YAY for Jeff Kinney!

This may sound a little lame but I take pride in sharing a publisher with Jeff Kinney. Just yesterday I was at a school visit and when I asked how many of the sixth graders had read "The Wimpy Kid" Books, most hands went up. Then I proceeded to tell them how Jeff Kinney and I had the same person design our books. They were impressed.

So let's all give a big high-five to the fabulous Jeff Kinney for making the 2009 Time 100 List.

xoxo
Lisa GW

going off on a tangent

Are you like me? You settle down to get some serious writing done and the next thing you know you're surfing the web in search of some tidbit of information vaguely related to your writing. For example, you want your character to live in a certain part of town, but you need to find out the average income of the residents there, and you have to find out NOW! Or you want your character to like a certain indie band, and you need the name of one of their CDs RIGHT NOW!!! I mean, how can you continue writing without that information???

So you pop online and hit up Google, and forty minutes later you're still there — catching up on emails, reading blogs, twittering — and meanwhile the cursor is still flashing on your WIP.

Not good.

Enter the Tangents Log!

For the past six weeks or so, I've been experimenting with this technique I first read about on one of my favorite sites — a source of major procrastination! — Lifehacker.

It's so easy, I don't know why I haven't done it before!

What you do is open a notebook or pad and keep a handwritten log of all the things you want to find out or read or do while you're writing. This way, you're recording these ideas or questions in a reliable place for later follow-up but (and this is the important part) you're STILL WRITING! You're NOT PROCRASTINATING. You're STAYING FOCUSED on what you're doing!

Then, later, when you're done writing, you can review the Tangents Log and decide if some of your tangents are worth following up on. (You'll find that a lot of them are just a big waste of time!) But for the tangents that are actually necessary for your story, now is the time to find the answer to such questions as: Does Converse make a sneaker in fuschia with purple polka dots ? Was cookie-dough ice cream even around in the 1980s? You know, important stuff!

So, if you're like me and sometimes way too scattered to concentrate on your writing, give the Tangents Log a try!

:-)

~Coe~

Do Your Research

My new WIP takes place on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where I spent time as a kid. It's a beautiful, rural, somewhat insulated community, and I really want to infuse my book with its atmosphere. I hadn't visited in several years, so last week my husband and I took a two-day trip there and toured a few of the smaller towns.

Just being on location gave me a huge rush of inspiration! I jotted down tons of notes for places my characters should go, little bits of local trivia and details I can add, etc. I want to weave in some of the history of the town without taking the reader out of the story, and since it's told in first person present that will be difficult. But I plan to try it.

I'm still foggy on what the next few major scenes of my book will be, but I feel so in tune with the setting and flavor of the book. I just hope it translates. (And that one day I actually finish this draft!)

*caroline hickey

CASTRATION is (Possibly Unfairly) Castrated by the NY Post

During my typical daily internetting yesterday, I kept seeing links to a YA novel that had been skewered by The New York Post. That book is CASTRATION CELEBRATION, which was penned by NYC school teacher Jake Wizner. Reporter Andrea Peyser got her hands on an ARC (the book is due out from Random House Children's Books May 26th) and tore it to shreds.

The cover of CASTRATION CELEBRATION looks like a goofy knock-off of Disney's High School Musical. And this novel definitely sounds like a campy, silly, comedy-horror hybrid. Reading summaries online, I was reminded a little of Melvin Burgess' controversial DOING IT...at least in theme. Boys are wild sexual creatures that can't be tamed, and the girls are frustrated and want to castrate them.

Now, I haven't read this book, so I can't comment on the content. And perhaps it isn't any good. I'd be perfectly fine if this piece were a straight up critical review. But Peyser's problems with the novel boil down to grammatical errors (umm...it's an ARC), the sexual content, and Jake Wizner himself...essentially likening him to a pervert trolling the playgrounds. Even worse, Peyser bolsters her criticisms with a few crazy pro-censorship comments.

Like this...

The novel is about what you think, but worse. This twisted, comic romp does little more than cheerfully promote underage sex, drug-taking, binge-drinking and, most painfully of all, male dismemberment by a high-school-age female, the heroine.

And this...

Believe me, I'm not so naive as to think kids don't engage in some of the acts listed here: Sex. Gay sex. Drunken sex. Stoned sex. Angry sex. Unprotected sex. Sex, real or imagined, with farm animals. Baaa!

But, really, Random Partner House, are you in the business of publishing how-to books influencing youngsters?

And this...

What bothers me is the way aberrant behavior -- drug abuse, blotto drinking, compulsive sex -- is normalized. These activities are treated as routine, things not to be condemned, discouraged, or even reluctantly tolerated, but celebrated.

