Mayes' days

I don't remember whether I mentioned him by name, but during the picture book panel discussion at last weekend's SCBWI conference, I sang the praises of former Farrar, Straus & Giroux editor Robbie Mayes.

It was Robbie who, in responding to an early draft of The Day-Glo Brothers six years ago this month, gently advised me, "If you were to develop this project further, what I'd like to see is a shorter text..."

People, it was more than 6,000 words long.

Can you imagine the restraint that went into providing the advice quoted above rather than scrawling "cut, cut, cut, cut, CUT!"? Or the generosity that led him to send anything besides a canned, "doesn't meet our needs at this time" reply to this sad, deluded writer who didn't realize he had enough text for six longish picture books?

I did develop the project further, obviously, and chopped the text of The Day-Glo Brothers by about 2/3, down to something resembling its current form. It still wasn't what Robbie was looking for, but the time and encouragement and specificity he provided made a huge difference for me, my manuscript, and my career.

As you can imagine, I've often thought fondly of Robbie, and since he left the business three years ago I've occasionally done a quick search for news about what he's been up to. I never found anything -- until yesterday.

Children's author Sam Riddleburger (The Qwikpick Adventure Society) has done the great service of getting Robbie to reflect on his time as an editor, recently posting the first and second installments of a still-in-progress, three-part Q&A.

You should read the whole thing, of course, but I thought I'd give you a taste of what you'll find:

Robbie on long editorial silences: "Trust me that when you don’t hear anything for a while—this is of course after first getting some encouragement—chances are pretty good you are not forgotten."

Robbie on gimmicky cover letters: "I felt a well-written, personality-ingrained letter helped me to form an early picture of what kind of writer I had on my hands. Sometimes the letter even trumped the manuscript in terms of whether I thought it a potentially worthwhile investment to offer encouragement and (hopefully) useful criticism."

Thanks, Sam. And thanks again, Robbie.

It's almost as if the bats are a metaphor for something

What we did not see.
(Photo from
Bat Conservation International)

Much of my time surrounding yesterday's Austin SCBWI conference was meticulously planned -- the full-to-bursting conference itself, the half-dozen manuscript critiques I provided, my performance as tour guide for my visiting agent, my mission to meet the macaroni-and-cheese needs of my visiting editor, and the post-conference consumption of chicken fried steak at Threadgill's.

But meticulous planning will get you only so far. After dinner, another local writer and I took four out-of-towners to participate in the beloved Austin activity of watching 800,000 or so Mexican free-tailed bats take flight from beneath the Congress Avenue bridge as the sun went down. A lot of people do this -- yesterday evening, hundreds of folks standing on the bridge or sitting with us on a hillside below waited for the bats to emerge.

We waited, and we waited, and we waited. The sun set completely with no mass emergence of Tadarida brasiliensis. The sky darkened to the point where we really couldn't tell whether any bats were flying out at all, or if they were just clinging to the outside of the bridge -- either way, none of us were going to witness the spectacle of all those flying rodents silhouetted against the fading evening sky.

What could we do? We'd showed up on time, we'd waited for a long while, but there was never any guarantee that any of us were going to get what we'd come for. Families with small children were the first to pack it in and head for their cars. When the patient troop of Boy Scouts from Humble, Texas, got up and left, I took that as a sign that the show -- such as it was -- really was over. We folded up our blankets, too.

But then one member of our party gravitated to a spot below the southeastern corner of the bridge, and gradually the rest of us joined her. If we used our hands to shield our eyes from the light of the streetlamp overhead, we could clearly see something. Not the picturesque bat exodus that we had expected, but something remarkable in its own way.

One-by-one at times, and other times in clusters, the bats were indeed coming out -- though that's not what we saw, exactly. What we saw instead was more amazing than that. A few feet or yards from the bridge, the bats just seemed to materialize. Suddenly, in midflight, there they were, their brown bodies flitting and swooping and darting. And then, just as amazingly, they seemed to dissolve into the night sky or into the shadows beneath the bridge.

Over and over, we watched it happen. Everybody else had gone, but the six of us who stayed received our own private display. It was not what we had planned for. It was wholly unexpected. And it was uniquely memorable.

They say that a certain percent of success (or life) is just showing up. Last night was a reminder that there's also something to be said for sticking around and keeping your eyes open.

Get some wisdom from accomplished children's literature professionals. Or from me.

Talk about being in good company...

At the Austin SCBWI conference this coming Saturday, I'll be participating in the picture book/chapter book panel discussion, "How I Got Published/Continue to Get Published." I'll get to pass the microphone back and forth with Christy Stallop, Brian Anderson, Jane Ann Peddicord and Lila Guzman. Not a bad bunch at all.

