Field Trip Mysteries winner announced!

The winner of a complete set of season of the Field Trip Mysteries, chosen at random using the World of Warcraft in-game dice roller, is . . .

Maddie Clark!

Maddie, I don't have any way of contacting you, so please contact me! You can get my email address by clicking on "view my complete profile" to the right, and then clicking "email" under "contact."

Sorry to all the entries who didn't win. Thank you for entering. There were some great answers, and one vulgar answer! Thanks, Adam!

Stay tuned to the Exile this week, though, because another giveaway will be happening darn soon.

John Hughes, 1950-2009

There have been many significant artistic influences on me, as a writer, as a person, even as a songwriter in my younger days. At least two of them, if I think about it for just a moment, were called John. One was Updike, the other was John Hughes.

Hughes has died of a heart attack. Movies of the 1980s and 1990s -- hell, teen existence, pop culture, and America itself -- would never have been the same without him. And by extension, my entire generation owes a tremendous debt to films like Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club . . . it goes on. Teen movies had traditionally been teensploitation; that is, they were about little more than sex and beer: throw those two ingredients onto a beach, or a ski resort, or hell, anything at all, and you had a teen movie. It had been that way since the late 1950s, with surf movies, and the tradition went on and on. Some of those movies were good. Occasionally, a funny or poignant script would build on that formula and maybe become great. But John Hughes broke that mold for good. He created movies with characters of depth and scope. Relationships were real. Every conversation, be it between Ally and Andrew, or Duckie and Andie, or Cameron and Ferris (in one of the finest friendships ever captured on film) is as weighty as it should be, because that's what life as a teen is: heavy, moment-to-moment, rarely the carefree sex-and-booze-fest many filmmakers (and local politicans) would have you believe.

As a writer of YA, I am constantly paying homage to, and occasionally ripping off, Mr. Hughes, and my guess is most writers of my generation, and those younger, have his work -- and the archetypal characters he favored -- constantly in their unconcious as they work. It would be impossible not to.

Cures for Heartburn

YA MS the Third is giving me serious agita. I'll be taking a short break from it, letting it worm around in my fuzzy little mind, and maybe the problem will look less problematic when I return to it.

Meanwhile, I will be dedicating the next 30-45 days to some SAB business, including one very exciting, totally new, and mind-blowingly cool project that I can't even say anything about yet. I mean, I wouldn't want to build it up too much or anything. I can say it will likely be the longest, word-count-wise, project I've ever done for SAB.

There's still a few days to enter the Field Trip Mysteries giveaway. Give it a whirl! And if you don't win this one, I think Eric Stevens has a giveaway planned for next week. He just got all kinds of samples in, too, including Bandslam: Will's Guide to Music. He's really proud of that one--spent a good amount of time yesterday reading through it, second guessing some, but mostly just liking it. That was an insane project. Some revisions arrived, with a short turnaround requested, the morning my . . . I mean, his son was born! (That's almost one year ago, for those playing at home.) Anyway, I expect that title will be involved in the giveaway next week.

Now then. Back to the Isle of Conquest!

We have a title!

The big news today is the title of YA Novel the First is official:

The Absolute Value of -1

It may be written as |-1| to save time. So from now on, the tag for anything related to YA MS the First aka YA Novel the First aka The Absolute Value of -1 will be |-1|. Does anyone blog read using the tags? I mean, I know I do, but does anyone else?

Related: I just signed three copies of my contract for that novel and sent them off to my smartly dressed agent back in New York City.

Not related: You can still enter for a complete set of Field Trip Mysteries, the first season. And by that I mean, please enter! I want more entries.

Note to self: Buy for Sam a toy with buttons similar to those of the light switch in the dining room. If you do not, he will throw tantrums until you hold him in front of that light switch and let him push it over and over, possibly for hours at a time.

Field Trip Mysteries giveaway!

Beth tells me that posting a screen grab of my Wordle doesn't count as a post. I'm not sure I agree with her, but to be on the safe side, since I promised two more posts this week, I thought I'd better drop another post.

And, since it's Saturday night and I just got paid, I'm going to make this the first-ever giveaway on the Exile! (The second-ever giveaway will happen pretty soon, by the way. Stay tuned.)

