One Year Later...

Mentish Retreat November 2012

It's hard to believe it's been a year since we launched Turbo Monkey Tales. So much has happened since our first blog post! In honor of our anniversary we thought we'd all take stock and offer our own personal Year in Review.
So, without further ado, here's what the Turbo Monkeys have been up to for the last twelve months!

Hazel Mitchell

• New books include: 1,2,3 BY THE SEA from Kane Miller, ONE WORD PEARL from Charlesbridge and DOUBLE CROSSED AT CACTUS FLATS from ABDO. 
• Completed illustrations for HIGHLIGHTS MAGAZINE and educational books. 
• Spoke at SCBWI conferences in Paris and New England.
• Signed with a school booking agent http://authorvisits.com
• Visited several book festivals (including Bologna Children's Book Fair, The London Book Fair and ALA Chicago), book stores and schools!
• Now working on a new book with Charlesbridge due in Fall 2014!

Amy Allgeyer Cook

It’s been a pretty exciting year for me. I (finally) finished the first draft of my young adult novel, Water for Starfish, during NaNoWriMo, then spent the next six months in revisions. 

On May 14th, I sent out my first wave of agent queries. Over the next two months, I received full requests, form rejections, more full requests, rejections on fulls, more full requests and … more rejections. Then, on July 15th, came an offer. YAY! Big squees! I let the other agents who had open queries or full manuscripts know that there was an offer on the table. And I gave them two weeks to finish reading and get back to me. Two weeks later, I had three offers of representation from three absolutely freaking amazing agents, every one of whom would have been stellar to work with. Unfortunately, I had to pick JUST ONE! 

After a very thoughtful weekend spent in Reno with some very dear writer friends, I decided to go with Danielle Chiotti of Upstart Crow Literary. I’m so excited to be a part of the Upstart Crow team and to be working with Danielle, especially!

Sarah McGuire

Last year, our blog's first day was also the first day of preservice in my school district. That seems fitting, since it was also the first year that I taught Creative Writing, which was truly an adventure.

Since then, I...

• Finished the Highlights workshop with Patti Gauch in October, which helped my jump into revisions on VALIANT
• Started submitting VALIANT on February 14
• Spent spring break angsting about VALIANT while vacationing at the oh-so-fabulous When Words Count retreat. (Yay for sweepstakes!)
• Signed with Tracey Adams of Adams Literary in April (I'm still happy dancing!)
• Finished school year and VALIANT revisions the way most teachers do– sleep deprived and somewhat incoherent
• Drove cross-country to help a friend move to Washington state. I even stopped in Reno on the way back to meet with a few of Monkey tribe! VALIANT has traveled as well- venturing out into the world as it looks for a home.

This week, it begins again. During preservice, I'll be preparing for Algebra II, College Algebra Trig, and of course, Creative Writing. 

Craig Lew

In this year of the Turbo Monkey: 

1) My movie ROCK JOCKS released in Theaters in June - Available on iTunes and Amazon http://www.rockjocksthemovie.com

2) My Augmented Reality App BPZapp became available in the iTunes App Store and Google Play 

3) My Augmented Reality graphic novel, THE GOTHS: THE HUNTRESS (available on Amazon) was a finalist in the Indie Excellence Book Awards.

4) My latest acquisition, SMELVIN AND GOULASH BOY (written by Amy Allgeyer Cook, Edited by Lorin Oberweger, illustrated by Hazel Mitchell) will release in print, iBook and enhanced with Augmented Reality in Fall 2013.

5) Spoke at the Boise Cutters and Idaho Media Professionals Film Groups

6) I adopted Smittens, the kitten with the marshmallow mittens. 

7) Raced in the Idaho State Criterium Cycling Championships and lived

8) Met many new people and made some amazing friends.

I have two pending deals which could be huge...but I cannot talk about them yet.

Julie Dillard

Year highlights:

I feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend TWO inspiring conferences this year--the Ventana Sierra Advanced Writers Workshop and SCBWI's Summer Conference in Los Angeles. I'm attacking my stories with fresher enthusiasm because of the focused time those experiences provided to hone in on craft and process. I am in a rewarding new teaching position, which means I have to draw on all the thoughtful advice I get from fellow writers to make progress in the limited time I have. One method I've adopted is getting up at 5am to sneak in an hour of writing before rushing off to work. The best side effect is having the story simmer in my head all day long! The very best part of this year has been, through conferences and great meet-ups with writer friends, abundant reminders of how very kind, funny, and compassionate--even heroic--people who write for children can be. Bring on the new year!

