Resurrection is Hard Work

I've just finished going over the final layout pages for the re-issue of my very first book for young readers, Ghost Cadet, about the Battle of New Market during the War Between the States. It's going to be beautiful! But I hadn't expected it to be so much work to bring this book back to life for the teachers who had been clamoring for its return (it's used in curriculum in many schools, and their class sets were falling apart).

I had assumed that it was a simple matter of re-printing the text of the original version, once I got the rights back from the original publisher who let it go out of print. After all, that's what friends have done when they self-pubbed a new edition of one of their books that has gone out of print, or went through one of the Author's Guild or SCBWI recommended publishers to re-issue one of their OP books, usually through Print on Demand. But I figured it would be a better plan to go to a legitimate publisher who actually knew something about children's books and marketing and such important details.

Paula Morrow at Boxing Day Books agreed to bring back Ghost Cadet, on a standard royalty arrangement, with a regular print run instead of POD, which made the cover price much more reasonable for children (and schools, especially given budget cuts). But instead of just re-printing the original text, she reminded me that her job was editing, and she challenged me to actually do some revision, including bringing the text up to date.

At first I wasn't sure about changing a book that had been so successful as it was. I was also concerned that making any changes would make it harder for teachers who probably still used their old hardcover books to read to their students. Plus, it meant more work. But a lot of the points Paula raised made sense. This wasn't a book set in the 1990's; it was always intended to be set in the reader's "now." So I needed to add a generation between the War Between the States (Civil War, to my non-Southern readers) and the present. And, obviously, the twentieth-century had to become the twenty-first century.

Once I started making changes like that, I loosened up and found myself following her guidance and updating and revising many details in the book. There was a poetic sentence I'd always liked, but I'd also always wondered if it really fit the tone of the rest of the book. Without my asking, Paula pointed out that it didn't, so that sentence got cut. There was also a question that students always asked about how the ghost had done something important in the very first chapter - Paula asked the same question, so I made changes throughout the text to answer it this time around.

The new Ghost Cadet isn't a different book, but it's more contemporary book for twenty-first century readers, and it's worth all the time I've taken away from my Work-In-Progress to revise, check the copyedited ms. ellipsis by comma by exclamation point (who knew I'd used so many exclamation points when I was a younger, less experienced writer?!?), work through the galleys, and write lots of e-mails. Ghost Cadet is on its way to the printer now, and Boxing Day Books will have it available by May, in good time for New Market Day. The time spent on this book, and the work invested in it, is a reminder that the writing and revision and publishing process is always hard work - but always worth it.

What's in a Name?

Whenever I visit a school, I'm always asked how to pronounce my name for the introduction. And more than half the time, the teacher's or librarian's or principal's face falls, as she or he realizes that everyone in the school has been pronouncing my name wrong throughout their entire preparation for my visit. (Not that I would have corrected them unless they asked - if teachers and librarians have gotten the student body enthusiastic enough about my visit to read my books, they can pretty much pronounce my name any way they want and I'll just smile.)

But wouldn't it be helpful for a teacher or librarian to know how to pronounce my name when first introducing my books to students?

The nice people at TeachingBooks.net had me make an audio recording of the way I pronounce my name, and also invited me to tell you a little bit about my name. Click here to listen to it: Elaine Marie Alphin.

Now, as long as you think dolphin when you think about me, you'll never have trouble pronouncing my name again! I really must write a book about dolphins someday, I suppose....

Don't Hold Anything Back

Some writers hold back a little in a manuscript. They don't want to risk leaving their well of ideas empty for their next project. To me, that's like the Indianapolis Colts holding back when they were undefeated at 14 and 0. Their front office didn't want to risk injury because they wanted to guarantee that the Colts could go into the playoffs healthy. So what happens? Dwight Freeney gets injured anyway in the playoffs; in practice, Reggie Wayne worsens the right knee injury that has plagued him throughout the season; and, despite all of Peyton Manning's determination and preparation, the Colts lose dramatically to the Saints in the Super Bowl. Why? The New Orleans Saints never held back. They left everything on the field in every game all season and post season, while they were undefeated, and even when they started losing. They still played with heart. The Colts management played it safe and the players lost heart. Winning - and writing - is all about heart.

