This is an occasional journal about how my life affects my writing and my writing affects my life. This journal is not to be a classic blog, in other words it's not interactive. It will not have photos either. Or links. Nor do I expect to write in it every day. And I don't want to have to moderate the thing. However, if you read something here that you want to respond to, send me email (janeyolen@aol.com) and I will write back. Please say whether or not you agree to have your email quoted somewhere in "Telling the True." I like getting questions from my readers--whether you are a writer or a book fancier, a teacher, librarian, or child. Note that the order of the entries is most recent first. Entries from earlier days are archived.

August 31, 2006:

Sammy Cat is doing better. We hope she comes home Friday. Frustrating to be so far away when the family needs hugs.

I heard from the editor (hurrah, Judy!) right away that she liked the revision of TOOTH FAIRY, though of course it needs to go to the committee. But that bit of movement made me feel terrific.

Debbie and I went off for a day at the antiques mall. I got a few things for Christine’s birthday, and a number of Christmas/Chanukah presents. We got lovely loot, and good meal.

Home again, more Sammy Cat news. All positive. Thank goodness.

Then Pete and Marianna came over for dinner, fish and chips and salad and the rest of the fruit compote I’d made for Lisa’s dinner.

The next few days will be difficult. It would have been David’s and my 44th anniversary. Think good thoughts for me.

August 27-30, 2006:

I spent Sunday once again writing till my brains leaked out. Finished the draft of the three chapters plus of GHOUL SCHOOL KIDS and sent it off to Heidi for her draft.

Monday, author Lisa Tuttle, came for a visit. Lisa lives about four-and-a-half-hours away on the East Coast of Scotland. We have met at any number of conferences and have always enjoyed speaking to one another, but this was the first time we had a real gabfest. She arrived around 4, only getting a little lost in St A, and then we had some tea and talked. I showed her around the house and garden. And then we went for a lovely dinner in St Andrews at the Doll House restaurant.

Email brought me news of a picture book being rejected. And I said goodbye on the phone to Glen, flying off to live in Hawaii with her darling boyfriend Jason who is studying warm water biology at the University of Hawaii on the Big Island.

Tuesday Lisa and I walked about St Andrews, me doing the tour guide bit. Then back home for a quick lunch before going off to see the East Neuk towns by car, especially Cellardyke because Lisa has had a little antique bowl with "A souvenir of Cellardyke" for years without knowing quite where it was. We stopped off at Christine’s Sitooterie for tea, and they had many connections, including each having an essay in a Susan Sellars book about writing.

We came home and email brought me news of a publisher wanting to substitute one picture book for another. That’s a first.

I made a big dinner--chicken with apples and onions. Pasta with cheese, salad, fruit salad and cheeses for dessert--for Bob, Debbie, and Lisa and we talked and drank until nearly midnight.

Meanwhile, there was a growing problem at home in the US: Sammy Cat had been vomiting all night and the vet had sent them to the specialist in Springfield because it wasn’t clear what had set her off. Maddison carried the cat in her lap all the way down, and at one point thought Sammy had died. It was very fraught.

But the next morning, Wednesday, Heidi called early to say that Sammy—after much barium--had pooped out some black curling ribbon (the vet mistakenly identified it as cassette tape) which seemed to be what was making her so sick. We are hoping she will be all right and regulate her appetite for odd meals from now on!

Lisa left by ten, and I settled down (after several errands in town, mailing off David’s huge number of tapes and stuff to the Macauley Library at Cornell, which cost over $200!) to working on a revision of THE DAY THE TOOTH FAIRY QUIT for an interested editor. She had made some excellent suggestions though I am having to work hard to cut down on the verbiage needed to add what she wants me to add. She feels the manuscrpt needs a more POW! Ending, too. I wonder if I am up to it. But I will certainly try. I got in about five hours on the book and so far I like it. We will see. . .

In the evening I heard from the editor of FRUMITY who so far likes my revision, but will get to me this week or next when she really gets to sit with it for awhile. Fair enough.