Maybe it's because I am currently working on a book with sexual themes, but I really feel for Witzer here. I 1000000% don't believe books should be dismissed simply because they feature different kinds of risky teen behavior without moral comment and didactic problem novel style conclusions. Does this reporter really think that a comedic book about teen castration will promote that kind of reaction to horny boys in real life?!?! COME ON! At points, Peyser sounds like the kinds of fanatics you read about on Lauren Myracle's blog, or Maureen Johnson's blog...people who want to censor books with sexual themes for the "protection" of the youth of America.

So I say to Peyser....if CASTRATION CELEBRATION sucks, then it sucks. But don't dismiss the book simply because the content maybe be a little too risque for your personal tastes.

-=siobhan=-

My search for a remote has ended

I'm not sure why searching for a remote to work with Powerpoint on my Mac was so hard but it was. The Apple Store people said my version of Powerpoint was too old to work with their remote and they were disgruntled that I wasn't using Keynote. Then I searched for remotes that worked on Macs and found nothing. Until Twitter and Kate Messner came to my rescue. Kate guided me to the Kensington Wireless Presenter. I've tried it in my apartment and it works but the real test will be tomorrow at a school visit I'm doing. I'll keep you posted. But for those of you looking for a remote compatible with Macs and Powerpoint, this may be the answer.

Thank you, Kate!!

xoxo
Lisa GW

Kindle: fun and convenient way to carry more books, or scourge on early-childhood literacy?

My dear husband got me an iPod nano for my birthday last week--before, I'd been making do with a 3-year-old shuffle on which the "shuffle" key no longer worked, so if I wanted to listen to music I had to listen to the songs in my playlist in alphabetical order. I have to admit, I dearly love this new toy: I love having all my music and podcasts (and even a couple of TV shows) on one device, rather than having to decide what I want to listen to prior to each outing, as I did on my little shuffle. And the screen, while small, is much higher quality than those on the backs of airplane seats, so I'm looking forward to getting to choose my own entertainment on my next transatlantic flight.

Playing with my new toy has started me thinking about the Kindle, because I also keep doing this thing where I bring one book on vacation and then finish it before vacation is half over, and it would be nice to be able to bring several books at once without putting any more strain on my shoulder. Yes, I am primarily a book person--I like the feeling of holding books and turning pages--but I got used to watching TV shows on a screen the size of my thumb, so I imagine I could get used to reading books on a screen the size of a book page.

Then I saw this article from the New York Times, and I think I will stay safely away from the Kindle for a while longer. It's not just wanting people to notice me reading--though I have close friends whom I met by starting up conversations over what we were reading on the subway. It's my future kids I'm worried about.

One of the great phrases I learned last year was "text-rich environment," and how important that was in helping kids learn to read. Articles on raising reading kids stress this, as well: by this point it's commonly accepted that if you want your kids to read, you need to have books in the house. Based on my own upbringing and observations, I think it's important to have books for all ages in the house: partly so that kids have something to grow into without parents having to monitor every step of their reading development, but also so that kids don't see reading as "childish", something grown-ups don't do.

I have resigned myself to the idea that book publishing might get taken over by electronic readers. For myself, I don't even care that much: the world didn't end when books replaced scrolls, after all. But I do worry about kids spending so much time looking at screens, and I worry about houses that have been scrubbed clean of the clutter of books. Has anyone done any research into how this might affect teaching kids to read, or encouraging them to read books for fun?

And, most importantly, does this "it worked so well in my day" nostalgia mean that I'm seriously getting old?

--Kathryne

Creative Writing Lesson Plan Post IV: Peer Critique

(For more information, see posts I, II, and III.)

Lesson Four: "Nice" is a four-letter word.

Actually, nice is one of the words that are banned from peer critique in my classroom. So are good, bad, worked, doesn't work, liked, didn't like, boring, interesting, and stupid, plus whatever words the kids come up with when we talk about why judging words are not helpful (for more on my thoughts about this, click here).

I'm a big believer in giving kids--above the age of eleven, anyway--a chance to read and comment on each others' work. Evaluating other peoples' work gives them a better insight into their own. It helps them understand that my grades on their papers, poems, and stories aren't based on whether or not I "liked" what they wrote: that, as I said over and over again last year, "I don't give you grades, you earn them." And it all ties in to their reading, helping students get past summary and "I liked it when..." in their book reports.

Peer critique also makes kids very, very nervous. They're worried other kids will make fun of what they wrote, or that their writing will be judged based on their popularity rather than their work. This means the teacher has to keep in mind two very important principles of getting kids ready for peer critique:

1. Most of your students will take this project very, very seriously.
2. To help them do that, structure, structure, structure.

Rather than posting a specific lesson plan for critique--since the critique will vary with each assignment--I'll go through the steps I used to prepare kids for peer critiques, and help them feel as confident as possible in what is, after all, a very tricky activity. For the first time I used critique with a class, I would devote at least three lessons to getting them ready; after that, kids will feel more secure and able to jump right in.

