On not winning the (mock) Newbery

I'm  hanging out in my hotel room with a glass of white wine and Henry, my loaner companion fish. The SoHo Grand, charming and quirky hotel that it is, does not want me to be lonely during my stay, and has therefore installed Henry in my room.

He's not nearly as cuddly as my husband, but he makes some intriguing darts across his fishbowl.

Today's book tour featured a librarian who told me Echo won (I can't make the italics stop. I've given up trying) their Mock Newbery and a fifth-grader who told me he couldn't finish Echo, he did like my book, but he still hadn't read Circus Mirandus. It also featured blueberry pie a la mode with KBB1, which is to say my former boss and decades-long friend, whom I've never actually met before today, Karen Block Breen.

It was so good to be with her. I always felt that I would like her in person even more than I did when all I really knew about her was that she wrote snarky emails, and trusted my negative book reviews. I was somewhat surprised today to learn that reviewing for Kirkus is actually a difficult gig to get, since Karen accepted me at first go. We laughed today remembering my first email to her, which basically said, hey, my friend (actually my agent) says that I have so many opinions I might as well get paid for some of them.

Karen is a fierce and smart advocate of books. I adore her. She spent a bit of time today warning me that now that TWTSML is on all the Mock Newbery lists, I should not allow my heart to be broken if I don't win a damn thing. Sometimes the Committee goes with the book nobody despises. Sometimes librarians worldwide are left scratching their heads.

I already knew this--there are some winners that exceedingly puzzle me--but I appreciated the love with which it was said.

Today a child asked me if Ada couldn't have just as easily had a cleft palate as a club foot--wouldn't that have fulfilled the plot requirements just as well? A girl on full-time crutches told me TWTSHL was her new favorite book in the world. Three young girls, two White and one Black, came up to me after my presentation to ask, urgently, did Sally Hemmings love Thomas Jefferson? I could see that they'd grasped an essential aspect of the story--that it was less horrifying, more palatable, if Sally loved him.

It was a very good day. And if Echo wins the Real Newbery as well as a Mock Newbery, I can say as I did today, that Pam Munoz Ryan has always been a writer I very much admire, and, as I told KBB, no matter the outcome, being in the game is a whale of a lot of fun.

Then I came home to my goldfish and got some wine from the minibar. If Random Penguin thinks I'm extravagant they can stop it out of my pay. At least I'm not charging them for tomorrow's tickets to Hamilton.

In which I turn out to be a country girl after all

Lastweek, my sweet young publicist and I spoke on the phone to go over the details of this week's book tour, which is centered around New York City. My publicist seemed concerned about me coming all the way from Nowheresville, Appalachia, and carefully explained that I would have to switch planes in Charlotte.

I found that amusing, because of course I am a sophisticated traveler, as evidenced by tonight's dinner at a French restaurant cum local bar down the street, where I handed the waiter the closed menu and told him loftily that I wanted steak frites and a glass of red wine, thank you. And he brought it, and it was good.

However. I picked my suitcase up at LaGaurdia, started to walk away, and found my way blocked by a young woman who wanted to see my certification. I goggled at her, and she said, patiently, the way one speaks to a small child, "either your boarding pass or your luggage ticket." I showed her, then realized all the other passengers were walking away with their boarding passes held upright.

We don't do this in Bristol. No one steals other peoples' luggage in Bristol.

Then I didn't know whether or not I was supposed to tip my driver. I understand taxis. I've never had a driver before, not one I was in charge of. I emailed friends, but, not getting an answer in time, comprised by tipping him a pathetic amount.

I knew to hand Wesley, the doorman at my hotel, a dollar after he'd carried my tiny suitcase from the curb to the reception desk. (The suitcase is so small that no one bothered to suggest I needed help getting it to my room.) then I got in the elevator and the button for my floo r wouldn't work. The elevator went up a couple of floors, then stalled, while I repetively and vainly pushed the button for my floor.

A very chic looking young man got on. I said, "I'm trying to go up but the button won't work." He said, "you have to insert your room key." Then he said, "I had trouble with that my first time, too."

So kind. So perplexing. We don't even have elevators in upper East Tennessee.

Days Like This

I am having the strangest day here.

It started with the dog cowering under my breakfast chair.

This is not normal. Normally, the dog comes in from her walk with my daughter, runs to say good morning to me, then runs nonsensically around and around the table. We noticed she was quivering; when I picked her up, her heart was pounding. My daughter did a google check for normal small dog heartrate, then switched her phone to stopwatch mode and helped me find her pulse--140 bpm, quite likely indicating pain.

Meanwhile my husband had got down on the floor. The dog was sitting with her weight well forward, leaning her head on his lap. She groaned.

I went up and exchanged my yoga pants for blue jeans, and took the dog into the vet. It seems she has a spinal disc problem quite common to her breed. She's on pain pills and muscle relaxers, and she has to be confined to her crate for two full weeks. Immobility is what heals.

