Snapshots in My Mind

Writers notice things. I often think we'd make good detectives. Whether it's the violet-green swallow colony flocking on a wire before they wing their way south, the exact color a tree glows red just before it drops its leaves in the first wintry blast, or the way a young soldier in the sandwich shop talks bravely about his deployment but won't look anyone directly in the eye. Writers notice things, and make mental snapshots of them, tucked away to use at a later date.

When my uncle found out I'd become a writer he said, "oh yes, that makes sense - you were always the quiet one." Quiet maybe, to the external world, but always watching, always jotting things down for later use in the back of my mind.

Just like photographers enjoy capturing and recording the moment in a photograph, just like artists enjoy portraying colors and feelings in all kinds of various media, writers capture moments, too. We save them in our minds, waiting for a later time when we attempt to describe them in our chosen media - words.

Recently, in the middle of a nice discussion, my mind wandered to a spider crawling on the wall. In a very short period of time the spider crawled up to the ceiling and halfway across. Yuck, some of you might be thinking. Squish him, get that spider out of there! (I almost never squish spiders. Usually I help them crawl onto a towel, walk them quickly to the front door, and then shake them off outside with good wishes for a nice life.)

But I was fascinated by this spider's journey, and my reaction to it, and kept thinking how I could use that in a scene. Perhaps one of my characters is having a nice discussion, a nice moment with someone, when she suddenly gets interested in a spider crawling along the ceiling. Does the person she is with get upset at her for not listening? Do they get in an argument over the importance of the life of a lowly spider? Does one of them stomp off, and everything in their relationship changes from that very moment?

I was not only watching the spider, but making up scenes in my head about it.

My mother bought me a cool sweatshirt that reads: Careful, or you'll end up in my novel. Maybe it should actually read: Careful, creative mind taking notes.

Do you take snapshots in your mind? What kinds of things do you notice?

Spotted Donkey Babies

Because my last post was so long and wordy - here's a short one you will love.

See? I knew you'd like it.

Jasmine and Buttons, donkey babies I raised a few years ago.

Stay tuned for an upcoming post about how owning donkeys prepares you for survival in the publishing business.

In Praise of Critique Groups

I have been part of a fantastic critique group for several years. I cannot sing its praises high enough. We are an eclectic group, and we write all kinds of stuff - from dark science fiction to fluffy cozies, from middle grade to murder mysteries, from young adult to women's literature, with even the occasional picture book thrown in.

Although our membership has been somewhat elastic over the past several years, we have quite a solid base right now of around six to seven people, and usually we have five or six actively participating in each meeting.


I have been involved in other critique groups in which members read their work aloud. Afterwards, we all go around the circle and make comments. Sometimes the writer would hand copies around for everyone to read and make notes on, and sometimes not. This format works well for, say, picture books, which are meant to be read aloud, but for longer work, this doesn't really suit me. For one thing, I'm not so good composing my thoughts out loud, off the cuff. I like to take my time and think about what I want to say. And secondly, my mind is used to reading words, and processing them in that way, not hearing them.

My present critique group works in a different way, which I have found so helpful to my writing. Each week, if we have a manuscript we've been working on, we submit a chapter or two, with copies for everyone. These we take home, read at our leisure, make notes on, and write a short critique for the submitter, to be discussed at the next meeting. When our brain cells are all firing, and we are all actively submitting, this can be a lot of homework!! And indeed, we have inadvertently chased some people away from joining our group, because it is, indeed, for serious writers. But with written critiques to look back on, I can pick up a manuscript I am working on at a later date, and still have all the notes from my fellow critiquers to help me in my next round of edits.

Our group met for several years without a name. Our writing genres were all over the board. How could we come together and pick a name? But at one productive brainstorming session, we realized that we were all working hard because we had one common goal: To Be Authors. Hence, a name popped up- the TBA group. And this name, and goal, has served us well in describing our group to potential members. If a writer has a completed manuscript, and has been actively seeking publication (or indeed has been published) then they might be a good fit.

What do I get from my critique group? Oh, lots and lots and lots . . .