Never hold back when you're writing. Put everything you've got into every manuscript you write. More ideas will come for your next project, ideas better suited for that project, but if you shortchange what you're writing now, chances are you (and your current manuscript) will lose heart, and won't be able to go the distance. You have to be willing to risk it all, and put it all on the page. The Indianapolis front office wasn't willing to take risks - New Orleans risked it all on tricky plays like an unexpected onside kick, and today the people of New Orleans are starting their Mardi Gras celebration early with their Saints and the Lombardi trophy in hand. The Colts are going home, having fallen short. Don't let your manuscript fall short because you held something back.

Food for Thought

There's definitely a relationship between what I read and what I feel like eating. A good 25 years ago, I vividly remember sitting in a pizza parlor in upstate New York, reading Jane's House. Every time I've packed that book for a move, unpacked it at my new home, or just seen it on my library bookshelves, I find myself thinking about pepperoni pizza, and longing for a New York slice.

I was reminded of that today. After seeing the film Julie & Julia with friends last year, of course I read Julie Powell's book (I really must read My Life in France, also). I then promptly requested both the DVD of the movie, and Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas. My husband, possibly the best Santa Claus ever, made sure they were both under the tree for me. He even watched the DVD, and loved it. He also wondered when I would start serving him meals from the cookbook. He's out of town on business right now, but I decided to start right in, and experimented with a terrific omelette a la Julia for brunch this morning. I'd never have strayed from my ordinary omelets if not for these books.

Inspiration for food often comes from my reading. When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, I eagerly attended a midnight release party and enthusiastically swapped theories for hours with friends (and total strangers) in the bookstore. I got my copy at 12:02 and raced home to start reading. At some point it occurred to me that it had been a long time since I'd last eaten. As Harry, Ron and Hermione were on the run at the time, camping out and eating lean, that's probably not too surprising. But they were reduced to eating toadstools - not too appetizing. I read on. Then Hermione found eggs and bread at a lonely farm and made scrambled eggs on toast. Yes! I set the book aside long enough to scramble some eggs and toast some bread, and got back to reading. There are probably still a few crumbs in the middle of Chapter 15, The Goblin's Revenge.

Memorable books provide food for thought in more ways than one.

Endings and Beginnings

Many people I know like beginnings - they like spring, and dawn. Personally, I have always preferred twilight, and autumn. I like endings. To me, endings offer the promise of that new beginning before it has begun. Once trees are budding in the spring, and once dawn's first light touches the sky, the new season or the new dawn is underway. It feels to me as if its course has already been set. But while the old season or old day - or old year - is in the process of ending, the future is filled with limitless possibility. Its course has not yet been set.

New Year's Eve feels the same way to me - full of promise. And this is not only the end of a year, it is also the end of a decade. It's been kind of a tough decade for me, dealing with physical injuries and difficult moves. But with 2009 drawing to a close, the new decade appears full of limitless possibility. Nothing is yet set in stone. Books I have yet to read could introduce me to wonderful new authors and beautiful writing. Books I have yet to write could be the most intense and insightful and moving works that I have ever written.

It's all still possible.

I wish everybody one last night of possibility. May you treasure the potential that 2010 offers, before time shows you its reality. This is a night for dreaming.

Reading and Writing Friendships

It's been snowing. The river outside my office window has frozen in choppy waves and the ice is frosted in white. It's the perfect time to curl up with a book, whether that's a manuscript in progress or someone else's book to read. Most people are under the impression that writers and readers are solitary souls with no interest in companionship. Nothing could be further from the truth! Writers and readers are surrounded by friends, whether those friends are fellow writers in a community spreading from our local critique group to online contacts on the other side of the world, or friends we discover in the books we read or the books we write, who walk off their pages and make their homes in our hearts.

Often as I read a book while I was an aspiring author, I'd wish I were brave enough to write to the person who'd written that book, and tell him or her how much I loved those characters and their story. "And one day," I dreamed of adding, "I'll be published just like you." But I never wrote. What if they saw me as a stalking fan? Even worse, what if they never wrote back?

