I'm Okay with YA!

I saw this article from Sunday's NYT calling out the stigma of writing YA material. Writer Margo Rabb, a YA author herself, talks about the experience of having her intended-for-adults novel picked up by a YA publisher. Sympathy from those who consider publishing in the YA milieu "less than" ensued.

I can't tell you how many times I've had people ask me about my work, hear that I write for the children's market, assume a stance of concerned pity, and then express a sincere hope that, someday, I'll be able to make the crossover into (insert implied modifier "real") writing for adults. Happens all the time. And it makes me laugh.

Not that I have anything against writing for adults. I'm no genre-classification bigot. But what's so awful about making your way writing for the younger set? Can't think of a single thing!

A to the Q: Author-Illustrator Info

A to the Q is an ongoing series of posts in which I answer questions I've received from blog readers, workshop students, and others about writing and navigating the waters of children's publishing. My aim is to share what I know and spark your search for even more information.

Q: How would I go about being both author and illustrator?

A: As you know, I am not an illustrator, so my ability to help on this one is limited. But here are my two cents regarding things that might help you investigate the possibility:

(1) Look for a copy of the annual Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator's Markets at your library or bookstore. It always features articles on exactly this topic. When you’re just getting started, this type of resource can answer tons of questions for you. Older editions can be just as valuable as the current one.

(2) I strongly recommend seeing whether there’s an SCBWI chapter in your area. Consider joining the national organization as a first step — that will give you access to local/regional/national conferences and meetings, the various SCBWI publications, their online discussion forum, and so on. SCBWI conferences are always invaluable, even (or perhaps especially so) when you're starting out. From there you can scope out your local or regional chapter and make further decisions about whether it's a good fit. Things to consider: Are there regular meetings and events that focus on topics of interest to you? Does it seem to present good networking opportunities? Is there a way for you to get involved and help the chapter address more of your needs?

Really, the process of getting work as an author-illustrator is the same as getting work as an author only. But you will need to pitch your work in a different way. Depending on the publisher, you might need an agent, you might be required to submit a complete manuscript on your own (the ms would usually consist of the text plus rough art), you might start by submitting writing or art samples alone, or you might need to follow some other rules as laid out in the submission policies.

Now for some useful resources. Below is a link to a handy guide from the Children’s Book Council. You can view it online or download the PDF. It provides a list of publishers with info about what types of submissions they accept (specific to artists and artist-writers) and how they want to receive them.

Getting Your Book Published: An Illustrator's Guide

And, for fun, here's a list of author-illustrator sites/blogs to explore and enjoy:

Dav Pilkey's Extra-Crunchy Webstite O' Fun
The site title says it all.

David Wiesner — The Art of Visual Storytelling
Wiesner's award-winning style is something to behold, whether he's writing, illustrating, or creating a stunning wordless picture book (which absolutely counts as both writing and illustrating). Take a peek at his works, creative process, and words of wisdom.

Denise Fleming
Get some ideas of your own by seeing how this acclaimed author-illustrator works and what all she has accomplished.

Devas T. Rants and Raves
Don Tate II's blog chronicles his day-to-day life as a long-time illustrator, as well as his more recent journey as an author.

Kevin Henkes
Caldecott-winning Kevin Henkes seems to do it all — he writes for kids of all ages, and he illustrates some of the most memorable picture books of our time.

Lane Smith Books
There's no blog here, but any aspiring author-illustrator can enjoy looking through Lane Smith's catalog of notable books, checking out the rough sketches he's posted, and just hoping for some of his great success to inspire — or rub off!

Lois Lowry
This Newbery winner's site offers a glimpse at all of her groundbreaking books, some of which she has illustrated. Follow the link to her blog, too, for additional insight into what makes this treasured figure of children's literature tick.

Lundentoons Blog
Illustrator-writer-cartoonist Einar Lunden shares his thoughts about writing and illustrating.

Mo Willems Doodles
This is a fun, informative blog by the talented author-illustrator-cartoonist Mo Willems.

Tomie de Paola
Click around the site to see de Paola discuss his writing and illustrating processes, read a great FAQ section, and more.