1. Get students' buy-in.
Start with the assignment. Ask the whole class: what are the requirements of the assignment? What questions would you ask as you read, to make sure the requirements are met? Or to evaluate whether the work could be improved? (Note: come to class with questions prepared. Some of the questions will be pretty basic--"Is the paper at least five paragraphs of four sentences each?"--while others will require more analysis: "Did the story meet the criteria of a fairy tale? Why or why not?" or "Does the descriptive writing 'paint a picture' in your imagination?") Discuss with the class: why are words such as "liked" or "interesting" or "good" less-than-helpful? What could you say instead that would help the writer more?

2. Put the agreed-upon questions into a hand-out for the kids to use as they critique.
Leave plenty of white space for kids to fill in. For the first couple of evaluations, I would also put a box of "words to avoid" at the top of the sheet. To every critique worksheet, I added the question "What is one way this story (poem, essay, etc.) could be improved?"

3. Give students a chance to practice when the stakes are low.
Do the assignment, and distribute your story or poem or essay to the students along with the evaluation worksheet. (Make sure your name is on it. Holy cow, do kids love having a chance to grade the teacher.) Give them a few minutes to critique the piece on their own, then go over the activity as a class.

4. Assign groups.
It's generally best not to let groups self-select for this activity. The critique writers receive will help them more if it comes from groups put together by the teacher; otherwise you run the danger of "oh, those girls just hate me" responses.

5. For the actual critique, you have a choice: let them critique each others' work within the group, or pass out random papers to the groups.
I've had success with both methods. Usually letting the group critique its own members' work is more successful after the class has had some experience with this.

6. Cannot stress this enough: Collect, read, and grade the critiques before you return them to the students for whom they were written.
You know how I said most kids would take this project very seriously? There are always a few who don't, and even the well-meaning kids might accidentally say something hurtful or, at best, un-helpful. If they know they're getting a grade on the critique as well as the assignment being critiqued, the groups will keep a tighter lid on their comments. In case they don't, grading the critique gives you a chance to catch any unnecessary cruelty before it gets back to its target.

Your heart will be in your throat the whole week, the first time you do this. But overall, the results should make you and your class feel pretty good.

Next week: grading creative writing.

--Kathryne

Animal Books

I spent the last two weeks scared that my beloved kitty cat had a tumor (his vet was fairly certain he did) but just today found out that the problem is simply that he has food allergies. I am so happy and relived, and as part of my now fabulous day I wanted to take a little time to appreciate books that celebrate animals. So here are some of my very favorite animal books:

A Cricket in Time Square- I haven’t read this one in ages but loved it so much as a kid. I have it on my shelf and in a year or two look forward to reading it to my kids.

Socks- Most of you know I adore Beverly Cleary and one reason why is that she totally gets animals. My favorite pet name ever is Sir Puss, Jane’s cat in FIFTEEN, and this one is a classic as well.

Gully’s Travels- Our teacher at the New School, Tor Seidler, writes awesome animal books and this is his latest which I just adored. He too really gets it.

The Floating Circus- This has a lot of themes but I especially loved the storyline with the elephant.

Little House on the Prairie- A lot of these books celebrate animals, like Farmer Boy and Almanzo’s love of horses. But my favorite is the one where Jack the dog gets lost crossing a river and they think he’s dead but then he comes and finds them weeks later and everyone’s all overjoyed to have him back.

What are some of your animal favorites?

* daphne grab *

The Elusive Book Tour

I found this great article by Ann Patchett in The Atlantic (great magazine, BTW) all about book tours. I think all or most up and coming authors have visions/fantasies of The Book Tour. You, dressed all cute and professional, flying around the country. Being picked up in limos. Schmoozing it up at the greatest indie bookstores. XOXOing all your young fans. Late night hot fudge sundaes or French fries at the Ritz. Selling bajillions of copies of your latest book. Never mind how exhausting it all is, it's still glamourous-- right? Right?

We find out pretty quick that unless your name is Jo Rowling or Stephenie Meyer, we ain't getting the limo or the Ritz. Maybe still a hot fudge sundae though. Ann breaks it down for us in her essay. Here is a choice bit:

"...My publicist told me that the success of book tour wasn’t measured in how many books you sold that night. What mattered was being friendly, so that the girl at the cash register, and maybe even the store manager, would like you, and in liking you would read your book once you had gone, and in reading your book would see how good it was and then work to hand-sell it to people for months or even years to come. And I believed this because if I didn’t, I had no idea what the hell I was doing out there. After saying all my warm goodbyes, I would leave the store in the dark, drive the two blocks back to the McDonald’s to change out of my dress, and put in a couple of hours on the road to Indianapolis, where I was scheduled to appear the next night at seven. I was exhausted and embarrassed, and yet I told myself the experience had been worthwhile because I was friendly and would be remembered for that."

