Many speakers used quotes in their presentations or made memorable statements. Here’s my collection of quotes from the conference:

• About True Love: “It’s great when a publisher loves my work, but a contract is better; a contract is True Love.” Jarrett J. Krosocka, picture book and graphic novel author and illustrator.
• Humorous Take on True Depression: “It’s like, no one has blogged about my book in two days.” Jarrett J. Krosocka, picture book and graphic novel author and illustrator.
• “Nothing good comes from reviews.” Paul Newman, actor.
• “I only wished to publish a book or two that lasts.” Susan Hirschmann, founder of Greenwillow Books
• “Magic doesn’t create: it summons.” Richard Jackson, editor.
• “You write books for children? Huh. I guess someone has to do that.” Woman on plane to Bruce Hale, author.
• “There is no terror in the bang–only in the anticipation of it.” Alfred Hitchcock, film director.
• “Fiction is a lie and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.” Stephen King, author.
• “We must continually be jumping off cliffs and growing our wings on the way down.” Kurt Vonnegut, author.
• “There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.” Zora Neale Hurston, author.
• “Sure it’s simple writing for kids. . .Just as simple as bringing them up.” Ursula K. LeGuin, author.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Why should you take the time and spend the money to attend the NYC SCBWI Midwinter conference? Because it’s worth it!

Reports from the NYC – SCBWI Midwinter 2009 Conference

The conference changed venues to the Grand Hyatt, which is literally next door to Grand Central terminal. This made transportation simple: a shuttle bus for $12 from La Guardia right to the Grand Central terminal made arrival a snap.

I got there on Wednesday afternoon, because I had set up appointments with a couple editors on Thursday.

Meeting Editors in NYC

One of the best things to do is set up either pre or post conference meetings with editors.

Philomel/Penguin Putnam offices are at 345 Hudson, just a couple blocks off the Hudson River, on the west side of lower Manhattan. For those of you like me, who don’t know NYC, the area is called Tribeca, or TRIangle BElow CAnal street.

I met with my editor and went over a mss for a while, discussed other things she’d like to see and generally got to know each other a bit. This was possible because I have one picture book out with Philomel, but I’ve been assigned to work with a new editor there. This type of meeting is the biggest reason for me to visit NYC.

Visit Ground Zero & Experience the Urban Canyon

Another reason to visit — though, not the main one in deciding to spend the money — was to see NYC. After the meeting at Philomel, I went across the street for fabulous hot chocolate, then walked. And I mean walked. I walked about ten blocks south to Ground Zero, which is now a construction site. Since I didn’t see the World Trade Center in person before, I didn’t miss the skyline. Instead, it was interesting to see the hustle and bustle of construction workers coming and going for lunch.

I ate at the Amish Market, one of the many delis in NYC that make lunch times affordable. I did think it ironic that the deli was named “Amish,” yet it was two blocks from the former world trade center!

After that, I just walked. Over to Wall Street, to St. Patrick’s cathedral, and then north on Broadway, which is also known as the Canyon of Heroes, where ticker tape parades used to take place.

In fact, I walked up Broadway for a couple hours, just looking around. Past the French Culinary Institute where a friend’s son graduated from (it’s right on the edge of Chinatown) and through the SoHo area (the area SOuth of HOuston street). Then, past the Scholastic offices at 555 Broadway, and on up to Union Square, where Park Avenue intersects and the new Harcourt offices are just half a block off the square.

It was interesting to walk through NYC like that. When I came to places where the skyscrapers were replaced by just ten story buildings and I could see sky — I realized that I didn’t like the hemmed in feeling of the urban canyon; I wanted to see the sky. Of course, I don’t exactly like the wide open skies of the Kansas prairie, either, but found that I like something in between.

Surviving Changes in Publishing with Another Editor Visit

Finally, I went to visit a Harcourt editor. Harcourt Children’s Books was bought last year by Houghton Mifflin and their new offices are on the same floor with Houghton Mifflin and Clarion imprints. Big changes. Which meant I needed another time of connecting with a new editor — and it was another great visit.

