What I've been working on...

I've been working nontstop on a project. It's a narration of my new book, which came out yesterday. It's not at all done. This is one piece of it. And this piece isn't done either, but I thought I'd show you what I'm drowning in as of late:

GO TO THE BALTO VIDEO HERE

welcome to the new age

I haven't been posting recently mainly because my novel has been all-consuming but also because I've taken a couple days out to visit my parents in Upstate NY (and attend my high school reunion!). My older sister and her family are also visiting and it's fascinating to see how adept her kids are with technology I haven't even fully embraced.

I've thought about e-books & apps many times but have never really investigated them. But my nephew loves the iphone and I knew that the book I illustrated Round is a Mooncake was made into an app , so I decided to see if the conversion to this new digital age would be bearable:



Not bad! He was fully engaged and it was a pretty faithful adaptation of the book--it was kind of like those "read-along" books I had when I was a kid (you would listen to the floppy record while reading the book). I still prefer and love paper books but I think there's probably a place for e-books too. My illustrator friend Aaron has an app my nephew loves too. I guess I should start thinking about making some electronic book/apps of my own...but after my novel!

Posters

Jules over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast posted a link the other day to these amazing minimalist posters for various children's classics. I adore them! Trying to decide which one to put up in Tilda's nursery (probably not The Pied Piper).

ps. Happy 5th birthday 7-Imp!

giraffes and bookshelves

I've been editing all weekend, and of course would get distracted by the wonders of the internet. Somehow (I think maybe via Facebook) I stumbled on this website, HappyPlace, and may have wasted an hour or so laughing. I take that back: laughing is never a waste of time. This is a little off topic, so I'll share one of the best posts, having to do with children.

"Unintentionally offensive test answers from young children."

Warning: much of the content is off-color. But this is my favorite one:

indeed.

These two posts about signs are hilarious as well.

Not that any of us need more time wasters, but hey, laughing is healthy.

In other news, I was admiring Laini Taylor's blog post about color-coded bookshelves, and it reminded me of an editor who in interviews always asks how the interviewee arranges his/her books. I suppose it comes from working at a bookstore, but I arrange mine by age range: picture books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Adult. And my adult books are further separated by nonfiction and fiction. Boring, huh?

How do you all organize your book collections?

from the BRG archives: good influences

When their children got in trouble, parents often said that the parties involved were a “bad influence” on each other. As one friend of mine put in our teenage years, laughing:
“Meanwhile the kids are having a great time.”

It still feels strange – but nice – to have friends who are fun and a GOOD influence. The Blue Rose Girls are both. When we spend the weekend together, we get to talk about children’s books as much as we want; and we inspire and reinforce each other as artists. The only bad thing we do is eat too many cupcakes. We talk about careers and jobs and other practical things and give each other the kind of advice that really helps (instead of the kind that makes you feel like a bad person).

But we’re a good influence in other ways, too: I’m getting to work earlier as a result of the visit (one hazard of being a freelancer is wasting time, especially in the morning. Too often I dawdle mine away). But this week – so far! – I haven’t. I’ve gone for a bike ride first thing, partly because of the BRGs. It was cold when they arrived, and hot by the time we decided to go for a bike ride – so instead of wearing their blue jeans, Anna borrowed a pair of shorts, and Grace decided to wear her pajama bottoms (they were flowered and looked MUCH nicer than the black spandex most people around here wear for biking).

On Monday morning, I decided to go for a bike ride first thing and accomplished this partly by wearing my pajamas (I did pull a fleece on over the top). Perhaps parents would not count this as being a good influence on each other, but I do – and maybe part of being a good influence is that we reinforce each other in being who we really are.


Originally published September 27, 2006

Awesome

"The first Penguin edition of EV Rieu's translation of Homer had a Greek sailor on the cover, with a disclaimer inside: "Not an authentic depiction of a Greek sailor". They then put a penguin on the cover instead – but forgot to change the disclaimer."

-from The Katharaine Whitehorn experience

Maybe I should start including disclaimers in my books, eg "not an authentic depiction of a rabbit photographer."

