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.

October 27, 2004:

I had barely any time to get up, showered, and fed before hastening off for a two-hour video shoot. I am one of the "talking heads" in a documentary about the Smith College gay scandal of the early 1960s. Joel Dorius, one of three men who were let go in 1962. ("Let go? They were summarily kangaroo court force-marched out of the college, rather bizarre when you think they were certainly not interested in the students as sexual partners!) Joel was one of my favorite professors and at the time I wrote letters to the president of the college, and to the Alumnae magazine etc. supporting the men.

We shot about an hour of me answering questions, then walking around Paradise pond where Dorius and I used to walk, talking about seventeenth century poetry and how one might live a life in literature. I was glad to do what I could to help further expose the hypocrisy of that time. But it took away my prime writing time.

Then off to the dentist for a cleaning and wax impression for a porcelain cap on the broken tooth.

And only latterly, after 1:30, home to get some work done, mostly emails, snail mails, and prep work for my time in NY next week with my agent. That included a few small revisions on some of my old manuscripts and organizing all the new bits and pieces of the updated TAKE JOY which, I understand, will have a new title. Or not. (Really, can any normal human being actually second-guess a publisher?)

Also I learned how to put the journal entries onto the website while David is off in Arizona visiting one of his brothers. See--I am not entirely of the 19th century!

But writing? It is to laugh.

Besides, I had to watch the Red Sox. After all, I live in Massachusetts and would have to turn in my Commonwealth card if I didn’t stay up to some absurd hour just to be disappointed. (Or, as the Scots like to say, "Aye, we’ll pay for it.")

And I had to watch West Wing. Whoosh! Was I caught off guard.

And, of course, we watched the eclipse through David’s telescope.

Then off early tomorrow to Minneapolis to play with the grandbabies until Monday, so don’t expect any writing--not even a journal entry--until I get home.

 

October 26, 2004:

So when I got up this morning--late for me at 8 o’clock--I went right upstairs and looked over the poetry collection proposal, then seriously revised it twice. Sent it to the editor, my agent, and co-author by 9:30. By noon I had an answer from editor saying she would read it ASAP, from co-author that he loved it and was going to Portugal for a week.

So I worked on email and yesterday’s journal piece, then got ready for my writers meeting. In-between I did a radio phone interview about FINE FEATHERED FRIENDS.

The meeting went well, with Anna and Leslea reading new stuff and the rest of us kvetching (legitimately) about agents, editors, bizarre fans (who want their homework done for them) and the upcoming election.

After everyone left, I checked my email to discover that two editors are liking two manuscripts of mine, but each wanting a bit more time. Well, at least we know they are alive and well, not off in the Caribbean on vacation with no forwarding addresses. Always a good sign!

I have a sore throat, a bad back, and tomorrow I have a video interview at Smith College and a dentist’s appointment. Somewhere in the small print it says I am a writer, but not this week.

 

October 25, 2004:

Up early and working some more on email and cleaning up stuff. Then off I went on a variety of errands (banking, hair cut, etc.) On the way I thought about the two books in my head and decided one was simply not worth working on.

I’d been envisioning a wild, funny "Princess on the Hill of Glass" picture book, with her shouting encouragement, then disparagement down at the knights below. But with all the unsold picture books on my desk (over 20!), and the fact that folk tales are having a tough time in the market right now, it seemed to make little sense to put my creative efforts there.

Instead, I thought some more about the poetry collection that Andrew Peters and I want to propose to WalkerUK/Candlewick. And because riding in the car by myself is one of the two best places I have for working out book problems (the other being the shower, not available at that moment!) I got a handle on the book and couldn’t wait to get home to work on it.

Of course, I didn’t get home until after four but fairly sailed up to my attic writing room. To be greeted (of course) by more email and more snail mail, but I ignored it. After all, the book was--IS--more important. Only after I got a draft of the proposal down and sent off to Andrew by email did I relax.

