Sometimes folks will ask how a new book is doing — and they mean sales-wise — but it’s months before a royalty statement comes and even then we might not have the foggiest idea how to read it.
So, I always say, "It’s doing very well… in my family."
That truth took a hit after my grandmother died. (She’d been on a quest to single-handedly distribute my books to every sentient being in the state of Wisconsin.)
But my mom has taken up the task with gusto. These are just some of the copies of Noodle & Lou she is giving away:
One of the big bennies of doing so many school visits this winter? Lots and lots of cute, funny, clever letters from kids at those schools. I shared a few little snippets last week, but have since received another packet and I can’t resist:
Dear Ms. Scanlon
I love to read It is so fun to praktis reading I cant wate untell you put your new book in a shop!
Sinserly love Cadyn
Dear Mrs Scanlon,
I want to be an author when I grow up just liyk you. Or an ilustratr. Or a rilley good reader.
By Anderson
Dear Mrs. Scanlon
Thank you for reading Noodle and Lou to us. Its really cool that we were the first pepple to read it in the world or even Amarica. In fact it’s so so so so cool!
It is Spring in Austin, Texas! My kids are on vacation in about 7 hours! I have a new book out (I’m sure you’ll all be surprised to know that it rhymes!) And I pressed send on a new manuscript last night, right about as the clock struck twelve!
What better way to celebrate it all than with a poetry party. Wanna come?
Leave your link in the comments and I’ll round ya up throughout the day… Welcome, and thanks, for coming!
Now here’s a little somethin’ to get you started:
Spring
BY KARLA KUSKIN
I’m shouting I’m singing I’m swinging through trees I’m winging skyhigh With the buzzing black bees. I’m the sun I’m the moon I’m the dew on the rose. I’m a rabbit Whose habit Is twitching his nose.
As I mentioned the other day, I’ve had a guest at my house this week. Well, formally she’s a "mentee," but we’re not actually all that formal around here.
Together since Monday, we’ve written and revised and visited with first graders and now, to round out the experience, we’re blogging together.
So, welcome, Maggie! I’m so honored you chose to be here for your "Project Week". (No jokes about me being a project or needing work, please, folks…)
I think it’s pretty unusual for a 7th grader to be able to immerse herself in something like this and, even more importantly, to want to immerse herself the way you did. You’ve been on fire!
Let’s chat a little bit about how it’s been…
L: How did it feel to be an author for a week?
M: It was a really rewarding experience, I mean I wrote a whole book in one week. It was really interesting to get into the perspective of a child, because the kind of books that you write and I was experimenting with writing, kids don’t start out reading them to themselves but they are meant to be read aloud to teach new vocabulary and skills such as rhyming and rhythm. Basically it was a really fun and academically enhancing week.
L: Were there any surprises?
M: There were not really any surprises this week, except for how quickly we produced this book. I mean less than half way through the week (2 days) all of the initial writing was done. (Of course it took longer to polish it up!)
L: What was most challenging?
M: The most challenging part was probably the brainstorming and then writing the first draft. Getting a definite plot-line down on paper was defiantly the most difficult part.
L: What was most fun?
M: For me the most fun part was on Tuesday when I just sat down with you and we turned everything into rhyme and just cranked out most of the text that would need to be completed for the story. It was a very satisfying morning.
L: That’s nice of you to say, and I had a great day that day, too! But honestly, YOU turned it into rhyme yourself. I just supported you! So, how will this week affect your writing in general — and affect you as a writer?
M: I think I will now think more about the audience that I am writing to before I just start writing down my ideas. I also think that this experience has improved my editing skills a lot.
L: Yes, you really were willing to do the hard work of revision. That impressed me. Do you think you’ll work on other picture book manuscripts in the future?
M: I most certainly will continue writing picture book manuscripts. It was really fun and I learned a lot, also I think is a good way to get an idea down without having to write a whole novel.
Thanks so much, Liz, Maggie
Thank you, too! It’s been really fruitful for me to spend a number of days being more conscious about what it is that I do, and working to articulate that. Plus, I loved having a sidekick! Come back soon!
It’s a lovely week at my house because I have a visitor.
A family friend — a middle-schooler who, as part of her school’s Project Week, is writing a children’s book.
So, she’s spending the week with me.
We talk all about picture books and rhyme and scansion and revision.
We talk about humour and getting in the groove.
We talk about libraries.
We do writing prompts.
We then, actually, write.
(I wrote quite a lot yesterday because, ahem, I had to set a good example. Y’know?)
And then we revise. Together.
It’s a hoot!
So, stuff’s happening over here and I’m hoping that on Thursday Maggie will tell you about it.
Tomorrow she’s going on a school visit with me.
And maybe going to the post office with me because, um, that’s a part of my job.
Right?
The only thing I like just about as much as a good school visit
is the letters I get after a good school visit.
There is often some very fine crayon art and a good number of exclamation points.
There is often humor.
There is often wisdom.
There is always love.
Dear Liz,
I learnd a crown is a pretty plase, like the top of my head or the top of a leafe tree.
I am gunna be looking for that book All the World!
Thank you.
From, Rowan
Dear Liz,
I learned that it can take muns and some times years to finish a book.
Your books gave me ideas for a book I mit write and ilastrate.
It was exiding having you here.
From Darcy
Dear Liz,
I learnd that your editor hleps you fix mistakx and you have to go to your offic and fix your mustak agean.
And agean.
And agean.
And finaleey, the editor sied yes!