Up for grabs today is a complete set of the first season of the Field Trip Mysteries. That's one each of The Zoo with the Empty Cage, The Painting That Wasn't There, The Village That Almost Vanished, and The Teacher Who Forgot Too Much. To enter, just leave in the comments* a short memory of the best school field trip you've ever been on. The winner will be selected at random.

Get your comments in by this time next Saturday, August 8, to enter. Open only to residents of the U.S. and Canada. The Field Trip Mysteries are published by Stone Arch Books. RL: 1.7 - 2.4; Guided Reading Level: M.

*If you're reading this on Facebook, please come over to the Exile itself to comment. Thanks!

Allow me to ramble and whine about T-shirts, please

I have several favorite T-shirts. Shall I name them? I shall:

Helmet (Meantime-era logo)
01000100 01000001 01000100
Space Invaders
Strong Bad I
Strong Bad II
Four Gregs
SAB
Rockford Spelling Bowl

That's all of them, in no particular order. But here's the thing: Helmet, due to intense wear, and Strong Bad I, due to my having worn it while painting Sam's bedroom, are no longer public appropriate. Clearly, I need to replace those shirts. But meanwhile, I haven't had the extreme pleasure of wearing my Helmet T-shirt in months.

I know!

I wear T-shirts all day, every day (writer lifestyle FTW!), barring some kind of fancy-shmancy social engagement, like a wedding, for which I obviously need to wear a shirt with a collar so the tie won't look silly. But meanwhile, I live in constant fear that my favorite shirts -- the ones still presentable -- will soon become worn and unwearable!

The solution is clearly to right now buy an extra of each of my favorite shirts. Does this sound like a good idea?

But more relevant: why am I wasting blog space and your time with this issue? Who knows.

Today, beginning at noonish, I will enjoy a surprise WYAOD. An hour or so of it will be for SAB work. But after that, I intend to attack YA MS the Third with a vengeance. Much revising needs to be done, and I'm the man for the job.

Ooh! And some friends have lent to Sam a cool little car thingy that lets him practice walking! Enjoy this video.

Wordled!

It occurred to me that I finish that WIP draft and didn't drop a Wordle of it on y'all. So here it is!

Sunday in the house with Sam

Yesterday afternoon I finished the first draft of YA MS the Third. It turned out about half as long as I think it will be, with one entire plot missing, a plot which is yet to be determined but that will save this thing once I figure out what it is.

Beth read the whole thing last night, and had some very helpful notes for me. I think overall she enjoyed it, and her biggest concerns were the same as mine: "What the hell is going on?"

In other news, I haven't updated in over a week now, which is actually fairly embarrassing. But like I mentioned in the last update: still waiting for the final title of YA Novel the First to be officially final, and for a few other things, that will help to make an update a little more worth reading than, say, this one is.

Right now, I'm hanging out with Sam, letting Beth sleep in a little longer. But I do hope she wakes soon so the three of us can get to our Sunday morning tradition: the Saint Paul Farmers Market. Have I ever raved about the market here? It's truly wonderful. It's fairly small, but every farm represented is local and organic. Throughout the summer, I'd say beginning in early May or so, the stuff for sale changes with the months and weeks; we begin with perennials and annuals for sale to the hobby gardener, and soon asparagus and strawberries show up. The corn appears soon, along with peppers and cucumbers and broccoli, and zucchini, et cetera. Eventually the apple-orchard people come out, with sample slices and fresh-pressed cider. It's really one of the best things Saint Paul has to offer.

So that's where we're headed, once Beth gets up. We'll get everything we need for salads, our traditional Sunday night dinner, plus a couple of coffees to enjoy as we stroll the aisles. And I promise that this week, I'll update twice more, very likely with nothing interesting to report, but a promise is a promise, after all.

It's the July WYAOD

I know. It's been almost a week. If you're tracking my resolutions, you're no doubt as disappointed in me as I am in myself. Here's the thing: I spent much of the week, when not working on a new FTM title, or simply doing the best job ever (watching Sam, that is), simply waiting for word on a couple of things.

