Here are some links to people who are already talking about RH. Thanks, y’all! I really appreciate it.

Restoring Harmony – blog mentions

Sharon Loves Books and Cats http://sharonlovesbooksandcats.blogspot.com/2009/08/books-that-i-would-go-zombie-for.html

Devourer of Books http://www.devourerofbooks.com/2009/09/tss-some-serious-book-coveting/

The  Debutante Ball Reading challenge info (this doesn’t have anything to do with us, it’s two bloggers who are putting it together): http://www.devourerofbooks.com/2009/09/upcoming-challenge-the-debutante-ball/

Interview with Suzanne Selfors where she mentions me and my book. http://www.mrsmagooreads.com/2009/09/saturdays-scribe-suzanne-selfors.html

Steph Su reads http://stephsureads.blogspot.com/2009/09/waiting-on-wednesday-28.html

(loads of comments!)

Good Reads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6659597-restoring-harmony

The Divining Wand Interview: http://thediviningwand.com/2009/08/on-the-red-carpet-with-debutante-joelle-anthony/

Steph Bowe (Australian teenager) interview with me: http://heyteenager.blogspot.com/2009/05/interview-with-joelle-anthony-enviro.html

Not Enough Books http://notenoughbookshelves.blogspot.com/2009/09/bbawbook-blogs-i-love.html

Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf http://laurenscrammedbookshelf.blogspot.com/2009/08/waiting-on-wednesday-week-38.html

Dulemba.com http://www.dulemba.com/2009/07/joelle-anthony-on-breaking-in.html

Guest post at Darcy Pattison’s blog: http://www.darcypattison.com/authors/joelle-anthony/

The Debutante Ball – I blog every Friday – http://www.thedebutanteball.com

Everything above is current as of 14 September 2009

Restoring Harmony is a sweeping adventure about a determined girl fighting to bring her family together in a broken world. Armed with only a fiddle and a keen sense of the land, Molly is the best kind of heroine–smart, feisty and courageous. Anthony writes with tenderness and imbues her story with hope. This is a coming-of-age journey at its best. Anthony is a welcome new voice in teen lit.

- Suzanne Selfors, Author of SAVING JULIET and COFFEEHOUSE ANGEL

*FYI -The numbers you see hyperlinked as you read down are Lara’s footnotes which appear at the end of the post.

THE TIME I SAW BORAT AND FIGURED OUT MY BOOK, WHICH IS NOT R RATED SO PLEASE DON’T FREAK OUT

Here’s the truth, peeps: DONUT DAYS did not come easily to me.

I knew I wanted to write a novel based on the experiences I had in the evangelical church when I was a teenager (and into my early 20s) because, seriously, you would not believe the stuff that went down in the megachurch[1] I attended.

For starters, the pastor drove a Mercedes and then paid his employees, like, minimum wage. Then, his wife had loads of plastic surgery[2] but he still divorced her. Which, in a megachurch, is a huge no-no.  Then … well, okay, I guess I’m getting ahead of myself here. The point is, I had a lot of fodder for a novel. And I really wanted to pen a protagonist who saw the cracks and flaws in the church’s façade and called it like she saw it[3].

But every time I sat down to write, I couldn’t make it happen. I got words to happen, sure, and I strung them together in sentences, one right after the other. I even completed books and sent them off to agents[4]. Needless to say, I did not get multiple, competing six-figure offers.

What I did get what frustrated. What was wrong? Why couldn’t I write something that engaged people? I mean, even my husband (who was my fiancé at the time and really wanted to make it to the altar, not to mention other, a-hem, places) could slog through it and pretend he liked it. And if he couldn’t do it, no way anyone else was going to. But what was the problem?

Make it real, my fiancé (how husband) told me.

It is real, I insisted.

Except it wasn’t. It was like a shiny, plastic version of the gritty, complicated world I had known. It was like I was writing it through a filter. It was like I was scared to bring it real[5].

And then, I saw Borat. The movie (versus a live version of Borat as played by Sacha Baron Cohen).

There’s this scene in the movie where Borat goes to an evangelical church and pretends to get saved. He pretends to start speaking in tongues, to fall down, to roll on the carpet[6], to believe everything that’s being spouted at him.

It is hilarious. I laughed until I cried.

Until something else happened.

When the antics died down, people in the church started really reaching out to Borat. Believing he was a down-on-his luck guy who needed a hand, they prayed for him. They took up an offering for him. They fed him. They helped him.

And that took it from flat-out hilarious to flat-out complicated. I blinked. I face-palmed. I woke up.

Borat showed me—like nothing else had—how writing about the church couldn’t be black or white. It had to be grey and complicated. And how, at its heart, the book couldn’t really be about church. It had to be about people who were searching for answers and sometimes finding them, sometimes not; sometimes succeeding at making the world a better place, sometimes failing.

I had my epiphany. I knew what to do. I went home and immediately started rewriting the book.  After a few months, I sent it to an agent who accepted it. The manuscript sold in a matter of weeks[7].

I’d figured out what I wanted to say, and how to take off the filter that was preventing me from being truly honest about what I’d experienced.

But DONUT DAYS still walks a fine line. For those of you who want to throw an ACLU petition at me right about now, please let me emphasize that DONUT DAYS is not a book about church. Not really. It’s more about people thoughtfully questioning what they believe, and why. And for those Christians who want to be mad at me because the book isn’t “Christian” enough, whatever that means, please let me emphasize that I believe in God, and I believe in the church, but I wrote DONUT DAYS because I also believe that it’s okay to question absolute power, and that no pastor is infallible.

In general[8], my great hope is that DONUT DAYS helps people remember that even if people suck, God doesn’t have to.

And I learned it all via the 21^st century version of an after-school special. I learned it by watching Borat.

[1] Picture the church, synagogue or mosque where you grew up going. Now add 5,000 square feet, a bunch of purple carpet, a full band and deafness-issuing speakers, Thomas Kinkade paintings (puke), a fountain in the foyer that’s bigger than the one at the mall, and about 4,000 people. That, my friends, is a megachurch.

[2] Ironic much? Because the Bible says (and she preached it) that we’re perfect in God’s sight. But apparently not perfect enough.

[3] Instead of, say, closing her eyes and saying “praise Jesus” over and over.

[4] My apologies to the good agents who were saddled with this dribble. You know who you are.

[5] Oprah moment: I was scared to bring it real.

[6] I wish I had the space to explain what all this is but I don’t. If you want to know, please watch Borat or late-night Christian television.

[7] In publishing, where everything moves more slowly than an Ent debating whether or not to attack Mordor, this is really, really fast.

