WHAT'S ONE BOOK YOU WOULD CHANGE?

That's a question I got asked yesterday. Kids always surprise me. I get the standard questions, like why do you always make those big eyes and that sort of things, but then I get thrown for a loop and get questions I wouldn't expect. I told the kids I'd change my first book. It's so different looking from my others. None of the scenes have backgrounds -- it's all flat colors. But now that I'm thinking about it, it kind of shows how much I've grown... so maybe I wouldn't change it. I'm not sure.
Authors: what's one thing you would change?

SENDAK AND COLBERT

I finally got around to watching this. Hilarious! I love that Colbert cut out all of the "private parts" and put them in a bag. And then Sendak said that the state of children's literature is "abysmal."



I love what Sendak says about E-books. "f-them is what I say!" Yeah. Right on.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

People always have ones and I never do. I always just try my best to do what I can do. This year, however, I have a few.

1) to go back to publishing 2 books instead of 1. I've been feeling better these days (knock on wood) so I think I can do it. I still have my ups and downs but the downs seem manageable.

2) to publish my bully project

3) to figure out how to make my electricity graphic novel - maybe not graphic novel - idea happen once and for all

4) to be a neater more organized person. I AM organized when I want to be (kind of OCD in fact)... but only in certain parts of my life - can I stop losing my keys and dropping things and being a mess? We shall see.

5) to go to the gym more consistently

6) to post on the fireside chat more often

I could make this list longer but that's enough.

SIGNING THIS SUNDAY! FREE COLORED ART!

I'm signing this sunday with two other lovely authors in Brooklyn under the Brooklyn bridge in Dumbo. Here's the link so that you can get directions and all of that good stuff.

So why I'm posting is this: I will be giving away 5 drawings of Balto to people who buy my book that day. Just buy the book and I'll write your name and email down. I'll pull the names out before I leave. And because I don't trust myself I'm going to bring the drawings with me and will leave them at Powerhouse so that you can pick them up there. I think that's best. I don't trust myself to mail them to anybody! My first thought was to give the 5 drawings out to the first 5 people but that doesn't seem fair, does it?

These drawings will be with black marker on cardstock and will be colored in if I am ambitious enough and have enough time. I DO know how to go to far with things!!!

So come! It will be worth your while! These pieces of art may be worth money! I may be doing this "give away art" thing again because I'm doing one more signing coming up soon but I can safely say that they will not be colored in.

Booklist Interview

Monica Schroder did an interview with me that you can read here:

BOOKLIST INTERVIEW

This is a sample:

BKL: You started as a fiction writer before you switched to creating nonfiction. Why the switch?

McCarthy: For years, I have worked in a bookstore. When I first started there, I noticed a hole in the market. Each day, we’d get boxes of new fiction titles but few nonfiction ones. I remember how my excitement turned to disappointment when the book chain put my first fiction book on the “returns list” in three months; my fiction books were getting lost among hundreds of other fiction titles. But I didn’t start making nonfiction just to stand out. I wanted to make books that would interest kids who struggle in school like I did. There’s so much boring material out there that’s supposed to teach kids something, but how can it teach anything if the material doesn’t sink in? I wanted to give kids some less boring educational options and make learning fun, because I know that it can be.

BKL: Your nonfiction books cover a wide variety of subjects. How do you choose your topics?

McCarthy: There are a lot of ways that I choose my subjects, but most often they choose me. I’ll stumble upon something interesting on the Internet, or I’ll watch an interesting program on public television. That’s usually the way things happen. Sometimes, though, I deliberately look for subject matter, and one search will lead to another and to another. That’s how I arrived at the idea to write Strong Man, about Charles Atlas. I was doing a search about circuses, which led to information about sideshows, and that’s how I found Atlas. He was in a sideshow when he was young.

================

Read the rest at the above link...

from the BRG archives: a really long list

Some (ah-hem…many) truths about being a children’s book author (or at least some truths about me). In no particular order.


