LMM 2nd Generation

It happened! I did it!

Or something.

At our first summer vacation trip to the library, Sammy, my oldest daughter, informed me that one of her friends at school was reading the simplified version of Anne of Green Gables, and she wanted to try it out.

My first reaction was mixed. Simplified? Ick. That's like saying you wanted to eat some dark chocolate, but on second thought, make it white.

On the other hand, Sammy knows I have always loved Anne and her creator. To have her mention the idea of checking out such a book was likely an attempt to win favor with Mom (yeah, it worked). I couldn't deny that it was tantalizing to think that my almost fifth grader (FREAK! My SECOND child is really that old?) might actually find a love of Anne and L. M. Montgomery.


We searched the library shelves and did indeed find a simplified version of Anne and checked it out. Sammy spent the next couple of days glued to it. She'd come in and show off how far she was into it. Then I'd gush to her about the story, she'd tell me her favorite parts, and I'd ask if she liked it when such-and-such happened (since, you know, I have the thing nearly memorized).

She'd look at me a bit confused. "That never happened." And then she'd realize that her simplified version had cut out that part. And that part. And that part, too. Annoyed, she decided that after reading the easy version, she'd need to read the REAL one.

To ease her way into it, though (because the "real" one is significantly longer, with tiny text compared to the easy version), I showed her the movie. She's watched the whole, rather lengthy thing several times on her own, curled on the couch with her little sister. And I walk by, laughing at certain spots. We talk about the movie and the book and our favorite parts.

She's read about five chapters of the real book now. It's harder for her to get through, no doubt. She's asked if maybe I'd use it for our bedtime reading instead of her reading it herself.

But when she was making a list of her favorite books the other day, the first one on her list was Anne of Green Gables.

Ever since she was born, I've been waiting for the day when I could lend her my LMM books, then cross my fingers and hope she could find a little joy in them like I do. The day has finally come.

Woohoo! I've created a Maud fan!

Month of Beauty

I've spent the last little while hopping over to one of my dear friend's blogs almost every day. She's spending four weeks focusing on the beauty in her life and letting those of us in cyberspace share it with her.

It's been a wonderful reminder to look at the beauty around me too. It's all too easy to forget to notice the small wonders in your life when you end up pulling an all-nighter like you did in college to meet yet another editorial deadline--but you no longer have that college brain or that college body that lets you pull out of such a marathon.

So I thought I'd point any blog readers I have toward my friend Emmelyn's blog so they can take a mini vacation during the day with her month of beauty right along with me.

It's been a good reminder to relish the hugs and kisses from my children, to notice the sweet things my husband does for me each day that could otherwise go unnoticed, and even to simply take a minute and look around and think, "You know, my life is pretty darn good."

Thanks for the reminder, Em!

Article Writer's Hat

In spite of the fact that my first foray into writing was a never-completed novel called Mean Marvin the Mouse, inspired by another fictional mouse while I was in second grade, my first completed work was a screenplay I co-wrote with a close friend (Hey, Sam!) based on one of my favorite books of all time.

And in spite of the fact that fiction is my first love, the first several items I ever published were articles. As I wrote novels, submitted them, and had them summarily rejected, I also tinkered with articles on the side. This is thanks to the fact that I attended writing conferences and subscribed to Writers Digest and read the magazine cover to cover. I soaked up every word and wanted to know everything there was to know about writing. Not just fiction, not just novels. But WRITING.

I bought writing books and read them. Yes, they included plotting, characterization, and structure, but they also included research, hooks, pitching articles, queries, and freelancing. Every so often, I'd submit a query to a magazine. At one point, an editor I had queried a few times called me back and asked for more on a particular topic.

Long story short, I didn't get that job (apparently it was between me and another writer), but she remembered me and a couple of months later gave me a job. It was a brand new special project for her magazine, a spin-off newsletter. I had no clue what I was doing, but by golly, I was going to do my best. I must have impressed her, because she turned around and assigned me more articles. And more. And more.

Each time, the check increased with each piece, which was awfully nice!

At the same time, a paper started up locally. It's now defunct, but it was a great learning experience for me. The new religion editor had a great nose for finding stories, but didn't feel comfortable writing them up. She happened to know me personally and remembered that I was a wannabe writer. In short order, she started dumping stories on me. Pretty soon it was "Hey, next week is the Jewish holiday of Purim. Research it and write it up," or, "Interview this Catholic priest. He's constructing a new building in Orem, and he's been in the area for like, forever." I also did book reviews. Several times I ended up on the front page, like the article that commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Miracle of the Gulls.

I eventually dropped the paper, because while it gave me lots of experience and published clips, they only paid $25 an article (and the magazine was paying me significantly more than that).

The hey-day lasted about a year, peaking when I did a five-article job in one-fell swoop that more than paid for Christmas that year. Following that, the editor got a major promotion, and the gal who replaced her had her own freelancers she worked with, so I never heard from them again.

Shortly after that, I started focusing harder on my fiction, and my article-writing stint faded into the background as my novels (woohoo!) started coming to light.

It's really only been in the last year that I've dusted off the freelance article hat and put it back on again. I've sold close to ten articles in the last year to various magazines, including ByLine (a writing magazine), LDS Living, The Friend, Desert Saints, and Knitty. A handful of those articles are online, and you can access the bottom of this page of my website to read them. Some of the ones you can't see online I'll add to my website later (which I haven't done yet, alas).

As for how to query magazines, the format is generally up to the individual magazine. Some require a formal snail mail letter, while others allow you to send an e-mail query. But overall, the trick is finding what the magazine wants. Read the magazine and know its style, voice and readership. A sports magazine isn't going to want an article on cooking, obviously. And a cooking magazine that just ran an article on 10 top chili recipes isn't going to want another one on chili. Then follow the magazine's writer guidelines (often posted online) for queries.

I recently wrote about some of my tricks to getting article ideas on my Precision Editing Group blog here (I'm the Wednesday contributor). If you have specific questions about article writing, let me know, and I can blog about them there!

I Hate Faulkner

So that's a slight overstatement. I don't completely hate Faulkner. He has some works I like, and I do appreciate his skill and, yes, even his brilliance (hard not to as an English major, when you've read so much of his work). My personal favorite is "A Rose for Emily," one of the best short stories in existence.

But there are moments when I've had to wonder what the heck he was thinking and wish I could slap him upside the head.

Such is the case with The Sound and the Fury. With apologies to Oprah and everyone else who puts that book on one of their top five, such as a good chunk of literary scholars and university people (including English majors—so I hope my own don't disown me), the book sucks.

Here is my never-quiet opinion as to why.

I know some people think Faulkner was downright brilliant with it, as if he was seeing how far out on a limb a writer could go before the branch itself broke off.

But explain to me how it is brilliance to write a book where it's just a literary exercise, where the reader gets no joy in it? That's like saying a ballet is brilliance where the audience sits around and sees the ballerina do nothing but exercises like amazingly deep plies and grand jetes across the stage for an hour. The audience gets bored to tears.

Oh, wow. She's a great dancer. She's got an amazing turnout. But where's the ballet?

The Sound and the Fury, from what I've gathered, wasn't particularly popular in its day. It's much more popular now, when literary critics and scholars like to pick it up and tear it into pieces and say, "Wow! Look what a genius Faulkner was."

Pllllh, says I.

I personally think Faulkner was showing off rather than telling a story in the most powerful way possible, which is plain old bad writing. A writer's first responsiblity is to his reader: How can I tell this most effectively, in the way that will most impact my audience?

I want my reader to feel, to laugh, to cry, to love, to feel angry. Not to wonder what the heck is going on and be constantly pulled from the page, remembering that the writer in the one pulling the strings and that it's really a book, not another world.

Faulkner never once lets you forget that this is a B-O-O-K.

Plus, he was intentionally trying to confuse the crap out of the reader. There was no earthly reason he needed to name that many characters the same name, let alone characters of different genders. There was no reason he needed to jump around back and forth in time so much—especially without alerting the reader of the time transitions so the reader doesn't know when or where he is, and so on. He didn't need to have pages and pages of no punctuation or capital letters. (Call it a stream of consciousness style if you want. I call it annoying.)

Stupid, stupid book. I'm glad I've read it so I can say I read it. After I did, I looked up some commentaries to make sure I did, in fact, understand it—and was rather pleased that, yes, I did grasp what he was trying to do and he didn't pull the wool over my eyes, hallelujah.

(Although as I was reading it a couple of years ago, my son asked what it was about, and I told him I wasn't entirely sure, that it was kind of confusing. And he responded with, "Well, what do you THINK it's about?")

The author part of my brain kept thinking how much more effective some of these scenes could have been if he had just written them straight out normally—because Faulkner, when he wanted to be, really was a great writer.

But I think he got so in love with his own genius and skill that he sometimes also got caught up in doing acrobatics and forgot the power of telling the story and the responsibility he has to his READER.

End of rant. :)

Next time, I'll finally get around to answering a question posed by an anonymous commenter about how I got into article writing.

Until then, happy summer vacation!

Also, I just have to mention that my upcoming book, Spires of Stone, due out in September, is going to press in a few days. YES!

