some housekeeping

Well, it's August, and we've made it as far as Ruby in Summer Reading, hahaha. Lord it has been a busy time. I'm declaring Summer Reading can go into fall and even winter -- I won't abandon it. I hope you stay tuned.

In the meantime, there is this:

from the research trip and getaway I made last week to Maine, to Rachel Carson's cabin by the sea. More on this soon.

I'm juggling (delightedly, gratefully) a particularly rich time in my writing life right now. Here is just yesterday's work:

I finished researching niggling details and sent in final revisions, author's note, acknowledgements, dedication, etc etc, to a picture book I've written about Rachel Carson that publishes next fall (Random House), art by the stupendously talented Daniel Miyares -- all very exciting.

I sent in a revision of the galley letter that will go in front of all KENT STATE galleys -- which will be here very soon. That book publishes (Scholastic Press) in April 2020. Also exciting. We have an amazing cover for this book that I can't wait to share when the time is right.

I prepared for Scholastic's sales conference in NYC next week, where I'll be speaking about KENT STATE to sales reps from across the country. I'm scripting myself for this 5-8 minute talk, and selecting some slides.

I spoke with my agent about illustrators for a picture book I've worked on for many years that may be sold soon. The editor in question wants to take it to acquisitions with an illustrator and vision in mind. Very exciting! So many books take me such a long time to figure out.

I worked back-and-forth with Scholastic audio on listening to auditions and selecting a reader to be Molly for the audiobook of ANTHEM. Also very exciting! We've been bouncing this around for some time -- we have decided on Norman, and we have our narrator, and we were trying to get Molly just right. I think yesterday we found her.

I corresponded with my uber-talented and patient webmistress about moving A LONG LINE OF CAKES off its prominent "new book" position on my home page and moving ANTHEM into its place, and I set up a training time with her, so I can make these changes myself in time.

I answered a backlog of email.

When I showed up mid-afternoon to get my hair cut, here is what I heard: "Your hair is very emotional today!" hahahahaha. Yeah. It's an emotional time. And so very busy. I know how lucky I am.

I got mostly off the road late last year, which has given me the opportunity to write more and have days like I had yesterday, and like I hope to have more of going forward.

I've been writing professionally for 35 years now, in one capacity or another, and working in this book business for a little over 20 years now, publishing books since 2001, and this is the first time I've had TIME stretching out ahead of me.

Part of it is age, and stage, part of it is getting off the road, and part of it is finishing up major projects, like the Sixties Trilogy (which I sold in 2008) followed immediately by KENT STATE.

It's also the first time in 11 years I haven't woken to a publishing deadline. Everything is turned in, finished. It's luscious. I don't want to give up that feeling! But I have work to do. So -- what now?

I have two proposals to write, both for big writing projects. I spoke with my agent this week about those. I have picture books to go back to. A bunch of other writing and home projects I'm eager to paddle around with, in what's left of this summer.

Also, there is housekeeping.

I have a new website! Is it not GORGEOUS? Thank you, Cyndi Craven! We are still tweaking, and having fun with it, and I am ever grateful for such a professional looking site. I hadn't updated my website design in 9 years, since COUNTDOWN was published. Ulp.

Check out the BOOKS page, so lovely, and see how each book's page (click on REVOLUTION for an example) now has excellent information for readers, teachers, librarians, parents, and more. I see this new website as a beautiful workhorse for me into this next part of my writing life. I'll have to do a separate blog post about it at some point.

I'm moving this Blogger blog to my WordPress website soon, just fyi. It's already there, actually, and you can go sub there soon as well, although I won't be completely away from Blogger for some time yet, so no worries if you want to hang out here on Blogger with me while we transition everything.

My idea is to "own my own content" and eventually be off social media platforms and have everything about me at my website. I was off social media for four years, and it did me good. I'm trying to figure out a way to return that works for me. Hence, having all content in one place. More on that as we transition.

In the meantime, I am once again (mostly against my will, hahaha) at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (you'll find me here most often because I like the visual storytelling, and it feels less nekkid-making). 

And I'm at Pinterest, never left Pinterest, as this is where I catalog resources for my work in progress, so it's a work tool, it's messy, but it's process, and maybe useful to readers... it's certainly useful to me, and I love this tool for that reason.