Moderator Julie Lake gave us a preview of her questions, and I've been mulling over some of those this morning. If you don't mind, I believe I'll take this opportunity to think my responses through out loud.

Real quickly-like, what did I do to get published?

In the case of The Day-Glo Brothers (Charlesbridge, 2009), I found a story that I thought would be fun to research, fun to tell, and fun to read. (Note: I kept the audience in mind, but I kept my own tastes in mind even more.)

Easy to sell? Well, there weren't a whole bunch of books out there about obscure entrepreneurs researching fluorescence during the Depression -- nothing I could point to and say, "See? These books are big!" But I did learn the market well enough to know that publishers were open to picture book biographies of such unconventional subjects as Waterhouse Hawkins and Fannie Farmer.

I researched, and I wrote, and I submitted. And I submitted. And I cut my manuscript by 2/3. And I submitted some more. And my 23rd submission (approximately) of this manuscript coincided with having a couple of local acquaintances put in a good word for me with their friend, the Charlesbridge editor. I would not have had those acquaintances without SCBWI, and it just goes to show how important personal contacts are in this business.

What trends/changes do I see now vs. when I first started trying to get published?

The avenues for making professional connections and learning the industry and expanding one's awareness of what children's literature can be have been greatly expanded by the kidlitosphere (and keep in mind that the avenues that existed within the children's literature community were already pretty impressive when I started seven years ago). But writers, beware: The potential for distractions from the actual work of reading and writing children's books has become just as vast. Strike a balance, and be vigilant about sticking to it.

What would I do differently if I could do it over again?

I would have waited a lot longer before I began submitting my work to agents. To that agent who received my very bad batch of first manuscripts -- which no editor or critique partner had laid eyes on -- I apologize.

The best part of a busy week

It wasn't toting home from UT an enormous stack of books about antebellum Charleston and the B&O railroad as research for my Impostors project.

It wasn't reading a terrific nonfiction proposal from a new friend and then putting her in touch with a children's literature professional who was just as enthusiastic as I was.

It wasn't picking up Keep Your Eye on the Kid as a baby gift for a film-historian mom's firstborn (See? I'm doing better!) and then visiting with a kidlit friend while I was in the neighborhood.

It wasn't even finding out about another friend's wonderfully ambitious (and long overdue) historical and literary project.

And it wasn't finishing my first reads of the manuscripts I'm critiquing for this month's conference, or successfully shaving 12 pages of my own down to 10 for submission to a critique group, or making plans for a get-to-know-you lunch this week with a couple of local literary folks.

Nope, it was an hour spent at my kitchen table with a pair of preteen writers. They came equipped with loads of enthusiasm and terrific questions about writing and publishing, and I got to share the evolution of my relationship with one publishing house from rejection letters -- all of which I saved and was able to show them -- to acceptance of one of my manuscripts.

And the best part of the best part was when one of them said, "Little, Brown! Almost everything I read is from Little, Brown!"

What am I working on (3/08)?

Well, since last time, let's see...

Researching and writing new profiles for my Impostors project, a.k.a. Pasta.

Booking a summer trip to Boston, where I'll visit my Day-Glo publisher and hang out with my agent and some of her other clients.

Starting manuscript critiques for next month's SCBWI conference, and making plans to entertain out-of-towners.

Revising my recent picture book manuscripts, starting with Bell.

Toiling away on a plan to raise the profile of children's and YA nonfiction right here in the (or at least a) River City.

Trying to keep my writing-related-but-not-actual-writing-writing activities in check. So with that, I'm off...

Some doubt about it

I found out this weekend that I've got seven manuscripts to critique for Austin SCBWI's Write in the Heart of Texas conference next month. I've got plenty of time to get them done -- the conference isn't until April 26 -- so I'm not at all worried about that. But tonight I suddenly became aware of a pressure of a different sort.

Before you get published, as the years and rejection letters mount, writing for children can begin to feel like not just a hobby, but an increasingly expensive one. There are the big expenses, like workshops, and the smaller ones, like books and postage, and somewhere in between are fees for professional manuscript critiques.

Even at just 30 bucks a pop -- a bargain by some standards -- those fees can give a writer pause. "Is it really worth it?" they might ask. "Is this the best use of my money? I mean, really, the guy doing the critique -- his books are all just under contract. That's not the same as published." Hard to believe, but from time to time, writers do harbor such doubts about what they're doing.