Memorial Day Pixie

We spent a wonderful Memorial Day visiting my side of the family. I hope my children remember the stories they heard about their great-grandparents coming to America and got a taste of some of their relatives that even I haven't seen for many years.

Here I am in pixie glory, courtesy my Aunt Judy, who entertained the kids with her face-painting skills. Two of my daughters were butterflies, another had a fairy mask, and my son became a tough guy. They insisted I get in the chair, too!

Remember those cheeks I mentioned? Check it out; they're almost gone! Maybe I should stay on this drug. I know, I know. Ridiculous idea. I told you I was going stupid!

Skinny & Stupid

My husband just stumbled upon the solution to a mystery by watching an episode of House.

Turns out that several things going around our house can be traced back to a certain prescription medication.

In some ways it all started the summer after kindergarten when I was trying to be a good little girl and read my scriptures every day. I remember having my New Testament out, but I couldn't read the tiny script. I had these little bright dots in my vision, sort of like you get after a flash picture, but they didn't go away. And then the pain hit. I cried my little girl eyes out it hurt so bad.

I didn't realize until years later what had happened: I had gotten my first migraine at the tender age of 6. I got them sporadically (2-3 a year, maybe less) until I turned the magical age of 30 when they became more frequent. My doctor tells me a lot of things like that happen at middle age.

I thought "Middle Age" was an era from history books, or at least something that wouldn't hit me for another fifteen years or so, but my body thought differently. In addition to regular migraines (like, several a month, graduating to several a week, and then, heck, why not throw one in daily?), I got the weight gain that also happens when that "middle age" metabolism shift happens.

Middle age is so much fun! Why didn't anybody tell me?!

Hah.

Long story seriously abbreviated, over the last many, many, many months, my doctor and I have spent lots of time together, not only picking out e-books and seeing one another at Friends of the Library meetings but at appointments trying to solve my goofy headache issues, like scheduling an MRI—something else that is LOADS of fun for someone who is not only middle-aged but claustrophobic.

We've tried a couple of different preventative medications. The current one I'm on isn't doing that great a job, but it's better than the previous one. On my last doctor appointment, I noticed that my weight on the doctor's scale was significantly down since the last time I came in. I knew I had lost a little weight at home and was fitting in some clothes I hadn't before, but still. On one hand, cool! I've been battling that weight for 8 years.

On the other hand, weird! How can you lose that much weight in 6 weeks without trying?

I asked how much I had lost, since the doctor scale tends to be off from the home one. The answer surprised me. It was twice as much as I had expected. I was losing weight fast, almost wasting away.

At home, I didn't feel like eating, ever. I had no appetite. I never even wanted to eat chocolate.

Which, if you know me, is a sad and frightening day indeed.

Not only that, but my writing has been difficult lately. I've had a tough time meeting deadlines and staying focused on my next book. I'm much farther behind on the next one, and I just can't seem to catch up. I'll spend hours at the computer and have little to nothing to show for it.

What is wrong with me?

That's where House comes in.

My honey discovered today that my preventative migraine medicine is often used off-label for WEIGHT LOSS (ding ding ding!) because it makes people sick to their stomachs, it curbs cravings, and for some people, it makes them not want to eat anything.

Worse, for some people, it makes it hard to concentrate. My husband started digging on line and found reports from patients, including (not good news) a writer who said it was hard to concentrate on writing, a student who couldn't read, and a pianist who couldn't remember their pieces.

Here's the kicker: Doctors nickname patients on this drug "Skinny and stupid."

I'm quickly getting to the skinny side. Heaven help me, I'm fast approaching the stupid part! It's making a lot of sense, looking back over the last couple of months I've been taking it.

Dealing with migraine pain just might be worth it if it means I can produce writing again, even if it means going back up a pants size.

And if it means enjoying life—and my favorite foods—again.

Cinderella Night

It all began last March with an e-mail from my sister Mel. The subject line:

"SORTA URGENT: With all your FREE TIME . . ." She knew I was in the middle of some major deadlines.

I actually wrote up the story how it all began for my writer friend's Jeff Savage's shared blog. You can read all about it here.

Basically, Mel is the kind of cheerleader every person should have in their life. She secretly wanted to nominate me in the Best of State organization under Fiction. That organization is highly respected in Utah, and over the years, I've noticed lots of big-time businesses touting that they had won in their respective categories: manufacturing, hotels, dining, science, etc.

I didn't know they had a fiction category until Mel e-mailed me saying that she wanted to nominate me and needed my help because I had the information she needed to do it right.

Late April the results were posted. My jaw dropped when I went to the Best of State site, scrolled down to Literary Arts and read my name. I sort of stared at it to be sure. I scrolled up and down and stared again in case some other name might appear instead of my own. But sure enough, there it was: Annette L. Lyon.


The big black tie awards gala was last Saturday night, May 19. I got all gussied up with my husband and BOTH of my two awesome sisters to celebrate the award. I felt like Cinderella for the night as I got the medal placed around my neck under the cameras and lights. About the only thing missing was the fairy godmother and the mice.

I was brought backstage and had my picture taken by a professional photographer. I was given a goodie bag (sort of like you hear they give out at the Oscars, only I'm sure on a much smaller scale . . .), and got to enjoy terrific evening of music and food and even my husband in a tux, something that hasn't happened since our wedding day.

It was all a bit surreal, and I'm still trying to digest it all. What does all this award mean for me? I hope it means big things for the future of my writing career.

I know I'm honored to have gotten it. I know I had a blast at the gala. I know have a beautiful medal.

And I know that for certain I'm going to do my best to live up to what the medal has engraved along its edge:

"Excelling and surpassing all else."

Book Shopping Spree

I got my family doctor nearly thirteen years ago, well before I ever got published. As a result, he's sort of been watching my publication journey from the back seat. In addition to delivering all of my children, he knew when I got my first book contract and always asks about my latest projects any time I come in.

He's also the head of our local library's "Friends" organization. A few years ago, he needed a judge for a writing contest the Friends were sponsoring. I agreed to be one of the judges, and have done so each year since.

You can probably see where this is going. Pretty soon being a judge became being a part of the Friends of the Library. I now attend periodic meetings that the Friends of the Library hold every couple of months. We host events and do other neat things for the library. It's a pretty neat organization.

A week or so ago I was at another Friends meeting. The head librarian wasn't in attendance, being at another meeting doing Head Librarian things. The children's librarian was there, plus my doctor, and several other Friends board people who had been roped into membership by whatever means.

One of many decisions we made was way cool: to add a collection of digital audio books on these iPod-like devices, one book per device. You check out the little device, add a battery and your own earphones, and off you go. They're very cool, and much less likely to be destroyed than CDs so they'll last longer, yet they cost about the same per book.

The trick was deciding which titles to start with. The library needs about 50 to get the collection up and running. The children's librarian didn't want to pick the titles, being as she's swamped with other duties and just doesn't have the time.

Everyone else at the table seemed to have a deer in the headlights look, sort of a, "Don't look at ME!" expression.

But me? The idea sounded like the ultimate in book shopping, like walking through a bookstore with an unlimited credit card. Are you kidding me? I get to shop for FIFTY books? Any fifty on this list? COOL! Maybe it's the English Major in me. Maybe it's because I've read a lot and that I know a lot of books. I don't know. But I thought it'd be neat.

They practically threw the list at me. I trotted home with the list and showed my husband.

He glanced it and said, "As long as you don't pick Bleak House," and grinned.

He knows I love Dickens.

I couldn't wait to sit down with a bunch of chocolate and look over the pages. The only tricky part was not picking just my favorites (which was tough--I mean, there were THREE Jane Austen titles on the list. Must . . . be . . . strong . . .).

I had to be fair. This wasn't just for me, after all. This was for the library. I had to pick a selection that a lot of people would enjoy.

That meant both adult titles and YA titles, classics and new releases, fiction as well as non-fiction. So I did some searches on amazon.com to check some books I was unfamiliar with, made sure I got a several award-winners, some that were plain-old must-haves, and so forth.

The result, I think, is a well-rounded start.

And yes, I threw in Bleak House. I couldn't resist.

Happy Mother's Day!

I'm exceedingly fortunate to have been born to the mother I was. The woman I am today is very much because of her, down to the foods I like, the books I read, the kind of mother I am, the testimony I posses, and more.

It's thanks to Mom that I'm a book freak and a writer. (It's also thanks to her that I'm a chocoholic . . .) It's because of Mom that I'm a curious person always needing to seek knowledge and find answers to questions. I could go on. (And on, and on.)

I'm also lucky to have gotten the mother-in-law I did. When I hear horrible mother-in-law stories, I try to sympathize, but sorry, ladies, I can't relate. My mother-in-law just isn't like that. Not a smidge. She's one of the sweetest, most genuine people in the world, who is far more concerned with making others happy than anything else. If she has a fault, it's being too generous.

I'm grateful that she's such not only a terrific grandmother to my children and a sweet mother-in-law to me, but that she raised a wonderful son to be my husband.

So as a nod to all the mothers out there, here a link to an article I wrote recently in honor of Mother's Day. I hope you enjoy it.

Here's to Michael

This is going to be a completely self-indulgent blog, but since this is mine, I get to do that.

