Coney Island Today

Sometimes I think it goes without saying: I love Coney Island. But then, I remember, not everyone has wandered the phasmatrope inside my head for the past few years as I wrote a novel inspired by the heart of this special place. They haven't heard the flap and slap of my character's feet against the loose wooden planks of the boardwalk or peeled back the sidewalk to reveal the underworld I created from the contrast of color and grit.

I take trips to Coney Island like I'm entering some magical land, one I have to shh and awe and gaze and point at only once or twice a year, because, to go there too often, well, I couldn't. I have never wanted to know every turn or bend. I prefer to leave Coney Island to my imagination and get lost there.

Last October, after the Sandy storm, there were questions about Coney Island's recovery. I'm not going to pretend that the people who call this place home are not still suffering from the tremendous loss. I'm not going to pretend there isn't work to be done. 

But this is Coney Island today (well, technically, yesterday) with its crowded boardwalk and thrill rides at Luna Park (what's your thrill level: extreme, high, moderate, or mild?) This is a packed Brooklyn Cyclones game and the original Nathan's, the Surf Avenue location, open again. And the dazzling new lights of the Parachute Jump, 8000 of them, said to be seen from space.

I wish we could have known last fall. 

Papa Burger

Boardwalk Flight - A Sky Coaster

Parachute Jump before Sunset

Crowded Boardwalk

Filming the Boardwalk Flight from the iPad mini.

Surprise!

Parachute Jump at Sunset

Brooklyn Cyclones Game

I just really like the Nathan's sign

Wonder Wheel

Just reminds me of 'Big'

A 10:30pm Cyclone ride anyone?

Summer Fury and Starting to Write Again

The days are hot here in New York and I haven't been blogging as much as I would like. I lost my camera early in July and began to realize how many of my posts come from what I see and how that makes me feel.

I've taken, perhaps, the longest writing break I've taken in a while. From the moment I finished the revisions to RABBIT ISLAND back in the first days of June, to today, I've written vritually nothing. Some journals. Some thoughts in this internet space.  I fooled around with a short story and decided to send it off into the wild to see if someone out there will publish it somewhere out there but, beyond that, I have been free of characters and plot for a long while.

I don't quite know how I feel about that. I've been dreaming a new novel for many moons and it, finally, feels like the right time to find the words for it. To think that I haven't worked on a new project with new characters and new story threads since before my wedding, over a year ago, my breath and heart quicken, wondering, what will it feel like to start again? To lean over the page and let my hair fall over the swirling s's and crossed t's of my thoughts.

I don't know.

As I originally thought of what to post here I could only think of the heat, the crowds in the subways, the way we're trapped in between buildings in this ferocious July.  This has been the fury of the sun each day from my iPhone. #NoFilter. As they say.

I leave for Ireland soon. A much needed escape.

I hope your summers are full of happy surprises. Or lazy sameness. Both great in their own ways.

What's Up Wednesday #2

What I'm Reading

Charming Billy by Alice McDermott. When my local used bookstore closed last spring, the owner let me take an entire tiny shelf of literary fiction paperbacks. I've slowly been making my way through them and only recently did I discover I actually owned this National Book Award winner from the year I graduated high school. It's beautiful so far.

Also, from that same stack, I just finished Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay. I knew nothing about the Vel' d'Hiv round up in France during World War II and I found the story absolutely fascinating.

What I'm Writing

The reason I've been missing in action from the blog is because I was finishing up revisions to RABBIT ISLAND for my agent. While the revisions were not extensive, I found I had to dig deep into the psychology of my characters in order to better understand some of the underlying emotions behind several conversations, story lines, and relationships. It turned out to be a tough pass. Now that they are turned over, I'll sleep well, gear up for another revision, if there is to be one, and continue dreaming and researching The Oyster Book.

What Inspires Me Right Now

The possibilities of summer.

What Else I've Been Up To

I've been in a sort of head fog these days, a bit distracted, nervous, preoccupied in spiraling thoughts, fidgety yet tired. In many ways, not myself.  On the actual side of things, there have been dinners with friends, plans with family, working each day, hoping for the right opportunities, writing and reading each night, and an unhealthy amount of viewing of Frasier reruns on Netflix. That cast of characters is really making me laugh.

