LOVIN' MY MISSOURI SKY

GLAM. OR. OUS.

Ah, the glamorous life of a writer.  When not at my desk, it's all bonbons and massages. 

Actually, it's more like coveralls and bags of diatomaceous earth.  Nothing like a camo hat with lights and glasses with gobs of glue on the sides to complete the look...

Me just moments before heading into the crawl space beneath the ol' Schindler abode.

CALLING ALL GARDENERS

A question, gentle readers:

WHAT THE FREAK DOES A GIRL HAVE TO DO TO GROW SOME HERBS??? 

 

I MEAN SOME DECENT HERBS THAT SHE CAN ACTUALLY PICK AND PUT IN A DISH???

I'VE BEEN TRYING FOR YEARS...YEARS!  AND I HAVE YET TO GET A SINGLE STUPID HERB INTO ANY DISH.  EVER!  

DO I NEED A DEGREE???  DO I HAVE TO HAVE MY BLACK THUMBS SURGICALLY REMOVED???

SERIOUSLY.  WHAT IS THE DEAL???

JUST SINGIN'

The last time I embedded a video, it was visual (I wanted to show our unusual May snow).  This time, I had to share the sounds of the Ozarks...

I've noticed lately that the birds here have been singing like crazy!  (Even this short clip doesn't quite do their music justice.)  Maybe they're all just glad it's finally started to look like spring...


...Having problems viewing the clip?  You can watch it on YouTube.

ABOUT TO BURST

I'm in the midst of proofreading my debut MG, THE JUNCTION OF SUNSHINE AND LUCKY.  Seeing my book so close to its final form just makes me want to burst open!

I can't wait to get this book in your hands!

MAY SNOW - ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS

May 3rd was a beautiful spring day here in the Ozarks...the birds were singing, the grass was green, the flowers were in bloom...and the snow was falling!


PS: Blogger's been acting buggy lately with embedded vids.  If you have problems viewing, you can check out the vid of our spring snow on my YouTube page.

I FINISHED MY REWRITES!!!

I spent the last three weeks of April hitting global rewrites for my next YA...and when I clicked "send" yesterday, I hooted and hollered for joy.  (That's what we do here in the Ozarks, hoot 'n holler...)

Nothing quite like the euphoria of meeting a deadline...

While I was whipping this revision into shape, I got a new doormat for my mom (because humor trumps all in the Schindler household):



Front porch and toenails to be painted this week...



Yeah.  We think it's hilarious.  In the past few weeks, though, NO ONE HAS RUNG OUR DOORBELL.  Nobody.  Neighbors won't.  The mailman won't.  A little boy stopping by with his school fundraiser actually shouted "DING DONG!" when he stepped up to our door.  I'm not kidding.

It just shows, I think, the power of the written word.  Shows how seriously we all take the written word—whether it's in a book, a Tweet, a status update...or on a doormat.

TWO WEEKS, NO HEAR

Holy Toledo, I can't believe it's been two weeks since my last post!  All I can say right now is that I've been working hard, my manicures chipping off in giant chunks as I plunk away at my keyboard.  I'm on another deadline now...wish me luck!

I spent a good portion of the afternoon yesterday writing under this tree in the ol' backyard...

THE CRUELEST THING - CHARACTER BUILDING

In honor of April being our "cruelest month," I'll admit, I've been pretty cruel to my characters in the past.  I gave Aura, the MC of my debut YA, a schizophrenic mother (who is, as the book opens, in the midst of a downward spiral into the darkness of her illness), and I gave Chelsea, the MC of my second YA, a horrific injury that put a screeching halt to her basketball career. 

...But in putting together a post for a blogger (Me, My Shelf, and I) who's running a 25-Things-You-Don't-Know-About-Me series, I was suddenly struck by the idea that maybe, we build our characters through unique quirks and traits as much as we build them through the events of a book. 

Here's my own list of 25-Things-Few-Know-About-Me:

1.      My first concert was Kiss.  I’m firmly convinced this is the reason behind my deep wish that all author events could have more pyro.

2.      I have a dog named Jake who likes to talk on the phone.  (I’m pretty sure he gets more calls than I do.)

3.      I have never pierced my ears—and thanks to the kind words of a boy I knew in high school, I never will.

4.      In the hopes that I could guilt my mom into buying me contacts, I once bought the UGLIEST pair of glasses I could find (this was in the ‘80s, mind you, at the height of ugly glasses).  Didn’t work—as my horrific seventh grade picture reveals…and will continue to reveal, for all eternity.