NOTE FROM HEIDI: Anyone wondering why I pipe in occasionally? It's because I can... when my mom is in Scotland, I am in charge of uploading her journals so I can add what I want without her knowing or doing anything about it. Today I just want to say that you ARE up to it. You've got more POW in you than anyone I know. Glen, on her way to the airport, said that she was amazed any of us could keep up with you. She felt bad that I ever even had to try. Yup--even your family is awed by you. OK--enough of my pep talk.

August 25-26, 2006:

My write-till-your-brains-leak-out-your-ears marathon continued. I love the passionate diving into words, stories developing, then astonishingly things that were unclear becoming clear.

Clarity. I try to be both clear and hidden in my writing. I think a reader needs to work a bit, not just the author.

Heidi and I finished our short story, "Be Careful What You Wish For." Emailed it to the editor of the collection who loved it. But of course it still has to pass the Scholastic in-house editor which may take weeks.

On Saturday by 9:30 am, I had finished the draft of THE LAST DRAGON graphic novel, and found it was as tight as I could make it—and still too long. So I sent it on to the editor, the illustrator (Rebecca Guay) and my agent for a reading. Maybe someone with better brains (remember—they have leaked out my ears!) can figure out how to cut it. Or maybe the editor will decide she can publish a 160 page graphic novel. Either way, it is off my desk(top) now.

I also did some work on making GHOUL SCHOOL KIDS a middlegrade novel for Scholastic. Reworked the first chapter. After I do the second chapter, I will send it to Heidi for her input and titivation. We work so well together, I just KNOW we will get it right this time.

Friday, the man from the Concept group came and spent another 4 hours trying to get one or the other of the laptops to print on the new machine. He got a BIT closer, but still hasn’t got the thing going. Sigh. I will probably need a new laptop in Scotland, but that isn’t going to happen this year.

Saturday, my friend Joan Lennon, another Fife children’s book writer, came for tea. She’s ready to break out big time and has a major YA sf/fantasy novel about to come out from Penguin Britain and then following that by 6 months from the US--from S&S’s McElderry books. I am so thrilled for her! She brought over the jacket (suitably spot laminated)--and the bound galleys. What a heft!

Then at 3, I walked over to Nora’s house for more tea (and homemade brownies and chocolate cake!) and we discussed mystery novelists and British eccentrics and the like.

Finally, I went to dinner once again at Bob and Debbie’s with fantasy writer Elizabeth Kerner and her husband. We had a hilarious time talking about awful house guests and scary fans (I have had a few of the latter.) Came home tired, still laughing, and with no brains. After all, they’d leaked out of my ears as I wrote.

August 24, 2006:

Oh what a glorious writing day. Even with the cleaning ladies here, and Bob stopping over to pick up a folder, and the gardener Judy and I discussing what needs doing--I wrote from about 7 am till nearly 6 in the evening. (I went to dinner at the Harris' and stayed to watch the old Gregory Peck movie "Arabesques" which I'd never seen. Silly stuff, but the dialogue was amusingly written.)

As to the writing: I settled into THE LAST DRAGON and got all the way to the climatic dragon fighting scene. I hope to finish the draft tomorrow and then spend the weekend cutting it by a folio--because it is too long.

At the same time, Heidi sent on the GHOUL SCHOOL KIDS mss. and I took about two hours away from DRAGON to look it over and it pulled me right in. I worked on the first chapter a bit.

This kind of astonishing tunnel-vision while writing is probably my greatest gift. I get totally lost in my work and have to remind myself to eat or stand and stretch. I absolutely love working this way, though by 6 pm I raced over to Bob and Deb's eager to talk with people. Tired of my own head.

Aren't I lucky to still have a profession I love, and the leisure to indulge it. Well, maybe leisure is not the word, given how hard I work at it.

Note on Heidi's house: she is hoping to get in by mid September. I can't wait to see all the work that will have been done while I've been away four weeks: kitchen completed, bathrooms totally in, all the polyurethaned Heidi has done on stairs, bookcases. And the floors/carpets. Now she just needs furniture! (The contract for her already-written spy book will help there.)