Kristen Crowley Held

Just a couple of days after our first blog post in 2012 I participated in the awesome online children’s writers conference WriteOnCon. This year’s conference starts tomorrow and, trust me, you won’t want to miss it! I also found inspiration at several in person SCBWI conferences and events where I reconnected with old friends and discovered new ones. By far my favorite part of this past year was attending the book launches of several writerly friends and crit buddies. I also had the pleasure of seeing my name in the acknowledgements of a real live book for the first time (if you haven’t read Katherine Longshore's TARNISH, go buy a copy right now, I’ll wait!). After much back and forthing, I broke up with my MG fantasy novel once and for all (or at least until I can figure out how to make it the wondrously magical thing I want it to be). With the help of a two week fast draft class run by Candace Havens, I wrote a “discovery draft” of the YA mystery (BLURT) I started at our mentish reunion at the fabulous St. Mary’s Art and Retreat Center in Virginia City, and next month I’m off to the Writer's Police Academy to make sure my manuscript “won’t bleed red ink later.”  I’m excited about getting BLURT to the beautiful/shiny stage and will be hopping on the query roller coaster later this year. Wish me luck!

Ellen Jellison

For the past year, I’ve been working on a middle grade historical/fantasy novel set along the Danube River in 170 AD. Ancient Roman and Germanic mythology is woven throughout the story, at times in real life, then fading back into mythology. Getting it right has been a challenge. The book is called JUSTUS, although I call it my Never Ending Revision. I’m finally on the last chapters, so yippee!  Two conferences that I recently attended and can highly recommend are the Speakeasy Literary Society’s retreat at Fallen Leaf Lake, and Terri Farley’s Ridin’ Writer’s Workshop. Both were intimate in nature, yet very powerful. I left both with new friendships, new ideas, and a rejuvenated determination in finishing JUSTUS, no matter how long the journey! My favorite word is perseverance, one familiar to all writers and illustrators . . . hang in there and keep on truckin’!

Marilyn Hilton

This has been a wonderful year with the monkeys! Although I didn't lose the 10 pounds I'd hoped to, I read lots of fabulous middle-grade and young-adult novels that have entertained, inspired, amused, educated, and enlightened me. I also attended several writers conferences and retreats, including three SCBWI regional conferences with Kristen, the Speakeasy Literary Society Retreat in April with Ellen, and the SCBWI Summer Conference in LA with Julie and Craig. It was a treat to have that time with them and so many other inspiring writers of children's literature. In October, a YA manuscript I'd been working on won the First Page contest at the SCBWI San Francisco North & East Bay conference, and I've continued working on that manuscript, along with a few others. But most of my writing time and energy this year have been spent working on revisions of my debut middle-grade novel, FOUND THINGS, which will be published by Atheneum in summer 2014. (The photo is me with my wonderful editor, Namrata Tripathi.)

I can't imagine having taken this journey so far without the monkeys, and I'm so excited to see what the next year brings for us all!

Playing Favorites

by Sarah McGuire

VALIANT is currently out of my hands, so I'm concentrating on what comes next and starting my next story.

That, of course, has me thinking of siblings. 

Of course. 

I haven't been teaching too long, but I've already taught siblings. Every time, someone inevitably warns me not to expect one sibling to be like the one I've already taught. 

No kidding. 

I'm the oldest of four. I get that no two kids are alike. 

Why, then, have I been comparing this infant of a story to its older sister? 

Lead with the IPA...not the Plunger

by Amy

A few weeks ago in a mad rush to get to a meeting, I side-swiped a concrete column in the parking deck. And by ‘side-swiped’ I mean put a massive dent in the passenger door of my car and scraped off a bunch of paint. Woe was me. Having grown up with four gear-head brothers, though, I knew exactly what to do. I got out my toilet plunger and went to work on the dent.

Later that evening, the dent still firmly embedded in my door, I was lamenting to Sarah about the accident, the failure of my plungering, the far-awayness of my Monkey Troop…everything.

“If I were there,” she said, “I’d give you hugs and IPA.” (If you don't know, IPA stands for India Pale Ale, and it's the hoppiest, happiest beer on the planet.)