Have any of our intrepid readers been on a fantastic/fantastically awful book tour?

xoxo
Jenny

Calling Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler...

Anyone read this article in the New York Times about a small wooden crucifix bought by the Italians for $4.2 million because it is thought to have been carved by Michelangelo? Now there's a big debate about whether it is, or isn't.

Where are Claudia and Jamie Kincaid when you need them???

*caroline hickey

Purchasing Facebook Ads - Are They Worth It?

Arthur Slade wrote a really informative piece on his LiveJournal about his experience with self-purchased Facebook sidebar ads. It's a valuable peek-behind-the-curtain for authors who might be interested in this kind of self-promotion.

I admit, I've thought about this as a possibility for my two books. The thing that always stopped me from actually going forward with it? I could count on one-hand how many times in my entire life that I've clicked on a sidebar ad. But maybe kids do? I don't know.

Anyone else thought about internet advertising? What do you make of Arthur's experience?

-=siobhan=-

My Pick!

The School Library Journal's Battle of the Books is still underway and it's turning out to be a lot of fun. I was a judge for the second round, and today I got to announce my pick.

It was a hard battle between two excellent books:


CHAINS by Laurie Halse Anderson

and


TENDER MORSELS by Margo Lanagan


This was a tough competition, and picking a winner wasn't easy. I really, really loved both of these books.

(Wanna know which book I picked? Go to the SLJ site to find out!)
:-)
So, what do you think? Did I make the right call?

~Coe~

Earth Day Party on Saturday 4/18

Are you and the tween in your life wondering how you should celebrate Earth Day? You're probably planning to go out and pick up some trash, recycle as much as you can or maybe even plant a tree. BUT you can also go to an Earth Day Party a few days in advance. And guess what? I'll be there!

Where: Annie's Blue Ribbon General Store aka my favorite store in Brooklyn
When: 4/18 (tomorrow!) from 1 to 3:30

You'll have the opportunity to browse in this awesome store, chat with me and have some pink lemonade and homemade cookies. I also have three more Laura Mercier lip glosses to give away and there will be a raffle for them!

xoxo
Lisa GW

P.S. You'll also be able to buy copies of MY LIFE IN PINK & GREEN and I'll sign them!

quote of the day

(taken from yesterday's Shelf Awareness)

Brooklyn Public Library: 'My Field of Dreams'"The Brooklyn Public Library's main branch at Grand Army Plaza was my field of dreams. I met Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren there, Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell, and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. That library introduced me to Chaim Potok's book The Chosen, as well as to Richard Wright's Native Son. In a tough neighborhood the library can be a refuge, a safe place. But it is also a place to dream of fitting in and understanding others who don't fit in. And for me it was also a place to dream of being a writer."--Juan Williams, news analyst for NPR, political analyst for Fox News and author of six books, speaking to the Washington Post's Short Stack book blog.

Siobhan @ The Learned Owl

I am soooo very honored that my local independent bookseller, the lovely Learned Owl Book Shop in Hudson, OH will be hosting an event for me next week! I'll be signing both my books...A LITTLE FRIENDLY ADVICE (set in Ohio) and my new book SAME DIFFERENCE.

Seriously, the Learned Owl is a gorgeous bookstore on a tree-lined street full of cool boutiques and restaurants. Aside from being super charming, it's also totally sassy. Check out this bumper sticker if you don't believe me!


Anyhow, my signing will actually be held in a little cafe called CALI JUICE on Friday April 24th @ 8:00PM. The hope is that if the event is held in a non-traditional space, more teens are likely to attend.

I'm keeping my fingers triple-crossed (ouch) that will help. Seeing as I only moved to Ohio a few weeks ago, I have about 5 friends total. And 2 are going to be out of town. So I am a little anxious that I won't have a good crowd. *sigh* I want The Learned Owl to love me! Thankfully, I'll be lucky enough to have one very awesome teen book blogger, Chelsea (aka: thepageflipper), in the crowd! Yay Chelsea! I'm going to stare at you the entire time! Haha.

-=siobhan=-

Creative Writing Lesson Plan Post III: Teamwork

(Post I of the Creative Writing Lesson Plan Series is here; Post II is here.)

Lesson Three: It's fun to play together!

Kids like small-group work. Teachers like small-group work. It's a win-win! I don't have any deep philosophical or pedagogical statement to make on the value of putting kids together in threes and fours to accomplish a task, so I'm going to do a 2-4-1 special on lesson plans that successfully get kids to work together on a writing assignment.

