We almost lost our triplets in the London Underground a year ago. It was a crazy moment, when we almost lost them, and I’d rather not be thinking about it at all, but I am. I’m thinking about how my husband and I were inside the train, gaping at our shrieking four-year-olds out on the platform as our hands grabbed wildly at luggage and dropped coats and fallen mittens, all with the closure of the train doors imminent. It was one of those incidents that, while quite scary at the moment, grows closer to mind-numbing terror each time I think about what could’ve happened. Read More…
A chocolate falcon fell on my head this morning. Of the malted variety, to be precise. It wasn’t a real malted falcon, though, it was literary one, being the star of Bruce Hale’s Chet Gecko book #7, The Malted Falcon. I have ten episodes of the hilarious Chet Gecko series stored on the shelf in my walk-in closet, right above my shirts, waiting for my three five-year-old boys to start school so that they’ll have context for the stories of the green, fedora-wearing, dessert-loving detective of Emerson Hicky Elementary. I know they’ll love them. But with a few months still to go before school starts, the falcon that landed on my head this a.m. goes back up on the shelf. And a little farther from the edge. I have no desire to dress with a helmet on my head. Read More…
I’m happy to announce that I’ll be presenting a workshop at the Society of Children’s Books Writers & Illustrators’ 39th annual summer conference, which will be held at the Century Hyatt in Los Angeles July 30 through August 2, 2010. My session is “The Ultimate Checklist for Submitting to Editors: 10 Tests a Novel Must Pass to Prove It’s REALLY Ready for Submission to Editors.” Registration for the conference starts April 28th at www.scbwi.org.
If you’re even remotely interested in writing a picture book, chapter book, or novel for middle graders or teens, SCBWI is a must for you, and their conference is an ideal place to start. By way of testimonial, let me share the experience of one budding writer I sent there. This man, a lawyer by day, had begun a novel for ages 10 and up, but no one in his life could figure what to make of that. I ordered him to attend the SCBWI summer conference, and with the first day of the conference barely half over, he called me from the conference floor to announce, “I have found my people.” If you, too, are in search of “your people”, the Century Hyatt July 30-Aug 2 is a great place to start looking.
We just learned that the “travel bug” we originally left in Lowestoft, England, has reached Tirol, Austria. Tirol is a region in the heart of the Alps that boasts mighty peaks, crystal clear lakes, picturesque towns, and, now, a little yellow taxi. Read More…
Yesterday one of my trio rushed into the garage where I was putzing about. Tears were in his eyes and his face was mottled. He and his identical brother had a serious disagreement going on.
“Mommy,” he cried, pointing accusingly at the brother standing with his arms crossed at the bottom of the driveway, “he says he gets to ride his bike in front because . . . because . . . [sniff, sniff, snuffle] because he’s oldest.”
His crumbling face told me just how serious the situation was. I sighed a heavy, gusty sigh. I’d always known this day would come. It is an irrefutable law of siblinghood that at some point—and thereafter at regular points about a minute apart for the next twenty years or so—the firstborn will lord his birth status over his younger siblings. Even with triplets. It’s the way humans are wired. Read More…
I remembered today was St. Patrick’s Day when I turned on my computer and saw the Google logo. Thank goodness they update their logo based on holidays and pop culture moments. There I was thinking it was just another Wednesday. Sheesh.
Donning green Ireland soccer jerseys (and one John Deer shirt for our ‘worker’) and green bowler hats (and one yellow CATerpillar hat, again for our worker), we headed out of the house to celebrate the day of the leprechaun at the butterfly grotto at San Diego’s Balboa Park. It’s been three days now that we’ve owned caterpillars as pets—which are still alive, by the way!—and we felt the need not only to tap into our Irish heritage but to also tap into our pets’ family tree. And that’s what we did, quite literally: we climbed trees for better viewing of the butterflies who have already begun to infest the grotto.
It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny and vibrant with far more colors than Irish green. We really felt connected with Nature. And if it weren’t for the guy in the grotto who, with the help of a tripod and a digital camera with a timer, spent half an hour photographing himself lying dead among the butterfly plants, I’d call it perfect. Read More…
Actually, I don’t know why I’m asking that question. The process is playing out before my eyes, even as I write this, as my sons gamely try to potty train their new pets: three furry caterpillars. I’m finding the whole thing rather unnerving, to be honest, as I flashback on my days of potty training my toddlers. I keep seeing myself, bedraggled and still chronically sleep-challenged, pulling up suddenly as I spot something strange happening with one of my wee creatures—a behavior or an attitude that suggests a ‘movement’ is imminent—then me launching into manic feats of strength and agility in my frantic desire to get that wee creature to the potty IN TIME. In my case, my wee creatures were triplet boys. In my sons’ case, the wee creatures are triplet caterpillars. Read More…
I am a good person. I am an upstanding citizen, a kind neighbor, and a loyal friend. I’m an earnest, loving mother and wife. You can count on me when the chips are down, and you can bank on my word. This is all very important to me. Yet it all swirls down the commode in the blink of an eye when someone puts a bag of chocolate chips in my refrigerator and tells me, “Don’t eat those.”
Those chips are as good as eaten. Read More…
What do you do when Fate slips six more hours into your day? You launch a new website, that’s what.
I’m excited to announce the launch of www.Dear-Editor.com, a writers’ advice website where writers—published or not—can ask questions about the craft of writing and/or the publishing industry and get direct answers and actionable suggestions.
Whether they write fiction or nonfiction, for children or adults, this advice site is a place for writers to get guidance for the issues that challenge them. I invite you to visit Dear-Editor.com and look through the archives, respond with your own comments or tips, or email your own questions. Above all, I aim to make Dear-Editor.com a useful (and dare I hope fun?) interactive resource for writers.
And I’m even including a Twitter feature. Me? Tweeting? Like a bird, baby!
Happy writing!
Somehow, in the last two days, I was officially dubbed “lovably kooky” by my husband’s fellow teachers. And by the moms in my triplet playgroup. And by my husband. I don’t understand why? I mean, what’s so kooky about sitting outside the local elementary school at 4 a.m. on a beach chair in a puffy gray coat and hood trimmed with fake animal fur? How is that crazy? I had a very good reason for doing that. Three very good reasons, actually—my five-year-old triplets. Read More…