One of those books was About David, by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Lynn, the narrator walked off the pages of that book to become a friend. I even liked difficult, damaged, and dangerous David. And I very much admired the author. I lived in upstate New York at the time, and worked part-time at my local library. When I discovered that Ms. Pfeffer was speaking to a group of librarians in our region, I convinced my librarian boss to let me go along. This much-admired author was a great speaker, as friendly and intriguing and human as her books. But I still couldn't manage to introduce myself as an aspiring writer and a fan, although I went home and over the years have read my way steadily through her books.

A few years ago, I saw she had a new book out, Life As We Knew It. Miranda, experiencing the changes in her family's life after a meteor strikes the moon and knocks it off course, stepped off the pages of her diary and made herself my friend. She was no noble heroine who saved the day by setting the moon back in its place - she was a prickly teenager who was angry that the world was ending around her when she just wanted life to get back to normal so she could have a boyfriend and a proper date - and fudge. Yet she grew through the book into a teenager who still wished for those things, but accepted that she wouldn't get them, and treasured what she had in terms of family all the more.

After I finished reading this book, I felt the familiar desire to write to this author. But by then I was a published writer myself. I looked online, and to my delight, I found that Susan Beth Pfeffer had a blog! And an e-mail address! And so - I took the plunge. I wrote to her. And I made a friend, not only of the characters in a book this time, but also of their author.

I've just finished reading the ARC of the third, and probably last, book in her moon series, This World We Live In. (There was a second book in the middle, the dead & the gone, which I've also read and enjoyed, but if I write much more this blog post will grow to epic length...) I'm marveling at how my friendships have deepened, both with Sue and with Miranda, who is still prickly and fights with her mother, but has also grown into a strong, unflinching young woman who makes hard choices out of love - more like her mother than she yet realizes - and is able to act on those hard choices with tenderness. I don't want to write a formal review of this bleak, yet beautiful book - I just want to treasure the way my relationships with character and author have moved forward.

Between my friendship with Miranda and my friendship with Sue Pfeffer, I'm not alone at all as I look out at the snowy expanse.

Giving Thanks

It's been a challenging year with family health issues and worries, seeing a much-admired editor leave publishing, and spending way too much time away from home. But I still have much to be thankful for today.

I'm thankful for my new editor, who has proven wonderful to work with: swift to respond, thoughtful in his comments, enthusiastic about our future work together, and who introduced me to Web 2.0 life.

I'm thankful that An Unspeakable Crime, the book I completed with that new editor, is ready to be released in 2010, and has already been chosen as a Junior Library Guild Spring selection.

I'm thankful that I was able to take some retreat time, all on my own, to concentrate on my new novel and make some serious progress in writing the first draft.

I'm thankful for all my readers, especially the ones who take the time to write to me and tell me how my books have moved them.

I'm thankful that I have been welcomed into so many schools this spring and autumn, and been able to talk to thousands of students about my love of writing - and I'm thankful for being able to believe that I may have inspired some of them to follow their dreams, and perhaps even become fellow writers.

I'm thankful for my friends in Bozeman, who haven't forgotten me despite my months away from home, and are planning our writers group's annual Christmas party for a time when I'll be able to attend. And I'm thankful for my friends in Chamberlain who have invited me and my husband to Thanksgiving dinner so we won't be alone on the holiday.

Most of all, today as every day, I'm thankful for my husband, who has encouraged and supported my writing from the day we met, and who continues to earn his place in my dedications.

Perhaps this year has had more to be thankful for than it has had challenges, after all.

School Visit Energy

I'm halfway through the autumn (or winter, since it's been snowing around here) school visit season. Halfway through school lunches (which are considerably better than what I remember from my own school days - or perhaps I've just been lucky). Halfway through the muscle-building exercise of lugging presentation materials into schools - or, if I'm very lucky, halfway through the character-building exercise of persuading kindly souls at the schools to lug the presentation materials in for me.

But, mostly, I'm halfway through the incredibly energizing experience of facing my readers and sharing my ideas about writing with them. To stand in front of groups as large as a couple hundred or as small as a dozen, and see eyes light up, and pick a question from a sea of wildly waving hands, is to feel my heart lift. To share the tension as the group, no matter what its size, falls completely silent and motionless when I share with them certain books (A Bear for Miguel for the youngest students, The Ghost Cadet with upper elementary and middle school, and The Perfect Shot with teenagers), is to know for certain that the book is touching every one of them in the gym or library or auditorium or cafeteria.