(Via Peonies and Polaroids)

Running towards -- what?

This is where I'm going -- not EXACTLY where (or maybe exactly where). As I said in my last post, I only have a general idea.....and since then that idea has expanded a little to include The Western Isles, where this picture was taken and not by me.

But it's how I feel right now -- I really don't know what this trip will be like, but I'm going.

Beyond the Book: FALLING FOR HAMLET by Michelle Ray

Beyond the Book: FALLING FOR HAMLET by Michelle Ray

Happy August, everyone! It's been a while since I've done one of these, and I have a few books that have come out this past Spring and Summer, so I'd better get crackin' if I want to catch up before the Fall releases.

Falling for Hamlet is a contemporary retelling of William Shakespeare's Hamlet from Ophelia's point of view...and in this version, Ophelia doesn't die.

The description:
Meet Ophelia: a blonde, beautiful high-school senior and long-time girlfriend of Prince Hamlet of Denmark. Her life is dominated not only by her boyfriend's fame and his overbearing family, but also by the paparazzi who hound them wherever they go. As the devastatingly handsome Hamlet spirals into madness after the mysterious death of his father, the King, Ophelia rides out his crazy roller coaster life, and lives to tell about it. In live television interviews, of course.

Passion, romance, drama, humor, and tragedy intertwine in this compulsively readable debut novel, told by a strong-willed, modern-day Ophelia.

This novel is the first (and only, so far) book I've acquired that has been published on the Poppy imprint. Poppy is home to our young women's commercial fiction. Originally the imprint only published paperback series, like Gossip Girl, The Clique, the A-List, etc, but in the past year or so the imprint has evolved a bit and also published hardcovers, and stand-alone novels. Another editor had recently acquired a modern retelling of Jane Eyre for the Poppy imprint (Jane by April Lindner) when this novel (then titled Ophelia Live!) was sent to me from agent Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency, and when I read the description I immediately though Poppy would be its perfect publishing home. Now, when this is the case I will sometimes pass the project on to another editor, but the concept appealed to me so much, I wanted to read it myself. At Little, Brown, any editor can acquire for any of our "imprints", because we're a relatively small group, and we all attend the same editorial and acquisitions meetings. Although I don't usually tend to acquire the type of books that Poppy publishes, I've always loved reading their books, and had always wanted to acquire a Poppy book.

I read this book in one sitting, and absolutely fell in love with it. I guess you could say that I was falling in love with Falling for Hamlet. I loved how clever it was in modernizing the story. I loved the narrator Ophelia, who I felt was the perfect "every-teen" of sorts--she was relatable in that she didn't always make the smartest decisions, and she was still figuring out who she was and who she wanted to be. I loved that the book was about growing up in the public eye, and for anyone obsessed with the royal family, Prince William and his then-girlfriend Kate Middleton, etc, this book gives a great peek inside what life close to the royal family might be like, from the paparazzi, the scrutiny, the privilege,  etc. I loved how it was sexy, smart, and full of juicy drama and angst.

The agent was getting other interest for the book, so as soon as I read it I asked for other editorial readers; as I felt Poppy was the right imprint, I specifically asked for reads from some of the Poppy editors, who started reading immediately. One called me an hour later just to tell me how awesome it was and how much she was enjoying it.

The book ended up going to auction, which we won, of course!

Working with Michelle has been a joy. She's a Shakespeare geek, a teacher, wickedly funny, and a great reviser--one of the things we worked on was to flesh out the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia. She added a key scene where they vacation in Florence, and I think one of the last scenes of the book she added in was of how these two childhood friends started dating in the first place. We also worked on some key scenes from the original play which weren't quite working in the modern context. One of my main objectives was to make sure that the story made sense even for readers not familiar with the original play, and I think we achieved that.

This books was such fun to work on, from the sexy cover design by the amazing Gail Doobinin (the girl's skirt on the ARC was actually even shorter than the one pictured here! We used a little Photoshop magic to make it a little less scandalous. Michelle talks about the cover design process here), to the perfect tagline courtesy of my former assistant Connie Hsu: "First comes love, then comes madness"--I came up with our second choice, which ended up on the jacket flap: "Sometimes love will make you crazy."

