Journal

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 23-November 1, 2006:

This round-up is a necessary evil. I have been mammothly busy, augmented with a head cold (or perhaps an allergy attack), Heidi has strep, Maddison and I have hung out a bit, and while nothing has gone terribly wrong, and a few things have gone right, there is little to talk about.

Let’s see—three picture books rejected, a poem accepted for a Hospice Journal (I am pleased about that), sent off one of the new BABY BEAR mss. Ed Young made a dummy for TIGER ROSE while turning it down, saying he really wants to do more books with me. And I finished going over the copyedits for ROGUE’S APPRENTICE. Ask me sometime about why I choose to use the spelling grey and not gray!

Am reading Christopher Priest’s THE PRESTIGE. I sat out on the porch swing Halloween night reading it between visits from goblins and ghoulies and fairy princesses to whom I made ritual offerings of candy. Am also reading a book about the life of Laurence Housman.

Got a haircut, played boggle with my friend Andrew Sigel (he won), had a mammogram, eye exam, and full physical. Turns out my cholesterol is entirely out of whack so am trying a new cholesterol pill and so far it’s the only one that hasn’t sent me into awful side-effects. Yet.

I spoke at the Norwich Free School—senior high school--at a massive assembly and then after for townfolk about BRIAR ROSE which was one of three books chosen for their “One (3?) Book One Region” celebration. Since they’d bought something like 1500 copies, it was the least I could do!

Maddison performed in the Hermit Crab ballet again at the Eric Carle Museum and saved the day twice when one prop and one puppet had problems. Not missing a dancing step, she fixed them!

I took Maddison and Heidi to a wonderful local performance of “La Boheme.” Of course I was awash from the beginning. (David and I met in Greenwich Village and I’d lived in a garret when we started dating.) Maddison loves the musical “Rent” and so was fascinated to finally understand what it’s based on.

Oh yes—I went to a pumpkin-carving party with Heidi and Maddison. Hadn’t carved a pumpkin since my kids were little. It’s easier these days. The pumpkins were already hollowed out (no more slick seeds sliding between fingers) and there are all these wonderful little serrated-edge tools. Plus—if you want to use them but I am a purist and so didn’t—tack on guides to making super-duper-professional-looking jack o-lanterns. I made a free hand, eye-ball-popping vampire-fanged j-o-l, thank you very much.

Oh, writing? Several poems, and a lot of tidying of stuff. I know, I know—write the damn book! Well, sometimes Life overtrumps. I will have to live with that.

Interstitial Moment:

Because I have been too dang busy to catch up in my journal, I have this poem, one of the things I have been working on recently:

First Frost

How crisp the leaves underfoot,

This first real frost,

Crimping the edges of maple,

Discoloring the chestnut.

The hem of my heart wears the same frost

As I go into my first winter without you.

I hope you are not cold in all the places

I have sown your ashes,

Hoping for resurrection in the spring.

This is a year of farewells.

Every month carries old memories.

This week a year ago, the battle lines

Had been clearly drawn.

You were winning, but at a horrid cost.

Would I have had you pay

Knowing then what I know now?

Another year another frost,

I imagine the time,

How hard and cold my heart will be,

Leafmold beneath the rime.

October 18-22, 2006:

So in-between a massive amount of Stuff, I continued to write. . .the. . .damn. . .book. Well, finished the draft of the Anne Bonney/Mary Reade BAD GIRLS chapter, and finished a draft of Jezebel as well. Rewrote the Ct. Library Assn. speech, wrote some more on the NCTE speech. Paid off all my bills and all the charity bills as well. (Whew!) Figured out what reprint horror stories to send off to an editor. Ignored my journal and the website, though.

I also watched the ending of Projecty Runway, the beginning of Master Chef, all of X-Men:Final Stand, River King, and Over the Hedge. Am reading some mystery short stories and got slowed reading the Lady Jane Grey novel, and am simply not sure if it’s the writing or the topic. Or both.

Besides that, we worked unceasingly on both houses, Heidi doing the heavy lifting until Sunday when a friend came to help. Me doing a lot of picking up small stuff and rearranging rooms and hanging a lot of the pictures. (Still some to go.)

