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.

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.

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...

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...

Popular mechanic

Final sketches for The Day-Glo Brothers arrived yesterday, and without planning to, I found myself test-marketing them to two very different audiences this morning. The reactions were just as different as the audiences.

First was at my dentist's office. When the hygienist wasn't in the exam room, I pulled the sketches from my bag to review them. When she returned, she asked about the pages in my hands. I clarified that I'd done the text but not the art, and then I explained what Day-Glo is and hit the highlights in the story of how Bob and Joe Switzer had invented those colors.

"They sound like nerds," she replied.

Next was at my mechanic's. One moment I was giving him my e-mail address so that he could whitelist me (and my future reporting of mysterious automotive symptoms), and the next thing I knew my explanation of the ".info" portion of my domain name had led to a discussion of the book-marketing plans behind my vanity URL.

For this tangent we'd gone off on, I was lucky enough to have not one but two visual aids: the sketches that by now were in my hand, and the daylight-fluorescent-green service report on the counter between us.

I poked the report and said, "I've written about the guys who invented this color."

My mechanic's response: "Wow!"

Thanks to the unsolvable mystery of my car's latest symptoms, I didn't owe the shop anything today. But I'd have gladly paid up just in exchange for the genuine wonder and curiosity my mechanic displayed as we discussed the Switzers' story and my telling of it.

An hour earlier, the hygienist's response to that story had been of the "Why would anyone want to learn about that?" variety. Here, it was more like "How did you find out about that?!"

I don't intend to lose any sleep over the former. But I need to figure out how to get my book in front of as many folks as possible who'll give me the latter.

That's my boy

Last Saturday morning, I asked 8-year-old S if he would take a look at a few paragraphs of back matter for The Day-Glo Brothers.

Over the past few months, and increasingly in the past couple of weeks, my editor and I had been swapping revisions of the sections explaining the basics of light, color, fluorescence, and daylight fluorescence. Having addressed my editor's latest comment, I wanted S to confirm that everything was now perfect.

No dice.

"Dad, I found a mistake," he announced, puncturing my smugness as I ate my breakfast. "You didn't mention infrared."

This was true. I had deliberately left out any reference to the band of energy on the other side of the visible spectrum from ultraviolet. No need to confuse readers by bringing up a scientific term not pertinent to the story.

But I realized I was wrong. Not about the impertinence of infrared (yes, I know there is such a thing as infrared fluorescence, but it's still not relevant), but about the danger of confusing readers. If they can find my book, they can find a dictionary, so I really shouldn't worry about readers not being familiar with "infrared."

The bigger danger is in distracting -- or alienating altogether -- those readers who know there's such a thing as infrared and get an itchy feeling by seeing a description of the visible spectrum and UV ... but ... no ... mention ... of ... what's ... right ... next ... to ... red.

"This guy doesn't know what he's talking about," I could imagine some young reader saying. Obviously, I don't want that. So, I added a reference to infrared, and thanked S for his help. Today, my editor e-mailed to thank him as well.

Without thinking of it in these terms, I'd made a decision to dumb down that text ever so slightly. Here's to S for inspiring me to smarten it back up.

A decade of Day-Glo

Ten years ago today, my life changed, though I had no idea at the time. It was August 29, 1997, when a headline in the Obituaries section of The New York Times snagged my attention:

Robert Switzer, Co-Inventor Of Day-Glo Paint, Dies at 83

I went on to read about a head injury at a loading dock, an amateur magic act, and batches of fluorescent paint mixed in a Berkeley bathtub. That was more than three years before another momentous day, the one when it first occurred to me to become a children's writer. Bob and Joe Switzer's invention of Day-Glo stuck with me, obviously, but back in '97 I didn't see it as a great story I should tell. I just saw it as a great story.

I still do. And I sure can't complain about the life it's led me to.

Possibly my least glamorous post yet

I'm as surprised as anybody that I managed something resembling a vacation from my writing this past week. I just now took my Folklife photocopies down from the high shelf where I stashed them right after I got home last Saturday.