For starters, it's a time when I don't feel crazy. When I can associate with people as nutty as me, who will stop anywhere, anytime, in the middle of the night or day, to somehow find a pen and jot down those perfect, important, beautiful WORDS that just floated across our brains.

Second - knowing that I have to write critiques keeps me writing. Sometimes, the critiques I write for other members are the Only Intelligent Thing I've written all week. So yeah, that's a good thing.

Third - I love our long-winded, over-the-top, brilliant and sometimes even loud discussions about imaginary characters and events we have invented on paper. We get so carried away we are often afraid a librarian might open the door to our meeting room and shush us. Our characters spring to life off our pages, and we are thoroughly engaged in their struggles .


Fourth - we learn so much from reading each other's writing. All writers, brilliant or not, make grammar mistakes, write horrid sentences, often don't say what they really mean the first time around. Watching (and reading) other people struggle with these things allows us to pick out those same mistakes in our own work. It also allows us to feel validated and not alone (as in, hey, I'm not the only one who writes crappy first drafts, hee hee.)


Fifth - it is so helpful to have a variety of people discuss your work. Some of us point out little nit-picking details that need to be changed. Others point out transitions, or chapter endings, or character descriptions that could be better. And some of us can see the bigger picture - like, what was it you were really trying to say in this piece?


Sixth - the other nice thing about having several different people read your work is you realize how subjective this business is. For every scene or description or dialogue passage one of us does or doesn't like, we often have someone else pipe up and say "oh, I loved that part!!" This is such an important lesson to learn, and gives us heart and hope to keep writing in our own voice. Of course, if your entire critique group agrees that something needs to be changed, than perhaps you'd better give it a harder look :-)

Last - but certainly not least (I could think of many more reasons I love my critique group, but this post would be too long) is TRUST. It is not often you can sit down with a group of people you only see twice a month, and trust them with something so personal and precious as a FIRST DRAFT!! Here (you think to yourself, as you hand them the first couple of chapters), here are hours and hours of time spent in front of that blasted computer screen, time trying to compose my thoughts, time pouring words out into the universe, hoping they will mean what I say and say what I mean, hoping these words will somehow, somewhere touch someone, make them laugh, or cry, make them think, or possibly UNDERSTAND. Here, you say, is my precious FIRST DRAFT. Treat it like you would a newborn anywhere, gently and honestly and with great compassion. And you know what? As I let go of those pages and pass them around the table, I TRUST my critique group to do just that.


I wish all of you luck in finding a critique group that meets your needs.

I don't know what I would do without mine.

Update on Buddy, The Old Horse

Many of you were touched by my post, A Hole in My Heart, where I talked about bringing home an old, thin horse. So I thought I'd post an update, to tell you how he's coming along. Buddy was given to me, for free, as a rehabilitation horse: a horse that needed a barn for the winter and lots of groceries. Tomorrow, October 1st, I will have owned Buddy for exactly six weeks. Here is what has transpired in that time.

The first thing I did was fill his manger with grass hay. Buddy ate at the manger for awhile, then grazed on the pasture, then took a long drink of water, then ate at the manger, well, you get the picture. The old horse was hungry!!

And that very first night, I called my farrier. Buddy walked very gingerly, and I could not tell if it was arthritis, other lameness issues, or sore feet. To alleviate the tenderness from being barefoot, I decided to have him shod. My horseshoer luckily had a cancellation, and came out the very next day and put shoes on the old horse, who stood there like a trooper while new shoes were nailed on. Buddy immediately began moving better, and I started him on a program of hand walking - first short walks around our property, and then longer walks through the woods. Eventually I took him up and down a few hills, to build up his muscle tone and strength. This horse was so thin I felt too sorry to ride him. Besides, with the little information I had on him, it sounded like he had basically been standing around for years, with very little riding. So I worked on building up his wind, and making him stronger.

