Snapshot from my house in which we discuss what book my kid should read next, I receive a short lesson on plot, and the child proves that perhaps it is possible to read too much...

Kid: Emmy & the Shrinking Rat. What’s that about?

Me: It’s about a girl named Emmy and a shrinking rat.

Kid: Very funny, dad. But really. What’s it about?

Me: Didn’t I just tell you?

Kid: But what’s the problem they have to solve? Do they go on adventures? Is there a bad guy?

Me: I’m not sure, but I don’t think the rat actually shrinks. I think the girl shrinks so that she can see what it’s like to be a rat.

Kid: Do they know how to make her big again?

Me: Not at first.

Kid: Well there’s your plot then.

Got in a rare full day of writing today! Kept a log to keep on track. Enjoy:

5:10 Up and at ‘em. Shower. Dress. Make coffee. Breakfast. Write write write.

6:30 Dress the dogs. Let the kids out. Make son’s lunch. (Note: pasta smells bad before dawn, but chili does not. Weird.) Greet teenage boy with a little made up song about chemistry. It’s hard to rhyme this early. Dentistry?

7:00 Check backpack contents: laptop, powercord, notebooks, pens, apples, leftover Halloween candy. Stick post-it notes on manuscript pages that need attention. Check work email. Wish I hadn’t done that. Drink more coffee. Put more candy in backpack. Read a few pages of Sabriel.

7:30 Bring son to school. We listen to a chapter from Harry Potter book 7 (AKA DEAD WIZARD WALKING) on the way. Leave him with some more chemistry rhymes (elementary. Christmas tree. Gadgetry. Them is me… coffee definitely kicking in) Boy asks if I put any candy in his lunch. I tell him that candy’s not good for him. I drink more coffee, eat chocolate and run several errands on way to library.

8:00 Arrive at library. Have to pick library carefully because I am notoriously chatty, and I know librarians in every library within 30 miles. My nature can easily turn writing time into visit-with-friends time which is equally worthwhile – maybe more so – but it’s not today’s goal. I select the library of a local college where I used to work. Parking can be a challenge but doors open at 8. Also, college library more conducive to work/study than the public library. Plus, food and drink are permitted in the building. They actually make and sell coffee in here! And if I want more than candy and apples, I can cross the quad to the cafeteria without having to move car.

8-830 Visit with friends in the library. Did I mention that I’m chatty?

8:30-9:00 Get coffee (pumpkin flavor! yum!) Stake claim to large second floor table with awesome window view and handy outlet. Set up computer, scope out restroom location, quickly browse the nearby stacks. Fill table with browsing material for when my writing brain gets stuck. Never know what inspiration can move me forward. I pick a couple beautiful books featuring the work of artist Joan Miro and also a bunch of academic tomes about women’s roll in popular music. One is called GIRLS!GIRLS!GIRLS! I keep that one under the art books so nobody gets the wrong idea.

9:00 write write write write write…

10:40 I write something that I think is not bad. (yes, this is notable)

11:00 the universal question arises: what do you do with your laptop when you’re alone in a public place and you have to pee?

…write write write write write…

11:25 I write something that makes me laugh out loud.

1:45 a corollary to the universal question: why do I drink so much coffee when I know I’m going to be in the library with my laptop?

… write write write write…

1:55 take a break to wander through Joan Miro a bit. It’s wonderful, but it’s not what I’m in the mood for today. Resist urge to find Chagall books. Check out the women and pop music essays. First random sentence I read in Girls!Girls!Girls!: “you do not notice absence until it affects you.” That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

… write write write

2:40 apparently, the library study room located a few feet behind me is the afternoon location for cheerleading practice or primal scream therapy. I plug in headphones and listen to Neko Case.

2:45 what am I thinking? I can’t write with Neko Case in my head. I keep thinking of questions I’d like to ask her.

2:50 I’m stuck. I review editor’s notes and divide them into two lists. List 1 contains things like: HA!/VERY FUNNY!/NICE!/LOVE THIS! List 2 contains things like: WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO HERE?/IS THIS NECESSARY?/YOU’RE GOING TO HATE ME FOR SAYING THIS BUT... I am pleased to see that list 1 is longer than list 2.

2:55 Okay. Who swapped my brain with Joey Pigza’s? I seem to have lost focus. Get up. Walk around. Wait a minute. I have apples and Halloween candy in my bag! Fuel in the tank!

Write write write

3:30 Stuck again. Okay. I can’t resist. I go and find the Chagall.

3:50 Still stuck. Time to outline. I only outline when I’m stuck. I think this counts as writing, but it’s not nearly as much fun as writing writing. It’s the difference between planning and doing.

4:00 Write write write write

4;15 l laugh out loud again. I love it when that happens.