Also. . .

Wednesday: The blood work went fine this time because the regular phlebotomist did it. I swam, and then went to my cousin Dani and Jack’s for dinner with Uncle Gerry and Aunt Mimi. They were all heading off to Virginia for Aunt Cecily’s memorial service.

Thursday: Lunch with my friend Peg Davol, a wonderful children’s book writer. We went to a new (to me) hole-in-the-wall café in Florence, then did a small serendipity trip around the town, looking at some of the old houses, and spending some time at the Sojourner Truth statue. She had lived awhile in Florence, a little town just north of Northampton. The statue is handsomely done.

Friday: Had a fairly long phone interview with a Smith journalist for the Smith website, and some interesting questions to answer.

Saturday: Heidi and I (and Maddison) drove to Greenfield’s World Eye Bookstore for a low key but successful signing 11-1, then got back into the car and whisked off to Bolton, where we'd lived for two years around the time Jason was born in the Concord hospital, some 36 years ago. (Heidi was 4 and Adam 2.) The library trustees were having a children’s book signing (including Jeannie Brett, who did the pictures for Heidi’s new ONE IF BY LAND Massachusetts Number Book. We arrived at 2:15 (whew!) It was quite successful. They ran out of OWL MOON early, and sold loads of FAIRY TALE FEASTS as well as TROLL BRIDGE and others. I showed Heidi and Maddison our old house, a beautiful four chimney red brick Federal building We didn't get to go inside, but it had a rainbow staircase, fireplaces in both parlors and all three bedrooms. I wondered if the foor to ceiling bookcases we put in were still there.) Heidi got a speeding ticket on the way home. It turns out that the Route 2 speed limit is 55, not 65. We were both thinking it was the same as the Mass Pike.

Sunday: Lots of furniture moving and room cleaning. Lots of writing. Dinner at Heidi’s house.

An interesting emotional thing happened halfway though the week, when the weather turned cold. I found myself very weepy. I mentioned it to Heidi who said she’d been feeling the same way. Glen called, and she was feeling blue about her Papa, too. And then Jason called. He had been unaccountably sad, and Caroline, the eldest twin (they are 3 years old) brought over a copy of OWL MOON for him to read. (It’s about David taking Heidi owling, of course.) “Here, Daddy, we haven’t read this in a while.” “How does she DO that?” he asked me.

I have tried to make sense of this emotional unsettlement, and have come up with two possible answers as to why we are all feeling this way. First—change of seasons. The body copes, but the mind lags behind. Senses are reeling, body is pumping itself full of new stuff to battle the cold. Second, it is coming on to seven months. Up to six months we could just about still manage the he's-coming-right-back model of thinking. But now it’s for real. Realer than when I sat there holding his hand while he breathed his last. Realer than having the funeral parlor men take away his body. Realer than the memorial service or giving away a lot of his clothing or spreading his ashes around Scotland. Real—as in final. It suddenly feels final. There’s nothing realer than that!

Interstitial Moment:

Ah--young editors. There is an ongoing discussion on several sites, and though I tried to put this in the comment section at Fuse #8, it bounced. So here is what I (reconstructed) tried to post:

I have nothing against young editors as long as they are enthusiastic and well read. If they know something of the history and the mystery of the field--I love them. If they are knowledgeable in the genre they are editing--I love them. If they are respectful of the book and the author--but not TOO respectful--I love them. If they are quick to respond and not trying to make the mss. something it is not--I love them. After all, they will be the big shebang (pun intended) some day.

But if they are slow to respond, only adept at star gazing (being polite here), more interested in moving up in the organization than honing their critical skills, simply wasting time till they get married or have babies or find a place in graduate school, or if they have absolutely no power within the publishing company, I'd rather work with their superiors, thank you. This is my vocation and avocation. I have already proven I am in this for the love of it it and for the long haul. Besides, it's MY story and words in the book, my name on the spine, not theirs.

Of course I would say the same thing of editors at any age. Theirs, or mine.

October 16-17, 2006:

So I took my own advice. In-between life happening, I wrote. . .the. . .damn. . .book. That is I took up Heidi's revision of GHOUL SCHOOL proposal and three chapters, and gave it another go-round. Her notes were spot on. We needed a better voice, the interstitial material had to be much more child-friendly, and the narration overwhelmed the scenes. Worked on it about 12 hours altogether. Over to her again.