“If you were here,” I said, “you’d get your plunger and I’d get my plunger and we’d pop that dent out. I’m sure it’s just a two-plunger dent.”

 

Sarah agreed. “Tempt some of your girlfriends over!” she said. “But lead with the IPA and not the plunger.”

She’s brilliant, that Sarah. Because, seriously…which sounds more enticing? “Come over for a beer?” Or “Go get your icky toilet plunger, drag it across town to my house and mash it onto my car?”

No contest, right?   

Then I started thinking…that’s good advice for queries. In both cases, we’re trying to tempt someone to invest in us – time, effort, representation, plungering. And in both cases, we need to make the temptation as irresistible as possible.

The key, then, is this: identifying the IPA of your book.

What’s the most unique, marketable aspect of the story? Yes, you’ve written about vampires, and yes, millions of vampire books have sold so clearly they’re popular. But what’s special about YOUR vampires? Are they cross-dressing vampires? Have they infiltrated the CIA? Do they run the International Union of Circus Clowns? THAT’s the IPA. (Some people might call this the ‘hook’ but I like to say IPA because, well, I like IPA.)

The IPA should be the first thing an agent or editor sees when they read your query. Leading with vampires who sparkle or “Jeffrey doesn’t know it, but he’s the fulfillment of a legend…” will end your slush-escape in the blink of an agent's eye. Because they've seen those concepts...ad nauseum.

Instead, you have to hook them with something fresh. “After his first night performing under the big tent, Jeffrey discovers why clowns wear rubber noses when his real one is sliced off by the Varken, the International Cult that rules the Clown Union, to ensure his loyalty." 

A missing nose = total IPA.  A clown union = more IPA.

Vampires and legends? They’re Bud Light.

So find the most unique, most exciting, most ‘hooky’ aspect of your story and get it into your query first. Because once the toilet plunger comes out, things don’t smell so sweet. And nobody likes a stinky query.

Slant, or Write Like You Mean It

by Sarah McGuire

By Eduard Friedrich Leybold (1798-1879)

For those who haven't heard, I signed with Tracey Adams of Adams Literary in April. (I still can't believe my good fortune!) Ever since then, I've been whipping VALIANT into shape before we send it out. In this round of revisions, I've been working on a) tightening the manuscript*, and b) writing on a slant.

What is slant? That's what I asked Patti Gauch last year when she told me I needed to write with it. Patti described writing on a slant as a wash of color over a scene. She made the point that if a character was feeling something, it would show up in everything: dialog, narration, description. I needed to write the scene like my character meant it.

Rather than bore you with all it took for me to finally understand what Patti meant, here's an example of the first time I intentionally wrote on a slant, from the first page of VALIANT.


Unslanted version:


The city lay against the far horizon, dark as a lump of coal in the morning light.

“Reggen is a fine sight, isn’t it?” said Luca.

I knew from Father’s description that the city of Reggen lay between a cliff and the Kovar River, and that it rose up, tier upon tier, like some elaborate pastry.

But I couldn’t see any of that. I went back to rolling up my frost-stiffened blanket.

“Well?” pressed Luca, his face creased with a smile. “What do you think of your new home, Saville?” He was too old lead his own caravan, but he didn’t wish to spend his last years in a city. So he tended the fires of this merchant caravan and drove the wagon that carried the food. These last few weeks, he’d been more of a father to me than Father was.

What did I think? I thought of my friend Elise who laughed even more than I did. She was going to be married to the boy with the serious eyes, the one her father had picked, and I would not be there. I thought of Mama’s grave, and how I used to sit beside it and tell her how Father had fought with the Tailor’s Guild again, how I’d finished two vests for him, though I hated to sew. And I’d sing to her: silly songs or the lullabies she’d taught me. It was only right, for she’d sung me to sleep as a child.


It wasn't that bad. It set the stage. It introduced Saville. It introduced the city she tries to save from a giant army. I wasn't ashamed to have Patti read it.

Then we had the conversation about slant, and I wrote this:

The city lay against the far horizon, dark as a lump of coal in the morning light.

I wanted nothing more than to turn around, right there in the middle of the road, with frost-twisted fields stretching away in every direction. If I had my way, I would have left Father and the merchant caravan taking us to Reggen.