Now begins the exciting task of printing "American Folklife Center" in grayscale on each sheet, so as to easily distinguish these materials from the stuff I've collected here in Austin at the Center for American History, which puts its brand on the copied materials before I ever get them. And then I'll go through and log my D.C. receipts, for tax purposes.

I think I'll skip this stuff when I get around to making school presentations.

The only vacation I took from my vacation was Thursday night, when I stayed up until the wee hours reacquainting myself with some heavy-duty science for a pair of newly added pages at the back of The Day-Glo Brothers.

My editor and I have removed from the main text the showstopping explanations of how fluorescence and daylight fluorescence work, which has created an opportunity to go into a little more detail -- not quite to the electron-excitation level, but close enough to foresee a likely question from readers.

That question -- Why do some things glow, but not others? -- is trickier to answer than you might think, especially in one 40-word paragraph representing my night's work. I'll save that short version -- or whatever it looks like after we're done with it -- for the book, but if you can't wait for the answer, you're welcome to have a look at some of the raw materials I drew from Thursday night:

• Florida State University's Basic Concepts in Fluorescence
• Invitrogen Corporation's Introduction to Fluorescence Techniques
• Thomas S. Warren Museum of Fluorescence's About Fluorescence
• Fluorescent Mineral Society, Inc.'s Fluorescent Minerals
• UV Systems, Inc. FAQ

OK, fine -- wait for the book.

First book first

I've put my Alan Lomax research aside for a moment to tend to something more pressing -- further revisions to The Day-Glo Brothers. My editor has made some great suggestions for making the text more readable without sacrificing the story or the science -- strengthening both, actually.

Still, as of this morning, the main text does mention both uranine and anthracene. Yes, I know, these are as overused in picture books as ducklings and baby bunnies, but I hope the public will indulge me.

"Journalism" is to "the first draft of history" as "obituary" is to...

That would be "the first draft of biography."

Beware of first drafts.

We all know what you get when you give enough monkeys enough typewriters and time. But what happens when you give 100 obituary writers a juicy subject (such as James), 100 keyboards, and a quick deadline?

The answer, I've found, is a fascinating array of perspectives on that subject, a relatively well-rounded view of the person, a good deal of conflicting information, and the occasional far-out, freakishly tantalizing unrepeated tidbit (e.g. "attacked with a knife") whose original source begs to be chased down.

This was true with the comparatively few obituaries of Bob Switzer, and even more so for James, who was much more prominent. It takes a fair amount of effort to pare away and straighten out the inaccuracies that inevitably result from the obit writers' limited time, familiarity with the subject, and access to primary sources.

I'm not complaining, though. I'd much rather have those 100 obituaries -- or even just 10, or 1 -- than not. In many cases, they represent the world's -- and nonfiction writers' -- last chance to catch a glimpse of an intriguing life. After all, it was from Switzer's obituary in The New York Times that I got the idea that the invention of Day-Glo just might make an interesting children's book.

"What age is it for?"

I'm getting used to hearing this vexing, perplexing question, asked in reference to The Day-Glo Brothers. I understand why people ask it -- we're used to categorizing things, and so the standard question upon learning of an author's upcoming children's book is not far removed from many people's typical query upon meeting a child ("What grade are you in?").

It implies, of course, that there are some ages that a book isn't for, or even some ages that a book is against. I know I'm not alone among authors in wanting my book to have an appeal too broad to be defined by a pair of numbers in the single or low double digits. And The Day-Glo Brothers' mixture of ketchup-factory accident, Depression-era chorus girls, challenging scientific explanations, cute retro illustrations, entrepreneurial spirit and bright, bright colors make it all the harder for me to answer that seemingly simple question: What age is it for?

