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In Which I’m Perpetually 12 Going on 13

June 28th, 2010

I get excited when writers I know decide to try their hand at writing middle-grade fiction. I know a few who are just beginning their first middle-grade novels (tween? the label escapes me, so I tend to use it interchangeably depending on my mood), and I’m thrilled to have more writer friends to talk to about writing for this age group. For a while there it seemed like everyone was writing only YA. I’m glad that’s changing.

So, here I am deep into revising my own YA novel—Imaginary Girls will likely be for ages 14+, even if I decide to cut certain words, there is some serious content and darker themes in it. But that in no way means I’m done writing for tweens. I’d like to do both if the universe will let me.

Dani Noir was my first real attempt, but I feel like it’s just a taste of the stories I’d like to explore. It was only me dipping my toe in. I want to write so much more. Why do I keep coming back to that age? When I was 16 and 17, those were life-changing years, yes, but the hardest year for me, the year where I really began to turn into the girl and woman I am today, was the year I was 12 and then turned 13, the year I was in the seventh grade. That was a very painful time for me personally, family-wise, socially, and more. But it’s so vivid—and I keep wanting to write it.

The year I was 12 and would later turn 13, we’d moved from New Jersey to a house in what I was convinced was the absolute middle of nowhere in the Catskills. I lost a best friend, which felt devastating. We moved in the summer into a rented house that was owned by two former members of the Weathermen—which ignited my imagination and shaped my forming view of politics, once I discovered the archives in the basement and the radical literature left behind on the bookshelves. I didn’t understand who they were, or how that house was involved in what’s now in history books, until much later. And while all this was churning around in my mind, I was also reaching that awkward time as a girl when you’re growing up and everyone around you is there witnessing it happen.

That year, I was the new girl at school and ate lunch in the bathroom stall until I made friends, three of whom were named Heather, coincidentally, like the movie, and my sense of fashion included attaching safety pins in long rows up and down the legs of my clothes. I slept in a room off the kitchen that I was convinced was haunted, and I made friends for a brief time with a bad girl, smoked my first cigarette, which became my last cigarette after I confessed what I did to my mom, and cried over it out of terrible guilt. I had horrifying taste in music. I joined the pep squad and quit after our first practice in horror at having to “cheer” at teams involved with throwing balls. I wrote my first poems. I was painfully shy and unable to speak in class. I fought horribly with my stepfather and then made up with him happily and it was very confusing. I got a Ouija board. My mom got me Our Bodies, Ourselves. I studied ballet and wished to go on pointe. I made a friend, Erin, who was also a writer and who is still my friend today. I hated my name and longed to have a name like Jen. I babysat my little sister and pretended she was mine. I had a crushing crush on a skater boy whose name started with E. I was so angry about things going on in my life but was unable to articulate them. I thought I’d never grow up. I thought I’d never get away. So I wished to be a writer. I decided that’s what I’d become, one day. I’d write books and I’d live in the city and I’d have a cute boyfriend who actually liked me back and I wouldn’t do dishes for the rest of my life.

Not all of these things came true—I did dishes last night. But I am mostly who I wanted to be, aren’t I?

I’ve already started a new middle-grade/tween book, but I just this weekend got an idea for a whole other one. I guess I’ll be perpetually 12 going on 13 for a while still… but today, while I revise, I’m back to 16. Is there an age in the past that feels especially alive to you, or are you all grown up and like to stay that way?

If you’re interested in writing middle-grade fiction, do check out the new middle-grade blog From the Mixed-Up Files… of Middle-Grade Authors. Are you perpetually 12 going on 13, too?
Where Authors Live on Clouds and Sip Pomegranate Cocktails

May 14th, 2010

There was something I found comforting when I was feeling intimidated at Yaddo and, for that matter, the Writers Room where I go to write now that I’m home again: Every day, no matter who you are and how many brilliant books you’ve given the world, you and I, we both begin at the same place. We all—every single one of us, even those with Printzes and Pulitzers—have to start at a blank page.

Knowing that helped me confront my own blank pages. It’s not easy. It’s not easy for any of us. And why should it be? So I’m returning to that wisdom now when I’m sifting through all the pages I have and working to make them better.

It’s comforting for me to think how even the best writers don’t have their stories come out perfect at the get-go. Their words are revised. They, too, need to rethink. They need to readdress. They very well may need to take notes and notes and notes of ideas for ways to make their novel better, like I’m doing now. It is possible that they, too, wander the aisles of their local supermarket questioning their successes and their abilities and when they see a lumpy, scarred orange roll on the floor under the vegetable stand, they feel a deep connection to that orange because it may look dirty and messed-up on the outside, but maybe it tastes good on the inside. Maybe it’s better than you think. Maybe no one in the entire supermarket knows how good it could be (if it went home, and sat at its desk, and tried harder).

