Odd as it sounds, it isn’t rejection that I have a problem with, but acceptance. It’s easy for me to see why this is the case–during my childhood it was much safer NOT getting something I wanted than to get it. And woe betide me if I dared to brag about an accomplishment; I was sure to hear something along the lines of “Who do you think you are?” It seems silly that this fear is so tenacious when the people who instilled it in me have had no power over my life for nearly forty years, but there it is. I’ve been much more comfortable seeing myself as a failure than a success. Not happier, just more comfortable.

Up until now. This blog is a milestone because I hereby declare myself to be a successful writer. My heart is pounding as I write that, but it’s true:

• I have been earning money as a writer since 2001.
• I self-published two books that children like to read.
• I’ve sold stories to Highlights and other children’s magazines.
• I’ve written eleven books for educational publishers and loads of articles and stories
• I get contacted regularly for more assignments.
• I have a really lovely picture book coming out this summer.
• I have an editor who has expressed interest in my YA historical novel.
• I have an MFA in Writing for Children.
• One of the articles I wrote for Informify got 16,000 hits in three days
• I wrote a well-liked monthly newspaper column for three years
• I’ve won awards.
• I’ve been written up in a book about writing for teens.

That’s success. And I haven’t been letting it in. Yeah, sure, I tell people about these things, put them on my resume and mention them in my bio, but I haven’t owned them inside myself. Instead, the tapes in my head have been the following:

• I’m still not supporting myself with my writing after all these years.
• My books are okay but not great.
• Children’s magazines don’t pay very well and, besides, I haven’t sold any more stories for a long time.
• I don’t get royalties for educational writing.
• I get contacted by ed. publishers more often than I get assignments.
• My Wooly Bear story is okay, but it’s the pictures that really make the book.
• Interest from an editor isn’t a sale.
• Yeah, sure, I had a great time in my MFA program, but now I’ve got this huge student loan debt.
• The informify article was a complete fluke.
• It was just a little local paper. No big deal.
• Awards are nice, but they don’t mean that much.
• I’m in the book under false pretenses since I’m not really a success.

Ugh and also yuck! I’ve been studying the Abraham and Secret materials long enough to know those aren’t the kind of thoughts that will take me where I want to go. With tapes like those running, it’s a wonder I’ve managed to write anything at all. Obviously, my desire to be a writer is really powerful to be able to overcome that much resistance as well as it has.

So, let’s turn my tapes around:

• I’m making more money with my writing every year and my husband doesn’t mind supporting me. In fact, he’s very proud of me and believes in my writing.
• No, my books aren’t perfect, but kids like them. They read them for the story, not the typesetting. And they ask for more. That is the kind of success you can’t measure in dollars.
• No, magazines don’t pay a lot, but they do pay, and it all adds up. It’s true I haven’t sold any stories lately, but I haven’t tried very hard to do so. Highlights is one of the toughest markets to crack and I not only sold them two stories but got an Editors’ Choice Award for one of them. That’s worth celebrating! Millions of kids have read my writing. Wow!
• I really like the educational books I wrote and did my best to put added value into them. I got paid a fair wage, and doing them has helped improve my writing.
• Educational publishers really like me. That’s why I get repeat assignments from them. Not all contracts are going to come through. That’s just part of the biz.
• My Wooly Bear story is really cute and inspired an artist who normally does only her own books to want to illustrate it. Starbright has put a lot of time, effort and money into producing the book. They must really believe in it. So should I.
• No, I may not sell my novel to this editor, but she’s taken the time to give me extensive feedback that has helped make the manuscript stronger and will make it easier to sell to someone else if she decides to pass on it.
• I DID have a great time getting my MFA. I’ll get the loans paid off eventually and am very grateful that they were available since I couldn’t have done it without them and wouldn’t have missed the experience for the world.
• Maybe the Informify article was a fluke, but it sure was fun to get all those hits!
• I enjoyed writing the articles, and they gave me the confidence to know that I could write “on demand,” which has helped me establish better writing habits. And, I got paid for them!
• Awards mean that someone liked my work enough to give me special recognition. I have a right to be proud of the awards I’ve won.
• Actually, I’m in the book because I’ve done something–self-published children’s book–that not many people do. Victoria needed me to round out her chapter on self-publishing, and I get some great exposure out of the deal. Win-win all around.