 

Note From Heidi: We now have a working toilet, running water in one bathroom, stairs to the outside, and the gas line from the street (which no one had remembered to order and could have taken 5 weeks). As each new piece comes together, I wish that my Daddy was here to see it. He told me that this house may be the last thing he builds and he didn't want anyone driving by and saying "Dave Stemple sure built an ugly house." I am working every day (sometimes in a managerial position, but much of the time also doing actual labor) to make him proud.

 

August 21-23, 2006:

It’s been hard to wrap my head around the fact that these three days are the fifth month anniversary of the day before David died, the day of his death, and the day after. A significant trio. There is so much I want to tell him about—family news like Heidi's house, and Ali getting into the Minnesota Quaker school, and Glen graduating from Smith. About Jason’s calendar, Maddison starring in a new ballet for the Eric Carle Museum, and wee David’s latest adventures. About how the twins are doing, and Adam's novel is coming, and the new projects Heidi and I have. And book news. And Scottish news. I guess I do tell him, speaking at his gravesite or by the roadside when I pull over because tears are flowing too hard for careful driving or at night alone in my bedroom.

I expect to have such anniversaries breaking me down for quite a while yet. But otherwise, I move along in my life, mostly writing. Because writing is what I do—for joy, and because I am good at it.

Monday, I hired a man with a power washer to clean off the front patio at Wayside which had become green and tricky. What a difference! Then Debbie and I went off for lunch at Marianna’s studio. We had a grand time looking at her work, gossiping about recent festivals, and I bought (as a thank you) a small hanging for Debbie. We had a nice walk around the village, too.

I did some writing (about three hours worth) of FOILED and finally pretty pleased with it, sent it off.

In the evening, Nora and I went to see a production of "Thirty-Nine Steps" at the Byre Theater. We loved it, though had to throw out all notions of both the Buchan novel and the movie. This was a comic book/panto production: 4 actors in all, with one playing the main character and the others playing multiple parts. The sets were astonishing. And we had much fun, but part of the fun—as always with Nora—was the conversation which ranged from kneejerk British anti-Semitism to the rise of the adventure hero from Buchan through Ian Fleming to John LeCarre.

Tuesday, I ran around town and got some errands done, then came home for a complete day of writing. Did work on the "Wish" story with Heidi, revision of FRUMITY FROG FORGETS (the editor had a dynamite idea for a last line. . .well, not quite last line but close!). And I began going over and revising the first of the 110 pages (so far) of THE LAST DRAGON graphic novel which went swimmingly—ie, the tide pulled me along.

Took time off to pay some bills that Heidi had faxed over, and stopped on the way back from posting them to chat with my neighbors in Wayside West. We walked around the gardens and talked about the new neighbors moving into Wester Wayside (which is attached to Wayside West).

Then I came home to have an hour long chat with editor Diane Hess of Scholastic who is very interested in Heidi’s and my novel GHOUL SCHOOL KIDS, which may turn into a series. So we need to revise the first 2 chapters and make a complete outline and get it to her before Dec 15 for her to bring it to committee. (I HATE committees!) But she says "I love love love this premise." So we shall see. . .

Wednesday, I stopped and chatted with Bob for a bit before going over to the auction house. Left bids on some dolls, books, and boxes of mixed jewelery. Expect to get none of them, but we will see.

Then I bought two nineteenth century paintings at the St Andrews Fine Arts place which is closing down so everything is CHEAP.

Dropped off books I had borrowed from Nora, and gave her the "Bleak House" video which she wanted to see, and she gave me the "Irish PM" in exchange.

Then home to work some more on THE LAST DRAGON. I got all the way to the end of the 110 pages, and had dinner with the Morrisons. We all helped proof-read Catriona's Master's degree persentation on the rehabilitation of seals. I found a couple of misspellings, suggested several commas. Felt useful.

Work makes me whole.

