I promised, so here it is.

On the 17th, a dozen or more children’s book authors and illustrators donated our time to speak to kids at the Newtown, Ct. schools. I was in a middle school where I presented to two assemblies of eighth graders. At the same school was Tony diTerlizzi. Around the town were other authors, such as Neil Gaiman, John Sciezka, David Shannon, Mo Willems, Jerry Pinkey, Christopher Paolini and the like.

We were there in support of both the children and the teachers/librarians who were still shell-shocked and exhausted from sorrow, fear, worry. I like to think that we lightened their burden or at least shed a little light into some of the dark corners. It was an incredibly moving experience.

I’d driven down with Angela diTerlizzi, and stayed overnight with Bruce Degan and his lovely wife. Bruce and I had done nine books together, including the Commander Toad series. Old friends, the three of us talked long into the night.

The next day, the 18th, was all about ballet. Granddaughter Maddison was in three ballets, two performances, and as a graduating senior–one of  five at the ballet school–it meant there wasn’t a dry eye in our row.

The 19th it was all about Maddison’s senior prom, five of her BFFs were over to get makeup done, hair done, and then the show-off of all their finery. Maddison looked like a ’40s film star which my late husband, a huge Veronica Lake fan, would have loved.

So did I have time for any writing? So glad you asked.***I managed about seven adult poems, in various stages of revision.
***Revised the chapter on Esther for a book about Biblical women with Barbara Goldin
***Revised Adam’s chapter for our second book (not titled yet) in the Seelie Wars trilogy
***wrote a bunch of children’s verses for a project with the Springfield Symphony

And boy! are my wings tired.

There is no way, of course, to catch up on all that has happened in the past two months. Suffice to say lots of poems were written; a trilogy (graphic novel, noir mystery, Edinburgh 1930′s, gargoyle playing a Nero Wolf role) with son Adam was sold; I traveled a lot, four ecosystems later I was so filled with sinus allergies I couldn’t breath; doctor (against my better judgement and my expressed opinion) put me on Crestor which nearly killed me (only slight exaggeration) so I stopped the pills and changed doctors; however as you will have noticed,  I am still here to tell the tale.

Only I haven’t been telling you the tale because. . .because. . .Well, yes, I have been busy. Yes, I have been traveling. Yes I have been sick.

But yes, I have ignored you, dear readers. I would beg your indulgence but I don’t deserve you.

Yesterday, with a lot of good children’s book author and illustrators (like Tony deTerlizzi, David Shannon, Mo Willems,  Brian Selznick, John Sciezka, Jerry Pinkney, Dan Yaccarino, others) I spoke to kids at the various Newtown Ct schools for free. We were trying to bring hope, healing to the kids and their teachers. I think we helped some. It was an emotional experience and we will all be processing it for some time. I am wiped out.

So know I have been embarrassed by the time that passed without a journal entry. I actually lost the link for a while, but now  I have–with the help of my son Adam who is my websmaster–reconstructed it again. I will be off in two weeks to Scotland where I will have three months to try and rebuild our wonderful connection, writer to reader again. Trust me, I will not be so silent again.

I have missed you, too!

Another Spring: A Pantoume

If I never see another spring–

the green thrusts of daffodils,

the violin curl of ferns–

I will still remember them.

The green thrusts of daffodils,

the scatter of crocuses.

I will still remember them

when I am under earth.

The scatter of crocuses,

like children in a playground,

when I am under earth

will still look the same:

like children in a playground.

The violin curl of ferns

will still look the same

(even if I never see another spring).

©2013 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

Intimations of Spring

Yes, snow blankets meadows.

Yes, the wind is chill.

Yes, branches are all bare of buds.

And still. . .and still. . .

Color tinges twigs,

birds chorus at the dawn,

the sun is rising early,

my heart goes on.

©2013  Jane Yolen all rights reserved

The Coral Lesson

The coral does

its sexy dance

when moonbeams lead it

to romance.

In this short poem

there is a moral:

be as receptive

as the coral.

©2013 JAne Yolen all rights reserved

No, I didn’t die in the intersticies, though three of my old friends did, two of them quite suddenly and unexpectedly. And to say I am embarrassed by the length of time since I last posted is to understate the obvious. But as there is no way I can adequately catch up, I will do it in shorthand, with a poem or two to ease the pain.

There were holiday family visits, of course, and a fancy dress New Year’s eve party at Holly and Theo Black’s that we all attended. There has been snow–both one huge storm and a lot of light stuff. I had another plumbing disaster but nowhere near as expensive or debilitating or prolonged as the last. Am having a few minor medical adjustments and a cholesterol overhaul. I have given both well-attended readings and speeches, and miserable ones. Well-attended–always better.