There. That feels better. Now I can get back to the thing I came to this planet to do. Write. How about you? Are you ready to handle acceptance? Let’s go!

Happy writing.

• Use lots of bullets when writing for the web.
• There is no such thing as unbiased reporting. The news is a slippery fish; the same facts can be presented in any number of ways.
• Things are not always what they seem and well-being predominates, no matter what the “facts” may appear to indicate.
• It’s good to have a writing schedule and stick to it.

What’s next for me? Well, let’s see . . .

• My picture book is being sent to reviewers even as I write, and I should be getting my advance copies from Starbright Books in the next week or two.
• I just got a copy of Wild Ink, a book on writing for teens by my friend, Victoria Hanley, in which I am a featured writer.
• I’m making progress on a major rewrite of my YA historical novel and will be able to go much faster now that I’m not doing news articles.
• Schools will be starting up soon so I need to start lining up some author visits.
• I’ve signed up to do some tutoring with the local community school and may also have a chance to teach a college course or two.

To paraphrase Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, “When the Universe closes a door, somewhere It opens an infinite number of windows.”

Happy writing!

In geometry, the four dimensions are breadth, depth, height and time. In writing, this translates to the following:

1. Physical setting–does the story take place in one location, all over the globe, in some alternate universe or “in a galaxy far, far away?” The breadth of a story is determined by the breadth of the setting. It doesn’t matter if the setting is Asimov’s Empire or the March’s kitchen, just so long as it is clear to the reader what the setting is and how the character functions within it.
2. Personal history–Is the character old or young, part of a large family or an only child, a public figure or a non-entity, well loved and parented or an orphan? No matter what happens in the story, if questions of personal history aren’t answered, the character has no depth and becomes a mere chess piece moving around a board. A character’s history can be filled in at length or merely implied, but, as writers, we need to know what that history is and how it is affecting the character throughout the story.
3. Relationships–Who is a friend and who a foe? Why? Will these relationships stay the same or change over the course of the story? How does this impact the characters? This can only be seen by gaining some height and distance from our characters. No matter what voice we choose to tell the story in, our view needs to be omniscient. Our characters actually are, to a certain extent, chess pieces. The trick is knowing this without making it obvious to the reader.
4. Time–When the story takes place is crucial. This seems self explanatory, but is actually trickier than you’d think. To have a character who is both true to his or her time–be it contemporary or historical–yet is also universal enough to be interesting to readers over time requires a great deal of attention to detail. Grounded in a particular time is desirable. Dated isn’t.

So, if you have done these four things well–which is a huge accomplishment–you have laid a good foundation for well-rounded characters. But, it’s not enough. I’ve read any number of books where all of the above were well done yet the characters in the story left me cold. And I’ve read other books where some or all of the above were sketchy, at best, yet the characters grabbed me and held me and didn’t let go until the last sentence.

This is because there is a fifth dimension that is absolutely key to creating a memorable character. I call it the “humanoid dimension” (since many of the most memorable characters I’ve run across were not, categorically, human; for example, Charlotte of Charlotte’s Web.)

The humanoid dimension has to do with the fact that, as a friend of mine puts it “there is never any great loss without some small gain.” And there is never any gain without loss. Memorable characters are aware of the gains in the losses and the losses in the gains, and manage to make peace with both. Wilbur mourns Charlotte’s death, then honors her memory by taking care of her eggs. Frodo saves Middle Earth and, realizing he no longer belongs there, departs with the elves. Mary Lennox lets go of her delicious secret–and the walls that have kept her safe–and chooses to share her garden with Dickon and Collin.

It is this fifth dimension–this balancing act of light and dark, yin and yang, advance and retreat, joy and sorrow–that makes the characters we write about come fully alive.

Make sure your characters have all five dimensions–but especially the fifth one–and they will be utterly unforgettable, I promise.

Good writing!

My editing experience was three years as assistant editor for a local monthly arts newspaper. All our writers were volunteers, so the articles we got had a broad range of expertise. It was tempting for me to try to “improve” some peoples’ writing (i.e. make it more like mine). But my editor was firm about leaving the writing in the voice of the authors.

As time went on, I saw how important this was and was less inclined to monkey with, and more inclined to enjoy, the variety of writing styles that came across my desk. Along the way I developed some notions about what constitutes good editing–and what doesn’t.