The pressure I've newly become aware of is to make those seven writers who have entrusted me with their work feel like they did a smart thing in adding the extra $30 to their conference registration check. I've critiqued lots of manuscripts over the years, but this is the first time I've been compensated for it, and I want these folks to feel like they got their money's worth, and then some.

There will still be things that they doubt, but I'd really like for this expense to not be one of them.

I, Vivaldi; them, Shefelmans

I just found out that Austin author/illustrator pair (and great, gracious people) Janice and Tom Shefelman will be at BookPeople a week from Saturday to discuss their new picture book biography of Vivaldi.

I got a sneak peek at some of Tom's art for I, Vivaldi a while back and cannot wait to see the whole thing. If you'd seen what I'd seen, you'd feel the same way. I hope to see you at BookPeople at 1 p.m. on March 8.

Don't make Bartography cry

From Lyn Seippel, assistant regional advisor of the Austin Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators:

Only NINE spots remain with our featured authors in the Critique Clinique at the April 26th Conference. [Bartography note: I'm one of those authors, and if my spots don't all get taken up, I'll be so sad.]

* First Come – First Served
* Available to anyone who registers for the conference

Secure your spot now and then you’ll have until March 1st to work on your manuscript.

Once you have your manuscript professionally critiqued by one of our featured authors, and revisions are complete, then consider sending it to an editor or agent for consideration. As a registered participant of the April 26th conference, you will be able to submit to/query speakers Alvina Ling (editor), Deborah Wayshak (editor) and Erin Murphy (agent) after the conference.

Registration forms and detailed information are available at www.austinscbwi.com.

What am I waiting for (12/07)?

The shortlist of Cybils nonfiction picture book finalists, which I'll help judge.

Official word that publication of The Day-Glo Brothers is 12 months away, at which point I'll start working in earnest on a full-fledged author website. (My wife, by the way, has been justifiably raving about this one.)

An editor's verdict on J.R.

The posting of the complete schedule at the Texas Library Association conference.

After the holidays, when I'll try to convince some of my local author friends to let me tag along on their school visits.

The right time to pick the brains of the librarians at the elementary school just down the street.

The right time to try my hand at writing a "Cadenza" for Horn Book.

The right time to pitch a children's nonfiction panel for the 2008 Texas Book Festival.

The right time...

Be there then (and staying there now)

If I wasn't already involved in next spring's Austin Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference as a panelist, I'd be knocking folks out of the way to get my registration into the mail.

Perhaps I'm biased -- one of the faculty members sold one of my manuscripts to another of the faculty members -- but the lineup of professionals, sessions, and activities is the best I've ever seen this side of the annual SCBWI conference in Los Angeles. It truly seems perfectly designed to meet the needs of children's and YA writers at every stage on the path of publication.

They even found someone to critique nonfiction manuscripts.

***

Earlier tonight I found out what will happen to Pasta, the manuscript bought by an editor now moving to a different publishing house.

The most likely options were that the manuscript would land in the hands of a different editor at the same publisher (Dial), or that it would go with the original editor to her new employer.

Turns out, I'm staying with Dial. I'll miss working with my original editor -- she and I had put our heads together in her office last spring to come up with a vision for the book -- but I also get a kick out of knowing that, in a sense, I've sold the manuscript twice, once to each editor.

And if the new editor and I come up with a different vision, no biggie: I haven't done much more than think about this project since finishing the proposal.

How could this happen?

I was disappointed by the fact that, near as I could tell, there was only a single nonfiction session for young readers at the Texas Book Festival -- a reading by a single author. As a reader and as a parent...

Oh, please. We know this is really about me as a writer with some nonfiction titles on the way. I'd love to participate in the festival when I've got a book to show off, but with just a single nonfiction slot available, that sure hurts the chances for any individual author.

So, now I'm wondering how discussion panels for this or any other book festival come together. Who suggests them? Who coordinates them? Who picks the moderators?

Knowing Austin well, and knowing this year's nonfiction offerings pretty well, I think a panel at this year's festival featuring these music-related titles might have been a big draw:

• Up Close: Johnny Cash by Anne Neimark
• Take-Off: American All-Girl Bands During World War II by Tonya Bolden
• America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60's by Laban Carrick Hill

Back to the question in the title of this post, how could a session like this happen next year? Who do I call? And how much of a breather after this year's undertaking do I give them?

When not to open that soft drink, and other things I learned at the Texas Book Festival

This weekend, for the first time in years, I made it to both days of the Texas Book Festival. And I attended with a very specific goal: to observe what worked (and what didn't) for authors with an opportunity to connect in person with their audience during readings, presentations, and panel discussions.