I would have walked the full month back to Danavir. Back to my friend Elise who laughed even more than I did. I’d be there when she married the boy with the serious eyes, the one her father had picked. I’d go back to Mama’s grave and sit beside it like I used to. I’d tell her that Father had found a city without a Tailor’s Guild and that he could sew any way he wished– and that I’d never sew for him again. And then I’d sing to her: silly songs or the lullabies she’d taught me.

It was only right, for she’d sung me to sleep as a child.

But I kept walking towards Reggen while the wagons, all seventeen of them, groaned and creaked as if they were men too old to be walking out in the morning frost.


I remember sitting back after writing that and thinking, wow. And I've been doing a lot of that this round of revision– the writing on a slant part, not the 'wow' part.

I'm still new to this, but I wanted to share a few things I've learned as I write on a slant.

1) Slant often involves telling. The second paragraph in my story is telling– specific, detailed telling. And that's okay, because sometimes telling gets to the heart of what you feel. When I announced the test on verifying trig identities last month, my class told me exactly how they felt about it. Then I told them how I felt about it, and... well you get the idea. There's lots of slant to be had in proper telling. Don't be afraid of it.

2) Sometimes it just needs to go. If a scene is flat AND you don't need it, cut it. Slant only the scenes that you need.

3) For me, slantiness comes towards the end of writing. There are some scenes that I write slanty the very first time. But there are other scenes– the beginnings of chapters where I'm clearing my throat and making sure everyone's standing where they're supposed to– that are as exciting as a math textbook. (Believe me, I know.) I let them stay that way until I know what to do with them. The important part is that I recognize they still need work.

4) To slant a scene, I read the non-slanty portion and figure out what emotion should be coloring it. Then I open a new document and play with it. Normally, I spit out a few horrifyingly awful paragraphs as I try to figure it out. Finally, I get a few sentences or a turn of phrase that sets the tone for everything else. As you can see above, I didn't completely overhaul the passage. I just needed to get it started right, and then tweak everything that came afterwards.

We've all written on a slant before, but I think one aspect of becoming a great writer is being able to deliberately use the writing tools and techniques you have. As much as I love the serendipitous, bolt-from-above aspect of writing, I also want to reach the place where many (not all!) of the high points in my writing are there because I put them there, not because I lucked out. This way of thinking about emotion in writing has given me a way to approach boring passages and fix them, even if I wasn't inspired when I wrote them.

I'd love to hear techniques you have that help you write like you mean it!

(And I should say that even though Patti reviewed this, any mistakes I've made here are certainly my own. She also used the term slant in a slight different, but equally fabulous, way a few years ago. You can click here to read more about it.)

*I have kept track of how many words I cut from each chapter because I'm mathy like that.

Monkey #1s: The One Thing You Wish You'd Known When You Were Just Starting Out

Amy:  I wish I’d worked harder at studying the craft when I first started (and not just spewed words onto a page.) You do learn by writing, but it’s a trial-and-error sort of learning.

Craig:  That YA should be in first person.

Ellen:  I wish rejection letters had not had such an impact on my early writing, and that I should persevere.

Hazel:  I wish I’d started earlier.

Julie:  Do it entirely for love of it, for the writing itself. That's the only thing (besides the friendships) that will keep you going.

Kristen:  There's no such thing as a day off when you're a writer.

Marilyn:  I wish I had known that writing would take lots of guts, determination, and manufactured confidence

Sarah:  (I heard it but I didn't believe it.) It's going to take a while. It's going to take time to be half as good as I'd like to be. It's going to take a while to become familiar with the industry. But more than that, it's okay if it takes that much time. Lots of good stuff happens along the way, if you have the courage and sense of adventure to stick it out.

Building a Fantasy World

by Sarah 

I'm mostly-kind-of-almost finished with VALIANT, a YA retelling of a The Brave Little Tailor. For the past year, I've been living in– and creating!– a fantasy world that I hope readers will want to enter. I want it to be so real, so vivid, that someone will feel homesick once the story's finished. 

I'm still learning this worldbuilding thing, but I did gather a few tools along the way. There are tons of websites with worksheets that help you expand your world's culture(s). (Google 'worldbuilding.') However, I found I needed the most help with naming and visualizing my world. So I'd to share what I used for: 

Character names

See Kristen's excellent post! (Or ask Craig. I wrote a few weeks before giving my MC a name– and it was finally Craig who suggested Saville.) 