My favorite small-group writing lesson for everybody: The Exquisite Corpse
You know this exercise. What you may not know is how much students LOVE it. My students used to request it as a reward for hard work. I once offered a class the option of having 15 minutes of a study hall or doing this activity for 15 minutes, and every single student opted in to the activity.

(Um. If you have very immature students, you might not want to tell them what it's called.)

The instructions are simple: group kids in threes or fours. Each kid takes out a piece of paper and writes the first two lines of a story. After two lines, everyone passes their paper to the left. Repeat. Make sure to give notice when you're down to the last five minutes, so they have time to wrap up the stories, and--this is really important--leave time before the end of class for each group to share their favorite story.

You can do it with the whole class working together on 25 stories at once, but in that case I recommend giving two minutes instead of two sentences, with teacher as timekeeper. Otherwise there's always one kid who just can't think of anything and creates a huge bottleneck. Somehow the small groups manage to self-police this problem away. I also like the pride of ownership of the stories in small groups--where each member of the group feels proud of how a story turned out--which tends to get diluted if you do it as a whole-class activity.

My favorite small-group writing lesson for motivated students: Building a Plot
I used this one when I taught creative writing in a summer program at a girls' boarding school. I had 6-8 girls in a class, so I could (a) actively lead the activity and (b) devote two hours to it. I never got up the nerve to try it with my regular middle school English classes, but I suspect it could work as long as the class had already shown that they understand how plot works, and the teacher briefly modeled with the whole class what s/he expected at the end and then monitored the small groups pretty actively.

I stole it pretty much whole-cloth from John Gardner's The Art of Fiction.

1. For three minutes, have each kid write down on a blank piece of paper as many ideas for stories as they can come up with. Be sure to keep plenty of space between each idea. When the three (or five, depending on how it's going) minutes are up, have them tear or cut their ideas apart and put them into a hat.

2. Pull an idea out of the hat. (If doing in small groups within a larger class, have each group pull their own idea.)

3. As a group, plot a story based on that idea. (Options: start from the climax and work backward; start from the beginning and work forward; have the group fill out a plot map.)

4. Go into detail: create a Cast of Characters and decide which scenes need to be written in order to illustrate your plot. Make a list of those scenes. (This is where it comes in handy to be a teacher leading a small class: makes it easier to make sure you have the same number of scenes as students!)

5. Assign each student to write one scene (or two, if you're working in very small groups) for homework.

6. When they've all turned in their scenes, put them together and make copies of the whole story for each member of the group.

This sets you up beautifully for next week's post on Peer Critique.

--Kathryne

Image Boards

In my ongoing effort to be able to leap instantaneously from the world of dirty diapers and mashed banana to the world I'm creating for my characters in my WIP, this week I'm making an image board.

My hope is that by creating a strong visual representation of my characters, setting, mood, tone, etc., I won't waste so much time "getting into" a scene when I sit down to write. It'll be like putting on gardening gloves and immediately pulling up weeds. I've been ripping pages from summer catalogs, from magazines, and from the newspaper, even putting random words on the board that remind me of key elements to my mc's personality, so that I can put on her voice as soon as I sit down.

Some of you are probably thinking this is a bit of a time-waster, a stall tactic, and you're right! :) But being able to SEE in front of me what I've been seeing in my head for over a year now is really gratifying, and makes me feel that the book is starting to come alive.

When the board is done, I'll post a picture of it. For now, the image here is just a hint of the feel of the book.

*caroline hickey

Essay on Advances

The NY Times has an interesting essay on book advances. I think the part that surprised me most was that 7 out of 10 books don't earn out their advances— doesn't that seem like an incredibly high percentage? And I thought this quote about how an advance can sound much bigger than it actually is was really interesting too:

Roy Blount Jr., the president of the Authors Guild, said in an e-mail message. “That may mean $100,000, minus 15 percent agent’s commission and self-employment tax, and if we’re comparing it to a salary let us recall (a) that it does not include any fringes like a desk, let alone health insurance, and (b) that the book might take two years to write and three years to get published. . . . So a six-figure advance, while in my experience gratefully received, is not necessarily enough, in itself, for most adults to live on.”

No fringe benefits like a desk- ha! But it's a good point. There's also a bit on the history of the advance and speculation on its future that had me wondering what advances will be like in ten years or if they will even be around.

Check it out and give your take on it if you have a chance!

* daphne grab *

RIP Judith Krug

Today we mourn a champion of banned books and intellectual freedom.

From the Associated Press...

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Judith Krug, a director of the Chicago-based American Library Association and a founder of its Banned Books Week, has died. She was 69.

Judith Platt, president of the ALA's Freedom to Read Foundation, says Krug (KROOG) died late Saturday at Evanston Hospital in suburban Chicago following a battle with stomach cancer. She says Krug had been ill for more than a year.