First, Aforementioned Editor (how long will I keep up this pseudoanonymity of various people and projects?) and I have been discussing final titles for YA Novel the First. It's down to a few real contenders, one of which I'm favoring especially. It was Beth's idea, that one. In fact, nearly all of my favorites were Beth's idea. ENIV is also favoring that one. I suspect it will be the final title. Meanwhile, though, I wait for word from designers and salespeople and marketers, who are no doubt holding hours upon hours of meetings to discuss the issue, I assume, via AE. I know we're all anxious to settle on something, so I'm sure I'll hear next week.

Next, I mentioned very briefly that a writer whom I admire had agreed to blurb YA Novel the First. The exact wording of said blurb is still TK (I think the acronym list will be growing after this entry, by the way), and I'd love to simply just paste the entirety of her email below, but I think that would be in poor taste. For now, since she already made this public news on Twitter, I can reveal that the blurber is Sara Zarr. Yes! That Sara Zarr. And regarding the email, suffice it to say that when I read it to my mom, she cried.

So. The point is, I was hoping to update the Exile with some final word on either of the above issues. It wasn't to be. Instead, I'll let you know that today is a WYAOD for me. Like a giant doof, however, I biked to the coffee shop, ready to work, and forgot the excellent Father's Day gift cards I'm supposed to be using, per Beth's most excellent gift to me. Anyway, I'll be slaving away on YA MS the Third (poor the Second; why have I abandoned you?), and occasionally embarrassing myself publicly by playing air guitar along with "Aqualung," as I am right now. Don't judge; be glad there's no flute solo in this song.

Not for the squeamish

I didn't want to blog about this. Frankly, the whole episode would be better forgotten. Of course, if facebook statuses mean any posterity, it's far too late for that.

This was my facebook update yesterday morning:


I was out walking Harry, our faithful if irritating terrier, when about two blocks from home I was accosted and chosen as host organism for a horrible beast. Its new domicile was of course my left ear.

The two block walk was difficult. Every so often, the little expletive would flap its tiny wings, presumably to remind me it was in there and that it essentially owned me. Upon feeling and hearing these flaps ("The calls are coming from inside the house!" has never been so poignant), I would -- I believe quite understandably -- freak the hell out somewhat. Which is to say, I'd scream and slap myself in the ear.

I can only imagine what my neighbors must think of me.

Upon reaching our house, I (can you guess?) googled "a bug is stuck in my ear." One suggestion included "stick a blade of grass in your ear." I suppose that sounds . . . reasonable? But in my panicked state, I read "stick a blade OR grass in your ear." That sounded downright insane, so I tried a different site. Before I had a chance, however, my new little ear friend decided to do some serious flapping of wings. I screamed in a very manly way, and then woke up Beth and the baby to explain very calmly what was going on.

A few things we tried, thanks to Beth's clear head, helped. Among them: flushing the ear with water. This helped the little expletive get one . . . ugh . . . wing out of the ear canal. Beth, coyly, spotted the wing but did not fully let on that the creature living inside me was indeed a moth. She knew this would upset me. She did, however, suggest I stand next to a light.

That's when I knew.

"Ohmygod it's a freakin' moth!"

I won't get into the hoary details of my screaming and flailing and insisting everyone back away, no sudden moves, et cetera. Suffice it to say, just as I was getting ready to head to the ER for a mothectomy, the thing crawled out and fell to the bathroom floor.

I then killed it with tremendous passion and loathing. I think even Roo will understand.

It was a complicated day after that. That is, despite this unquestionable low point in the early morning, it turned out to be a good day (we bought Beth her new laptop), then a very good evening (we had supper at the Lakeside with many a Bracken), and then a freakin' amazing night (an author whom I respect and admire has agreed to blurb YA Novel the First, and sent me an amazing email telling me so).

FTM, revealed!

Finally, if you'll glance slightly to your right, the classified acronym has been revealed. Stone Arch Books newest series of chapter books, the Field Trip Mysteries, authored by yours truly, was so fun to write, so well designed and illustrated, I can hardly bear it. In fact, I'm in the middle of submitting the next four in the series!

Seriously, I just love the art by C.B. Canga. Get a load of these covers.





































In other news, edits on YA Novel the First are done! The manuscript, still untitled, is now being sent around for blurbs. My heart is inside out with apprehension and excitement. Aforementioned Editor and I will now discuss titles and cover ideas. I also want to note that the best titles that will come from my end of that conversation were thought up by Beth. She is much better at this than I am.