4:25 Writer hat comes off in five minutes. I write the first few sentences that will open section I’ll be working on tomorrow.

4:30 Pack up. Drive home. Dead wizard walking.

Best description of elephants ever...

"They're just this group of normally abnormal creatures going through the ups and downs of life with big hearts, mood swings, and huge, swingy-assed togetherness."

From Deb Caletti's "The Nature of Jade"

Sometime in 1977 or 1978, Donna Smith, the prettiest girl I’d ever seen up to that point in my short life, approached me in the hallway at St. Paul Catholic High School. Donna was tall and athletic with a sweet, round face like a ragdoll cat’s. Her hair was long and brown, and she looked a lot like Susan Day in the Partridge Family. Unlike Susan Day, Donna also had really cute ears. I’d never noticed anybody’s ears before.

Donna asked me if I could help her with something. She could have asked me to leap in front of a snow plow, and I would have said yes. In fact, I think I said yes before she even made her request. And that’s how I ended up becoming a volunteer for the Special Olympics.

Looking back, it’s possible – even likely – that I was hoping and wishing that Donna Smith might be the girl who changed my life. Did I mention that she looked like Susan Day? And the ears? In my own defense, I had not yet learned about the be-careful-what-you-wish-for rule. In any case, my wish came true, but not in the way I thought it would. Donna Smith recruited me to volunteer for the Special Olympics, and then the Special Olympics changed my life.

I’m thinking about this today because of Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s passing. Mrs. Shriver founded the Special Olympics in 1968. Her obituaries are taking great pains to talk about the millions of Special Olympic athletes whose lives have been touched because of the games, but the story is not complete without mentioning the millions of “able” people touched by the Special Olympics over the years. For me, it was my first volunteer experience. It was the first time I discovered that helping a stranger is not a difficult thing to do. It was the first time I really understood that just showing up means a lot. At the Special Olympics, I learned quickly and clearly that who I was did not matter. It only mattered what action I took in the moment. I learned that when you put other people’s needs first, you almost always get more than you give. These are still lessons that still ring true for me today.

As a result of my experience at Special Olympics, I ended up building a career (maybe two or three careers) helping people (at least on my good days). In elementary schools, nonprofit organizations, colleges and volunteer organizations, I discovered that you can actually earn a living by doing good. Of course no job I’ve ever been paid to do has been as rewarding as the volunteer job I got at my first Special Olympics. I was an official “hugger.” My job was to stand at the finish line and give each athlete a hug as they crossed the finish line. I can’t say I’ve had many more important jobs than that. So thank you Eunice Kennedy Shriver. And thank you Donna Smith wherever you are. I hope good things are in store for you both.


“My mom never ran for office, and she changed the world. Period. End of story.” – Robert Shriver.

I try not to worry about things I cannot control. For the most part, I'm almost too good at it. But there has been something that's been worrying me for many months now. It's the movie version of Where The Wild Things Are. Why do we need that? Why would we want it? Now I understand why. And I am totally counting the days till it gets here!

I wasn't sure how I was going to start my observation of this year's DLAW -- DAVID LUBAR APPRECIATION WEEK -- until I read David's thoughtful "Surivivor, Cancer Island" note this morning.

Cancer has been a member of my family for many years. We know it well. We don't like it. But the fact that so many of us are able to stand around grinning like fools these days is evidence that regular check-ups, quality healthcare and medical research really works. I'm very glad that cancer is no longer a part of David's life. And not just because I want more weenies books and can't wait to read more about the boys from Edgeview Alternative School.

So, with no further ado, it gives me great pleasure to kick-off my personal celebration of DLAW 2009 by dedicating my recently completed colonscopy to David. Three cheers for being cancer free! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

In case you're interested, my results were clean. Very clean. Let the celebration continue!

Check out this wonderful, well-deserved Washington Post book review of "In Hovering Flight," a quietly powerful and beautiful novel by my friend, former teacher and current writing group partner, Joyce Hinnefeld. And then go buy her book!

Update:  I see that one of my very favorite book reviewers, Colleen Mondor, loved it too!

So it looks like somebody went ahead and made the fantasy biography film of me and my old high school friends.  Here's the synopsis of FANBOYS:

I am going to find my Mom's old Buick Electra, gather up the guys from the 1980 St. Paul Catholic High School A.V. club , and we are totally going to sneak into this movie!

“Sometimes a manuscript is like bread dough. You have to abuse it.”
-- Carolyn Chute, whose fourth novel, “The School on Heart’s Content Road,” comes out on Friday, November 7.

Click here to read the whole article (New York Times)

Samuel Johnson once said that nothing focuses the mind like a deadline. Or maybe it was a hanging. In any case, I was facing a bit of a deadline recently and found myself totally and utterly unfocused. I considered just forcing myself through the work, but writing is what I do for pleasure. So I did some other stuff first.

