Early in that junior year of high school, I submitted to my first ever contest – the USA Today magazine Sunday insert short story competition for teens. I didn’t win or place or even hear back. Later that summer, I finished an unpublished Mark Twain story for an Atlantic Monthly contest. In September of that year, I got a call that in a small way, changed my life. I had placed in the contest. The second best ending out of 98 entries. For the first time, my words were widely recognized and had made me a small sum of money. I was now officially serious. Every opportunity I had in college I attempted to write fiction for the next best thing – grades. I did NaNoWriMo for the first time. I decided to go to grad school purely for my craft. With a year under my belt, I sold two short pieces to Chicken Soup for the Soul editions in 2008. I was so giddy to see one volume in my neighborhood Barnes and Noble that I didn’t care I was in my slush gear and my hair was a mess. I texted my roommate out of the apartment cocoon to come take a picture of me and my words in a commercial store. But the elusive book deal still hung over my head. Three more years left.

Fall 2011. Ten years. I had three manuscripts finished and polished and a shiny new job at a place that could be a potential home for my religious writing – if they were doing YA. And they were actually just getting started. So by the end of my decade, I was finding that the Ten Years looks different to everyone. Sometimes it’s the time from the idea in the brain to the physical book in the hands. Sometimes it’s a constant flow of submissions and rewrites until a request for a full. And sometimes it’s the full amount of time to get the work done so that the eleventh year is when the everything happens.

That’s what’s happening with me. Pauline Books and Media has acquired The Ten Commandments of Gloria Jean ©, a YA novel about finding authentic self, faith, and love. It will be released August 2013.

Ten years. Jo was right. It has happened, is happening, and will happen. Always persevere. Keep the faith. Go easy on yourself. Find a friend to walk the journey with you. I am so grateful to all of you who have walked with me these past ten years and know we’ll be together for the next ten.

“Words are just nails I use to build ideas.” -  True story: Many of my friends are engineers. To make me an honorary sister of their sorority Phi Sigma Rho, they creatively labeled me the English and Journalism major an “engineer of words.”

“Prose must be spare and true.”  – Excellent advice for journalists. And perhaps novelists. While in the novel on submission my words convey a truth, they are very spare. So much so Dear Editor thinks I can add 10-15,000 of them!

What are your favorite writing quotes?

Heretofore this amazingly gifted author has avoided naming the brands of clothing characters have worn. But also heretofore, this author has only ever written boy characters. Now that he has gone girl, so has some of his prose. It felt like I needed at least two hands (and that’s several fingers too many) to count the number of times the character referenced her Chuck Taylors. And I would forgive the slight of name-checking Forever 21 in re The Date Dress if there had been mention of the BFF, whose characterization was such that such things are Important, or if such choices were organic in Girl’s own character. But alas, there was not.

To me, Chuck Taylors have become the Manolo Bhlaniks or Jimmy Choos of middle class YA fiction. It became such that I would just read over the name and say…okay…she’s that girl, without ever really needing to know what a Chuck Taylor sneaker looked like. So I finally looked them up. So that’s what they are. Okay. Why do I need to know she wears these things? She, like her boyfriend, is unprecedented.

In this book’s case, I think I know what happened. The author even hinted at it. He fielded a question about the difference in writing boys vs. girls and said one main difficulty was getting the clothes right. Women in his life (spouse, editor, etc.) read the thing and their one negative comment – 16-year-old girls did not wear what he initially robed them in (flower dresses and some sort of offbeat shoe, IIRC), but they were what he remembered 16-year-old girls wearing. In 1997. So her wardrobe changed. And I, persnickety reader, am disappointed, for the character is just so “inimitable,” that the original clothing choices actually make more sense and would endear her even more to me. If that were possible.

Writers of girls: what do we do with what they wear? Is it Important? Will it date the text too much? I like it when name-dropping serves a point: satire, cultural commentary, identifier of flat characters (Gucci will always sound expensive). I hate it when it is the sole identifier of characters who are supposed to be round and when its name (or the store’s) does not signify anything some kid 20 years from now will “get.”