In other words, how did authors seem to help their cause -- getting readers and book buyers to want to spend more time with them -- and what might they have done differently?

In brief, here's what I've culled from my notes, all of which I will certainly memorize and faultlessly execute (or avoid) when my time on stage comes:

What Worked:

• Being gracious to the person that introduced you.
• Speaking plainly, even bluntly, but also thoughtfully and enthusiastically.
• Giving the audience an opportunity to feel smart by asking questions that someone in the crowd is going to have an answer to.
• Being willing to risk appearing ridiculous.
• Smiling, laughing, and generally appearing animated, engaged, and self-effacing.
• Making eye contact with the audience -- especially with the specific audience member whose question you're answering.
• Using less than your allotted time.
• Being attentive to your co-panelists while they're speaking.
• Having interesting anecdotes and turns of phrase at the ready.
• Sharing something with the audience that they didn't already know.
• Being playful and self-aware when plugging your book.
• Addressing both the audience and your moderator/co-panelists when answering a question.
• Explaining without condescending.
• Allying yourself with your audience.
• When given the opportunity to talk about your own work, starting off by promoting someone else's.

What Didn't:

• Fighting a long, losing battle with a slide presentation that has decided to advance of its own accord, rather than handing the remote off to someone else and staying focused on your audience.
• Reading your own author credit ("by My Name Here") aloud.
• Dropping a well-known name -- and then emphasizing your intimacy with that person (and the audience's lack of it).
• Commandeering a panel by taking up more than your share of the session's time or the audience's attention.
• Having a side conversation while another panelist or the moderator is speaking.
• Answering a question other than the one that was asked -- without acknowledging that you aren't answering the actual question.
• Making a speech during a panel discussion.
• Popping the top of a soda can while a co-panelist is responding to a question -- especially when your microphone is on.

Quadruple-booked

Yesterday I learned of yet another appealing Texas Book Festival session vying for my time at 2 p.m. Saturday. My good friend -- and big-time mentor during my adolescence -- Bobby Hawthorne will be discussing his latest book, Longhorn Football: An Illustrated History, as part of a panel titled Pigskin & Politics: Two Texas Obsessions.

I better quit studying the festival schedule, or else the whole weekend may start to look like this.

This is why I shouldn't read books for adults

So, I've been excited for a long while about this weekend's Texas Book Festival here in Austin. Among the children's and YA panels and presentations are -- both at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday -- Rick Riordan and "The Long Run: Becoming a Man in Young Adult and Middle Grade Novels." I could do worse than attending either one.

But this past weekend, I read and loved Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher, and he's speaking at 2 p.m. in the House Chamber. I've love to hear what he has to say, especially with his book still so fresh in my mind.

My mission for the weekend is not feeding the adult reader in me, but rather seeing how published and polished children's and YA authors do their thing in front of a crowd. Hmmm.

Night owl and night owler

I was up past midnight last night crafting a letter to one of my editors. By 8 a.m. Central time, I had a (very, very encouraging) response. Later, I checked the timestamp on her reply and realized that if I'd just stayed up a couple more hours, I wouldn't have had to endure that agonizing wait.

It's always a relief to learn that there's someone with a schedule nuttier than yours. I just hope her encouraging response wasn't simply the insomnia talking.

I might have been wiped out this morning had I not been excited about lunch with a posse of my writing friends. Post-lunch, I was sustained by the invigorating effects of good news, great stories, and general shoptalk.

Who is Piñata Boy?

I thought the guy behind the piñata table today at Maker Faire looked familiar...

Three new things

Thing 1: Inspired in equal parts by something I recently read and recordings I've been listening to from 1938-1942, I've come up with a fresh, invigorating -- and maybe even workable -- narrative approach to my Alan Lomax book. Luckily, I've done only two chapter drafts already, so it's not like I'd have to rewrite the entire manuscript. (That may come later, should I go whole-hog with this new approach only to find it doesn't work after all.)

Thing 2: I've taken the first step in researching a potential new picture book project I'm calling D.B. For this one, I'd be getting out and about and visiting with people and getting to know more about a certain type of heavy machinery -- quite a bit different from staying up late with copies of old letters.

Thing 3: I'm on the hook to make a presentation next Tuesday night at a religious-education gathering at my church, and with a week to spare I've already got a draft written. Or rather, I've got several paragraphs written in sequence on several different nights, and it seems that they should add up to a coherent 5-7 minutes of something intelligible, perhaps even inspirational. But I really should confirm that. This will be good practice for the presentations I hope to be doing at conferences in the not-so-terribly distant future. If I get nervous, I'll just look out at the congregation and imagine that they're librarians.