With no finished version to show, so that my questioners can reach their own conclusions, I hem and haw and mutter and qualify. Or at least, I did until yesterday

Yesterday afternoon, I got a lovely call from a nonagenarian member of my subjects' family, just telling me how much she's looking forward to my book's publication. "I'm 94, but I'm hanging in there," she said. Publication is still over a year away, and while I'd love to be able to boast that readers as old as 100 will like The Day-Glo Brothers, I'll gladly settle for being able to say with certainty that my audience stretches to 95.

The Day-Glo Brothers in black and white

Preliminary sketches for The Day-Glo Brothers arrived yesterday!

Let me put this development into chronological context: I first learned of the Switzer brothers' story in 1997, began researching and writing it in 2001, sold the manuscript to Charlesbridge in 2004, and submitted the final version in 2005. I have waited a long, long time to see what the images that would be joined with my words would look like, so it was a huge thrill to pull the pages from that big, brown envelope yesterday afternoon.

As soon as they arrived, my wife and I looked at them together at the dining room table -- I think she was just as excited as I was. I hadn't expected the sketches to be laid out on pages with the text, but there it all was. Even in this rough form, the artist's sketches go a long way toward making this science-filled story much more palatable for those not so scientifically inclined, just as I'd hoped they would.

One unexpected result of the sketches' arrival is that the author's dedication is no longer the secret I'd planned for it to be.

"Hey, I saw my name," my wife said as I hurried past the page I hadn't intended for her to see.

"No, you didn't."

But yes, of course, she had, and so I let her read the whole thing. It pleased her -- just as I'd hoped it would.

Thanks, Google. Next, how about a time machine?

Attention biographers of U.S. inventors: Google's got a new patent search. It allows full-text searching all the way back to 1790 -- which is 184 years longer than the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office allows.

So, if you wanted to easily find information on the daylight-fluorescent inventions of a couple of brothers back in the 1930s and 1940s, you're in luck. If you've long since submitted the final manuscript of a book based in part on patents found the tedious, old-fashioned way, feel free to disregard -- at least until you get going on your next project about inventors.

***

Just before I hit publish, I found a patent issued to my grandfather. How cool is that?

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.

A little writing, a lot of reading

I'm heading into this weekend boosted by exciting developments on a couple of manuscripts -- one old, one new. One of my favorite editors wants to see the old one, and the new one no longer stinks -- unlike some drafts I could mention. (I'm looking at you, version 1.1.)

This week, I'd hoped to catch up on a lot of set-aside reading, but so far have managed only to get to Cynsations' interview with National Geographic Children's Books editor Nancy Feresten and three recent issues of Children's Writer. Still on my plate are:

• A pair of 7's: the Seventh Carnival of Children's Literature, at Wands and Worlds, and the Edge of the Forest #7
• Two issues of the SCBWI newsletter
• That Maurice Sendak interview on NPR. Technically, this is not reading, but it does involve sitting somewhat undisturbed, which makes it just as hard to get around to.
• The fine print about BlogBurst, which I've been invited to join
• A Day-Glo-related article from the journal Nature that Anne Bustard clued me in on: "Here we describe an internal light-filtering effect in the flowers of Mirabilis jalapa, in which the visible fluorescence emitted by one pigment, a yellow betaxanthin..."

My hunch is that the time I spend not sleeping during the sleepover that S is hosting tonight will give me time to catch up on lots of this, though that last one may be more than I'm up for.

Free publicity? Feh.

Pasta has been eating up a lot of my time as I've readied a couple of chapters for Saturday's critique. So has life in general, interfering with my writing time in that bothersome way that life tends to do.

That's why I've neglected a few things on the publicity front:

• The next Carnival of Children's Literature. I missed the submissions deadline for this one.
• The 2007 Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market, which includes a mention of Bartography. I haven't even gotten mineself to a bookstore yet to have a look.
• In her kind post about Joe Switzer's birthday, Anne Bustard found this article about the recent-ish discovery of daylight fluorescence (think "Day-Glo") naturally occurring in flowers. This is something I should know more about. Thank you, Anne.
  

If I can't keep up with this stuff now, how am I going to manage when I've actually got a book on the shelves?

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 75 pages of material.