He got back to me almost immediately saying he loved the direction the book was taking. We both hoped the editor would, too.

Then David, Heidi, Maddison and I had a lovely dinner, cooked by Heidi. And I vegged out on StarGate Monday afterwards.

But when we all went to bed, I couldn’t sleep. Something was wrong with the proposal. I noodled it over in my head until I knew I had to get up and fix it. So I hopped out of bed and ran up to the attic, startling Maddison’s cat as I went. There I worked for about an hour before getting the thing right.

Then--sigh--to bed, dreaming in rhyme.

 

October 23-24, 2004:

Saturday, it took me four hours at the computer just to get through the email, and then another four hours on bills and snail mail. And that’s just being 9 days away. In November I will be gone for three weeks. I shudder to think of it.

I received the cover proof for TROT TROT TO BOSTON, and emailed the editor my comments. Ditto for the proof of the dedication page for the new DINOSAURS book. Both are wonderful, with just minimum tweaks.

The evening, David kid-sat while Heidi and I went to the Pioneer Valley Ballet gala auction. We came home with a basket of thirteen bottles of wine, tickets to the specific day Maddison’s best friend is dancing Clara in "Nutcracker", a gorgeous quilted wall hanging as a holiday present for Maddison, and a few other items.

Home in time to stay up past midnight watching the first game in the Sox-St L series.

Go Sox! However, not exactly a pitcher’s duel.

 

Sunday I slept in, very unusual for me. Then I caught up on my journal, and did more email.

Worked on a proposal for a new poetry collection in my head, though got nothing on paper, as well as a new picture book idea--again in my head but not on the computer.

In the afternoon, Heidi, Maddison, and I went holiday shopping at our favorite store, Zanna’s. I got stuff for Heidi, and both my daughters-in-law. We were met there by Angela DeTerlizzi and went to the rice pudding café for a snack and a gab.

Then home via the grocery store, finishing this journal piece, and dinner with the DeTerlizzis.

Some days there’s no writing done at all.

 

October 16-22, 2004:

So early Saturday (very early, about 5 am) I got a cab to the airport and headed out via Canadian Air to Seattle. The plane was late, but the plane out of Seattle to Bellingham even later, so I was able to get a backrub at the airport before boarding. And boy! did I need one.

My friend Terri Cohlene picked me up. She is both an ex-student of mine, author of about eight children’s books, and had put together the Master Workshop I was teaching at Port Townsend. I was staying the night at her house and then we were to drive to PT by going down the length of Whidbey Island to the Keystone Ferry dock. 

We had a lovely time, girls’ night out. Actually not much of one since I was on east coast time. But we had dinner at a bookstore where I signed stock, and toured around Bellingham.

Then mid-morning we took off for PT and Fort Worden State Park where the workshop was held. (If you remember the opening scenes in "An Officer and a Gentleman" that’s Fort Worden behind the men as they line up.)

The drive was, in places, astonishingly beautiful, especially over a great bridge over Deception Pass, and when we got to the ferry, we got to hear an Irish harpist who payed all the way to the Port Townsend.

PT is one of those places where, after the sixties, someone tipped up the east coast and California and all the old hippies slid in. It has a peculiar antic charm, full of women still wearing long peasant skirts, men with full beards, and children who run around with their hair hardly brushed and bare feet. It also has artists, poets, and authors out the whing-wang. I love PT and if I were to move from Massachusetts or Scotland, I’d move there. They love their artistic folk but find them amusing, too. When I was teaching summers, I spent 12 out of 14 seasons there at the Centrum writers’ conference, and about 80% of my students eventually became published children’s book writers, including Barbara Berger, Nancy White Carlstrom, Anna Grossnickle Hines, Barbara Diamond Goldin, Lauren Mills, Jeanette Ingold, and others.