[8] Cue John Hughes movie music, God rest his awesome soul.

The year is 2041, and for Molly McClure, her life is pretty much the same as it’s always been. She was only six when the Collapse of ’31 happened, ending life as the world’s population knew it. When she is forced to leave the comfort of her home and small island in British Columbia to travel down to Oregon, Molly discovers how hard the Collapse has been on the rest of the world.

What starts out as a quick trip to the U.S. to convince her grandfather to return to Canada and be the island’s doctor, turns into a rescue mission, a test of Molly’s strengths, ingenuity, and sheer determination. Will a farm girl like Molly survive in this upturned world? Will she be able to return with her grandpa in time for him to help her ailing mother? And just how much will she have to compromise to succeed in getting back to B.C.?

Find out in Restoring Harmony by Joëlle Anthony, May 2010 Putnam for Young Readers

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE MOVIE BELOW!!!!!

So I left the island, which in and of itself is a big deal, to see this movie and while my expectations wanted to be high, I was a little dubious after #5 (do NOT get me started on how much I hated that movie and how they ruined the entire story with it). But I’d heard good things and the preview looked excellent, so I suppose I was slightly hopeful.

Okay… So I know I haven’t read the book since last summer, and I’ve only read it 3-4 times (including audio), but does anyone else remember Ron’s house burning down in the middle of the book? I didn’t think so. That said, it was kind of an exciting scene in the movie! But what was with Mr. & Mrs. Weasley just standing in the doorway looking dumbstruck, not even taking out their wands, while Harry and Ginny run after Bella & the werewolf? Yeah, right!

I did think, “Wow! This is a cool scene. I bet J.K. Rowling wishes she wrote it in the book!” Of course, maybe she wrote it for the movie, or maybe she wrote it in the book and it was cut, but either way, it was pretty cool. Except that their house burnt down and well…that can’t really happen, can it because they need that house later in the series to live in…and do ghouls survive fire? Hard to say, but they need that ghoul too.

But you know that’s not all I have to say, right? I mean…they added a cool scene and left out THE FRIGGIN CLIMAX OF THE BOOK!!!! So can anyone tell me what the whole point of Draco fixing the vanishing cabinet was if he was just going to let some Deatheaters into the castle so they could run around and laugh evilly and then leave? And what about Bill? When does he get bit by a werewolf? And I’m sorry, but Dumbledore knew Harry would ignore his orders in a fight and that’s why he immobilized him under his invisibility cloak, so when he didn’t this time and Harry just lurked in the shadows, I was all, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” Totally unbelievable.

To be honest, I was so disturbed by the fact that there was no battle, I almost didn’t even notice that Dumbledore died! Seriously. The book makes me cry every time and all I could think was, “Why are they all holding their wands up like it’s a 1970’s Rolling Stones concert?”

I’m glad I saw it because otherwise I’d be worried I was missing something, and until the end, I thought it was pretty okay. But as I heard some teenagers say on their way out, “If they cut all the kissing scenes and people looking into each others’ eyes, the movie would’ve only been about half an hour long.”

What did you think?

Some of the best advice I’ve seen on keeping a blog is, “Make it easy for people to comment.” It sounds simple, but it appears to me that bloggers are so worried about dreaded spam that they want me to jump through hoops just to comment. I won’t do it. And I don’t think I’m the only one.

I hate spam too. I do. Really. I don’t need a larger er…ummm…well, you know. And my abs are just fine, doughy though they are, but I’m willing to stay on top of the spam to make it easier for you all to talk to me. I want to hear from my readers! And if you have to sign away your first born just to tell me what book you’re reading, why bother?

There is nothing more annoying (when reading a blog – there are definitely more annoying things in life) than composing the perfect scintillating comment only to find out that first I have to sign in to some sort of account or be anonymous (if that’s even an option) and then after I do that, I have to do a word verification (not my strongest point), and then wait for you to screen my brilliance before it even shows up! Not to mention, if you haven’t noticed that signing into my account takes me away from your website, well, you really should know that because I might not bother to come back for a while.

The second best bit of advice I got about keeping a blog is to respond to every comment. I definitely try to do this, even if it’s just, “thanks for stopping by” because we all like to feel like someone’s reading our comments when we take the time to leave them, don’t we?

It’s true that while I have a nice handful of regular readers, I don’t get a lot of comments, and if I were someone like agent Nathan Bransford who regularly gets 150 comments, I couldn’t answer them all. But until that happens, if you leave one, I’ll try to send you a thank you.

Okay…rant’s over. What do you think? Do you leave comments when you’re forced to walk over hot coals to do it?

*I know that one of you who reads this blog regularly requires all kinds of sign-ins for comments, and I want to say that while yes…I am sort of thinking of you here, it was someone else’s blog that really set me off…so please don’t feel targeted in any way! I love you, and would never do that!!!

My grandpa did all the things you’re not supposed to do. Ate bad food, drank more than was good for him, smoked two packs a day. When I was seventeen he paid the price.

No. He didn’t die. He had a stroke.

Sometimes I see it as a blessing. He was a man I could never get close to. Suddenly his towering figure hunched a little, he began to garden and do dishes. He never regained his speech. And his love for baseball became an obsession with the Cubs. We became friends over TV baseball, Harry Carray, and milkshakes I picked up on the drive over to his house.

He would watch every game on TV and the few words he could get out were all swear words which are the only words a true Cubby fan needs anyway. When he died eight years later my grandmother gave me his jacket, even though he had five sons and two daughters who might’ve liked to have it. There was still a pack of Wrigley Doublemint gum in the pocket. Pretty ironic since someday I’m gonna to wear it to Wrigley Field.

Every year I get his coat out and wear it around. Last year was our first year in Canada and I actually forgot, but today I wore it to The Village.

I was standing out in one of our fields with four other people. I wouldn’t call them friends, but that didn’t seem weird at the time because nothing was normal. For one thing, our field was sort of electric green, kind of like those postcards you see of the English countryside. Usually, ours are more golden brown. Especially in September.

We weren’t really doing anything, at least, not that I can remember, when suddenly out of nowhere, this plane comes flying low across the vivid blue sky. Not only was the grass bright, but everything around me was sort of startling colorful. It wasn’t a jet plane, but not one of those tiny two-seaters either. Somewhere in the middle. Which I know is a lot of leeway, but I’m not exactly a plane expert or anything, so I’m doing the best I can.

