Christy Raedeke Interview

 I told you it was coming and here it is!   Christy Raedeke is another author I admire.  Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, she's also my 'friend'.  Let me tell you, not only is she a talented writer, but she's really nice too.  

I couldn't wait to read her young adult novel, PROPHECY OF DAYS.  It was another book that I desperately wanted to finish in one sitting but couldn't because it was after midnight and I have small children.  Having never been a morning person, I highly value sleep.  So I stayed up too late two nights in a row to finish this book.  "Wow" is about the first thing that came to mind after reading it.  There are so many fascinating characters, many who aren't what they seem to be.  It's set in Scotland, what's not to love about that?  There's a hot Scottish guy for the protagonist to fall for.  Yummy.  There's conspiracy...good, good.  There's the intrigue of the ancient Mayan calender and the year 2012...exciting and intelligent.  And thrown into the mix, for good measure, is hope.  After reading this book, I felt like I could make a difference and that there is still a reason to have faith in humanity.   (After the recent elections that have left many feeling hopeless and without any faith in humanity...I highly recommend picking up this book.)  It was fast paced, exciting, intelligent and fun.  Book 2 is due in May 2011.  I can't wait!  
So, without further ado, Christy Raedeke!

RW (Restless Writer):  I truly believe Mr. Papers is one of the greatest literary characters of all time. How did you come up with the idea for an origami folding monkey and name him Mr. Papers? It's brilliant!

CR (Christy Raedeke): First of all, I have to tell you that I printed this out, cut out the part about Mr. Papers being one of the greatest literary characters, and taped it to the top of my monitor so I can look at it all the time. For a librarian and writer to say that means so much to me!

I have always thought it would be amazing to have a helper monkey - the origami part was folly at first and then it made some sense! I wanted an animal that could communicate and with what Capuchins are trained to do, Origami is not that far out of the realm of possibility.

RW:  PROPHECY OF DAYS draws heavily on the ancient Mayan calendar. Your characters speak of it very intelligently. Had you previously studied the Mayan calendar or did you just start researching it for this book?

CR:  I read about the Mayan calendar back in 1999 and was instantly enchanted by it. The knowledge the Maya had about astronomy and math was unbelievable! The more I looked into it, the more captivated I was by it. The book took a lot of research but since I am so interested in the subject it was fun, not work.

RW:  For an adventure story of this magnitude, you could have chosen anywhere in the world for the setting. What made you chose to set it in Scotland?

CR:  Because I love Scotland! It just feels so old, so softened by time and weather. Also I wanted the setting to be very far culturally and physically from the Mayalands and Scotland fit that bill.

RW:  You have traveled extensively. Have you visited all the places mentioned in the book?

CR:  I have been to many of the places that I use in both the two books, and a couple still remain dream trips I hope to take (like the Dunhuang Caves in China). Travel is my absolute favorite thing, so even writing about travel is fun.

RW:  Your book packs adventure, travel, conspiracy, romance and ancient wisdom into one fast-paced and enjoyable package. You make it seem easy. How long did it take to write and how much research did you have to do?

CR:  I can’t believe it seems easy! What a great compliment. No, the book took a few years, but I also had a very young child when I started and had another child a year into writing it, so time I could spend writing was spotty. The most enjoyable and yet most time consuming part was the research. But like I said, when it’s a subject you love it doesn’t feel like work, it feels like following a super interesting trail you’ve never been on.

RW:  Your book is the first in a trilogy. How did you approach agents/publishers as a debut author with a proposed trilogy? The book is incredible but did you encounter any resistance from the industry?

CR:  It’s actually just a two-book series, a “Duology”. My agent signed me after reading the first one and a one-page synopsis of the second one. We talked about breaking it into three books but right about that time the market really changed and all of a sudden publishers felt like it was a risk to take on a series – they wanted books that could stand alone but had series potential – so we scaled it back to two books. My book deal was based on a finished manuscript and a three-page synopsis of book two.

In terms of resistance, I did get some at first. When it first went out on sub, many of the New York editors had not heard of the Mayan Calendar or 2012 (this was 2008). Then last year at a writer’s conference one of the editors who gently passed on it made an open plea for anyone who had a 2012 book to please send it to her!