I was once again ensconced in the little blue cottage on the headland of the fort, a place called Blissful Vista, or Bliss Viss. It has a master bedroom, one bathroom, a rather large but hardly supplied kitchen, and a tiny bed-sized second bedroom alcove, plus a reasonable living room. The living room has an alcove that looks out over the bay and, occasionally (when they deign to show their faces) the mountains, including Baker and Rainier. I saw them only one day in the five.

My students were 12 wonderful children’s book writers, all women, all well published, ranging from Margaret (storyteller, author of 30 books) to Mary (one picture book) and novelists, poets, and middle grade writers as well. They were engaged listeners, careful critiquers, supportive of one another but dead-on in their suggestions. They were all at a certain place careerwise--either having stalled out, lost editors, needing a new agent. So I had a double task of critiquing their manuscripts as well as helping them plan their next career moves.

Tuesday afternoon we went into town for a talk by children’s book illustrators Max Grover and Richard Jesse Watson, both of whom had galleries in town. And Max’s wife Sherry also spoke, for she works with authors and illustrators and other creative people on helping them organize businesses.

Wednesday evening we went to the Carnegie library in town and gave a reading. The place was packed, standing room only in back, and lots of little kids sitting on the floor in front. In-between, we watched bits of the Boston Red Sox final game with the Yankees. Not everyone in our audience was FOR the Sox, but everyone seemed to be AGAINST the Yankees!

The last evening, we had a party and gave Terri a full consult with Sherry and they gave me a gorgeous red wrap with a Celtic pin.

That night it was so windy, then back door in Bliss Viss blew open, almost ripping off the lock. I had to jam the chair under the door since I was in a little cottage away from the dorm and no way to call for help.

Mary drove me to the airport, 2 1/2 hours. I got there early enough to catch an earlier plane and got home by 9:30 EST that night. Checking my email, I found out I had one book rejection (from a British publisher), won an award from Barnes & Noble (for HOW DO DINOSAURS COUNT TO TEN), and got word from three friends all of whom have suddenly been diagnosed with a variety of awful diseases/conditions. It’s that time of life, I suppose, but not easy.

I knew the weekend would be nothing but catch-up and was fully prepared to do battle come morning. There were piles of mail on the dining room table, and 300+ emails to deal with.

Welcome home.

 

October 13-15, 2004:

Wednesday, Toronto. A beautiful city which seems like a smaller, cleaner, less frenetic New York. My hotel room was large and lovely with a fine view.

Since my Tor YA editor, Jonathan Schmidt, lives in Toronto, we had lunch and talked about revisions for TROLL BRIDGE. Not anything surprising or hard. And we also talked about the new YA Adam and I want to write, about a golem, called (provisionally) GOON’S REVENGE. And, of course, we talked about the field in general.

I got a couple of hours rest and then was picked up by Jonathan’s girlfriend, the marvelous Maureen, who is one of Scholastic Canada’s top salespersons. And off we went to the big Scholastic party, full of the movers and shakers in Canadian children’s book publishing. I was the very first American author to have been invited to their party and got to glad-hand, talk intensely with lots of folks. ooh and aah over new books. A bit like a political rally. Then I gave a five minute in-these-parlous-times-count-on-story pep talk.

The next morning Jonathan and Maureen picked me up and gave me a tour of the city. As Maureen is a Torontonian (is that right?) I got to find out about the neighborhoods of the city. We stopped at a fine children’s bookstore where they gave us a tea party with fine china cups and I signed some stock, and got a copy of JONATHAN STRANGE from them as a present. Then we walked along Lake Ontario on the boardwalk, a comforting wind teasing about us and black squirrels playing in the short grass.

That evening I gave the Osbourne lecture. I spoke about memory, re-memory, stories and lies. We had a full house, which pleased me, in fact standing room only. The speech was well received, I thought. Afterwards there was a reception in the Osbourne Collection (of rare children’s books) and a special display of faerie books in my honor.