Is this a Gender Thing? Has anyone read a book inside a boy’s head in which he dons a Brooks Brothers for The Date Shirt when fashion is not an intrinsic part of his life? Or am I just being a crotchety old woman because I stayed up past my bedtime thinking about this book, and the clothes do not matter so much because the characters do matter to the universe and do exist beyond the oblivion of the last page?

Natalie Babbitt said she sometimes was asked about her career choice, “Why don’t you do something serious?”

People, writing books for children is one of the most serious things you can do.

I swear I am not on Anita Silvey’s payroll. Yet I will again mention Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from a Children’s Book. Really awesome people with amazing accomplishments trace their success to the awesome and amazing lessons emanating from their childhood reading.

Literacy is a fundamental skill needed in all aspects of life – from reading labels at the grocery store to composing and understanding Facebook messages to running a Fortune 500 company. Ideally, literacy is taught in childhood. Weren’t you glad as a kid that someone – a parent/guardian, teacher, librarian, best friend – tried to show you still more excellent ways of developing that skill than just phonics readers and textbooks with fiction, biographies, comics – any story, really –the silly and the serious?

Yes, it may seem like a joke that certain celebrities are adding to their millions by writing really simple stories (to be fair, some are quite good!) and novelists scratch out livings writing about made-up things, while others work important jobs and deal with real things and get paid pittances. But that’s not the fault of the individuals, but the skewed way society values labor and laborers.

The best stories, the ones that make this job serious, build off of kernels of truth or expose truths. They offer hope. “Author” is not as serious in the way that “heart surgeon” is serious, but many a time, authors, too, stitch a kid’s “heart” back together.

I can’t offer much but my own personal self as a case study. In reading Leah Bobet’s new novel, Above, I found myself struck when finding out halfway through that the main character was Indian. Of course I had to analyze…why did I presume this teen was white? He was, after all, a member of a subset of population with appendage differences (like animal features) and some of his neighbors even described as having skin colors on the primary scale, not tones you’d find as foundation options.

Did it matter that the main character was non-white? Not in the slightest. Did learning his ethnicity change my perception of him, his plot, or the themes he connected to? Not really. It gave him more texture as a character, but it didn’t consume his overall identity. It was like what Employer does – depict the world as it is (minus flipper feet) – wonderfully diverse – without making a big fuss or using it as a plot point or main method of characterization. Yet it still niggles me that I read people as white unless told not to straight off, or that in character creation, it’s difficult to create a character truly race-neutral (Is she Tatooine? Atlantian? Can’t tell, but it doesn’t matter!)

How should writers signal to the readers that they are not ethnocentric without being all proud about it? Thanks to one aspiring writer, I know how not to do it. Identifying multiple characters in ways such as “Consuela, the Haitian lunch lady,” (not real example, but facsimile of it) gets your writing roundly vituperated by editorial staffs.

The adages say to write what you know or write what you want to say. If we stick to emotional themes (I know what’ it’s like to be 13, conflicted about pleasing my parents but separating myself at the same time) or important issues (Leah Bobet on gender/ethnic/physical discrimination) open to all people, can we then really have a universal character? Or do you think one’s physical make-up affects one’s perception of those themes and it won’t be authentic to readers whose backgrounds differ from the main character’s?

Tell me about it.

For example, I have an adult text to read to prepare for a new job, a saint’s musings to pray through, and a Jasper Forde gift from a friend in my pile. Yet what did I curl up with this past weekend? Harry Potter. My relationship with children’s fiction is just one I don’t want to leave. I do feel guilty about my infidelity -  why indulge in mature fare when I have several stacks of novels that can help me get the feel for the voice and market of the audience I want to write for?

Editorial Anonymous says not to write for children if you don’t have anything to say to them or about the experience. That’s how I feel about writing for adults. Now, I have several things I’d like to say to adults, but nothing that merits as literary fiction, a crime novel, sci-fi, or romance (ha!).