I also wrote the start of my NCTE speech which is about humor in fantasy novels. (I had been thinking about the opening for about four weeks now.)

And I worked on a first draft of a piece on Anne Bonney and Mary Read for BAD GIRLS. They were in my first book, PIRATES IN PETTICOATS, as a picture book I wrote in rhyme called THE BALLAD OF THE PIRATE QUEENS, and of course in my newest nonfiction book about female pirates, SEA QUEENS. The problems were twofold: how to make their stories fresh again, how to make them short enough for the book. I failed on both tasks in the first draft. But it is only a first draft. One of the glorious things about writing is that one gets a second and third, and twenty-fifth chance at the work. And even after that, when it comes back from the editor. And comes back again in the form of galleys/page proofs etc.

In the interstices, my life consisted of swimming therapy (Monday) and writer's group at my house (Tuesday) and much clean-up stuff and bill paying. Oh--and going to bed early on Tuesday night because I had to fast for (ugh) another attempt at bloodletting Wednesday morning at 7 am. (Where are Angel or Count Dracula when you really need them?)

Other book stuff: Received huge package of copies of the British special boxed DINO books with attached minature play dinos. Adorable! Also received box of BABY BEAR'S BOOKS. Hurrah!

Interstital Moment:

Okay, so I have become known as the person who advises: Just write the damn book! And here I have gone day after day NOT writing. I suspect it is time to take my own advice. Yes, life intrudes. Memories, too.

While I read a number of blogs about children's books, I am reminded (rather forcibly) about how I was once so in tune with the everyday fortunes of children's books that I was reviewing, editing, teaching workshops, mentoring…and all this before Internet outsourcing. (Do I sound like your crotchety old aunt? I AM your crotchety old aunt!)

As a reviewer I not only wrote fairly regularly for the NY Times, Washington Post, Parents' Choice, and other newspapers and magazines, but also had a bimonthly review column in the local newspaper. Eventually I also had a monthly column in the Western Mass Regional Library bulletin.

As an editor, I worked in children's books for the packager Rutledge Press in 1960-61, and next for Knopf where I was Assistant Children's Book editor under Virginie Fowler 1961-1965. At Knopf, I got to work on CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (writing the flap copy which, for years, remained my longest in-print piece of work!), CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG, and books by Eve Merriam, Roger Duvoisin, Benny Motressor and others. In the '80s and '90s I had my own imprint at Harcourt--Jane Yolen Books. There I published the Patricia Wrede Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Bruce Coville's Magic Shop Books, Sherwood Smith's WREN books, Will Shetterly's ELSEWHERE and NEVER NEVER, Kara Dalkey's medieval Japan fantasy novels, an Ann McCaffrey Arthurian novel called BLACK HORSES FOR THE KING and many other wonderful books. I was just committing to Neil Gaiman's CORALINE when the powers-that-be declared fantasy a dead end and closed my line. A bit shortsightedly, I might add, just a few years before the first HARRY POTTER book.

What all this horn-blowing is about: there has been such an explosion of new talent, new faces, new books, new (Internet, etc.) ways to promote books, that I am quite dazzled. And tired. And overcome. Not to mention way behind in reading.

And way behind in writing, too.

So-write the damn book, Jane.

October 11-15, 2006:

I suppose I could say ditto. I hate playing catch-up. And I expect that all my Constant Readers have given up on me by now. I seem to be in a constat whirl of lunch/dinner/meetings, or else I am house cleaning. As a result, the writing has dwindled down to a pile of ashes. Suddenly, my mode is scorched earth.

But isn't it good to know that sometimes life knocks you on your rear and you struggle back up and say--"Ooooh, the house needs work, boxes need moving, forget about the writing, there's a toilet to unclog"? Even for writers as obsessive as I am?

So, you ask politely, if not at all interested, what have I been doing instead of writing?

Wednesday there was the phone guy who was giving us a downstairs fax line, and then a poets' meeting, 2:30 swim therapy. and afterwards tea with Jane Dyer and two of the marketing folk from Harcourt who were up in our area for other, more mundane reasons. That day well shot.