Coming up with a new title was a challenge. We didn't feel Ophelia Live! was working, and there was already a YA book of a few years earlier titled Ophelia. We debated whether to put Hamlet's name in the title or not--we weren't sure if that was a selling handle or if it would be a turnoff to teens. Some other title options were: Ophelia + Hamlet; Ophelia loves Hamlet; Crazy Sexy Love; and Mad Love.

Over at the blog Emu's Debuts, they celebrated the launch of Falling for Hamlet with a whole week of posts, including an interview of Michelle, Joan, and me here,

Read more interviews of Michelle here and here (the latter is in the Washington Post!) to see more behind what inspired her to write this story.

Falling for Hamlet just came out last month. It's always exciting when a new book comes out, but even more so when it's a debut, because everything is brand new and exciting. I hope you read and fall in love with Falling for Hamlet--although if you read it, you'll probably find yourself falling for Ophelia instead!

will you still love me tomorrow?

So, I'm in the last stretches of writing the first draft of my upcoming novel and even though I know it needs a lot revision and work (as well as an ending) I'm in the honeymoon stage of writing. It's that temporary high when the writing is going swimmingly and I find myself thinking, "Hey, this is pretty good! I'm a real writer!"

Unfortunately, I know from experience that this stage never lasts and its length is also much too brief. Before long, the euphoria will leave and I'll be full to the brim of doubt and loathing of what moments before had seemed beautiful.

But I'll try to enjoy it while I can!

My theme song (and a sad nod to Amy Winehouse):

BALTO VIDEO IN PROGRESS

I'm making a Balto video -- I've done the sound already. It's going to be the complete book, melded with real photographs and videos. I thought I'd try my hand at animation... but I don't have Flash so I figured -- how hard could it be to animate things old school? So I tried it with the boat in Photoshop. I cut out the boat and the smoke and colored in the background and then put the pieces back on and then moved them inch by inch. All of this took me a day and a half and all I have to show for it is about 10 sec of a boat moving in a jolted manner!

YOU BEGIN: A Poem by Margaret Atwood & An Original Wedding Poem

Last week, my daughter Sara sent me a picture of my first grandchild. I should note that she hasn’t been born yet. Still, It was such a great thrill for me to see my granddaughter’s face.

I’m posting one of my favorite poems today. It’s by Margaret Atwood. It was the inspiration for the wedding poem that I wrote for Sara and my son-in-law Jerry. They got married last July.

You Begin
by Margaret Atwood

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.


Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.


This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

You can read the rest of the poem here.

Here is the wedding poem that I wrote:

Wedding Poem for Sara & Jerry

(Inspired by Margaret Atwood’s poem “You Begin”)

by Mom

We begin this way:

this is my hand—

take it in yours,

hold on to it tightly.

Now we are one.

Here is my heart.

It holds rivers of love

that will flow to you freely

this day…and forever.

Outside the church window

summer awaits

with songbirds and sunlight

and shade trees to cool us

when days get too hot.

This is our world—

our family and friends

who know us and love us.

They’re smiling and happy

on our wedding day.

Now we are married…

we’re husband and wife—

we are partners for life.

We will share all our days,

all our sorrows and tears

all our laughter and triumphs

throughout the years.

This is my hand, this is my heart,

this is our world,

ahead is our future

filled with surprises

that we can’t imagine.

It all begins here

with our family and friends

with our promises…vows…

with the taking of hands

and the binding of hearts.

We begin and we end:

Here is my heart.

It holds rivers of love

that will flow to you freely.

This is my hand—

take it in yours,

hold on to it tightly

this day…and forever.

Now we are one.

********************

At Wild Rose Reader, I have an originalmemoir poem titled Backyard Mermaids.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is over at Book Aunt this week.

Cupcakes and baby feet

Some of us Blue Rose Girls got together this weekend to celebrate a number of birthdays, discuss books and publishing, and eat cupcakes prepared by guess who. This batch of chocolate gluten-free were delicious. It was so lovely to revive our weekend traditions (it has been a full year since I was able to attend a gathering since I was away). Thank you ladies!