My ride back to the hotel dropped me off a block from the hotel and as I walked along, three young women behind me were discussing Mr Darcy! The idea of being somewhere where students were ardently speaking of a character in a Jane Austen novel (and not Brittany Spears) was not lost on me.

The next day I walked back to the Osbourne, just mere moments ahead of a storm, and spent a lovely morning looking at such things as an actual hornbook, and the only extant first French edition of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, etc. Touching books I had only read about when studying children’s literature. They gave me two facsimile copies of books as a present, which was thrilling. Then we went downstairs to the Judith Merrill science fiction collection.

That evening I gave a talk to the children’s book round table, a motley group of passionate book lovers--librarians, storytellers, writers. It seems that Toronto is more of a children’s book city than New York or Boston because on all three evenings that I was busy, there were also ongoing book launches, speeches, storytelling.

The restaurants were marvelous, the neighborhoods inviting, the mix of old buildings and new encouraging, and the book folk were terrific. All of this puts Toronto on my list of cities I would be happy to visit again, a small list--Edinburgh, Paris, Minneapolis, Boston, and Portland, Oregon lead the way.

 

October 12, 2004:

Morning errands, and then my writers’ group took me to midday. I got to speak to one editor (YEARS BEST), my agent, a real estate dealer, vet a small movie offer for DRAGON’S BLOOD, fill out forms for HarperCollin’s marketing department, and get things moving on a short story reprint offer that has fallen between the cracks at my agent’s office. David doesn’t like the previous sentence, but it is as rushed and complicated and jarring as the hours it chronicles.

No writing. Except this journal piece.

Can you tell I am getting cranky?

I will be away for nine days starting tomorrow morning. If I can get to the Internet, I’ll send David stuff until Friday when he leaves for Wyoming. Otherwise, round-up time.

 

October 11, 2004:

Ditto.

Piles.

David and Heidi went off on an Orvis etc. shopping expedition. I stayed home finishing the PILES and starting the packing process. Maddison and her Dad had a play date together.

Isn’t the life of a (would-be) writer fun!

 

October 10, 2004:

Another day of PILES. Got all but two of the workshop's manuscripts read and critiqued. Got all bills paid. Got through piles of mail.

And in the middle of this drudgery, managed to write a silly song for one of the online groups I am part of. We are jokingly (not really) forming a band called the F 'n' G's. For those who don't know publishing speak, f&g stands for folded-and-gathered sheets (of paper) and is one of the late steps in the print-life of a picture book. But as the name for a rock band, it also sounds slightly risque. We liked that!

Other than work work work (and no real writing, unless you call a joke song writing) I set the table for our big dinner. We had the family plus Heidi's ex husband and Glendon (she's at college so we see her rarely) and her boyfriend. It was a real welcome home.

 

October 8-9:

Friday I spent all day playing catch up, knock down the piles: Piles of mail, piles of manuscripts to read, piles of bills. I got about half the manuscripts read and critiqued for the workshop next week. My speeches are all written.

And the dang tooth still hurts So I also spent most of my time high on Ibuprofen. Oh, well.

Except for about an hour rushing out to do last minute chores, I was glued to the computer. Not doing anything fun, like writing, but working on PILES!

 

Saturday Heidi and I were up early, dressed to the nines, and out the door. We drove to Boston to the New England Book Fair where we had two signings for two different books--THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS and THE BAREFOOT BOOK OF BALLET STORIES. Rebecca Guay our wonderful illustrator for the ballet book joined us there.

For once the drive was easy. Heidi and I jabbered the whole way and the directions to the Boston World Trade Center were perfect. Less than two hours port to port.

Of course Heidi's name tag said Heidi Yolen and had to be changed to Heidi Stemple, which took a bit of time as the man typing used on only one finger.