Thursday morning a telephone interview with Boston Parents Magazine, then the house appraisers for settling David's estate, and an actual afternoon to myself. I worked on the revision (again) of GHOUL SCHOOL.

Friday: hair appointment took over the morning, afternoon swim therapy, getting organized for the Westport award ceremony.

Saturday: Maddison had two superb ballet performances as the Hermit Crab at the Eric Carle Museum, and then Heidi, Maddison, and I went off to the ballet fete where we helped set up and run errands for two hours before the fete (a fund raising effort, to which I donated many books and a week at Wayside, which brought in the most money!) Then we helped clean up, getting home at 10 pm.

Sunday we went off early to Westport, Ct., where we put flowers on my parents' graves, then I showed Maddison and Heidi my old house and my old school. There was an elegant luncheon for the award winners at an astonishing house that was set at the confluence of two rivers. Then the award ceremony at the Town Hall, which was very moving, celebrating the lives of a number of artistic types. And there was I, the literary choice, among the past winners who included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and the like. Whosh! All of us somehow Westport related. The ceremony ended with the top singing group from the high school serenading us with three songs. Then an hour plus reception. And afterward, a half dozen of my classmates and the three of us went out to dinner at Mario's. My favorite high school English teacher, the astonishing V. Louise Higgins, came to the luncheon and the awards ceremony. A number of the class members went up to tell her how she was their favorite teacher, and I think it touched her incredibly. Especially because it was totally unplanned. And the dinner was raucous (how could it no be with Jack Paterson there!) And for the first time ever I got to really know Sally Campbell, who had been the gorgeous IT girl in our school, head cheerleader, etc., who turns out to have lead a fascinating life. I was glad to set that burden of jealousy down at last. Not my own doing, but because she was gracious and funny and dear and open.Hellos also to Neil and Art (who set up the dinner) and the ever wonderful Steffi, and Jackie who had lost her husband at the same time I had so we helped one another along, and especially my dear, dear, Leanne and Randy Enos. I'd been maid of honor at their wedding fifty years ago.

We got home by 10 to the news that the island of Hawaii--where Heidi's oldest daughter Glen and boyfriend Jason are now living--had been rocked by a large earthquake. It took us nearly two hours to get through and find out they were fine.

Intestitial Moment:

Joe asked: “Maybe it's just me, but the advice features and editor interviews in the annual "Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market" seem to address a market that no longer exists. In one recent edition (might have been 2005 or 2006), an editor from HarperCollins was bemoaning the perception that the market isn't open to unknown unagented authors and that celebrity is an advantage, if not a guarantee of publication. Their listing in that same edition specified in bold type "Agented submissions only" and their website at the time devoted the homepage to the Julie Andrews Collection. You never seem to see articles about such challenges as the glut of celebrity-authored books (though a love letter to Madonna was thinly disguised as a profile of illustrator Loren Long who, it seems, wasn't worth their attention until linking up with Ms. Ritchie) and how every family-friendly movie floods the market with everything from picture and pop-up books to graphic novels (Stephen Spielberg wouldn't let his own kids see the carnage in "Jurassic Park" but that didn't stop him from licensing about 2 dozen "JP" picture books).”

Well, Joe—in fact EVERYONE I know bemoans the celeb books, both privately and in public. I have even done it here on Telling the True. I think I said something like this when Madonna’s books starting oozing out of the publisher’s anal cavity: That I was going to find myself a pointy bra and spangles and become a famous singer/dancer (I sang in high school and college after all, and did ballet and jazz/interpretive though college as well, and after that folk dancing.) And when I am really well known, I will turn again to writing children’s books. Because, of course, they are easy to do and make a gazillion dollars for the writers. And teach children good morals which I, in my pointy bra and spangles, could never quite manage.

So--which of the celeb books do I like: maybe Jamie Lee Curtis’ would have made it (sort of) in the field without her name. Julia Andrews Edwards’ novel, THE LAST OF THE REALLY GREAT WHANGDOODLES, has charm. Alan Arkin’s novel, THE LEMMING CONDITION, has pizzazz, and maybe John Lithgow’s picture books (though they are not for me.) The rest are gag-making and the Madonna and Billy Crystal stuff is beneath contempt. But they have sold thousands more than many of my books, so one could always point a finger at me citing jealousy.