Place Names

Wikipedia is your friend! It wasn't until I'd gotten through most of the story that I realized the river in VALIANT felt like the Krivija, a river I loved in Bosnia. But I also based the river on the Danube. So I looked up the Danube in Wikipedia. The article provided a ton of place names that I could adjust and use. I can't tell you how many times I've sifted through Wikipedia for place– or character– names. 

The process reminds me of looking through a thesaurus. You may not know what you're looking for, but you'll know it when you see it. 

Fantasy Language 

VALIANT needed a few words in the giants' language. I felt completely overwhelmed until I found Definitions. I'd type in a word like 'little' or 'traitor,' click 'Translations' on the right, and then see the word translated into about twenty different languages. (I LOVE this website!) Often, I'd find a word that sounded almost right. Then I'd play with sounds and syllables it was just what it should be. 

A word of caution: be sure to keep the sound or feel similar. You probably wouldn't want to claim that Hindi and German-sounding words come from the same language. 

Music

It isn't easy finding a playlist for a fantasy. But never fear! Use Pandora. For those of you who aren't familiar with the website, you can create a station by suggesting songs that you like and then rating songs that the website plays. It takes a little time, but it's worth it. And it has access to movie soundtracks, which was perfect. After a little tweaking I created a station of soundtracks and composers that matched the feel of VALIANT. (It's a combo of Lord of the Rings, Last of the Mohicans, Gladiator, Braveheart, etc...)

Rambling ahead:

May I add that while I don't daydream about Oprah mentioning my book, I DO fantasize about Peter Jackson making it into a film? Two reasons: 1) He'd film it in New Zealand, and I'd have to visit at least once to squeal over the sets, and 2) I want to hear what Howard Shore would do with the giants' songs. I don't know how they sound– just how they make the listeners feel. But I bet Shore could figure that out.... 

Annnnd... back to our regularly scheduled programing:

Faces
After a while, I needed faces for my main characters. I knew roughly what they looked like, but I wanted pictures. And I knew Lord Verras did NOT resemble any member of One Direction. I needed more than a Google Image search. So I went to London's National Gallery website and searched the paintings by century. It was like searching a crowd for a friend's face. 

I thought about sharing the portraits here, but I don't think they'd work. For me, the search was as much about the emotion in the portrait as the face itself. Still, I discovered such interesting things about my people! For instance, I knew one character was chubby but I didn't know he was swarthy until I saw his portrait. 

I know there are a million other resources out there. I'd love to hear from you: What have you used as you write fantasy? 

So What?

by Sarah

In my Creative Writing class, we’ve been asking ‘so what?’ a lot. You see, we started writing memoir. After a little brainstorming, I had the class jump in and write at least 400 words about a memory of their choice.For many students, it began to get frustrating right after that. They knew what they wanted to write about, but the more they wrote, the more unwieldy it became.

How could we wrangle a memory into something that a reader could navigate?

We ask, “So what?” (Bless you, Nancie Atwell!)*

            
This is different from Jen Rofe’s wonderful ‘So What’ factor. She’s asking why the reader should care. But I would suggest that first drafts are too early to ask that question. The caring begins with the writer. 

            
So I asked my students why they cared. Why that memory? That moment? What was so important about it? Why did they return to it? Or why did they never want to revisit it?

            
This question gave the class a way to handle the memory. For some, their ‘so what’ wasn’t obvious at first. But once it was clear, they knew how to structure the memoir. It also gave me something to work with. If I knew their ‘so what’ we could discuss ways to shape the memoir so that a reader could care as much as they did.

            
Knowing the ‘so what’ is important in memoir. It's just as vital in fiction. When I first start writing a rough draft, I try to pin as many moments to the page as possible. But later, I need to know why scenes burned inside me. What made that scene so powerful to me? Why do I care? What grabs me in that story? When I know that, I can shape the rest of the story with that in mind.

Knowing ‘so what’ is even more important when we revise. A while ago, I wasn’t getting good feedback from my local crit group about two chapters in the middle of Valiant. I wasn’t surprised by it– I knew something was off. So I asked myself ‘so what’? What did I need the chapters to do? What did I care about? Why did I write them? After a while, the only answer I had was: they’re what comes next.

            
Lamest reason EVER for a chapter’s existence.

            
Once I knew what was going on, though, I knew how to revise. I condensed the bulk of the writing into one paragraph. The part that had a reason other than ‘it comes next’ was revised to reflect all my initial interest in it.