Anyway, almost on its tail comes another plane…a bigger one. Still not a jet, but maybe like…a military plane. Only in size though. They both look like normal, everyday planes like you might see a movie star fly in. The first plane seems to panic. Well, I guess I mean, the people inside, because it starts flying all erratic. And then there’s this piercing siren sound and the plane swings around…or banks, is the word, I think, but the bigger plane is right on its tail. And this is right over us. We’re kind of freaking out on the inside, but struck dumb on the outside. No one’s moving, but our hearts are racing. At least mine is.

Then there’s a second siren, higher and more whiny than the first, so now there’re two sirens, two planes and they keep flying very low, right over the top of our field, the bigger one chasing the smaller one. When the third plane shows up, that’s when we all come to life. Only it’s not really a plane. It’s one of those giant helicopters like you see on the news. Definitely military style. This one’s painted a light color too though, like it’s civilian. Not that I even know if they have such a thing.

“Oh, my God!” one of us shouts.

“We should get down!”

“Or hide in the trees!”

Did I mention that the field meets the old apple orchard on one side? Well, it does. Anyway, I say, “I don’t think a few trees are going to keep any of those planes from crushing us if they come down! If we stay here, we can run if they start to crash.”

So for some reason, everyone listens to me and we stay put. The planes are flying around each other, the sirens still wailing, and then the helicopter thingie sort of begins to hover over us. All of a sudden a door opens on its side and from a rope, yeah, just a regular rope, they start to lower down this white car. Right on top of us!

I can’t believe it either. Instead of running, we all sort of collapse onto the ground and wait for the car to crush us. It comes lower and lower and when it’s almost to the ground, I see that it’s going to miss most of us, but Hillary’s in its way. Instead of just telling her to move, I reach out my arm, lay my palm against the swinging car and just sort of shove it to one side. Just as it lands in the field, I wake up.

That’s the dream I’ve been having for the last two weeks.

I’ve looked on the internet to see what it means, and there are all kinds of kooks out there who say they know. I’ve heard that it means I have crushing debt (not that I know of) or I’m pregnant (definitely not, unless it’s the case of the miraculous conception again) or I’ll never get into a good college with my grades (probable). What I really think it means is that my parents are going to buy me a car for sixteenth birthday next week. A girl can dream can’t she? I’m also thinking that the reason I push it away in my dream is not because I don’t want it, or because I’m worried about it crushing Hillary (I don’t really even know Hillary), but because I actually hate white cars. Not that I wouldn’t take one if it was my only choice, of course.

The air is sticky-hot around me because I forgot to open a window before going to bed last night, and I’m just coming out of the girl’s bathroom (we have two. I have brothers. Mom and I drew the line and put up a couple of those signs that you see on bathrooms in restaurants. The boys got the downstairs bathroom, and Mom and I got the upstairs one) when Jim Bob’s voice floated up the stairs to me.

“Annabelle? Are you still sleeping, darlin’?”

Jim Bob is not his real name. No one calls their kid that anymore. At least not here in Oregon. Jim Bob’s real name is James Joyce McKenzie. Naturally, he changed it, like any self-respecting, parent-hating fifteen year old would (can you blame him for hating Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie when they gave him a middle name like Joyce?).

And Annabelle is not my real name either, although I sometimes wish it was. It’s just what Jim Bob calls me because he likes the way it sounds. To everyone else, I’m just plain Anne or Annie, after my great grandmother. How the two of us got so lucky in the names department, I’ll never know. But maybe that’s what drew us together.

“I had the dream again,” I said, as JB reached the top of the stairs.

He scooped me into his arms, just like in a movie, and gave me a kiss on each cheek. He can’t decide if he wants to be an Italian who kisses everyone he meets (mostly just to throw them off, especially the guys) or a southerner who calls you darlin’ and drives a truck with a tow rope and jumper cables in case of emergency. Either way, he’s just weird, which suits me fine, as my great grandma Anne would say.

“Coffee,” he said, leading me down the stairs.

I was wearing what I’d slept in, shorts and a t-shirt but no bra, so I hoped we didn’t run into any of the lodge’s guests.

“I have bedhead.”

“You look beautiful, as always.”

Some people might think JB is a little strange, and they’d be right, but I know he just likes to entertain himself with his funny ways. It makes him feel less stuck in the middle of nowhere. It does the same for me, which is probably why we’re friends.

As a librarian, I have our library services company put the barcodes on the back cover.  If you’re looking at the back of the book like it’s an envelope, the barcode is placed basically where you’d put a postage stamp.  I don’t like to put them “in” the book, as it’s too much wear and tear on paper to scan them there.  If you want statistical info, contact someone like mackin.com or follett.com –they are large opening day collection jobbers and they can tell you how many customers ask for what placement.  I agree that I don’t want any front or back matter concealed by a barcode, but unfortunately it does happen. 

***

Moscow, Idaho public library:  Inside the front cover, top and center (for the most part).  How about BOOK SELLERS that put their stinkin’ price tag over the back of novels so you can’t read the blurb?!  Grrr…

***

Dc public library – top,  back cover, left, right and centre (on diff books they don’t have 3 bar codes!).  They seem to try and avoid the blurb – a 5 star library!

***

I use Homewood Public Library in Homewood Alabama and their barcodes are on the back, top right corner. Blows your theory again, but I am interested in this too. I hate when you’re at the bookstore (or CD store) and the price sticker covers up the title…sometimes it’s just some random sticker advertising some other product. It annoys me to no end!

***

The library that I work in puts the barcode inside the front of the
book, on the right hand side of the end papers, near the middle, close
to the top. On paperbacks or books that don’t have end papers, the
barcode goes on the first page. We try to avoid covering anything of
significance. Libraries that choose the cover placement, do so to save
a step in checking in/out and inventory.

***

FWIW, the King County Library System (here in WA) seems to put barcodes
on the upper left, mostly beneath the book’s title. I just looked at the
books I’ve checked out–out of 8, one covers the first word of the
title, and another covers the author’s initials (the title’s below the
author’s name).

***

Bottom right on the back cover here.

***

The libraries in Maryland put their barcodes on the back of the book.

The complaints about doing that came from patrons who wanted to read the information on the back of the book and discovered that the check-out label covered a goodly portion of it.
The barcode and library identifier are now placed along the top edge of every book, left hand side, parallel to the top edge.  (which means the circ staff have to turn and turn each book to find the barcode.)  The processsing department has the theory that all the older books will disappear and the only thing left will be the newer books with the barcode along the top edge, but nope, we librarians tend to keep popular books in the branches and therefore the two systems.