And you know what—even the editors and marketing people at the publishers are embarrassed by the celeb books. Though the checks are still cashed.

October 6-10, 2006:

I hate playing catch-up all the time, but my journal has been taking a back seat lately, probably because I am running around more than is good for me. It means less work done, more speeches, dinners, fetes, etc. Ah, the busy life of an FA. (Famous Author.) Or in one special case, FAM (Famous Author's Mom.)

I did get some writing done. Finished the new revision of FOILED. I would say this revision ended up taking about 17 hours of hard slogging. But over two weeks, that's pretty spread out. And I wrote two new David poems which I will read in my poetry group. They are pretty raw, so I might be ripped to shreds.

Only good book news (only book news, period) is that ROANOKE, one of the Unsolved Mysteries from History books has been bought by Scholastic Book Clubs.

Friday: My California cousins Dorothy, Sandy, and Dov, in the area for an autumn trip, came to lunch. I went to swim therapy though my bruised arm was hugely black. I remarked to my swim friends that it looked as if I'd been in a bar fight--and lost. We had dinner with Rebecca and Matt and their little daughter Vivian (who adores Maddison.) Rebecca and I talked about books (what else) and our upcoming graphic novel.

Saturday: Heidi and Maddison and I went off to the Paradise Arts Festival, bought a few Christmas presents, and won an item in their raffle as well. Then we trekked to the Eric Carle Museum where we watched the other cast of "A House for Hermit Crab" ballet (Maddison's cast is next weekend.) Adorable. And then went around the latest exhibition--the OZ pictures, which I loved. Heidi and I vastly preferred the Neill pictures (very Art Nouveau) to the earlier Denslow. Elisabet Zwerger had several gorgeous pieces in the show as well, again favorites of ours.

Sunday: Heidi was the keynote speaker at the UMass Friends of the Library annual meeting, and she was fantastic. She spoke about being raised in a family of readers and writers, and how pieces of her life sneak into her stories and poems--even when she doesn't mean to put them there. Afterwards, we made a quick trip to Target and I got a bread box, a new microwave, and some frames for the twins' pictures. We finished the day at the Lord Jeffrey Amherst Inn for a dinner with all the UMass Library folk. It was delicious, as was the conversation.

Monday: We checked out a big local auction and left bids. Then I went on to the Yiddish Book Center for their Sukkot Harvest Fest where, along with other children's book writers--Dina Friedman, Barbara Goldin, Rich Michelson etc.--I read and told stories in the children's tent. Sold a whopping two O JERUSALEM and one DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC, though my tent had been chockablock full of kids and parents, and I did a second show. Sigh.

Tuesday: I was supposed to host the writer's group and then have my old Boggle partner, Andrew, over for the afternoon, but everyone canceled. Suddenly I had an open day. Did a lot of box-moving, finished up the FOILED revision and sent it out, read some mystery short stories, worked a lot of crossword puzzles, and taught myself how to burn CDs on my computer so I can send stuff that way to the Kerlan as well.

Interstitial Moment:

Which blogs and websites do I read religiously, that is--not with a fervent hope of redemption but with the faith that they will teach me something, amuse me, or keep me up to date with friends?

My children's websites, though they are all three woefully behind in updating them: www.HeidiEYS.com, www.adamstemple.com and www.jasonstemple.com.

Then I read: Making Light, Miss Snark the Literary Agent, Fuse # 8 Production, Surlalune Fairy Tale Discussion, Endicott Studio for the Mythic Arts, It's All One Thing by Will Shetterly, Skzbrust's Journal, Holly Black Queen of Caffeine, Bluejo's Journal, Read Roger, Angdee.livejournal (speaking of woefully out of date!), Emma Bull's Live Roast, At Last! Writer's Beware Blogs, The Chemistry Set Scheherazade, and I am on the Pub list, sffnet, and Dueling Modems.