All roads (well, two) lead to Austin

I got the official announcement this week that my agent and my S.V.T. editor will both be at the next big Austin SCBWI conference. And though it's not until April 26, 2008, I'm already plenty excited. This will be only my second in-person get-together with my agent, and the first time to meet my editor.

You New York authors, with your New York agents and your New York editors -- do you realize how lucky you are?

While I'm in the neighborhood

There was a special children's lit event in my neighborhood this evening -- a presentation by author/illustrator Meghan McCarthy at the nearby branch library.

No one else from Austin made it, but that's understandable: My neighborhood this week is Midtown Manhattan, where I'm attending a conference for my other career. The branch library, in this case, is the Donnell, home of Winnie the Pooh and Fuse #8. And the timing of Meghan's to-do couldn't have been better -- right in between my afternoon conference thing and my nocturnal conference thing. And it was dinnertime, and there was cheese, and the whole thing just worked out beautifully.

One thing Meghan said about Aliens Are Coming! really knocked me out. There's a spread depicting folks in a diner panicking during the 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. On the counter in that diner is a copy of LIFE magazine, and on the cover of that issue is a recreation of the actual image that was on the front of LIFE at the time of the big scare.

Now that's attention to detail.

TLA PDQ

I probably have about one-eighth as much time as I'd like to have to say all the things I'd like to say about my Thursday visit to the TLA exhibition hall. So, I'll make it quick, with no guarantee that I'll actually be finished when I stop.

My publishers' booths were among my first stops. I was still a civilian at this year's show -- no signings to do, as I've got nothing to sign yet -- but the #1 thing I wanted to do at TLA was get to know the publicity and marketing folks who'll help bring my books out into the world.

I really admire the folks working the booths, especially those whose companies sent a small crew. As tiring as it can be walking the show floor (especially when one wears, for purely stylistic purposes, cowboy boots), I can't imagine staying put as much as they have to. Nor would I do well having to be on as much as they are.

I met Camille from Book Moot. She had kindly posted a photo of the shoes she'd be wearing, and just as I was starting to feel the slightest bit self-conscious about walking around glancing at all those feet, there were the pink swooshes I was looking for. We had a delightful conversation and a place to sit, though we did have to work a little for the latter.

For the nonfiction reviews I post here, I stuffed my bag with ARCs and F&Gs (and stuffed my badgeholder with business cards from publicity and marketing folks) but brought home not a single catalog. Too many times over the years, I've had an imposing, towering stack of catalogs that ultimately get recycled en masse and unread.

I didn't bring home just nonfiction titles. The favorite so far of 3-year-old F is That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown, by Cressida Cowell and illustrated by Neal Layton. I've been completely charmed by my friend Ruth McNally Barshaw's Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel and Eileen Spinelli's Where I Live, illustrated by Matt Phelan.

There weren't as many editors at this conference as there were at ALA Midwinter last year, but I sure did enjoy visiting with those from Front Street, Atheneum, Charlesbridge and Little, Brown.

And there was Grace Lin, and the publisher of Horn Book, and dinner with a tableful of Austin talent, and... I'm out of time.

Texans, meet Grace Lin! Then, meet Grace Lin! After that, meet Grace Lin!

I was looking over next Thursday's author signing schedule for the Texas Library Association conference in San Antonio when I noticed that author/illustrator/Blue Rose Girl Grace Lin will be signing books for Little, Brown from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

And for Charlesbridge from 2 p.m.-3 p.m.

And for Lee & Low from 3 p.m.-4 p.m.

So, if you're at TLA next Thursday and you don't see Grace, you're just not tryin'.

What am I waiting for? (2/07)

News from editors on S.V.T., Pasta, James and Smith.

P.O.'s return to circulation.

The right time to travel a few hundred miles east for some on-site research for J.R.

Anything that may develop from an animation studio's recent out-of-the-blue inquiry about one of my projects.

TLA!

What am I waiting for? (11/06)

Half a year since I last posted about this, I'm still waiting for more things than I'm working on. Including:

My first glimpse of the art for The Day-Glo Brothers.

News from editors about several manuscripts:

• My biographies of James (picture book) and Smith (middle grade), which are both with the same editor. This editor gets them, I think, but there's a big difference between "gets" and "buys."
• My middle grade novel, Arbor.
• My proposal and sample chapters for Pasta.
• My picture book/graphic novel series P.O.

Copies of the books nominated for the Nonfiction Picture Book category of the Cybils.

The next big industry/literary event I plan to attend: the Texas Library Association annual conference in San Antonio in April.