I caught that sinus/cough/sore throat thing making the rounds, the not-flu (and yes! I had my flu shot, thanks very much!) It has lasted over three weeks. So I had to miss doing the narration for two violin poems (from the Chagall book) and my Johnny Appleseed set to music by Jerry Noble and performed at Smith but went to hear Jerry’s wife Cara nobly stepping in at the last moment, and loved it though all the while I was trying to suck on enough cough drops not to disrupt the performance.

But mostly the almost-three month hiatus from my journal has been about writing, editing, rewriting, and being surprised by stories, poems, and editorial decisions.

Quickly: the children and I finished up the complete draft (and then I edited, and Heidi will be doing the second edit) of our book of true animal stories for National Geographic. I wrote and–within days–sold a Holocaust picture book set first in Paris, then in the forest with partisans, finally in England where the family escapes–to Philomel. It’s called The Stone Angel. Almost as quickly I sold a picture book about a beached whale to Candlewick, The Stranded Whale. I finished the revision on the centaur novel, now called Centaur Rising. I sold a short story that ties into my novel Except the Queen, a bunch of poems, continued my poem-a-day project, this year bringing on subscribers who get each day’s poem by mail, the only proviso being they buy a book of mine or borrow one from the library.

I wrote another picture book about Abigail and John Adams moving into the White House, which is about to get sent out. Adam and I have gotten to chapter 8 of our second Seelie Wars novel. I am working on several speeches. Have sold four adult poetry collections. Three are short–approxmately twelve poems in each–for “envelope” books on Maiden/Mother/Crone theme as well as The Trees Commit, a book of poems on writing. It’s been a whirlwind.

A poem of mine will be featured on a sign board at a Pennsylvania park at the duck pond. A ballet of Owl Moon is being performed this week and the next two weeks as well in a Minneapolis suburb. A stage production of Devil’s Arithmetic is being prepared. Some great reviews on the new books: Bad Girls, Jewish Fairy Tales Feasts, Curse of the Thirteenth Fey, B.U.G., Wee Rhymes, and Grumbles from the Forest. Lots of interviews, especially on the first two books.

Not much to write about for three months absence? Well, that’s because all the writing has gone into the book and stories and poems.

I beg your forgiveness, dear readers, and your indulgence.

Because I am basically computer illiterate and can’t fix or add to what is already published in my journal, here is an addedum:

Austin (see above) Hackney’s blog:  omniscrit.com

I have been writing a poem a day for three years. Sometimes I get a little help from my friends. My writers’ group has workshopped a number of my poems (the ones I consider salvageable, that is. You write that many poems in a year and unless you are Emily Dickinson, the majority of them are duds)

And sometimes I get help from unexpected places.

Many of my poems have been prompted by things that are in Terri Windling’s blog, once called “The Drawing Board” and now called “Myth and Moor.” Terri is a longtime friend, editor (of my book BRIAR ROSE, among other things), artist, author herself. She is a myth goddess, one of the originators of the Interstitial Arts movement.

Recently in one of her postings I wrote this:

Between

See the space between mountains,
the moment between drops of water,
the instant between bird foot touching sand
and the track it leaves behind.
Watch the hesitation between beats
of hummingbird’s wings,
the infinity between earthquake
and aftershock. See the space
between brush and painting,
between word and story,
between bullet and the beating heart.

And while several people on the blog liked it, I was troubled with a couple of lines. I addressed the problem after one fellow, Austin Hackney (assume nothing from his last name, he is smart and a good writer and a Commedia del Arts guy) wrote this to me: “Jane, your poem is a nugget. And that last line really packed a punch, jolting me out of meditation into awakening. Great stuff.

I answered him this way and a conversation about revision was born: “Thanks, Austin, I have three thoughts about this poem: first it’s a kind of antiphonal response to your piece yesterday. Second, I really have to figure out a way not to have “beats” and “beating” in the same poem. Awake quite a bit this night trying to decide if “timid heart” or “living heart” or some other adjective might serve the poem as well or even better. Third: isn’t it strange the way a poem you think is going in one direction suddenly veers off in another. This became a different creature when the last line leaked out of my fingertips onto the keys.”  We didn’t have to reference the Newtown tragedy. It was only a week old at the time.

He responded: “Jane,I have one or perhaps two thoughts in response to your three thoughts…If one of the beats has to beat it, then I’d make it the beat of the hummingbird’s wings and leave the beating heart. Much of the punch in the phrase comes through the resonance between its rational meaning and the punctuation the alliteration gives to the rhythm, if that makes sense.