And then we were in, scamming books (they give away a lot of free books, and ARCs--advanced reading copies) and seeing a few editors, and then our book signings which had long lines. Then more gathering of books and also purchasing Christmas presents, and then signing a third time with Rebecca. All of our books that Barefoot and S&S brought to the show were gone. We shmoozed, we sold books, we signed, we were a hit!

To make things even better, Heidi made a connection with a small children's book press, Sleeping Bear, and may have a gotten a book offer.

A hitch developed as we tried to leave. Without realizing it, we'd gotten into the east garage instead of the west garage and couldn't find our car. Lost for twenty minutes. At last Heidi went upstairs to the garage payment center and sorted things out while I waited with our four (count 'em) huge bags and backpacks filled with books.

The ride home was as easy as the ride there. We gabbed about the book so she could put together a solid proposal and several other proposals as well. The miles flew by and there was no traffic.

We met Maddison and David--who'd been kid-sitter-in-chief while we were gone--for dinner at the local Chinese restaurant and everyone went to bed early!

Writing? We don't do no stinking writing.

 

October 7, 2004:

So what was wrong with my tooth? Having awoken again at 1 am, worrying about the tumor/brain infection/tooth problem I was having, I was glad to know that I was to see the dentist in hours. Nothing I did before that is of moment. Or rather, I can remember nothing of what I did. The throbbing, aching jaw was my whole life.

When I sat in the dentist chair, I was still not sure where the main pain was coming from. And the x-rays were no help, either. So he took his little hammer and began tapping on the upper left side teeth. No impressive pain. Then on the bottom: tap, nothing; tap, nothing; tap WHOOOOOOOOOOW. After he scraped me off the ceiling, he said in his soft voice, "I think we’ve found the problem."

We sure did. Seems the tooth had cracked in the back (which is why the x-ray didn’t show anything.) The pain was bad, but the dentist felt the nerve wasn’t dead. He gave me a temporary fix and we will work on a crown when I return from book tour. I hope it will hold (he said he expected it would.) And he also told me that if I had any trouble over the weekend, to call him at home. You don’t find many medical folk like this any more.

After, finally nothing hurt because I had a mouth full of novocaine and a belly full of ibuprofen.

I came home to work on the YEARS BEST again.

And then it was time to get ready for the big BAREFOOT BOOK OF BALLET STORIES book launch. First we met friends--the illustrator Rebecca Guay and her family, illustrator Tony DeTerlizzi and his wife Angela, and writer Holly Black and her husband, for drinks and hors d'oeuvres at a wonderful Northampton restaurant, Spoleto.

Then we walked to the Michelson gallery, a magnificent art gallery in a renovated turn-of-the-last century bank building. Rebecca’s art for the book was hanging in one of the arched areas. There were nibblies and drinks and a good crowd of about 200 folk. After about half an hour of small talk, Heidi and Rebecca and I got to present the book and art to the crowd. Then we signed about 60 books (and Rebecca solkd four original paintings. . .so far) and then signed stock. I got to wear a tiara that Rebecca gave me, thus being the queen for a day. (And the idea that the day began with preparations for one kind of crown in the morning, and ended with another kind of crown, was amusing.) Angela had gotten flowers for Heidi and Rebecca and me, which was a generous and sweet gesture. A great time was had by all.

 

October 5-6, 2004:

Well, one can tell I am back with a vengeance. Up at 4: 30 (jetlag) and working on catching up on the last week of mail, magazines, an 11 am look at the house that’s for sale next door (possibly for Heidi and her girls) and then a meeting with my writing group.

I think the kids, the grandkids and my writing group are what I miss most when I’m in Scotland.

My writing group consists of seven women, all of us well-published children’s book writers. Three of us regularly also write fiction for adults, and a fourth often writes essays for magazines and NPR commentary. We talk shop, do news, then read our pieces aloud, and get critiques from the group.

We find it important to say something positive about a piece, before jumping in and savaging it. Oh, all right, we don’t actual savage anything. But we do take things apart on both big and small issues.

