand.  There was a wonderful musical component to this performance, with a nattily dressed ghost of a former resident (Sean Allan Krill) wooing the current patrons with a haunting melody – as if the glory of the hotel’s past had taken ghostly form.  Best of all of Wilson’s devices, is his refusal to give us a hard and fast END to the story.  As in Balm in Gilead, he doesn’t let us have the conceit of believing that the characters are only here to tell us one story.  He forces us to understand that the characters have rich lives that are lived outside our view, even beyond the written page, the stage, and our time with them.

The actors in Hot L Baltimore are a wonderful ensemble, injecting life into Wilson’s work that, combined with the faded glory of Schuette’s sets and the artful hand of Tina Landau’s direction leave us wanting more.  Of special note were the standout performances by Molly Regan as mystical and sweet Millie, de’Adre Aziza as the flamboyant and bighearted April, the delightful Namir Smallwood who played the challenged young man Jamie with a nuanced hand, and the breathless, energetic, frenetic, and endlessly optimistic portrayal of The Girl by Allison Torem was amazing.  Ensemble members Jon Michael Hill, Alana Arenas, Kate Arrington, and Yasen Peyankov were also wonderful.

So, the Hot L Baltimore is packed with memories – both in the story and for myself.  I loved walking down this memory lane.

 

Poetry Month, Rehearsal Quotes, and More Notes from the Moleskine

Happy National Poetry Month! 

I’m having a grand time with my students this year, deconstructing and constructing poetry.  As it is officially National Poem In Your Pocket Day today (although my school is celebrating it on the 29th), I thought I’d post one of my all time top twenty favorite poems.  It’s an oldy, but a goodie.  Courtesy of our man, Dylan Thomas.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night  by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Quotes From Rehearsal:

“That’s the title of the world’s saddest country song:  My dawg don’t like me no more.”

“Stand up!  Sit down!  Stand Up!  Sit Down!  Stand Up Sit Down Fight Fight Fight!”

“It’s Spanish Soap Opera Time!!!!”

“That was awesome!  You get a cookie!”

Recent Notes from the Moleskine (in no particular order):

Overheard in my honors classroom after I asked them  to wwrite a few lines about their “First Love” (something they’re passionate about) modeled after the poem by Carl Lindner:

Kid 1:  I don’t know what my first love is!  I can’t think of anything!

Kid 2:  You should say “cheese”.  You really like cheese.

Kid 3:  Cheese is funny.

Kid present at the birth of a whole new world.

Kid caught up in a new American Civil War, Red vs. Blue, Texas secedes, Calif. secedes.  Mom & Dad separated.  Midwest in turmoil – people moving from state to state.  Think: Beginning (Pre-) Handmaid’s Tale.  West Virginia, 1974 – The Great Textbook Wars (people actually threw molotov cocktails at each other over textbooks!) – Scopes Monkey Trial.  The War officially began, of all places, in our schools.

135th to 171; tn lft on 171 (will twist & turn) turn onto 95th – rt

HEADLINES – RED & BLUE

More States Restrict Abortion

President Obama: We Lost Our Way

Possibly a two-sided story:  A boy, (Gibs?) 11 – from the North, son of a black market runner (Evan S.) Dad gets caught by enemy and he escapes from the capture, on his own.    A girl (Melody?) 16 – from the South, pregnant, afraid of being sent to Morality Camp (married off to babydaddy?), escapes and tries to hide out.  Both kids make their way West until they meet up at a camp of Street Kids living on LaClede’s Landing in St. Louis.  Some of the Border kids dream of making their way West to the wild freedom of Texas, where the laws allow them to live and defend whatever they can claim and keep.

Possible working title:  This Motley Band