Insomnia

I've had insomnia since I was a kid. Back then I used to stay awake for most of the night rehashing arguments that happened that day or creating little dramas in my head. It always frustrated me that I always could come up with such a witty retort to some affront in the protection of my bed...

So I have had a lifetime of poor sleep. And man when you don't sleep the world is a different place. Sometimes I wonder why I can't just turn it off, my brain that is. After I got married (at the ripe old age of twenty) I discovered how easily my husband could fall asleep- how he could simply press a button and be out like a light. How is that possible? How does he do it? Doesn't he have things, worries in there nagging to be resolved? How can one simply lay their head down, close their eyes and sleep?

It's not as if I am a worrier. I'd like to believe it's just my creative nature. I do have a tendency to think catastrophically. I create the worse case scenario in my head, creating dialogue and drama until my heart is pounding out of my chest, but I do this all the time, (I like to believe that if I think it, it couldn't possibly happen) that's not crazy right? Well maybe a little, huh?

Ambien.

For the last 5 years I have slept. I have slept and it has been wonderful. It is amazing how 7 or 8 hours of sleep (I won't say uninterrupted, I am a mother after all) can change so many things. Depression. Gone. A need for anti-depressants. Gone.

For the last 5 years I've slept. Until now. It's been 12 days without medication. 12 days of very little sleep. 12 days that that little girl in my head continues to whisper her story to me. And I have to listen.

Finding the Darkness in the Light

Spent the day snorkeling with my family out at Electric Beach. The water was so amazingly clear this morning, fish were everywhere, my son tried out his spear fishing (luckily they all got away-- because catching fish means cleaning fish and I wasn't really looking forward to that). Our sea turtle friend even made an appearance. The kids are so comfortable with him and he seems vastly indifferent about us. It was yet another day in Paradise laying on the beach in the sun... warm sand between your toes...

So how do I go from that place, to the dark, dark place that I am currently writing about?

How do you find the darkness in the light?

Well right now it's easy really, especially easy knowing that I took my last Ambien Saturday night and that I have many long, anxious, sleepless weeks in my near future...

And there is always the job situation, or the lack thereof. And the irksome feeling that I am vastly under qualified for nearly all the positions I seek and that at 38 with a degree in English Literature and years of education experience and retail experience, I pretty much have very little to offer an employer... (And I know that's the unemployment talking, see what a layoff does to your self esteem...)

And there's the anxiety about this move... and our financial security... and the kids in school... and a future that is so unknown...

Oh yeah, I can find the darkness in the light, easy peasy. Now leave me alone. I need to write.

Being Beat Up by Mockingjay

Don't you just hate it when you finish a great book?

I just finished Mockingjay, (I know, I know about time, right? But hey I've been a little busy moving my family across the Pacific Ocean and all).

Anyways, I am currently suffering that post-partem depression that sometimes hangs over me when I finish a great book.

I'm not sure what it is exactly, whether it's the fact that I feel like I've become part of their story and then suddenly I am left all alone, my new friends having deserted me?

Or that is it simply that the story is over?

Especially those books that you have been anticipating for so long-- I mean I had Mockingjay pre-ordered like 4 months in advance! So you wait so long and then finally it's out, you buy it, you devour it (in like 2 days) and then it's all over... and then what?

The Blahs.

Is it some dissatisfaction with the ending?

No, I don't think so.

I think quite possibly it is just assimilating back into the real world, where things aren't quite so adventuresome that put a pallor on my mood.

Extracting myself from the adventure...

This is why I try so hard to pace myself, relish the words, get lost in the experience.

But then I find myself curled up on my couch at 2 in the morning, realizing I blew my wad, and it's over.

It's put me in funk, given me a case of The Blahs (which is a hard thing to do when you live in Paradise).

This feeling is a sure sign that the author has done their job, and very well. After all why else would I feel so beat up, and damaged, and left all alone?

Ah... the glories of a great book!

Settling In

Well we've made the move, the BIG move.

We packed up our things and moved ourselves to the beautiful island of Oahu.