But wait!  There’s a third system being used in our libraries.  RFID.  Yes, all those books are still barcoded along the top back edge of the books. 0But now the circ staff simply puts four books on a “reader pad” (I have NO Idea what it’s really called, since our branch hasn’t been converted yet) and the computer reads the RFID dots and zips the books barcodes onto your patron record.  And you’re done.  No carpel Tunnel.  Just the delay while the Reader Pad tries to read the RFID dots.  (which we put inside the back cover, lower down, near the spine.)  (picture book readers who enjoy looking at endpapers will now have another complaint against libraries covering the endpapers.  Illustrators need to be aware of the bookcovers being taped down and now the RIFD patch which is 2 inches square.  Good illustrators are now designing their endpapers to have most of the important endpaper illustratons toward the spine and only a spare flying bird or other nonessential art along the edges where it’ll be covered up by the endpapers of the cover.)

Now, other items in the library also have to be barcoded and RIFDed, but we try to follow those rules as closely as possible with them, too.   

***

I was a librarian for years. It was always a controversy about where
to put these bar codes. Initially they were on the inside of the
front cover. This preserved the cover, but it became a repetitive
stress and time issue on checkout, as the checkout clerks had to open
each book to scan the bar code. You wouldn’t think much of this, but
when you are doing this hundreds or thousands of times a day, it adds
up. I once had a teacher check out 200 books for a class project. I
wasn’t the checkout clerk, but I did help the teacher select the
books and put them on a book cart to take them to circulation.

Then they started putting them on the back cover. People complained
because no matter where you put them, you still have the possibility
of covering something important, cover text, author photos, whatever.

Then came the possibility of self checkout. Libraries can use the
technology just as Walmart can. Some patrons love it because they
don’t have to wait in line at circulation. However, the machines are
set up (or at least they were when I was still working) to find the
bar code in a particular position near the edge of the book. That was
another reason our library started putting them in that position on
the back of the book.

However, that still meant that either the circulation clerk had to
physically turn over each book (because patrons just about always
bring the books to the counter front cover up), or the patron at self
checkout had to look for the bar code . . . or go complain that self
checkout didn’t work because they didn’t have the book properly
positioned in the machine.

So some libraries went to putting the bar code in a readable position
on the front cover to avoid those problems. Then people (including a
lot of library employees) were upset because it disfigured the cover
and sometimes masked part of a title, author or illustrator name, or
illustration.

So there you have it. It’s driven by technology and health concerns.

***

> But I agree. There’s nothing like an ill-placed barcode to ruin the
> looks of a good cover!

I agree. My local library does that, too. It drives me nuts and I have
even approached library management only to get the standard “brush-off.”

***

Our barcodes are either on the back, bottom right edge (over the
books barcode) or on the front, top right edge.

We have automatic check out. There is a little pad that you can stack
up to five books on and it auto-scans for you. Except 50% of the time
you get a “please rotate items slightly” message, and then it’s up to
you to guess if you should turn them over, turn them to the right,
the left … there’s no telling. And then if that doesn’t work you
have to check them out one at a time. I have learned to stack books
of similar size together and that the machine does not like movies
stacked on top of each other. Now, I will pay more attention to the
location of the barcode, and try to only stack back code books and
front code books together.

***

Interesting discussion this one. I can’t say that all California libraries do it this way but in the Sacramento City libraries (and branches), there are bar codes usually placed on the back cover of the book in no particular location except that they are parallel to the top/bottom edges of the books. The library card goes into a slot, similar to an ATM and the books are placed on the reading surface of the machine against a metal guide and pushed toward the back of the machine. The books are then scanned by a thin, red “reading” beam that is several inches wide so it will cross the bar code wherever it is located on the book cover.

***

this is something i’ve never thought about — but i checked my
library books. and find that juneau, alaska, library puts our bar
codes are on the inside, on the page facing the inside cover. i didn’t
even know some libraries had self-checkout!
i guess it’s another sign of how busy life is — and how understaffed
libraries in many places are.

***

Multnomah County library have the barcode placed in the upper left corner, and yes, several are plastered right on top of the author’s first name. I have both YA and adult, books, DVDs, CDs, and there’s no difference. (In the olden days they used to put the code inside the book, so an older book could be different.) If they are going to put this on the front cover, then it would be nice if the entire industry could put it in the same place and then all the covers could be designed accordingly. How about a suggestion to ALA? It’s hardly an unreasonable concern.

***

Please email me at joellewrites2 [at] joelleanthony dot com for a larger version if necessary. Thanks!

Joëlle currently lives on a tiny island in British Columbia with her musician husband, Victor Anthony. As for the future, their only plan is to avoid real jobs, write and play guitar in front of the wood stove, and live happily ever after. Look for her debut novel, Restoring Harmony, in Summer 2010 from Putnam.

Joëlle started out life in Portland, Oregon as a talker, then a reader, eventually a writer, and by her teen years, the sirens of the stage were calling her name. With a BA in theatre, and absolutely no other marketable skills (not even waitressing), she got some headshots made, and called herself an actress. Believe it or not, some people fell for it, and if you look really closely, and don’t blink, you can see her in movies like What The Bleep Do We Know? and The Temp. The desire to write remained strong though and in between acting gigs, she began to scribble down her first novel for teens (which permanently resides in a drawer). Writing seemed to be her real calling and after many years of practice, and lots and lots of reading, she signed on with agent Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Agency. In the fall of 2008, he sold her first novel, a young adult book called Restoring Harmony, to Stacey Barney at Putnam (Summer 2010). She currently lives on a tiny island in British Columbia with her musician husband, Victor Anthony, and two cats, Miss Sophie & Grinder. As for the future, their only plan is to avoid real jobs, write and play guitar in front of the wood stove, and live happily ever after.

How to Find

the Right Agent

You don’t want

just any agent; you

want the one that’s

right for you.

By Joëlle Anthony

When looking for an agent most writers

ask the wrong question: “Where do I find

the agents?” But you don’t want just any

agent; you want the one that’s right for

you. Assuming your manuscript is one

hundred percent finished, you’ve got a

synopsis ready, and your hook is a real

grabber, then you’re ready to start the

agent hunt. First of all: read! Once you’ve

compiled a list of books in your genre

that you love, and are similar in style to

your writing, it’s time for a little detective

work on your part.

Who is repping that fab author?

Look for a mention of a writer’s agent

here:

The dedication page

The acknowledgments at the end of

the book

The author’s website

Publisher’s Marketplace

Do a search for “[author’s name] +

agent”

Email an author directly and ask. (If

you don’t know the author, don’t take

it personally if she doesn’t respond!)

8

Kind of like speed dating

There’s lots of quick information to be

had about a prospective agent online.

Agent blogs are a great way to get to

know an agent’s wants, needs, and desires.