The format of the panel was very different from the last one. For one thing, there was a larger group of us -- besides me, the panelists were:

• Nathan Jensen (Don't Ever Cross that Road: An Armadillo Story)
• Janice and Tom Shefelman (Sophie's War)
• Lindsey Lane (Snuggle Mountain)
• Anne Bustard (Buddy: The Story of Buddy Holly)
• Mark Mitchell (Raising La Belle)

Instead of a discussion, the panel was conducted presidential-primary-style, with a series of questions asked by a moderator and answered by the panelists one by one, with a time limit, from one end of the row to the other. This might not have been all that significant for me, except that I innocently sat on the left end, which meant that I was up first to answer each question.

It was good practice for thinking on my feet, or at least in my seat. Still, there wasn't a single answer I gave that I didn't reconsider and come up with a better alternative to while the other panelists were still answering but after my chance to chime in had passed. I did, however, sport my Signal Green T-shirt, and since nobody came up to me after the panel and asked, "What's Day-Glo?", I consider my day's mission accomplished.

Plus, any day when there's such good hanging-out to be done with other author/illustrator types is a good one in my book. Besides those of us on the panel, audience members included Dianna Aston (An Egg Is Quiet), Brian Anderson (The Adventures of Commander Zack Proton), and Kathi Appelt and Joy Fisher Hein (Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers). So, many thanks to the TCSA, the UT library, and even to that incredulous guy at the help desk for making my day.

Orange you glad you asked?

I had me a good time yesterday at the Writers League of Texas conference, where I served on a late-morning Q&A panel with Kathi Appelt and Anne Bustard. Our moderator was Mark Mitchell, and among the 30 or so attendees were Cynthia Leitich Smith and Greg Leitich Smith, who had their own presentation in the afternoon.

I've attended lots of conferences, but this was my first time on the invited-guest side of the table. I hope the folks who attended our session got something valuable out of it. I know I did: the realization that not everyone knows the "Day-Glo" name. After the session, a young woman approached me and politely and discreetly asked, "What's Day-Glo?" When I described it to her, she knew what I was talking about -- it was just the name itself that didn't ring a bell.

I had considered bringing Day-Glo props just in case this sort of thing came up but didn't want to seem desperate. (There's really no such thing as drawing only a little attention to yourself when you're using Day-Glo.) Next time, I think I'll give desperation a whirl. I've been invited to an educators' conference in early August, and I've set a goal of making sure that everyone I meet knows exactly what Day-Glo is.

These wouldn't be too much, would they?

What am I waiting for?

I'm waiting to hear from Charlesbridge about how the illustrations for The Day-Glo Brothers are progressing.

I'm waiting to hear from various editors who have manuscripts for a middle-grade biography, a picture book biography, and a picture book series (or perhaps graphic novel), plus a proposal for another picture book biography.

I'm waiting to hear from my agent about the two new picture book manuscripts I just sent her.

I'm waiting to hear from one friend who is voluntarily doing some sketches for that perhaps-graphic-novel.

I'm waiting to hear from another friend who is also having a look at one of those new picture book manuscripts, though I really shouldn't, since I told her it was purely for her reading pleasure, and I meant it.

I'm waiting to see whether seven-year-old S will discover Kid Blink Beats the World and A Full Hand, the final arrivals (as of yesterday) for this month's history reading.

I'm waiting to receive some catalogs and nonfiction review copies that a couple of publishers said a few weeks back that they'd send.

I'm waiting to find out more about the panel I'll be on during next month's conference.

I'm waiting to figure out what I'm going to submit to my critique "group" for next Saturday.

I'm waiting to resume work on my marketing database for Day-Glo until I'm a little closer to my spring 2008 publication date.

A few thousand words more

Fear not: It's not that long a post, just a riff on the old "a picture is worth..." equation.

Last week Bob and Joe Switzer's younger brother kindly sent me a batch of snapshots of the Day-Glo brothers themselves. I already had a few photos, which I'd passed along for the illustrator to use, but these were the first I'd seen of Bob and Joe as children, when they were younger even than the target audience for my book.

