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!

Note: I’m moving this back up to the top of the blog because I can’t stand for it to disappear into the archives already!

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 book (the one out on submission right now). 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!

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!