Drama in the Every Day

So the other day I’m on my way to the airport to leave for a school visit in Dallas. I’m within two miles of the airport exit when traffic on the freeway comes to a standstill. Emergency vehicles scream past us on the median, and I realize there must be a serious accident up ahead. My pulse accelerates as I contemplate the consequences of missing my flight—a missed dinner with a group of librarians and a school visit that’s been nine months in the planning. After ten minutes of parking lot frustration, cars begin squirting off the highway through whatever openings they can find. I follow them, even though it’s not part of my long term survival plan to drive the wrong way down a freeway entrance ramp.
I drag out the GPS, which sends me into a construction zone, a maze of flagmen and single-lane tunnels between massive construction equipment. My blood pressure rises. Amazingly, I make it to the airport with just enough time to get to the gate. Whoa, I think, taking deep cleansing breaths, already crafting the story I’ll tell. There’s always drama in my vagabond life. Drama drama drama.
As I’m standing in line to go through security, I hear the twenty-something guy ahead of me tell the screener that he’s just been in a car accident. I focus in more closely, and see that his hand is wrapped in gauze and blood is spattered over his khakis.
“Um,” I say, “Were you just in an accident on I-71?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Someone lost control and rammed our car and we rolled several times.”
“Um,” I say. “How did you get here?” My unspoken question is, How in blazes did you beat me?
“Well, I called the airlines and they said if I missed my flight I couldn’t get out until tomorrow. I need to get to LA today. So I called my dad who works by the airport and he picked me up and brought me the back way.”
“What about the car?” I have visions of him abandoning his ride on the highway.
“The car’s totaled,” he says matter-of-factly. “My aunt was driving. They were loading it on the truck as I left.”
I can’t help staring at him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
He seems embarrassed by the fuss. “Yeah, it looks worse than it is.”
“Do you know you have blood on your pants?”
He shrugs. “I think that’s somebody else’s.”
While we stood in line, he took several cell phone calls from worried people. “No, I’m fine,” he said. “Looks like I’ll make my flight.”
I felt like a hysteric next to that guy. I wanted to be hysterical FOR him (perhaps I could offer a service?) Being a writer, I wanted to write his story. So I did.

Hello, Coppell!!!

Hello, Coppell!!

This week I visited three middle schools in Coppell, Tx while attending the Texas Library Association meeting in Dallas. Wednesday I visited Coppell Middle School West with librarian extraordinaire Rose Brock. My editor, Arianne Lewin, went along with (and was able to step in and advance the slides when the remote didn’t work). It was a great experience, the kids were so smart and well prepared—they had lots of good questions for me. Here’s a shout out to awesome Coppell West readers!

On Thursday, I visited two more Coppell Middle Schools. Coppell East librarian Virginia Greene picked me up in the early morning. Turns out Virginia is a fantasy fan, so we had a great time comparing notes. After two sessions at Coppell East, I traveled to Coppell North, where Lynn Chevron is the librarian. I’d already received emails from Coppell North students before I ever got there! I met lots of motivated young writers and fantasy fans at both schools. And it makes such a difference when students have prepared by reading the work. Then we can collaborate to make the visit successful, and it’s all good.
School visits are exhausting and energizing at the same time. How can that be?

Here’s a shout out to Coppell East and Coppell North, and thanks to Rose Brock for arranging all this.

A Love Note

This is a love note. Or maybe it’s a fan letter. I’ve said it before, but it needs saying again.

Librarians are my heroes. Have been since I was 9 years old and my father was transferred and I had to go to a new elementary school, and the public library was two doors down from my school and I’d hang out there because I didn’t have any friends except books and the book lovers in the library.

These days, I’m hanging out with librarians once again—at library visits, school visits, and meetings like ALA and TLA (soon!) I feel so in context there—me and thousands of other lovers of the written word.

This is for the librarians who defend freedom of ideas and expression, even when it makes their lives difficult. Who don’t think decisions about access should be made at an administrative level. Who trust their patrons enough to set them free in the marketplace of ideas. Who don’t see danger between the covers of a book.

This is for the librarians who don’t have to bring authors in—but do it anyway. Even though it takes considerable time that they don’t have. Even though it means finagling and conniving and horse trading to find funding and get approvals and make it happen.

This is for the librarian who exchanged countless emails with me, arranged funding, presented book talks and book clubs and arranged for volunteers. She did all the ground work to plan a successful school visit—then was told by her principal that books with wizards in them were too controversial.

This is for the librarians who write grants and host bookfairs and otherwise raise money to supplement the funding that is never enough. These librarians find ways to get books into the hands of kids who have no books at home. Try to imagine accountants or pharmacists hosting bake sales to buy the tools of their trade.

This is for the librarian who gets a new book in and knows just who she’s going to give it to. And who after that, and who after that. Who models the love of books each and every day.

I just spent a day at O. Henry Middle School in Austin, with librarian Sara Stevenson. I presented three large programs and a writing workshop. The library was “closed” because of the author presentations, yet kids kept finding their way in. They couldn’t stay away. Her library is the heartbeat of the school. Running that library is like herding cats. The energy is infectious. I was exhausted and exhilarated after spending one day there. Sara is amazing. Her kids are lucky to have her.

It is so easy to get burned out in these jobs in a time when curricula and test scores have become straight-jackets that imprison flexible and creative educators. When it may be difficult to persuade teachers to send their students to the library and away from drills.

No one gets credit for instilling a lifelong love of reading in our kids. What a shame.

Time Management

At a recent school visit, a student asked, “If you weren’t an author, what would you do?”

It was the kind of question kids prepare under threat from teachers. I answered without giving it much thought, which is usually how you find a true answer.

