KidLit Blog Tour

This is the first time I've ever done a blog tour, so when Leandra Wallace and Vijaya Bodach asked me to participate, I was quite thrilled. Now I'm looking at these questions from the viewpoint of answering them and all that lightness and breeziness and sense of fun has just flown out the window.

I have taken a breath, relaxed my shoulders and sipped my tea, so here goes ...

What are you working on right now?
I'm working on a YA dystopian novel that takes place a couple of years from now.  The working title is Lena Ladimer Chronicles: Bury the Dead.

How does it differ from other works in its genre?
The only magic or power is displayed by forces that desire to control, and this is a purely technological "magic" that exists in our world today.  My protagonist, Lena, is a
thirteen-year-old girl whose only "power" is that she loves to read and write. But she must also learn to survive and she and her friends walk the fine line that exists when all mercy seems to have fled the world and survival can become yet another form of brutality.  Also, the grownups in Lena's small, isolated neighborhood are not stupid jerks and once they become resigned to the situation, they demonstrate that life must go beyond mere survival.  Lena Ladimer Chronicles: Bury the Dead was inspired by the book How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill.  Cahill writes of his Hinges of History series, of which How the Irish Saved Civilization is Volume I: "We normally think of history as one catastrophe after another, war followed by war, outage by outage—almost as if history were nothing more than all the narratives of human pain, assembled in sequence.  And surely this is, often enough, an adequate description.  But history is also the narratives of grace, the recountings of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something beyond what was required by circumstance."  Lena Ladimer Chronicles: Bury the Dead is a fictional narrative of grace, albeit action-packed.  And don't worry—no in-your-face deus ex machina plot devices.  Just coincidences.

Why do you write what you do?
I write what I do because my comprehension of the world writ large went off the rails around age 13. I am now in my fifties and I've carried this story around my entire life.  I've read a lot of literary fiction, but it's been the works written for children and young adults which have always resonated with me. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare was the first book I cried over when I was a kid.  I think I was eight or nine.  I cried the hardest when I finished it—how could it be done? The feeling of deep satisfaction coupled with loss is the hallmark of the end of a wonderful read, and I've chased that feeling my whole life.  I hope Lena will do that to readers.

How does your writing process work?
 Oy!  What process?! THAT is still in the developmental phase.  All I know is that I always have a book (or two!) on hand to read and I am always thinking about something.  I plop myself down in front of the keyboard many times during the day and start typing.  Much of what comes out is blather, so I love this James Michener quote: "I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent re-writer."  An essential part of the process for me is critique.  Any "excellence" in my revisions is due in large part to these folks: Lynn Guelzow, Sarah Gilligan and Chris McAuliffe


Any departing words of wisdom for other authors?
Not every young adult novel has to start with unspeakable violence (although Neil Gaiman does this to perfection in The Graveyard Book.) So, actually, no ... I don't have too many words of wisdom.  Except write.  No matter what, write. No writing goes to waste.

Check out the writers listed below.  Perhaps THEY will answer these questions next week, talk about their works-in-progress and continue the KidLit Blog Tour!

1.      Faith E. Hough
2.      A. L. Sonnichsen
3.      Ann Marie Schlueter
4.      Laurel Garver

On Relevant Blogging and Tucking in the WIP

I just read a post at shark literary agent Janet Reid's blog that talked a bit about writers and their platforms and whether or not agents read writer's blogs/tweets/tumbls, etc.  Ms. Reid says busy agents don't have time to muck about in social media unless they are toying with the idea of taking that particular writer on as a client.  She did go on to say that just because time-strapped successful agents don't generally blog-surf, a writer's blog should not be a mess.

In other words, the blog should be well written.

Also, the blog should have something to do with the writer's work, and that's where this blog is deficient.  Here, then, is a post about my WIP (including some hastily thrown-together artwork)—

My work-in-progress is a YA dystopian novel and the working title is Lena Ladimer Chronicles: Bury the Dead. I've spent the summer knitting it together after a rather long period which I will call a hiatus ("hiatus" is to "avoidance" as "research" is to "Netflix binging.") Here's the working blurb:

When a suspected international cyber-attack disrupts power and communication, bookish 13-year-old Lena Ladimer is stranded along with her mother and their neighbors in a small rural neighborhood on Tootin Hollow Road in Gibeon, Connecticut.  As her mother withdraws into an incapacitating depression  and death stalks a neighbor, she attempts to chronicle the neighborhood's day-to-day efforts to survive.  Armed with a blank leather book, a supply of pens and her great-grandfather’s 1947 Thin Paper Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, she tries to make sense of events by writing about them.