About nineteen years ago, my newborn nephew Michael was diagnosed with biliary atresia. In a giant nutshell, it meant that his liver was self-destructing and he was probably going to die. Doctors spent the next year doing all kinds of things trying to keep him alive long enough--and old enough--to get him a liver transplant.

Within days of his first birthday, he got one, in spite of the fact that the blood source to his liver was small enough that they feared it wouldn't take. When asked what his prognosis would be, doctors basically told his parents to let them know in a few years--infant liver transplants were relatively new at that point.

The next year was, to put it mildly, touch and go. The entire family spent more time on its knees than ever. Michael essentially lived in the hospital as one complication after another arose--often one treatment caused the next complication, which caused the next one, which nearly killed him. His parents were told mulitple times that he was dying and to come say good-bye. They planned his funeral. He hung on.

Somehow this miracle child pulled through, defying every odd. By every logic, he shouldn't be here. Many other children who received transplants at the same time and had better prognoses didn't make it. He did.

As the years have gone by, there's almost been this halo about him. He's this spritual giant. Meanwhile, my brother (Michael's father) is a bit of a kidder and has expressed wonder at how he got Michael as his son. He's been known to see his son's light on under the door past bedtime, throw the door open to surprise him and yell, "WHAT are you doing awake?!"

Michael looks over and says meekly, "Reading my scriptures?"

"Oh," Dad says. He coughs. "Uh, then, um, well, yeah. Turn your light off when you're done then." He closes the door and walks back to his room and decides to crack open his own Book of Mormon before turning in for the night.

When the Brethren in Salt Lake announced that they were raising the bar for missionaries, Michael expressed concern that he wouldn't make the cut. His mother almost laughed. "Look way down there, Michael. See that speck below you? THAT'S the bar. You'll be fine."

Michael's biggest aspiration in life? To be a seminary teacher. He's that kind of person.

Last night the phone rang. It was my brother inviting the family over for an exciting event: Michael had received his mission call. My parents are on a mission of their own right now, but all our siblings and all the cousins were there as Michael sat on a stool and opened the envelope.

Here he was, nineteen years after we thought he might not even be living, ready to be a missionary. He pulled out the letter and began to read. Before he even got to the location, he teared up at the first line that stated he's being called to serve the Lord.

And I cried, too.

I remembered babysitting him as a newborn when he cried out from pain and I couldn't give him Tylenol because it would damage his liver further. I cried with him, trying to comfort him and hoping so badly he would live, knowing he was a special spirit with a special mission.

And now he's going on a full-time mission. He's one amazing young man, all grown up.

It's a little selfish of me, but I was glad to hear that he's not going into the MTC too soon. He'll be here just long enough to help ordain my son a deacon this summer. My little guy really looks up to his oldest cousin, and for good reason. When my son was baptized a few years ago, his one request was that Michael give a talk.

There isn't a better hero I could pick out for Daniel to emulate than his cousin Michael.

California, Fresno Mission, watch out! You're getting one heck of a missionary!

Lose Weight: Frown!

I have chipmunk cheeks.

It's just the way my face is shaped. I envy women with cheekbones. No matter how much weight I ever lose, my cheeks will still be chubby, and people will still think I'm a teenager instead of a thirty-something. It's my lot in life.

When I smile, it's even worse. My face explodes, widening like some creature from the Black Lagoon.

So with my current author photo (on my profile up there), which I've had for two books now, I've had many people meet me in person and tell me I really should get a new one because I've OBVIOUSLY lost a lot of weight since it was taken. I'm so much thinner in person.

Uh, no. I haven't lost weight. Really. I mean, thanks for thinking I'm thin, but I'm the same person.

In many of those book signings, I might have even had a few more pounds on me than in that photo. But I wasn't grinning at them at the signing, and hence my cheeks weren't sticking out and making me look fat. After explaining this, I demonstrate, and they step back, saying "Wow," as if I'm a scientific freak because smiling makes my face go wide.

Right now I actually am an itty bitty bit thinner than in that photo, if you can count five pounds as a significant weight loss, which I doubt. But if I smile, my cheeks still jut out like the Jabba the Hut's.

I got the same reaction from a reader at yesterday's book signing, this time from a gal who hailed from New Mexico. (Hi, Elizabeth!) She flipped to the back of my book and said, "You know, you really should get a new author photo. You've lost so much weight since this was taken. At least twenty pounds."

I smiled (whoops--big mistake) and gritted my teeth.

On one hand, I have been planning on getting a new photo for several months, and if I don't get one taken soon, I'm out of luck for getting it in the new book. The current one was taken May of 2004, so yeah, it's time for a change.

My hair's different now. Maybe the new 'do helps. (It's a little straighter now; maybe it hides the cheeks a bit?)

So what do I do? Frown in pictures so my cheeks don't hit LA and New York? Just stare at the camera without smiling?

They say the camera adds ten pounds. For me, smiling adds twenty.

Losing a Grip on Reality

It's happened every time. You'd think I'd get used to it.

But somehow I get the same weak-knee, punched-in-the gut, light-headed feeling every time.

I stare. I almost cry. And then I have to stop myself from looking around just in case one of my characters happens to be lurking around in spirit form. Sometimes I'm tempted to grab someone near me, point, and say, "Did you know that right over there, so-and-so stood and did such-and such?"

And of course, if I really did that, I'd sound like a total crazy person, because "so-and-so" never did exist, and never did "such-and-such."

What happened?

Yesterday I was at the Garden Restaurant at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City. It has the most marvelous view of the top of the Salt Lake Temple.

I knew this. I've been there before. But the last time was a good decade or so ago.

BEFORE I wrote a book about the temple. With an epilogue that takes place on the day of the capstone celebration. The end of the epilogue is at the top of the spires, exactly what I was looking out at.

During that time, while the scaffolding was still in place, they sold tickets to the public to climb up and view the city from the top of the the temple. (Can you imagine what a sight that would have been?)

That night in 1892, after the capstone celebration, shortly after Angel Moroni was set into place, I have my characters at the top of the temple. (I'm not going to tell you who they are or what had transpired; you'll just have to read the story when it comes out this fall. Let's just say that I'm already getting a bit emotional telling you this much. Man, I love my characters . . .)

So there I was at the restaurant staring out at the spires. I nearly snagged a lady standing next to me. "Over there, see?" I wanted to say. "That's exactly where they were standing with their families, looking out over the valley."

Instead, I gazed out, felt a fluttery feeling in my stomach, blinked back tears, and tried to get a grip on reality.

They're not real, I reminded myself.

But the same thing happened the first time I drove into Logan after House on the Hill was released (I swear I nearly saw Abe and Lizzy running across Main Street toward the Tabernacle) and again when I visited the St. George temple after At the Journey's End came out (I almost pointed out to my daughter where Clara and Miriam were dropped off on the wagon and she first walked into the temple).

What is my problem?!

I guess what it boils down to is that I love the landmarks I write about. I feel immersed in the history. And I completely fall in love with my characters. They feel real to me.

And when all is said and done, I hope they become as vividly real to my readers, too.

Three Cheers Elsewhere

There's nothing like speaking to a classroom full of second graders ready to take a test.

You walk in to hear cheers and clapping. Of course, it's because the test has been postponed until you leave, not because there's any acclaim for being a published author.

It all began with the last parent-teacher conference. My daughter begged me to tell her teacher that I'm an author and that I'd be willing to speak to the class. I'd spoken to her older siblings' classes before, and she thought that me doing the same for hers would be mucho cool.

After Mrs. M. told me that my cute little thing was tops in reading and a model student and all that jazz (of course she is--she's my daughter!), my little girl gave me this look that said, "Mom! Say something!"

So I sort of mentioned the whole author thing and said that if she's interested, I could come talk to her class. The teacher hemmed and hahed and said maybe. I heard nothing else for months, and figured she'd never take me up on it, but at least I offered, and my daughter knew it.

Then a couple of weeks ago, Mrs. M. called me and asked if I'd speak after all. Sure, I said. When would you like me to come? What shall I talk about? We jotted the details on the calendar: Thursday, April 26, 10:00 am.

That would be TODAY. I got my stuff together, and this morning I walked into the classroom door.

To see a substitute.

Who looked a bit perplexed to see me.

I had to introduce myself as Mrs. Lyon, the cute little red head's mom. I explained why I was there.

She abandoned the test she was about to hand out (hence the cheers and clapping) and let me take 30 minutes to talk to the class even though Mrs. M. had apparently forgotten I was coming and hadn't told the sub anything about it.

I told the class a bit about what I do, how I knew I wanted to be a writer ever since I was their age, and we did some fun writing exercises centered on a field trip I had chaperoned recently. I taught them a few things that Mrs. M. wanted them to learn (which we had discussed on the phone).

The kids' hands were flying into the air, and they seemed to really enjoy it--and by golly, they were really getting the hang of the concepts, too. I had fun. I think they did as well. I passed out bookmarks and buttons that had one of my covers on them--and left one of each on Mrs. M.'s desk as a gentle reminder that I had been there.

As I walked out, I heard the sub saying, "Now for the test," followed by groans from the students.

But I know I was a bright spot in one kid's life. A tow-headed boy named Cody said it was his birthday, and that this was one great part of it.

And frankly, I had fun, too, even though the cheers weren't for me.

Coming up for Air

I just hit SEND and emailed my latest rewrite to my editor!