They also blog about:

Their dream project

Pet peeves

How far along they are in the slush pile

reading

Their colleague’s needs

What editors are looking for

Trends

New agents looking for clients

Their author’s books (so you can read

them)

Publisher’s Marketplace

Publisher’s Marketplace (www.publishersmarketplace.

com) is an excellent resource.

You can get the free version, or take

advantage of the $20/month subscription

which enables you to:

1Read the daily sales that pertain to

your genre and make a list of the

agents who sold those books.

2Go to the agents’ sites, read more

about them, find out which authors

they rep, and read some of their clients’

books.

3Include one or two sentences in your

query that say something like: “I

read about your sale of Fluffy Bunny on

Publisher’s Marketplace to XYZ Publisher.

I’ve often thought that I might fit

in at XYZ Publishers, and that is why I’m

choosing to query you.” (Please only say

this if you’ve read Fluffy Bunny!)

Ask Around

Read your favorite writer’s blogs and if

they link to their friends, check those

out too. Making the occasional comment

can’t hurt either, and once they get to

know you, it’s probably okay to ask the

writer who reps her. Remember, this

isn’t a referral; it’s just someone being

nice to you.

Conferences

If you have the opportunity to attend a

conference, find out which agents will be

there ahead of time and use the above

tips to get to know if they might be right

for you. Set up an appointment if you

can, or just say hello.

Agents all seem to agree that a simple,

friendly, “How’s it going?” will always

be appreciated at conferences, as long

as it’s not followed by, “I just happen to

have my manuscript here.” And then you

can mention their cat, or whatever you

talked about over lunch, when you query

them. Who knows, they might even remember

you!

Number crunching

Don’t stop querying when you receive

the first request for a partial manuscript!

Query widely until you’ve signed on the

dotted line. If an agent requests 1-3 partials

a week, that’s roughly 50-150 partial

requests each year. If they only take on

0-5 clients in a year, that’s a lot of partial

reads that don’t go anywhere.

Be your own best friend

You are making a serious business commitment

when you sign with an agent,

one that will affect you for a very long

time. Do not take the research lightly,

don’t ask someone else to do it for you,

and don’t be sitting at home waiting

for the call when you should be either

querying or digging deep to find out more

about both the agents you have queries

out to, and agents you want to add to

your list to query next.

Joëlle Anthony spends her time evenly between reading

and writing young adult fiction. (Okay—who is she

trying to kid? She reads more than she writes.) Visit her

website at http://www.joelleanthony.com.

Don’t stop querying when you receive the

first request for a partial manuscript! Query

widely until you’ve signed on the dotted line.

The Agent’s Angle

Clearly, Joëlle did a great job

finding an agent (me!), so her

advice here is solid. As an agent

who’s had many clients, I’d add

that chemistry is a huge part of

the equation. Before you sign with

an agent, it’s a great idea to spend

some face-to-face or phone time

with her. An agent is someone you

want to be with for your whole career,

so you want to make sure the

person representing your work to

the world is someone that you feel

you can trust and rely on.

Your agent should be someone

you can call with both good and

bad news, when you need to vent,

or when you don’t know if the last

third of your new novel is brilliant

or crap; when you need a shoulder

to cry on or a sympathetic ear, but

who can kick you in the butt when

you need it. Remember, it’s a partnership,

so you want to make sure

you’ve got the right partner.

Michael Bourret is a literary agent with Dystel

& Goderich Literary Management. He reps

a broad range of books from adult fiction &

nonfiction, to middle grade & young adult novels

for clients like Joëlle Anthony. Visit the Dystel

agency blog at http://dglm.blogspot.com.

November/december 2008 SCBWI

As you know, I am an American who lives in Canada. My absentee ballot went off weeks ago and I don’t think they actually count them unless they need to, but I’m not sure about that. I love Canada, but I generally try very hard not to compare the two countries (at least not publicly). However, we had an election here recently, so as a new Canadian, I thought I should learn how their government works. I think the US might want to check out their voting system. They seem to have it down to a fine art. For one thing, there are very severe campaign spending limits. For another, the election is called approximately 27 days before it takes place. That’s it. Twenty-seven days of campaigning! And lastly, each polling station only has about 350 voters and they vote by hand on a card that is hand counted by the person in charge of the polling station. No six hour waits. No hanging chads, no haywire electric voting machines. I have to say that if the USA did their voting that way, I think I’d be getting a lot more done today. I’ll admit it. I’m nervous.

My husband and his favourite mode of transportation.

My cat, Grinder…last Thanksgiving he was lost here on the island…for three weeks.

Sophie, enjoying the great outdoors…it took her six months before she would go outside…and she’d been a feral cat who used to be afraid to be inside.

Some of our many new friends (with Victor).

More of our new friends…

And if you haven’t seen enough, please visit Victor’s Daily Photo Blogof our island and home.

In 1917 a brave friendship between a white farm boy and an African American city girl sends ripples through a small town in rural Alabama.

My editor sent me an ARC of this book, and I cannot say enough good things about it, but I’ll try! First off, I just love the really short chapters. They’re kind of like vignettes and yet, you just know they’re all building into something really big. And of course, because of the topic of the book, it’s a little unnerving too. I mean, what is this BIG thing that these little chapters are leading to? Well, I’m not going to tell you, that’s for sure! But I will tell you that you will love this book. And you should probably just set aside a winter’s evening to read it because you’re not going to want to put it down (or a few evenings if you’re a reader who likes to take his/her time).

This is the kind of book that makes you laugh out loud and want to read bits and pieces to whoever might be in the room with you. My husband heard some of the best bits, but only things that wouldn’t give the story away because I know he’s going to want to read this too.

I think the author has struck a nice balance in regards to dealing with the racism issues. I have lived in the South myself, and while racism still exists, southerners are like people everywhere and seem to take everything on a case by case basis. What I mean is, you might hear someone make a blanket racist statement, but then be friends with their African American neighbours because they know them and like them. I think that Levine did a great job of showing this in her novel. And what better way to illustrate that it’s actually a lot harder to live by racist beliefs when you’re faced with actual people instead of “ideas” of people. It’s one of those brilliant opportunities to teach without giving a “lesson” and I think she does an excellent job of it.

The only downside to this book is unlike me, you don’t have an ARC, so you’re going to have to wait until January to read it! However, I suggest you pre-order it now, so on a gloomy, overcast day, you go out to get the mail, and SURPRISE! There it is in your mailbox.