August 19-20, 2006:

This weekend, I expected no business stuff, though I did get some nice reviews of BABY BEAR’S BOOKS and FAIRY TALE FEASTS and a lovely SLJ review of TROLL BRIDGE. And Pat Gauch faxed over the first chapter of ROGUE'S APPRENTICE which needs work. Ah well, some editors never take time off either.

Saturday I had a lovely 11-2 time with Christine and John at the Sitooterie, watching the neap tide crash against the rocks, and a lot of good conversation.

Sunday my cousins Janet and Nigel Fabb plus Janet’s mum, Bea, my first cousin, came for lunch in the pissing-down rain. (Sorry, no other description works.) I made deviled eggs, salad, cheese-and-pate plates, slices of fresh avocado, garlic bread, and a cake for dessert. Lots of family gossip and reminiscing, and then they left in the bucketing rain back to Glasgow.

And over the two days I finished "Troll" a short story for a Windling/Datlow anthology (I hope), worked on the "Wish" short story for a Scholastic anthology, and woke up in the middle of the night Saturday night knowing that FOILED still needed major work. Its plotline is a flatline right now and it needs a couple more twists. Why is plot always the thing I find the hardest to fix? Some people (Bob, Adam, for example) seem to breathe plot. They can plan it out logically. I have to scramble around, hoping to find it under the next bush or behind the beetroot or hanging from the fir tree. And if there is no vegetation in sight—or in site—I have to drop back five and punt. What a lot of mixed metaphors just to say: I don't know plot from shinola.

Interstitial Moment:

I have been aware that, as I move toward the fifth-month anniversary of David’s death, I have stopped compulsively writing poems about him. The horrendous sharp pangs have slowed. I weep less often, though I am left with this deep hollow in my heart that I think of as "David’s place." I go on, because that is what one does. But things are less fun, life is less full, laughter is harder to come by. (Have I said what a funny man he was?) I feel halved and, in a very true sense, I am. But if half is what I have, I will make the most of it. For myself, for our family, for our friends. I was truly lucky to have had such a partnership for 46 years (44 married, two—that old-fashioned word—courting years.) I will make the rest of my time worthy of that partnership.

August 18, 2006:

Now the editor says she will call next week. Sigh. A waste of three afternoons. Well, not a total waste as I got a lot of writing done on FOILED. But I had stuff to do in town as well that didn’t get done. And a drive in the country would have been lovely.

Still, FOILED is taking better shape. It needed a sense of mystery and destiny which is slowly forming. I had Voice nailed from the beginning, but the solid surround of story has had major holes. So this week has been one of searching for that missing heft. I think I am closer to it than I was but am still not satisfied.

Some nice reviews of FAIRY TALE FEASTS coming in, and the publisher tells me he is already requesting a 6,000 book reprint, not at all bad for a small press (Interlink). Of course, in the book business, one can always order reprints and have massive returns. Publishing is less a business than a gamble.

Heidi and I are hot at work on a short story for a "wish" anthology. Our story stars a boy who’s wish is that his parents get back together. There’s a genie (actually a genius loci, who doesn’t handle small wishes like that—"Not my department!") and a dazzling fairy godmother. We are having fun and hope the editor enjoys it as well.

Amazing to me that Heidi has had time to write anything at all. Her house is in that final run up to being finished. She is staining bookcases, stairs, mirror surrounds, deck, all by herself, as well as making decisions, baking for the workers, and being visible at the house site. A force of nature, my girl.

Had dinner at Deb and Bob’s. We meant to watch "Anancondas" (their choice, not mine!) and settled down after dinner with their son Jamie, but the weather outside was so foul and blowing and monsoony, that Sky TV cut out. So I splashed home and was in bed by 9:30, with dreams of snakes on planes.

August 17, 2006:

The curtain hangers and the cleaning ladies shared the day. And now the house is clean and all the curtains taken down by the painters have been restored. I can feel completely at home.

The editor I was expecting to call did not. Am I surprised? Too often editors--even the great ones-think that a writer's day is for waiting.

Another beautiful Scottish day wasted as I couldn’t go out and the weatherman promises rain tomorrow.