Next summer, when -- a year before The Day-Glo Brothers' publication date -- I'll get cracking on a full-fledged web site, curriculum guides, and whatnot.

This counts as writing, right?

I didn't make it downtown for the Texas Book Festival this weekend -- my boys didn't want to go, and me insisting "You will go appreciate books amid a massive crowd" didn't seem like the best way to foster their love of reading. So, I missed Kathy Duval, Nicholas Lehman, Larry L. King, and other authors I would have liked to have seen, met, and/or mingled among.

But worry not -- I've still managed to do my share of socializing. My wife and I were the last folks to arrive at a Writers League of Texas reception Saturday evening, but we still got there in time to catch up with Annette Simon, Varian Johnson, and Julie Lake, as well as with Gene Brenek and Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith, with whom we formed a fivesome for dinner.

On my way home from work a couple of days before, I stopped by the Borders where a passel (or perhaps a posse, or a possel) of visiting children's authors were making their last appearance in a statewide tour. Before the presentation, I had a chance to visit with Janee Trasler (whose delightful Ghost Eats It All is 2-year-old F's current favorite) and meet Shirley Duke (whose No Bows is going to the next lucky little girl of my acquaintance to have a birthday) and Anastasia Suen.

Anastasia and I are both serving on the nominations committee for the nonfiction picture book category in the Cybils. Organizing things for that committee (and for the judging committee) has taken up a lot of my time lately, but the upside is that I'm going to be reading a lot of great nonfiction over the next couple of months as we narrow the nominees down to five.

Somewhere in there, I expect to do some writing as well. Maybe right now...

Reading? Writing? Who needs 'em?

Aside from not getting much reading or any writing done, yesterday was terrific.

First, my editor paid me a great big compliment as we resolved a micro-issue related to the publication date of The Day-Glo Brothers. By the way, we should be about a year away from having advance copies.

Then I heard from my agent that my Pasta proposal -- two chapters and descriptions of additional subjects ripe for coverage in the subsequent chapters -- is ready to send off to the (very patient) editor who expressed an interest back in January. Plus, I got some encouraging and constructive feedback on SVT that -- along with what I got from Don and Julie last weekend -- I'll put to use when I start revising next week.

And then there was the party, a Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith-hosted affair in honor of the guests in town for today's SCBWI conference. If I drop any more names, I'll be spending the entire morning adding links to their sites and blogs. But regardless of who was there, I was impressed yet again by the warmth and congeniality and fun (and noise) generated by a house full of people who love children's literature.

I learned of new contracts, new books, and a nearly completed trilogy. I got to pass along a message from an out-of-town author to the visiting editor, and I took a message from the visiting writing coach to pass along to an out-of-town blogger. There was enthusiastic talk of the Cybils (and not just by me), nervous talk of the next day's presentations, and grin-and-bear-it talk of ongoing revisions. And lots of curiosity about how The Day-Glo Brothers is coming along.

Best of all, I found in a couple of New Yorkers an appreciative audience for the title of the country song I'm writing. But since it was too loud to sing in there, I'll share the chorus (the only part of the song that actually exists so far) with you. Feel free to imagine my wife rolling her eyes as I sing:

I'll ask you one more time
And I swear, it's not a joke
Tell me honestly
Do these tears make my heart look broke?

From Cybils to sikyifriykyiwas

The children's book awards now have a name and a web site: the Cybils. Now, head on over and get to nominatin'. And if you want to be considered for a non-fiction picture book committee -- either to narrow down the nominations, or to select the winner -- let me know right here in the comments.

***

I enjoyed a flashback to my youth yesterday through a couple of bedtime chapters of Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing, which I hadn't read in 25 years. (I read sequel Superfudge aloud to my own fourth-grade class, so school visits should be a cinch for me.) But as much as I enjoyed it, 7-year-old S enjoyed it more, devouring the whole thing and getting all excited when I told him there were other Fudge books. I'm so glad I thought to bring home Tales while S, like Peter Hatcher, still has a 2 1/2-year-old brother.

***

I got some useful and encouraging feedback on my new manuscript, SVT, from my critique group on Saturday. I've got another set of eyes looking at it, and then I'll figure out my next move, but I'm still very much in love with it.

***

SVT must have met my need to get silly and make stuff up, because I've now been drawn far deeper into JR, the topic I'd been considering for my next picture book biography. Before I really started reading up on the subject, I'd thought it was something I might want to write about, eventually; now, I feel like it's something I have to write about, now.

