Jasper and the Riddle of Riley's Mine Archives

Writing Links and My Annual Internet Break

Every year since 2012, I’ve taken an Internet break in July. That was the summer I read The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Some of the book feels dated now with its talk of The Web and The Net, but its message is still relevant: The Internet with its limitless choices can leave us scattered and distracted.

Usually I sign off on the blog and social media at the same time, but this year I left Instagram and Twitter in June. It has been a wonderful break.

Now it’s time to say goodbye here, at least for a little while. Feel free to dig through the archives (almost twelve years of posts!) or enjoy a bit of quiet yourself. I’ll see you again in August.

For now, I leave you with some interesting links —

“As far as I knew then, Black girls like me didn’t exist in books. And as physics would have it, people who don’t exist can’t go on adventures or solve mysteries or fall in love or save the universe. Which meant that I, as a nonexistent entity, wasn’t capable of any of those things.”

Don’t Just Read About Racism—Read Stories About Black People Living by Nic Stone :: Cosmopolitan

“Authors and book publishing employees are speaking out against the homogeneity of their industry and how much writers of color are paid, issues that are gaining urgency as protests against systemic racism continue around the U.S.”

#PublishingPaidMe and a Day of Action Reveals an Industry Reckoning :: NYTimes

“The exposure of your deepest self…is what real writing demands.”
“Stories truly told can give us a key to unlock for each other those ‘thoughts that often lie too deep for tears.’”

Katherine Paterson :: Written Together (a 28-minute video that’s worth every second)

This treasure hunt was the inspiration behind One-Eyed Riley’s abandoned mine in Jasper and the Riddle of Riley’s Mine.

Forrest Fenn Confirms His Treasure Has Been Found :: Santa Fe New Mexican

Forrest Fenn finally shared photos of his discovered treasure amid doubts that it was actually found :: CNN

A First Read, A Last Read

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When a box of ARCs arrives at my house, I go over them like any author would, studying what’s been included on the back cover, lovingly taking in every detail of what’s inside besides the story itself (this time around there’s wonderful praise for Blue Birds and a stunning Klondike goldfields map).

As soon as I can, I sit down with the book for a celebratory read through. It always takes a bit of adjustment at first, seeing words on the left-hand side of the page (when working with a printed draft, I keep everything one sided), but soon I’m involved with the story, as I hope future readers will be.

This reading is a both looking forward and back. It’s the culmination of years of hard work and the realization the book is no longer mine alone. Like any completed piece of art, a piece moves from create to connect when it is given to a broader audience. Meaning and interpretation and all those potential opinions — they aren’t mine to shape or even know. They aren’t for me, anyway, just as the book is no longer for me. As Katherine Paterson says,

Once a book is published, it no longer belongs to me. My creative task is done. The work now belongs to the creative mind of my readers. I had my turn to make of it what I could; now it is their turn.

This weekend, I sat with Jasper on airplanes, in airports, and in the Orlando sunshine, grateful for the opportunity to see it as a whole, completed thing, and super grateful that even this late in the game there is a chance to make corrections (Because errors — there still in there! I found I’d typed west when I meant east, that Jasper claimed to see someone nod his head even though he’d just closed his eyes, that one particular paragraph worked better moved over half a page and another was much stronger broken up and reassembled.).

Here you go, Jasper. You’re ready to make it on your own without me. I wish you many readers and friends on this next leg of your adventure.

Five Things I Learned From NaNoWriMo

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Here’s an oldie but goodie for those of you in the NaNoWriMo trenches. Enjoy!

It was with a bit of reluctance I decided to join in this year’s National Novel Writing Month. For those of you unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, it’s a month-long challenge to produce 50,000 words on a new piece of writing. I’d tried NaNo in 2009 and failed miserably. I never, ever was going to do it again. But things came together for me this year in a way that joining in made sense:

BLUE BIRDS was off with my editor
I was at the point with my research for a new novel that I was itching to get started
I read this blog post by Darcy Pattison
My critique partner, Valerie Geary, promised me peanut butter cookies if I made it through

I didn’t sign up officially. Instead I created a contest of one I called Fake-o NaNo, where I aimed to write 1500 words a day six days a week. I missed one day, had a good number of sessions I didn’t hit 1500 (and a couple I wrote more), and felt finished with the draft a few days before Thanksgiving — the exact day BLUE BIRDS “flew” back to me in a big padded envelope.

Here are five things I learned from the experience:

Slow and steady has been my writing mantra this year. But sometimes fast and furious is just as important. Typically, I write verse novels and picture books. It’s a sloooow process, especially when I’m initially drafting. But with this new novel, I’m trying my hand at prose, something I haven’t poked at for seven or eight years. Throwing words on a page was a very liberating, non-committal way to reintroduce myself to this form. With my first NaNo attempt, I got stuck during the first week and decided to stop. This time around was no different. I faced the same impossible rut one week in. But I kept moving, mainly by sticking to the next lesson I learned.
Sometimes you just have to write about the writing. While I’ve kept a journal for this book since April, I still have a lot of exploring to do. Many days I found myself writing about what was working in the story and what wasn’t. Things I’d have to look further into, characters I needed to add, relationships I needed to develop. Really, the draft became a running commentary, an in-the-moment chance to reflect on my ideas (or lack of them). I know this will be invaluable when I return to the book in a few months.
Practice holds the fear at bay. I’ve written here a lot about how much angst is bound up in my first drafts. The creative process is a scary thing for me, and beginning (and finishing) a first draft is my biggest challenge. By holding myself to a daily goal, I was able to break through some of that fear by simply showing up and doing the work.
Embrace the mess. The “draft” I finished with is quite possibly the messiest, worst thing I’ve ever written. But it’s been such a great experiment in getting words down, feeling out characters, and sometimes learning exactly what I don’t want to write about (by first doing just that). Knowing I could toss it all took me in some directions I might never have discovered if my approach had been more careful.
Did I mention the cookies? Committing out loud to a friend kept me honest. And the cookies were a great pay off!

Are any of you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? What has your experience been like?

Editing Tricks: Working Backwards Means Forward Momentum

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This picture is from my third-round edits, another time recently when I used a technique I hadn’t before. I had the manuscript with my editor’s comments bound and printed a second copy to work from longhand.

I’ve often heard of authors working backward during edits as a way to find errors they might not otherwise, but I’d never tried it until last week. In preparation for First Pages Pages (the first time I’ll see Jasper and the Riddle of Riley’s Mine looking like an actual book and the last time I’ll be able to make changes to the manuscript), I started with the last chapter and moved toward the first.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’ve found working this way means I’m not caught up in the momentum of the story (and am therefore able to notice small details I might not otherwise). I’m also able to see each chapter as it stands alone, which reveals what’s working and what isn’t. I can’t rely on what I think has already happened (though I can go back to verify).

This is a technique I’ll use again.

Any tips or tricks you use while editing?

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