I'm still in my PJ's. Hair's a mess. No make up. House is in shambles. My life has been this way for, oh, over a week now.

This was made possible, in part, by my sweet hubby who stayed home and helped keep my darling 4-year-old occupied and happy.

But I'm DONE.

For now. Of course, now I get to take a breath and get my life back in order just in time for the edits to hit. But for today I'm done, and my honey will be taking me out for dinner tonight to celebrate.

Yippee!

This week I'll also be speaking in my daughter's school class about writing. I'll probably leave out the part about trying to finish rewrites when you really should have showered six hours ago so your editor will get the manuscript before lunch like you promised.

This week I'll also post on Writing on the Wall, the editing blog I'm part of with the Precision Editing Group. (I'm assigned to Wednesdays, but the whole team is amazing. Check us out.)

And with any luck, I'll get some actual writing done on one my other projects in addition to getting the house straighted up and some laundry done.

One other way cool thing I'm part (again, thanks to my amazing hubby--he rocks beyond words) is the Writers in Heels planet. It's a feed aggregator, basically a collection of blogs by some of my lady writing friends. It's a one-stop shopping blog fest. Visit the site and check out the newest posts on each blog. To visit the original blog site, click on the blog title.

But for now, because yesterday was our anniversary (13 years!), there happens to be chocolate in the house right next to the roses, so ten bucks says you know where I'm headed.

History Tag

Being on deadline as I am, I wasn't planning on blogging again for a good week, but Tristi the Pixie decided on tagging me.

Being as these kinds of tags tend to go awfully fast and leave any blogging friends I know already tagged, I thought I'd better get mine done FAST and leave me to my rewrite. But frankly, these really are fun, and I learned a bit in the process.

Here we go for my HISTORY TAG.

1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday without the year:

December 18

2. List 3 events that occurred that day:

1787 - New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the United States Constitution.
(I include this because I love U.S. History.)

1892 - The first performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker is held at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
(I include this because I love dance.)

1987 - Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language.
(I include this not because I have any real idea what Perl is beyond a computer programming language, but because my hubby does, being the amazing techno man that he is and because I've seen books with the word "Perl" on our bookshelves.)


3. List 2 important birthdays:

I assume, besides mine. :)

1863 - Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (d. 1914)
This is the guy whose assassination began WWI, so I'd consider him pretty important.

Okay, the second is a little tough. I'm stuck mentioning people I really don't admire or consider important, per se. There are actors (Brad Pitt, Katie Holmes), a singer (Christina Aguilera), and someone really atrocious (Joseph Stalin).

None are someone I'd really WANT to mention.


4. List 1 death:

Francis Drake


5. List 1 holiday or observance:

Feast of Sebastian the Martyr (Greek Orthodox Church)


Now for tagging other bloggers:


Lu Ann

Luisa

Jeff

Matthew

Carole

Have fun!

Three Things I Am

I discovered recently, reading a fellow friend's blog I met here in blogland that I am a writer, a foodie, and a knitter.

In fact, it was the latter that first connected us. Who knew that confessions of a pre-teen knitting addiction psychosis would connect me with an LDS writer in New York?

How totally fun and random is THAT?

So in honor of the fact that I am a writer, a foodie, and a knitter, I am hereby blogging about all three:

1) I'm a writer.
Shocker, since I generally blog about that very topic. I am going to be pretty much chained to my computer because of item #1 this coming week because of my latest rewrite. My editor is brilliant. And she's right. I hate that. This should be interesting since it's also my children's spring break. I will be bribing them with pretty anything they want. Let's hope they don't read this and decide to exploit said fact.

2) I'm a foodie.
As one of the three founding sisters of the Utah Chocolate Show, also not a shocker. I'm a second generation chocoholic. Daughter #1 makes it generation #3. Since my mother is European, she started us early on the good stuff.

Here's one fun secret: I make one heck of a chocolate chip cookie. Here are my two big cookie secrets, which I will share with the world. (Seriously, people are constantly asking why my cookies aren't flat. Take notes.)

First, use real butter, not that pathetic excuse for butter that is shortening. Ick. Gross. Gag.

Second, add more flour. I don't measure flour for my cookies. Just add flour until your dough isn't sticky anymore. Add more and more and more. Add flour until the bottom of the bowl almost has crumbs in it. You should be able to handle the dough and not end up with any on your fingers.

You'll have nice, round, UN-flat cookies. I swear it!

The last thing is to use lots of chocolate chips. Forget a pathetic 1/2 cup or whatever. Sheesh. If you're going to make chocolate chip cookies, add the chocolate, people!


3) I'm a knitter.
Lately, that's been a little tough. As my blog friend, Luisa, reminded me, knitting really does relax you and "unfry" fried neurons better than even chocolate. (Truly folks, that isn't sacrilege. It's true.) So I've tried knitting at times other than bedtime, which used to be my regular knitting time. It hasn't worked very well.

I'm remembering WHY I picked bedtime to knit.

My daughters find handwork as fascinating as I did at their age. I pick up my knitting, and suddenly I have little girls swarming me. They somehow find crochet hooks and yarn and those knitting looms and sometimes even fabric and needles and thread or whatever else they can find around the house--anything that looks like handwork--and they want to make something, too. And of course they want my help with it. "What do I do next?" "Show me how?" "Is this right?"

And I plead, "PLEASE, can I just finish this row?"

So in an hour and I'm lucky to finish two or three rows of my daughter's jacket.

And then the following week she whines each morning that she doesn't have a jacket to wear to school. Yeah, well, cutie, it's you're fault, because you won't let me KNIT THE THING!

So there you have it, folks!

I'm a writer, a foodie, and a knitter!

Thanks for the blog idea, Luisa!

Which Won?

Which beast won since last time, the creative juices or the nagging tradition of sewing my girls Easter dresses? As you can see below, the dresses won out. I couldn't tell my daughters that after eight years or so of making them something to march into church matching on Easter Sunday that I would fail them. (I had hinted as much once, and the horrified looks on their little faces about did me in.)

If you do the math, you can tell that I first made them dresses when my second daughter was oh, 8 months old and I wasn't even published yet. Life was much simpler then, as in, I wasn't ever ON DEADLINE.

Note that the "dresses" aren't dresses. They are jumpers (hence, no sleeves to fight with that add lots of time to the sewing process). They still, however, had zippers, which you cannot see, fortunately, because they are crooked. You also, fortunately, didn't see or hear me sewing them, because it was not a pretty sight.

The pattern called for three fancy stripes at the bottom. Note that there are no stripes. Said pattern also called for trim at the neckline and around the arm holes. Note that there is no trim at those locations, either. Instead I opted for a fabric that had a cute, flowery design all by itself. I bought ribbon and a $1.87 flower for each dress that I could pin to the front of each one in about 3 minutes flat.

Tada!

Next year I'm thinking that instead of jumpers I'll do skirts. Then the following year, maybe I can get away with a cute purse. Then maybe the next year they'll be okay with a fancy scrunchie in their hair . . .

By Saturday, I had managed to hem the last dress, so I pulled out my trusty Neo as we drove home from visiting grandparents and I typed up a scene that had been floating in my head all week as I sewed. It was great! I love my main character, and today I had a ball going back to that scene and fleshing it out.

I looked forward to spending this week writing more of her story and "living" with her.

After all, my editor had told me I had a few weeks to "run free." I had pictured myself doing a Julie Andrews impression, twirling in the Alps.

Alas, it is not to be. She e-mailed me today officially putting me back on deadline.

However, she did throw me a bone. I have a title!

My Salt Lake City Temple book, due out this fall will be called Spires of Stone.

I love it!

But now, back to work . . .

Dresses vs. Juices?

I'm so totally stoked!!!! The creative juices are SO back.

My next book (Manti Temple) has been hanging out in the wings refusing to come onto stage, and it's been one of those things I've been gently trying to coax out into the open and a bit scared that it just WON'T even show its cute little obnoxious, stubborn face. Drafting really hasn't been much of an issue, since really, I haven't had TIME to draft recently.

But frankly, when I've given drafting a thought, I've tried not to panic, because my story hasn't been there TO draft. It's been nowhere. My rewrites are turned in. I'm not on deadline. The conference is over. I asked my editor when I should expect the next set of editorial deadlines, and she said I could in her words "run free" for a few weeks.

In my terms, that means I should be drafting. So I turned my mind to the next book.

It's not there.

Oh, I've had glimpses of it. Little glimpses that show me it has promise. I've had a clue what the protagonist is like. I even had an idea of what one scene LATE in the book might be like. I had a teeny tiny idea of what my protagonist does job-wise. But for the most part, I was in the dark, and not for lack of trying to muddle my way through my usual ways of figuring things out.

Then today as I'm blow-drying my hair, she decided to show her face, along with much of her story.

And then the book pranced onto center stage!!!

I now have her name plus two nicknames—the one everyone uses (which she hates—and why she hates it—plus the one she prefers). I also have her back story. I have what she does and why. I have the romantic interest AND his name AND his occupation. I have why she's here and where she came from. I have several scenes just waiting to be explained and shown.

I mean, oh my freakin' heck!

This is so dang cool, and I can't wait to write it down!!! (Now I better not lose it all . . .)