After all that walking, though, I took the lazy way back to the hotel, a cab.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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At my house, we’re iced in today, with schools closed for the weather.

How Does the Weather Affect Your Story?

Have you ever included a snow or ice day in your story? Does your character sweat through a scorching day while mowing the lawn?

If not, you’re missing a great chance to include sensory details and bring your story to life!

• Character. Develop your POV character better by including thoughts and references about weather. Would this character describe a sunset in flowery terms or barely notice it? This is a great place to explore voice for a character. For a week, try stopping three times a day and writing a sentence or paragraph about the weather, trying out different voices.
• Plot. You can choose to support or contrast the weather and the plot events. If there’s a blow up between characters, will you also include a thunderstorm or a blizzard? Or will it be a beautiful spring day, by way of contrast?
• Setting. Of course, part of most settings is the weather. Where are we? In the Arctic tundra, or scuba diving in the Caribbean? Choose sensory details — not just what you see, but using all the senses — that evoke the setting in a unique way.
• Mood. Try writing about a playground, using lots of sensory details. Now write about a scary playground or a happy playground. You change the mood of the story by choosing different sensory details. The setting controls much of the mood of a piece and that definitely includes weather.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Use the power of your word processor to help you keep track of details while writing a novel. You’ll have fewer mistakes

Have you ever forgetten the color of a character’s eyes?

Keep a Character Bible: create a file in which you keep descriptions of each character. This is much easier than hunting through a mss in search of details.

Does Every Character Sounds the Same?

Create a Dialogue File for each character. Strip out all the actions, the s/he saids, and other details, leaving only the words that character says. Read through it making sure that this character sounds distinctive and consistent. Repeat for a second character and this time, make sure the characters are different from each other in some telling way. Print out these files and use them to revise the master copy of the novel.

Did You Create a Generic Setting?

Details are what makes a setting unique. A school in Barrow, Alaska is different from one in Miami, Florida. How? Create a Description Bank file and add descriptions from any and every source. Read a magazine article, look at pictures, remember a visit, draw a floor plan – these are sources for specific details. Don’t censor the input into the Description Bank; deposit every word, phrase, or description you find or make up. Then, when you need to describe the setting in your novel, you withdraw just the telling details that make the setting come alive.

Did You Forget to Write in Scenes?

As a reminder to write scenes, create and use a Scene Template. There should be blanks to fill in these specifics: setting, time, character’s present, emotion, function of scene, underlying problem, scene goal. Then include larger spaces for these: beginning conflict, complication, complication, complication, disaster/partial resolution, lead-in to next scene. I often work in a separate file, so I can rant and rave, make side comments, make false starts, revise, cut, add, and generally be messy. When I finally get a scene worked out, then I cut and paste into the master copy of the novel.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Ever have one of those off days? You don’t sleep and wake up grouchy. You’re half sick but not really sick enough to call it a sick day. You are just disgruntled and don’t know why.

5 Things to do on Off-Days

On those awful days, there are still tasks you can do to be a productive writer.