What did Buddy eat in the six weeks that I've owned him? Well, everything he could get him teeth around. In almost all the pictures I have of him, he has his head down eating. I kept grass hay in the manger free choice, which meant he could basically eat as much as he wanted. I went sparingly on the alfalfa, which is very rich, and I wasn't sure he could digest it. Instead, I invested in some bags of Purina Equine Senior, a product specifically designed for older horses. This set me back (with tax) about twenty bucks a bag, but it has produced amazing results. (Thank you, Purina, and if you want to send me some coupons, you can!) In six weeks, we have gone through three bags of Equine Senior. I also started Buddy on a product called Legacy pellets, which has all kinds of good stuff like glucosomine, chondroitin, and other good things for his old arthritic joints.

I noticed a difference in Buddy's condition in just a couple of weeks. When I first got him, I could count eight ribs showing along his side. Besides that, his butt, his back, and his neck were wasting away with lack of flesh. Although not the skinniest horse I had ever seen, he was pretty pitiful. I put a weight tape around his barrel shortly after I got him, and he weighed in at 1050 lbs. This is more than I would have guessed, but he is a big boned horse, and lanky, and that probably accounted for the weight.

I began to measure his success by the ribs showing. After not too long I could only count six ribs, and then five. He was making progress. One month after I got him, I put the weight tape on him to make sure my eyes were not deceiving me. He weighed 1130 lbs. Yes!! He WAS gaining weight. But the best thing is that he was putting weight on his back, his topline, his neck, and his butt. After a few weeks, I felt he was strong enough to ride again. I began saddling him, and he stood there perfectly calmly.

So imagine my surprise when I climbed on him (I think it was the second time) and he bucked! Yes, bucked! I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Apparently he felt better, but I had wanted an old, calm horse with no training issues. Now that this horse felt better, was he showing his true colors? But I kept working with Buddy, giving him an opportunity to show his kind side. He bucked once more with me, but it seemed to be a bluff - perhaps something he used in his past life to buffalo a novice rider or a young girl when he didn't want to be ridden.When it didn't work, he seemed to give up, and decided that it was okay to just walk out quietly and behave.

Here's where we are today - Buddy is proving to be a kind, sweet horse that gets along with everyone. He has progressed to carrying me on calm rides through the woods behind our house. I still hand walk him occasionally, because he needs the exercise and so do I. He is pretty stiff going down very steep hills, but does great uphill and on the flat. Today, he weighs 1190 lbs. I am going to cut back on the Equine Senior just a tad until he reaches what I think his ideal weight should be - about 1250 lbs. When I first brought him home, he looked like a quarter horse/thoroughbred cross, or even part standardbred. Now, with more weight on him, he looks pretty much all quarter horse. Compare two pictures of him at the top of this post with the two at the bottom. Barely looks like the same horse, does it?

I am thrilled that he has gained this much weight before winter. Our rainy season has only just begun, and our pasture has started to grow. Buddy is eating less grass hay now, and eats pasture about 20 hours a day. (This is about what horses in the wild do). I will continue to supplement his feeding as he needs it, but I have high hopes that he will thrive on our lush pasture, with grass hay, Equine Senior, and Legacy pellets as added nutrients.

And now that his weight is in a respectable range, I will continue his saddle training, and see how much he really knows (or remembers). It is hard for me to look at the photos I took six weeks ago - to see how skinny he was when I got him. But he looks great today. I'm guessing the old horse is between 20 and 25 years old, and with a little more riding, will turn into the kindly old gentleman that I've been looking for to carry me around the woods from time to time. At any rate, it makes my heart glad to see how handsome he has become. I hope you think so, too.

As winter looms, there are more and more free horses advertised in the newspaper and on the internet. And horse adoption centers are filled to the brim with horses needing homes. If you have the space or the pasture or the room in your heart, please consider taking in an unwanted animal and giving it a home. You will be amply rewarded.

The Rhythm of Writing

I am contemplative lately. Busy, hurried, worried, and feeling slightly guilty about not getting much writing done. But only slightly guilty. Between the end of summer chores, weddings, anniversaries, and small and large crises with human and animal loved ones and other important things happening lately, I have not worked on my new manuscript in more than a month. But where I once might have beaten myself up about this, heaped more guilt on my overburdened psyche, I now take a deep breath and say "this, too, shall pass." For me, it is learning the rhythm of writing.