Oh, also we took this little trip out to New York to see fam and friends, so there was that. Boy, did I eat. Seriously. I can hardly remember anything else. Eddie's pizza, of course (twice actually), plenty of the more typical New York-style pizza, one hot dog from Papaya King, a burger and shake from COZY Soup and Burger (best shakes in the city, hands down), loads of bagels, and plenty of other great, great food. I don't want to think about it, because I'm pretty sure I gained twenty pounds over seven days. The airline should have charged me for an extra carry-on, I kid you not.

Those people from PIX are not as excited as they should be.

We're off to New York in the morning! Pizza, bagels, egg sandwiches, Eddie's* (which will be the first pizza Sam ever tries; everything is going according to my plan) . . . a 6:30 a.m. flight! We'll have to rise early even for us (our normal wake-up time is 5:30 or so). Wish us luck, please, as Sam is teething like nobody's business at the moment and has had a screwy couple of days as it is.

Perhaps you'd better wish the other passengers on our flight luck, as well.

YA Novel the First news: I sent back my second revisions to Aforementioned Editor. Assuming he approves of the minor changes I made and the itty-bitty new scene I painstakingly crafted, I think we're about to work on a final title for this thing. Finally. I've been sweating through every conversation about YA Novel the First, just dreading the inevitable "So?! What is it called??" As if that's all that matters. Sheesh.

We thought we'd see samples of my latest series for SAB last week, but they didn't show up. It's a shame; I'm looking forward to finally dropping them on the Exile and revealing what "FTM" stands for in the sidebar. Hopefully they'll be in by the time we return from back east. They're a treat to write (I just finished another for the next group in the same series today, as a matter of fact), and hopefully they'll be a treat to read. I can tell you one thing: I've seen much of the art and design, and they're positively gorgeous. They're bound to be my favorite SAB titles.


*That picture I found is awesome.

Going back east, sans laptop

I am saddened, for two reasons:

1. I lost a follower on this blog! I'm back down to 30. Sadness. I think I get a few followers here who aren't terribly interested in anything I have to say but are merely hoping I'll follow them back. I get a tremendous number of such followers on Twitter, too. Oh well. Good riddance, I suppose.

2. My laptop--aka, the most important inanimate object in my life--is in dire need of repair. The display simply doesn't work, 9 out of 10 times I try to start it up. And that 10th time, it usually goes black after a few minutes. The thing is still on warranty, so I'll have to ship it out to Dell and wait for it to return to me.

I am cheered, as well, though. For beginning Tuesday of next week, my family will spend a week in New York! This is great for all the usual reasons (i.e., food), but also because we will finally meet Sam's cousin Jaden, born to my brother and his wife in California way back in December!

With any luck at all, my laptop will be back in my possession shortly after we return home in early July. Then I can get cracking on YA MS the Third, which I am re-excited about after a long discussion with my agent yesterday. Oh, and YA Novel the First? I have to write the two tiniest little passages you ever heard of, which I'll probably do this weekend on Beth's laptop (using it right now!), and then I do believe the editing portion of our show will be over. Woo! Then it's final title, cover ideas . . . I can't stand it.

Oh, and speaking of early July, here is a public service announcement: Please, if you live near a family with a dog, don't shoot off firecrackers or fireworks. Thank you. Oh, also if you have fingers.

01000100 01000001 01000100

I'm unbelievably tired.

This was, hands down, my best Father's Day ever. It was of course my first, too, but still.

The gifts! My new favorite shirt, narrowly nudging my previous favorite out of first place, is this here:

To find out what it says, go here and use the translator.

Beth gave me that shirt yesterday, on behalf of Sammy, who of course saved up his allowance to buy it for me. Harry didn't get me anything but a crappy card, if you're wondering.

This morning, Beth gave me her present, which is one of the coolest presents ever. It's a calendar of the next 12 months, and once a month, Beth has declared an WYAOD. To go along with these WYAODs, she has given gift cards to my favorite "satellite offices," totaling more than enough money with which to buy coffees and cakes and bagels and such to have a very successful 12 WYAODs. I'm very excited about this. My two WIPs, and maybe even that peskey MG I haven't touched in ages, will get very whipped into shape, no doubt about it.