5.      I change my hairdos like I change my socks.

6.      I drafted my earliest manuscripts on a pre-Internet dinosaur of a computer from the Paleolithic Era.

7.      Funky vintage costume jewelry?  Yes, please.

8.      Given the choice between writing and eating cheesecake, I’ll pick writing.  (Anyone who understands my fanatical love of cheesecake understands the seriousness of this declaration.)

9.      I truly wish Sally Hansen would make a manicure-friendly keyboard.

10.  I swear you’ll never see skies prettier than the ones I see through my window every day in the Ozarks.

11.  I “work” on manuscripts while taking walks.

12.  I once got lost in a wooded area while filming a book trailer.

13.  My mom is my first reader, sounding board, and official book titler.

14.  I’ve been drinking coffee since my pre-preschool days.  Not a typo.

15.  I type really fast.  Think “Flight of the Bumblebee” on a keyboard.

16.  I once worked as a model.  Favorite gig?  Modeling fresh flowers.

17.  I have double-joined elbows.

18.  My debut YA novel, A BLUE SO DARK, features poetry I wrote as a teen, tweaked to fit the events of the book.

19.  My handwriting is so bad, my family often calls from the store to ask me to translate my entries on the grocery list.

20.  I blame the choice of many former boyfriends on my 20/700 vision.

21.  I dig people who treat their pets like royalty.

22.  My favorite place to write is on my back deck, barefoot, with my dog and a glass of sweet tea.

23.  I love the smell of hyacinths.

24.  I adored the hair bands as a teen—and still have the motorcycle jacket to prove it.

25.  I believe laughing is the most important activity of every day.

 

I think this list starts to paint a pretty vivid picture...

What do you think?  What's most important: revealing our characters through the events of the book or through their idiosyncrasies?  Or do they share equal importance?

OH, SPRING, WHERE ART THOU?

Every spring, I cut our backyard hyacinths and put them somewhere close to my current work space, mostly because I love the smell of hyacinths.  It's my all-time favorite scent:

This year, I also saved our hyacinths from this:

...the snow currently falling at a blizzard-like rate.

Spring???

FOR CATHERINE RYAN HYDE FANS

Catherine Ryan Hyde's got a new one!  ALWAYS CHLOE is her first sequel (it promises a continuation of her novel BECOMING CHLOE), and it'll be free from the 22nd through the 24th.  More info on the collection is available on her website.

A new Catherine Ryan Hyde book?  For free?  Oooooh, yeah...

ON BEGINNINGS (A NOTE TO MY TEENAGE SELF)

If I could say one thing about beginnings to my teenage self, it’d be this: they’re easy.

Oh, yeah, sure, they’re scary, too.  But there’s a hazy spot where “scary” and “exciting” blur until you can’t really tell so much where one ends and the other starts.  And I know that it feels, when you’re a teen, as though you’re constantly dealing with new beginnings: new schools, new relationships, never-before-seen hardships…But trust me.  Beginnings are easy.

It’s the middles that’re rough. 

If you don’t want to take my word for it, ask a college junior who is bone-tired and broke (probably up to their eyebrows in debt, too), and who has worked themselves to the nubs only to find out that their inevitable change of major has put them a semester (or a year) behind schedule. 

Or, ask the couple who have already been married twenty years, have learned virtually everything about their partners, and are only fifty years old (yeah, teen-me, I just said “only fifty”). 

Ask a novelist who has hit the convoluted middle of her first draft.

Middles are rough.  Compared to the beginnings that came before, they’re dull.  We aren’t talking about the thrill of moving to a new place.  We aren’t talking about the whirlwind of falling in love.  We’re talking about facing days that look pretty much like the days that came before.  The ah-ha! moment is in the rear-view. 

But the thing is, you don’t get a glorious ending if you don’t ever slog through the middle.  You will never get to the sale of a book if you don’t push through that time period, years after the, “I’m going to be a writer!” announcement, when rejections are filling up your inbox. 

The middles—the times that require you to dig deep and get to work—are what make you who you are. 

And, in those middle sections, you will also be greeted with quiet moments of beauty and sweetness, too.  You just have to learn where to look.

I, for one, even take great pleasure in catching sight of my sweet boy sleeping by the door…

 

Like I said, you’ve just got to know where to look…

 

 

 

SEE A HEART

My editor at Dial shared this book with me at Christmas: SEE A HEART SHARE A HEART by Eric Telchin. 

It's truly a lovely collection of photographs.  I've found myself pulling it off the shelf repeatedly during the past few days, as the Ozarks has dealt with a horrible blast of wintry weather: sleet, snow, freezing rain. 

In the midst of ugly, harsh surroundings, it's provided a much-needed ray of warmth. 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!