Because I feel so tired these days, I think I'm going to experience a period of hands-off for a little while. A sigh. A release. Let the universe take over.

Beyond that, I'm dreaming of our upcoming trip to Ireland. And I hope one day this weekend, maybe Sunday, I'll wake up and go absolutely nowhere. That would be a beautiful thing.  

For more What's Up Wednesday, go here.

What's Up Wednesday

I thought I'd try this weekly meme because I've been struggling with what to write in this space. I always want to be here, writing posts, sharing thoughts, but then I find myself at a terrible loss, staring at the blank screen. As a result, as a default, as you've probably noticed, melancholy Melissa comes out to play on the blog.  As in, everyone is skipping and patty-caking, and I'm all, look at the dead bird.

So. Let's try this. Shall we?

What I'm Reading

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. This book is fascinating. I've lived a good, long, life wondering why I feel uncomfortable in many social situations and, the more I read, the more I understand what's behind a lot of this discomfort: an extrovert ideal, a shift that took place in the 1920's and has permeated society since. Now, I understand why the stimulus of Toy Fair sends me into a panic. I know the psychology behind my coping mechanism at cocktail parties.  I get why I can not thrive in office brainstorms. All of these 'shortcomings' have really upset me in the past and now the awkward puzzle pieces finally fit. I've been forced to fit my personality into an ideal that doesn't suit who I am. Major. Enlightenment. I'm going to have a lot to say about this book when I finish.

What I'm Writing

I'm working on revisions with my agent for RABBIT ISLAND to prepare for submission (!)  I've begun research for, what shall be known from here on out as, The Oyster Book.

What Inspires Me Right Now

Let's see...the power of introverts, oysters, friends who live their dreams, the complexity of sky, rediscovering Amy Winehouse's Back to Black Album, the lyric I'm a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside.  And as always, New York City, its two rivers, my writing tree in bloom, mornings on the subway rattling, bunched up, next to, near a stranger.

What Else I've Been Up To

I traveled briefly to sunny Florida and wandered through a professional golf tournament this past weekend. I read and have been inspired by the manuscripts of friends. I received deliveries and library alerts of books by women I admire.  I've gone to work each day. I look for new work. There have been dinners with friends, first birthday parties. Our first anniversary approaches, soon to reflect on a year as wife.

Well. Look at that. I liked doing this meme very much.

What's up with you this Wednesday?

For more What's Up Wednesday, check it out: here.

The journey, finding an agent, and all that

Some of you have inquired a bit about the journey to finding an agent and it occurred to me that I've been somewhat quiet here over the years about this part of the process, when, in fact, it has been a larger, nagging presence in my life than I've let on.  

So here's the story, and I apologize, in advance, for the length of this post.  Get a drink, kick back, skip to the end if you're bored.

Technically, I sent my first query letter in 1992. I was eleven and I had written a poem and, since I spent most of my mornings reading cereal boxes and whatever mail my parents left on the kitchen table, I read one of those weekly free community news circulars and discovered they had a very small poetry section.  I wrote a handwritten letter that said, 'I wrote this poem. I hope you like it!'*  And a month later, my poem appeared in the circular.

Since then, I have spent years sending short stories and novels into the universe. But that was the first and last time anyone has ever published my fiction.

In April 2010, I was serious about publishing a novel inspired by two sisters I had met long ago when I worked at school for children with special needs.  That story was really important to me and I queried it, slowly, for about a year.  Because I had done a lot of research about querying, I actually received a lot of requests to read the book but, in the end, I received around sixty rejections and about twenty of those were rejections of the actual material.

At some point during that process, I actually received a rejection from a reputable agent for a book that wasn't mine. As in, she gave me all kinds of feedback regarding a character named Logan (there was not, has never been, a character named Logan in the manuscript.)  She later apologized that there had been a mix-up but, at that point, having then received, not only my own beautiful stack of rejections, but, also, in some cruel joke, the rejection of someone else, I made a very difficult decision to shelve that novel and move on.

I wrote RABBIT ISLAND, a young adult novel inspired by the historic Dreamland fire of Coney Island. It's about a burning amusement park, a young singer trying to find her voice, and an abandoned amusement park ride and group of siblings she discovers underground.