Following a short bike ride for breakfast on my own, we three headed to the Children's Museum in downtown Saint Paul. It was all of our first time going, and we all loved it. Awesomely, it was "Free Day," which we didn't even know when we headed down there and were thrilled to hear it. Sam got to enjoy the Habitot room, specifically for kids 6 to 48 months old. (Sam's 10 months, by the way.) It was one of the few times so far in his life he's had the opportunity to play with other babies his age, so that was a pleasure to watch.

Lunch at Midtown Global Market, ice cream at Izzy's, a nice long family walk . . . All in all, a great Father's Day, a holiday that's actually been pretty crappy for me for the last nine years. So it was a nice, very welcome, change.

Oh, there was that pesky Chapter-a-Day Challenge that a few Tenners, including myself, were doing this weekend. I didn't win. I failed in epic proportions. Other than revisions, it was a work-free weekend. Also a nice and welcome change, I suppose.

Good cause, good stuff!

Quick post. I twittered about it already, but I realize not everyone is using Twitter (and god bless 'em), so I thought I'd mention it here too.

Cynthea Liu, to celebrate her new novel, Paris Pan Takes the Dare, is having an auction for charity right now. What's more, the wonderful Aforementioned Editor, Tenner and Otter Josh Berk and Otter Kurtis Scaletta, and many, many other brilliant minds of KidLit are offering crits. The bidding is open now.

Go and check it out! The prices are so low right now.

Books to make you cry

I never meant for this to become a review blog, but I have to just drop a quick five stars on Margo Rabb for Cures for Heartbreak. Once again, when I was within about fifty pages of the finish, I was overcome with a sense of dread: What will I have to look forward to when this book has ended? Will life--will the world in general, indeed all of the natural universe--continue to exist?!

Lo and behold, it did, clearly. Still, I loved the book and will likely buy it. (I read the library's copy for once. I underuse our local library; it's rather a shame.)

In other news, SIL will be here in four hours or so to babysit for the afternoon. Class doesn't begin until six, so that will give me a good chunk of hours to do some work. Revisions, this time, rather than straight writing. This is both a shame and a thrill: it's the first round of revisions on YA Novel the First, so I'm excited about that aspect; but my WIP is feeling ignored lately, I think. Still, it can wait. After all, YA Novel the First waited years upon years to be finished, and it turned out okay.

What else? I'm the first Tenner to read The Snowball Effect, by Holly Nicole Hoxter, fellow Tenner. The ARC arrived unceremoniously on my porch yesterday morning, and upon finishing Cures, I started Snowball. More deceased mothers. But still, excellent, and yes, Holly, there are indeed many funny parts, too.

ETA: Thank you, Micol, for reminding me to note that The Snowball Effect will be on sale 3/23/2010.

In which yet another writer makes me want to quit

Apologies. I finished Liar like three days ago and never came back to tell you how much I freaking loved it right to death. Amazing! I was maybe ten or fifteen pages into part two when I was overcome with an urge to never do anything for the rest of my life but read this book.

So yeah. Loved it. Read it like your life depends on it*. (When I rave about a book, I freakin' rave about a book.)

My one problem is the cover, because the model used looks exactly nothing like the protagonist Micah, who is partially of African American descent and has very close-cut, kinky hair. Not remotely the person on the cover. Still, it's just a cover, and if it puts the book in more people's hands, I'm okay with it.

Anyway, not much other news. Dragged Sam to the Como Zoo and he still couldn't care less. The fact is, he'd rather admire Harry up close than an orangutan from fifty feet away. He did giggle at a bison, though I missed the joke there.

Got my first notes from Aforementioned Editor, too, by the way. On Friday, in fact. I've gone through them. I have a little work to do. I don't think anything too, too terribly difficult came up, so hopefully we're close to sending this bad boy out for (dun dun DUN) blurbs! I have a wish list. I'm not telling it to you.

*Important note: Liar will not be on sale until the very end of September of this year. My apologies, but your life will have to wait.

Boogie

I am the slackingest blogger of all time, with many millions of notable exceptions.