The manuscript mostly picks up with their story in their late teens, but I love being able to see how these guys looked, say, on their first pairs of stilts. When he got older, Joe took an interest in magic that's key to the story I tell, so I was especially excited to see a picture of his stage setup. I didn't get to look for long, though, as I packed all these up and sent them on to Charlesbridge the day after they arrived.

This weekend, the artist who's taking a crack at a sample illustration for one of my manuscripts sent me a sketch she's done in preparation. My story involves a couple of animal characters, and so this artist logged some time doing research at a nearby zoo. Which provoked two reactions from me:

1. Wow! What dedication! And what a neat glimpse of what one of my characters might look like!
2. Uh, why didn't I think to observe real-life versions of these animals?

How to make my day

A nonfiction author I hadn't met before e-mailed me the other day with a few questions about my agent. In closing, she wished me well with my book and said, "It had never even occurred to me that someone invented Day-Glo!"

Yes, yes, YES!!! That's exactly how I want folks to respond when they hear about The Day-Glo Brothers.

Visual aids

A Charlesbridge editor e-mailed yesterday asking me for photos and whatnot that might aid the illustrator for The Day-Glo Brothers. So, last night I sorted through all my research materials and came up with an inch-thick bundle of goodies that I'll be putting in the mail today.

In addition to the Switzer family snapshots, a Saturday Evening Post article, a 1947 patent, a photo of the H.J. Heinz plant in Berkeley (trust me: there's a connection), etc., I'm including Bob Switzer's detailed descriptions of some of the more spectacular uses of the brothers' early (pre-Day-Glo) fluorescent materials.

Those descriptions delight me. From the earliest days of this project, it was those scenes -- at a department store, the Warfield Theater, a nightclub, and around a spiritualist's table -- that told me that the Switzers' tale begged to be illustrated.

In the initial drafts of the manuscript, I included a lot from those descriptions, and I was a little surprised last night to reread the final version and see just how far I'd pared them back. But that was to make room for the illustrator's take on those events. I can't wait to see what someone with a much stronger visual sense than mine can make out of them.

Sprung

A confluence of events today has led me to develop a new theory, which I'm calling the Law of Conservation of Time Until Publication.

I had lunch with Cynthia Leitich Smith, whose forthcoming book Tantalize had been scheduled to come out in fall 2007, the same as The Day-Glo Brothers. Well, Candlewick recently bumped Cynthia's publication date ahead to spring 2007, which -- according to my theory -- means that the time removed from her publication schedule must be shifted to some other book.

This afternoon, I learned that that book is my own. Charlesbridge now hopes to publish it in spring 2008. (I would have thought that my theory would hold only for books published by the same house, but I do think it's interesting that the time freed up from Tantalize remained in the Boston metropolitan area.)

I'm disappointed by the delay -- when I signed the contract, the plan was for The Day-Glo Brothers to come out in spring of next year -- but I know that these things happen, and as life's disappointments go, this one is a smallie. Plus, there's great news attached: The artist whose work I thought would be a terrific fit for the Switzer brothers' story is on board to illustrate. His name is Tony Persiani, and you can see his portfolio here.

This means I may well hold off a while on various marketing-related items. I'd planned on getting a full-fledged web site set up this year, but I see no reason now why that can't wait until 2007. I'd already started on my marketing database, and while I won't shelve that entirely, I'll probably slow down a bit and use that time for my writing projects. And I'd just started considering doing something author-like for a homeschooling conference later this year, but I may just enjoy it as an attendee this time around and get some ideas for next year -- and the year after that.

Day-Glo everywhere

I've been meaning to start keeping a log of the various Day-Glo-colored objects I spot while making my way through the world. On one hand, it seems like the sort of thing that could lead to an odd compulsion, but on the other, it could be a neat resource to draw from when it's time to start doing school visits.