I’ve also worked with a variety of editors. Some have been okay to questionable, one or two have been downright bad and a couple have been superlative.

The best editor I’ve worked with is Thea Deley at Informify. (I’m assuming she won’t mind my using her name to sing her praises. The rest of the editors I comment about shall remain anonymous.) Thea is my idea of a dream editor for several reasons:

1. She put together a style manual specifically for people writing on the Informify site. This means I don’t have to wade through the entire AP Stylebook every time I have a question about something. If you read my rant about the AP and MLA manuals, you know what a blessing this is to me.
2. She gives me feedback on every article I write, in detail. This is a lot of extra work for her and an invaluable service to me. Because of it, I feel like I’m making much faster progress in this new and very different kind of writing than I would have on my own.
3. She gives me positive feedback. I often feel like I’m back in school, generally in the corner with a dunce cap on. It really helps to hear what I am doing right as well as where I’ve messed up.
4. She is patient. I have been known to make the same mistake more than once (arrrgh!). Thea simply points my error out to me–again–and goes on. She understands that some things take longer to sink in than others, which I really appreciate.
5. She is respectful of my writing style. Most of what she does when editing is correcting where I’ve strayed from the manual, occassionally rearranging the material a bit and, often, rewriting headlines– which I kind of stink at since I don’t tend to think in terms of search engines. Otherwise, she leaves my writing alone. When she gets done with it, it is vastly improved, and it is still recognizably mine.

May you all be blessed to work with a Thea sometime in your writing career.

Okay, that’s the good editor. Now for the bad. I have heard far worse horror stories from other people, but will stick to my own experience.

My “bad editor” story has to do with one of the perennial problems in the publishing industry–the game of “musical desks” that editors constantly play. Writers may, and often do, start a project with one editor and finish it with another, or for a different publishing company if the editor takes his or her “stable” of writers along to a new house. This is frustrating but an understood hazard of the profession. However, it’s not cool for editors to leave without telling their writers.

I was working on a project a few years back and heard from another writer at an SCBWI conference that the editor I was supposedly working with had left the company. When I called to confirm this newsflash, I was told, “Oh, yeah. She’s been gone for a couple of weeks. Didn’t she let you know?” That would be a “No.”

She also hadn’t told me that the project I was working on had been canceled. The good news is that, since I had completed most of the work before she left, I did eventually get a kill fee–but only after a certain amount of persistent pestering. I have, needless to say, never worked for that particular publisher, again. I have no idea where the editor went, though I have some thoughts on where I’d like to tell her to go.

As far as questionable goes, I’d have to say that the publisher for my forthcoming picture book fits into the “Q” category, mainly because the launch date has gone from May to June and now, apparently, July. I’m now in a bit of a sticky situation because of this since back in April–when I was told that the release date would be in June–the local library district asked me if I would read my book as part of their summer reading program and I said sure.

They scheduled me for the second week in July–the last week of the reading program–just to be on the safe side. Then the publishing date kept getting pushed farther and farther back. The last time I called, I was told that the book might be out the first week in July, and I’d be the first to get a copy. That was two weeks ago. Since then, I’ve heard zip.

So, I dug out my original dummy to read to the kiddies and am working on a set of insect puppets. I’ll give the audience a good show, book or not, but I wouldn’t have put myself into this position if I’d known that the date was going to keep getting set back. On the other hand, I haven’t heard for sure that the book won’t be out next week, so I’ll let you know if a miracle occurs.

Since I’m always treated pleasantly by the folks at my publisher, and publishing dates can be affected by a number of factors that they don’t have any more control of than I do, I’m certainly not putting them in the “bad” column, but–given that I’ve had to keep contacting them to find out what’s going on–they could certainly stand to be communicating better.

That’s what editing is all about, in my book. Communicating. Communicating well enough with writers so that writers can communicate effectively with their readers, both on and off the page.

So, my fellow editors and editees, let’s all focus on C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-I-N-G. Right? Right!

“I’m adding a new character to the first chapter, and moving the last scene to the fourth chapter and ratcheting up my main character’s angst another notch or two and shifting the focus more solidly onto her throughout the story.”