And I'm here, once again, at the blog, and very happy about that. Thanks for hanging out with me.

xoxo Debbie

research: book 3 sixties trilogy

I'm gonna do occasional posts on research as I move deeper into Book 3 of the Sixties Trilogy. I house research links on my Pinterest boards, but I also want to document my process, thinking, and resources here. I'll label all research posts as such.

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Full disclosure: I am stuck with book three. I don't know my story. I'm frustrated. So I'm contenting myself with research, which I've been doing intensely (ebb and flow) for about a year now, which has been mostly reading, and with no real focused objective but to understand the late sixties.

I did this with REVOLUTION and COUNTDOWN as well -- I read for about a year. You can find my bibliographies on Pinterest -- they are incomplete but will be added to as I can get to it.

So I'm working on scrapbooks today -- the non-fiction pieces of the documentary novels. I need about seven songs, one to anchor each scrapbook. They will change as the story is known and changes, but I need something to get me started, and I'm wondering if listening to the songs of the late sixties might also help me with finding my way into the story itself.

I spent most of my research day listening to the Billboard hits of 1967, 1968, and 1969. I dipped into 1970 as well. I want book 3 to be (in part) about ROCK-AND-ROLL. We've not had the chance to really do rock-and-roll with COUNTDOWN and REVOLUTION, so here is the chance to Go Big Or Go Home, and I want to revel in the music. Maybe I have a character who does the same (that's what I've been playing with, anyway).

This is the kind of day where I have 24 windows open online at once and jump back and forth between YouTube and Wikipedia for lyrics and cursory information about The Rascals, Chicago (can only use their first album), Buffalo Springfield ("For What It's Worth" is perfect, about the Sunset Strip riots in 1967 -- I can use it for larger meaning), Jefferson Airplane (which leads to a lengthy side-trip down the "San Francisco Sound" tunnel), The Fifth Dimension, The Isley Brothers, Steppenwolf -- yes, I can use "Born to be Wild," now that I have moved book 3 from 1968 to 1969.

Last year, anticipating the long flights to Hong Kong and back, I invested in Bose noise-cancelling headphones, and they are perfect for this task. I'm listening a lot right now, trying to find a way in, and pulling out a line here, a line there, of select songs (not scrapbook anchors) for inclusion somehow -- don't know how yet. I'm going on faith here that I'll figure out a way to do this, and if I don't, it's not time wasted.

Delicious lines like "It appears to be such a long long long long time before the dawn." Know it? "And the beat goes on." "The past is just a goodbye." "All the world over it's easy to see, people everywhere just got to be free." And many more.

I've been wondering if I can put more of myself into this book, like I did with REVOLUTION and COUNTDOWN. I've said I'm going to the Bay Area for book 3, but I lived in Charleston, South Carolina in 1969, my dad flew into and out of Vietnam, our high school was integrated - in spite of Strom Thurmond's defiance - by the National Guard, boys picketed to grow their hair long, girls picketed to shorten their skirts, and I loved Crosby, Stills and Nash and the Beatles and many more... the music was fresh, new, energizing, and amazing.

I was 16 years old and wanted to see the film Easy Rider. I didn't have the $3 it cost for a movie ticket. My dad said, "I will not give you three dollars to support Peter Fonda's drug habit." He forbid me to see Easy Rider. So I told my parents I was off to somewhere or other on a date with Jim (that took care of the $3, and besides, it was JIM), and instead went into downtown Charleston, South Carolina to see Easy Rider.

It. Was. Thrilling. Imagine sitting in the theater, a sheltered child of strict Southern, military parents who didn't even want rock-and-roll in the house -- I'd had to "audition" rock-and-roll in order to be allowed to play it -- I chose my 45rpm of "We Can Work It Out" by the Beatles and got a reluctant okay.

Imagine this kid sitting in the theater and watching Easy Rider unfold. Born to be Wild indeed. Here is the beginning of the movie with Steppenwolf's signature anthem for the late sixties:

That's it for today. I've listened until my ears hurt. And I've got to get myself back to the garden....