I went to make a double batch of Snickerdoodles--one to take to the BFIA annual meeting, and one to send home with my son--and we didn't have enough flour. I never run out of flour. I was completely taken aback.

Then I went to sew a button onto my husband's tweed jacket, that he very much wanted to wear out to dinner tonight, and I can't find the missing button. It's not in the coat pockets. It's not in my button box. It's not in anywhere I would put a button, or anywhere I think my husband would put a button, or anywhere else. I got online and ordered replacement buttons, but of course they won't be here in time for tonight. I'm sad about this because I've been promising to sew that button on since July, and if I'd ordered new buttons in July they would be here in time.

My new Oprah magazine has an article on muscle tenseness and how it can cascade through the body. The article suggests several stretches that can be done with yoga balls I already possess. I tried the glute stretch. Now my glutes are spasming.

This whole day is a pain in the butt.

Something's Got to Change, For Sure.

Last week the Richmond, VA, newspaper wrote a heartbreaking article about an elementary school whose students were all--100%--receiving free lunch, a marker for poverty, and whose teachers were moving mountains in their efforts to keep these children safe, fed, and able to learn.

The article described children who come to school in their pajamas, with their shoes on the wrong feet. Children who explain the previous day's absence by saying, "Momma had a needle in her arm." Children who are dirty, abused, and above all hungry. The school keeps a stash of extra clothes on hand. There's a washer and dryer in the teacher's lounge for laundering student clothing. The school feeds all its children breakfast and lunch; many students stay for an after-care program where they get another meal before they leave. On Fridays, some of the children leave with backpacks filled with still more food--donated by a local church--to get them through the weekend. These children suffer so much when they aren't at school that this year the school has made half of Christmas break, and a good chunk of summer break, optional. These kids would rather be at school. It's a safe good place.

The school passed all its federal testing benchmarks last year.

The school, Highland View Elementary, is in my hometown.

Two days ago my friend Jess sent me a link to a speech given by Neil Gaiman about the importance of reading. The bit that stuck in my head--that appalled me--was this: the number of prison cells any particular area will need in ten to fifteen years directly correlates with the number of fourth-graders from that area who aren't reading at grade level. You can closely estimate the size of future prison populations by looking at the number of kids who can't read. Good God. Children's lives are at stake.

Then yesterday Glennon Doyle over at Momastery wrote, "There are no such things as other people's children."

I don't know what I'm going to do with all of this year, but I know I've got to do something. I'll keep you posted. Maybe we can all do something--maybe books can change the world.

Cormoran Strikes Again!

Dear readers. Yesterday was at last October 20th, and at approximately 5:30 pm the latest Robert Galbraith mystery, actually written by JK Rowling and featuring detective Cormoran Strike, was delivered into my hands. And it is wonderful.

I haven't finished it yet--not for lack of trying--it's 492 pages long and I'm really past thinking all-nighters are a good idea. (I think my last was for Harry Potter 5.). For my money JK Rowling is our greatest living author, eclipsing even Neil Gaiman and Stephen King. There's something so effortless about the way she puts words together. I'm reminded of Dick Francis in his prime--not his final two novels, which were a bit forced, but the half-dozen or so immediately before it.

Writers have to be readers first. I tell any aspiring writer I meet to read everything that catches their fancy. Read, read, read. Lately, though, I realize I'm particularly drawn to two types of prose: the stylized, witty sentences of absolute masters like Jane Austen and Patrick O'Brian, where you're cackling over sheer subtlety, and the words-flowing-like-water streams of Rowling, Francis--maybe I'd add Patricia MacLachlan, who can say so much with so few words--hmm, poet Marilyn Nelson comes to mind too.

Here's 2 sentences I marked. (To my surprise I have lately become someone who marks up my books. I also dog-ear pages.)

He possessed a finely honed sense for the strange and the wicked. He had seen things all through his childhood that other people preferred to imagine happened only in films.

The spare elegance of those lines. The word choices: honed, wicked. "Preferred to image" not simply "imagine." The feeling of truth.

The older I get, the more I recognize that I became a writer far earlier than I thought. It wasn't with my first published book, or even my first byline. It wasn't when I sat in Patty MacLachlan's children's literature class at Smith. It wasn't when I quit medical school. It was when I was fourteen, the first time I finished a novel, stared at it in wonder and disbelief, then immediately began to reread it, to see if I could discover how exactly the author did that. 

(The book was A Wrinkle In Time.)

Enough.

So, we had a bit of a whirlwind week. On Tuesday I drove my daughter to Williamsburg, VA, to have a look at William & Mary. It should be about a 6 hour drive, but it got progressively longer as the exit ramps we needed were closed for construction. I've never seen so many highway closures. Yikes.

Wednesday was a lovely day to tour a lovely campus. We got to have lunch with an old good friend, which was a special treat. Then we drove home in time for a late dinner with Dad.