***

Finally, if you've always wondered what a sikyifriykyiwa sounds like, wonder no more. Yesterday, I learned of Wesleyan University's Virtual Instrument Museum, which is packed with sample sounds and videos of chordophones, aerophones, membranophones, and idiophones. "Idiophones?" Who knew?

Exceptional

I got all bristly earlier this week when a friend of mine -- while we were discussing prolific children's writers and our own busy schedules -- remarked about how great it must feel to bang out something as short as a picture book manuscript.

Fellow members of the kidlit guild will be proud to know that I reflexively defended our craft and the time it takes to do it properly, even when the word count is measured in three (or even two) digits. Yes, compared to the geologic age of the earth or the time it takes to produce book-length nonfiction about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, picture book manuscripts come together relatively fast. But in such a brief piece of writing, for an audience whose outlook and recent experiences are so different from those of the author, every word gets scrutinized and scrutinized again -- and that's before you take into consideration how those words will interact with illustrations that don't yet exist.

It's possible to quickly turn out a picture book manuscript, I admitted, but it's not necessarily the norm. In my experience, certainly, it's the exception.

Well, a day or two later, I went on to have one of those exceptional experiences.

With a critique group meeting looming and nothing to share, I went for a run Tuesday evening. Less than a mile into it, a recent idea that heretofore consisted only of three words popped into my sweaty head -- along with fully formed text. I fleshed it out while I ran, kept working it over so I wouldn't forget it before I got back to the house, and typed it up as soon as I came in the door.

Later that evening, I sat in a big comfy chair and added a bit by longhand before placing the notebook on the floor right outside my bedroom door. First thing in the morning, I picked it up, went downstairs, and banged out a complete manuscript. Elapsed time since inspiration hit: maybe 13 hours.

My friend was right. It did feel great.

What felt even better was the nature of this particular manuscript -- goofy and silly, inspired by and targeted for the tastes of 7-year-old S. I can't remember the last time I'd written something like that, but I know I don't want to go that long again.

Is my new manuscript any good? I'll find out soon enough when I share it with other grownups. But I can tell you how S and 2-year-old F reacted. My wife read the manuscript to them throughout the day, and they loved it, with S recounting his favorite parts to me when I got home that evening.

Now, something else that we in the kidlit guild are supposed to reflexively emphasize is that you should never use the reaction of your kids, grandkids, pets, etc., to measure the quality of a manuscript. Of course they'll love it; you feed them. Their reaction is not supposed to matter.

Well, it did.

What are you doing on October 21?

If you haven't already signed up for or -- gasp! -- heard about the Austin SCBWI conference next month, take a look at this. I understand that this may not be for you -- not everybody likes to have a great time, get inspired, and learn a lot.

Not that I'm trying to convince you or anything, but here are a few of my more memorable experiences from local conferences past:

• During a critique session with an editor, the perfect ending to my then-unfinished middle-grade manuscript popped into my head -- right then, while I was talking to the guy. It was all I could do not to cut the conversation short and go sequester myself so I could scribble it down.
• At that same conference, I believe, a Candlewick editor mentioned that another editor was looking for a manuscript about a goldfish. I'm assuming that other Candlewick editors also spread the word, because that editor got what she was looking for.
• One year, the highlight was hearing the terrific back-and-forth -- and seeing it in the form of marked-up manuscripts -- between an author and her editor. It was a rare, funny glimpse into what can be a very personal relationship, and I found it as inspiring as could be. I wanted one of those relationships.
• At my very first SCBWI conference, I tried to foist a manuscript off on the visiting editor at the end of the day. Yes, I was that guy. And while the editor could have justifiably offered any number of colorful suggestions as to what I could do with my manuscript, she politely declined for the reason that she was flying directly to the Caribbean for vacation. (The manuscript, by the way, was The Day-Glo Brothers -- the 6,200-word incarnation. And when I met the editor again years later -- at ALA this past January -- I took the opportunity to apologize for my greenhornish lapse in protocol.)
• By the time of last year's conference, I'd started my blog, so you can read my account of that day here, here, and here.

Rethinking... everything

"I feel like someone's installed a sun roof in my brain," I told my wife at one point this weekend. Not bad for someone who spent all but a couple of 92 straight hours inside a Dallas-area hotel.

At the beginning of the summer, I wrote of how I was casting about for a conference to attend in lieu of the local or national SCBWI gatherings. Without setting out to do so, I found just what I needed in an unexpected place -- an event that had hardly a thing (overtly) to do with children's writing, publishing or literature. Even better, I didn't have to leave the rest of Team Barton behind in order to get it.