The only down side is that this is the week I was suppose to have reserved for my annual attempt at domesticity to make my daughters their Easter dresses. Ahem.

M'kay . . .

Sterling Winners & Losers

This week I received a wedding announcement that whisked me back to the days of oversized shirts, painfully pegged jeans, and poofy bangs. The reason is that I went to high school with both the bride and the groom.

I took the groom to Girls’ Preference my junior year. His twin took me to prom. I ended up being great friends with both guys.

But it’s the bride, Liz, that has got me thinking over the last week. Liz and I weren’t best friends throughout high school, but our paths crossed several times. We were friendly with one another, and we had several shared acquaintances.

One project we were briefly involved with together was the school’s literary journal, In Print, my first publication. It’s the one and only place people will ever see a poem written by me. (Let’s just say I’m not a poet, and there’s good reason for that.) The journal has a photo of the staff in it. Liz’s name is listed as they lay-out person, but she’s not in the picture (although her best friend is). There’s also a guy named John Fish. Nice boy, weird hair.

But the reason I’ve been thinking of Liz is something a bit bigger. It’s because we share a common bond of being losers. Seriously—hear me out. We both applied and interviewed to be the English Sterling Scholar of our graduating class. Neither of us won. Instead, we were both alternates. (Read: the losers.)

Even at the time, I remember thinking that Liz should have won. Of the three applicants, she was the person who had done the most with English while at high school. She had worked on the school paper and (I think; I'd have to double check) on the yearbook committee, for starters. I had been in creative writing. Sure, I had challenged the AP English test without taking the class (yea for me, I got a 5). But I didn’t do the other stuff she had, like learn the lay-out computer program that actually MADE the literary journal.

The winner was a good friend of mine, and I mean no disrespect when I say that I don’t think she deserved the honor. She was a great student, definitely. No question. But her school resume was loaded in other areas just as much as English. She could have just as well applied for the Music Sterling Scholar. She took the title, I believe, because she had a way of making the teachers like her. (Okay, I’ll say it. She was always the teacher’s pet.)

To be honest, until this week, I hadn’t thought about the Sterling Scholar thing for, oh, fifteen years, until another friend (Thanks, Sarah!) pointed it out this week as we chatted about receiving our wedding announcements in the mail.

Now for the kicker:

Here’s where the three English Sterling Scholar applicants are today:

The winner went on to get a Master’s degree in Women’s Studies.

Liz is currently a favorite English teacher at our old high school (ironically, teaching my nephew at one point).

And of course, I’m publishing books, freelancing magazine articles, and teaching at writing conferences.

Only the two alternates went on to do anything with English.

In some ways, I wish I could go back to those adolescents we were and assure them that you know what? The adults don’t always know best. Follow your heart. You really do know what you’re doing.

In the Company of Weird

This last weekend I experienced weirdness nirvana—and I had an absolute ball!

For those who keep track, this weekend happened to be the 4th annual LDStorymakers Writers Conference. I spent two days teaching writing, learning writing, and hanging out with writers. If you recall, writers tend to be a weird if lovable bunch, but all of us writers are weird in different ways, so I was right in my element.

So here are a few choice tidbits from my weekend:

First, my weirdness. One of the classes I taught was on grammar and punctuation. Thrilling, no?

Well, to me, it was. And one of the best parts was that a big-shot editor from Deseret Book attended. I finally got to meet Lisa Mangum, who I had heard about many, many times over the course of my career.

Instead of being intimidated (as I had thought I would be), I was thrilled that she sat down in my class. Why? Because really, who else in the world could possibly appreciate a class about commas and semi colons better than an editor?

Several times I turned to her and said things like, "Right, Lisa? Isn't that how YOU would use an em dash?" And she always agreed with me. "Certainly. You're absolutely right." (Or something like that. I was too star struck to remember exactly what she said.)

Of course, after attending my class, Rob Wells had to point out the obvious. "You are such a nerd."

Yeah, well, but he was the one who discovered after attending Josi Kilpack's class that, to his own horror, ROB IS A ROMANCE WRITER!!! GASP!!!

A few other gems from the weekend:

Thanks to Janette Rallison, we discovered that a writer's conference may be the only place on earth where you'll discuss Magnum PI, Dorothy and the Wicked Witch, James Bond, Darth Vader, and Mary Poppins all in the same hour.

It's a ball to find poems written in certain set forms and then sing them to well-known hymns at the top of your lungs. This fun was led by Professor Cynthia Hallen from BYU.

James Dasher has the most bizarre imagination of anyone I know (and that's saying something; I tend to keep company with some weird people).

Every other word out of Jeff Savage's mouth was good-natured rib on James.

Rob Wells admitted to considering using the Hooters logo as a symbol in one of his books.

Josi wore her sunglasses in her hair all day long (and finally told us all why she does that; I always wondered, and now I want to!).

Julie Wright ran the bookstore so smoothly no one realized how much work went into it until after the fact when our books were suddenly just gone.

Other gems: Learning the mystery behind the barbeque smell in the hallways. The freezing cold ballroom, yet the smoldering hot classrooms. All of the keynote speakers who were entertaining, informative, and just plain fun. Getting "crowned" with Heather Moore as next year's conference co-queens (below.) Be impressed I figured out how to add a photo to my blog, because I am a techno-idiot.

My favorite example of writer weird-dom: Tristi-the-pixie Pinkston. I personally don't like to humiliate myself, but Tristi does just that regularly—and on purpose. For two days straight, she donned fairy wings, a crown, and a wand as the door-prize fairy (the conference theme was "The Magic of Writing"). Every few hours she flitted into the ballroom of the Provo library and "poofed" the magic hat that James Dashner held (who furiously blushed every time). But wait; it wasn't over. Once she added a red boa and sang to James (whose face was so red it nearly exploded).

Did I mention I love Tristi?

My best memory was simply driving away on Saturday night with a tinge of melancholy sadness that it was over for another year, but at the same time pumped to get back to writing.

Finally, and on a more serious note, the conference itself really was spectacular. We've grown and improved each year, to the point that I can honestly say WOW.

We have received an amazing amount of positive feedback from our attendees, but let me end with a piece of feedback from Lisa Mangum (yes, that same Lisa from my class) who works at Deseret Book. Her commentary on the conference says it better than I could, and coming from an outside source as high up in the LDS publishing world as she is, it's saying something:

I have been to many writer's conferences during my ten years as Acquisitions Editor for Deseret Book Company and I can say without hesitation that the LDS Storymaker's Conference is one of the best I've ever attended. I was impressed by so many things about the Conference: the classes were exceptional, the presenters were stellar, the speakers were inspirational, the attendees were enthusiastic. I left the Conference thinking to myself, "Here are the writers who are devoted to their craft, who are willing to work hard and be persistent, who understand the business of writing and of publishing. Here are the writers who are going to revolutionize the LDS writing world." I was so happy to have met so many great people who are involved in such a thriving, active writer's community. I look forward to reading the work that will come as a direct result of the Conference. It truly was a privilege to attend the 2007 LDS Storymaker's Conference. —Lisa Mangum, Acquisitions Editor, Deseret Book Company

Seriously, people, this conference is an amazing experience, and I hope that Heather and I as "Co-queens" can make it just as good as Josi and Julie did in 2007. We'll do our best to make the Storymakers proud and to live up to our attendees' hopes.

Borderline Braindead

I've spent the last few weeks chained to my computer while going over reader evaluations and making revisions on my latest manuscript. I've had about three weeks to do any changes, because, quite frankly, that's all I have if I want this book to have any chance of reaching the printer in time to make an appearance at the LDS Booksellers Convention in August like my publisher plans it to be.

So I've done acrobatics to make that happen, since Booksellers is, let's face it, a good place to be as an author, and I've worked hard for years and years to be where I am in the industry. I got to be at Booksellers last year, and the chance to be there again in 07 is one I won't pass up.

Booksellers is where the fall releases get debuted and spotlighted. It's where booksellers literally lineup to get your book. (Face it, this is the one and only time I'll ever have people literally waiting in an long line for me to sign a copy for them.) It's a great promotional opportunity.

As always, when I got my book accepted and the evaluator comments back, I read through them with interest. And, as always, some of the comments conflicted with one another. Others just didn't make sense. (One insisted that a character's motivation should be such and such. It WAS. So I figured I needed to clarify. I did.) Some of the comments had a lot of merit, and I decided to use them and revise to make the book stronger. Some readers had caught a few minor plot holes. I filled them. A few comments I wasn't sure on, so I picked the brains of trusted writers I knew and saw where their opinions fell. Fortunately, they all landed in the same places, so I followed their advice. Some of my readers suggested other changes, additional scenes, and so on.

The final result of the manuscript: a longer but better, stronger, book.

The final result for me: my brain is cottage cheese.

The final result for my family: they ran out of underwear, dishes, and bread.

That rarely happens. (Hush, honey. It doesn't either.)

I'm usually on top of the laundry especially. But somehow the other day in the middle of rewrites I looked up from the monitor to see that the house had pretty much fallen apart.

Alrighty then, I thought, paper plates for dinner it is. What chapter am I on?

NOT an Anne Freak

I know this may come as a shock to many people. To many of my close friends, in fact.

But I am not an Anne of Green Gables freak.