In January 2012, I queried it. Over time, I received many rejections. A few agents, however, gave me very encouraging feedback.  One of those rejections was so incredibly kind and encouraging that I actually cried in my grey cubicle while at work, on the phone with a very confused IT person in India.  I cried because it felt as if I had come close.  I felt that maybe it had been good but not good enough, and, sometimes, it can be hard to always feel not good enough.

After querying some more agents, I decided to put that manuscript aside. I was trying to change some things in my life, gain career experience I wasn't getting at work, and plan a wedding. Somehow, I managed to write 15,000 words of a novel, then, one day, discovered that a very reputable young adult writer had already written it. Sigh.

But, in the summer of 2012, in a rather surprising string of events stemming from some words I had written about a treasured friend's book, on this very blog, I met with a real-life editor who reached out to me about my work (color me floored.) I explained some of my projects to her and her enthusiasm for RABBIT ISLAND made me think it might be time to re-look at it.

So I did.

I rewrote it. I changed third person to first, brought characters back to life, sent others to their rooms with no dinner, re-imagined an underground world I thought I knew, and discovered the motivations and the past of a mother I had not understood. I sent it to critique partners and received amazing feedback.  I revised again and sent it to others, then to an amazing friend who I did not know, when I first sent it, but later learned, was the one person I needed to read this book.

Then, last month, in mid-March 2013, I felt ready to send it out. I felt that if no one loved this novel, it wouldn't matter, because I had done all I could.

I was in conversation with a freelance editor partnering with an agency about my work but, beyond that, I queried just one agent. The one who had sent the kindest rejection. The one who, yes, had made me cry (because the rejection was so kind.) The one who, last Wednesday told me she loved the book and Thursday offered representation.

So here we are.

*For the record, I firmly believe all query letters should only consist of the words 'I wrote this. I hope you like it' because, what more is there, really, than that?**

**If you're new to querying, don't do that. Email me.

Okay To Dream

In the late hours last night, I found myself reaching an end. I completed another set of revisions for RABBIT ISLAND, a book that has sent me flying on both real and metaphorical rollercoasters for years, a book whose title I can not seem to shed because it's so rooted in this place that I can't imagine the unimaginative title any other way.

Yesterday, I sat with my boss, Jeff, as I do each week and though the meeting is on our calendar to discuss a weekly status, the discussion is never quite about where we are, but where we wish we, that is to say, our company, our industry, this 'business' of play (I work for a toy company), could be.

Over the years, he and I have stood in conference rooms and pitched endless ideas to bored listeners. We've been dismissed and berated more times than we've been encouraged.  And, while I've often grown weary and retreated, Jeff, instead, continues to fly off on zig-zag paths, what if, what if, and soon he thinks we don't just have an idea but a movement, a musical revue with booming ensemble spectacles in the third act, and I never quite know how we get to Rockette kicks and jazz hands (you'll have to ask him) but I always end up thinking, Okay. Yeah. Yes. Let's go. 

Our discussion yesterday turned towards people, to the leadership of our company, and we wondered what it would be like, if we walked into a room and instead of the eye-roll, the bored sigh, the I don't know, I don't really get it, do we really have time for this now?, we received a help me understand, or, a why don't you try this, or I have an idea! How about...

Last night, I thought a lot about this, about hope, about possibility, about the people who encourage creativity rather than suppress it.  I thought about how it trickles, how one sarcastic, snide comment shifts an entire conference room of people, shifts the culture of a company of hundreds.

I wondered if I have let others stomp and whine and no no no too many times. I thought, if I had to look towards leadership, I'd better look towards Jeff, who will go anywhere, who will piggyback any idea and ride it just to see where it goes.  I thought, I have to be that person to others. I have to be open, kind. I have to shift the mood another way.  It has to start with me.

When I reached the final sentences of my novel, last night, I felt hopeful, a feeling I have foolishly suppressed in the past. Sometimes it's hard to hope, to let yourself wish for things but, yesterday, after I saved the document, then emailed it to myself, watched it pop up bold and new in my inbox, I thought, it has to be okay to dream.  We have to open ourselves, and others, to that possibility.

Mostly Here

I'm back from Spain, gone from narrow, yellowed streets, lazy cafe days.  I'm married.  In a daze.  But mostly here.  I have many stories to share, on being a 'bride', on all I saw in Spain, on writing, on books, on life. I will share them in the coming days.

