A Thanksgiving Meme

Saw this meme today on Market My Words and decided to play.

(I know, this doesn't really count as a blog post in the traditional sense of blogging about the topic your blog supposedly features. Of course I mention this because I'm feeling a tad guilty about ignoring the blogosphere lately. Then again, as guilt is such THE timelessly classic holiday-time emotion — not to mention very common among writers — I think the meme fits right in! Besides, I will get back to blogging about children's writing and freelancing and freelancing and children's writing soon enough for my two readers.)

1. How will you spend Thanksgiving this year?
I'll be home with my (not-so-)fresh-from-a-biz-trip husband and happy-to-be-in-the-three-pack greyhound. No traveling, no guests. It will be low key and involve little else besides food prep, background jazz, a long neighborhood walk, some quiet conversation, family phone calls, and eating.

2. Will you be cooking, or are you just an eater?
Cooking, always cooking. Then eating.

3. Do you watch the parade or football?
We try to watch some of the parade.

4. What's your favorite float?
I can't think of one that I need to see, but I can do without any floats featuring singing Disney kids. (Is that Scroogey?)

5. Dark meat or white meat?
Yes.

6. What is your favorite dish besides the turkey?
Everything else, and I'm not kidding.

7. Homemade cranberry sauce or sauce from the can?
Homemade. I make either a jalapeno cranberry sauce, a chipotle cranberry sauce, or a citrusy cranberry sauce.

8. Do you decorate for Christmas on Thanksgiving Day?
We do celebrate Christmas at our house, and it's the only holiday for which we decorate. After Thanksgiving dinner (and during cleanup), we begin the process of trying to power through our out-of-control collection of holiday music. Sometimes we'll have enough time to start fetching decorations from the basement closet. If not, though, we'll haul them to the living room on Friday and attempt to distribute all during the coming weekend(s). We regularly fail to carry out the original plan.

9. What are some special holiday traditions?
The whole day I've described is traditional, and special, to us.

10. Pumpkin pie or pecan?
Pumpkin or sweet potato if I'm making it (although this year I'm doing a pumpkin-banana mousse tart); I'll always choose pecan if my mom's hosting.

11. What's your favorite thing to do with the leftovers?
If we've cooked for just us, we'll have two more full dinners (my favorite thing) before using the remaining fixins (my other favorite thing) in sandwiches, "bubble and squeak," soups, and so on.

12. How long do you spend eating your Thanksgiving meal?
A long time. We'll eat and then linger over the wine to stall on the cleanup. Coffee and dessert are served after everything has been put away.

13. Are you worried about putting on weight this Thanksgiving?
No.

14. What do you normally eat at Thanksgiving?
A light, healthy, breakfast. Easy appetizers (antipasto-type stuff) and a cocktail at 2 o'clock or so. The main meal, which we serve in the early evening, includes turkey, gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, a sweet-and-savory sweet potato dish (no marshmallows here), cranberry sauce, roasted brussels sprouts w/garlic and capers, sausage stuffing, dinner rolls, ice water w/lemon, and wine. Pie and coffee a few hours later. Too much?

15. What will you be thankful for this Thanksgiving?
Health and hope.

16. What is your favorite Thanksgiving memory?
I fondly remember our extended family gatherings on both sides of the family. On my dad's side, we celebrated Christmas on Thanksgiving because his parents fled Iowa for their Florida digs as soon as possible after turkey sandwiches. My favorite memory — as it relates to an experience I can draw upon when creating child characters (see how I'm making this "count" just a little?) — is the Thanksgiving-Christmas gift exchange circa 1976. My dearly loved grandmother gave me a Quick Curl Barbie . . . and it took ALL my concentration to both offer a sincere-sounding thank-you during the family show-and-tell and to keep myself from bursting into tears. You see, I fancied myself All Grown Up (I was E.LEV.IN, for cryin' out loud!), and I just about couldn't bear thinking that anyone saw me as childish enough to play with Barbie. It's one of those long-ago scenes I can recall with exacting, slow-mo detail. And I love it!