Sure, I have every single one of Anne books. They're all dog-eared and nearly memorized. I own all the movies except for the last one, which is a vile thing that should never have been made. (Any self-respecting fan knows what I'm talking about, and I could go on a rampage about the timeline, the characters, the technology, and the sheer adulteration of all things Montgomery, but I'll spare you.)

I was introduced to Anne in the eighth grade. It was the year when L.M. Montgomery's books were somehow being republished after a long time of being out of print, and I scooped them up as quickly as they were being reprinted (and as quickly as my allowance let me). I remember the excitement of buying Rilla of Ingleside at the Farrer Middle School book fair.

My closest friends were doing the same, and we were all living the Anne life. We took long walks through nature and watched sunsets and ate cookies and had tea parties the way we imagined Anne and Diana might have. We started (okay, I started) a creative writing club based on Anne's.

But there was a big difference in how the rest of them viewed our activities. While they imagined themselves as being Anne, I imagined myself as her creator.

Forget Anne; I was Lucy Maud Montgomery!

Oh, I liked Anne. I still do. But I wanted to be the writer who made her up. I wanted to create a character and stories. I wanted the paper and pencil in my hands (or the keys of the typewriter under my fingers).

To this day, I have an entire shelf in my office that carries my LMM books. And it has a lot more than Anne; it has all of her books that I began collecting in eighth grade. At some point (when I really, really trust them) I'll let my daughters borrow them.

In addition to Anne, there's Pat and Emily and Marigold and Kilmeny and The Story Girl and Jane and Valancy and The Tangled Web and a slew of short stories. There's an autobiography. There's five volumes of journals. There's a CD of photographs and information about LMM's life. There's a volume that includes poetry and other writings that pre-date Anne.

And if I'm being perfectly truthful, Anne doesn't even make the top three of my favorite LMM heroines.

To me, Anne is only a slice of who Maud really was. (No, she didn't go by Lucy. She actually hated that name.) And for that matter, she only wrote eight books about Anne because the public demanded it. Even she got tired of Anne. Ever wonder why she started writing about Anne's KIDS?

I love learning about who she really was, what her life was like. How it differed from her books. (VERY MUCH.)

Some day I'd love to go to Canada and visit places that are special to her.

And no, it wouldn't necessarily be the Green Gables house, although that might be fun. I'd prefer the manses where she spent her married life and did the majority of her writing, and that might mean not visiting Prince Edward Island. Instead I'd go to Leaksdale and Norval, both not too far from Toronto, on the mainland.

If I ever do go to PEI, I'll be sure to go to Park Corner and check out the little nail by the stairs that she used to measure herself on each time she visited her cousins. Those are the little human elements that make her real to me.

LMM has had such an impact on me that I've noticed phrases, characters, and even plot lines in my own work that hearken to hers--unintentionally. My computer is even named after her. (Maud, of course, not Lucy.)

As a nod, I try to read one of her books each year. Up next? Anne's House of Dreams.

A Don't-Miss Writing Conference

Coming in only two weeks is a terrific opportunity for aspiring LDS writers: The LDStorymaker Writers Conference! The Conference is Friday & Saturday, March 23 & 24 at Provo's Library at Academy Square.

I’m a huge fan of conferences in general—they’re a great way to polish your writing skills, network with other writers, make new friends, learn more about the business end of the industry, and get feedback on your work. I always come away from conferences with my creative batteries charged, feeling refreshed and eager to get to the keyboard.

This is the LDStorymakers’ fourth annual conference, and I’ve been privileged to be part of it every year. It’s one of the best conferences in Utah, with a wide variety of ability levels and topics to fit any writer.

Back by popular demand this year is Writer’s Boot Camp, a two-day, heavy-duty hands-on workshop where your work is critiqued by published authors and conference attendees. It was a huge success and wildy popular last year, and looks to be growing even bigger this time. I’ll be a Boot Camp instructor/sergeant again this year. I’m also teaching two classes.

The first is on dialogue, something I feel passionate about. If you write good dialogue, your story really comes to life. Write bad dialogue, and your story is about as flat as cardboard. You always hear "show not tell." Good dialogue is one of the best ways to SHOW.

My other class is on a topic many writers shy away from learning about, but it’s absolutely critical you know this stuff if you want to being taken seriously: grammar and punctuation. When you submit a manuscript, you want the editor to notice your story, not your misplaced modifier, not the awkward punctuation or the incorrect spelling. Editors are looking for a reason to reject you; don’t give them one! If you are unsure what a comma splice is or how in the heck to use lay/lie correctly, this the class for you.

The 2-day conference is filled with terrific workshops from lots of great published LDS writers. Among them is Brandon Sanderson, who publishes young adult fantasy nationally; Janette Rallison, author of many national humorous young adult novels; and Rachel Ann Nunes, one of the top-selling LDS romance authors of all time. Entertainment will be provided by popular speaker John Bytheway.

If you’re interested, take a peek at the LDStorymaker website. The early bird registration deadline has passed, but the conference is still a bargain. Don’t miss out.

I hope to see you there!

History Goldmine

I'm taking a minute away from book rewrites (one of the less-fun parts of the publishing end) to mention one of the coolest experiences I've had in a while.

Backing up: Last November, I got a phone message from one Darrin Smith, a historian living in Cache Valley. After reading House on the Hill, which is set in Logan and focuses on the Logan temple, he knew I had a love for that building and the area. (He was absolutely right. Even though I've gone on to research other temples and parts of Utah and write about them, my heart belongs to Logan and Cache Valley and always will.)

He gave me an amazing offer: I could have free rein of his archives, which include diaries, theses, photographs, newspaper articles, letters, and a ton more on two conditions: that if I ever publish another book about Logan (which I plan to--several, actually), that he can be in the acknowledgments and that he can have a copy.

Holy cow! Are you kidding me? DONE!

The problem with his voice mail was timing--I got it right before the Utah Chocolate Show, during which time I'm little more than a blur. After the show came Thanksgiving. Then final manuscript preparations so I could submit my latest book to my publisher, and on top of that was Christmas (no need to elaborate there . . .). Put mildly, I was busy. Then the New Year arrived, with more deadlines and craziness.

Throughout the entire time, Darrin's name and number sat on a scribbled note right next to my monitor. Every day I'd look at it and think, "Dang! I've got to call this guy!" But I also knew that it would make little sense to call without having an idea of when my family could make the trek up north. Finally, toward the end of January, I found a few clear dates and called him back.

By this point, he likely thought I had droppped off the planet and didn't want to take him up on his offer. He graciously invited me and my husband to come visit.

Last weekend, we did. For a couple of hours, he showed us some of his huge collection, including original photos of Logan in its early years and photos of some of the real people in my book. I almost trembled when I got to hold the picture of Billie King, who died in a tragic snow slide. It was like finally meeting an old friend.

My husband and I packed up a few armfuls of records and photos and headed to the nearest Kinko's. We spent hours frantically copying documents on two different copiers (and quickly blowing through over a hundred dollars), leaving only when they closed for the night and kicked us out (who knew that a Kinko's in a university city wouldn't be open 24 hours?).

When we returned everything to Darrin late that night, he graciously gave us some photographs he had taken of the Logan temple--one of which is so darn cool that I can't wait to post it on my web site. (I'll be sure to include information on how others can purchase a copy of the photo--it's timeless, beautiful, and unlike any photo of the temple you've ever seen.)

I have yet to go through the big box of copies I have sitting next to my file cabinet now. Thanks to rewrites and other editorial deadlines, it may be a little while before I can really sit down and dig through it, enjoying the rich history and compelling stories.

But I can't wait to do that. Some of the information comes from the very things that Nolan P. Olsen used to write his volume about the Logan temple--the very book that got me excited to write a novel about the construction. Now I get to read HIS original sources and learn even more.

Darrin's generosity has been tremendous--and he's saved me literally years and years of research, much of which it would have been impossible to duplicate even if I had tried. Since I'm a storyteller rather than a historian, this experience has been a once in a lifetime goldmine for which I'm truly grateful.

Thanks, Darrin!

Accepted!

It's official!

Woohoo! Celebrate! Chocolate Time! And all that jazz.

The Salt Lake Temple-themed book I submitted in December is officially accepted and slated for release in September of this year.

Yes!

Does it have a title yet?

No!

Even after publishing four novels, there's always the possibility that I'll be rejected (something that has happened many, many times, even since publishing).

A couple of weeks ago, Kathy, the managing editor at my publisher forwarded a reader e-mail and then dropped a bomb: My manuscript was going to committee that week.

That means Wednesday.

Which means that by Tuesday I was having an ulcer.

By Wednesday I couldn't see straight. I kept checking my e-mail for any word and would jump every time the phone rang.

Finally, in desperation, at 4:55 pm, I shot off an e-mail to Kathy asking if a decision had been made. I clicked "send," then crossed my fingers in hopes that she'd see the e-mail before leaving for home in five minutes.

I cursed the fact that I ever knew that my book was going to the committee today. Not knowing and then just hearing the decision after the fact wouldn't have shaved 3.8 years off my life like anticipating the worst did.

Shortly, the phone rang. The caller ID registered my publisher. I swallowed hard and answered.

It was indeed Kathy, and YES! I was accepted.

