So What Is It Editors Do?

John Green sounds seriously overcaffeinated in this video post, but he does touch upon what editing books is actually about.

The Past Is A Foreign Country You May Not Want To Visit

Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell has a cute cover, and a lot of the reviews focus on the "fun premise" and humor. The premise is engaging, and a lot of the humor works. It's not that embarrassing strained stuff that turns up in a lot of kids' books. But I think there's a little more going on here than just a funny fish-out-of-water story.

Genevieve Welsh has been dragged against her will to a "frontier family history camp." Gen, along with her brother and both her parents are going to be living in the year 1890, along with three other families who have all paid to stay for the summer with a family of three who have turned their backs on the twentieth century and live in, what for them, is a better time. Hmmm. Or have they?

The campers have to give up all twentieth century technology, as well as twentieth century clothing, food, plumbing, standards of hygiene...everything. Gen doesn't quite do without, because she manages to sneak in her brand new cell phone. The texts she sends to her friends end up on a blog one of them creates as part of her computer camp assignment.

Yes, there's a lot about how hard it is to do without twentieth century comforts. What's interesting, though, is that there isn't a lot about how incredibly wonderful things were back in the good old days. Yeah, there's some fun times playing with other kids every now and then, and, sure, freshly baked bread smells good--if you can figure out how to make it. But a number of the campers...of the adult campers...are suffering big time trying to make the 1890's grade, just as they would have if they'd been living back then. And Ron, the guy who runs this place, is a bit of a sadist, playing people against one another, pressuring them to kill chickens to earn points, and insisting that campers plan an improvement for their individual "farms," which he just happens to own.

I sensed a dark edge to this book, a dark edge I liked. Davitt Bell seemed to me to be trying to maintain a balance between a traditional tween girl story with some mean girl conflict and a potential boyfriend and a deeper tale exposing young readers to something more thought provoking. Why should we do without the technology of the period we were born into? What, exactly, is wrong with refrigeration and showers? Why is the past when people worked themselves to the point of despair and didn't survive accidents (or sometimes even unpasteurized milk, something I couldn't help thinking about as I read this) such a great place?

This might make a good kids' reading group book or a parent/child book club selection. It's out in paperback, and I'm thinking about getting it for my niece.

Oh, and it's also an example of mainstream fiction--no paranormal or fantasy elements.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."--The Go-Between.

Literary Mash-ups For Young Readers

Though I liked Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I haven't made a mad dash to read other classic/paranormal or horror mash-ups. It seemed like an idea that worked marvelously once, but would quickly become a leap-on-the-bandwagon sort of thing with other books.

However, I do like the idea of mashing up Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty with ninjas and vampires. I think what's attracting me is the hope that these characters will become women who do something instead of women who have things done to them.

I'm not as crazy about the "special twist" giving readers "the opportunity to make key decisions" for the main characters. But if I come upon one of the books, I'll give it a chance.

Sounds Like Someone I Should Be Able To Get Along With

I spent Saturday evening at my only nephew's wedding. The ceremony and reception were held at a day camp dear to the couple and their friends because they'd worked there, or, in my nephew's case, attended camp there as a child and then worked there as a counselor right through college. It was a beautiful and unique event, but very labor intensive for the bride and groom in terms of decorating and getting the place ready for guests. In fact, the bride started making decorations last winter.

So what did this young woman do to relax yesterday, her first day of married life? She went to a used book sale at a library.

Yes!

Will You Pay Just To Be In The Same Room With An Author?

Too bad Come Meet the Author, but Open Your Wallet appeared in The New York Times the Tuesday before Save Bookstores! Day. It deals with the issue of bookstores charging patrons to see authors making appearances, something that's a bit of a turn-off for some. It's a method of generating income for struggling bookstores, but authors and publishers aren't one hundred percent enthusiastic about it.

From an author's point-of-view, an appearance isn't just about selling one particular book at one particular moment, which is, of course, what the bookstore needs to do. For authors, an appearance is also about creating name recognition with the public and promoting an entire career. The hope is that people who don't buy a book at that particular appearance, may ask for it as a gift, purchase it in a paperback edition later on, or buy a future book because they remember your name, which got them to lift the new title off a shelf and read what it was about. None of that can happen if people don't come into the store to meet us because they couldn't or wouldn't pay an admission charge.

R.J. Julia Booksellers, which is mentioned in the article, is here in Connecticut and has been doing this for some time, which I was certainly aware of because they promote their events in the press. They get big name authors, and the store's system of charging a fee, which can be used toward purchasing the book, appears to be working for them.

Bank Square Books, also in Connecticut, has a model I like, though I've yet to take advantage of it. They charge even more for some of their events ($25 vs. $10, which is the figure I usually see), but that includes lunch with the author and a copy of the book. I don't know what lunch involves, but that price still seems as if the store can't be making a lot. I wish I'd been able to go when they had Susan Cheever in.

If you live anywhere near Mystic, Connecticut, it would be worth your time to get onto Bank Square Books e-mail list. Or the store also has a Facebook page.