RW:  Unlike the more mainstream perceptions of 2012, which focuses on destruction, your book offers hope. Did you make the decision to inject the story with hope or did you find evidence for a less destructive interpretation in your research. (doomsday vs. a new beginning)

CR:  In all of my research I never came across one piece of information that said the world was ending, or that said what was coming was cataclysmic. It’s all about transformation, about the end of an era and the beginning of another.

I really detest fear mongering, and that’s what most of the media focuses on so naturally they’d twist this into an apocalyptic thing. Everyone is always looking for the next apocalypse!

RW:  On your website, you list an app. for the Mayan Calendar. Do you, like Caity, use the Mayan calendar in your daily life? Have you found that readers are using it now?

CR:  I use it all the time. There’s a great iPhone app called Tzolkin Explorer that’s easy and fun to use. It’s very helpful in setting an intention for the day and looking at each day as a unique and special piece of a never-ending spiral, not just another day on a linear yard stick.

RW:  What do you hope teens will take away from your books?

CR:  I really hope they get inspired by the adventure, the mystery, and the travel. There is so much wonder in this world, so many things to see and ways to live. I’d like teens to get a sense that they can change the world – never before have so many people under 20 been on the planet at once. They have the numbers, now they just need to get organized! Change the paradigm, please!

RW:  Do you have any favorite books that you keep coming back to?

As a kid I liked to re-read books (obsessions included Herman Hesse’s Demian, Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, and Steinbeck’s East of Eden) but as an adult there are very few I enjoy re-reading. I am currently in love with Meg Rosoff’s What I Was (I actually adore all her books, but this one really got me) and Jennifer Eagan’s The Keep.

RW:  Book 2 is coming out in May 2011 (YAY!) have you completed writing it? Can you give us a teaser?

CR:  I’ve done the majority of the work on it, and have been through one round of revisions. I still have some more to do, but at least it’s close I actually like it better than Book One, which is surprising since it was so much more difficult to write.

In Book Two you get to see more of Mr. Papers, including some previously hidden ninja skills! The stakes are higher, Justine is with Caity the whole time, and some very interesting places are involved. Let me pull out a little teaser (this is from page 173):

Silently, we walk back down the way we came up and then over a small bridge from El Palacio to a group of three temples that face each other. I was drawn to the smaller one today, the Temple of the Foliated Cross, because it was tiny and wonky and a little overgrown with weeds. But it’s the more spectacular one across from it that we climb.

In the back corner of one of the chambers at the top there’s a small chink in the rock. I cannot bring myself to sick my finger in it, so I use the end of one of the long candles I bought in the gift shop. When Justine sees it crumble, she pushes me away. “I’ll do it,” she says, sticking two fingers down in the dark hole. After feeling around for longer than I ever would, she manages to move something. One of the thick stone panels that I thought was a wall, rotates just enough to reveal a very skinny, very dark  staircase.

“Mr. Papers?” I say, handing him a flashlight. “Would you?”

He looks at me and rolls his eyes. Instead of taking the cheap tourist flashlight I was offering, he reaches for my big metal flashlight and shines it down. No snakes, no critters—so far so good. 

Since Justine bravely stuck her fingers in the hole, and Papers is going first, I suck it up and follow. I have to turn sideways to even fit, and once I get a few feet down I can no longer see my feet because the staircase is so narrow and steep. I just feel for each step. Justine has her hand on my shoulder and is feeling her way behind me. After about twenty stairs, we reach the ground. We are under the Templo del Sol, the Temple of the Sun.

The space widens just a bit, enough for Justine and me to walk side by side. I had memorized the map and know we have to follow this tunnel almost the whole distance of the base of the pyramid to reach the hidden room.

Neither of us is talking, we’re both just breathing heavily and walking as quickly as we can. The farther we get, the more panicked I’m feeling about getting stuck down here. Just as I fear I might start hyperventilating, the tunnel turns. Right after the turn is a stone door. Mr. Papers gives it a push and it rotates open, this time to reveal another door covered in silver and decorated with glyphs.

 I pull on the handle, shocked to find the room behind it already glowing with light.