A to the Q: Speaker Attributions

While doing a bit of electronic file shuffling yesterday, I found several documents containing Q&As from some of the online writing workshops I've taught. That triggered my memory of an email folder full of responses to questions about the children's writing biz I've sent out to students, clients, and other interested folks. So I asked myself, "Hey, why not start a regular blog feature in which I share one question (and one relevant answer, of course) per installment?" And I answered myself, "Done. I'll call the feature A to the Q." Hope you'll find the topics useful!
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Q: Lisa, here is a rather basic question. What are your thoughts on he said/she said vs. nothing said, or else more descriptive verbs, like “she added,” “he whispered,” “I teased,” etc. For picture books, must we always have a person identified as the speaker?

A: Ah, how to handle speaker attributions. When writing for kids, for the most part, yes, you must always identify the speaker. In a simple running dialogue, you should ID each speaker, but certainly there are cases in which you can skip an attribution or two . . . an example would be skipping the last one on a page or in a section in a two-person dialogue.

The level and style of a picture book will also inform your actions. In a book targeted to more skilled readers, you might have more dialogue and make more assumptions that the reader can keep up. Or you could write a picture book for the very young in which you show just one character on a spread (or just one who is old enough to speak). For that type of presentation, explicit attributions — and even the conventional quotation marks — are unnecessary.

In my writing, I like to try to stick with “he said/she said” or “said Herbie/asked Herbie” (or “Herbie said/Herbie asked” . . . just use consistently throughout). I think it’s a good idea to try to avoid more descriptive verbs in favor of letting the spoken part color the speaker’s intent, but I don’t stick to that by ANY stretch of reality. Although the longer I do this, the better I get at letting the dialogue itself do the talking — I will happily cop to being able to see a clear evolution in my attribution style over the years. Of the examples you noted, I find “added” and “whispered” innocent and useful, with “teased” great when judiciously used. Some will argue that “said” is the only way to go, but my personal feeling as a writer-editor-reader is that sometimes the extra shading just works.

As for taking it a step further with verb-adverb embellishments — for example, “angrily shouted,” “proclaimed loudly,” or “sobbingly replied” — my advice is to back away from the flourish! Again, I have committed more than my fair share of attributional sins in the past, so I pass no judgment. Working with these types of picky issues is just part of the game, and anyone working hard to refine his or her craft will deal with this one sooner or later (and then forever).

Click here for a discussion that closely aligns with my feelings on speaker attribution. It’s not directed toward children’s writers, but I still think it applies.

Life Happens

I did something strange today: I read a particular ezine for the first time in, oh, about 2 years. I've subscribed to it for a long time, and I used to read it weekly — it was just part of my routine. But, along with keeping up with other kid-lit blogs, implementing concrete plans for growing my business, completing numerous household projects, spending quality time with friends and family, coordinating the final steps of "settling in" to a house/community, reading that leaning tower of adult lit I'm interested in, continually challenging my culinary skills, teaching my now-old dog a few new tricks . . . and so on and on and on . . . I let it slide.

Seems like a small thing, doesn't it? The reading of the newsletter, that is. Yet far more important activities had taken its place. Taken the place of everything for a while. As I hinted a couple of posts ago, I'm ready to stop the "coasting." Ready to move on, as it were. But in the particular life circumstance I'm experiencing, it's hard to know how to move on. All you can really do is work on it until you make it happen (or it happens by sheer dumb luck).

In keeping with my desire to keep most of my non-writing life out of the blog, I'm not going to get specific about the life circumstance I so vaguely mentioned above. Yet it's impossible to NOT have your personal life affect your work on some level, don't you think? It strikes me that this is especially true when you're a writer. For me, anyway, writing full-time takes a greater level of consistent emotional investment than, say, working as a bank teller (something I did in my young adulthood). So when practically ALL of your ever-lovin' emotional energy is being spent on people/situations you consider more important than work, getting said work done becomes difficult. Burdensome, even. So does the simple act of writing for fun. And that's no fun and no fair!

The good news is that I'm back to possessing more available head space. That means I'm slowly getting back to my fully engaged working/writing persona. Not that I ever stopped working or writing — or that I wasn't able to perform for pay as needed. But writing wasn't driving me in the same way it usually does. Instead it was riding in the trunk, stuffed in a duffel bag, waiting for me to pull it out and fluff it up after my long, crazy road trip to Not Entirely Sure Where, Yet.