The fear, uncertainty and inconveniences of daily life seem as nothing when she learns her father is dead.

She sets off for New Reading, Massachusetts to exact revenge on her dad’s killer.  She enlists the help of her best friend, neighbor Gus Lennon and two others, but does not reveal the real reason for the twenty-mile journey.  Instead, she tells them she wants to make sure her father has been properly buried. They all have their own reasons for wanting to go, and when the others finally find out Lena’s intentions, a startling connection to her father’s killer is revealed.

Back in Gibeon, the neighbors have welcomed Dana Griggs, a refugee and old college acquaintance of Lena's mom. When the children return from New Reading, they discover that Dana also has startling connections, connections that could mean the destruction of the neighborhood on Tootin Hollow Road. Lena and her friends must play a dangerous game to thwart Dana's plans and time is running out for all of them.

Lena Ladimer Chronicles: Bury the Dead will be an entire first draft by mid-January.  My critique group in Windsor is now reviewing finished chapters and the feedback has been wonderful.  For the first time in my writing career, I'm starting to get smiley faces about pacing.  Pacing!  Me!  "Hello, my name is R. T. and I am a recovering info-dumper. I have come to believe I am powerless over backstory, and my penchant for exposition has become unmanageable."  Compliments on pacing is a really big deal for me!

There. I have now blogged about my WIP.  Soon, I have to figure out how to do a little tab so I can post the first 1000 words of Bury the Dead, which I'm putting in for a nap with eight chapters good-to-go for review.  That will get me through November when I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo; 50,000 words in 30 days makes for a WIRP—Work In Rapid Progress. Last year, NaNo was the perfect break from all my WIP problems and gave me an opportunity to write the NaNo way: wanton, unfettered and heedless of spell check.  Yeehah! I should probably put a tab on here for that effort as well, Drum Witherspoon and the Shepherd's Treasure.

(And Janet Reid ... if you ever read this post, I just want you to know I constantly abuse adverbs here on purpose because I totally love them and if I use them in my WIP, my critiquers gleefully slash them with red pens.)

Cleaning for NaNoWriMo

Today I began the process of cleaning my house. I've had a long and productive summer of writing, but I've goofed off a lot as far as my domicile is concerned.  It's to the point where I'm not happy.

Part of it is due to a larger issue—we have to put the house on the market by spring at the latest.  Ever since my husband and I came to this decision, I have felt myself withdraw from the house emotionally. Unfortunately, when I get a good rationalization brewing on the back burner—"withdrawing from the house emotionally"—my penchant for sloth kicks in and the next thing I know, I'm living in a hovel.

The situation is now affecting my writing.

When the physical environment begins to sneak into my peripheral vision, I start getting writer's block. But really—it all started with cook's block, gardener's block, launderer's block and cleaner's block. All of those things I do to keep house went right out the window and I thought I was exercising freedom! R. T. Freeman, unshackled! Writing! Throw in a wonderful vacation! And a really fun wedding! And then ANOTHER wonderful vacation! And over the last few weeks, I've exacerbated the situation further by binging on the best-written show on television: Breaking Bad. (Father Barron's website reviewed the show here.) Warning: this show is not for everybody.  It's fraught with unspeakable violence, sorrow and even insanity, but there is not one gratuitous scene.  A small non-spoiler example: In Season 4 one of the main characters, recently enriched by huge meth sales and laundered money, buys a house and soon, it becomes party central.  It doesn't take long, however, for the endless party to change and after a few days, the only people showing up are strangers and hopeless addicts with their bad teeth, their urine-soaked clothes and their madness.

Netflix.  Aaaargh.

What I just did there ... that's what I do all the time.  I digress.

So, as soon as I post this, I will get back to housework. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and I need to have everything spit-spot. Last November, I had another writer over and we did the middle-aged version of an all-nighter: we wrote from 7 p.m to 1:30 in the morning.  I plan to have more writing nights, plus our Library is having a writing night ... more details on that in an upcoming post.

Alrighty, then.  I can't believe it, but I have to dust the vacuum cleaner before I use it.  Pretend you didn't read that.