Great cover art.  It even looks thrilling, doesn't it? 

Writing and not writing, that's life.

Well, I've put up two author interviews here this month.  From the overwhelming lack of comments, I don't know if you're impressed or ho-humming.  I prefer to think you're stunned speechless because Susan and Michael are pretty awesome.  Feel free to comment and let me know what you think of them too.  Up next will be Christy Raedeke, who is another wildly awesome author.  She has written a book called THE PROPHECY OF DAYS which I'll tell you more about when the interview goes up. 

In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to shine the spotlight back on myself.  Not because I'm that vain but because there are some things happening that are of note. 

1.  Sean Ingvard Ashby, my utterly talented illustrator has completed his work on PAJAMA GIRL.  All that's left is to submit the manuscript to Meegenius.com and wait a couple months to see how we fare in the contest.  Regardless, it was a fantastic experience to collaborate with Sean and to actually 'see' how my little Pajama Girl looks through someone else's mind.  She looks incredible and Sean was a joy to work with, so if you're looking for an illustrator and you dig his style, hire him.  Don't delay.  He's crazy talented and fun too.  Hooray for Sean! 

2.  DREAM GIRL is currently kicking my ass.  If I gave birth to this manuscript in March, then she's turned into a snotty teenager now and will not cooperate.  Chapter 18 refuses to be written properly, thus effectively putting revisions in a firm standstill.  Well, sort of.  Convinced that I did not lay the groundwork properly in chapters 1-17, I've gone back to the beginning, again, to sort out what the problem is.  I'm back up to ch. 8.  So far, so good...if I say so myself.  So the problem must be between 9-17.  However, the kids and I are sick with a hideous virus, my poor daughter the worst of the lot, and frankly, I don't want to revise right now.  I really want to be querying, but one step at a time.  And the author interviews are a whole lot of fun too.  (Hint, if anyone needs to hire an interviewer, I'd love to do it!)

Well, I guess that's all the news there is for now.  Please let me know if you're enjoying the interviews.  I certainly am!   

Michael Lawrence Interview

Michael Lawrence and I go way back.  Like 5 or 6 years back.  I read his book A CRACK IN THE LINE, the first of the Withern Rise trilogy while doing book reviews for www.myshelf.com  I was so impressed with the book that I decided to interview him for Myshelf's author of the month feature.  I contacted him via email, unknowingly starting a regular correspondence that would last approx. 18 months.  At that time, I became a mom and dropped off the face of the earth for awhile.  But let me back up a bit.  

     Michael's book combined with my subconscious, which had been simmering a story idea for 2 years.  It hit me like the cliche ton of bricks.  My book had to be a paranormal YA novel!  Well, over the years, that book became DREAM GIRL which I know you are all anxious for me to finish revising and get published.  

     After A CRACK IN THE LINE, I waited impatiently for book 2 to come along, SMALL ETERNITIES.  It was every bit as amazing as the first, and, luckily, it came out in the UK shortly after I read A CRACK IN THE LINE.  The final book, THE UNDERWOOD SEE made me wait longer, as he was writing it while we were corresponding.  As a result of the correspondence, Michael included a small homage to yours truly in that last book.  Those of you who've known me since before 2005 must drop everything right now, buy all three books and tell me when you've discovered what it is in THE UNDERWOOD SEE that I'm referring to.  For those of you who didn't know me, buy the books, read them and I'll tell you what it is.  Go ahead, the links are right here.  The interview will still be here when you get back....

Ok, now we can get on with things.  

    A CRACK IN THE LINE was up for a Printz award.  Let me tell you, I was thoroughly disappointed that it didn't win.  It should have.  It should have won a great many awards.  If I had anything to do with it, it would have.  

    Michael is such a talented fellow that he writes books for all age levels.  He's done an adorable series for babies, Baby Loves.  He's written the Jiggy McCue books for elementary school kids. He wrote his own memoir for adults which I really enjoyed, MILKING THE NOVELTY, which is only available through Michael.  And those are just the ones I've read.  There are more.  Buy them.

     So I'd like to introduce you to Michael Lawrence, someone I admire greatly as a brilliant author and a really great person who tolerates numerous emails from an American wannabe author.  