            
I’m convinced that we have to know what matters to us before we can make the reader care. The reader cares because we did. It begins with us. Perhaps boring spots in our manuscript (or entire manuscripts that meander!) are due more to mental fuzziness on our part than not using the right words. We’ve lost our focus, and the reader can tell.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that if I care about what I've written, the reader must like it. Readers don't owe me anything. I am saying, however, that if I don't understand why I care about a story– a chapter, a scene– it will be difficult to structure it in a way that captivates any reader.

I love the duality of writing! There are times when we hold the story outside of us and make sure that we've created something a reader can walk into. (It reminds me of welcoming a guest into our home. There's a sense of hospitality to it.) Yet, we also seek to pull that story, that home, from the deepest places within us. For me, asking 'so what' is one way of getting to the center and soul of my story. 

What about you? How do you find the heart of your story?



*I have absolutely loved her curriculum, Lessons that Change Writers!

Charles Dickens and the Last Round of Revisions

by Sarah

It is a truth universally acknowledged that teachers cannot expect to teach anything the day before Christmas break.

So… this past December 21, I challenged the students in my math classes to pull out their smart phones and see if they could get points in a holiday scavenger hunt. Questions included: 

• Why do snowflakes never, ever have 4 or 8 sides? (Followed by a lesson in how to make proper, six-sided paper snowflakes.)
• What do Mary Shelley's masterpiece and How the Grinch Stole Christmas have in common? 
• What does the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" have to do with the second Star Trek* movie and/or the summer Olympics?

(December 15, 2016:
Dear students of mine who are Googling these questions, this is a blog post I wrote three years ago. It mentions the questions but NOT the answers. Keep searching. Good luck, Ms. McGuire :) )

Finally, I explained that I love Dickens' A Christmas Carol and that I read it almost every year. I challenged them to find the book online and read any two consecutive sentences to me. Then I'd tell them what was happening in that scene. 

Here's the crazy thing: about 80% of the time, I could. 

Granted, it helps that the book is novella length– and that I've read it for years and years. But what struck me was that Dickens made it so darn easy for me to orient myself in the story. His language is that distinct, even in the 'throwaway' portions of scenes (you know, where someone is moving across the room). 

Donald Maass, in his book Writing the Breakout Novel, suggested that we writers shuffle the pages of a manuscript. Then we're supposed to pick random pages and see if there's tension on each page. Excellent advice. 

However, I had an epiphany while I stood in my classroom, surrounded by students reading Dickens off their smart phones. I should also look at my pages and ask if the language is unique. Does it spark? Does the narration sing? Does it make each scene distinct from the others? (All without sounding pretentious, overblown, or as if I'm trying to be amazing.)

I've been thinking about A Christmas Carol as I continue to revise Valiant. I've got the overall story straight. Now it's time to go back and pay attention to the words. That means making sure my own voice is clear. It means never assuming that I can settle for flat language in a scene– or even a paragraph– because I'm getting to the good stuff.

And maybe, if I work really, really hard, I can give my readers a Dickens of a tale. 

*No, the YouTube video of Kirk and Spock singing the song does not count! 

Happy New Year! Turbo Monkey Resolutions

by Ellen

It’s that time of year again.  You know, that time when we reflect on the past year and make promises to ourselves for the New Year . . . a resolution!

People have been making resolutions since the time of Julius Caesar, way back in Ancient Rome. The Romans believed in a god called Janus. Janus had two faces, one looking backward into the past, and one looking forward into the future. The Romans would ask Janus for forgiveness if they had done wrong in the previous year, and then make resolutions for behaving better in the New Year. And if you didn’t know, our month January is named after the Roman god, Janus.

Resolutions come in all shapes and sizes. Some are based more on luck, like resolving to win the lottery. Others are more realistic, like resolving to save money for a special writer’s conference that you really want to attend. And then we have the most popular resolution: to lose weight. But we won’t go there, not on New Year’s Eve, with New Year’s Day Dinner still ahead.

What about writers and illustrators and their New Year’s resolutions? Most people visiting the Monkey tree house are writers, so perhaps you’ve given a resolution some thought. The Monkeys have, and I’d like to share them with you.

Amy:  I resolve to create a writing schedule and write regularly . . . instead of only when the mood strikes me.

Craig:  I resolve to make a million dollars this year by creating a Trans-media company that creates printed books with Augmented Reality, wildly enhanced e-books, whimsical apps and web based TV series.