48 days, day 18: bountiful moon

{{ I am chronicling 48 days of writing before my July 31 travel. If you are chronicling your summer writing/days and would like to share, please link or comment so we can all cheer one another through. Strength to your sword arm! }}

This is my grandmother's house in Jasper County, Mississippi, setting for Freedom Summer; Love, Ruby Lavender; Each Little Bird That Sings; and The Aurora County All-Stars. My grandmother, the original Miss Eula, is on the right. Her mother, who becomes Great-great Aunt Florentine in Little Bird, is standing next to her. I still go back to this house every year, although it is abandoned today, much like Carrie Watt's house (and town) in "The Trip to Bountiful."

I woke at 1am, wide awake. I realized, as the silver light streamed through the windows, that it must be a full moon. So I got up to stand outside a long while and watch the moonbeams bathe my brand-new gardens and freshly-sown back yard, as well as the bird bath in the front, the Gray's lilies bobbing around it in a tiny breeze. I heard a barred owl, close. I thought about Geraldine Page in "The Trip to Bountiful" --

Ludie: "Why can't you sleep, Mama?"
Mrs. Watts: "... I never could sleep when there was a full moon. Even back in Bountiful..."

"The Trip To Bountiful" (1985) got me started writing about Mississippi, my Bountiful. When I first saw this movie, something cracked open in me -- something old and ancient and full of aching memory -- even as I watched the opening credits, that mother in her flowing long skirts and apron, chasing her overalls-clad small son through a field of bluebonnets under the full moon, finally scooping him into her arms, all to "Softly and Tenderly." (You just need the first minute and half, below, for that amazing field of bluebonnets and that beautiful song -- whew - watch it in full screen.)

 When I watched this movie -- with tears in my eyes through most of it -- I knew - knew -- where to begin writing for young readers. Write what you know. Go home. Still, it would be another 15 years before my first book was published. I was a freelance writer for all those years, writing in the cracks of motherhood, reading like a maniac, teaching myself, trying to figure it out, practicing, getting rejected right and left.

Last night I bowed to the moon and to those days. I tiptoed inside, turned on the softest lamp, and read some of Horton Foote's play (again), read a bit about Horton Foote (again), and, as I started to get sleepy, read some of the Paris Review interview with Shelby Foote (Horton's third cousin) just because I could. 

And that's where I found this:

INTERVIEWER

When you were writing The Civil War, which is some million and a half words long, did you type the whole manuscript up yourself?

FOOTE

Twice. I’ve never had anything resembling a secretary or a research assistant. I don’t want those. Each time I type, it gives me another shot at it, another look at it. As for research, I can’t begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else. A research assistant couldn’t have done that. Not being a trained historian, I had botherations that led to good things. For instance, I didn’t take careful notes while reading. Then I’d get to something and I’d say, By golly, there’s something John Rawlins said at that time that’s real important. Where did I see it? Then I would remember that it was in a book with a red cover, close to the middle of the book, on the right-hand side and one third from the top of the page. So I’d spend an hour combing through all my red-bound books. I’d find it eventually, but I’d also find a great many other things in the course of the search.
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Exactly! That's very much how it feels to me, researching and writing. When I was starting out, writing essays and features for magazines, I did research the way I wrote reports (and there was no internet to help me). When I started writing for young readers -- Freedom Summer and Ruby, in the 1990s -- my research was based around "What happened to my pool in Mississippi?" and "How many days does it take a chicken to hatch out of its egg?" I also used oral histories, a technique I still incorporate in all my work.

Today, research is an altogether different animal. It includes my curiosity (I tend to wander, as you've seen, but I trust the wandering and always put it to good use), new ideas, reaching back to fundamental questions ("What WAS Freedom Summer??"), and trying to provide a look at history that readers can hear, taste, touch, smell, and see.

From Horton Foote's obit in the NYTimes: "Mr. Foote depicted the way ordinary people shoulder the ordinary burdens of life, finding drama in the resilience by which they carry on in the face of change, economic hardship, disappointment, loss and death."

Yes. A book for young readers doesn't have to encompass a grand story. It needs to be about a true heart.I try to start from there.

On that note I went back to bed fortified by the benevolent moon, a movie I loved, the remembrances of a town I cherished, and the encouraging words of those whose footsteps, far ahead of me, I trust.

Not bad for a night's work.