On location doing research for his book, JUBY'S ROOK

RW (Restless Writer).  It seems that the YA genre is full of trilogies and series these days.  How did you approach editors with Withern Rise?  Did you know it would be a trilogy when you started writing it?

ML. A Crack in the Line, volume one of the Withern Rise trilogy, was a slightly expanded rewrite of my first published book for children, When the Snow Falls, published in England (but nowhere else) in 1995. Some time after publication of Snow Falls I began to get an itch to further explore the premise of life alternatives thrown up by chance and circumstance, but for older readers. I only approached two editors with the proposition, and the second of them accepted it, probably because she had already published other books of mine. Although I intended The Aldous Lexicon (my English title) to be a trilogy I had no idea what would go into the second and third volumes until I came to write them, but I dropped little things in the first volume (and the second when I came to it) that seemed to have no business there, which meant that I had to find a reason for their presence in the next volume or volumes in due course. The story was thus a sort of unfolding puzzle for me, but I liked that process. It meant that I couldn’t write on automatic.

RW.  You write for very young children through adult.  Do you prefer writing for one age group more than the rest?

ML. I’ve always liked variety, though writing for children can be both limiting and frustrating as there are times when I want to use language and plot devices that would be beyond the young reader. 

RW.  The first time I interviewed you, I asked if you thought you'd tire of writing.  You said "I seem to change interests and professions every ten years or so. 2005 is my tenth year as a published writer, so I’m a bit restless at the moment, wondering what I can do to spice things up a bit."  So, 2010 marks year 15 as a published writer.  Have you found a way to 'spice things up' or are you searching for a new direction?

ML. Five years ago I put up a shelf that fell down. So I’m still writing. But the restlessness has not gone away. Far from it. Ever feel that you’ve strayed into the wrong reality? If so, you might be in mine.

RW.  Since you've been publishing for 15 years, how do you continue to generate ideas for your books?  What moves you along when the muse isn't smiling on you?

ML. I’ve never needed a muse, smiling or scowling. I’m one of those unfortunate individuals who has too many ideas to sleep through more than three nights a week. There are times when I long for writer’s block. What peace!

RW.  You've written many great books with memorable and quirky characters.  Is there any character that has remained with you or do they 'go away' when you've finished their book(s)?

ML. When I finish a book I’m out of it immediately and working on the next one. My characters are creations, that’s all, and disposable. Plenty more where they came from. I recently lost a close friend from childhood. He was real. He stays with me.

RW.  BABY CHRISTMAS has become a holiday classic in my house.  Did you find any major difference in selling a seasonal book?  Would you want to do more seasonal books?

ML. It took about a decade to find a publisher for Baby Christmas. Publisher after publisher turned it down, but after it came out I was asked to write a sequel. This I did – setting it on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. It was turned down on the assumption that buyers of Christmas books wouldn’t be interested in an after-Christmas book. Pity. It was a fun idea.

RW.  I think many people are drawn to writing and publishing because they want their words to live on and touch other people.  Which of your books are you most proud of? 

ML. Proud of? Tricky. I get absolutely no buzz out of seeing my books in shops, libraries or anywhere else. I might think fondly back on something I’ve written, but that’s about as close to ‘proud’ as I get. The book I think most highly of is the one that will be in my head next week, or the week after.

RW.  Where is your favorite place to refresh and rejuvenate your mind?

ML. I have a wooden lodge on the coast of North Cornwall, about an hour and a half’s drive from where I live. I go there for a week or so at a time, to work. It’s very quiet there. There’s no telephone and I receive no mail there. My view is of a field of grazing cows, hills dotted with walkers, and a small rocky bay. At night the sky, when not heavy with cloud, is filled with stars. It suits me very well.

RW.  What is the worst advice you've ever been given, about anything.

ML. ‘Don’t do it.’

RW.  What is the best thing that's happened to you because of your writing?

ML. Being able to give up sleeping on park benches under newspaper. For a while anyway...

RW.  I confess that I often procrastinate when I could be writing.  Facebook is a fabulous procrastination tool for me.  Do you procrastinate when you should be writing?  What is your diversion of choice?