Um, yeah. And I don’t even like oranges.

Or maybe real authors don’t wander supermarket aisles questioning their worth. Maybe there’s a pillowy cloud in the sky where the successful, searingly brilliant writers go to celebrate their success and searing brilliance. They have pomegranate cocktails up there, don’t they? Maybe when they write up on their comfy clouds, plot flows out perfectly formed from their fountain pens. Their stories move at great speed and show no cracks. They learned how to write a good book a long time ago and now it’s way too easy so they play table tennis all day instead.

Maybe if we look up into the clouds, we can see their toes dangling as they lounge about, taking their writing naps.

I say, don’t look.

I say—to myself, not to you, unless you feel like listening—let’s not bother with looking at everyone else.

When I was a teenager, like 14 or 15, someone once found my diary where I had confessed to wanting to be a published author. This someone scrawled at the bottom of the page for me to discover later these words that have followed me around all my life:

“Why would anyone want to read what you write?”

Why indeed.

So I’m up on my low-flying cloud (fine—I’m sitting in a squeaky chair), sipping water because I don’t see any pomegranate cocktail, thinking of ways to make my novel better. Now, if only there were someplace to take a break and play some table tennis… I’m terrible at it, but guess what? I still try. And, sometimes, I surprise myself and I’m better than I think.
The Writing Part of Being a Writer

March 18th, 2010

Something happens when you publish a book: You need to promote it. I’m not going to go into what your publisher does and doesn’t do for you, what they used to do as opposed to what they do now. Other smart publishing bloggers talk all about that. Let’s just say it’s a given: You write a book and if it gets published, you need to promote it, no matter how shy you are, no matter how uncomfortable you are talking yourself up in front of people. There. Done. Deal with it. (And if you’re shy, check out Shrinking Violet Promotions.)

I’m in a bit of a reprieve until 2011, when this new novel I’m so freaking excited about is due to come out. I feel like I went through some great publicity hazing experiences, so I’ll be even better next time. I had my first group book signing at Books of Wonder. I had my first solo signing. I did my first radio interview. I did my first Barnes & Noble reading. I did blog interviews and answered letters from readers. I got my picture taken. I survived my first Kirkus review. I got my first royalty statement. I saw my Amazon ranking. I saw my book in stores and in my own branch of the public library. I laughed, I cried, and now I feel like I know what to expect next time.

My skin has gotten thicker from all of it, and I’m grateful. I learn by doing, and I grow from every experience I have, as a person, as an author, and most significantly: as a writer.

I’m in a pocket of quiet. And, right now, I need this little pocket. No book festivals. No events. No Google Alerts. No obligations.

I need to do that thing that started all of this, the reason I’m in this in the first place: write.

All so I can be better next time.

But it’s funny how the writing becomes somehow tainted from the experience of having to promote myself in the past. I’ve started a new novel—YAY!—and I am poised to work on a very exciting project while I’m away next month—YOW!—and in the past my way of starting something new was to write silently to myself in my cave for months on end and only poke my head out after I’ve rewritten myself in circles enough to see I’m ready to give it air. Now, staring at my first pages, I’m already thinking: Will he like it? Will she like it? Will they like it enough to want it? Is it good enough / distinct enough / interesting enough? Does it have a big enough hook? Does it fit a trend? If it does, do I want it to? Will it stand on its own? Hello, will it SELL? And if it does, will it keep this name or get named something else? What will the publisher call it? What’s its label? What’s its genre? Where’s its spot on the shelf? What will reviewers say about this? What will readers say about that? Will anyone want to read it at all?

Questions, questions, questions.

In the face of trying to address all those questions, you can find yourself not writing anything.

So I’m wringing out my mind. Letting those concerns wash out of me, swirl down the drain, rinse after rinse after rinse, till I’m clean.

Out go the what-ifs and will-she-likes.

Out go the what-will-he-says.

Out go the panic of future submissions.

Out go the labels.

The names.

The critiques.

The rankings.

The stars and no stars.

The yeses and the nos.

Out they go; I’ll gather them back up later. But for now—for the rest of this month, and for next month—I’m just going to be a writer. The kind who puts words down on the page and doesn’t let them see daylight till later.

I’m trying to, anyway.

It feels like I’m back to that point before I was published.

The beginning.

Where it starts and where it ends: with the writing.

Every single one of us—no matter where we are in our careers or our dark caves—can be found here at one point or another.

Writing page 16 or page 216 or page 1.

So, hey there.

Hi.

I’ll be hanging here for a while.

Category: favorites

In Which I’m Perpetually 12 Going on 13

Where Authors Live on Clouds and Sip Pomegranate Cocktails

The Writing Part of Being a Writer