“Well, I said, “I would sleep more. I would watch television now and then, and not just the news. I would finish the project I’ve had on my weaving loom for two years and go back to spinning. I would talk on the phone and make pastry and invite people over for dinner. I would cook things that take longer than half an hour.”

The boy blinked at me, and I knew it was TMI, but I continued to unfurl my mental list.

I would continue researching my family tree. I would read more for pleasure and less to a purpose and go back to my other book club. I would get out in the garden and walk in the woods and daydream in the ether and not on the page.

I would buy better Christmas presents and be fully present with my sons when they tell their stories.

I would volunteer more and get involved with a political campaign again.

None of these things are wasting time. But they are the things that go when a person with a family and a full time job becomes a writer.

I used to teach a time management course to interns. “There will never be enough time for everything,” I declared, “But there will always be enough time for the most important things.”

I’m not so sure.

Author Visit to Newton Middle School

Here’s a shout out to the students and staff of Isaac Newton Middle School in Littleton, Colorado. Super-librarian Jennifer Colmenero planned a great day for my recent author visit: three “assemblies” ( a term used only in schools, for some reason) for 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, and a writing workshop.

The assemblies were in the gym. There’s something about a gym that encourages enthusiasm. Maybe it’s because that’s where the pep rallies are held (something else that goes on only in schools!) But there’s always lots of bleacher-stomping and hallooing in a gym. And no sleeping at all. That’s a refreshing change from my over-scheduled and sleep-deprived college students. But there’s also the unsettling sense that one has a bull by the tail that might run amok at any moment.

The writing workshop was held in the library: thirty-five students plus teachers and forty minutes in which to put magic on the page. We zipped along at a blistering pace, but we had fun.

Things have changed since I was in school. For one thing, students and staff are allowed to wear street shoes in the gym these days. The custodians were apprehensive but resigned. Another thing that’s changed is that the custodians were very capable women. Lady custodians. What a concept.

My favorite part of author presentations is the Q & A session, particularly if the students have read the work and/or are primed to arrive with questions. Here are some questions from Newton Middle School:

Where do you get your ideas?
I use a quote from JRR Tolkien, where he says “One writes stories…from the leafmold of the mind.” Ideas are all around us, it’s what we do with them that counts. Ideas can totally be recycled, too!!

How long does it take you to write a book?
The students were appalled to find out it takes me a year or more. I could tell they thought I was one of those lazy-butt authors who putzed around while they waited for the next installment in a series. I found myself apologizing, saying I had a day job, a family, after all.

How much do you make?
For me, that’s still like asking about my sex life. Used to be, I’d just mumble something about “less than you think, but I don’t do it for the money.” Now I talk about royalties, how authors might get royalties of 10% or 12% on a hardcover book, so if they pay $18.00 for a book, the author gets $1.80 of that. That satisfies most of them.

What’s your favorite book you wrote?
Sheesh. That’s like asking me to choose between my children! I usually say it’s the book I’m writing right now, because I get so totally tangled in my characters’ lives.

What would you do if you weren’t an author?
See day job. Well, I say, I’d watch TV, clean my house, read more books, and live my life in a series of vivid daydreams, further enhancing my reputation for weirdness.

What’s the hardest part about being an author?
Well, I love to write, and I even enjoy revision, because that’s when I make the words sing. I’d have to say it’s the constant rejection, or fear of rejection. Even well-published authors get rejected. It still stinks.

What’s your advice for young writers?
Lie down until the feeling goes away. Or go work out. Or something. Seriously, I tell young writers to focus on craft. Take classes. Read voraciously. Reading great fiction is like taking a workshop from a master craftsperson. Find colleagues who are serious about their writing, too and form a critique group. Learn to live with revision. One of the greatest things I learned from completely rewriting my third novel is that it didn’t break. It was actually better at the end of it.

There was just a big debate on a writer’s email list I’m on about author visits. The question was, If I write for children and teens, do I have to do school, bookstore, and library visits?

Some authors love to meet the public, and others don’t. Either way, the potential for humiliation is great. I’ve heard a story about an author who came into a classroom and was asked if she was the substitute teacher. Clearly, the class had not been prepped for her visit!

The travel thing can be grueling and difficult to coordinate with other responsibilities. The hardest thing for me is when I'm being hosted by someone who is embarrassed about a small turnout. They keep apologizing and I'm like, Who can predict these things? I've spoken to groups that consist of the librarian and her sister and others where there are 150 kids (school visit or joint school-library program.)

I’ve had unexpected blessings. I once did a school and library program in this tiny town in southern Ohio. It was so small I had to stay across the river. The town was run by these six powerful sisters-one was a librarian at the county library, one was a librarian at the middle school, one was married to the high school principal, one was the English teacher, the sister in law was the library director. They were the literary and educational aristocracy in that town, and they were powerful. These women pre-sold scads of books, and the entire 6th grade had read my book when I arrived.

I did a writing workshop at a school in San Antonio, and those 6th graders could hardly stay in their seats, they were so excited about writing and sharing what they’d written. And I spoke at a library in Youngstown for Teen Reads Week to a huge crowd of students brought in for the occasion. The library staff made me feel like a celebrity. At a teen book club I spoke to a boy who was so excited about the new fantasy book he’d just read that he wanted to give me his copy so I could read it.

I did a bookstore visit in a nearby small town and a few of my friends showed up and a couple people I didn't even know who saw it in the paper. The store clerk seemed really pleased, so I asked how many people usually show for a booksigning, and she said, "None."

I was a reading nerd when I was a teenager, but I never got to meet an author. I didn’t know where all the authors lived, but I was sure it was nowhere near me. So I do like meeting kids who love books, and who want to write books of their own, because I see my 14-year-old self in every one of them.