ML. Facebook holds no allure for me. My preferred diversion? I write music of various kinds, including songs. No one hears these things. They’re for me alone, but hugely satisfying to produce and record. 

RW.  The publishing world is in an uproar over the future of publishing and digital rights.  Has any of this affected you and the work you're currently doing? 

ML. Book sales are way down at present for most authors, including me, though I doubt the reason is entirely the digital market. Ebooks could be the thing of the future, however, and accordingly I have just signed a contract for sixteen of my books to be made available in that format over the next year. These include the three Withern Rise books (the English version, as The Aldous Lexicon).

RW.  Do you have a favorite book that you find yourself coming back to?

ML. Nope. Tons of music, though.

RW.  You used to work as a photographer, do you think the artistic process of photography has influenced the way you write?  Do you still do photography for fun?

ML. These days I have no interest in taking pictures other than to record things or places I wish to remember or as an aid to my writing. When about to start work on a novel that requires a vivid setting I go to some lengths to find a real location for my characters to inhabit. I’ve just finished a comic novel about a murder weekend that goes wrong. Before starting it I searched quite widely for a house to set it in, and eventually found a likely prospect and wangled a guided tour by the owners. It was a huge dark place, with ivy over much of it, and a bell tower, and battlements, rambling grounds, and so on. I took a stack of pictures, which I spread over my desk in order to feel in touch with the place while moving my characters around its various rooms and parts. I did something similar during the three years in which I wrote The Aldous Lexicon. Withern Rise, the house in the trilogy, is the house I was born in, which overlooked a quiet stretch of English river. During the writing I revisited it often, photographed it and made notes through all the seasons, to ensure that every description was as precise as I could make it.

RW.  Are you ever in the States?  If so, how could I wrangle you to Michigan for a pint?

ML. The Big Invite has yet to arrive, and I doubt that it will. You need to hit the best-seller lists for that kind of interest, and I’ve only sold a couple of million books or so. Peanuts.

Susan Heyboer O'Keefe Interview

 If you follow my Facebook page, you know that I was contemplating doing author interviews here on the blog.  Susan Heyboer O'Keefe just released FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER this month, so I thought it was a good starting place for interviews.  This is her debut adult novel, but she's no stranger to publishing.  She's done tons of children's books, among them, DEATH BY EGGPLANT.  (Isn't that an awesome title?)
If you recall the Mary Shelley version of Frankenstein, you know that the monster is alive at the end.  So what happened to him?  Susan answers that question her book.   Even though this has nothing to do with Susan's writing, you have to agree that the cover for the book is phenomenal.  Doesn't it just beg you to pick it up and read it?
Congrats to Susan for the publication of FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER, and extra congrats for getting a great cover design! 
Without further ado, my interview with Susan Heyboer O'Keefe. 

RW: (Restless Writer):  Everyone knows Frankenstein whether they’ve read the original book or not. What drew you to the character and made you decide to write a new book about it?

SHO:  I was always amazed at how the movie was so different from Mary Shelley’s book—most notoriously, in the nature of the monster. The movie monster grunts and lumbers and exists on a purely physical level. Shelley’s monster is an articulate creature, intensely aware of its isolation from humanity and why that’s so. Plus, Shelley’s monster doesn’t die at the end of her book, which naturally invites the question, “What happened next?”

RW: Were you ever apprehensive to tackle such a well-known character?

SHO:  It never even occurred to me and thankfully so. Sequels are often written by other authors. If I had known that someone would say it took guts to tackle not just a classic but an iconic figure, I might never have attempted it.

RW:  How long did it take you to write the book?

SHO:  I started it in a previous life around the year 1700, which means it's taken about 300 years. However, it also means that I didn’t write the sequel to Frankenstein. Mary Shelley wrote the prequel to Frankenstein’s Monster.


RW:  What kind of research, if any, did you do for the book?

SHO:  I researched everything because I know nothing. Afterward, I put as little of it as possible in the book. Realistically we don’t mentally recount the whole history or workings of something that we pass. Usually—or at least, it’s usual for me—we note only what’s important to us at that moment. So I try to just suggest a place or an event.