Here are the archives of nearly all my posts. I left out the ones that were irrelevant from early on, but for the most part, everything is here. They are from most recent back to the beginning. Enjoy!
Well, duh! A look at cutting myself some slack
Front Page News – my resurrected acting career
My wedding cake story
Sometimes Quitting is good – quitting blogs
Does Plotting While I Walk Count As Writing?
Lucky Me!
Words Matter – Take a Pass
I have a plan

Simon & Schuster want a piece of the movie pie
Less Reading Is More
Don’t Tell Me What To do – about my article
Music and Writing – Part Two
Music and Writing
Five reasons I don’t mind that I’m writing less…
A surreal conversation about characters in my books
My article is in The Writer!
Tying ends together
Happy Birthday Beatrix Potter
Five Sites I Like
Wildlife Everywhere
Looking for a magic solution when trying to write
Take My Hand and Follow Me
The Weekend..a new experience!
Is it the element of story?
Action! Casting the movie of my book.
Suntan anyone?
I’m guest blogging on my husband’s blog
Five places that books have made me want to visit
The difference a year makes
Age appropriate material, or not?
A wander down memory lane
Five reasons why I prefer YA over adult books
My experience outlining for the first time
Where I live – A week of photos
A long and rambling tale about John Rowe Townsend and other things
Picture This!
Five things that seem easy for everyone else but not so much for me!
My agent loves my revisions…
The price of a good book
Cowboys and Sheriffs (or writers and editors)
When Cats Get Spoiled – an essay
Forty Things I’m Grateful For
Roles in life, roles in writing
Why I don’t buy books
Bookworm on a break
One True Love
Missing Miss Snark
Patience Grasshopper – Let’s hear it for the agents!
Tagged
Friday Five
Magic Hat
Sunday Lunch
First Ever Friday Five
What Next?
The time between & Titles
Animal Humour – What’s that in them thar trees?
Author creativity vs. reader’s annoyance
Vacation and snow in April?
Think and Grow Rich – if I must!
The work before the party
I’m about to surface again
The home stretch
Burning the midnight oil
Red Hair Be Gone! (do check the date of this when you read it though)
How dedicated are you to your writing?
Never ever trust this cat!
You couldn’t pay me to live here
Welcome to a Q&A with Elana Roth
Keep It Simple Sweetie!
An interview with Alan Gratz
Thursday’s animal essay
Because you told me to
Where I guest blog on Eileen Cook’s site
Knitting and writing
Please welcome Carol Culver
The return of the animal essay
Writing the hook
It’s that sort of year
An interview with Eileen Cook
Who says boys don’t read?
Books for boys vs books for girls
The perils of junior high
Irresponsible characters
Choosing character names
Something old? Something new?
First sale of the year
Bridge to success
Patience
Santy’s got nothing on me!
A new kind of censorship
Resting on my laurels
Links to my husband playing with his band at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville
First impressions
$7 haircut
The big blue chair
Gimmicks vs. originality (in writing)
The End!
Circles
If you’re a writer…
Writing without junk food?
Really, really cute picture of Sophie
Writing in the woods
Interview with Wendie Old
Working around a mess
And she’s off!
Fast cat
All screwed up! Assembling a writing desk.
The conference I didn’t go to
Synopsis
Never pick out paint when you’re tired
Don’t whinge, just write
Be careful what you promise
Moving – a popular plot
Story ideas abound
Autumn is my kinda thing
I’ve been packed for shipping
Wedding cake humour
Remodel vs. Writing
Fifteen Things You Didn’t Know About Mosquitoes
A way cool idea for a summer job (for teens)
Thursday Humour
Police in the schools
Writing without a desk
Thursday humour – moonlighting
More about red hair
Teen Topic- Harassment
Red Hair Is Not As Uncommon as You Think (first version)
Mary Katherine Has a Little Lamb
Titles
Animal Thursday – Bird Watching For My Soul
An interview with Kathy Erskine
Humour – Chipmunk Herding
An interview with Arthur Slade
Thursday Humour – Sweet and Innocent? Ha!
Stop! That’s junk!
Teen Topic – Will this be you?
Featured Author – John Rowe Townsend
Eagle Spotting!
The Timer
Reading for Revenge
What I Learned from the Betsy-Tacy Books
Humour – The Gosling
Seasonal Writer
Teen Topic – Scientific America
An interview with Dori Butler
Author interview – Anne Marie Pace
Author interview – Cynthia Cheng
Lower Your Expectations
Teen Topic – Teens Push For Green Power
Author Interview – Me!
Humour – more animals, more laughs!

I know of writers who find photos and use them for inspiration while creating characters. I’ve also heard of people coming across a photo of a person and thinking, “Yeah…that’s how I imagined my MC looking” and clipping it. And I even know a writer who met a reader who looked exactly like the model on the cover of her book (but wasn’t). But the other day, I had the strangest experience!

My friend, Chelsea, and I were in Victoria for the day and we went for a wander down by the harbour front. Chelsea is not part of my critique group, but she is a teen who I trust, and she’s read a lot of my writing. At nearly the same moment we saw “her”. We looked at each other and said, “It’s Molly!”

Molly is the main character in my YA novel (coming from Putnam Summer 2010). Molly is sixteen, on the thin side, but strong and wiry, and she has wild, unmanageable brown curls. Oh, and did I mention she’s from western Canada and plays the fiddle? Here she is!

So I know what you’re thinking. OMG! What did Chelsea and Joelle do? Stalk her? Who do they think they are? Paparazzi? No and no. But this is where the story takes an almost magical turn. Chelsea did snap a photo of the girl from a reasonable distance and then we went and dropped a couple of bucks in her open fiddle case, and went on our way saying, “Wasn’t that cool?”

But then…once I had returned home and told my husband about it, I started thinking, “I wish I knew who that mysterious girl was.” So, not two days later, my husband who has his own daily photo blog, was browsing other City Daily Photo Blogs when he came across these pictures on the Victoria blog! It turns out that this lovely girl’s name is Sarah Tradewell and she lives in Victoria where she studies a multitude of instruments, theatre and other cool stuff. I contacted Sarah through her facebook page, and with her, and her parents’ permission, I am blogging about her here!

The photographer, Benjamin Madison generously allowed me to use his photos, so stop by his blog and read a bit more about Sarah, and also check out his other fantastic pics. Thanks Benjamin!

You can see and hear Sarah playing here!

As my agent said when I told him about finding Molly, “That’s pretty amazing! Isn’t it great to know that she could be real?”

Yes, Michael, it is great…in a very strange and beautiful way!

*Eventually we met and have become friends. There are more pieces to this story here and here and here.