This year there were some new attendees, my Tilda and Juniper (daughter of the über-talented Alissa Imre Geis). Juniper has bigger feet, but I believe Tilda has chunkier knees.

What to expect your first few years in editorial

It's summer intern season at work. Hachette Book Group has a great summer internship program (and yes, it's paid. If you're interested for next year, I would suggest checking the job listing website next February) for current college students and recent grads. As part of our interns' education, each week a different department gives a presentation about what they're all about. The presentation is open to the whole company, but we do focus on the type of things we think interns in particular will be interested in knowing. A few weeks ago, I gave the presentation for the Young Readers division, along with our Senior Art Director, Marketing Manager, and Publicist. One of the things we each talked about is what to expect in the first couple of years working in our respective departments.

I basically compared being an editorial assistant with the movie The Devil Wears Prada. Okay, it's not really like that. At least, I hope not.

As I've mentioned before on this blog, publishing, and editorial specifically is an apprenticeship. 99% of editors started as an editorial assistant, learned from their managers, and worked their way up.

The first couple of years are heavily administrative. You'll be answering phones, scheduling meetings, filling out forms, doing paperwork, photocopying, filing (although the latter two happen less and less as the job becomes more digital), mailing packages, doing expense reports, taking meeting minutes, ordering books, and basically doing any task your manager asks you to do. This can range from researching the perfect gift in the theme of an author's book, to tracking down a contract, to hand-delivering art to an agent's office, and more. Personally, I don't ask my assistant to do things like get me coffee or pick up lunch, etc, but other managers do.

In addition to all the administrative work, there's also a lot of editorial work to be done. You'll be writing jacket copy, catalog copy, researching competitive titles, and reading a ton of submissions and giving your recommendation as to whether your manager should acquire or decline something. You'll be drafting letters and other correspondences. You'll be attending our editorial meeting and reading books that other editors want to acquire and giving your thoughts. And yes, you'll be editing--first alongside your manager, and then (perhaps after a year or so of mastering all the admin stuff) more independently. After a year, you may be handling projects on your own--perhaps a paperback edition to start, or a buy in from the UK or Australia. Or maybe you'll take over editing a series once the first book has been edited. How much editorial work you take on, and how quickly, will depend mostly on how quickly you're able to master the other duties. There will be some editorial work right away, but much of it will wait until you've become more efficient with the other aspects of the job.

I think it's pretty safe to say that it will take you about six months before you feel comfortable in the job, and a year before you really master everything, mainly because it takes a minimum of year to follow the path of one book from start to finish.

Some administrative duties will get tiresome quickly, others you may never tire of. In general, though, the hope is that because you're working in an industry that you're passionate about, and working on books and project you love, you'll appreciate the value in the work you do, whether it's photocopying or editing. I know that I loved many of the administrative duties I had. For example, I loved answering the phone for my boss, getting to know the authors, illustrators, and agents she worked with. I still generally answer my own phone. I also loved making photocopies of original art, because I loved the opportunity to see it up close.

On average, expect to spend at least two years as an editorial assistant. The next step up is assistant editor, and for many people, this still means assisting your manager, while at the same time taking on some projects independently. At Little, Brown, our editorial assistants are allowed to acquire under the sponsorship of their managers, but it's not a focus of the job at all, and in fact is not really encouraged until you've been promoted to an assistant editor.

So, that's the first couple of years in children's editorial in a nutshell. Any questions?

from the BRG archives: rate of consumption

Recently, at a school visit, a young student rushed up to me and said, “I read The Year of the Dog in 2 hours!”
“That’s wonderful,” I said to her, but inside I felt a strange sense of shock. Gosh, that book took me over 4 years to write, but now takes only two hours to read. The rate of consumption is a lot faster than production!

I suppose the surprise was greater because I am knee-deep in my revisions for novel #2. I’m on my 5th revision, which actually doesn’t sound that bad. But it’s the 5th “official” one, which means it’s the 5th time I’ve gone through it with my editor…the times that I’ve gone through it with myself is about, oh, I don’t know, 133?

