Wrap

I'm letting myself off the hook for skipping so many days. I think since I was out of town and out of wifi for most of the long weekend, I can be forgiven.

SCBWI NY 2009, wrap-up report! My favorite thing about the conference was this, which I purchased right before leaving on Sunday. It's essentially a conversation between SCBWI founder Lin Oliver and YA book factory Richard Peck. They discuss writing, often technically. I watched the entire thing on the flight home and found it fully riveting. I recommend it to aspiring novelists and YA enthusiasts. I'm not sure how or where you'll be able to purchase it. Someone mentioned the SCBWI website is going to be relaunched soon; hopefully it will be available there.

Other than that, I think I didn't take advantage of the conference as much as I would or could have if not for familial obligations interfering with socializing time, on Friday evening, for example, or during Saturday night's wine and cheese event. Next time I attend a national conference, I'll have to really keep the whole weekend open so I can attend such smooze-fests.

I did get to meet Brad Strickland, though, which was pretty cool. I worked on a couple of his series at S&S, so it was nice to meet him. He's a friendly and chatty fellow.

No new word from aforementioned editor. No fear, though. I have to work on this thing for SAB all day tomorrow and Wednesday anyway.

I have nothing to say about the Super Bowl. I will say, however, that Vincent's, on Willis Avenue in Albertson, makes much, much larger pizzas than I recalled. Quite yummy, though.

Oh, also, Sam was pefectly pleasant on both flights, for the most part. And any crying he did on the return flight was completely drowned out by the escaped eleven-month-old running wild on the plane. So that was nice.

And it was about 45 degrees in New York when we left. Beyond wonderful to feel that temperature in the middle of winter. Beyond.

Of course, we both (Beth and I) miss New York City terribly, and loved spending a couple of days with some time to walk around. But, as we drove across the Throgs Neck Bridge this morning on our way to Newark Airport, we had a few minutes to gaze at the smog on the horizon in every direction, aghast, and decided, No, we don't want to live here again.

Kudos for the new bike path on Broadway through Times Square, though.

On the Island

In New York now, and updating my blog from the seat at the kitchen table I sat in as a child every night for dinner. Unfortunately, there is not a bowl of macaroni and cheese in front of me as there might have been during many of those years.

The flight was kind of a mess. First off, due to all the east coast weather yesterday morning, residual delays meant our 5:20 flight took off at around a quarter to eight. Not typically a problem, but we were flying into Newark, rather than Queens, which means a much longer drive home. We ended up landing at 11 pm, which had my poor aging mother schlepping to Jersey in the dead of night on unfamiliar roads. And of course it had me, after this insanely long day, driving from Newark on unfamiliar roads back to Long Island. Needless to say, I fell asleep pretty quickly. Sam and Beth are napping even as we speak.

Readkiddoread.com is up, from James Patterson, and I like it. But it doesn't have a section for kids who struggle with reading but don't want to be left with books written at kids younger than them. In other words, it needs some high-low and high interest: Jake Maddox style!

Anyway, we're off in an hour or so to our local kosher-style deli. Very excited.

Oh, and on the YA MS the First front, editor reports riveted, but that was Friday. I am expecting something more soon, and am appropriately excited. I have done essentially no work in almost a week now, with the exception of updating my resume and WIPs for the conference, mainly by adding yet another several sports/Maddox books and a little blurb about YA MS the Second. I need to edit it, however; it doesn't touch as heavily on the fantasy/supernatural aspects as I'd like it too. Here is the blurb! You can tell me what you think:

A Terrible Mistake
Jessamine Parson’s mother died in childbirth, and on the same day her grandmother was found dead and clutching a mysterious note: “There’s been a terrible mistake.” Nearly eighteen years later, Jessa is a foul-mouthed, socially inept, and extremely reluctant college freshman. She plans to spend as little time as possible living a typical college life, preferring to game away the hours in a violent and magical online world. But Jessa’s real-world college experience turns out to be more amazing—and dangerous—than the one she leads online.

Within days of starting her college career, Jessamine is already attracting more attention than she wants: Rope, the wiry resident assistant, seems to be around whenever Jessa needs help; Thomas Priestly, Jessa’s anthropology professor, makes an unexpected appearance in game; and fellow freshman Henry is having the strongest effect on Jessa of all—it’s something in his eyes.

