Music

Can't we just listen to music? I repeatedly asked Tyler this weekend.

Because, it was, what Tyler called, 'a big sports weekend' for him with The Player's Championship (golf) and cycling on all in one weekend. We have a small apartment so it means either the television is on or the IPod. One or the other. So we must compromise and take turns.

The characters in my current WIP demand that I listen to music and write about it, which has been this incredibly challenging and exciting task. I need complete silence when I write but lately I must stop in between paragraphs, words, and sentences. I must take pause, close my eyes and listen over and over to the songs. To the voices, to the hammering of a drum, to the way the piano notes skip and fall.

With the Linda Eder concert coming up (this Friday!) and playing catch up on 3 weeks of NBC's "The Voice" this rainy afternoon, it seems I can not get enough music. I want to listen to more and more.

So my ears are eager to know: what you are listening to right now? Who are the musicians that inspire you?

Draft One?

Every day, I sit and write 1,000 words of my novel (it should be noted that some days are more productive than others) and when I'm done, I e-mail the document to myself, with the subject line: Rabbit Island Draft One.

Every day it grows. Slowly. But it grows.

Rabbit Island Draft One, I type, attach, and press send. And there it is in my inbox.

Tonight I typed, attached, pressed send, and just looked at it. I wanted to cry.

Rabbit Island Draft One.

WILL IT EVER BE FINISHED? WILL IT EVER BE DRAFT TWO? I wanted to shout.

Nope.

Rabbit Island Draft One.

But, little by little, it grows...

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Trees and Trees

When I went to visit my childhood home last weekend, they had ripped out all of the trees on our tiny street. All of them. Every last one. They were growing too wild, too beautiful and were tearing up the sidewalks, ripping through the pavement. In the opinion of the Town of Oyster Bay, they had to be stopped. The sun poured in and the new sidewalks gleamed white. And I felt sick, knowing they were gone.

So I went to find them elsewhere. And I wondered...did anyone stop to think about what all the trees, even those too close to the path, could be?

The Journal Tells All

I stayed at my parents house this weekend and woke up early, looking for a book to read. Instead, I discovered three journals which I kept from ages 15 to 17. I sat in the same bed I wrote them in and read.

The themes surprised me.

I expected a lot of angst and frustration about my parents, but they were scarcely mentioned. Out of the hundreds, there was only one entry in which they were the focus and that was to say that I wanted to be free, which is pretty unoriginal.

I also anticipated a great deal of bemoaning the fact that I didn't have a boyfriend because, when I look back on that time, I think of that being the center of my miserable high school existence. However, most of my discussion about boys was really that I wanted to befriend more of them because hanging out with girls had become tiring and petty. I even recounted an entire romance I had completely forgotten, in which I was the one being pursued but I just wanted to be friends. I did mention boys that I 'liked' but, in retrospect, it seems that I was the fickle one. There was a new boy about every single entry and I changed my mind about my feelings every other day. This was eye-opening. Previously, I had been convinced that, at that time in my life, boys did not like me.

Perhaps the most surprising of all themes was the tremendous pressure I had put on myself to succeed. Almost every single entry refers to a test, a race, a match, or a recital, to which I was 'sick to my stomach' over. They are entries begging, please God, please, let me win, let me come in first, let my teacher praise me, let me get the solo, let me be the best. Honestly, this obsession was a little shocking because it is something that I do not recollect at all.

As I learn to write for a teenage audience, I find these journal entries invaluable. Obviously, I have a lot of misconceptions about my teenage life as a girl who was 'angry at her parents' and 'sad about not having a boyfriend'. In actuality, I may have just been a compulsive overachiever breaking boys hearts with wild ambitions to be free.

Interesting. Very interesting indeed.

The Playground

Last week, I attended the The Sandbox Summit at MIT, a conference about the people, products, and policies that empower 21st Century Kids.

I had not expected to enjoy the conference as much as I did because I consider it part of my 'job' to learn about how kids are learning and playing in the digital age. Just the thought of studies about the 'passback effect' and 'user generated content' and all the buzzwords I hear every day, made me want to pull my hair out.