If any of that makes sense, then you, too, know that Life Happens. And today, I'm going out on a limb to say that I'm glad it does. After all, who among us can't use a little fodder for future fiction?

My Interview with FreelanceSwitch

Freelancing super site FreelanceSwitch recently interviewed me about life in the children's writing and editing business. We talked about my 15+ years as a freelancer, making the final transition to full-time freelancing, and maintaining the work. I had a good time with the questions.

Read the full interview "Freelance Writing and Editing? That's Child's Play" here. Let me know what you think — feel free to leave comments either here or there.

Waking Up the Muse

After months upon months of being buried in intense writing work and being absolutely thrown by a peak period in that never-ending work of life-writing, I've recently noticed something:

I've been waking up. And doing so has made me realize that I may have had a bit of a long-ish nap.

Has this sort of thing ever happened to you? You know, when you're busy with a capital B. When life drops orange pylons onto your course and you zig-n-zag all around, missing or barely nicking some but flattening others. When you become so focused on one problem or goal that everything else could blow up — right in front of your face — and you wouldn't know it. Has it?

That's the kind of reality I've been living in for a while. I think it's pretty normal to go through such phases. I hope so, anyway, because I've been through them before. I've always come out the other side, thank goodness. In my current not-quite-middle-age-YET-thank-you era (right? hasn't the lower end of middle age been bumped up?) — I am pretty good at not letting phases like that fully engulf me. When one arises, I still function well, maintain a positive outlook, stay on top of important business, keep up with daily hygiene . . .

But during my present re-re-re-reawakening, I've realized that the one thing I do that I wish I could altogether avoid in the sleepy phase is COAST. To me, coasting means that I'm doing little more than getting by. Things fall off my list. Important things. For example, writing for pleasure — or, to be more precise, taking pleasure in my writing.

I know, I know. We all have to cope with those pylons the best we can. The collision course will always crop up again, and sometimes you really can't do better than coast your way through it. But where my writing is concerned (since that's the only acceptable topic for the blog!), I want to work on not letting other challenges sap my energy for/delight in doing the one thing I'm here to do for myself.

Not sure at all how to accomplish that. Yet today it seems possible. My "muse" is active. Suddenly, any act of writing inspires me to do more writing. Ideas flow, solutions flow, excitement flows, WORDS flow.

At any rate, I'm awake at the moment — and I don't plan to succumb to another nap anytime soon.

Scholastic Reports on Kids' Reading Habits

I'm still buried in work and life, but I took a minute to click on this article from Publishers Weekly Daily today.

Scholastic has just released a report discussing a recent survey on kids' reading habits. The good news is that the majority of kids think it's important to read for fun — and most of them at least "like" to. But many don't get to it. Main reasons given include having more interesting things to do, spending too much time on homework, and not being able to identify enjoyable books.

The Harry Potter series seems to have had a positive effect in recent years, getting more children reading just for the fun of it. Interestingly, though, many kids would rather just make do with the Harry they've got, and 31% of the children surveyed think the series will continue . . .

You can read the full report here.

Click!

Thought I'd pass along links to some great sites I've recently bookmarked.

Alice's CWIM Blog
CWIM editor Alice Pope talks publishing.

Children's Writing Web Journal
Syndicated content you'll want to read.

LitMatch
Includes a database of literary agents.

I.N.K.
Highlights interesting nonfiction for kids.

55,000 Young Readers Have Spoken!

The Children's Book Council announced the recipients of the first annual Children's Choice Book Awards yesterday. Around 55,000 children nationwide selected their favorite author, illustrator, and books:

Author of the Year
J. K. Rowling for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Illustrator of the Year
Ian Falconer for Olivia Helps with Christmas

Books of the Year
Grades K–2: Frankie Stein by Lola M. Schaefer and illustrated by Kevan Atteberry
Grades 3–4: Big Cats by Elaine Landau
Grades 5–6: Encyclopedia Horrifica by Joshua Gee

Congratulations to all the winners!

Interesting Judy Blume Clip

Judy Blume, author of several of the most frequently "challenged" children's books ever, talks about censorship. I knew about Forever, Deenie, and Are You There God? It's Me Margaret . . . but Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing too? Really?



Blume has also said:

“[I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.”