Monday would have been a good day to begin the log. Day-Glo items I spotted included a jogger's pullover, the air hockey tables at a bowling alley, and a garage sale sign in my neighborhood. I've also got a Day-Glo paper bag that seems like it would be a good start for a collection of things to haul into a classroom. But my wife has drawn the line at risking blindness by knitting me a Day-Glo orange sweater.

Taxed!

Well, I'm not quite as excited as I was last November, but this still must count as some sort of milestone: Today, I received my first 1099 for income as a children's writer.

I'd like to thank Charlesbridge and Uncle Sam for making this moment possible.

Wikimarketing

More and more, I find myself starting at Wikipedia when I want to get a basic understanding of a topic foreign to me. Despite the potential for inaccuracies, I've found it useful for at least pointing me in the right direction when it comes to, say, pop culture phenomena that had escaped me (and, in some cases, thankfully so).

Now, thinking a year or two out, I'm wondering whether it might make sense (i.e. be smart marketing) for me to get involved in editing (or, in the case of The Day-Glo Brothers, creating) Wikipedia entries for the topics I'm writing about.

In a thoroughly unscientific study (sample size: one), I found that the entry for Phineas Gage does indeed mention John Fleischman's splendid biography for young readers as a source for further information.

I wonder how many books Fleischman has sold as a result of the Wikipedia entry? That would probably make my decision for me -- if I could sell more books by having a hand in the most prominent (though not definitive) online source for information on that topic, I'd be inclined to do it. If I couldn't sell more, would it still be worth my time, for some reason I haven't considered?

Paid!

The first half of my advance from Charlesbridge arrived yesterday, roughly 4 1/3 years after I began work on The Day-Glo Brothers. It's by far the slowest money I've ever earned, but also the sweetest.

Meet marketing

The Day-Glo Brothers isn't scheduled for publication until fall of '07, but yesterday I began working on a database of media, stores, libraries, reviewers, etc. that I'll want to notify when the book comes out. Yes, folks, I'm becoming a marketeer.

Why so early? Because I don't want to have to rush it at the last minute and end up laboring over this stuff 24/7 when I should be getting giddy about the impending publication. This approach should let me dabble in the marketing from time to time, and should allow me to take a break when I get sick of it.

Plus, I don't know what I'm doing, and starting now should give me plenty of time to figure it out.

And illustrated by...

Yesterday, my editor sent me the web address of the illustrator they have in mind for The Day-Glo Brothers. She asked for my opinion, and I want to give her a good one, so this morning I've spent a lot of time checking out his art.

It's not at all what I had in mind, but I like it. His style is vibrant and funny, and he does a great job conveying abstract concepts in a clever and engaging way, both of which would go a long way toward making the science in my manuscript more palatable for some readers.

I do have some questions about how his style will fit with other elements of the story, and I'll share those with my editor. I'm trying to think critically here, but it's not easy. Having a potential illustrator is exciting, and the last thing my id wants right now is to be rational.

It shall be released

I received some great news yesterday from my editor: My manuscript for The Day-Glo Brothers has gotten all the necessary sign-offs from various folks at Charlesbridge, and so now the project can officially be released to the art department. Soon, I should know which artists they're considering for the illustrations.

The news didn't come via e-mail. It came in a cardboard box stuffed with Halloween-themed black-light goodies, and handwritten on a card made by Charlesbridge author/illustrator Phyllis Limbacher Tildes. You can't beat this sort of personal touch.

I'm suing Google, too!

As an eventually-to-be-published author, of course I'm standing firm with the Association of American Publishers in its lawsuit against Google Print -- why on earth would I want The Day-Glo Brothers to be easily found by anyone in the world interested in Day-Glo, brothers, or "the"?

But I'll take it a step further: I think I'll sue Google for making Bartography so visible to the world. I don't recall giving them explicit permission to let random strangers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, or Norcross, Georgia, view parts of any blog post they want. What if the only thing that those strangers care about is seeing a few key words or phrases, and not reading an entire post? That's what Google lets them do, and it's site traffic out of my pocket.