I worked on FOILED and got to the part that needed work. I think I have solved a major problem, though it still needs mashing about. That's a technical term, meaning somewhat more than a simple revision.

Watched "The New Land" which was romantic, slow, and not particularly historically correct viz Pochantas. Everybody mumbled, but the photography was gorgeous.

Voted for my ex-editor Michael Stearns as the hottest of the publishing "hotties" (he thinks the whole thing is a hoot.) www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/awards/

Heidi tells me that her house is whizzing along, I am hoping it will be done by the time I get home.

August 16, 2006:

The painters came early and redid the dining room and now it looks as beautiful as I had envisioned it. Tomorrow the designers will re-hang the curtains.

While they worked, I read a Ruth Rendell mystery, and occasionally poked about on BAD GIRLS. By afternoon, my jetlagged head seemed to be my own again, and so I put down the mystery and surged ahead on the mss. Basically what I did this time was a rewriting of the pieces that Heidi had drafted. I can’t work on my sections until I get home with my research books. But she is charging along on her own bits and rewriting some of my earlier pieces. As this book comes in discrete packages, mini-bios of history’s bad girls, it is easy to work this way. So on I went, smoothing out some of the sentences, rearranging some paragraphs, The same thing I would do on my own early drafts. When I finished what I had at hand--the book is about a fifth done—I sent it back to her.

Then I began fiddling with the opening of FOILED. I would like to really tackle it this next week.

Yes, I am ready to plunge back into writing. Jetlag has been slower than usual clearing away, due to being run down from the food poisioning episode. But I have a gift of four weeks by myself in which to write and I don't intend to waste them.

August 15, 2006

Ten hours sleep later, I got up, checked email, and realizing I was brain dead. puttered around the house picking things up, re-hanging three paintings, making a half dozen phone calls. Then I looked over the final DINO COLOURS proofs that came in the mail, and read a bad mystery. It was all I could manage.

I even slept a bit early afternoon.

Had dinner with Deb, because Bob arrived late having taken son Robert to Edinburgh for a birthday treat. Home by 8:30, in bed by 9. I needed another ten hours sleep. Got 7 1/2.

 

August 13-14, 2006:

The Hartford airport was not bad, though I got there 3 hours early. Slight stomach ache added to discomfort. And once in Newark, we were delayed by an hour (not bad) for all the new security stuff.

The flight itself, though, was nightmarish, and I was stuffed into the window seat (I prefer the aisle) and two rather large Scots, husband and wife, sat next to me. She tended to overflow her seat, especially when sleeping. And the flight was so bumpy that water in the glasses splashed out and the movies (Ice Age 2 which I had already seen twice, and an Antonio Banderas ballroom dance movie which was a waste of Alfre Woodward) kept jumping about. So I got no sleep, not a bit.

Because nobody was allowed a carry-on larger than a small shoulder bag, there was a long wait (35 minutes) till my bag got out. I was met by friend Debby and her two cohorts, Nic and Elizabeth, who gave me a wonderful reception. Then Deb and I drove home to Wayside.

I’d had painting done in three rooms while I was gone, and though two look wonderful (the small part of the upstairs hall and the entryway into the kitchen) the dining room was a disaster. I had explained to the designer (on vacation now) and the printer (on vacation now) that I wanted white on the walls (as it was) and two blue panels on the ceiling (new). I got blue walls and white ceilings which effectively makes the room look smaller. Lovely blue. But NOT right. So they will have to redo it while I am here, which I was hoping to avoid.

Took a four hour nap, put Chris Spencer’s few changes into FOILED, but am essentially brain dead from jetlag. Did some dusting. Watched tv. Ate very little. Went to bed early.

August 12, 2006:

Last minute stuff, cleaners etc. Discussion about plantings with new gardener. Paying the last bills. Cleaning up computer desk top. All the minutae needed to be done for a four week trip.

And a lovely dinner at friend Jan's where Heidi and I talked about our plans for the "wish" short story we are writing. Something to be done over the internet while we are apart.