17 & 18. Will you be waking up early to hit the sales?/Are you planning on going shopping the day after Thanksgiving?
No way. No shopping that day.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Ah, Hemingway Always Has Something to Say

"It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write.
Let them think you were born that way."
—Ernest Hemingway

I have mixed feelings about this one.

On the one hand, I think I was born to write. (Not that I was born a great writer, mind you, just that writing is something I was born needing to do.) Then again, I feel like I'm always fighting that perception that writing doesn't take practice . . . or continued study . . . or work.

Can't argue with Hemingway's sentiment, though. Makes me laugh.

Any thoughts out there?

Writer, Write for Yourself. Or, Trick for Treat?

I'm never not writing, you know. Even when I breeze past this blog every day for weeks without giving it so much as a sidelong glance. Even when I let my pet-project manuscripts languish on my desktop — or worse, in the depths of my iMac's complicated e-filing system.

I'm always writing lists, notes, business emails, personal emails, personal blogs, journal entries, Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn updates, rough story ideas, and — of course — large word collections (aka articles, texts, and books) commissioned by outside entities (aka paying clients).

The whole writing various things for those outside entities is a good thing. In fact, it's THE thing, isn't it? I can say quite definitively that I do not wish to go without that.

But. I struggle with wanting to make more real time for the writing I want to do just because I want to do it. So today I did something I haven't in a very long time: I signed up for a writing class. A 12-weeker, besides! (Basically, it's an instructor-led critique group, so I'll get to really move on one of my YA novels.) I decided it's worth the investment because it sets me up to succeed in something done purely for myself. Because you'd better believe I will meet goals I've paid to declare.

And that, dear blog readers, is both trick AND treat for me.

Cybils Nominations Are Open

The nomination period is under way for the 2009 Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards. Now through October 15, you can visit the main Cybils blog to learn about the awards and nominate your favorite titles in a number of categories (you can vote for one title per category).

As nominations keep rolling in, Round I judges are busy gathering initial selections, and they'll narrow the field over the next couple of months. This year I'm serving as a Round II judge for the Middle Grade/YA Nonfiction category — so later this year I'll help evaluate the Round I panel's "cream of the crop" short list of MG/YA nonfiction books published since October 16, 2008.

So . . . read any good kids' books lately? Of course you have. Now go add them to the list — we want to know which books you L-O-V-E LOVE!

EFA Fall Classes Start Soon!

I recently rejoined the EFA board as education chair, and I am pleased to share news of our Fall 2009 Education Program. We have an exciting season of targeted professional-development opportunities planned and hope you'll join us for some of our online offerings and/or live events in Seattle and NYC.

ONLINE CLASSES

How to Get Freelance Writing Work (starts 10/13)

Editing Memoir and Narrative Nonfiction (starts 10/15)

Dealing with Nightmare Clients (starts 10/21)

Proofreading (starts 11/2)

Turning Journal Entries into Polished Pieces (starts 11/30)

Writing from Healthy Starts (starts 12/1)

SEATTLE EVENTS

Getting Started in Editorial Freelancing (10/17)

Blogging Basics (12/5)

NYC SEMINAR

Supplementing Your Income with PR Work (11/14)

For full course descriptions, pricing information, and a link to EFA's online registration system, see EFA's main catalog page. Be sure to act now and SIGN UP for any classes you're eyeing, especially those starting just around the corner in October. Class size is limited, and some courses do sell out early.

Hope to see some of you in class! And please share this notice with any interested friends and colleagues.

Can't Be Said Enough: "RIP, Reading Rainbow"

To ease the pain of losing Reading Rainbow to the ages, the Onion has published this exclusive opinion piece by LeVar Burton. Click on over for a good chuckle followed by a moment of silence for what's been removed from the cultural landscape:

"My Living Nightmare of Encouraging Kids to Read Is Over"

And, please enjoy this clip of the Reading Rainbow theme:

A Brief Tear on the "Fun" of Writing

Did you watch the Emmys telecast last night? I didn't. I did, however, click on a few Emmy-related news links early this morning and came across this E! Online quote from Mad Men creator (and statue winner for writing) Matthew Weiner:

"When you get something like this, it makes writing look fun, but it's not."