Ellen:  I resolve to move on and write a new book.  T.S Eliot best put it, "For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."

Hazel: To finish more often.

Julie:  My resolution stems from Terri Farley's wise words about how people around us will only take our dreams/efforts as seriously as we ourselves do. I want to draw some more boundaries and shake up my schedule to mesh with my goals. I need to make the pie chart that represents "how I spend my life" be more in line with the pie chart you'd see for "what matters to me."

Kristen: I hope to finish a rough draft of my current WIP by March 20th.

Marilyn:  In 2013 I want to finish the projects that I began in 2012, take a class in an aspect of writing I've never explored before (e.g., screenwriting), and read more than I do now in the genres I write. This all means that I'll need to use my internet time more efficiently and cut down on my TV obsessions (i.e., Shark Tank, Real Housewives). Or maybe I'll record them instead ;) 

Sarah:  My resolution will be to write through more than I have. I've always been that person who revises and revises those first few chapters. Pounding out the rough draft of Valiant last summer drove home the value of getting the entire draft down before revising. (Of course, I spent a lot of time thinking about it before I wrote it.)

So there you have it, our New Year’s Resolutions over here at the tree house. We hope you drop by next year, but for now, all the Turbo Monkeys are wishing you and your loved ones a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year! 

Monkey Favs: Writing/Illustrating/Kidlit Related website

We monkeys are taking a lil' holiday, going swingabout for a week to hang with our tribes. We wish you healthy, happy and inspired Holidays and a truly wonderful New Year! If you have a little quiet time between your festive frolics, you might check out some of these great websites...

Amy:  Querytracker—not only helps you find which agents or editors might be interested in your ms, but also helps you keep track of who you've queried and their responses. And Harold Underdown's The Purple Crayon website. Tons of info on the kidlit publishing process and a "Who's Moved Where" of the publishing industry.

Craig:  DrydenBooksFacebook page—Emma posts great daily links to kidlit articles, news and websites

Ellen:  YA Muses, Laurie Halse Anderson’s blog

Hazel:  Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast and Turbo Monkey Tales (Yay for Monkeys!)

Julie:  Writer Unboxed, YA Muses, YA Highway

Kristen:  Verla Kay’s Message Board --nearly every question you've ever asked yourself about kid lit is answered here, somewhere, on this message board. Take a few hours to poke around and you'll probably make some new friends.

Marilyn:  Amazon – because I see all my favorite authors there and I can have their books in my hand or on my Kindle in seconds or a few days. I also enjoy simply shopping for the latest tools and resources for writers without having to leave the house. (I also love going to bricks-and-mortar bookstores and browsing and buying from them.)

Sarah:  Janet Reid, Literary Agent and Queryshark

Monkey Favs: Favorite Book on the Craft of Writing/Illustrating/Kidlit

We monkeys are taking a lil' holiday, going swingabout for a week to hang with our tribes. Wishing you healthy, happy and inspired Holidays and a truly wonderful New Year! If your Santa is sweet, maybe you'll find one of these great books in your stocking!

Amy:  Alexandra Sokoloff’s Screenwriting Tricks for Authors

Craig:  Save The Cat by Blake Snyder

Ellen:  The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction, James Alexander Thom

Hazel:  Stephen King – On Writing

Julie:  Bird by Bird, Annie Lamott

Kristen:  Goal, Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon

Marilyn:  Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (Maass) and Plot & Structure (Bell)

Sarah:  I find I fall back more and more on what I learn in workshops than what I read in books…the Nevada SCBWI Mentorship and Patti Gauch’s amazing Heart of the Fantasy Novel workshop through Highlights were both wonderful.

Time to Say Goodbye ... (to an old manuscript)

by Sarah

This year, I said goodbye to a manuscript. 

I worked on The Looking Glass for years. That manuscript taught me how to write. When I wrapped my mind around a new aspect of writing, I applied to it to the whole novel. I rewrote it many times, and every rewrite tackled a specific issue:  made my main character more active, fixed a sagging middle, or built a believable world. 

The Looking Glass was the manuscript I rewrote (again)  while I was in the Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program. I met my Monkeys because of it! My mentor, Harold Underdown, taught me so much as I worked on it.

All the rewrites changed it for the better.

Until they didn't.