Petrified of…

1) Running out of ideas

1) Getting burnt out

2) Reading a bad review that is in some small way right

3) Reading a bad review that is completely wrong but your editor says it’s not professional to send hate mail

4) Doing a story hour and noticing there’s a kid in the back who doesn’t care to listen!... or worse, throws spit balls and says something bad about your mama

5) Never meeting that goal to become a moderately successful and semi-known author

6) Not making the next sale and going back to living off of the credit cards and eating pasta 6 out of 7 days of the week (7 is reserved for being luxurious—McDonald’s 99 cent menu)

Worried publisher will…

1) Lose too much money on the books

2) Lose faith in the author

3) Not agree to make changes to the book’s design

4) Use ugly fonts

5) Continue to use the ugly author photo you mistakenly gave because you were sleep deprived

Sick of…

1) Pulling all night-ers

2) Not having time or energy to keep the work area clean

3) Tripping over random computer wires because you don’t have time to figure out where to put them

4) Accidentally drinking yesterday’s coffee

5) Constantly being reminded of work because the “office” is in the “home”

6) Publishers not understanding that creativity can’t be forced—a deadline can’t be made if the author or illustrator is having a mental block! It’s not like accounting! You can’t help it if your brain doesn’t want to be clever or smart or creative today!

7) Going to the doctor’s or the bank or the library or the bookstore or a wedding or the park or a family reunion or on the bus or the bathroom or the soup isle and meeting someone who has a story that he/she thinks would make for the BEST KIDS’ BOOK EVER!!!!!!

8) People asking if it’s okay if they mention you in his or her cover letter

9) People asking for editors’ names and phone numbers

10) Hearing that kids mostly spend their time watching TV and not appreciating a good story on paper

11) Reading that Madonna’s books are on the bestseller list

12) Reading that Madonna is now hiring Rembrandt to illustrate her new book because her spiritual advisor brought him back to life for the very occasion.

11) Reading that 5 more celebrities will be writing about their childhoods because they think when they stuck a cookie up their nose at the age of 6 it was much funnier than when you did it…because they’re celebrities.

12) Knowing your books are just as good or better than the ones selling like hotcakes but no one has heard of your books so Joanne Smith will settle for what’s on the cardboard display with the flashing lights and toilet flushing sound because she’s in a rush and her kid’s is getting whiny and your book is having a grand time collecting dust with the other “spine-outs.”

13) The publisher not promoting your books because it’s more exciting to make blow up pigs that squirt water out of their noses and oink for the book written by adult romance novel writer turned juvie queen who still uses the same hazy author photo that looks like a fog machine had malfunctioned in the background.

14) The publisher expecting you to promote the books because they’re too busy pouring money into the books that already sell. Oh wait, that one was just mentioned. Someone is becoming repetitive.


Enjoys…

1) Free lunches

2) Getting to wake up whenever you want

3) Working in pajamas

4) Being special enough to get a name tag at events

5) Free lunches

6) Editors being especially nice and sending delicious cookies

7) Being hugely dorky but seemingly cool

8) Good reviews

9) Great reviews

10) People who GET what you’re doing

11) Hearing that your book is his or her bedtime favorite


Want to add to the list? Go for it!

Originally published Decemeber 6, 2006

KEYNOTE TALK

Like Grace, I'm wiped out. I was in Philly for a talk. Here's why I'm tired: I worked on this powerpoint presentation for over a week. Tweaking photos and putting music to little videos and being completely anal!

For this video I wanted to show how I watched a lot of astronaut footage to make my Astronaut Handbook.



I got this video off of YouTube. Most people would have thought that was good enough... but nooo. I didn't like the music. So I spent I don't know how long putting new music to it - tweaking it, and so on. I wanted to create a "mood."

Everything I did for the talk was like that! Every photo I put up had to be tweaked and made in beautiful B&W and so on. I drove myself nuts! I sat for 8 hour periods at the computer and didn't move. On the day I was supposed to drive to PA I was still at the computer working on the talk. Guess what time I arrived? 1:30 am! This is because when I transferred the talk to my laptop I lost a lot of the images and I had a mishap where Powerpoint froze and I lost everything I'd been working on! Blah. Save your work often is the lesson on that one.

And of course when the big day came I wasn't at all satisfied with what I had. I think it went over well, though, and lots of teachers said they thought it was great. It was filmed so I suppose I could see for myself.