After the stillness, after the questions, after the younger students crowd around me at the end, after the teenagers hang around, too cool to talk while their peers are leaving the presentation, but eager to tell me about their own writing and their dreams, I pack up and get back on the road for the next school, delighted that I drove so far to have that hour with those students, and eager to get back to my own writing so I can complete the next book for them.

On the Road Again

The school visit season is entering into full swing, and I'm trying to keep momentum going on my new novel, coordinating with teachers and librarians about what I'll be doing at their schools, figuring out how to do laundry efficiently on the road, and, most of all, trying to work out where I'm going.

I always ask for directions to the school, and I've gotten quite a collection of interesting responses over the years. One teacher told me to turn at the corner where the gas station used to be. When I asked her what I'd see now, since the gas station was no longer there, she gave me a street name to turn on. Unfortunately, that was the nickname used by people whose great-greats had been born in that town, not the name that was currently on the street sign.

Even more interesting was the time that I received directions a week before a school visit, only to find they led me straight into a road closure, and a detour that vaguely directed me into a woods, and never led me out of them. I had to backtrack until I found a different road that led me to an interstate that brought me into town the long way. When I asked the teacher how long the detour had been there, she said the road had been closed since the previous year, but she'd forgotten about it when she told me to come that way.

Just this week I received directions to drive on one road for 36 miles, then turn north and cross the railroad tracks. No mention of what road number or street name I'm supposed to turn on. I certainly hope that both my odometer and her measurement of 36 miles are accurate, and I actually find the right road and, ultimately, the school.

Apparently, everyone feels that where they live is so familiar to them, that anyone coming to visit must pick up on their local street nicknames or demolished landmarks by osmosis. Perhaps I don't think that way because, as a writer, I need to describe settings that readers haven't seen before in my books. Perhaps I run into problems simply because I'm geographically challenged. While I would never mistake North for South on a road (thanks to the compass in my car), I feel confident that I could certainly cross railway tracks at the wrong place without a street name (preferably the current and correct street name).

As I pack up my presentation materials and load the car to take my act on the road for the next two weeks, I'm certainly hoping that I'm able to find the nine schools, one library, and one Book Festival site where I'm supposed to speak, plus all the hotels along the way. I'm quite sure the experience will be an adventure.

Inviting Readers to Read

Publishers are being urged to reach out to children of color, to children whose family differs from the conventional, to children who feel overlooked or alienated by books that are currently available. Zetta Elliott offers some excellent reasons for this need in her blog. As a writer with a Latino heritage, the question of whether more books about children in specific groups will inspire more children to read makes me examine my own reasons for writing about the characters I choose - or the characters who choose me.

I believe that young readers (including teenagers) read to get a handle on who they are. They read to see what the characters in books do in challenging circumstances, and then ask themselves whether they would do the same thing, or something different. Kids and teens who already love to read willingly read about characters like themselves and unlike themselves, making friends with the characters and then approving or disapproving of their decisions at the climax. With each critical evaluation, they are shaping the person they are growing into.

But I suspect that kids who are not willing readers may find it harder to submerge themselves in the world of a book, any book, until they find a doorway inviting them in. They want to find a friend in the book's cast of characters, and they want to measure their own feelings and judgment against that character's, but difficulties in the act of reading, and a story situation that they can't imagine themselves into, can throw up barriers - not for every reader, but for enough to make this a legitimate concern. If the book makes its world welcoming to less willing readers, perhaps they will put in the extra effort to read it, and once they discover the thrill of vicariously sharing the main character's journey, they'll be more willing to try the next book and the next - until they're stretching to read books about characters very different from themselves, and feeling comfortable and confident about evaluating those characters' decisions in terms of what they as readers would do.

To my mind, books that reflect the worlds of unwilling readers aren't the end of the publisher's and librarian's journey to create more readers - they're the beginning of the reader's journey to discover the power of a book to show them themselves. And, as a writer, my own journey takes me through the lives of many characters of varying genders, racial and religious backgrounds, sexual orientations, and family situations. My writer's journey has led me to the novel I'm working on right now, Permanent Record, in which one of my main characters is Latino, as are many of the secondary characters. We'll see how Ramón makes his way through the story arc, and what readers think of him by the end.