Yet what about the fact that most high school students (especially the older teens) read primarily adult fiction (the classics)? Is it difficult to get a 17-year-old to read about a 17-year-old? The common rule is to say that it’s more likely the 14-year-old younger sister is reading that book. Then there’s the Alex Award, given by the ALA to the best books in adult fiction that appeal to teenagers.

Is switching to an adult POV worth contemplating? How does one go about it? Or is it like any other love affair, and you just fall into it?

Birdsall demonstrated how best to give a presentation: have a conversation with the fans and answer their questions honestly and respectfully. No podium or easy chair for her. She sat cross-legged on top of the table.

Pointers!

- Be encouraging. Birdsall just so happens to be writing an introduction for the 50-year anniversary of the classic. She said she hoped one of the young ones present would write the introduction for the 25th anniversary of her books.

- Make the children feel important. When asking who hadn’t read the first Penderwicks book, she pished a mom by waving the hand down. Refer to the title of this post. “You don’t count. You’re a grown-up.” Such a line also illustrates to a writer how to keep in mind your primary audience.

- Relate to their age. “Be very careful whom you sit next to in the 7th grade.” Hers encouraged her writing and became her second husband.

- Explain the writing process in humorous ways. Apparently the Penderwicks came into being because Birdsall took one of her favorite books, Little Women, and kept what she liked, and changed what she didn’t. Meg didn’t have a life; Jo got all the good stuff, which wasn’t fair; Beth’s awful thing happened; Amy was annoying (and “little sisters rock”). Also, writers, take note. In describing her work space, she said: “There’s a bed where I can take naps when I don’t feel like writing. It’s pretty much perfect.”

- Answer questions honestly. She always gets asked by the mothers why Mrs. Penderwick had to be dead. This time, a child asked the question. Part of her lovely answer was that she was a fan of “giving children the power to form the family they want.” Also, it would’ve meant portraying the natural push and pull between mother and teenage daughters. “We’ve lived through teenage rebellion. That’s enough.”

- Give little spoilers.  She’s going to discourage character Jane Penderwick from going the self-publishing route.

Concluding thoughts: “That’s the thing I hope for. That the book I’m writing right now or have just written is my favorite. If it’s not, well, maybe I didn’t work that hard.”

Work hard, dear writers!

Recently I spoke with the publisher at a small trade house. I brought up that “s”-word, which would be funny considering she’s a religious sister – if it were that “s”-word. But it was not. It was

Slush.

I, a writer, called those pre-published, unsolicited MSes, etc., slush. Because that was what I’d known from learning about the biz on the other side of the desk. The sister laughed and gently corrected me. “We call them ‘cold submissions’ here.”

Well, I said, as a writer, I am so grateful to hear that. Rather than being compared to that dirty, gray muck that ruins your budget boots, peoples’ writing are called what they are: pieces of work that haven’t been warmed by the loving hands of agents or editors.

Proof positive some editors respect and value your effort just as much as you want them to.

I think I’ll deliberately print it out and use it as scrap paper for my next revision.

Last night, I met with several alumni from Simmons’ Center for Children’s Literature. It was joyous to talk shop. Among us are beginning editors of books at wonderful houses, writers of books, teachers of books, sellers of books, and bloggers of books.

I so wish Fall 2011 catalogs were out so I can finally reveal the things I’m excited about.

Here’s two unrelated things:

• Pearl by Jo Knowles

LOVE this cover!

Coming to bookshelves July 19. Who was at ALA and wants to give me an ARC?

• Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon

Designers, THIS is how you do a covergirl cover. But that’s not the most important part of this excitement. Leigh originally submitted this ms on inkpop.com.  An editor from HarperCollins saw it, read, commented on it, and eventually bought it! Congratulations, Leigh!!! Dreams do come true, they can happen to you…

I always consider that old expression “When one door closes, God opens a window.” Well, then I’ll just open up every door, window, vent, and chimney flue to make it easier for Him!  I LOVE that writers are getting their stories read and the full-house support they need to reach more.

And finally…

Readers reports have been made for one of my mss! Currently, it’s just on the editor’s To-read-list. But hey, this means in some indeterminate amount of time, I will have a letter from a human about my book!