Writing groups can be incredibly helpful, or incredibly destructive. I have heard of groups in which a breakout writer within the group gets raked over the coals for success. Another where a member hijacked the group only for support of his/her failures. Another where the critiquing is about as useful as a group hug. And certainly our group--which has been in existence in one form or another for over 35 years--has had its ups and downs. But the women in it now are, I think, stunning writers, hard workers, perceptive and caring critics, and willing to listen to the publishing world’s news and take their knocks. This is an especially difficult time in the world of publishing, children’s publishing in particular. One of the things our group tries to do is support those of us who are having problems with publishers, editors, agents--as well as being able to put into perspective our own changing roles within that writing community.

I came home from the meeting with renewed vigor and began working more on the YEARS BEST short story collection. And, surprisingly, I looked at one of the novels I’d begun a long time ago, THE ANGEL OF HADLEY. I need to tear myself away from that because I have two other novels in need of triage.

Heidi and I received a copy of the f&gs (folded and gathered sheets) of a new book by illustrator David Parkins who is our editor’s pick for the Hibernation book. His work is sensational, charming, a bit sly, full of wonderful additional details. My only carp is that this book is also a sleeping book and I wonder if it might be wrong to have him do two sleep books in a row. Or perhaps he is so busy, we are talking about three or four years before he can start on our manuscript, at which time that carp no longer matters.

In the evening, I began to notice a serious ping-like pain in the left side of my jaw. Since I already had a date with the dentist on Thursday, I ignored it.

Still jetlagged, I slept through the first part of the veep debate, and decided not go to bed without seeing the rest of it.

Wednesday up early again, in order to get as much work done as possible before 8 am. That was the time I was expecting to greet a visiting video team.

They actually arrived early. Took till 9 to complete setup, though of course I had to be entertaining the whole time. Then we worked on the interview until 12:30, at which time they packed up and went back to Boston. By the time they left, my jaw was pinged harder than before.

I tried to get some work done, downing Ibuprofen. Hot tea hurt as much as anything cold. I couldn’t tell if the problem was in the top row of teeth or the bottom.

Except for speaking to two of my editors about books in progress, I got little work done. The toothache seemed to take over my mind. My hair even hurt.

By the time I went to bed, stuffed to the gills with Ibuprofen, I was sure (of course) that I had a brain tumor. And when I woke at 1 in the morning, my entire head--from jaw to skull--was aflame. The question was--is it a tooth problem? If so, I could wait until morning when I saw the dentist. But what if my brain was exploding? What if I had a brain fever, tumor, infection? One o’clock in the morning is a great time for such rambling. I let my tongue touch various teeth and the pain meter registered a red light. Definitely a tooth problem. I took some more Ibuprofen and went back to bed. After twenty minutes, the pills worked and I slept.

 

October 3-4:

Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.

First we went to Edinburgh on the train and on the way, discovered that David had left his teeth (yes, his bridge!) at our Scottish house. A frantic phone call later to Debbie who said she’d mail them the fastest way possible.

Bus to the airport Hilton where, with the magic of a Hilton Honors Card (I have NO idea when I got one) we upgraded to a fine room. Then a bus into Edinburgh center and a brisk walk to Queen’s Hall to meet Janis Ian, that folk/pop icon who had recently become a wonderful friend. There we were told that Janis was off at a bookstore. Of course.

We raced out, found her just coming out of the store. Many hugs, and several hours of conversation later, as well as sound check, David and I headed off for a Chinese dinner, then back in time for some more chat with Janis, then the concert, then the bus back to the hotel.

Alright—not jiggety-jog. More like a whirlwind.

David had only heard Janis’ CDs and never seen her live. He said after, "I could go right back and hear the concert all over again." We both love the combination of melody, mood, and literacy that permeates all the songs she writes and sings.