If we take all the advice about writing to heart, we should set aside time each day to write, even if it means getting up earlier or staying up later to do it. We should keep ourselves in the regular habit of writing, we should work on writing exercises, we should make ourselves write. Should, should, should. That word itself is guilt inducing, and I try to ban it from my vocabulary. I sometimes give myself permission to not write.

As time passes, I've learned more about myself and the writing process. I've learned that manuscripts are not necessarily linear things. With more power to those folks gearing up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I have put aside manuscripts for months, only to come back to them fresh, with a new way of looking at the world - perhaps the right person met, the right circumstance - lending another plot line, or a way around a nagging problem. Confident of this unusual way of finishing a manuscript, I now see a pattern that works for me.

I love being outside, and as summer turns to fall, and we have only a handful of nice days left to enjoy being outside, I relish them while I can. I know there will be many stormy, raining, cold and yucky weather days to come. Days when I will linger for hours over the keyboard with my third (or fourth or seventh) cup of coffee, trying to get my words to convey exactly what I want to say - looking for that magical phrase or brilliant sentence. Knowing those days are coming, I give myself permission to take a short break from my manuscript now - to linger, instead, in the warm rays of the sun, to wear shorts and run barefoot while I still can, to pull that last weed or walk the dog or ride my horse through the changing colors of the autumn leaves. Although an unseasonable ninety degrees is predicted for today, the first day of fall, there is a nip in the evening air, and winter will be hard on its heels, bringing with it plenty of time to write.

So I've learned that this time away from my manuscript (down time, so to speak) is never a total waste. For a creative person, time 'not writing' is time spent contemplating, percolating, mashing things around in the unknown recesses of the brain until they sometimes miraculously appear as sentences and plot lines that weave and mesh themselves almost seamlessly from fingers to keyboard at some later date.

So if I'm contemplative on one of these last warm days, I know my manuscript is still there, not too far away, lingering in the back of my mind. It's being worked on, even if not in a conscious manner.

And hopefully, when the temperature dips into the 30's, when the first big storm blows in from the Pacific, I will happily pour myself a steaming hot mug of coffee, snuggle into my desk chair, open my document, and find brilliant words and plot lines, waiting to be set down on paper. Wish me luck.

Into The Beautiful North

It's not often I fall deeply in love with a book. I read many books - lots of new middle grade and YA fiction, lots of non-fiction on topics of interest, and adult fiction that intrigues me. And I'm not necessarily faithful to each book. I'll admit that. Some - I don't read through till the end. But with all the reading I do, the last time I had an actual love affair with a book was the summer of 2008, when I read Kathi Appelt's THE UNDERNEATH. I came into my critique group exhorting its virtues. "You have to read this book," I said. "It's destined to become a classic." And I was right - it became both a Newbery Honor winner and a National Book Award finalist. I knew I was truly in love with THE UNDERNEATH when I began to read more slowly towards the end, savoring each word, not wanting it to end. The language, the mythology, the intense feelings it drew from me - this lovely book touched me, and stayed with me for many days afterwards.

In contrast, with my newest book love affair: INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH, by Luis Alberto Urrea, I did not read with deliberation, but instead raced and galloped through it, enjoying every heady moment. This book captured my heart in the first few pages, and I was head over heels in love by page 18. From the fascinating premise: (a feisty young woman from a remote Mexican village, along with several naive and crazy pals, head north to the United States to bring back men to the village, before their town is overrun by banditos), to the cast of colorful characters, to the adventures and discoveries they encounter along the way - both good and evil - it all had me on the edge of my seat.

Growing up in California, I am acquainted with a smattering (un poquito) of only slightly correct Spanish - (Donde los banos?) Reading INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH, I found I truly loved deciphering the Spanish phrases, slang and mixed-up Spanglish uttered by the large cast of thoroughly engaging characters. I LOVED this book! Did I say that already?