Then came the kicker: The committee had made the decision that morning, and at their noon break, Kathy hurried to her computer to email me a congratulatory message.

It obviously didn't arrive. Over the phone she told me that she had sent another e-mail when she saw mine, but thought she'd better call me to be sure.

Thank heavens she did, or I would have been knee-deep in chocolate by the time both of her e-mails arrived that night around 10:10 pm.

This way I was only ankle-deep in chocolate as I celebrated.

Sadism and the Writer

I've come to accept that I'm a sadist, but in the best way, if that's possible.

Recently I received two e-mails from readers. They were of the variety that make you think, "Yes, I can write! I'm not completely delusional!"

Writers can go from thinking one second that every word they write is magical to falling into despair the next moment, huddled in a fetal position and rocking back and forth, positive that they can't write a coherent word and that they're morons for thinking they can.

It's a bit extreme going between the two opposites, and you never get used to it. One would think that getting novels and articles published would assuage the fears. It doesn't. It just provides you with anxiety because now actual readers (people you don't even know!) are reading your work and making judgments on it. It's enough to send you into heart palpitations and panic attacks.

Ironically, getting positive feedback can be just as paralyzing. I've received some amazing responses about At the Journey's End, including a review from Jennie Hansen at Meridian Magazine that about blew my socks off. I had never before read a review from her that didn't find something negative to say. This was the first, and she finished with saying that the book gets her highest recommendation.

Whoa! Happy dance! Bronze the review!

And immediately following the panic rolls in: it was a fluke. I'll never, ever, be able to write well again or live up to that book. Why bother trying? Give me some chocolate as I curl up and start rocking back and forth.

Right now I have those two e-mails that made my day, and (so far) I haven't gone into the tailspin that can follow. Both messages had a common theme: At the Journey's End kept them reading late into the night. They both stayed up to finish it, one until 4:00 am and the other until 5:00 am.

So I'm single-handedly responsible for these two ladies being zombies the following day! How totally cool is that? As a writer, I can imagine few pieces of information that could excite me more. Apparently I am a sadist when it comes to perfect strangers reading my books.

That might be enough to consider me a bit twisted, but now a new element has entered the horizon that makes me wonder just what kind of person I really am.

I'm working on a project targeted at middle-grade girl readers (roughly ages 8-11). To test-run the piece, I've sent it to several girls I know that age, including two of my daughters, ages 9 and 7. The younger is slightly too young to read it herself, so I've been reading it to her.

After the most recent chapter, she told me that it feels like the story is really happening.

YES! SCORE!

And then she said something else that made me both thrilled and a tiny bit horrified at my own reaction:

"If feels real. That's why I cried."

YES! SCORE!

But wait a minute; since when is it a moment of pride and satisfaction to make your 7-year-old burst into tears?

I've said it before, and the more time passes, the more I'm convinced it's true: writers are weird bunch.

And quite possibly sadistic.

Tagged . . . Twice

It all started with a seemingly innocent email from fellow writer Marsha Ward about a blog and some people being tagged—whatever that meant. Curious, I investigated and discovered that my friend Tristi Pinkston had "tagged" Marsha in her blog.

The game is simple: When you're tagged, you tell the world five things about yourself that most people don't know.

So I learned five things about Marsha (ouch on the mountain climb, by the way), and headed to Tristi's blog (glad you made it to your wedding day). That's where I discovered that she had been tagged by Jeff Savage (remind me never to fly on a plane with you), who, it turns out had tagged me a couple of days prior.

Being as I've spent the last two weeks with one or two children sick at all times and a weekend when I could scarcely stand up because I was sick myself, I didn't get around to reading my friends' blogs.

Thus I didn't know I had been tagged, or even what that meant until about two hours ago. (Sorry, Jeff!)

So here I am, two days after Jeff officially tagged me, now tagged by Julie Wright as well. Since I'm unaware of any official tagging rule book, I'm going to list five things about myself instead of ten and hope no one calls a foul.

#1. I dressed up as a rapper in high school for a drill team routine.
A fellow teammate, Konnie, did, too. In drill team there were various categories for competition: the typical dance category (I don't recall it having a fancy name), military (my favorite), prop, and novelty. This was for the novelty category, a dance to the song, "Ugly," which was popular around 1990 ("U-G-L-Y, you're ugly." Ring a bell?) Most of the team dressed up in really ugly clothes, including matching green shirts. Half wore in fat suits, and everyone had hair and makeup that would frighten a small child, including teeth blackened out, the whole bit. Then Konnie and I "rapped" and danced in front. We got frighteningly high marks with the routine. The most fun part, though, was performing it for at pep rally before a game with our rival high school. It wasn't a coincidence that the girls' shirts were green (our rivals' color). And instead of spelling out "ugly" in two rows on their backsides like they usually did, the team spelled out our rivals’ mascot, "bulldogs." Silly, yes. But fun.

#2. I met my husband doing the cha cha.
Technically it began when my prom date tried to teach some cha cha steps to me that he had learned out a book. Not particularly exact, but it hooked me. By the time I entered college, I couldn't wait to take ballroom dance. I made it onto one of the summer teams and then wanted to be on the cha cha routine, which we had in-team tryouts for. (Anyone who didn't make the 6-couple cha cha had to be on the Triple Swing dance; ick.) At the end of one practice, I thought that my last partner of the day led well and that we worked really smoothly together. That's my first memory of Rob. We tried out for the routine together, managed to be partners, and by the time we had our first date two months later, we were already great friends.

#3. I love to knit.
To be honest, I hated it when I first learned, but a few projects into the process, I managed to stop holding the needles as if I had to strangle them and discovered that knitting is great fun. Around age 12 I discovered that it helps me to destress and calm down. I tend to be a bit too busy to knit much anymore, but I still manage one decent project a year for my kids, rotating between them. This year it's my 9-year-old's turn. She's requested a light blue jacket with a hood and a big purple S on the back. Her word is my command. And the S is almost done.

#4. I hate shrimp.
Go figure. I have no idea why. But aside from your basic fish (salmon, trout, halibut), I just can't wrap my taste buds around sea food of any kind. It grosses me out. Lobster? Are you kidding me? It's a giant cockroach (scientifically, too; ew). My favorite fish ever: Dad's rainbow trout from the Provo River (or even better, the High Uintahs), skinned, and gently fried in his special flour coating. Sprinkle on a little lemon pepper and let your eyeballs roll back. Oh, yeah.

#5. I know little to nothing about chocolate.
Okay, so as the one of the founding sisters and producers of the Utah Chocolate Show, I'm hesitant to admit this one. I am an expert on EATING chocolate. Does that count? Truthfully, I entered the production end as the copywriter, then doing sales, then PR, and my role continued to morph. Early on show attendees would stop me and ask some involved chocolate question, and I’d get the deer in the headlights look. I still have to pass on the tougher questions to the experts, but I've tried to learn about chocolate over the years, and I really have made progress. I can now make chocolate-dipped strawberries and pretzels and tulip cups. I know what "tempering" means, even if I can't DO it, and I can even give pretty decent advice on what type and brand of chocolate for a few projects. Since one of my jobs is writing a weekly e-letter for show attendees and chocolate lovers, I've had to do research and learn. I've gleaned things I never knew I didn't know. What’s chocolate viscocity? I know (now). You're horribly impressed, right?

And for the fun part: tagging the next victims. So many of my blogging friends are already tagged, that this may be a bit tricky.

Let's go with:

Emmelyn Freitas, a great actress and friend. We’ve known one another long enough that we both have plenty of stories to blackmail the other with. But even longer than our friendship has been that of our fathers’, who are long-time fishing buddies, which goes right back to my #4.

Katie Parker, fellow LDStorymaker and book reviewer.

Linda Paulson Adams, another LDStorymaker. I almost said she was an author, but that’s redundant.

Dave McClellan, husband of my friend Erin, he’s one freaking talented artist.

I know I'm one short. Go ahead; throw a flag!

Tower of . . . what?

Brief and rather odd observation this time . . .

I spent the evening cutting hair. First I cut my husband's hair, something I do more often now that his new job has a more strict dress code. Then I did minor trims on two of my daughters. Finally, my son got a cut as well. Okay, so everyone but one child got a haircut.

So far, so good.

Child #3, a rather curious, precocious, and very helpful little girl, often lurks with the broom as I snip, sweeping up around me. It's generally not that helpful in the long run, because more hair falls where she's just swept, and we end up cleaning the same spots as before when we're done.

This time, she was lurking, but not with the broom. Instead, she gathered hair samples from family members to compare colors.

I didn't think too much of it beyond thinking that we have a budding scientist or artist, perhaps.

The kidlets got ready for bed, we read scriptures and a chapter out of the current book, and ushered the little ones off to dreamland. Then I go into the kitchen.

And I find four tupperware-style plastic cups with their lids on, stacked in a tower on the kitchen table.

Each with their own hair inside.

I'm not sure whether to think I've got some secret genius on my hands or to be totally creeped out.

And do I dare ever use those plastic cups ever again?

Another Already?

After “What are you calling it?” one of the most-asked questions I get about my writing is, “So, have you started anything new since your last book?”

Lately the answer has shocked a lot of people, because it’s not that I’ve started anything; I’ve finished something and turned it in.