ART CREATIONS

I was working on some sketches for one of my new book ideas and I was at work while I was doing this. My character - ME - fell into a small child while on roller skates and and flew into the air. I was trying to figure out what kind of expression I, as a teen, might have. Mind you my cartoons have little lines for mouthes and so you'd think it wouldn't be that difficult a task but sometimes it is - especially when I just have one line to play with! I realized while doing this that i must make the facial expressions to create them on paper. I was contorting my face into all sorts of lovely forms while standing at the register. I wonder if anyone noticed?

Do other artists do this too?

ARLENE SARDINE

Daniel Pinkwater loves this book. He reads the whole story and then talks about it. Listen here!



Um... I'm glad he likes a good suicide story. I've always been puzzled by this book. Puzzled and FASCINATED. I have to run out the door but more talk on this later! But listen to this story and check it out. Then we can "discuss." Or I'll discuss and you can read....

from the BRG archive: success and the road to publication

It’s my turn to post and just as suspected, I can’t come up with a thing to say. Certainly nothing insightful like the previous posts by the wonderful and talented others. I’m going to take this opportunity to throw some random thoughts and questions your way. Consider this sort of a free association.

My first question is––if you are a writer, what would you do if you won the Newbery? If you are an illustrator, what about the Caldecott? I’m afraid, sadly, that I’m the type of person who can never truly enjoy things for what they are. This is a conversation I posted on my personal blog––

What would I do if I became successful?
On Monday, while at work, a coworker asked what I would do if I ever won the Caldecott.
"Yeah, like that would happened," I said.
She said "You'd pass out, wouldn't you?"
I said "I would never win. It's like winning the lottery. It's not gonna happen."
"But you'd pass out."
"No, I wouldn't."
"Yes, you would."
"No, that wouldn't happen. This is a silly conversation."
"You'd pass out. I would."
"IF that happened, and I got the phone call, then I'd think someone was prank calling me. I'd tell the caller they were mean and that it's not cool to do something like that. Tricking people is not nice"
"Well, once you realized that it was for real, you'd pass out."
I thought for a moment. "No, I'd worry about giving a speech. I'd worry about what I was supposed to wear. I'd worry that I wouldn't be able to get up early enough to make it onto the Today Show."

My second random thought is I guess more of a complaint––I can’t stand that 3 out of the 4 publishers I’ve worked with want the cover before any interiors. Obviously you want the cover to reflect the book as a whole… but how can you do that if you don’t know what the rest of the book will look like! This is a constant problem. It is also a problem when you’re not quite sure what you want your characters to look like and keep changing your mind. Okay, the “you” in this rant is obviously a fill in for “me.” If there are others out there who feel the same way, speak up! It’s time we illustrators take a stand!

Here’s another random thought––I often forget how large my desire and desperation was to be published. At the tender age of 22, fresh out of RISD, ALL I wanted was to be published! I didn’t care if I was successful or had money or anything else. That was my one goal. I remember when I got the “phone call.” Actually, it was a phone message. I had just moved to NYC and was not mature enough to leave normal voice mail messages. Instead, I did accents. One week it sounded like a southern belle lived in the little Williamsburg ghetto-style apartment while the next week one could swear it was someone from Englad. Confusing? Yes. Funny? I thought so! I think my editor-to-be called back three times before leaving a very discombobulated message. She said something like “Um…I don’t know... um... I don't know if I have the right phone number… this is…um…I’m looking for Meghan McCarthy. This is so-and-so from Viking Children’s Books and I’m calling with good news…” I remember leaping out of the shower with no towel on (feel free to imagine whatever you’d like there!) and jumping up and down. I knew what this meant! I took a moment…more like 15 min…to collect myself, then called my mom and a few friends…THEN called the editor back. After I got the official offer I thought I would be set for life! I told my friend “I’m going to be an author and I will never have to worry about money or holding down a crappy job again!” Okay, I was WRONG WRONG WRONG but that’s the way the story goes.

What was your first offer like? Editors––what’s it like from the other end? Let me and all of us know!

I have now rambled on for a VERY long time. It’s funny how “nothing to say” turns into a LOT to say.

Farewell,
Meghan
(soon I will come up with my own amazing tagline! Or perhaps you can help me decide what it shall me. Yes, that will be grand)

Originally published Aug. 6, 2006