From Thursday afternoon through yesterday morning, our entire family soaked up fun, friendship and enlightenment at the Rethinking Education conference:

At the heart of Rethinking Education is the awareness that children are supremely capable of absorbing and using knowledge from our complex world.

There is no need for arbitrary structure in education; the use of coercion, rewards or other behavior modification techniques as motivation are counterproductive.

With freedom, respect and nurturing support, children have a powerful drive to self-direct their own learning; the result being children who direct their own education... indeed, their own futures.

I really wasn't sure what to expect from Rethinking Education. This was the conference's 10th year, but it was the first time we attended, and we did so out of a sense that it could provide us with some new strategies for making this not-sending-the-kids-to-school thing work as well as possible. It did that, and how, but I can't imagine any adult coming away from Rethinking Education without also considering how its lessons apply to their careers and the rest of their lives.

The various speakers name-checked folks ranging from Mike Milken to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, likely sending me off on research tangents for quite some time to come. Most of the sessions I attended were led by Naomi Aldort ("Boredom is a wonderful, enriching experience") and David Albert ("Ignorance is the great tool of the homeschooling parent"), both of whom I urge all parents to learn more about.

The single most valuable idea I took away from the conference was the importance of recognizing our unquestioned assumptions about, well, everything. Whether it's how we think our families should operate or what elements we believe a children's book manuscript should have, why do we do things the "right," "proper," accepted, traditional way? Which of our beliefs shouldn't we examine? Which ones are so ingrained that we don't even think of them as beliefs, but simply as the way things are and ought to be? How can we be sure that there's not a better way?

So, were there any overt connections to writing for children? You bet. Even while I was taking notes during the sessions, new story ideas kept bubbling up. One of the conference's cofounders, Sarah Clark Jordan, was on hand to discuss her delightful children's novel, The BossQueen, Little BigBark, and The Sentinel Pup, and of course I couldn't resist the opportunity -- even on my vacation -- to talk a little shop with her.

And a few of you will be pleased to know that the 400-mile round trip provided the ideal opportunity to finally give Harry Potter a try. The Sorcerer's Stone CDs proved a big hit for three out of four of us (2 1/2-year-old F loudly insisted that we listen to "yock 'n' yoll," which meant the occasional track from American Idiot, with a heavy thumb on the mute button). I was particularly struck by how familiar many of the names and characters were, despite my never having read or listened to the books before. The moment I heard the description of a not-yet-identified Hogwarts professor's glare making Harry's scar burn, I thought: "Snape."

I've got the whole day off today, and four CDs still to go. I'd been planning to work on my current manuscript this afternoon, but I may need to rethink that.

Notes to self

Any day that involves me shelling out $140 for unplanned auto maintenance before 8:15 a.m. is generally going to have to work extra hard to come up with some redeeming qualities. But the blow was immediately softened for me this morning by the fact that I was able to get a little unexpected reading done for Pasta.

As I learned from my weekend's critique with Don and Julie, I needed it. My sample chapter had too much sample, not enough chapter. I have a habit -- a bad one, I'm suspecting -- of taking notes immediately on my initial reading of books I use for research. That one reading is all I had time for before generating the draft I shared this weekend (ideally, I'd allow myself a note-free read-through at the outset), and the neat-o approach I took to telling the story failed to connect.

It wasn't the narrative approach itself that was the problem, I don't think (I could be wrong), but the fact that I simply didn't know the protagonist well enough. I knew the outline of his story, but I hadn't made the effort to inhabit his character, to see his situation through his eyes, to feel his heartbeat quicken at the moments of high drama, of which there are many in his tale.

This morning, I began re-reading one of the books I'm using for my research, and I was amazed at how much I'd missed the first time around. The notes I took today didn't overlap in the slightest with the notes I took previously. Quick descriptions and references that hadn't resonated before had meaning and relevance like nobody's business this time through.

I'm dying to return to my manuscript to work in what I've gleaned today, but I think I'm best off reading this book again in its entirety before I do. If the mere act of reading can take the edge off an early-morning outlay that would have been better spent on 15 or 20 cheese enchilada plates, there must be something to it.

I'll never sit on the end again

So, yesterday was the big conference. You know, the Texas Christian Schools Association conference here in Austin. What, did you think I was talking about some other conference?

The children's authors and illustrators panel was in the afternoon, but I took the whole day off and spent the morning at UT doing research for Pasta. About an hour into my work, there was a fire drill, and let me tell you -- you will never see a slower moving bunch of evacuees than in a university library at 8:55 on a summer Friday morning. But I survived that, and the withering look I received from the guy at the help desk when I asked him to direct me to the bound volumes of the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, and came away with