I saved the last 100 pages to read on an hour and 1/2 long airplane ride. It was just the right amount of time. The plane was only about 1/3 full, and so I had two seats to myself, and thankfully did not have to talk to anyone in the seat next to me. I gave myself over to my new love, the book, and I finished the last chapter with ten minutes left of air time, the small Horizon jet gliding smoothly towards the runway. The man in the seat in front of me stole glances backward, as I fished a hankie from my purse and wiped tears from eyes.

I did not want this book to end because I loved it. I loved the feeling of shared humanity it left me with -how all of us are alike in our wants and desires. I loved the quest the characters were on, I loved each of the thoroughly believable and crazy characters and I truly cared about what happened to them.

Okay, enough enthusing. Go get this book and read it. It's really, really good!! Did I say already that I loved it? INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH, by Luis Alberto Urrea.

The Horse Jar

It's here! It's here! My long awaited second middle grade novel, THE HORSE JAR, was just released by Mondo Publishing in New York. Mondo is an educational publisher, selling primarily to schools and libraries.

I'd like to share the long story leading up to publication of THE HORSE JAR, especially for those of you who are about to give up, or who have a first novel shoved in a drawer (or under the bed) for good. Please keep reading.

I wrote and completed THE HORSE JAR (well, of course, the first draft of it) in a six month period beginning in the late fall of 2001. I was, like many of us, deeply affected by the events of 9/11/2001. My words seemed frozen after that date, and other than a long treatise about my feelings on life and religion, I couldn't seem to jump into any of the writing projects I had on the table. I did not know what to write.

But I decided, finally, that I wanted to write for children, because they, the next generation, needed to feel hope. So I began a story about horses (write what you know). And about a dog. And about wanting something really, really bad. And about choices. So began my career as a children's author.

I was quite proud of myself for finishing the manuscript so quickly, and after giving it to some adults and a few children that I knew to read, and getting mostly rave reviews, I decided (naively) that is was ready for prime time. I printed up many copies, and began to ship it off to publishers. How did I decide which ones? Well, I still hadn't learned to write a query letter (or a synopsis) and didn't want to take the time to learn (quit laughing) so I simply made a list of all those publishers that accepted entire manuscripts and sent away. Sound familiar? I spent a lot of money supporting the USPS, at any rate.

Cut to several years (yes, years) later. I had now learned patience (waiting for rejection slips from publishers) and that nothing happens quickly in the publishing business. I had also learned to write a query letter, been to several children's writers conferences, joined a critique group, and revised (and re-named) THE HORSE JAR several times. The manuscript got better and better, and I actually got a few handwritten notes and suggestions on my rejections slips. What a world of hope that gave me!! But still no takers.

Meanwhile, my second manuscript, FINDING CHANCE, was chosen for publication by Mondo, and I had the thrill of working with an editor and seeing my first book published. Did I give up on THE HORSE JAR? Well, every so often I pulled it out and reread it. And you know what? I still loved the story, and the ending still gave me goosebumps. That made me dream of good things, maybe someday, for it. But I began working on other projects, other manuscripts, and finished two more novels in the interim. By this time I had sent THE HORSE JAR (or at least a query for it) to almost 50 publishers (including Mondo) with no results. I did not put the manuscript under the bed, exactly, but it sat in a box under a lot of other boxes with more recent things. Gone, but not forgotten.

So imagine my surprise when I received a letter from Mondo (on Christmas Day, believe it not, delivered to the wrong address and brought to me by a kind neighbor) asking if I had any more manuscripts. (Did they not remember I queried them about this one earlier?) Timing is everything, however, in this business, and so I immediately e-mailed the entire manuscript of THE HORSE JAR to them. And early in January of 2008, I received wonderful news. They LOVED it!! And they WANTED it!!! Oh Happy Day!

So as you read about Annie and her big dream of getting a horse of her own, remember this about dreams. Do. Not. Give. Up. Keep working for want you want. Make it better. Push. Try again.

And if you drag that first manuscript (the one you have given up on) out from under the bed every six months or so and reread it - if it still gives you goosebumps - then revise it one more time and send that thing back out. Because "it seemed to Annie that whenever things looked really bad, there was always something around the corner, sometimes surprising things, that made everything better." Yup.