Up early Monday morning, we shuttled the one minute to the airport, got great seats (though a bit of last minute kerfuffle with David’s ticket which turned out to be just a computer glitch) and we were off. Twenty minutes late because of rain.

Because of rain. I hate hearing that. I am a lousy flier at best. Going over the Atlantic gives me the whim-whams. But this was simply the easiest, smoothest trans-Atlantic flight I have ever been on. I was reading "An Instance of the Finger-Post," a philsophical mystery set in 17th century England. It’ s slow going and at one point I turned instead to a Ruth Rendell mystery which I’d read before but could not remember who’d done it.

We landed at Newark and called home, only to discover our granddaughter Maddison had just broken her thumb in school, and so our daughter had to deal with doctors and hospitals and couldn’t pick us up when we got to Hartford, but her ex-husband—still a good friend of the family—had been enlisted instead.

So we returned, though the worst of it was the 1 1/2 hours getting through Newark customs and changing planes and re-entry through yet another set of scanning machines.

And then home—to loads of email, piles of mail from last week, contracts to sign for the Korean edition of HOW DO DINOS GET WELL SOON?, the Chinese edition of LETTING SWIFT RIVER GO, an unnamed fairy tale romance novel (probably I will do Tam Lin), and the compilation BABY’S FIRST POETRY BOOK.

Plus lots of copies of books, mine and others. And the first proofs of the new dinosaur book, HOW DO DINOSAURS EAT THEIR MEALS?

Yes, it’s clear I’m home. Piles of things to do. Sigh.

 

October 2, 2004:

What with final packing, final clothes washing, etc., it was clear I wasn’t going to finish the Rupert Brooke bio. But it’s not a good airplane book, so I will leave it till our next trip here. Instead I watched two old movies on the tv, one serious--"Voyage of the Damned" about Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany before the outbreak of WW2—and one a bit of fluff starring Julie Andrews—"Relative Values."

Heidi sent me an article she’s writing (on me) which I proofed for errors. She has such an antic style, I love it.

And the phone kept ringing with folks saying their farewells.

Not a day for any real work.

And then we go off to dinner at our friends Ron and Ann’s house. Probably there will be no new Telling the True until Tuesday.

 

October 1, 2004:

We are in count down mode, getting ready to leave Scotland. Luckily when Adam sent back his revision of TROLL BRIDGE it was so lightly done, I had no trouble going over the whole thing quickly.

But it got me thinking about revisions. By the time we sent the novel off to the editor today (by email), it had had ten revisions. Each time I wrote a chapter and sent it to Adam, it would have had three to five revisions on the chapter alone. When he sent his new chapter to me, I would go back over the earlier chapter, sometimes two, to get back into the voice, and then worked on revising his chapter. Six. And sometimes seven. Then when we had the entire thing together, I went over it carefully, the whole thing. Eight. He went over it after me. Nine. And then I gave it last lick-n-polish. Ten. And now we await the editor’s revision letter, because I have never known a children’s or YA book go through without at least one editorial revision. Possibly more. Sometimes it’s twiddly stuff (that’s a technical term!) And sometimes it is more serious than that. Of course there will be more revising on the galleys, but—we all hope—hardly anything. In all, between 10-20 revisions on a YA novel of 140+ pages.

And you thought writing was easy!

I also received three more stories from PNH, all of which were solid, and two were absolutely wonderful, so I revised the list. (Which is why it won’t be announced until the very last minute.)

Then I worked around the house: straightening, tidying, packing.

Made a nice, plain dinner—chicken with an onion/apple compote, noodles with green and red pepper and brown sugar, and a lettuce and avocado salad topped with feta. Just trying to use up whatever is in the fridge. Our friend, artist/Pictish stone scholar Marianna Lines showed up just as we were sitting down and we simply put another plate on the table. It made for a very engaging farewell. She is in the process of putting together a tour for a group of visiting Wiccans, and so we brainstormed some places of interest, including standing stones, good restaurants, and castles.