My First Career Day

Though I have been speaking at elementary schools for years, I took part in my first career day today at my local elementary school. It was the school's first career day, too.

My loyal and maybe even occasional readers are probably aware that I am more than a little obsessive. So while I couldn't commit a lot of time to creating a career day presentation, I still managed to go overboard. I received criteria and suggestions from the organizers and, just as if I'd received a letter of comments from an editor, I went about choosing the ones I wanted to include. And then I included them.

I revised an early version of my general school presentation in order to cover how I moved from being a child writer to the publication of my first book, which gave me an opportunity to discuss high school and college course work and a job I held when I finished school. I then went on a personal mission to explain the difference between traditional and self-publishing because in talking with and reading about inexperienced writers, it seems to me that many don't understand that they're responsible for selling their own books with self-publishing. The school requested that speakers try to talk about how they use math, science, or technology in their work, so I laced a technology thread through the program, talking about journal software as well as Internet promotion.

I didn't get a lot of questions in the ten minutes I carefully scheduled after my wild trainride of a talk. I may have overwhelmed the young ones, especially since I never had more than six students at these PowerPoint presentations and at one of them only two. Or the program may have been so incredible that there was nothing left for them to ask. Yeah, that could be it.

Believe it or not, I came away with an essay idea from this experience. (I think I did mention to one of the teachers that everything I do, maybe even every moment of my life, can end up in my work. I don't know how strongly I made that point with the kids.) I've also started thinking about investing in some journal software as a result of planning this thing. Oh, and I used a smartboard instead of just working off a laptop the way I usually do.

So, really, even if the kids thought it was a complete waste of time for them and wished they'd signed up to see the meteorologist who works for the feds chasing hurricanes, it was a really good experience for me. On top of everything else, I had lunch afterwards with the hurricane guy.

Seriously, I Would Have To Make People Up

I just finished reading A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. I am a great fan of Flavia de Luce's, so this book does not at all support my theory that the longer the acknowledgments, the worse the novel they're attached to.

Bradley's acknowledgments go on for four and a quarter pages. I considered counting all the people he mentions, but I'm sure the number would be beyond me.

I imagine some poor writer...myself, for instance...having to make up names for an acknowledgments page. Or maybe even pulling out names of people she knew years before, people who would have no idea they were being ackowledged because they would have forgotten the writer, if they'd ever paid any attention to her in the first place. Or perhaps some of them would find out they were part of the acknowledgments and be mystified.

I need to go put all this down in my journal.

A Surprise From Karen Joy Fowler

Subterranean Press is a speciality publisher of horror, suspense, and "dark mystery genres." Its website has a Subterranean On-line feature, which this month is doing a Special YA Issue. I read Younger Women by Karen Joy Fowler of Jane Austen Book Club fame.

It was a very good story, but I definitely wouldn't call it YA. It has an adult protagonist with definite adult issues. In fact, one of the really intriguing aspects of the work is that it seems like a very mainstream "women's" story with a paranormal element that I don't want to tell you about because it was a bit of a kick when I read it, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone else.

The main character raises some great points about the paranormal genre she finds herself in.

I found the Subterranean Press site by way of Jennifer Represents, which I'll be following for a while because I attended Jennifer Laughran's presentation at last Saturday's conference.

Or Perhaps I'm Just An Ungrateful Wretch

Back when I first started publishing in the last century, you didn't see a lot of lengthy acknowledgments at the back of books. It seems to me that it's something that's started turning up in the last decade. And I've often noticed that the length of the thank yous has a connection to the quality of the book--the longer they are, the worse the work.

I just finished a novel I'd looked forward to reading because I'd enjoyed an earlier book by the same author. I liked the historical setting, it was plenty moody, but the plot was seriously clunky with some events seeming very tacked on. The threads were not well integrated. We're not talking seamless here.

The acknowledgments went on for two and a half pages.

I was left feeling kind of glum because I don't have two and a half pages of people involved with my professional life to thank. I'm also wondering if there might be some kind of jinx at work here. If I did manage to scrape together a lengthy list of folks to thank, would that doom my book? Would they end up wishing they just hadn't been mentioned?

Is This Also About Plot? Or Am I Just Obsessed With That Element Of Fiction?

"'The basis of drama is ... is the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realizes that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilization and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set out to discover but which can be seen retrospectively as inevitable.'" David Mamet in Lunch with David Mamet.

Perhaps you've heard that plotting scheme that involves giving a character something to want and then keeping it from her? I've heard it a lot, (and talked about it here frequently, too) and I've decided I don't like it. I don't think it's a method for creating a plot. I think it's more of a formula for a plot. And then there's the question of what character? And what do you give her to want? Where the hell is all that supposed to come from?

I like the idea of characters having goals, because I think it's more dynamic and provides some narrative drive right off the bat. And the quote above from David Mamet struck me, maybe because he used the word "goal." Though I question whether something always has to keep characters from achieving goals. Why can't the move from objective to objective toward the goal be a workable and dramatic plot?