Thursday was an oh-crap day. As in, oh, crap, it's Thursday! I said that at 9:06--the garbage usually needs to be on the curb before 9. My daughter, just stumbling downstairs, said, "We'll both do it," and grabbed her car keys (our driveway is really long, and we have to pick up trash from the barn, too). We got the trash down. Then I realized a whole bunch of other things I'd forgotten--that book I was supposed to review--oh, crap, I hadn't even read it yet--the van needed new tires before we drove it to Indiana that night. I ended up reading my review book at the tire store, while bribing my daughter and her friends with pizza to go get our showjumps from the barn where the pony club show had been held, and fill the truck with diesel while they were at it, and take the dog to the kennel....it was a little stressful there, especially when the guy at the tire place wanted to know where I kept the key to my lug nuts. My lug nuts have a key? News to me.

I got the review written--I do not miss deadlines--and everything essential accomplished before my husband came home from work and we hit the road again. We needed to get somewhere near Kenyon College, which is somewhere near Columbus--this involved driving back up the same highway I'd traversed on both Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm sure I could have been more efficient there. Anyway, we stayed in a Microtel in the middle of nowhere, woke early, and ended up at Kenyon on time despite a complete freak-out by our GPS, which seems to be growing ever more untrustworthy.

Kenyon was lovely. All the colleges are lovely. It was cool, crisp fall, a perfect day for imagining yourself a college student.

At 3 pm, we got back in the car. Destination: Notre Dame. And while our daughter did attend an admissions information session there, our real reason for that college was to see our son and watch the Fighting Irish tromp USC. Unfortunately there was a bit of road construction and a traffic-snarling accident on the way--the four-hour trip took five--eventually we found South Bend and an Italian restaurant and our son and his friends, and it was all good.

Saturday I logged 22,450 steps on my phone's pedometer, all on campus. This doesn't count all the jumping around I did in the upper reaches of the stadium, in an attempt to keep warm during the  night football game. Sunday, driving home to TN with our beloved son--it's his fall break--I logged 450 steps. Mostly those were from the car to a gas station restroom, and back.

It's all good. It's great. It's awesome. Some of my son's friends are doing fancy stuff with their break. They're clearing trails in state parks or helping the homeless or, in the case of the ND golf team, playing the best courses in Ireland. Our son is hanging out with his family. He's sleeping in. He's helping his Dad coach middle-school basketball and going out to lunch with me. He's curled up in his favorite afghan with the dog. He's had a big semester so far; he's worked hard. Next semester will be even bigger, since he's spending it abroad.

When my husband was a medical resident, he could have moonlighted in the local emergency rooms for lots of extra cash (compared to his paltry resident salary). I believe all the other ophthalmology residents did this, even though, like us, they had small children and working spouses. My husband didn't. We had enough money to meet our needs; he valued time spent with us more than the extra stuff more money would buy. I loved and applauded this choice. I like my son's choice now. Sometimes you fill every moment, but sometimes, like now, you very deliberately don't. Sometimes you just need to rest at home.

Write the book.

There's a phrase that crops up in at least two of Elizabeth Wein's novels, Code Name Verity and White Raven, Black Dove. (It may also be in Rose Under Fire but I can't absolutely remember.) Wein writes about teenagers who fly airplanes in times of war, and at particularly nerve-wracking moments either someone shouts to the pilot, or the pilot says to herself, Fly the plane.

I'm guessing (Elizabeth? Want to chime in? And what name do you go by--Beth, Betsy, Liza, Liz?) anyhow, guessing that fly the plane is something pilots say, along the lines of riders saying shut up and ride. (I have a small chronic tendency to overanalyze. My instructors tell me this a lot.)

Today I'm adding another phrase, courtesy of the fact that I completely missed my yoga class this morning.

I didn't mean to. I've been going to 8:30 yoga nearly every day for a year. I love my Tuesday class, and was especially eager for it since I had to miss yesterday due to a doctor's appointment. (I'm super, thanks. My asthma is the best-controlled it has ever been.) I got up thinking happy grateful yoga thoughts and I put on my favorite yoga top and some excellent pants. After breakfast I took my last cup of coffee to the computer. This is when I usually write my blog, but I still had my current work open on my desktop and I started with that instead.

And then it was past 8:30, and I'd missed yoga class.

I thought about that. I won't get a chance at another today, because they're in the afternoon and I'm leaving to drive my daughter to William and Mary. My body misses yoga. My brain, on the other hand, is really feeling happy--because I got so involved in my work I lost track of time. It's sort of crunch time on this novel. It's due November 13. I'm going to be gone for nine days during the rest of October, in situations where it won't be possible for me to write, and I need to do the work even it it means putting yoga on hold for a few weeks. So here's my phrase: write the book.

Write the book.
Write the book.
Write the book.

That's all I've got today.