To me, winning an Emmy — or, how about a pretty, pretty Newbery?!?!? — for writing does in fact sound super fun! Yet, as a writer, I know that the work that goes into most award-winning works is, ahem, a whole lotta WORK.

Fun can and should be had while working at any job, certainly. And I doubt any writer /*slash*/ thinking human being would unfavorably compare writing work to, say, physically difficult labor or otherwise emotionally unpleasant occupations (use your own POV/imagination here). Few writers have to work under downright smelly/filthy/scary/dangerous/extreme-temperatured conditions, after all.

When you are a writer (and yes, a kids' writer, even!), you have a job to do. You figure out how you will do it. You get started and actually finish. You meet your deadlines. You collaborate with your editor and your fact-checker and your agent and whomever else you need to keep happy. You, the plumber, the surgeon, the store clerk, the sales rep, the lawyer, the teacher, the animal trainer, the photographer, the chef, the baseball coach, the park ranger, the dentist, the personal assistant, the banker, the carpet cleaner, the engineer, the pastor, and everyone you know in every job you can think of have everything in common ------- you all get it done.

So. I feel obligated to point out and echo and beat to absolute death Matthew Weiner's sentiment. Even though I very much enjoy (and I do mean very.much.enjoy) being a writer who sometimes gets to create fun works, I felt the urge to blog that I never sit down to my desk . . . and I do mean NEVER . . . thinking, "This is going to be fun."

Instead I think things like "This should be easy" or "I have no idea where to start" or "I can't wait to try my new idea" or "Yesterday's writing was crap" or "I need some new research" or "It's time to interview my expert" or "I'm going to solve that plot problem if it kills me" or "Just 1,000 words to go" or "I wish I didn't have to do ANY of today's tasks . . . but of course I will, because that's my job."

And thus concludes my brief tear on the "fun" of writing.

September 8 Is International Literacy Day

It's International Literacy Day!

I read this morning that approximately 780 million adults worldwide cannot read or write. Notice that? I said "I read" it. Today my plan is to tap into the gratitude I feel about the life afforded me by the ability to read and write . . . and pass it on.

In that spirit, I just moved a long-standing to-do to the top of my list: It's time to (finally) load the car with the three boxes of extra books that have been hanging out waiting to be gifted, donated, and sold. I'll feel good, the basement hallway will look better, and — I hope — some of my very gently used (and some new) books will help strengthen a reader's skills or just brighten someone's day.

How will you observe the ILD? You might head to the library, buy a book, or read to/with/in front of your child. These are all things you can do any day, of course. But it's nice to get a nudge sometimes, don't you think?

Too Cool Not to Share

Pictorial Webster's: Inspiration to Completion from John Carrera on Vimeo.

My Fall YA Release

Have I mentioned how bad I am at promoting my books? I mean, here I sit with my own blog, and I have yet to mention in this space that I have four new books out this season. All were released in August!

(To be fair to me, I did mention the books on Facebook and LinkedIn. But, really, what self-respecting author doesn't take to the blog right away!?!)

The biggest — meaning, thickest — book is part of ABDO's Strong, Beautiful Girls series. It's called Frenemies: Dealing with Friend Drama, and it features fictionalized scenarios illustrating a number of the very real friendship issues that middle-school girls face, along with research-based advice for handling them.

My author copies are currently in transit, and naturally I'm looking forward to actually seeing the finished product. Funny thing is, I've already received (positive) feedback from an adult reader. So the book is out in the world, available for consumption . . . and yet . . . because I haven't touched it, Frenemies still exists only in abstract — and Word file — for me.

I'll be talking about the book at my local SCBWI chapter's Inside Story salon October 28. Can't wait for that, and I'll be sure to share more about the event afterward.

Back soon with a post about my other three releases!