Occasionally I branch out when a friend sends me somewhere with a link. But these are my favs right now. More than that, I simply don't have time for on a daily basis. I know some people who are on about a hundred times more than that. When do they have a chance to read books--or write them? Or have time to watch Project Runway, for goodness sakes?

October 3-5, 2006:

I have noticed how spasmodic my writing is. Sometimes (as in my four weeks in Scotland) I am absolutely obsessive, at work 5-10 hours a day. And now I am hardly writing at all. Oh, in this three days, I managed to complete the first draft of the FOILED revision. But there was little left to do. And I have gone over the two chapters of GHOUL SCHOOL, and I revised the speech Heidi and are doing for Connecticut reading. But this was hardly writing.

So I have been asking myself, is there a pattern here? Am I obsessive only when deep into first drafting. Or is it that I am so booked up with Things that I have left myself little time to look/think/write, that triumverate that makes a successful author? Or perhaps it is the triple whammy of deaths in the last two weeks which have brought up my personal grief to a high pitch again. Or. . .or.. .or. . .is it I am overpowered by autumn and autumnal stuff? Or am I at recess and if so where are the see-saws? Or . . .good grief., I haven't a clue.

Good book news: Look for my dino books in the New York Times Bestseller lists for Oct 15.

Bad news: Charlesbridge's committee (after a successful revision the editor loved) has turned down my Tooth Fairy book.

Tuesday: Leisurely breakfast with cousin Mal. Leisurely lunch with the writer's group for Barbara Diamond Goldin's 60th birthday. Happy b-day again, Babs! Two hours at the Hadley Barnes & Nobel signing books for educators and talking to newish writers.

Wednesday: Insurance company nurse came for medical tests which left my arms terribly bruised and no blood taken! Poetry group at Corinne's. I read two poems, went to swim therapy, and came home to work on the poems after a bunch of errands.

Thursday--picked up the FAIRY TALE FEASTS aprons. (Will set the price with Heidi, but I expect children's will be $10, adults $15. If you want ANY, you are going to have to add shipping. More on that anon.) Had lunch with frriend Sue who is going to be staying for a bit at Wayside with her daughter, so gave her the keys and instructions on the alarm system. (Complicated.) The new kitchen chairs were delivered. And as I have cousins coming for lunch on Friday, I worked at getting the kitchen as ordered as possible.

I guess maybe the answer to my initial questions is: too booked up with Things. And looking at the calendar, I don't think that pattern's going to be changing any time soon.

October 1-2, 2006:

Sunday: Dreadful day, monsoon rains, and all plans for going out to various outdoors activities were swamped. So instead I worked another five hours on FOILED and another 2 hours on the GHOUL SCHOOL proposal. I am at very similar places with these two books. They both need serious attention to voice and character. Of course the voice comes out of the characterization. Then I turned my attention to an easier projct, rewriting the Collaboration speech that Heidi and I will give in Connecticut, updating it, deleting excess materials. About two hours sitting in bed with the laptop.

Speeches always go well for me, but I am afraid I have reached the end of speech-giving. I mean--what else is there to say?

Pancakes for breakfast at Heidi's and dinner there as well. Maddison tried out for another ballet role--snow goose--and got it.

Monday: Had a bad stomach, so abandoned all plans to go to swim therapy. Instead I worked on the above projects and finished a first go-round on the new revision of FOILED. It still needs work, but at least I got some basic ideas down. Now to try the rest of the week to go a bit deeper into the characterization and weaving the two stories--the realistic part and the magic part--together. This is key and I can't be sloppy about it.

Received the first color proofs of HOW DO DINOSAURS GO TO SCHOOL and it is delicious. Mark Teague has outdone himself this time, though I fear I am running out of book ideas! (This is always a fear. The magic trick is bound to fail at some time, I will be idealess, left to rot in the ever-warming sun.)

Fondue dinner at Heidi's with Maddison and her friend Leah. Then I went home to wait for my cousins Malerie and son Ben to show up. They couldn't leave from Stamford to get here till after Yom Kippur was over, and their fast broken. Ben's school is up in Vermont. They arrived around 10:30. Ben had bagels, cream cheese and lox for a picker-upper. Then we all fell into bed as they had to be up by 5:30 in the morning to get him to school on time.