When I get home, Heidi's house will be four weeks closer to moving-in day. I should be done with both FOILED and LAST DRAGON, the one a total revision, the other a first draft. I wil have gone over BAD GIRLS as it is so far.

So a finger to the terrorists, and off I go tomorrow, gels and liquids packed in the plane's cargo hold. I only hope they let me bring aboard my magazines and crossword puzzles or it's going to be a long, boring ride. The weather promises to be cool and rainy. In other words--Scottish. I love it.

 

August 11, 2006:

We have been wrestling most of the day with whether I should actually go to Scotland on Sunday or not. I think the trip there should be all right, but the trip back could be a nightmare, with no books allowed on board. I pack lightly anyway since I have clothing etc. in both houses. Still, there's a lot to think about and I haven't made a final decision.

I did a lot of bill paying, errands, and getting ready for packing. I watched "The Corpse Bride" which I quite enjoyed, even though it was very predictable and I could have done without the songs.

At 2 pm, Heidi and I went to watch Maddison's group at dance camp, which was great fun. She's very good and always a pleasure to see dance.

And Maddison's wonderful fencing teacher Chris came over to gave me some notes for FOILED, at the same time showing me his sketches. An art school graduate, he's a big fan of graphic novels.) He's very good and his vision is very close to mine, but not--I would guess--close to the editor's. However, we will see. . .

At 11 pm, I went outside in my nightgown into the delicious cold to try and see the metorite showers. Saw nothing but a brilliant sky transformed with stars and an astonishing full moon. I was a little weepy remembering how David and I many years ago had hustled the children (then 4, 6, 8,) into the driveway to see a shower of meteorites. The next morning, Glendon told me that she and her friends saw the meteorites at 3 am. I will try again Saturday night.

Book news: I spoke to the foreign rights agent at Curtis Brown. I have the Pit Dragon books coming out in a boxed edition in Germany, a Korean edition of MY BROTHERS FLYING MACHINE, and in Taiwan a bi-lingual (Chinese and English) edition of HOW DO DINOSAURS EAT THEIR FOOD.

 

Interstitial Moment:

There are head books and heart books, but all books require a certain dispassion (especially at the rewriting stage) when the author has to step back and be conscious about craft. That white heat of first writing--where one hardly acknowledges one's real surroundings--must surrender to careful process. Else they would be carting writers off to the rest homes right and left.

 

August 2-August 10, 2006:

What drama. I left the hot hot Connecticut River Valley, so hot, an outdoor concert we were going to was cancelled! I flew off the next day to California where it was much cooler, if that is to be believed. However it was not quite that easy. Thunderstorms in the Midwest delayed my plane so that I would have missed my plane and not gotten to the SCBWI conference till either late that night or the next day. So I hopped over to Southwest airlines and managed to arrive early enough for the faculty dinner the night before the conference. Whew!

At the dinner I met the delicious, pert, funny, smart, (and gorgeous) Melissa Sweet who had done the art for BABY BEAR’S CHAIRS and BABY BEAR’S BOOKS and was winning a Golden Kite award at the luncheon in two days for the artwork in BBC.  Of course those of us who were on East Coast time had trouble staying awake, as the dinner kept going on until nearly 10. Then Elise Primavera (who did the art for my book BEST WITCHES and whom I had never met before) and I got bounced from the bus because we were sitting in the front row gabbing and it was needed for people with disabilities. (My new knee obviously didn’t count.) So we arrived back at the hotel late. I crashed into my bed.

The conference began early on and the first speakers were a study in contrast—Jacqueline Woodson, sonorous, serious, spiritual, moving. And Mo Williams—a standup comic before he became a children’s book author-illustrator.

I went to as many of the sessions as I could manage and loved them. But I also had lunch with the Disney exec who had bought PAY THE PIPER movie rights. Though after we shook hands and sat down at the table, even before ordering, she told me she’d been let go. Ah well. . . we actually had a lovely time after that. I think she’s smart, amiable, fascinating.