RW:  Do you have a new project in the works?

SHO:  Always. Picture books being written and submitted (and rejected). Also two novels. One is adult historical fiction about an alcoholic daguerreotyper, who ran away from home as a boy and has finally returned to save his sister from the same horrible circumstances. The other is a contemporary middle-grade comedy that refuses to give me a full first draft. Now that Frankenstein’s Monster has been published ahead of it, and the other adult book is in full swing, and I’m up to, like, the twelfth full draft, maybe it will be jealous and eventually come around.

Coming together

The revision process for Dream Girl trudges onward.  I won a critique from Becky Levine for the first chapter, which I recently got back.  At first, I was totally frustrated because the things she honed in on were different than the things Jay Asher honed in on, were different from what Cynthea Liu said.  I'M SICK OF CRITIQUES!!!!  I screamed to myself.  So I started reading a book about writing called, The First Five Pages by Noah LukemanThe First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile.  The beginning was mostly about formatting.  I was about to put it down until I made it to the end of chapter 2 and found revision exercises.  They seemed sort of bland:  look at all the adverbs and adjectives on your first page and put them in a list.  Then list all the nouns and verbs.  Are they commonplace?  Rewrite the first page without using any adverbs of adjectives.  Blah blah blah, I thought.  Nice idea but it's after 11pm, I know the baby will be up too early in the morning so I should just go to bed...but then I felt the hand of the Muse upon me.  "Look at your first page" she said.  You can't argue with that.  So I took out a printed copy of my first chapter...from a couple revisions ago, just to glance at the verbs and whatnot.  Well, I didn't exactly follow the exercises Mr. Lukeman suggested, but something happened.  I did list some of the words I used and generated some replacements.  I got fired up about the replacements.  I changed the first line.  Things that Jay Asher mentioned back in May, clicked.  Then they tied in with things Cynthea Liu had mentioned.  And I think I got at what Becky Levine was talking about.   And, seriously, it only took changing a few words and rewriting a few lines and I feel like I tightened the entire first chapter, perhaps setting myself up to overhaul the entire manuscript.  I will share with you some of these astounding changes.  See what you think....

The opening lines from a couple revisions ago:  I didn't know it then, but I was scudding into work five minutes late on a day that would totally change the course of my life.  Everything had been so normal.  I didn't have the slightest clue.

Now, I've held on to that first line for a loooong time.  As in, that's pretty much how it started 5 years ago...until last night.  When the hand of the Muse led me to try this instead:  I slid into work on a Monday afternoon that disrupted the course of my life.  For seventeen years, everything had been as normal as the Cheerios I'd eaten for breakfast.  There was no indication that the Gothic adventures I so loved to read were about to become more than fiction.

Which one would make you read further?  What do you know about the narrator after reading each opening?  What kind of story are you in for?

I'd like to think that if Jay, Cynthea and Becky read this post they would nod their heads and say, "Yes, now you're getting it."  However, I'm content with thinking it of myself because a writers life is a lonely path and you have to rely on your own confidence to get through it.

PS.  I want that book for a Christmas present.  Hint hint to hubby.  ;)

Becoming Real

I feel like I have arrived.  No, I don't have a book deal in hand.  No one has offered to publish anything of mine but I have made it to a step that many aspiring authors never get to...a real, live, talented, artist has done some sketches for my picture book.  This awesome artist being, Sean Ingvard Ashby...go check out the sketches for yourself.  The best news of all, besides seeing a real face for my little character?  The best news is that Sean nailed it.  This excites me for two reasons.  1.) Because it proves that Sean is talented.  2.) It proves that I am talented. 
What a minute...you say.  Isn't that 2nd point a little narcissistic?  Well, yes.  But from my point of view, I've written my story in such a way that it could be illustrated the way I see it.  I left it open for artistic interpretation but the feeling I wanted to evoke is right there in the sketches from somebody I don't even know.  What an awesome experience!
Now here's the insider scoop for all of you.  I've read about illustrators who put things into their illustrations that are part of the author's life, but not known to the illustrator.  When I look at those sketches on Sean's blog, a couple things jump out at me.  Note: NONE of these things are in the text. 
1.  The story is based on my daughter.  I hoped that the illustrations would at least have the same hair color as her.  Thus far, it seems that they will.  Cool!