I’m really no poet, no poet at all – but might tentatively suggest an alternative to the wing beat…’Watch the hesitation on the turn of a hummingbird’s wing.’ If there’s any hesitation in hummingbird flight then it is on that moment that barely exists on the turn of the wing – as they don’t properly beat but gyrate their wings in a figure of eight pattern.”

Wow, I immediately thanked him. I mean, it was lightbulb time. I’d known that about hummingbirds, but checked it out in one of my bird books just to be sure. Then I told him thanks, adding: “Haven’t workshopped this poem with my writers group since we won’t be meeting again until January. You have helped a LOT. (I had been considering doing something with hummingbird’s wing but hadn’t gotten as far along as you have led me. Thanks for being a spirit guide.”

And then I began to wrestle with the line. I didn’t want to do it exactly as he had suggested, but close. I went through iterations, including mentioning that a figure eight is also the scientific sign for infinity. Even tried using the word infinity but liked it better in the next line where it is the key between earthquake and aftershock. Then I realized I could get a sneaky backdraft from the word which scientists and birdlovers and poet fanciers could understand with an extra frisson of recognition. And in the end, the poem goes like this, with thanks to Austin. And as someone else noted on the blog, “Just realised the happy coincidence of your combined names.”

See the space between mountains,
the moment between drops of water,
the instant between bird foot touching sand
and the track it leaves behind.
Watch the stutter in the turn
of a hummingbird’s wings,
the infinity between earthquake
and aftershock. See the space
between brush and painting,
between word and story,
between bullet and the beating heart.

©2012 Jane Yolen, all rights reserved

I am currently mired in a revision of a novel and it is giving me the gip. Actually, as I recall, every revision of a novel does this. Only when I’mtruly and horrible in the mire, when I can feel the Peat Hag hanging onto my heels and pulling me under, do I know I;m having trouble with a book. I think this is related to childbirth. Once it is over and the gorgeous new miracle is in your arms, you forget all about the pain and blood and muck and mire. You coo at the infant and think about having another.

So here I am, up to my knees in a peat bog and sinking fast. And the trouble is the editor’s notes and what she sees as problem places. The first go round through, I have treated each of her points with care, fixing this, shoring up that, giving a character who has had too little to do/say a bit more business.

But as I work this way, the entire world shifts. I mean the entire world of the book does a 90 degree or more turn off its axis. That’s because as I tend to her notes, I have forgotten gravity or some other important law of the book’s universe. I have forgotten that every change changes everything.

So now I am in the next iteration of the novel and I am seeing how offkilter the whole thing is, and I despair. I do the hand on brow, falling on the fainting couch, head in the oven thing. Nothing goes together any longer. There are no interstices. There are too many holes. The whole is holey when I want it to be holy. It is a mess. I am not a writer, I am a messenger of doom, gloom, badness, madness and. . .

You get the picture. I am in the middle of a muddle.

Yes,, yes, I have said it before. I even said similar things in the birthing room or whatever we called it back in the Eocene. “How did I get in this blankety-blank mess?” EVen though I know how and now who to blame.

So I shut the computer off. Watch Cake Boss and the Bourne Legacy. Fiddle with some poetry. Play Boggle. The usual distractions. I even (gasp) went grocery shopping. And cleaned the kitchen. (You can always tell a writer is eschewing the revision process when her kitchen is clean!)

And now it’s time for bed. “Ah well,” I say to my best friend, Scarlett, “I’ll think about that revision tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day”

Okay, this is the longest I have gone without posting in this journal for well over ten years. I have many excuses–work, play, fear, happiness/unhappiness, travel, overwhelming numbers of Things To Do. But I could have found the time. And when I did I rationalized myself out of writing in this journal. So no excuses.

Awards, Prizes Or Oh-What A Life I Lead:

Really, not that many. The biggest thing was flying off to Scotland to give the Andrew Lang lecture at St Andrews University. The lecture series had started back in 1927 and had included such luminaries as J.R.R. Tolkien and John Buchan. There have been 22 lectures in all  (I was the 22nd) , and I WAS THE FIRST WOMAN TO EVER GIVE ONE! So it was a big deal. They had put out fifty chairs, the number of people they normally get at free college-wide lectures. Then had to scramble to set out about 70 more! I was interviewed twice by the BBC, had my photo in the Scotsman. The speech itself will be seen in part in the Horn Book next year and in whole as part of the conference proceedings whenever they come out.

As big a deal was my actually getting there, a saga I won’t repeat here. But I was to leave the weekend before the huge Storm of the Century. I was booked for SundayHartford-Newark-Edinburgh and of course everything got canceled that morning. I finally talked my way onto an Air Canada plane from Hartford to Toronto and from there to London and managed to get up to Edinburgh only three hours later than I would have if my scheduled planes had been running. Whew.

