Field trip today!! Yippeee!!

Today is the day for our huge Humanities field trip: to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and to Macbeth at the Guthrie! (And the Ol' Spaghetti Factory in between). We're all excited.

Yesterday in class we took parts and read the first several pages of Macbeth aloud in prepration. We had a blast, and everybody who came and read feels ready to watch. Fun!

Friends and books and awards

My friend Kirstin Cronn-Mills' YA novel is up for a Minnesota Book award. Here's a review from their website:

http://thefriends.posterous.com/tag/theskyalwayshearsme


My friend Kate Buckley's novel CHOICES is up for Book of the year award:

http://www.bookoftheyearawards.com/books/9781935359128/


And Nicole Helget's Turtle Catcher is up for a Minnesota Book Award, too!

http://www.thefriends.org/award_winners_and_finalists.html#fnovel_short_story

At least I dwell in impressive company.

Minnesota spring certainly isn't silent.

The rivers are ROARING around here. The Minnesota is so far out of its banks that it's swallowed up both the dog park and the big pond on the Kasota Prairie. Yesterday, the Rapidan Dam had an entire tree stuck through the waterway, half on each side of the dam. However, The world is cracking spring open with a glorious blue-sky day and a fresh-smelling breeze.

Freya ran out on one of the smaller Kasota Prairie ponds and fell through the ice. Lucky she's got webbed feet. She hung on with her front paws and crawled and paddled her way back up on the ice. She was unfazed, but happy to be cooled off!

And my niece just had her baby! New spring life.

The future of KIDS' LIT

Mark McVeigh posted this article about the future of publishing for children and YA. Very interesting. (And thanks, Mark).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031901574.html

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

It's my brother's birthday, and that makes my Norwegian self feel nearly Irish. Strange, but true.

Great VeloNews Mailbag article about the coverage of men's racing vs. that of women's racing. Fun to read.
Maybe this is a good time to see if VeloNews my be willing to sell Chasing AllieCat in their VeloGear catalog. Maybe I'll have to buy an ad in the mag, but anything would be terrific.

March 15

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH! The legendary warning to Julius Caesar always sends bristles up my spine on this day. Speaking of Rome, my humanities classes are both taking their mid-terms this week. Nothing would make me happier than my entire Intro to Humanities class Acing their exams.

Foggy again. "They"--the weatherpeople--say that we won't see the sun 'til late in the week. First, it's dark from Daylight savings time change, and then it barely gets light when the sun is up.

Ghost tea

So....yesterday, my writing group went to a "Ghost Tea" at a haunted house. The resident (living, human) has written two books about her and her family's experiences with spirits and in her house. Delightfully fun afternoon, though no ghost appearances by the other residents (deceased, ghostly)while we were there.

If you're fascinated, or slightly interested, check out Annie's blog or webpage...and her books.

http://http://www.houseofspiritsandwhispers.com/about.php

http://www.anniewilder.com/

Mud, mud, mud...

Who could love mud as much as Minnesotans?

Freya is snoozing on the bed. It's raining sheets, but the snow on vast stretches of fields has been reduced to less than a foot. The promise of spring is thick, heavy mud, black as my dad's plowed fields in Iowa.

The mud is heavy on my cast-boot, too, heavier because I wear Tom's two-buckle overshoe rubber so I can go out in the wet at all.

But spring is coming.

As soon as Freya wakes up, she'll forget that it's raining and go out again...sleep, wake, repeat. Maybe I'll take her swimming...

I wrote a novel...

My editor emailed that the "launch" meeting for Chasing AllieCat went well today. YAH!
The committee isn't asking me to change the title, which is both a relief and somewhat unusual, I guess.
Cover art is the next step. It's finally starting to feel real, like yeah, maybe I am a real author and it wasn't a fluke to get one book published. Here comes another one. WHEEEEE.

Rachael shared this blog, and it's so, so, so true, I had to pass it on:
http://stephenparrish.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-wrote-novel.html

Rest and Restoration

I finished the last little edits FLUX requested on Chasing AllieCat.

This morning I woke up realizing that I would redo one little piece of the manuscript. As it is, the reader can figure out one little subplot before Sadie can. Sadie's too smart for that, so I'm going to redo it, so we as readers figure it out when Sadie does. That will be in line with what FLUX requested and what I know needs to be done in the story.

I LOVE the last edits on a story. This might be my favorite part of writing...polishing so it's as perfect as it can be. I'm so happy with this book. It's sort of complex--with various twists, thought it's a pretty traditional storyline--but I feel as if I've woven all the little tiny details together so they work seamlessly.

Crazy when I think how much I've changed since my first drafts, how many notes for revision I've made, and how many drafts are saved in my computer. I'm sure I've thrown out over 120 pages now, but what's left works. WHEW.

Flickr: Organize your photos & videos

So I worked on my photo page on Flickr. I'm trying to figure out how to make Flickr my photo page for Facebook. Steve sent me instructions. Will see if I can find them!
Even with a "broken dewclaw" as Tom says--my little toe surgically repaired after being broken too many times--it's heaven to have spring break and do some stuff I haven't had time to do since Christmas. I'm on the bed, toe propped and iced, with my laptop. It feels like vacation. Ha!
Flickr: Organize your photos & videos

Spring break and an interesting article about high school sex

Spring break really beginning...feels good.

Got my minor toe surgery out of the way this morning. I can already walk in the boot, so the challenge will be staying off and elevating as much as I should. The doctor even told me I can ride my trainer in the boot with a platform pedal by the end of next week.

In the mean time, thinking about my next novel--want to have ideas galore when I'm done with Slider's Son. These stats are giving me food for thought:

Abstinence? Yeah, right — students reveal shockers online

from a letter...from a school visit...

I just submitted a grant proposal to the Loft for publicity money for promoting Chasing AllieCat. Among other things, I asked for money to do free school visits if schools would purchase three class sets of books. I was looking for material to support the cause, and why it was worthy of grant money, and I found this letter than had been forwarded to me after a school visit last spring. This wasn inter-faculty, but it's something I'd better read regularly to keep me going!

"Last week we were incredibly fortunate to have author Rebecca Fjelland Davis visit our campus. This visit was incredibly potent on a number of levels. Our kids heard how much work and thought writing actually requires. When Ms. Davis said she often threw away ten pages at a time and wrote an entire novel over again, jaws dropped around the room, and a few kids actually started to believing what we say about revision. We couldn’t help but wonder: How do we create more opportunities for our kids to hear from people who are this passionate about their work?

Ms. Davis’s visit also brought together (thanks to Russell and Dobell’s planning) a group of young women from grades 6-11 into the same room. I am frequently saddened by the fact that many kids and teachers only know older students from the hectic moments of dismissal. In a seminar style format, sixth grade girls were able to hear ninth and tenth graders discussing literature instead of the mess they hear on the bus. They were able to see and be strong young women talking with a real author about social stereotypes and the challenges of changing friendships."