Getting Out and About

I am having the busiest school presentation season ever. I did two days at one school along with a one-shot presentation at a second school last month. And a bookstore appearance that went quite well, if I haven't mentioned it before. I have two days of work lined up for this month, one of which involves three different presentations. One of those presentations I still have to plan and the third one I've done before but not recently. And I have a store appearance this Saturday. Then today I got another request for another school for this month.

Why is all this sudden popularity a problem? Because I still haven't finished writing that book!!

Sorry About That

This is day two of We have DSL on the second best computer and I can do all kinds of things when the family is hogging the good one! I was going to do another update, but I got distracted when I read in Newsweek about these cool sites to visit. So I did that instead. I would do an update now, but I have to A. Read Virginia Wolfe's To the Lighthouse B. Watch American Idol Try to choose the correct answer.

Think Geek!

Oh, brave new world! We have DSL! It's not as fast as I'd hoped, but I'm connected all the time. And, what is better, the second best, so-called "Doom Computer" (don't ask) has been networked to the good one so we can go on-line from both of them! That means I can spend a couple of evening hours each week while other family members are hogging the good computer updating my blog, ordering things, ego surfing, and generally doing all the things I waste time doing during the day. This should change my life. I should now be able to work harder and faster and do wonderful things.

Yeah. Right.

I finished Postcards From No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers. I found the book disappointing. I loved the idea of a boy "finding" his grandfather who had died in another country during World War II. Family members meeting across generations and particularly from beyond the grave always grabs me. But I didn't really feel Jacob II found Jacob I. He found out something he did, but not the man. Was he funny? Serious? Business-like? I didn't feel any of that. The World War II part of the story seemed extremely traditional. And the modern portion of the book seemed an excuse for the author to air his views on sexuality and euthanasia. I also felt the dialogue was stilted and unrealistic.


I know. I'm a witch.

Good Times

I am still swamped with this manuscript I'm working on. Yes, I am very slow. No apologies. I have accepted this about myself.

I am doing a few other things, though. Last week I spent two days at an elementary school. Two days in a row, which was a first. Almost like working, for real. Over the course of the two days I gave presentations for every kid in the school. I also got to hang out in the cafeteria during lunch.

And then, on the following Saturday, I did a bookstore appearance in the same town--the most successful I've ever had.

Next week I'll be in another school talking about how writers use reading in their work. Which I've never done before so I'll be spending part of this weekend planning it. Yup, that's time I could have been writing in my blog.

Very Absent and Very Hungry

I have been among the missing because of that revision mentioned in my last post and a couple of winter illnesses. I don't expect to be around much because I'm trying to stay in revision mode to get that job done.

However, I am hoarding kidlit info I find here and there and will have lots to talk about when I come back.

In the meantime, I've just discovered that there's a touring production of a show based on Eric Carle's work, called Very Eric Carle. Check it out.

Same Old, Same Old

I'm just checking in to make sure none of my legions of readers is worried that I've abandoned this blog. As usual, I am overwhelmed with work. I got Happy Kids! back from my editor yesterday. That means a major rewrite, which was no surprise. After that, I'm going to be revising the picturebook I may or may not have mentioned here into a chapter book for the very young. Prince Whiskers, as I've been calling it, is only a gleam in my eye--no contract or anything remotely like one. I'm reading at a library tomorrow and haven't picked out or practiced the material yet. I've nearly finished revising an essay I want to send off somewhere. And I'm supposed to be writing something for a writing group I belong to.

I don't want anyone to think I'm complaining, though I'm sure it sounds as if I am. But writing is work. It's more enjoyable than some kinds of work and less enjoyable than others. Though, I must say, a lot of the research and reading portions of my job I do while lying on a couch. It's hard to think of another job with work conditions like that.

Gail's on the Cutting Edge

I've just finished reading a book that is so new that the issue of The Horn Book on sale now carries a review. I am always the last to read stuff, just as I'm always the last to see movies. I see most movies on video and read an awful lot of books after they've been released in paper.