She had been head of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom since 1967.
Banned Books Weeks has been observed since 1982 during the last week of September. ALA officials say the event celebrates intellectual freedom.

Thank you, Judith, for all you've done for writers and readers everywhere.

-=siobhan=-

Am I the last person to discover this blog?

Jacket Whys is really quite interesting.

Have you guys all seen it already and I'm late on this one? I just discovered it.

xo
Lisa GW

* SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY contest!*

Hey party people. I am running a little contest over at my blog and I wanted to invite all our Longstockings readers to join in if you so wish.

It is a HAIKU contest! Write me a little haiku about your fav thing(s) about summer and you could win an advanced reader copy of SITP and a mix tape USB of the SITP "soundtrack." I love mix tapes and I love haikus! All you have to do is leave me a haiku in the comments section and also mention the contest on your own blog and voila! You are officially entered.

So come on, haiku me!

xoxo Jenny

be an agent (or just play one on the internet)

Do you think it's easy being an agent? Ever wish you could see what it's like to wade through a pile of query letters, hoping to discover that next big talent? Well, here's your chance to give it a try!

Literary agent Nathan Bransford at the Curtis Brown agency is running a contest called "Be An Agent for a Day."

Beginning Monday, he's inviting you, his blog reader, to read fifty real and fake query letters, and choose five manuscripts you'd request if you were a real agent. Those who choose all the queries that actually became published books, will be crowned Superstar Agents and "may win a special prize!"
:-)

This is a cool idea because, even if you don't want to enter (or don't have time to!), you can still learn a lot about writing good query letters, which is an extremely important skill. I remember when I was in the MFA program, our teacher Sarah Weeks assigned us the task of writing query letters for our novels-in-progress, and she got a real live editor to come to our class and give us her honest opinion of our queries.

Well, let's just say, I've had better days! Ouch!!!

So check out this contest and, if you enter, let us know how you do!

~Coe~

Procrastination

I am having one of those days where I can’t seem to get started writing. It always takes me a little to get into the groove. When I first sit down in the morning I check email, hit up my favorite blogs and then I’m usually good to go.

But not today. Today I am all squirmy in my seat, checking every blog I can think of, reading half the NY Times, and spending a lot of time on the Fug Girls site. Meanwhile all I’ve managed to do with my WIP is open it. It’s not even on the right page yet! This is serious procrastination and I really need to get something done since I have to pick up my kids soon. If I don’t get myself in gear asap I am going to have exactly nothing to show for my morning of writing. Or more accurately, “writing.” But I just can’t seem to get to it.

Ugh, I hate days like this.

* daphne grab *

Creative Writing Lesson Plan Post II: The Joy of Worksheets

(For Post I of the Creative Writing Lesson Plan series, click here.)

Lesson Two: Don't torture them with a blank page. Whenever possible, give your instructions in writing.
It's not just middle-schoolers: the most widespread fear among writers is unquestionably The Blank Page. Overcoming that fear is a huge part of writerly success, whether as a novelist with (or without) a deadline or a student with a due date. It is, however, a separate skill from a lot of the other ones that a writing teacher needs to impart. If your goal for this particular lesson is to teach description, or plotting, or even just stretching the imagination, your younger students will be a lot more comfortable if the paper in front of them is structured.

(Man, I love worksheets. They give me a chance to communicate EXACTLY what I expect from students: no more "but I didn't hear you say we had to do that!" when I can just point to the line on the paper that says they have to do that. I didn't use them for every lesson--last week's Showing lesson used the students' own paper--but I was so pleased with the results when I did.)

I adapted a lot of my worksheets, including the one below, from the interactive writing prompts page of the Northern Nevada Writing Project. This website saved my life last year--I got some of my sixth-graders' best work from ideas they suggested.

My favorite worksheet: Silly Picture Stories!
Please forgive my complete lack of HTML skills. I tried to post a .pdf of this worksheet, but couldn't figure out how. If anyone has any idea, please leave them in the comments! For now, you'll just have to imagine the format:

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Pick a sentence from the list below, and circle it:
An angry crayon galloped through the classroom.
A flaming potato walked through a garden.
A crazy fish leaped over the ocean.
A giant goat hurtled over a city.
A tiny carrot snuck through a forest.
A jolly wizard floated through the circus.
A giant cow ran through a park.
A tiny balloon tripped over the North Pole.
2. In the space below, DRAW A PICTURE of what’s happening in the sentence you picked. DON’T worry about your drawing skills—this isn’t art class! But DO include as many details as you can think of.
3. Now, turn the paper over.
4. On this side of the paper, get ready to write the story that goes with your illustration. DO worry about your writing skills!
Make sure that:
• You have a PLOT: Your main character has a really big problem to solve, and the events in your story make sense.
The PROBLEM my character has to solve is:



• You use good DESCRIPTIVE WRITING: You create a picture in your reader’s mind with your descriptions of your main character and your setting
Here is a DESCRIPTION of where my story takes place:




Here is a DESCRIPTION of my main character:




• You use DIALOGUE: Use dialogue to show how the characters in your story talk to one another!
5. Now, take out your own sheet of paper and WRITE YOUR STORY!