After that short break, I'm writing again, with more energy than I have in months.  They say writing is re-writing and that is what I'm up to.  And it is refreshing to leave the blank page, re-write with characters and places I know deeply, the ones I already have in my heart.

I have many photos to show you (you'll all kill me, I know, if I don't post one of me as a bride and I will) but this is the one I most wanted to share.  The very first thing I saw in Spain. This carousel in San Sebastian. These trees, which I call dancing trees, with the way they link arms, lean, and swirl. It reminds me of my book, my book, (a book I've all but abandoned in recent months) Rabbit Island.  So I wanted to share.

Tell me. Where are you...with your writing, your life, now that summer is here (or almost here)?  What did I miss?

Sky in Flames

Taken from my fire escape just moments ago. I went camera crazy, nearly dropped the camera from the window. Nearly fell out of it myself. Because you know how fast a sunset drops down from the sky. You know how quickly it all goes dark.

And I knew what I was seeing was my novel.

Not metaphorically. I mean, for real. This is it. This is what the world of my novel (Rabbit Island, the place) actually looks like. Right here.

A sky in flames.

My imagination on fire.

Some Words from the Work In Progress

I don't think I'll ever be able to figure out what this blog is about. But the writing is at the heart of it. And I haven't talked much about writing lately, which has probably led most of you to believe that not much of it has been going on.

But it has. Very late into the night. Every night. My days have become endless. After working a full day, it feels as if I begin an entirely new one when I return home. I walk in the door at 8pm, I cook, I eat dinner, and then it's time to write for a few hours.

It's been like this for months and, I'll admit, that the schedule is about to break me. But then, I think, I am healthy. I don't have children to take care of. I have time. So, really, I could be working harder. I should be working harder. I promise, I will.

So that you believe me, so that somebody out there (besides me) knows, here are some words from the current work in progress. Because I really do need someone to know.

What are you writing? I'd like to know too.



He kicked his heel back into the leg of the elephant, reached up for the belly of it, hammered against the metal, drummed out a hollow beat. The way he fidgeted reminded her of a little boy, always tinkering, snapping tree branches, running sticks through the sand. And it saddened her that she had become so perfectly still, so terrified to touch or disturb a thing.

“Where you going now?” he said, as if it weren’t a question, but a plea. Stay.

“Why does it matter?”

He stared at her as if he were looking into a camera and had forgotten to take the lens cap off. As if he were gazing into darkness and couldn’t figure out why. “Com’ere. Look.” He ducked underneath the massive elephant structure.

She hesitated.

His voice echoed. “Come on.”

The Bad Blogger

I have to apologize because I've been neglecting this blog lately. Please know that I read all of your posts and follow your lives, your projects, your brilliant minds but these days I've been more of a passive participant in the blogging community due to lack of time.

Work has been very demanding. As many of you know, I write and produce content for toys. It's hard for me to talk about my job on this blog because there are a lot of restrictions to what I can and can not say (crazy, I know). Just know that when my development schedules slip (and would you look at them go? slip sliding away, she sings), the engineers get grumpy, the sales teams get frantic, the big chain stores yell 'where are my toys!' Everything explodes. And somewhere...a spoiled child cries. And that's the gist of each day.

My nights are far more exciting as I frantically edit my work in progress, Rabbit Island. Goals of finishing the first edit by next Wednesday are just out of reach. I stay up as late as I can but there is a point when exhaustion takes over.

And that’s when the travel comes in. I will be leaving for far-off lands (Georgia…Alabama) next Wednesday for the holiday weekend in the states.

All this to say: I’ve been a bad blogger. I’ll try to be better.

Part of that effort: I joined Rachael Harrie’s Third Writer’s Platform-Building Campaign. Will you participate with me?


And tell me, how have you been spending the final days of summer?

A Trip to the North Fork

Yesterday, Tyler and I left the city to visit the North Fork of Long Island. We will be getting married out there next May and there are wedding related things to care of but, to be honest, we took the trip to escape the city and enjoy the excellent food and wine the region has to offer.

We do not own a car so we rely most often on our feet to get us places. It felt like a luxury to rent a car for the day, to ride east next to that long yellow line.

We discovered 88.3, WBGO, the jazz station, and listened with great interest to a program called Singers Unlimited with Michael Bourne. I was pleasantly surprised to turn on the station at the exact moment Rosemary Clooney sang out 'The Man That Got Away' which is, oddly enough, a song important to Rabbit Island, the work in progress I am frantically editing away at-- cutting and pasting and rewriting to get a framework worth working through.