My husband is settling in to his new job, my daughter is adjusting to High School Aloha Style, my Middle School son is in a delayed holding pattern (we seemed to arrive at the end of his Track's first semester so he has another couple weeks of summer) and I, I am trying to find my groove again as an author and mother. And a middle aged woman looking for employment.

I received a phone call today that snapped me back into things. A phone call commenting on my writing that helped me realize that my vacation is over and that I need to get back to work. More than anything I really just want to get going on my next project, a story I am really, really excited about.

The thing is, before I can move on, really immerse myself in this new great idea I need to take advantage of what I've learned and the connections I made during my SCBWI conference. So I am currently making a few tweaks to my manuscript (like my main character's age, I had no idea what a difference a year makes to a publisher! Congratulations Reese you are now 12 instead of 13!) and I am sending off all those queries and manuscripts to publishers and editors that are usually closed to submissions but are open to those of us who attend their presentations. Yay! And thanks to Deborah Halverson I am editing in a new way. (Although eventually I will just send it to her and utilize her services.

So I was realizing today that I need to get on the ball for two reasons--so I don't miss out on the opportunity to utilize my conference information AND so I can dive into THE DARKNESS my next novel. In the crazy hectic few weeks of packing and unpacking a household across the pacific ocean, I've lost a valuable part of my day, my writing. And though I've gained the beach and the sand and the surf and the turtles and the fish and the warmth, I still need my writing. And this story I have in my head right now, this girl, she really wants to be heard. So she will.

Moving to Hawaii

Aloha.

Unpublished is on hiatus while I relocate my family to the beautiful Hawaiian Island of Oahu.

Stay tuned for more information on this exciting adventure.

SCBWI Conference Day Three

Day Three was the best yet!

The morning began with Why Narrative Nonfiction is Hotter than Ever by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Deborah Heiligman, Elizabeth Partridge, Tanya Lee Stone and Ken Wright. It was very informative and I gained some valuable tips in case I change my focus. I also was very pleased with the possible marketability of the new writing project I am going to have my kids work on! Yay! Family writing project!

Carolyn Mackler the author of The Earth, My Butt and other Big Round Things presented a keynote entitled For Richer or Poorer: Writing Through Good Times and Bad.

Justin Chanda did a workshop entitled Simon & Schuster: The Not So Distant Past, and the Really Fast Approaching Future. This was another very informative workshop. He shared that Middle Grade is on a downtrend right now--(Boo) Teen is out selling adult and blasting at full force, and that those poor picture books are hardly in the picture at all. Apparently the classic picture books, Goodnight Moon, Suess, etc, out-sell new picture books 2 to 1! He suggests that if you want to sell a PB it needs to be shorter, younger, sweeter, funnier and quirkier! Part of the issue with Picture Books lag in sales is that kids are reading older books earlier these days. Mr. Chanda believes that part of the reason that YA or Teen is flourishing is because of the adult crossover. More and more adults are reading YA as a guilty pleasure. YA is the new Romance genre! He also believes that the "Harry Potter" generation have grown up into voracious readers and are causing the boom. (I think that Stephenie Meyer chick has something to do with it too!) Books from the Blog-O-sphere also contribute to the Teen frenzy.

The Golden Kite Luncheon & Awards Presentation: John Parra for PB illustration in Gracias Thanks, for non-fiction, Ashley Bryan: Words to My Life's Song (sweetest man ever), for fiction Sea of the Dead by Julia Durango, for Picture Book text, The Longest Night by Marion Dane Bauer. Congratulations.

But the best workshop of the entire event so far has definately been Deborah Halverson's The Ultimate Checklist for Submitting to Publishers: 10 Tests a Novel Must Pass to Prove it is REALLY Ready for Submission to Publishers. Now I have to admit, I was a fan of Team Halverson before I even got here. I follow her blog Dear-Editor and love, like, everything she says. But her workshop was incredibly awesome and so incredibly practical and helpful and useful that it is by far my all time favorite. (That's a lot of incredibly) I took copious notes, and learned tricks (10 of them!) that will make my novel even better! And Deborah is even more awesome in person and I couldn't have been more pleased with her workshop. She is the author of Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies which will be in stores June of 2011. And I got my copy of Big Mouth autographed for my son Cy! I hope to use her editorial services in the near future. Awesomest of awesome.