By the end of last August, I had a feeling that things still weren’t right. Consultations with agents at two SCBWI conferences confirmed my fears. The worst part was that I didn’t know how to fix my story. The portions I did try to revise didn't show any real improvement. 

Amy wrote a great post about when it’s time to stop revising and send a manuscript out. My manuscript met all those criteria. Except it wasn't time to send it out. It was time to put it away. 

While I dithered about whether to set The Looking Glass aside, I remembered a conversation I had with one of my sisters, a classically trained singer.

During the last year of her degree for vocal performance, she gave a senior recital, singing several difficult arias. After she graduated, she continued to improve, but she told me later that all her growth disappeared when she revisited some of those first arias. Her breathing would change. She’d loose her range. She’d carry more tension in her voice.

She couldn't return to those songs without reverting to the skill she had when she first sang them.

I was doing the same thing with my writing. 

Continuing to work on The Looking Glass limited me to the skill I had when I first began crafting it. I’d built weaknesses into the characters and the plot. All my newbie decisions were so intrinsic to the story that I couldn’t see them, let alone undo them.

I needed a new start. A partial scholarship* to a Highlights Foundation workshop gave me the impetus I needed to dive into a new manuscript. The three-month deadline for a rough draft kept me from looking back.

I was surprised at how much easier the first draft of Valiant was to write.  I knew what needed to be done. I knew the questions I needed to ask about the plot and characters. I knew the mistakes I tended to make and worked to avoid them.

Don’t get me wrong: what I had at the end of three months was rough– really rough. But the bones were good. I used every bit of craft I'd learned over the years ... instead of working around all the mistakes I'd made over the years.

Isaac Newton, speaking of his accomplishments, said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." 

Granted, the giants he referred to were the intellectual greats that came before him. But the metaphor holds: I am convinced that a new manuscript stand on the shoulders of all the other stories we've spun. Those old stories give the new one height and depth and wisdom. 

So... if it's time, wave goodbye to your old manuscript. Give yourself permission to write the story all your earlier stories prepared you for. 

And in the meantime, have a Merry Christmas! I pray it brings you warmth and friendship and joy. 



*If you've been considering a Highlights workshop, but can't afford it,  apply for a scholarship! Now is the time of year to do so.

***Next week, the Turbo Monkeys will be on holiday with their tribes, but we've prepared some newsy little posts for you, so be sure to stop by, between the presents and the turkey. Love to you all!

Acknowledge!

Have you ever read the acknowledgements page in a book and mentally composed one of your own? For your book that someday might be published?* 

I have. And while I hate, hate, hate to jinx any future publication, I think an acknowledgments post might be a good idea, especially the day after Thanksgiving. Writing doesn't happen in a vacuum. We are surrounded by folks who keep us going. So:

Thanks to the amazing family and friends who have never, not once, mentioned a real job.

Thanks to the mothers who wonder why we aren’t already published.

Thanks to the crit group members who have an idea of why we aren’t published- and help us improve. Thank you, Turbo Monkeys (and Slushbusters!) for reading my best attempts at chapters and giving me feedback that's made me a better writer. Bless you for believing that I could be a better writer. 

Thanks to all the editors and agents who blog about this amazing industry and make it a little less mysterious. Thanks especially for this post. If I ever meet Janet Reid, I owe her a drink. Several. I don’t know how many times I’ve reread this, but I tear up every. single. time.

Thanks to SCBWI for the conferences, for the information, for the community. Thanks to the agents and editors at those conferences who encourage pale and trembling attendees.  

Thanks to the Nevada SCBWI Mentorship Program. To Ellen and Suzy who organized it, the marvelous faculty who staffed it, and Harold who mentored me. You all made the program so special- and introduced me to my fellow Monkeys!

Thanks to Highlights for the way they support and nurture those who love kidlit. Thanks for the scholarships that allow so many to attend their programs. Thanks to Patti for the times she was fierce with me.

Thanks to the writing community in Facebook and on the web– all the wonderful people who encourage us on a daily basis. 

Thank you for following Turbo Monkey Tales! We're so fortunate that you choose to swing through the kidlit jungle with us.  

Now it's your turn: who would you like to acknowledge? And for you published folks out there, who have you already acknowledged? 

*You know, your wildly successful debut novel whose pre-order sales have already outstripped Harry Potter, Twilight, and 50 Shades combined? That book.

picture provided by Wikipedia Commons