You finoleey did it!
Today, in honor of the worms and, really, everyone else who "persists, oblivious, in service" — this poem.
What if folks really knew "the good they confer" on the rest of us? What if we tended to each other as if we had a "debt to angels"? What if nobody waited "for reciprocity"?
That’d be something, wouldn’t it?
Worms
BY CARL DENNIS
Aren’t you glad at least that the earthworms Under the grass are ignorant, as they eat the earth, Of the good they confer on us, that their silence Isn’t a silent reproof for our bad manners, Our never casting earthward a crumb of thanks For their keeping the soil from packing so tight That no root, however determined, could pierce it?
Imagine if they suspected how much we owe them, How the weight of our debt would crush us Even if they enjoyed keeping the grass alive, The garden flowers and vegetables, the clover, And wanted nothing that we could give them, Not even the merest nod of acknowledgment. A debt to angels would be easy in comparison, Bright, weightless creatures of cloud, who serve An even brighter and lighter master.
I have been really, really, really busy. I mean, everyone always says that, I know, but this has been kind of a breathtaking busy.
I can’t complain, since so much of it has been engaging and terrific work — conferences, school visits, talks, and critiques. The beginning of my teaching semester. Yet another revision.
And then, in the middle of all that, a whopping case of the flu, one daughter’s field trip and another daughter’s standardized test made for a relatively emotional breathtakingly busy time.
So it was really no surprise that the release date of my latest book kind of snuck up on me and nearly snuck right past. Noodle would likely not be surprised, either, to be overlooked and lost in the shuffle. A worm’s lot, he’d say.
But honestly, I’m pretty fond of this little worm-and-bird, and grateful for them. For example:
Huge thank yous to Arthur Howard who added such humor and whimsy to the book, who added love and pathos, who added a little green baseball cap to the head of the worm.
And to my editor, Allyn Johnston (at Beach Lane Books) who waited patiently over the very many months it took me to puzzle out the whys of this book.
And to my agent, Erin Murphy, who buoyed me up over the very many months Allyn waited and I puzzled out the whys.
And to Natalie dias Lorenzi who created the fabulous teacher’s guide to accompany Noodle & Lou (and my other books, too)!
And to Jama Rattigan who didn’t forget the release day at all!
And to the folks at Kirkus, and Booklist, and Publishers Weekly, who’ve all had some really swell things to say about the book.
But mostly, thanks to my sister, to whom Noodle & Lou is dedicated, for being the blue jay of my heart. She stumbled upon the book accidentally, in a little bookstore in Montana, days before it was even due to come out. And then she stumbled upon the dedication inside.
Isn’t it funny, the way life sometimes works that way? The way we trip over little surprises, the way we meet the folks we’re meant to, the way the sun comes out just in time?
I’m in Colorado, which is my home state and, thus, my happy state.
Ordinarily when I’m here, I spend most of my time outside.
This time, my adventures have been more of the indoor variety.
For one thing, it’s been seriously deeply crazily cold. (I know it’s winter, but still!)
Also, I’ve gone from school visit to school visit to conference to book store to school visit. Etc.
So, no summits this trip, or backcountry skiing, or campfires.
Although I did wield a mean snow shovel for about an hour yesterday morning.
Instead, I’ve saved my awe and giddiness for 2nd graders and teachers and librarians and best old friends.
Usually, I like to share little quotes and anecdotes from my school visits, because they tend to be very funny and very dear. (Like last Thursday, for example, when a little boy suggested to me that “a cat is a pocket for a hairball.” I mean, honestly. Does it GET any better than that???)
But this trip has been too long and chock-full to collect quotes every day.
I’ve just let it roll on by.
Until this morning.
When a little guy raised his hand to ask, “Does it hurt to write books?”
I caught my breath.
And while I did he said, “I mean, like do your hands hurt?”
Oh. That’s what he meant.
My hands!
So I showed him a little stretch I do to wake up my fingers and my arms and shoulders when I’m at my desk.
He and all his buddies did the stretch with me.
It was a nice moment.
But meanwhile, I was thinking, “Does it hurt to write books?”
He didn’t even know to ask about the other kind of sore, the invisible kind.
When what we’re working on doesn’t work.
When what we write isn’t right.
When what we love isn’t beloved.
When we’re pretty sure we’re all washed up with no place to go.
When we’re deathly afraid.
“It does,” I wanted to say. “It hurts.”
But I didn’t want to scare him away.
Because there are all those times when it doesn’t hurt, when it thrills and tickles and shines.
I’d hate to scare him away from that.
(Apologies for the slight delay on this post, due to air travel, time zone transitions, and bitter, bitter cold that makes it almost impossible to even think!)
Librarians!!
I’m not the only one who’s been moved to put some love out there in the world.
I’m wrapping up my week dedicated to Librarian Love, but that’s not to say there won’t be more of it to come. Librarians are a pivotal part of our schools and our communities. They are the hosts of our downtime, guides to our adventures, supporters of our studies, and they are teachers. They teach us how to read and how to research. They teach us what’s inside books and how to use books. They teach the wild extroverts how to be happy alone, and they teach the quiet introverts that they are not alone. They teach us about time travel and dinosaurs, illness and wellness, love and fear, humor and surprise. They teach us that the world is both very, very big and also at our fingertips all the time.
Let us not make the mistaking of thinking librarians are any less than all of that. We need them, as students and teachers, parents and people. We need them as a society and we should tell them so. And show them, too.
Pretty sweet, huh?