WARNING: This book does NOT contain vampires.

I hope I can find a wifi signal at the conference.

Flash! Ahaaah! It'll save every one of us . . . manuscripts!

We're off to New York today. I'll be packing up Harry in a couple of hours and dropping him at Doggy Camp. Then Sam and I are off to get Beth, to the airport, and on to sunny* Newark, New Jersey!

In an episode of crazy, I just put all my works in progress onto a flash drive in case we land in the Hudson and my laptop is destroyed. The flash drive will remain safe and dry on our dining room table.

* Newark is not actually sunny, especially not today, from what I hear.

4 items

1. My envy of Neil Gaiman increases at an alarming rate.
2. I got zero work done this weekend, but I'm okay with it. I needed a weekend off. We mall-walked.
3. Sam is the rolling over--both ways!--champion of Saint Paul.
4. We're flying to New York--well, Newark, actually--on Wednesday. I'm very excited for:
A. The food
B. SCBWI
C. Seeing various peoples
D. Various peoples seeing Sam

Updates

Well, I skipped the weekend, which means I'll have to pick it up to maintain 5/week in here. Shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, an update on YA MS the first. Last night I slammed down about 3000 words for Lily (mostly a party scene; I think the drunkenness comes across). With any luck she'll be finished up on Wednesday, when the in-laws will be here to babysit at noon, and I'll be in downtown Minneapolis for about five hours with nothing but writing time on my hands before my first class of the semester. (Have I mentioned my slowly ongoing teacher's license in this blog yet? I'm not sure. Anyway, it'll be a few years, at this rate, which is fine. If I have my license done by the time Sam can hit kindergarten, I'll be happy.) So, that five-hour block will probably cinch up Lily, and then I can reapproach Noah, who I think just needs a few tweaks.

Simon, too, is waiting for tweaks, but that will be essentially a couple of hours and a strong cup of coffee. I'm starting to feel more confident about getting this done before the trip to NYC. (Especially with ongoing help from the in-laws.)

This morning, I was hoping to get some work done. Sam, however, had other plans. To think I once I had a knack for getting Sam down for naps. Lately, whatever skill I had seems to be gone completely. Today, when he showed tired signs just before 11, all hell broke loose somehow. It took an hour of shrieking and screaming before he fell asleep, and here, ten minutes later, he's already waking up again. I think maybe he'll go into the swing now.

First you get the power . . .

Yesterday was not the productive extravaganza of writing I intended it to be. First and foremost, I am a curmudgeon, and as such had a hard time finding someplace to work that satisfied me on all levels. The levels in question are:

Free wifi, reliably. Wifi is nice, but not if you want me to buy credits and pay for it, tyvm BN cafe. Wifi that is free and spotty is worse than pay-per-hour. It can spell disaster.

Good food. If your establishment has free wifi, that's great. But if your burgers are dry, overcooked, without lettuce, tomato, or onion, and on a tasteless white bun, next to obviously-from-the-freezer fries, you fail.

OUTLETS EVERYWHERE. Seriously. This is the big one. If I'm going to set up camp and buy coffees, teas, snacks, and sandwiches for five hours straight, I want to plug in. My battery is good, but it's not that good, and one outlet for every twenty customers just ain't gonna cut it. Especially when that weird lady who had been standing on the corner singing to a photograph is at one of the tables blessed with power. She had a scone, by the way, and whatever she was drinking out of the blue plastic jumbo take-out cup she came in with. She did not use the outlet. Many glared in her general direction. I chose to seek outlets elsewhere.

So I finally settled, much too late, at Brewberry's, mainly because I was cranky and wanted ice cream. NOTE: Brewberry's is not selling ice cream until the spring. Super.

But they do have great coffee, and I did finally get about 2000 words down, which I realized after writing it had been very "tell, not show," so I rewrote all of it this morning. And here we are.

Sam just fell asleep for a nap, a little ahead of schedule, so back at it. I've still got more than three weeks left of January, and probably about 20k words to write, and I still have hope that this YA MS the first will be done before I leave for SCBWI in NYC on January 28.