Not the case with Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. I was the first at my library to get the book (which is now two days overdue, of course). The book has a very clever basic story and the plot twists came as surprises to me, though they were surprises that worked. However, the story moved unbelieveably slowly. The chapters were short, fortunately, but occasionally I'd finish one and feel that absolutely nothing had happened. I wasn't aware of what was actually going on in the story, since I didn't see the review until I was more then half done and evidently I didn't read much of the cover notes. (I heard about this book at Readerville). So I didn't "get it" until around page 152. Now, it's terrific to have to "get" a book on your own without spoilers from reviews and publicity people. But not until page 152 of a 500+ page book? And I did feel the ending fell apart a bit.

Here is what The Horn Book had to say: "Thanks to Harry P., kids may not be scared off by this volume's heft, though they may wish the pacing wasn't quite so leisurely--even the novel's many chases and hostagetakings are related in a deliberate fashion. But bibliophiles will delight in a story that celebrates books (each chapter begins with a literary passage ranging from Shakespeare to Sendak), and the conclusion is especially satisfying."

So the reviewer liked the ending.

The Horn Book Came!

The January/February issue of The Horn Book arrived so I have some interesting things to talk about for a couple of days.

The issue starts out with a really amusing (amusing, not gut-bustingly funny) editorial by Roger Sutton, The Horn Book's editor. Evidently, he was asked to appear on Bill O'Reilly's show to discuss Madonna's children's book The English Roses. Now, I refuse to pass judgement on Madonna's book because I haven't read it. Evidently that doesn't stop ol' Bill, who says, according to Sutton, that he's only "looked at it." Sutton's response? "...we're not talking about The English Patient here: Harvard grad O'Reilly should have been able to get through Madonna's book in ten minutes..." Actually, I think O'Reilly got his undergraduate degree from Marist College in Poughkeepsie. Maybe he has a graduate degree from Harvard.

Anyway, the editorial is amusing, has a point that any fool can understand, and is short. My three biggest requirements for a piece of magazine nonfiction!

A Brand New Day

Well, I killed part of the morning of my best work day finishing the trashy book I was obsessed with. Now I can start working on becoming a better, nobler person.

Here is what I think I'm going to do: Though I have never read anything by Stephen King, I love reading about him. He used to (and perhaps still does) work every day of the year except his birthday and Christmas. No, no. I'm not going to start doing that. Get real. But I've read he works on more then one project at a time.

I'm going to try to start working on more then one project at a time. I've been kicking around ideas for 3 different things, plus I should be starting another draft of Happy Kids! and I don't know what's going on with Prince Whiskers, which I may or may not have mentioned here before but it hardly matters since no one reads this, right?

Anyway, I waste a lot of time--thinking, waiting to start a new project, surfing the Net. Maybe if I could train myself to start actually working on pieces of stuff instead of thinking about them I could become more productive. And that's the point of life, right? To become more productive? It's what we all want?

I already started doing this sort of thing last fall when I started doing morning pages and more journal work. Which I may or may not have mentioned here before, but again, what does it matter?

I Am So Ashamed

You haven't heard from me because I've been plowing through a series of adult mystery/thrillers that are not very well written but have hooked me nonetheless. I'm taking the attitude that I might as well bite the bullet and read them as fast as I can, sort of the way I bite the bullet and eat unhealthy leftovers as fast as I can. The sooner this stuff is gone, the sooner I can start living a better, nobler life.

I did just find an interesting article about literary weblogs. The article is full of links to weblogs I want to check out. Which will probably be another time killer for me.

I'm guessing that a lot of those links aren't of interest to child readers or kid lit folks. Maybe I'll do an Internet search for weblogs by and about children's writers and see if I can get it published somewhere.

No doubt that will be another way for me to waste a whole lot of time I don't really have.