The reaction: “But didn't your last book just come out?!”

Well, yes, it did. But trust me on this one; I’m not some Super Woman who whips out a book in three months flat (HA!!!! It’s hysterical to even think that, especially when you factor in the research involved in a historical novel.)

So to set the record straight, here’s the scoop on how this publishing time line thing works.

In a nutshell, it takes a whole lot longer to get anything through the pipeline than most people realize. The LDS market is much quicker than the national market, but even here it simply takes time.

Here’s what a typical manuscript goes through for me: First I draft the book. Then I revise it several times, giving it to my critique group and revising again. When I think it’s polished enough, I submit it to my editor.

Then it goes out to three different readers who fill out a huge evaluation form with something like a dozen pages or more. This process generally takes two or three months. For a new writer trying to break in, the process can take much longer, since current authors gets priority in getting their stuff out to the readers.

If the evaluations are favorable and the editor feels the manuscript is strong enough, it’ll be brought to the committee. That’s where the final publication decisions are made. Once it’s officially accepted, three or four months may have passed since submission for a regularly publishing author. In my rejection days, this part would take six to nine months or longer.

Then comes the fun of edits—a content edit and likely two line edits as the manuscript ping pongs between me and my editor. This can last weeks or months.

After that are the proofs. Again, several of them, some done by me, others by hired proofers. By the time the book is sent to be typeset into the final galleys (so it’s formatted and printed on the page just how it’ll look in the final book), I’m ready to burn the thing. I can practically recite the book in my head, I’m certain that it’s awful, and if I ever read another word of it again, it’ll be too soon. The proofing stage can be a couple of weeks or an entire month or more.

Once the book is finally ready, it’s sent off to the press. Getting the final copies printed and warehoused takes a good two months, and then shipping them to stores takes even longer.

The upshot is that if the entire process takes less than ten months, you’re lucky. So you submit one book and get to work on the next.

At the Journey’s End was submitted December of 2005 and was released this last September. In January of 2006 I began working on my next book, which I submitted right before Christmas. (Do the math here—the book took nearly a year to complete. I'm not close to Wonder Woman.)

So now I do the waiting game until I hear for sure that this next book (my Salt Lake temple one) is officially accepted. If and when it is, I’ll begin the editing process sometime around March or April.

The delay feels a little weird at times—here I am promoting and talking about a book that I wrote over a year ago, when I’ve been living and breathing (and very excited about) a different book during that entire time. But for readers, of course, it feels immediate. They don’t know when you wrote the thing, submitted it, or, most likely, how long the editorial/publication process took.

But now you do.

So what am I doing now that I turned in my latest manuscript? Naturally, I’m starting research for my next one, set in Manti. The weirdness factor sets in when I think that if all goes well, it’ll be released fall of 2008. By the time I turn in the Manti book, my Salt Lake one should be in print. By the time Manti is published, I’ll be nearly done writing a different book altogether.

And so it goes . . .

Blogging for a Friend

Jeff Savage, long-time friend and member of my critique group, is part of a great blog circle made up of six LDS writers (and, apparently, a frog).

Each writer takes a day of the week for their posts. In addition to Jeff, there's Kerry Blair, Sariah Wilson, Robison Wells, Julie Bellon, and Stephanie Black. You can spend a frightening amount of time reading their entries as you laugh your head off one minute and learn something about writing the next. It's great fun.

This week Jeff is having fun with his family at the Happiest Place on Earth. Word also has it that today he has set up shop at a table in New Orleans Square and is writing to his heart's content while his family plays. This is his family's third time to Disneyland this year, and they have a season pass, so getting in cost him nothing. Talk about a writer's dream!

As a result, he asked if I'd sub for him on his blog this week, so I did.

Check it out. It was posted December 12, 2006 (Tuesday).

So now that I'm done with drafting my manuscript and taking Jeff's turn on his blog, what am I up to? This week I'm doing edits on two friends' manuscripts while they do the same on mine. After I input changes next week, I'll submit it, take a break for Christmas, then get to work on several projects:

-Research and writing a Manti temple book.
-A series of middle-grade historical books I recently pitched to my publisher
-A chocolate cookbook (oh, yeah . . .)
-plus other various and sundry projects that are always floating around in my head, including preparing for the two classes I'll be teaching at the annual LDStorymaker's Writing Conference and a project for kids. I'm also tinkering with magazine articles. (I have pieces coming out soon in ByLine and LDSLiving.)

Lots of fun!

And it truly is. When I'm not writing, I miss it sorely. It keeps me level and sane, even moreso than chocolate. At this Christmas time, may you find joy in the things that keep you sane!

Time of birth: 1:05 pm

YES!!! My "baby" is born!

Today I officially finished my manuscript.

I have a few things to thank for it. In part, I have a suspicion that the planets aligned just right. And a few panicked prayers were definitely heard.

For starters, yesterday I managed to get some work done thanks to two big things.

One: The migraine medicine finally kicked in after three hours (how's that for an odd time table?). So by 11:00 am I was almost pain free--feeling a bit off center and more liable to make typos, but relatively close to my normal self. At least close enough to do some writing.

Two: When my friend picked up her kids, she took pity on me and swept away my sweet little four-year-old to her house. She also took my daughter to her tumbling class, fed her lunch, and tended her until my the kids were out of school and I sent one of them down to pick her up.

Then today another dear friend tended my daughter as a favor after I had helped her with some editing on her own manuscript last week. I spent a solid four hours at the computer, breaking only for lunch, then printed the book off. (I love seeing a thick stack of pages and knowing my story is inside them!)

Bottom line: There is no way on this planet or otherwise that I could have finished the book this week without the support of friends. I am one lucky woman to have people willing to help me out. My visiting teacher even offered to help out--I swear she's the best VT I've ever, ever, ever had. I'm also glad I've finally learned to ASK for help when I need it instead of pretending I'm as strong as Xena Warrior Princess.

Some of my critique group members will be reading the book over the next week so I can go over their feedback and get the manuscript submitted by Christmas. (Again, thank heaven for good friends!)

My schedule next week will be pretty much filled with trying to bring Christmas to the house (finally!) and spending as many waking hours as I can with my toddler to make up for the time spent apart from her this week.

I have a feeling we'll be playing a lot of Dora Candyland, but I won't mind one bit, even if I get sent back to the Fiesta Trio time and again. I love being with my little girl.

And my book is WRITTEN!!!

Migraine, anyone?

Murphy must be laughing his head off. Aside from having four smoke alarms lose their batteries in three weeks (see my "CHIRP" blog about that), I'm having trouble getting my book finished. I promised my editor to have it to her by Christmas, and I'm still working toward that goal

Backing up a bit--the Relief Society president in my ward is out of town for her father's funeral, so I needed to go to Enrichment last night (being as I have the building keys for now as her counselor). Besides, December is one of the few times of the year that I don't meet weekly with my critique group, so I figured it would be good to actually be part of the ward for once.

I've been on the final push to finish my current manuscript (my next historical temple book, this one a romantic novel centered on the Salt Lake Temple). I've gotten a ton done and figured I was right on track to finish up this book between Thursday and Friday, so I could afford to not work on it last night and enjoy the evening at the chapel instead.

The plan is to get the whole thing done on Friday and printed out so some of my writer friends can take their red pens to it over the next week. That gives me a few days after getting it back to make needed changes and submit it to my publisher by Christmas.

So far so good.

For some bizarre reason I came home from Enrichment with a sharp headache that was the kind I knew would ramp up until I'm trembling with the pain, so I took a percocet to get to sleep. It took care of the pain, but kept me up instead of making me drowsy. If that were all, no biggie. At least we didn't have a fifth smoke detector battery go out.

Then this morning, just as I'm seeing my older kids off to school, I start getting blurry vision and the little flashing threads in my vision that signify a doosy of a migraine is on the way. I haven't had a full-blown migraine in several months (and I don't remember ever getting one at 8 am). At least I had prescription medication in the bathroom, so I hurried to get it before the pain kicked in for real.

Trouble is, I had agreed to tend two neighbor kids whose mother really needed the help--for just an hour and a half, but they were coming in forty-five minutes. Barely enough time for the medicine to work and maybe get a shower. It took care of the flashing lights, but the pain has continued to ramp up.

In a few minutes I can take another dose (although I don't know if it'll do much since the last one didn't), but I'm about to lose it (literally, my breakfast) from the nausea.

So instead of working on my book, which would mean going over stacks of critiques from my writer friends and writing a new scene that needs to bridge a gap in the story, I'm sitting here at the computer with my blog trying to distract myself. I'm too miserable to be able to write anything on my book, because it would take too much mental energy.

Instead I want to curl into a ball and rip my head off so it'll stop hurting. My friend should be here to get her kids in about half an hour. Fortunately these are easy-going kids, so they aren't tough to tend at all; one of them is my toddler daughter's best bud, and they just play happily the entire time. Forty-five minutes after they leave, I'm supposed to take said daughter to her tumbling class.

So today should be interesting.

What was that about being right on track with finishing the book on Friday?

I was tempting fate by saying it yesterday. By golly, I'm going to get it done if it kills me. But at this rate, I don't dare speak a word of it aloud.

You never know if Murphy's listening.