Of Music and Poetry and "Searchin' in the sun for another overload ..."

Usually, I don't care much for lyrics to a lot of songs I like.  I listen to the overall effect, and if the lyrics aren't too offensive, maudlin or repetitious, and I like the actual music, then I'll probably like the song itself.

The lyrics to this song also happen to be a beautiful poem about love and separation and day-to-day work: Jimmy Webb's Wichita Lineman. Instead of typing them out, I have a treat for you today.  This 2008 recording is one of my all-time favorite music videos: Glen Campbell performing it with The Stone Temple Pilots. Even though I loved Wichita Lineman back in the late '60s (I was thirteen when it came out,) the somewhat overproduced commercial version of it cannot compare to this one. This was recorded less than three years before Campbell revealed that he has Alzheimer's:

 Thank you, Holly Turkington, for hippin' me to this video last year!

Small, homely things—the most prosaic of jobs or circumstances, the most ordinary people, and the most mundane desires (a small vacation, in the case of the Wichita Lineman ...) are a thin veneer for what we all really want—to love and to be loved—for all time.

What are your favorite song lyrics?

Working In a Coffee Shop

Yesterday I critiqued a bunch of stuff in a coffee shop.  I drove to the local Starbucks, purchased my usual overpriced but delicious and addictive Chai Tea Latte, walked over to the brand new "long table," asked the kid sitting at one end doing her homework if she would mind if I sat at the other end (she said, "No, I don't mind,") plopped myself down in a chair, got out my clipboard, my pen and a piece of cardboard for underlining things, and got to work.

I loved it.

I go to Starbucks all the time, but I never sit there unless I'm meeting a friend.  I always see folks working in there, but it never occurred to me to that I could sit there and work.  Pretty funny, considering the banner I sport on this blog.

Over the course of the two-and-a-half hours I spent at "The Buckie" (as my friend Catherine likes to call it ... she refers to Dunkin' Donuts as "The Dunkie,") they played Blues, some New-Age-y mood stuff, and some pop over the sound system at just the right decibel level.

The customers played around the edge of my attention, too.  Bikers with a band came in for a Bikers With a Band meeting. (One of the bikers had a wicked southern accent ... he actually said "ghee-tar." And by "bikers," I mean the Harley-Davidson kind.)  Then a bunch of moms whose kids all go to the same dance studio came in; they were chatting about conventions and competitions and fundraisers.  Some more high school kids commandeered a table and chatted, texted and guffawed. Lots of people came in to order drinks.  It was like listening to a hybrid language invented solely for the purpose of providing a vocabulary for us entitled swillers of fancy hot beverages: "I'll have a triple, venti, half sweet, non-fat, Caramel Macchiato" or "Gimme a non-fat, extra hot, extra water Chai Tea Latte" (that one is me, only I never have to order it at my Starbucks.  The delightful staff always says, "Are you having your Chai?" and all I have to do is smile and nod ...) or "Hmm, how about a decaf Soy Latte with an extra shot and cream?"

The sun shifted.  It's late September here in New England and if you go somewhere at 3:30 p.m. and it gets around to being 6:00 p.m., the quality of the light will most definitely change as the sun starts to hang low in the sky.

One of the employees started sweeping.  I moved for him and he was so grateful.  Then he started mopping and I moved again. "Thank you so much.  That's so thoughtful!" he said.

I finished the last bit of critiquing for my every-other-Monday Writer's Workshop and gathered up my things.

There was something luxurious about leaving Starbucks and going directly to the workshop with my work done and enough time to get there easily.  No last minute "put-the-wash-in-the-dryer", "chop-veggies-for-family-stirfry", "answer-phone-as-I-dash-out-the-door-because-it-might-be-my-husband" or the dreaded "neighbor's-dog's-in-the-paddock-chasing-the-horses-around-oh-no-they're-gonna-kick-him-in-the-head." Nope. Just a cheery wave to the baristas as I shouldered my trendy messenger bag and, keys in hand, headed out to the car.

Tomorrow, I'm taking the plunge.  I'm gonna work on my WIP there.

I'm bringing the laptop.

Yup.  Make it a Venti. (Buckiespeak for BIG GULP.)

Largo

(We had to do an exercise for the Granby Library Thursday Morning Writer's Group on music, and the one I wrote brought back such a powerful memory, I decided to post it.)