I had forgotten what it was like to be in a car, to listen to the radio, to see a glimpse of something through glass and watch as it drifts away.

There were horses and farm stands, wine tastings and lunch beside the water. We found The Winemaker Studio, a little wooden tasting room where the winemakers in the region are selling their private labels. And when I learned what that meant, it took on even bigger meaning for me. Instead of making wine for the wineries and their owners, instead of adhering to the standards of an already established brand, they are making wine for themselves. And that's interesting...that makes me want to know more...

And of course, any time there is a sign pointing the way to cheese, I am happy. I am in a kind of heaven.

Some Kind of 'End'

Somehow, in the midst of this heat that won't break, after climbing hills of resistance in spin class because there is no way to bike in this wet blanket weather and stuffing myself with spicy gazpacho which seems to be the only thing we can eat in this summer fire, I finished the first draft of my WIP.

Of course, it needs work. This is only the beginning. But, somehow, there are 72,000 words and I don't know where they came from. I just feel grateful they are there. And I feel like it is some kind of end, even if it is not quite the end.

Since Tyler is sound asleep and I don't think the people in our little brownstone building would appreciate me banging on their doors to tell them the news, you, my friends, are the first to know.

And now I sleep.

Writing, Research, A Projection That Inspires

I took this photo Saturday night from my phone, trying to capture a moment that reminded me of my current work in progress, Rabbit Island. The film is China Seas, starring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable. I didn't see it, but it was projected against a white brick building in our community garden, just across the street from our apartment.

I have two characters with a passion for old film stars. One who wants to live her real life with the same emotional intensity and intrigue of certain Hollywood actresses. Another, who is so wrapped up in the glamour of these old films, she is unable to cope with reality.

Now that I am nearing the end of the first draft-- I feel like I've been saying this forever, but really, truly, this is the end. This week. I swear-- I find myself in the wonderful position of having to do research on a topic I am passionate about: movie musicals!

I will be reading biographies about two Hollywood film stars I am most interested in: Audrey Hepburn and Judy Garland. And catching up on as many movie musicals as I can. First on deck: A Star Is Born.

I have not always been put in good research positions after working on a project. There was this whole camping situation once and then this guy who made beer for a living. Don't get me wrong, I like nature. I like beer. But I did not find the research as interesting as I had hoped.

But movie musicals? This is a Melissa dream come true.

Are you a research person? Writers, do your characters put you in awkward research positions?

Words on a Page

It's been a while since I've updated you all on my writing projects and it's come to my attention that some of you may care, which will never cease to amaze me (thank you).

Spared sits and awaits a rewrite. After years of working on it, I realize the story is still not where it needs to be. A painful discovery but a discovery just the same. So it sits and waits. It is not quiet about it. In fact, it's somewhat impatient and rowdy and a bit of a nuisance. But I do feel the physical manuscript is in the proper place right now (Sitting. Waiting.)

I am nearing the end of the first draft of Rabbit Island, which has been an eventful ride. There have been some painful moments-- I got lost for something like...oh....50 pages and had to trash them all-- but, in the end, I thought it was a good experience. I had no idea things would end up where they are and I look forward to editing it.

And, below, Rabbit Island's first time out in public (ignore the bad hair and the poor outfit choice and the stammering. It has spent the last 6 months alone with me...which isn't good for anyone.)

Reagan stopped walking and the smell of hotdogs, the rising smoke, hung in the stale, hot air. "Don't worry. You're going to figure out the way you want to love someone," she told Adelaine. "And when you do, you're going to hatch grand schemes."

Adelaine laughed. "Let's start with you and Eric Brown and see what happens."

"What? It's a done deal."

Adelaine looked up at the entrance. Two tall tree trunks, whose branches stemmed into a giant arch. The trees were white, like everything at Dreamland, as if the entire place had been trapped inside a winter storm. The leaves sparkled, silver and glass, and the tangled branches twisted together to give the impression of a woman's face outlined with wild, flowing hair.

And when she walked inside, it felt as if she had been swallowed whole.

I hope you'll tell me what you're working on (writing or otherwise) and let me know how you are spending your days.