The simple fact is, there isn't much to report. I've been reading an ARC of Liar, by Justine Larbalestier. I just finished part one, and am completely undecided as to how I feel about this book. The writing is strong, the story is compelling, as are the characters, and yet I cannot say for certain that I like the book. There's a very good chance I actually do like the book; my feelings toward it have been improving slowly over the course of part one. Actually, at this point I'm even thinking it's totally worthy of a nomination for the Mock Printz for that adolescent lit class I'm in. I wonder if part of my ambivalence comes from the narrator. I don't like her, well, at all. She's sort of horrible and a big liar, obviously. Yes, I think that's where my ambivalence comes from indeed.

In writing news, there ain't much. I'm still working on YA MS the Third. It's going slightly sluggishly. Here is why: I have outlined the book completely, and when I outline (usually after having exhausted my off-the-cuff material), I always come to a streaking halt. The writing begins to feel quite a bit like work (heaven forbid!), and I consider it a good night if I can squeeze out five hundred or so words. Last night I had a write-night, and finished up a chapter I had started on Friday night.

I'm so not keeping up with the JuJu challenge.

Oh, and I sent the first nine pages of YA MS the Third to those gentlemen in my new crit group. The consensus seems to be the writing is strong, but my experimental ideas might try readers' patience. For now, I think, they are willing to wade through this with me. I maintain hope that it will work. (Have I mentioned the experimental aspects? They exist. I shall say no more about them!)

What else? I took Sam to a Music Together class yesterday morning. It was fun. I do think Sam will get more out of it when he can walk and stand on his own, but I think we'll sign up for the full summer session. He just loves to dance so much. See?

Perfect Thursday

Another week has simply flown by, hasn't it?

It really did go by quickly, and frankly at the moment I can't remember most of it. I'm fairly sure I haven't done my 5000 words for the week, per Purple Clover's challenge, but I am going to take write night tonight, so hopefully I can come close.

How much flashback is too much flashback? I find flashbacks to be an excellent device for maintaining suspense, especially in dramatic and realistic fiction. It worked well for the likes of Jellicoe Road, and Sweethearts, and my own YA Novel the First and YA MS the Second. My current WIP, though, might be taking it too far, with a full three separate eras that need concentration: the first summer, the second summer, and the present day (literally, just the one day). I'm having trouble making this work. My goal yesterday, during an unexpected and most excellent half WYAOD, or WHYAOD, I managed to outline every crucial event in chronological order. Now I simply need to weave the times together into a fabric that will maintain suspense without jarring or confusing the reader. It will be a job of work, a lot of me sitting in coffeeshops, staring into space, and going, "Hmm."

Rather against my typical coy attitude with regard to my WIPs, I sent a few pages -- maybe 20% of what I've gotten down -- off to my agent for his opinions. I look forward to hearing back, but it will undoubtedly be a long weekend while I wait.

Oh, and after a great afternoon of cycling and writing yesterday (including lunch at Hiawatha Pizza--that dude better stay in business!), I met up with Beth and Sam at Punch for more pizza. I believe, by the way, that cycling, writing, Beth, Sam, and pizza are the sum total of the interests listed on my Facebook page. I'm not sure pizza is there, but it certainly ought to be. Which makes yesterday the perfect day!

In other news this week, I joined a new crit group, strictly online, with a group of four other gentlemen (a term I'm using very loosely). I have a feeling we are the only crit group of all guys working on literature for young people in the world. We'd have to be, according to the statistical odds.

Cures for my WIP obsession

My new WIP (that is, YA MS the Third) is still constantly on my mind. "Still" . . . it's been, what? Three days? So anyway. I have barely closed the two Word documents that so far make up that WIP for about an hour total since starting. I can't think about anything else. Beth and I take many walks, especially on weekends, but this weekend, no matter what topic of conversation Beth led us down, I'd inevitably veer us right back to talking about my new WIP.

So, in light of this obsession, I've decided to join this JuJu challenge over at Purple Clover. I'm certain if I can meet the goal required, this WIP will be finished. It really shouldn't break 50k; it feels snappy and short and should be snappy and short.

My other brilliant plan for this project, since Beth, Sam, and I will be back east over the July 4th weekend, is to actually go to Greenpoint in Brooklyn (the setting of the new WIP) and spend a WYAOD right in with my characters, in their setting. I think it will do wonders. I lived there for a year, but have been gone for three, and I'm beginning to forget the odd beauty much of it holds, which is a real shame for a protagonist and narrator who talks at great length about Greenpoint's odd beauty.