• Read out loud. We all know the value of reading a work-in-progress out loud, but do we do it? Not always. So take this day and just read the story out loud. You don’t even have to change anything. Just mark places where the word jumble up when you read that sentence aloud. Or places that confuse you. Or places that displease you. Plan to tackle those places tomorrow when you feel better.
• Spell check & grammar check. This is a great day to do those grunt tasks of spell checking and grammar checking. Just run the software and make the changes that you can without really thinking about it. If you run into problems that will take too much thought or concentration for today, then mark them to take care of tomorrow.
• Write letters. This might be a good day to toss off a first draft of a query or a synopsis; wait for a better day, though, to edit and send it out. Or write a fan letter to an author and make his/her day. Write a fan letter to yourself. Write email letters to friends and catch them up on your life. Letters are great pieces of writing and the process of connecting with another person might just brighten your day.
• Write an acrostic poem. I just took Crescent Dragonwagon‘s class called Fearless Writing. Crescent recommends doing acrostic poems at many times in the writer’s life. For example, before she was married, she wrote acrostics on the word marriage, on her current name, on the name she would have if married, and other related terms. Not fond of poetry? Then try writing something, anything, but in a new and different format from what you usually use. Try something new.
• Take a Sick Day. If you truly feel bad, give yourself the day off. Most jobs give employees at least ten sick days a year. When’s the last time you took one from writing? Take the day off and don’t feel bad about it. Sleep. Go out to eat. Take a walk. Relax. And come back tomorrow, ready to work.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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I’m near the end of this draft of my novel and I’m reluctant to face the last few chapters. Why? Too much emotion!

You must write the emotional ending

It’s not fair to the reader to have his/her turn the page and read. “I woke up the next morning and thought about what happened last night.”

You can’t give the emotional climax of the story slantwise. The reader deserves better. Instead, you must face the emotional turmoil and write it head-on.

But I don’t want to go through those emotions! I’ve backed my characters into a corner and there’s no way out. AF is sitting on the floor of a grocery store eating peanut butter from a jar, waiting for a social worker to come and take her to a new foster home. EW is hanging onto the back of a shopping cart staring at AF and wondering how long before he is emotionally in her shoes. Whoa! I don’t want to be either of them right now.

How to approach these hard scenes?

• Focus on details. Usually, I try to put something in a character’s hand. Like a peanut butter jar and a spoon. I let those details come forward, so the emotional content is there in the background, but it’s bearable. If the detail can in any way be symbolic, that’s even better.
• Write a skeleton. Sometimes, I might write a bare bones skeleton, then go back and fill in details on the next revision. In other words, I only taste the emotion, set it up, write the structure around it. I create the container for the emotion, knowing that I’m not finished until I’ve filled it up with emotion, but also knowing that it’s enough for now. Because I know I’m going to revise, I’m not afraid to under-write on the first draft.
• Avoid — not! Sometimes, I avoid the scene. Yes, I do. Don’t you? I surf the web; I answer email; I take a walk; I call a friend; I critique a mss; I read a book. But in the end, you must sit yourself down and write the scene. That’s what I plan to do today. No more avoidance! Ask me later if I got it done!

What about you? How do you face those emotional scenes near the end of your story?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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This week, I’m taking Fearless Writing, a class taught by Crescent Dragonwagon, children’s book author, cookbook author, writer and fantastic person.

Talk to Your Writing about Your Fears

On this last evening of Fearless Writing, we dialogued with our writing. CD asked us to let our writing take on a persona and voice.

• Step One: From a first person POV of Writing, we wrote about 10-12 statements, that CD called Stepping Stones and another writer called Foundations. Examples: I have had some successes. I have produced three novels and a lot of drafts in the last ten years. I make your daughter happy when she reads me.
• Step Two: Now, you, the Writer gets to make about 10-12 statements, or Stepping Stones, about Writing. Examples: I am obsessed with you. I am embarrassed that you haven’t produced more stories that sell. My daughter doesn’t understand why you take so much of my time.
• Step Three: Write a dialogue between the Writing and the Writer.
  Example:
  • Me: You’ve been rather sluggish lately.
  • Writing: That’s your fault. You haven’t spent enough time with me to let me get the thinking done that I need in order to write clearly.
  • Me: Really? I keep feeling like that thinking time is wasted time. Do you really need that?

I Like My Writing; My Writing Likes Me

After this dialogue, I was happy because I like My Writing and My Writing likes Me. But even after the 40 minute free write we did, I found there are more issues we need to talk about.

Going back over the Stepping Stones list for Writing and Writer, I found some conflicts. For example, they didn’t always agree with issues of standards, of when you know a mss is ready to send out. I figure we ought to agree on something that important. So, I’ll probably repeat the process and dialogue with Writing about that. In all, I identified about five issues that we need to discuss.