My friend said she’d never realized what a fluid medium fiction writing is. I’ve never thought of it that way, but realized that, as usual, she’d hit the nail on the head. Writing a story is all about flow, which is probably why my little Piscean soul has such a passion for fiction writing, and particularly fiction writing for children.

Nobody goes with the flow as thoroughly and naturally as kids. They don’t care if your syntax is correct or your similes scintillating. All they care about is that you tell a good enough story to sweep them up and take them along for an exciting ride.

So, now, I tend to think of plotting in terms of river rafting, which is something I enjoyed doing once-upon-a-time. (Nowdays I get too seasick to enjoy it.) Here’s a list of “river writing” suggestions:

• Start at the right place. Begin your story when the boat goes into the water, so to speak, not the day before when the characters are packing their wet sacks.
• Vary your scenes. No river ride is fun if it’s all placid water, but it’s equally a bummer if it’s all rapids. Both rafters and readers need a chance to catch their breath every so often and go “Wow, that was really something!”
• Avoid whirlpools. Learn to recognize those points in a story where your characters are going around in frantic circles, yet the plot is not advancing.
• Get out at the right place. For both raft trips and stories, this is either when there’s obviously nothing but smooth sailing ahead or in the nick of time before a waterfall–which is an especially good place to stop if you plan to write a sequel.

So there it is, my latest take on plotting. If you follow these suggestions, your readers will thank you for a memorable ride and come back for more.

Happy rafting!

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced in writing for the informify web site is having to learn a whole new style of writing with a whole new set of more-or-less- incomprehensible rules. Now, instead of referring to the MLA Handbook–which was my bible while I was in graduate school–I am supposed to be a True Follower of the AP Stylebook. It’s a whole new world, let me tell you.

It took me years to learn to write convoluted sentences that only college professors can decipher and list my sources the way the MLA Powers That Be wanted them. (See, I can still do convoluted.) Now it’s all “simplify, active voice, simplify” and a completely different way of crediting source material.

Frankly, I don’t think there’s much to choose between the two manuals. They both were apparently written by obsessive-compulsive Huns. Seriously. Who other than an obsessive-compulsive Hun cares if there’s a period or a comma after book titles in a bibliography (MLA), or insists that you spell out “degrees” instead of using the little circle thingy (AP)?

The other thing I am finding tough about being a journalist is that I start the day chewing on a sometimes pretty un-palatable chunk of the daily news. It’s fun to learn about something new; I enjoyed writing about the “big breakfast diet,” for example. But, sometimes it can be pretty grim. I now know way more than I ever wanted to about the 800 people who drowned in a capsized ferry in the Philippines. There are a zillion stories in the world; I wish I could only write about the good ones. But, that’s not the way it works in the journalism world.

Right now, I’m done with my daily news article and am getting ready to do some children’s writing, which is yet another variation on the theme. I’m used to doing more than one kind of writing at a time, though, so it’s not too difficult to change gears. (So I say now–we’ll see what my various and sundry editors think.)

All ranting aside, no matter what I’m writing, the book I refer to the most is good old Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. It’s the only reference book I always keep on my desk. And, considering that both the AP Stylebook and MLA Handbook defer to its wisdom, it’s really the only one I need. (Please don’t tell the Huns I said that.)

All my life, I’ve read and loved Tasha’s books, from Pumpkin Moonshine, her first book, published in 1938, to Corgyville Christmas, her last book, published in 2002. In all, she wrote and illustrated nearly 100 books for children.

Joan Donaldson,a dear friend of mine from graduate school wrote a book that Tasha illustrated, The Real Pretend. It was a lovely surprise when Joan showed up at one of our residencies with photos of Tasha and told us stories of the visits she made to Tasha’s home in Vermont.

The thing I most appreciate about Tasha Tudor is that she lived life very much on her own terms, pretty much ignoring the 20th (not to mention the 21st) century and adopting a lifestyle similar to that lived in the 1830s.

I don’t particularly want to raise goats or light my house with beeswax candles, but I do like the idea that, like Tasha, I have the ability to craft any sort of life I want for myself no matter what is going on in the larger world.

Tasha Tudor was a person who lived life joyfully and fully. As Dickens wrote “May the same be said of us, and all of us.”