Most of the contributions to the classes' literary magazines last year were about giant goats and angry crayons. It was a hit.

Next week: the ME in TEAM.

--Kathryne

Battle of the Books!

In the spirit of college basketball's MARCH MADNESS, and taking a cue from an annual literary contest on one of my most favorite sites, The Morning News, School Library Journal has instituted an annual Battle of the Books! They've got a great cross-section of judges, to keep the playing field nice and even.

Competition begins next week. All info can be found here, but these are the first round match ups.

Match 1: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves vs Ways to Live Forever

Match 2: The Graveyard Book vs The Trouble Begins at 8

Match 3: Chains vs Washington at Valley Forge

Match 4: Here Lies Arthur vs Tender Morsels

Match 5: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks vs We Are the Ship

Match 6: The Hunger Games vs The Porcupine Year

Match 7: Graceling vs The Underneath

Match 8: The Lincolns vs Nation

I'm guessing Hunger Games, Frankie Landau-Banks, Chains and Graveyard in the Final Four. And, though it's probably the underdog, I'm going with Hunger Games to win it all! In fact, I might look into getting a jersey printed up. The Hunger Games pin on the front, and KATNISS on the back. BOOYA!

Care to place any wagers? Who are your favorites?

-=siobhan=-

The Seuss is Loose

These are from Pottery Barn Kids, and YES, you can order them for a queen-size bed! Do you think my husband would object??






*caroline hickey

I am declaring...

April 6th Love Your Independent Bookseller Day!

This past weekend I was at the PSEG GreenFest in Somerset, NJ. I was signing books at the Clinton Book Shop Booth and I had the best time. I got to chat with young readers, meet environmental activists including Daryl Hannah and hang out with three amazing booksellers from the Clinton Book Shop: Cindy, Harvey and Rob.

Seriously, people, go out to your independent bookstore today and buy a book. Indies know their stuff, they care about books, they love what they do. They are the cornerstones of communities, the heart of your hometown.

It's no surprise that I'm saying this, really, since my book is about an independent business, but sometimes we forget. We order on Amazon because it's easy. We all do it. But today, let's go out and support our independent bookstores! And let's try and support them as often as we can.

Write to me in the comments and tell me about your Indie and why you love it.

xoxoxo
Lisa GW

TBF FOREVER!

So it's been said that the Rochester Teen Book Festival is the best of all the book festivals in the land. Whoever said it was right! Nothing compares!

When we rolled up to the festival Saturday morning, it was pure class-- a limo! When we stepped into the building, there was a red carpet and like a million kids. Well maybe not a million, but possibly a thousand. We had breakfast with our very own teen hosts, and mine was named Grace, and she was the girl who starred in that Shug video I posted a long time ago. She was so great! I had a blast and I met so many great people. There were even buttons with our faces on them! And posters! And gift bags! In my five favorite things, I mentioned that I love mini foods and they gave me mini M&Ms and mini Cadbury eggs and mimi Altoids.

They treated us like rock stars and we loved it! Us, was Sara Zarr and Linda Sue Park and David van Etten, Kenneth Oppel, Ellen Hopkins, Michael Buckley, Matt de la Pena, Terry Trueman, and so many others, including Longstockings Daphne and me. Thank you, Stephanie and TBF crew!

*pictures courtesy of David Levithan, photographer to the stars.

xoxo
Jenny

Where's Waldo? EVERYWHERE!

Yesterday, at Rutgers University (yeah NJ!), a bunch of Waldoers shattered the previous Guinness World Record holder for Largest Gathering of People Dressed As Waldo. (wow! that's really an official category?) Over a thousand people showed up in costume. See news story here. Pretty cool.

But this crowd really did right by the beloved children's book character. The participants used the stunt to collect more than 3,000 books for the New Brunswick, NJ school district.

Now that's some seriously awesome Waldo Power!

-=siobhan=-

Preparing a Creative Writing Lesson Plan

I've been in the mood to write an advice post, but no one's asking for any advice on anything I know about! So, I'm going to write some advice to myself, a year ago.

I know we occasionally get readers here who have found us by googling "creative writing lesson plan." I know from bitter experience that people who do this are wading through great heaps of information, discarding most of it as impracticable in their classroom.

For you, Dear Reader, I thought I'd put together some principles to keep in mind as you prepare your own writing lessons. Hopefully I can spare you some of the frustration I went through in my first year teaching, and give you a hand up through part of the learning curve.