The hardest part about working on something for 133 times is that when I get to around revision 131, I start thinking, “Oh, this will be fine. As long as it makes sense, no one will care…just get it done.” But there’s always that other part, the side that wants to get every word is right, that makes me stay up until 5 in the morning and haunts me when I try to concentrate on other things, that pushes me to revision 132.

And I think all authors are like that. Because we want those two hours of reading to be the best we can possibly make them.

Originally published October 16, 2006

Book Flavor: Laura Jacobsen

My book flavors are back! I actually have a lot of these waiting in the wings, the Sasquatch is just trying to find the time to put them together. The upcoming ones should have better sound as I've figured out a different way of recording. But in the meantime, enjoy this one:



Illustrator: Laura Jacobsen
Book: The Best Eid Ever

Adventures and dreams

Rudyard Kipling once saw the Taj Mahal from a train window and it was so beautiful that he vowed never to go closer: nothing could equal that vision.

Since I was a teenager, I've dreamed of the islands off the coast of Scotland:
*the Orkneys as they were described in THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING by TH White (a tall stone tower castle surrounded by sea and wind)

*Iona as it looked in the film CIVILIZATION by Kenneth Clark -- again, a tower, but this one surrounded by wildflowers and wind

*a small island in the Hebrides as John MacPhee described it in the NEW YORKER--he lived there for a year, there was nothing commercial on the island except a combination of Post Office and shop, labeled with a card on the door that said "The Shop"

*another island in the Hebrides as described by Josephine Tey, one of my favorite authors, in THE SINGING SANDS -- it rains, the wind literally knocks the hero down, he comes back to his hotel really hungry and wonders what they'll give him for dinner.

He wouldn't turn up his nose at a piece of grilled sea trout, if it turned out to be that. Grilled with local butter. But he hoped for lobster --the island was famous for its lobsters -- and failing that, some herring fresh from the sea, split, and fried after being dipped in oatmeal.

His first meal in the isles of delight consisted of a couple of bright orange kippers cured and liberally dyed in Aberdeen, bread made in Glasgow...the only local produce was a pallid, haggis-shaped mound of crowdie, a white crumbly byproduct without smell or taste.

Despite the wind, there's no fresh air in his room: the window won't open. And at that the hero lies in his bed and laughs and laughs, for the first time in months. Other things happen; he drinks whisky and dances at a ceildh, great whiskey; the scenery is breathtaking, on the rare moments when he can see it through the rain -- and the trip turns out to be wonderful.

*not an island (though I thought for a long time that it had been filmed on the Isle of Skye) but the village and landscape in the movie LOCAL HERO -- houses huddled by the sea, green fields, no trees, white sandy beaches that go on for miles and miles.

This landscape has dominated my imagination all my life. Almost every day, I've imagined being there, in the Northern light I love and have experienced elsewhere, with the wind and the sea and the grass (I love those open landscapes) and sometimes cliffs or white beaches and whatever else is around....in some places, villages by the sea where every house is a different color, as the houses in New England were until the Greek Revival when everything got painted white.

But I've never been. Once, I had a trip all planned -- and then Blow Out the Moon was accepted and needed rewriting, so I didn't go.

Now, I AM going. At this moment, I'm more scared than excited -- WILL it be as I imagine? Probably not. For one thing, in my imagination, it's sunny-- and I know from reading and other people that it rains almost every day: one island had only 18 days without rain in a year! It may be hard to get to some islands-- there may be long waits at ferry and train stations, missed boats, hotels that are a long walk from where I land (and what I will really object to, more expensive: but it's silly to make reservations because I won't really know when I'll arrive, since when the weather is bad the ferries don't go). But that's not what worries me: I'm like Kipling, except that he saw the Taj Mahal from a train and I've seen these places in my mind's eye and on film.

But it's better to find out what they're really like -- and I hope that even if they're very different from what I'm imagining, they will be wonderful. And (this just occurred to me as I was writing this post!) even if they're not, I will always have my imagined version of them. Maybe I'll even write about that someday, or the new reality the trip gives me.