As I mentioned yesterday in the post below this one, my husband just did a really fun music gig and a lot of it is on youtube. We have a friend visiting from the South and she sang a few songs with my husband. One of the songs they did was written by Victor’s friend, David Olney. David’s publicist just sent out his newsletter and included this link to Victor and Chelsea Nye singing his song, Where Do the Good Times Go?

Are you still with me (because I really do intend to get to the writing bit in just a second)? We hadn’t visited David’s myspace page recently, so we dropped by there just now and the audio file that plays automatically is a radio interview with Olney. Okay, here’s where I tie this into writing. The announcer asked him what advice he would give to songwriters just starting out and this is what he said: Learn other people’s songs. Serve a kind of apprenticeship where you learn other people’s songs…you can just sort of see how they go together and then when you’re ready to make your move, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

I looked at my husband and I said, “It’s exactly the same as the need to read when you’re a writer.”

And it truly is. If you read, you get a sense for how a novel is structured, put together. You might be a great writer, but a novel is a monster of a project if all you’ve ever written are fifty page papers for college or articles for the newspaper. I think people fear that by reading they will “lift” ideas from other writers, but the opposite is true. I mean, the more you read, the less likely you are to write something that’s already been done because you know it’s out there. The learning curve you get from reading novels in your genre is almost immeasurable. So…if you want to write music, take it from a pro…learn other people’s songs. And if you want to write novels, well…I won’t say I’m a pro, but I will say I’m experienced in this. Make sure you read.

I read a lot of writers’ blogs and many of them create playlists for their characters and listen to them while they write. I cannot listen to music while I’m working, but music is a huge part of all my writing. Before I met my husband, I owned seventeen CDs and three of them were his (yes, I was a fan who met her rockstar and married him!). In other words, I didn’t really listen to much music and what I did listen to, I listened to over and over again. Here’s a side note: One of the artists I listened to all the time was Lyle Lovett. My husband’s record reviews often stated that he sounded like Lyle. And one of both Lyle and my husband’s greatest musical influence was Walter Hyatt. So I was listening to them both, loving all their music, and not even making the connection why. Not only had I never heard of the late great Walter, but I didn’t know that they both listened to him and (eventually) played with him every chance they got.

Anyway, back to writing and music. Once I became exposed to music daily (my husband’s vast CD and vinyl collection), his playing and singing, and the many, many amazing musician friends that came to our house to play, music began to creep into my writing. It snuck up on me at first, but now music is a huge part of every manuscript. Many of my characters are musicians and are surrounded by music. Music has become another character in my writing. I hope that someday when I have several books out, people will say, “Oh, she’s the one who always writes about music”.

The truth is that while every word of this post is true, I’m really just posting about music and writing so that I can link to all these wonderful videos of my husband’s gig last Friday night that our friend Steve Orsatti put up on Youtube. So, for your musical listening pleasure click here and have fun . He is joined by the fabulous musicians/singers Nathan Tinkham. Kathy McIntyre, and Chelsea Nye.

The Essays & Lists:

Need To Read – The beginning

Candy – an essay about reading

Fave Fifteen of 2007

Driven to Insanity – an essay about coincidence

The Question of Age

The book reviews start here:
SWEETHEARTS by Sara Zarr

CASSIE WAS HERE by Caroline Hickey

Dustin Grubbs – Take Two by John J. Bonk

Goose Chase by Patrice Kindl

Teen, Inc. by Stefan Petrucha

SHUG, TELEGRAPH DAYS & THE YEAR MY SISTER GOT LUCKY

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

6X The Uncensored Confessions by Nina Malkin, Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors, Anyone But You by Lara M. Zeises

Jessie’s Mountain by Kerry Madden

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by Garth Stein

THIS LULLABY by Sarah Dessen, LOCK AND KEY by Sarah Dessen, THE CELBUTANTES IN THE CLUB by Antonio Pagliarulo, PRINCESS MIA by Meg Cabot

The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

The Mediator Series by Meg Cabot

SPANKING SHAKESPEARE by Jake Wizner

AUSTENLAND by Shannon Hale

A LITTLE FRIENDLY ADVICE by Siobhan Vivian

THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE by Julie Buxbaum (adult fiction)

JUST LISTEN by Sarah Dessen

ANOTHER KIND OF COWBOY by Susan Juby

Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks

THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREVER by Sarah Dessen

THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie

RULES and THE YEAR OF SECRET ASSIGNMENTSTYRELL by Coe Booth

FROZEN RODEO, PRIVATE PEACEFUL, & STIFF UPPER LIP, JEEVES

STORY OF A GIRL by Sara Zarr

B FOR BUSTER by Iain Lawrence

SPELLS & SLEEPING BAGS by Sarah Mlynowski

LESSONS FROM A DEAD GIRL by Jo Knowles

THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF BERNETTA WALLFLOWER by Lisa Graff (MG)

To Catch a Mermaid by Suzanne Selfors

DAIRY QUEEN & THE OFF SEASON by Catharine Gilbert Murdock

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban (MG)

Repossessed by A. M. Jenkins

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith

BROKEN MOON by Kim Antieau

BOY PROOF by Cecil Castellucci

WHITE MAGIC by Kelly Easton

UNPREDICTABLE by Eileen Cook (adult chick lit)

MERCY UNBOUND by Kim Antieau

THE CELEBUTANTES ON THE AVENUE by Antonio Pagliarulo

BEIGE by Cecil Castellucci

EGGS by Jerry Spinelli & SAVING GRACE by Darlene Ryan

But I Don’t Want To Be A Movie Star by Margaret Pinder

Benny and Babe by Eoin Colfer

The Thing About Jane Spring by Sharon Krum

Benny and Omar by Eoin Colfer

Reality Chick by Lauren Barnholdt

SOMEDAY I’LL LAUGH ABOUT THIS and LONG TIME PASSING by Linda Crew

Louisanna’s Song by Kerry Madden

Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Five or so misc. titles I’m too lazy to type up.

WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL and I’D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU BUT THEN I’D HAVE TO KILL YOU

LOVE IS A MANY TROUSERED THING, IF WE KISS, & GENTLE’S HOLLER

MISSING YOU by Meg Cabot & GEMINI SUMMER by Iain Lawrence

1-800-Where-R-You #2,3 & 4 by Meg Cabot

Lefty Carmichael Has a Fit by Don Trembath

THE WRECKERS by Iain Lawrence

ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE, WAR AND HIGH SCHOOL and PANTS ON FIRE

1-800-WHERE-R-U WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES by Meg Cabot

You, Maybe by Rachel Vail

Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw & Size 14 Is Not Fat

FROGS AND FRENCH KISSES by Sarah Mylnowski

Love, cajun style by Diane Les Becquets

CONFESSIONS OF A NOT IT GIRL by Melissa Kantor

Hannah Divided

Children of the River by Linda Crew

Growin’ Pains by Mary Blount Christian

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

Harry Potter – The British version

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – no spoiler here!