But from the very first moments sitting at the breakfast table before the conference, when I unknowingly sat next to Karen Cator, the Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the US Dept. of Education, I became fascinated by just how many different people are out there trying to develop the right content for kids. Just how many parents, teachers, principals, game designers, publishing companies, toy companies, even President Obama telling us our education system is broken, that we are in a national crisis-- all of these people are, literally, worrying themselves sick over how to connect with kids in a meaningful way while they are so plugged in.

And there I am, trying to figure out what that means for preschoolers, the little ones I write content for at work. And what that means for me, as I try to write for a teen audience and connect with them through the pages of a book or an e-reader, or maybe it'll have to be an app, or a microchip that I install in their brain the day they are born that will automatically download my novel into their subconcious at the exact moment they are developmentally able to handle what I have to say.

I determined that we're all sending more and more information their way at such a rapid and challenging pace, and expecting them to process it faster and better than any generation before it, in a way that allows them to change the world.

I mean, talk about pressure.

And I don't mean, for us. I mean, for them.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things I learned at this conference is that children are craving more time to play. That play is this elusive thing, just out of reach. That it is overscheduled, overanalyzed, that it must be safe and indoors where parents can keep track of it and monitor it, that it must squeeze it's way between everything else we are throwing at them on a daily basis.

And this makes me sad.

I was the kid who woke up and went outside and did not go back indoors until my mother called for me at 9pm. I was the kid who biked in thunderstorms. Who came home green-stained, thirsty, and hungry, whining, while my mother attempted to untangle my hair with a comb.

And, so, like everybody else, I am worried. I am not going to lie.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Wishes

What do you wish is at the top of the stairs?

Honesty Is the Best Policy

Lori H. Walker inspired me to write this post because we were having a great e-mail discussion about querying. I certainly don't consider myself an expert on the subject but sharing my querying experience could be beneficial to those out there ready to jump in.

For those of you who have done serious research and are about to query, I know that you have polished your manuscript until it is the best it can be. I know that you have cut and re-written and re-arranged and spell-checked. I know you've had beta readers and crit partners pick it apart and destroy it and help you put it back together again. I know that you've put in serious editing time and worked weeks, months, and, perhaps, years getting your manuscript to be perfect.

I'm not being facetious. I read your blogs. I e-mail and chat and tweet with you. You're doing everything you're supposed to do and agents are not going to know what hit them when they get your query in their inboxes.

I did all of this. I went through six (I said SIX) major edits of my novel. I had friends, lovers, and countrymen read and critique it. I took most, if not all, of their advice (if it worked for my novel) and then when I thought I was finished, I edited it again. I did everything I was supposed to do.

Except one teeny little thing:

I lied to myself.

I lied to myself about one very important aspect of my novel. The beginning was too slow. I knew this. I made lots of superficial fixes to get around this because I did not know how to fix it. I need everything in those pages, I told myself. There is nothing I can cut. And that was partly true. But it doesn't help that it was slow.

And so...I began querying...

Because I had done everything I was supposed to do. I went through the checklist and marked everything off. Workshops, endless critiques, beta readers, Edit 1, Edit 2, and so on and so on and so on.

So I sent out my queries and received several requests in those first few weeks, to which I sent out my lovely little manuscript knowing I'd done everything I could. Well, almost everything. No, no, no, I mean...EVERYTHING. And then I received some very interesting news...

"I didn't connect with the material as much as I had hoped. The beginning was much too slow..."

But I knew that.

And you know it too.

So I'm here to make sure you add one more thing to your list of 'Before I Query' and that is:

Be honest with yourself.

If there's something gnawing at you about your novel. Something you've buried really deep inside of you and you're about to hit 'send' on that query. Just stop.

NOW.

I know you're antsy and impatient to get out there. I know you're ready. Because you've done everything. Everything you're supposed to do. But just give yourself that last honesty check. It will save you time later.