To keep this from being The Post That Ate The Top Page (and my Friday), I will portion out my advice over the next few weeks. In each post, I'll also include short lesson plans that have worked well for me.

Lesson One: Don't make them write all the time. Mix it up.
I got a big surprise when I started teaching creative writing to kids who had not signed up for creative writing enrichment: it turns out, not every kid likes to write. Shocking, I know!

After the first few weeks, I tried to make sure every lesson had a visual or active component. Some lessons I started with pictures, asking kids to describe what they saw and relate it to a piece someone else had written before they started writing their own. Other times I had them draw a picture of what they wanted to write about, before they got started writing. Almost every time, I invited them to illustrate their final draft.

Unlike kids who have gotten it into their heads that they're no good at English Language Arts, even kids who can't draw generally enjoy doing it. Plus, making sure the lesson includes an activity that doesn't feel like school can help get kids out of the "have to get an A" mindset that is almost never helpful in getting creative.

My favorite lesson using this: Show, Don't Tell!
(I wish I could cite this, but I used so many different sources last year that I honestly can't remember who I stole what from. Thanks, whoever you are.)

1. Take a stack of index cards and write an emotion on each one: SAD, ANGRY, HAPPY, EXCITED, BORED, TIRED, WORRIED, NERVOUS, etc.

2. In class, invite a volunteer to pick a card, and act out the emotion on the card without saying anything.

3. Instruct the other kids in the class to write down exactly what they see, and ONLY what they see. (In other words, don't write "he feels sick" because you don't see that, you're inferring it from what you do see. Write, "he's holding his stomach and frowning.")

4. Repeat as often as you have time for.

5. If you can give homework, send them off to watch someone at home doing something, and write a description of what they can see. (If you can't give homework, have them do it from memory in the class.) I often paired this lesson with the Lucille Clifton poem miss rosie and called the longer version "Writing A Photograph."

Next week: getting rid of the blank page.

--Kathryne

A Sharper Eye

I've started to notice lately how much sharper and more critical my reading and editing "eye" has become.

As I slowly chug-chug along in my WIP, I'm seeing holes and missteps in my writing that I never noticed in my first two books, and not because they weren't there. After B was born, I took five months off from writing. It gave me some space from my WIP, but it also gave me time to read a list of great books I'd been meaning to get around to. I think the combination of reading really great stuff, not being on a deadline, and taking a little time away from typing has given me a new perspective on my own work.

I hope this means my new book will be stronger and tighter and my best yet. But this new sharp eye is also a little paralyzing, because it won't let me move on to a new scene until I've gone over the current one 50 times. And that's not a good way to get through an early draft.

I'm going to speak to my Eye about this, and tell her to just chill out until the next draft. I'm going to tell her over a cappuccino at Starbucks this afternoon, where I'll be writing a scene where my main character embarrasses herself. YAH!

*caroline hickey

Nu Nu Tues Day!

(the band, fannypack)

Now that I have the luxury of writing full-time from lovely, lovely Ohio, I've been fiddling a bit with how I should structure my work week. 

For the last month or so, I have a goal set of 1K new words every day, Monday through Friday. That's been working pretty good for me. I'm nearly half-way through the first draft of my next YA novel for Scholastic. And my head is SO in the game! I'm far less distracted than I used to be when I had to juggle writing time around other commitments.  

But something's still amiss...

One of the big reasons I decided to leave NYC was so that I could have more writing time - to channel not just into whatever YA book I was under contract for at the moment, but other tiny nuggets of ideas that are burrowed into my brain and have yet to see the light of day. 

See, I will always be haunted by the fact that I had a really cool idea for a middle grade zombie book about 3 years ago...before zombies became the IT thing. But between writing ALFA and doing my nanny job, I was never able to find time to write that other book. I sure thought about it a lot. Plotted it, developed the characters. But I never felt I had the time to actually sit down at a desk and type it. And now, *sniff*, zombie books are all the rage! I can never allow that to happen again! Ideas and inspiration are far too precious to let gather mind dust!

So, I'm trying something new for April. One of my five writing days will be designated for exploring NEW projects. Tuesday, specifically. I've been calling this in my head New New Tuesday (unfortunately sung to the 80's song Nu Nu Yeah Yeah by Fannypack).

Yesterday was my first shot at this. Honestly, it was harder than I thought. I wanted to get back to my YA novel, I felt guilty for not paying it attention. But after about an hour of fooling around and lamenting, I got down to business and wrote a prologue for what I think could maybe, possibly be a cool middle grade idea. And I STILL made my 1K goal!

So how do you guys do it? Balance time between for number #1 project and all those ideas you've got churning around in your brains?

-=siobhan=-