I taught my son how to repair a screen...


I gave some deep thought to the phrases "dog's life" and "dog days of summer..."


I built a "kid wash" out of pvc and then installed it within the confines of our backyard inflatable pool so that kids from far and wide could come over to get cleaned up...


I added a picture to my facebook profile (I'm still a little frightened by facebook)...


I discovered whether or not it's possible for me to write kid's stories while surrounded by kids who are taste-testing jelly beans (it's not)...


I took a picture of a crayfish...


I got some more pvc so my son and I could build a storage unit for our guitar hero guitars (email me if you want instructions)...


I joined my son in perpetrating a science experiment...


I watched my son stalk a blue heron. (that kid becomes really busy when I have a deadline!)...


When I finally finished with all that stuff, THE DEADLINE WAS EVEN CLOSER! And suddenly, my mind got REALLY focused. So I went forth, applied my backside to a chair, and finally finished the story. And I like it a lot!

It has a science experiment (see above), a boy named Milo, a couple characters named after Mexican professional wrestlers, and will appear in national publication this fall.

More on all that soon!

I spent almost an hour not writing this morning while I poured over these 100 useful tips for writers. Hmmm...

I just received a cardboard box filled with paperback Defining Dulcie's! The Puffin paperback just came out this week. There's a note in the back of the new edition listing my website so I figure I better get blogging a bit more in case anybody comes by to visit.

Regarding the journal, it's not that I haven't meant to write. In fact, the reason that I haven't been LiveJournaling more is because lately, my days are chock full of writing. I work on novels and stories during lunch hours, before the sun is up, and often after it goes down. During my day job, I'm mostly a talker, but I prepare by writing things down. My day job also requires me to be a letter writer, a proposal writer, a prolific email writer, a magazine article writer, and lot's more. It's fair to say that writing = thinking = working for me during the day.

Once I shift gears to fiction, however, writing has almost nothing to do with thinking. It's all make believe and usually fun, a big adventure to see where I might go today. It's hard to do it "wrong." It's even harder to do it well. But then a box of books arrives with my name on them. It's a nice reminder that the hours of practice can add up to something notable. And getting published is very cool (as are royalty checks!). Published or not published, the rewards of of sitting down to do the work remain about the same, however. There's discovery, surprise, the chance to work very hard at something when nobody is looking, and it's all there for the cost of cheap pen and an old notebook. I do like the royalty checks though!

If books could hold videos, then this one should be in Baseball Crazy.



Speaking of Baseball Crazy (Nancy Mercado, SuperEditor/Dial 2008), Publisher's Weekly gave it a starred review and Kirkus calls it "a winner through and through."

Full reviews below. Enjoy! Then go outside and play catch with somebody.

Thanks to Warren Truitt for  featuring Justin Roberts at Children's Music that Rocks!

Publishers Weekly

There's no shortage of great writing in this collection of 10 stories. Baseball unifies the entries, but there the similarities end. From Jerry Spinelli's offbeat story about a "wiseacre wet-the-bed stinky-footed " orphan experiencing his first-ever major league game to Frank Portman's amusing two-and-a-half second journey inside the mind of ill-fated fielder Mark Pang, these entries present an impressive array of voices and styles, not to mention memorable young characters. John H. Ritter introduces Frankie Alvarez, a larger-than-life pitcher who saves his team's championship victory, a sharp contrast to Paul Acampora's Jeffrey, who earns his mother's disgust when he fails to strike out a crucial batter; meanwhile, Sue Corbett's Kirby, neither the worst nor the best, learns from the only girl on the team: "Don't think. Just react." Whether "baseball born and baseball raised" or tepid fans of America's pastime, readers will be drawn in by the masterful storytelling. Ages 8-up. (Mar.)

Kirkus Reviews

All the bases are truly covered in this uncommon collection of stories that are a cut above the usual baseball fare. The authors vary considerably in their approaches and choices, and that's what makes the collection interesting. The young players and spectators who are the narrators are also dealing with family problems, growing pains, relationships and self esteem. Some stories are set in the present, some in the past. Characters are children, adults, Asian, Native American, male and female. Two of the stories involve female players who will have to give up the game they love because there are no teams for them as they reach their teens. Koertge presents a play in two acts with the team statistician as hero. Testa tells her story via a series of poems. The format of the collection is unique as well. The title page is a diagram of a baseball field with each of the authors assigned a position. The table of contents looks like a scorecard lineup. Preceding each story a baseball card gives the author's "stats," including number of books published, career highlights, favorite team and more, all in the author's own voice. A winner through and through. (Short stories. 8-14)