But not Google's. No, sir. Not only do they get site traffic that rightfully belongs to me, but they get revenue from ads sold on pages listing Bartography in search results. And that's not right. Not only is it not right, it's wrong. Because I get absolutely no benefit from people -- random strangers, I tell you -- being able to find my blog.

"Well, Chris," you might say, "people who --"

Random strangers.

"Er, 'random strangers' who find your blog through Google will learn about The Day-Glo Brothers, and that's good word-of-mouth for your book."

But don't you see, that's what I'm trying to avoid! I don't want people to know about my book. It's bad enough that Charlesbridge rejected my demand that they print only a single copy -- mine! -- and insisted on printing copies that might find their way into schools and libraries and bookstores. Now, with Google sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, there's a better chance that Random Strangers will find my book in those schools and libraries and bookstores. And that increases the likelihood that they'll read or buy my book.

And that's bad. But I'll let the AAP explain why.

A day for the books

Yesterday will be hard to top.

For starters, news came that my manuscript for The Day-Glo Brothers -- stop me if you've heard this one already -- may actually be finally, finally finished. Or at least ready for release to the art director, which will mark the beginning of the illustration phase. It'll be exciting to finally have the art for this story exist somewhere other than just in my head. Anyway, I should know on Tuesday whether the manuscript requires any more fixing. I submitted my latest fixes at 11:00 Thursday night.

On to the Austin SCBWI conference. I arrived at the Austin airport just before noon to pick up agent Stephen Fraser (Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency). When I got there, to our mutual surprise, Frances Hill and Brian Yansky were there to pick up art director Cecilia Yung (Putnam). A few moments later, more surprise -- Mark Mitchell showed up to pick up art director David Caplan (HarperCollins). Our guests all arrived, along with editor Mark McVeigh (Dutton), so we headed en masse to the hotel, and then en masse minus one to a terrific lunch. I never cease to be surprised by how smart and clever and kind and fun children's literature people are.

Then I had time to do a little more research on James at the Center for American History and to browse around Book People (is there any kind of writing that M.T. Anderson can't do well?) . After that, I resumed my chauffeur duties by giving a few of the out-of-towners a ride to an evening get-together honoring them and the locals involved in making the conference happen.

Last night I joked that there will be more volunteers at today's conference than there will be regular attendees. And that's an overstatement, but not by all that much. If you've never volunteered to help pull one of these off, you and your local chapter are both missing out. There's plenty of work to be done, and there are payoffs galore for you. This morning, I already feel like I've gotten my money's worth, and the conference is still three hours away.

Picked nit for picked nit

I don't know who copyedited The Day-Glo Brothers, but I like her style. She found some good stuff -- misplaced commas, literal inaccuracies (e.g. it was people lit by black light -- not black light used by people -- that guided planes down to landings on aircraft carriers), even an unintended double entendre. Whoops.

But I can pick nits with the best of them. Consider my reply when she added "Monthly" to the end of "Popular Science" so that it would match the name I'd used for the magazine in a reference earlier in the story:

By 1953, when the magazine featured an atomic blast rendered in daylight fluorescent ink (!), Popular Science had minimized the "“Monthly"” part into a tiny little font on the cover and the table of contents page and dropped it altogether elsewhere.

So there. And yes, folks, this is what it's come down to. Next stop: a review of the manuscript by a color expert at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Copyedits & miscellany

Boy, did I get off easy. I think.

The copyedited text of The Day-Glo Brothers arrived today from Charlesbridge, with just a dozen changes for me to review. I've glanced at the first half of them and was relieved to see that things are in pretty good shape -- here's hoping there are no big surprises in the second half. I'll find out when I take a close look in the morning.

I worked on a couple of stories today, incorporating a friend's second-round critique into an almost-ready-for-prime-time early chapter book this a.m., and then nearing completion of an extremely rough first draft of a picture book during my lunch hour. It's been rare this year to have even one new story in the works at a time, let alone two. Feels pretty go