Holiday Princess by Meg Cabot

VALENTINE PRINCESS by Meg Cabot

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH (and a few white lies) by Justina Chen Headley

WILD TREES by Richard Preston

Princess on the Brink – Meg Cabot

BRIDES OF EDEN by Linda Crew

MILLIONS by Frank Cottrell Boyce & THE GEOGRAPHY OF GIRLHOOD by Kirsten Smith

Harry Potter

More Harry Potter (audio)

THE ASTONISHING ADVENTURES OF FANBOY AND GOTH GIRL by Barry Lyga

HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE by J. K. Rowling

SHACKLETON’S STOWAWAY by Victoria McKernan

THE THING ABOUT GEORGIE by Lisa Graff

FRAMED by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Parent Swap by Terence Blacker

I had the oddest conversation last night around the kitchen table. I have written two books that go together (not a series, just the two of them). I am hoping that after my agent sells my first book, they will eventually be published books #2 & #3. I am revising the first of these two now (I actually wrote the second one first, and then realized the back story in my head would make a good novel too, and the first one was born).

Anyway…we have a house guest right now and over the last year or so, she has read all my manuscripts. She doesn’t critique them or anything, but she likes to read, I like her, and she’s eighteen, so I thought it would be nice to have someone under thirty-five read them, since they’re YA. So last night I was sitting there with her (Chelsea) and my husband and she said to me, “You know, when I read these two books (KEEP THE FAITH & TRUE BLUE BABY – the names come from songs used in the books), I thought to myself, ‘this is what it would be like to have Joelle and Victor for parents and to be their daughter’.

We had to laugh at that one because while nothing in the books is autobiographical, I did get the whole spark of an idea by imagining what it might be like for a teenager to have such weird parents like us. That’s where the whole thing started! So I had to agree that Chelsea had nailed it. But then she asked us if we were really in the situation that’s in my book, would we actually let our daughter do the “big thing” in TBB that our character’s parents let her do. While I won’t say here what it is, it is a pretty big and unusual thing for parents to allow their seventeen year old daughter do, but Victor and I looked at each other and said, “Yeah…I think we would.”

We then had a long conversation about the characters in these books, who they are, what their values are, what each of them have to lose if she breeches the trust the parents give her, etc. What was so odd about it was that we were deep into this conversation before it even struck me how surreal the whole thing was! I know that many writers, myself included, think of their characters as real, but having a conversation about them like this was beyond any experience I’ve ever had with my characters. I think what it did was give me faith that these two manuscripts will eventually be books someday. And do you know what? I can hardly wait! Not because I have a huge desire to have shelves of books with my name on the spines, but because these characters are so cool…I want you to know them too.

Does it sound egotistical to say they’re cool right after I said the parents were based on us? Hmmm…well, my husband is cool. I’m maybe cool by association. Actually, I meant that Kami was cool (the daughter), but if you want to think of me as cool, I can live with that.

If you’d like to hear the two songs used in the books, click on the music tab above and you can listen to True Blue Baby (and some other music from that book) performed by my husband. And if you go to his myspace page you can hear Keep The Faith. Yes…he wrote the songs, but I’ve secured permission to use them in my books. I’m paying him in food.

P.S. The photo is of the instruments because both the guitar and mandolin feature prominently in the books.

Eileen Cook – You knew I’d start with the queen of weird stories (bats in your bra, snakes under the bed)

Alix’s funny take on…well, lots of stuff! – and because she likes Cadbury choclolate as much as I do (but Marmite? oooh…yuck!)

Victor Anthony’s myspace page – what kind of a wife would I be if I didn’t link to my husband? You can hear some of his music here (as well as on my music page). And what the heck, why not a two-fer. Check out his photo blog too!

The Longstockings blog – The girls in the know. Lots of info about writing, reading and publishing.

The Nature Conservancy Canada – because I’m feeling environmental today. How about you?

I took my husband to England for the first time a few years ago and we took a day trip with my friend, Carole, up to Beatrix Potter’s land. There’s a lovely gift shop in what was her husband’s office now and you can walk the gardens and then there’s a wonderful hike up to Tarn Hows where she used to go and watch the wildlife. Anyway, while we were wandering around the gift shop, looking at all the Potter inspired gifty items, and my husband was not trying very hard to hide his boredom, I said to him, “I’m going to get this card for Olivia (our friend’s child in the States), but I really want to get her this figurine of Peter Rabbit too. What do you think?” and he looked at me and said, “Why? She’s not even going to know who Peter Rabbit is.” !!! Apparently, if his mother read to him when he was little (probably), his memory did not reach back that far and he had NO IDEA why this gift shop even existed! He was just there for the hike (which I highly recommend). Here are some pictures he took when we finally released him from the torture of the gift shop and went for our walk.

I have not really had weekends off since junior high. All during high school, I had rehearsals on the weekends. In college, I worked weekends. When I was older, I had Mondays off when I was acting and weekends were my biggest money days as a vendor in the baseball stadiums. Even after moving to the South and becoming a full time writer, I never took weekends off because my husband was an actor and he had Mondays off, so I took my day off from writing then.

However, almost three months ago we started having Sunday Soup at our house. If you haven’t visited that blog, I’ll just summarize it quickly. Every Sunday we have an open house from 4pm-7pm and I make a pot of homemade soup and fresh bread. Anyone we know can just drop in, and they’re encouraged to bring new people. It’s been really fun. And it’s given me weekends for the first time in my life.

The way that happened is that Saturdays have become the day when I go to the farmer’s market and buy up fresh ingredients, browse recipes, tidy up my kitchen, and make the soup. Somehow this has become an all-day project. Then on Sunday, we tidy up the house, do weekly chores (laundry, etc.) and I make the bread and reheat the soup and then people come over. I often do extra cooking for the week on either day too, like granola or casseroles or whatever sounds good.

Now…how does this tie into writing? Well, I have never, ever been good at taking days off from writing. There have been times I have actually had to hand over my laptop to my husband to keep me on the straight and narrow. But suddenly I like this time off! It’s fun and this morning when I realized that even though I’m deep into my new revision project, it was my day off, it made me feel good! I think this will give my brain a rest and my writing ideas a chance to percolate each week. Okay…off to the market for some fresh spinach, green onions, and eggs. Drop by Sunday Soup tomorrow to find out what I do with these things!