I disliked my third grade teacher, Mrs. Wolfe.  She didn’t like me, either.  I spent a good deal of time shut in the cloakroom or with my head on my desk during recess or held after school, all of which were standard punishments for an unruly eight-year-old in the school year of 1963-64.

But it wasn’t all bad.

We had Music every day. Mrs. Wolfe had a series of 45’s, each with samples of well-known themes from some important work of classical music.  Every week we heard five selections, and on Friday, there would be a quiz.  The quiz was simple; she played that week’s music selections and we would write down the name of the piece and its composer.  By age eight, I could spell “Mussorgsky” and “Tchaikovsky.”

I loved Music. I loved it even more than Reading, Writing, Vocabulary and Penmanship, which, until third grade, had been my favorite subjects. Mrs. Wolfe would close her eyes when the first notes of a sonata or an aria or a movement from a symphony would lift up to the high ceiling and swirl around against the walls and windows to finally swoop and skim along the boards of the old wood floor. When the listening part was over, she’d have us write out the name of the piece and the composer.  We did this every day.

Tuesday through Thursday, she would carefully raise and lower the needle on the record player, thereby changing the order of the music.  In this manner, we learned themes from the work of Bizet, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt, Bach, Haydn, Verdi, Copeland … and so many more.

One winter Monday, Mrs. Wolfe put the needle on the 45.  It crackled for a few seconds and then reality, as I knew it, was suspended; time and chalk dust and Presidents Washington and Lincoln and the Palmer handwriting strip and the blackboard and the American flag and the other children and Mrs. Wolfe … all of it folded in upon itself and in my line of sight the bare trees and the house-crowded horizon beyond the chain link fence beckoned— “Come away … this is not your true home ...” and my heart tightened with yearning and an unearthly feeling of loneliness.

But it was the beauty, the unutterable beauty, of Antonin Dvorak’s Largo from Symphony No. 9 that made me cry.

And when the last strains of the three minute sample faded and the feel of the tears on my cheek and the salt in the corner of my mouth brought me back—embarrassed, Mrs. Wolfe was just opening her eyes.

Eyes that were filled with tears.

Dvorak

 

Gale!

'Twas a dark and stormy night (for real)
And the wind was blowin' a gale (honest!)
And the Captain said to the First Mate (that's me ...)
Wife, are ye spinnin' a tale?
And this is the tale she told ... (to be continued on publication of first novel.)

So, I was actually working on my WIP (Lena Ladimer Chronicles: Bury the Dead) as the gale kicked up.  One minute, it's merely windy and the next- WOMPH!  The winds threw sheets of rain at the poor little cottage, and the ancient wooden structure creaked and moaned in protest. It was incomprehensible to me that electric service prevailed under the circumstances, but the lights merely flickered every now and then and I worked for quite a while. It turned out that this was a small gale with prevailing winds at 60 kilometers an hour.  A lot for our teeny cottage, though.

After a while, I began to feel small and exposed, sitting at my table in front of double windows with nature snarling and smacking to get in, armed with buckets of rain and sea.  Also, I was stuck. And fatigued.

It was a good time to go curl up in a blanket in a pool of light in the back corner of the cottage with Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel.  The protagonist, whose point of view is the lens through which the story is told, is Thomas Cromwell, and he is rendered a sympathetic but complicated character. In the last book, Wolf Hall, St. Thomas More (one of my favorite saints) comes across as a religious prig who likes to torture heretics, but the writing is transportive.  The writing is so good, in fact, that truth leaks out all over the place and Cromwell finds himself perpetually haunted by More, though this is not the premise of the book.  Ms. Mantel has done what most writers of historical fiction have failed to do; she has mustered the universality of human nature and the particulars of that period of history to give life and breath to her characters. Her fiction is far from dry and lacks none of the grittiness that comes across as anachronism and ideological cant (think Ken Follett, Phillipa Gregory, or the writers of HBO's The Tudors) that is the currency of some best-selling authors of the genre.

Alrighty, then.  Off to the Souris Visitor Centre to post this blog entry.  The quicker we get there, the quicker we get back for a blustery walk along the cape in bright sunshine.

Gale coming in (and we thought it was clearing!)

The morning after, seas are still pretty high.

At least the beach furniture was not taken by Davy Jones.  We are going to have to dig it out, though!