In the meantime, I'll post what I do see here in August. And these are the islands I'm going to; if anyone has suggestions, please tell me!

Mull
Iona
Skye
maybe Coll
Orkney Mainland
Mainland Shetland



I'm planning to get to the Hebrides by taking the train to Oban and Mallaig, to the Orkneys and Shetlands EITHER by taking the train to Aberdeen and an overnight ferry from there to Lerwick, Shetland, then on to the Orkeys,also by ferry. OR, I could take a train to Scarbster,ferry to Orkney, and then head North by ferry to the Shetlands.

Lastly, it's good to get the burbling out of my system now because I know from experience how much the Brits hate it. Once I was walking in London and came upon the house where Jane Austen had stayed with her brother Henry -- I was just staring, transfixed, when a nice Englishman asked if he could help. Without thinking, I blurted out what I was thinking about (those of you who know me and how much I love Jane Austen can imagine) and could SEE his look of friendliness vanish. He might as well have just said disgustedly,
"Another American nutcase."
But of course, he was far too polite to do that.

Interview + goings on

Dreams Can Be Reached posted an interview with me yesterday, check it out here. Thanks for having me Naomi!

And on an unrelated note, here is a list of a few highlights from the past week:

* Baby Tilda is now sleeping through the night on a regular basis. Ten to eleven hours a night in fact. HALLELUJAH.

* I've been sketching for the the first time in months and it feels amazing. Like I stopped holding my breath.

* Our CSA lets you pick unlimited amounts of flowers (see below).

What's on your list?

google plus what?

So I'm madly trying to write my novel, but during my procrastination breaks I've been poking around at google+. My cousin insists that it is a worthwhile venture, far superior to Facebook. He thinks it will make Facebook and twitter obsolete, as FB did to myspace and friendster (poor friendster).

But I still don't quite understand it. Am I suppose to circle people who circle me? Can I have my tweets and blog post on it? Is "+1" the same as liking something? If people are in my circles I can see their posts but if I am not in their circles they cannot see mine, is that right?

I feel like my head is going in circles! Oh well, maybe I'll figure it out after I write my novel...

COOL POOL: An Original Poem



Fortunately, the weather here has been beautiful the past couple of days. I hate humid summer days when I can barely breathe. I don’t feel like doing anything when the weather is oppressive.


I wrote the following poem a long time ago for an unpublished collection of seasonal poems titled Tasting the Sun.

COOL POOL
by Elaine Magliaro

The sun beats down.
It sears.
It scorches.
Sweating neighbors sit on porches
Sipping ice-cold lemonade
Waiting for the day to fade.
BUT
When I’m hot as steaming tea,
I stand beneath our maple tree,
Remove my sneakers, socks…and wade
Into a cool green pool of shade.

********************

At Wild Rose Reader, I have Toasting Marshmallows, an original poem that I wrote for another unpublished poetry collection about candy.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is over at A Year of Reading.

********************

P.S. I published a post titled Go the F**k to Sleep: What's Your Opinion of This Picture Book for Parents? at Wild Rose Reader yesterday. I'd like to get people's opinions about this new book that appears destined to be a really big bestseller.

826 Valencia

I meant to put this post up before I left SF, but didn't, so here it is belatedly. I wanted to share some pictures from my trip to the famous 826 Valencia Pirate Store. In case you haven't heard the story... Dave Eggers co-founded this fabulous writing center, with locations around the country. Each location has its own unique storefront (I used to live near Boston's Bigfoot Research Institute). I'd always wanted to see the Pirate Store in San Francisco and it was well worth the trip. Below are some photos from my adventure there.

There were lots of great activities for kids:

A wall full of drawers that you could pull out and spy inside:

Treasure maps of course:

A wall of mustaches on mirrors:

Lots of pirate paraphernalia:

And these great signs posted here and there (click to enlarge and read):

This is the writing center in the back of the store:

I would have loved to visit a place like this when I was a kid! Wouldn't you?