I’m learning a lot about the difference between writing for print and writing for the web. It seems that reading on a computer screen accesses a different part of the brain than reading from a page. This is why it’s so hard to retain information off the Web–at least it is for me. I always have to print out anything I want to remember, and also anything I intend to edit. Maybe younger writers can edit on the screen, but I can’t.

Also, people tend to have a shorter attention span when reading on a screen. Because of this, web writing needs to be succinct and have a lot of visuals. As anyone who has been reading my blogs knows, succinct ain’t exactly my middle name. Neither is visuals. But, I’m getting better.

Anyway, back to my new job. I get my assignment every morning at 8:00 and spend anywhere from three to five hours researching and writing an article. I’ve only been doing it for a week and the lists of corrections I’m getting back from my boss are getting shorter, so things seem to be moving in the right direction.

The pay isn’t princely–it averages out to less than $10 an hour to start with. However, this is enough to cover my student loan payments and buy a few groceries. It’s steady and ongoing. It leaves me plenty of time to work on my other writing. And, last but not least, I get to work in my pajamas. Not a bad patch to add to my income quilt!

For anyone not familiar with how this works, this means that I get paid once for doing the writing, usually on a per-page basis. No advance, no royalties, just a single check in the mail and on to the next contract. Many writers don’t like doing work-for-hire because you have to crank out a lot of content quickly and the publisher retains the copyright, so you can’t reuse or resell what you’ve written. It takes an easy-come, easy-go attitude toward your work and a certain amount of confidence that your personal word well won’t run dry.

You also have to willing to work within stringent parameters. Word count, page length, topic and how the publisher wants the material approached are all spelled out for you. I find this a refreshing change from my own writing, for which I have to create all the parameters myself. I think of it as being similar to writing free verse versus writing a sonnet. You can be creative in either form.

The educational publishing business is a different world from commercial publishing, and has been going through even more major upheavals for a while now, thanks to many factors, not the least of which is the No Child Left Behind Act which, so my teaching friends tell me would have been better titled “No Teacher Left Standing”–and no educational publisher, either. I have had editors I was working with disappear without warning, publishers get bought out by other publishers who either came up with a whole new set of specs in the middle of an assignment or cancelled the contract altogether, publishers who have always hired free-lancewriters deciding to do everything in-house.

It’s a nerve-wracking business and definitely not a basket into which I want to put all my eggs. It is an interesting patch that I enjoy having in my income quilt, however. I’ve done research on topics ranging from Ancient Egypt to Outer Ppace and street teens in Chicago to opal mining in Australia and have been paid to hone my writing skills while doing it. Not too shabby.

P.S. Here are the seven educational books I’ve written over the past four years. I put in their links even though I don’t get a royalty if you buy one. They are, though, useful teaching materials. The Fast Ideas books won’t be around much longer, which means you can get them really cheap at the moment:

Actually, as you can see by my website, I use the term “writing” a bit loosely.  I figure anything that is somehow related to having a writing life, such as making author visits to schools, teaching writing others, helping put together writing conferences and reading my books at bookstores and libraries and anywhere else I’m asked to do so comes under the writing umbrella.  I call this my patchwork approach to having a writing life.  Anybody who has made a patchwork quilt knows that you don’t just throw a bunch of fabric scraps together haphazardly.  You have to sift through what’s in the rag bag, choose a theme and a pattern, cut the pieces and fit them together carefully if you want a quilt that is not only warm but aesthetically pleasing.  I’m doing my best to choose and patch carefully so that my writing life is not only economically doable, but, hopefully, something of a work of art.  

I have learned a great deal about patchwork living from my neighbors.   We all live in a small, rural community in one of the poorer counties in Western Colorado.  Jobs are scarce around here and generally poor paying.  Entrepreneurs, therefore, abound and have come up with some interesting juxtapositions in their quest to make a buck.  The local movie theater is also our venue for live concerts and other community events.  The video store sells lingerie in the back room.   A local gallery offers everything from batik clothing to painted furniture to farm-fresh eggs and hosts a farmers’ market in their side-yard in the summer.  One of our local grocery stores specializes in selling local products to the summer tourists and also has a meat processing plant in the back that does a brisk business during hunting season.  

I need to get on with my patching, for now.  Next time, I’ll write about what my personal “income quilt” looks like.

P.S.  If you like quilts,  Click here for more quilt photos.