Gennifer Choldenko's keynote was Kill the Bunnies: Writing Novels for Today's Kids. I love her book Al Capone Does My Shirts and she has a sequel Al Capone Shines My Shoes and a third book to wind up the trilogy will be out next year. Her newest book No Passengers Beyond this Point will be out later this year and is apparently groundbreaking. I can't wait to see what she's done.

The final keynote of the day was by Rubin Pfeffer and David Diaz, they discussed the future of publishing with the advent of the e-book and what that might look like in the publishing world. Exciting, and ultimately (possibly) more lucrative for the authors.

Another full day at the SCBWI Summer Conference. Only one day more to go.

SCBWI Conference Day Two

Day Two began with a line of literally 75 people-- all waiting for their morning coffee at the lobby Starbucks. Yikes. After a very long wait for my morning buzz-- I was ready for my first keynote of the day:

Writing for Kids: A Three-Quarter Life's Work by Gordon Korman. It was a fascinating talk about Gordon's very successful and highly unusual career. Gordon shared with us how at 12 he sent a story he wrote to the Scholastic Bookfair people (he got the address off the classroom order form). He received an offer four months later. Wow. Not how it usually works.

The second keynote address of the morning was Literary Agents View the Market Place. Josh Adams, Ginger Clark, Lisa Grubka and Ken Wright answered questions from a moderator. It was very informative. I think what was most valuable from this keynote was the incredible difference in Agents attitudes about their roles in their clients lives. Ginormously varying opinions. Very eye-opening.

My first workshop of Day Two started the day off with a bang! Lisa Grubka from Foundry Literary gave a very informative workshop on query letters entitled Query Letter Boot Camp: The Do's and Dont's You Need to Get Your Query in Shape. She shared a lot of valuable information about her preference on query letters. She seems like a super cool person and someone I would really like to represent me.

Instead of lunch I had my First 15 Pages Professional Critique by Courtney Bongiolatti from Simon and Schuster. It went very well. She loved my characters and their voices. She said that it was a very solid, classic middle-grade girl figuring out a place in her world story. She said my character Reese has an intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive voice that would appeal to MG readers. She loves my characters Kami and Joy-- she thought they were very unique and quirky. She suggested I change the age of my character from 13 to 12, which I totally agree with. She thinks it has great long term potential and a classic MG girl style that does well in schools and libraries. All that from just the first 15 pages.

Unfortunately I missed most of Marion Dane Bauer's keynote, but I understand it was very emotional.

The keynote Pursue your Passions by E.B. Lewis was awe inspiring. He is the very prolific illustrator/artist who has illustrated over 30 picture books and has won the Coretta Scott King Honor award three times as well as the Caldecott. He shared his illustration process with us as well as his amazing fine art Icon pieces that he is currently working on. They are beautiful tiny paintings on lottery tickets, the portraits of black children barely revealed through scratch marks. Beautiful and poingnant.

I attended the workshop What's Hot, What's Not by Jennifer Rees just because I think she is awesome. (I already know what's hot.) But Jennifer's message was that ultimately we shouldn't be chasing the market, we should be writing what we are passionate about. It was nice to learn a little more about what she is looking for because she is my ideal editor. She and Deborah Halverson, whose blog I follow, and who I hope to have the opportunity to "bump into" at this conference!

Gail Carson Levine's keynote Sweat and Magic was very interesting. She covered suspense builders and plot predictability and provided various helpful writing prompts in order to "get to know" your characters better. The quote "I am pretty new, you don't know me yet," will haunt me for a lifetime.

The Heart and Soul Celebration got started poolside around 7:30 tonight. Many people were in costume and really let loose. I remained demur but enjoyed rubbing elbows with the likes of EB Lewis and Ashley Bryan (illustrator winner of 6 Coretta Scott Awards!). I may have enjoyed a cosmo or two... All and all another very exhausting but rewarding day.