Other Travels:

Minnesota to give a major talk about religion in children’s book, a signing in Minneapolis, a visit with Adam and family. Many bookstore events in South Hadley, Florence MA. Rochester Book Fair. Ashfield MA poetry and song performance with Lui Collins, Stamford CT book fair, New Canaan Ct Library. South Carolina to visit Jason and family and an impromptu overnight in NYC when five (5!!!) planes were cancelled that I was on for the trip home, AND they lost my suitcase (though it showed up the next day.)

Writing:

Plus a whole lot of writing, which included totally reworking my book of adult poems about the writing life, organizing and sending off my book of adult poems about politics, revising CENTAURFIELD, writing a poem a day (and occasionally two), revising the first chapter of the new Seelie Wars Trilogy, revising the story “Dog Boy” and sending it off, doing several interviews by email, rewriting and sending off the picture book THE STRANDED WHALE. Doing three more of the pieces for the National Geographic book that the kids and I are working on.

Books and Stories and Poems, Oh My!:

And I sold a number of things: Poems: one to Asimov’s, several to Weird Tales, one to Goblin Fruit, several to Silver Blade. Two essays to Horn Book. The Stranded Whale picture book to Candlewick. The picture book Song of Seasons to Creative Editions. Books on several Best of the Year lists: Last Laughs, Bug Off, Curse of the Thirteenth Fey.

And my guy was re-elected president. My health is pretty good for my age, (Could always be better.) My kids and grandkids are reasonably healthy and doing wonderfully well in school.

And I will try to do better with this journal, but no hard-and-fast promises.

Happy holidays all.

Book and Writing News:

What an up-and-down three weeks, consisting of some writing, some signings and readings, and a book I thought sold come loose from its moorings and float away into the Land of Unpublished. At the same time the weather has alternated sun and rain in such dazzling succession, that we are all feeling quite bipolar. Meaning hot and cold. Received the copies of Ekaterinoslav, and the very first early copies of Bad Girls.

I continue to write a poem a day, have been consolidating some of the poems I actually like into possible collections. Been working on two new pieces for the National Geographic book on true animal stories–did Balto the dog who lead the team that brought the serum to save the children of Nome, and Hoover the seal that could talk. Am beginning on a very short novel called Sea Dragon of Fife, based on my short story of (right now) the same name,. Wrote a pretty good song lyric that I may be in the process of ruining. Worked on the second scene in the first chapter of my Holocaust novel House of Candy (this section takes place in the Lodz Ghetto.) Working a bit on a proposal for a historical (though snarky) look at nursery rhymes. My usual patchwork quilt of projects.

Heidi and I had a really great signing at the Conway Festival of the Hills where, this year,  the rain held off until fifteen minutes before we were packing up to go. As it was, we’d overstayed our signing time by an hour and a half anyway (it was going that well!).

I was also one of the main readers/speakers and a judge for the Literary Death Match at the Brattleboro Literary Festival and had a super time. Didn’t sell that many books, but made some new good friends and had tea with my old friend Crescent Dragonwagon as a lovely finish to the three days.

I had a brunch with old friends Jane and Steven Schoenberg, talking about writing a musical together. Went to a Kids Lit Drinks Night in Northampton (just four of us.) Went to Forbes Library for Leslea Newman’s very moving reading of poems from her new book about the Matthew Shepard murder, October Mourning. Did several interviews for online magazines and blogs. Hosted my writer friend Steve Gould here to see his Smith college daughter and do some college visits with his other daughter, including Smith

Health news:

Ugh. Two huge cavities which needed filling at the same time. Many blood tests showing little, but a bit of plaque in my carotid artery so am now on something called Red Rice Yeast pills or maybe Red Yeast Rice pills to lower cholesterol. I can’t do statins.

Too many friends in cancer treatments right now, or failing and frailing in other ways.A constant reminder of End of Days.

Politics and Other Stuff:

My Obama signs are on the lawn. Elizabeth Warren signs ordered. I watched the debates and therefore stayed up much too late and my stomach in a twist from them all.

Still reading the Hilary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies.(Did I get it right this time, Marcel????)  Finished another William Alexander middle grade novel which was delicious and gorgously written.

Saw  “Marigold Hotel” which I only sort-of liked. Went to the Three County Fairgrounds for the Paradise Crafts and Artisan Fair. Went to a star-studded party at Mo Willems house.

But mostly kept my head down and trying to be sensible about getting enough sleep. HArd to do when I wake up every four hours on the dot!

My picky picky friend Marcel Sislowitz caught an error in my last post. The Hilary Mantel book is called Bring Up the Bodies. (I hope I have it right. otherwise, just go Google it!