2.  There is a cat in the illustrations.  I like cats.  We have a cat.  Cool!

3.  The BIG thing for me, in the bathtub sketch, what is the little girl holding?  Go on...go take a look.  A mermaid.  Yeah, my daughter has a mermaid just like that for tub time.  Do thousands of girls have a mermaid like that for the tub?  Yes.  But this is my daughter and my character we're talking about, so I can be as excited about this as I want.  And, have you guessed?  I'm really excited. 

Besides these fun coincidences, I'm just relieved that my two hopes have been realized.  I wanted the character to look cartoon-y but cute.  I know these are just preliminary sketches, but that was already nailed.  I can't wait to see more! 
This is a happy moment in this author's life. 

Schmooze & Flash Fiction sample

Last Sunday, I attended an awesome local event hosted by Shutta Crum.  I do not appear in the photos on her website because I was sitting on a trunk in the corner.  It was a great time with food and more writer networking.  Seriously, children's writers are the friendliest group of people you could ask for.  You're never alone in a crowd of children's writers.  Although, my bud, Jody was there too and we had a conversation about the angst of revising.  Our conversation led me to email Jay Asher, since we're so tight, and ask him about critiques and revising.  He responded, promptly, and gave me some fantastic advice.  Basically, if the advice doesn't match up with the vision you had when you started writing, don't pay it any mind.  It sounds simple enough but that point can easily be muddied when you start throwing paid critiques from professionals into the mix.
The Schmooze was a great event to follow the LA conference.  Helped me to stay focused and energized about what I'm doing, despite the lapse of revision angst.  Now, I find myself gazing longingly at the SCBWI-MI fall conference which is taking place next month.  So many awesome events, so little time and money. 
Anyway, I've also been thinking that I should get some writing samples up on this page.  I recently entered a flash fiction contest with this little piece I call, DORIAN.  The rules stated that the first line had to be, "What were you thinking?"  and the piece could be no more than 400 words.  This isn't the greatest piece of writing I've done and I could definitely polish this more but I like the concept I came up with and I thought you might enjoy a brief read.  So here you go.  Let me know what you think.


Dorian

What were you thinking?  The words echo in my brain even as my vision starts to get fuzzy. 

I know what I’d been thinking.  Everything is so clear now.  I knew all along that I should have stayed away from Dorian.  Everything about him put me on edge, especially his eyes.  Looking into his eyes, even for a second, had made me feel like all my secrets were transported into his mind.  It was a terrifying sensation, but it also had the effect of making me want to be near him.  Maybe I just wanted to know the guy who seemed to steal my secrets, and, against my better judgment, I chose to get involved. 

I never expected to trust him.

Sure, we hung out, we even kissed, but it never made him less creepy.  He would say the right things and I would answer the right way but I always stayed a little on guard.  After all, he was the weirdo of the entire high school, probably of all the high schools in the nation.  I needed to be able to drop him if things got too weird.  

Today, after school, he’d asked if he could take me somewhere special.  To my credit, I hesitated.  “That’s ok,” he’d said quickly.  “You don’t have to, it’s cool.” 

“No,” I’d replied, suddenly feeling like I’d offended him.  “I’d like to go.” 

“Are you sure?” he asked.  “I don’t want you to feel like I’m twisting your arm or anything.”

“No,” I assured him.  “I’m sure it’ll be fun.” 

That was the first time I’d ever fully trusted him.  I let my guard slip and it turns out that I won’t have an opportunity to make that mistake again.

When Dorian stole my secrets, he would have learned that, even though I’m seventeen, I’m still afraid of monsters.  I know, it sounds stupid, but there’s always a moment at night, just after I turn off the light, that I hold my breath and brace for the worst.  Nothing happens and I feel silly, but I still do it. 

“You were right to fear monsters” he’d said when he brought me here.  Now, I’m lying on the forest floor watching all my blood flow from my body.  It’s almost reassuring to know that my nighttime ritual wasn’t in vain but I’m sorry I’ll never be able to warn anyone.