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Many ideas for posts have been percolating recently, but while I get those together, why don’t you check out what I’ve been doing in other places around the intertubes?
First off, I’m participating this week in Write On Con, a FREE online conference that began today and ends Thursday. Today, the first vlog I ever did went up, featuring me, editor Molly O’Neill, and agent Holly Root. We busted some publishing myths. And looked longingly at cookies in front of us on the table. I was also a panelist in a live chat with agents Elana Roth and Kathleen Ortiz and publicist Paul Samuelson.
I also have been doing a lot of urban exploring this summer, largely because I have a Key to the City. And I blogged about that over on the Greenwillow blog last week, so you can read more about it and see lots of pictures there!
And I’ve been editing some things. Things that knock my socks off. Like maybe this and this. And some others that aren’t yet linkable, but just you wait and see!
I’m embarrassed how neglectful I’ve been to this blog, lately. But I have good excuses, I swear!
I was acquiring a new sister:
High-five for wedding success!
And then one of my best friends got married, too:
All the Dickinson alumni at Deb's wedding!
Other exciting things were happening, too, though. Like Leah Cypess’s debut novel, Mistwood, was published.
And so was Jody Feldman’s second novel, The Seventh Level.
And I was busy at work on some fantastic novels that you’ll be able to read in 2011. (Or maybe later this fall, if you’re lucky enough to get an ARC.) I’ll be telling you more about those at a later date.
Happy summer!
My Heart Is like a Zoo by Michael Hall.
Or, for something a little more on the silly side, check out:
Of course I’ve been thinking about new year’s resolutions. It’s that time, after all, however cliche it might be. I like beginnings, and I like choice. We have this whole new thing that we get to choose how to begin, how to fill . . . well, not to be too Hallmark card-y, but how to live.
A lot of the resolutions that have been bouncing around in my head are personal and uninteresting to anyone who isn’t me. And some are resolutions that I realize I make every year. Not necessarily because I fail to keep them in the previous year, but because I like to remind myself to keep going with them. Nothing’s ever really finished. One of those is not to shy away from making eye contact with people I walk by. (Unless they’re obviously crazy people, clearly.) The other is to continue to work on balancing my friends, my work, my family, and my alone time in a way that makes me feel that I’m doing my best by everyone.
But this year I’m also resolving to make time for some of the books that I own and really, really, really want to read, but haven’t yet. So here’s the list. I wonder how I’ll do!
-The Children’s Book by A. S. Byatt
-Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
-Marcelo and the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
-Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier (I promise, Angie, this is the year!)
-Bonk by Mary Roach
-Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (if I wait much longer, I think the shelf life of this one might expire)
-The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
-Jacob Have I Love by Katherine Paterson
-Ulysses by James Joyce (I read this one nearly 10 years ago in college, and am curious to see how a second time might go.)
I’m about to be a little cheesy.
There’s a book that I read every year, either at first snowfall or over Christmas. And since we had that little blizzard on Saturday, it’s time for . . . Winter Dreams, Christmas Love by Mary Francis Shura. It has a heart with “romance” in it on the spine. Cheesy, right? But I just kind of love it, because actually, the story is not as sappy as you’d imagine.
This book was, I think, one of my last Scholastic book club purchases in the seventh grade. (Yes, I continued to order books long after it was cool. I don’t understand how people could resist the siren call of those paper fliers!) Come on, what 12-year-old girl is going to pass this cover up? Right?
And it’s exactly the right story for a shy 12-year-old, too. Ellen is a normal 14-year-old girl just starting high school, and she falls hard for Michael, the guy–a junior–that every girl falls for. We follow her for three years as she deals with high school and her unrequited crush. Of course, at the end, Ellen finds out that Michael had fallen just as hard for her, and they get together. It warms your mushy heart, doesn’t it? Discovering the boy you’ve been crushing on does, in fact, like you back just as much is what everyone wants in high school (or, let’s face it, far beyond high school).
But Ellen’s crush isn’t easy on her. It actually sucks pretty bad. When I was in seventh grade, the YA section of our Waldenbooks was filled with mostly Christopher Pike and R. L. Stine or really, really cheesy romances. So despite the cheeserific title, Winter Dreams, Christmas Love seemed refreshingly real. After realizing she loves Michael, Ellen thinks, “She’d seen a lot of movies, read a lot of romances. She had thought love was supposed to be stars in your eyes and joy that made you feel like dancing. She didn’t feel like dancing. Her chest ached and she felt cold. She clasped her arms across her chest and held her breath to keep from crying. If love hurt this much, she didn’t want any part of it.” Love is the exact opposite of rainbows and unicorns for Ellen, and it’s the first book I read back then that showed it that way.
There are flaws in the book, to be sure. The characters often sound oddly old-fashioned for something written in the ’90s. The chronology of the scenes doesn’t always totally fit. But neither of those stuck out to me the first few times I read it back in the day; it’s something that I’ve only noticed because of my repeated yearly reading. When I was 12, I was caught up in Ellen’s struggle. She also has wonderful friends–which has always been a draw for me in a story–and a warm family. And her crush on Michael develops into a lovely friendship, too, despite the way the unrequited love hurts her. “They were friends who loved each other,” it says at the end, “and they had all the time in the world to see what came of that.”
Yeah, it still gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
You can see some of the inside and buy it right over here. And you probably should, since it is witty and wise.
So. I’ve had Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” playing continuously in my head since last Thursday.* (Thanks, Vampire Diaries.) In pondering why it’s so catchy, I realized that the refrain has something in common with another song that often gets stuck in my head, “Ultimatum” by The Long Winters.
Now, I know that the main reason these songs are earworms** has to do with the music. But both also involve the idea of reaching and holding.
Ultimatum:
My arms miss you
My hands miss you.
Enjoy the Silence:
All I ever wanted,
all I ever needed,
Is here, in my arms.
Maybe this also has something to do with why they stick in my head. The concept of reaching out and holding and connecting. It’s such an important part of life. And is it perhaps also why book jackets with images of hands are so compelling and appealing?
Or is that a crazy theory?
——
* There may also have been some secret apartment singing and dancing involved.
**I hate the word earworms. I can’t believe I used it.