I danced like a mad woman at the Jade Jubilee party (it’s SCBWI’s 35th anniversary) rather stunning some who saw me as a kind of elderly stuffy icon! Since Sid Fleishman and I had been the banquet speakers at the very first SCBWI conference, we were both featured speakers at this. Along with the likes of the above mentioned, Paul Fleischman, Tomie dePaola, Caroline Cooney, Jarret Krosoczka (who got a standing O), Russell Freedman,  and numerous other literary and artistic lights, editors, agents, manga publishers, art directors. You name it, they were there.

But. . .but. . .I was to be the final speaker on Monday. And Sunday,  I made a bad mistake. I ate the food at the Golden Kite banquet and some four hours later. . .

Yes, Dear Reader,  I got the worst case of food poisoning known to man: 12 hours of vomiting, and two rounds of ghastly diarrhea. At one point I had the two together.  It was two in the morning, and what with green bile one way and chocolate pudding the other, the hotel bathroom was a mess. I found myself down on my hands and knees trying vainly to clean it all up and realized rather late in the game that I needed to get to the emergency room. I took a quick shower and then the darling conference director, Lin Oliver, an old friend, came up at once and carted me off to the ER where they pumped a liter of fluid and meds into me and sent me back. I was fine until 6 am when I threw up one last glorious monochromatic time. And then slowly. . .slowly. . .got better.

Yes, I even gave my speech, though they had to get a wheelchair from the hotel to cart me (thanks Sally and Sue and Steve for the final push) from my room to the ballroom where I faced the 1000 attendees and--adrenaline pumping--gave a Rouser! Got a standing ovation. Probably partly out of pity. Well, everyone stood but me. Then the adrenaline ran out, like sand from an old timer, I was suddenly wiped, could not even lift a pen to sign books, so they wheeled me back to my room where I slept for 18 hours, and went down to the Board Meeting on Tuesday .

The next day I flew back home, quite literally drained, my carry-on packed with applesauce and saltines!  Ah--the things we do for love.

I slept 8 hours (starting at midnight) and then began to digest my email and mails. Got the new DINOSAUR board books, and an anthology with a new poem of mine in it called “Going for the Gold.” Two revision letters, one about FRUMITY, one about LOST BOY. I managed the FRUMITTY which was easy and fun to do. The other will get done when I get home from Scotland. If I go on Sunday. After today’s news, the children are pressuring me to stay home. I hate being captive to terrorists. I’d hate to deprive the children of their mother and grandmother. The world is a difficult place.

There was a meeting with the money manager, an interview with SLJ Online about FAIRY TALE FEASTS, a meeting with the Springfield  Symphony folk about our plans for ENCOUNTER, and a visit to my doctor who told me I could now eat Real Food.

And then Heidi and Maddison and I watched Project Runway because we are all hooked!

August 1, 2006:

I am, of course, getting no writing done. Mostly I am cleaning up desktops, sorting through old mail, bills, refilling stuff, getting ready for the trip to LA on Thursday, going through newspapers for the crosswords to take with me. That sort of thing.

Managed to get my hair cut, and go to my writing group despite the nearly 100 degree weather! (It is actually cooler in LA!) Wrote a bunch of letters, signed books, with more of the same tomorrow plus packing.

I wish I could get over jetlag faster. But as I age, the jetlag gets worse. Am still only sleeping till 3:30 am and soon I will be three hours earlier in California. Poor, poor, brain.

And of course I am obsessing over the current political crisis, the awfulness of the Middle East (What IS Israel thinking?), Mel Gibson's tip-of-the-iceberg anti-Semitism, the ruination of the climate, etc. Son Adam has posted an astonishing quote by Goering on his website (www.adamstemple.com) which proves that the more things change, the more they stay the same. It looks as if the neocons have taken a page right out of Goering's playbook.

So I head back to my beloved stories, favorite authors, with great haste. The world, as Wordsworth said, is too much with us. I miss talking to David about all this. That's the worst, of course, not having him around for those wide-ranging and ever-fascinating conversations. My grounder, and my ground.