Fearless Writing is highly recommended if you are in a time of your life when you need to face the issues surrounding creativity, the whys of your work, or how to keep writing and the writing life in balance with the rest of your life. Many more activities, techniques than I could possibly share here.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Last night we had the next session of Fearless Writing, led by Crescent Dragonwagon. CD focuses on the writing process and creativity.

If you Show Up, the Work Will Flow

CD talks about necessary percepts or perceptions, ways of thinking about our work. Not precepts, but percepts. One is that if you consistently show up, the work will flow.

We started by doing a timed, fifteen-minute free write on any topic you wanted. After that, working as a group, we made lists:

• List of 5-6 fears
• List of 7-8 places humans could shelter (cave, bed, tent, etc.)
• Looking back at our free write, we were asked to circle five verbs.
• Then we contributed verbs to a list of about 10-12 from the group.
• Looking at our free write, we circled nouns and contributed to the group list of 10-12 nouns.
• Looking at our free write, we circled descriptive words and contributed to the group list of 10-12 nouns.
• Finally, we were asked to give a number between 1-100 and the name of a tree; then the name of a former President. These gave us addresses of 88 Oak Street and 8 Roosevelt Rd.

The result looked like a hodge-podge of random words, with different vocabulary levels and different topics. After all, they came from the text of a dozen different writers, writing about a huge variety of topics.

Finally, we were asked to pick out one of the feelings and write it in the top right-hand corner of the page; then fold down that corner so no one could see it. We chose an address and a shelter, both part of a title: The Tent at 88 Oak Street. Then, in a fifteen-minute timed write, we were supposed to write something that incorporated all the other words. ALL of them.

The results were amazing. The flow came for most people and somehow, out of the chaos, story lines appeared. Nothing perfect, of course, but enough to demonstrate that Stories Want to be Told, and that Flow Will Come if You Show Up.

One more session tonight for our final percepts.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Since writing in scenes isn’t second nature to me, I often fill in this type information before I start a scene:

• Basics
  • Setting:
  • Who is present:
  • What is happening (actions):
• Emotion
  • Emotional Pulse running through the scene:
  • Emotion at Beginning:
  • Emotion at End:
• Plot
  • Plot Goal:
  • Plot Complication:
  • Plot Complication:
  • Plot Complication:
  • Disaster at end of scene:
• What gets reviewed in between scenes (What Swain & Bickham call the sequel part).
• Goal of next scene:

Often, I get only halfway through this before I abandon it and start writing. That’s fine. It’s just to get the scene firmly in my mind, not necessarily fill out the entire form.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Effective Picture Book Subtitles

Do picture books need subtitles? Well, no, not strictly. Just like any other book, a subtitle is a chance to tell the prospective reader something more about the topic of the book. For picture book biographies, titles are often some provocative phrase, followed by the person’s name and this feels very natural.

For example, Susanna Reich’s picture book, Jose! Born to Dance: The Jose Limon Story.

But what subtitles can do for you book these days is make it easier to find online and in databases

Consider including key words in your titles. For example, if I was going to add a subtitle to my picture book, 19 Girls and Me, it would be “Kindergarten Friendships” or even, “Back-to-School Kindergarten Friendships between Genders.” I don’t want that clunky subtitle on the book anywhere! I just want it included in databases to make it easy to find for categories that teachers might search. And they will search “kindergarten friendships.” Maybe they won’t search “gender friendships.” Unless, it’s Women’s History month. But maybe they will.
Talk to your editor about using a subtitle just for databases. It’s not a common practice yet, but it makes perfect sense.

ACTION POINTS

What are your favorite picture book titles?
Write subtitles for some of your favorite books, trying to think about how it would be found in a search engine

How to Write a Children’s Picture Book A Fiction Notes Ebook 110 pages packed with information. Everything in one, easy-to-read format. Instant access!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win