SHAME

It is an hour and a half past lunch
when I realize that I didn't steal food.

It isn't the unplundered buffet table
that draws tears near,
nor the empty pockets in my backpack
that could easily have harbored bread
and those little packets of mayonnaise
that would have hardly taken up any space at all,
that would have been easy for kind others
to pretend they didn't see.

No,
It is the hour and a half, the unscrutinized assumption
that there will always be more food,
that opportunities can be ignored,
that pockets can be empty for no better reason
than a lack of attention and a busy schedule.

It is the ninety minutes I spent ignorant
of everything I've ever learned the hard way.

Revision Checlist

1. I spelled "revision checklist" wrong. First item on the revision checklist: Revise the spelling of revision checklist.

2. You know how sometimes if you're at the lake, you can watch a storm come across the water, and you can literally see the line on the water where the rain starts, and that line is moving closer to you? Well, I just described that in my book. I said it was like "a deadline moving closer." Whoops, the author is showing.

3. Question. Can my Pagan character feel rapturous?

4. Let's go with euphoric.

5. You know, my editor has a very fair point. If my main character had really written this paragraph on the wall of a bathroom stall, she'd have run out of space in the ladies' room and had to duck across the hall to the men's room. Maybe I should buy her some paper. I'm the author, I can give the kid paper. Be mean not to.

6. Yeah, she's not getting paper. She's just writing something shorter.

7. My editor's penciled note: "No one got hungry?" has me stumped. I've been over and over and over this chapter and I just can't find a way to feed these people. Can this be one of those places where teachers have their students write a missing scene later? "Now, class, you'll notice that the characters didn't eat in this chapter. The author probably did that on purpose to give you a chance to write a missing scene about how the characters find food ..."

8. I, on the other hand, am having no trouble finding food, and eating lots of it, from revision stress.

9. I don't understand. How can my editor write "great" at the end of a paragraph that's more pencil marks than original text?

10. I've been sitting at McDonald's, which was the only place I could find open to sit and work on revisions after dropping my husband off at work at 4 a.m. But now my computer's almost dead and the only outlet here is at an uncomfortable-looking table near the counter, which is like sitting next to the teacher's desk. It's later now. I'm going to go find something else that's open. Something with better coffee and less beeping.

11. If I revise my own setting, does that count as revision progress?

LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE Book Trailer

It's August! That means LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE will be released THIS MONTH!

In honor of August, I have immersed myself in Windows Movie Maker for the weekend and created a book trailer. What fun! I'm going to be setting all the family photos to music now using this program! It's my new favorite hobby and procrastination method!

Anyway, here it is -- the brand new Livvie Owen Lived Here book trailer:

LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE

Enjoy!

My Inspirational Surroundings

Inspired by Macmillan's fun new blog, Get to the Point, which routinely features various Macmillan staff members sharing the fascinating and sometimes mysterious-sounding contents of their desks, I want to share with you the current contents of my own hallowed workspace. And then you'll understand a little more about why I am the way I am. (It involves being acutely disorganized and overrun by animals.)

On my desk (which is actually two desks shoved together) at this moment, you will find:

1. Laptop – much-loved old Gateway held together with painter's tape
2. Cat (Sage, six-year-old notebook-obsessed Tortie)
3. Notebook with several versions of a scribbled outline by which to revise my current work-in-progress (under cat, of course)
4. Pedialyte (for my sickly and dehydrated dog, Buddy)
5. Syringe (with which to squirt the aforementioned Pedialyte down Buddy's throat every hour on the hour)
6. Worming powder (for our foster puppy, Rupert, who was diagnosed with worms based on his awful gas problem)
7. Candle garden (Valentine's Day present from my honey) filled with scented candles (to try to mask the aforementioned doggie gas problem)
8. Singing bowl (Birthday present last spring from Mom and Dad)
9. Collection of Feiwel and Friends books
10. Coffee cup (sadly, sadly, sadly empty – I am trying to cut down on caffeine and it is no fun)
11. Cough drops (getting over the flu)
12. Tissues (multi-purpose – for mopping up coffee spills, cleaning up sick-dog vomit, and dabbing at splatters of Pedialyte) (Oh, and blowing nose)
13. Little figurines of a roan horse and an orange cat who represent two dear pets I used to have
14. Several vet bills and receipts
15. And my feet.


(Feet not pictured. I'm not agile enough to take a picture of my own feet on my desk without flipping over backwards. And yes, that is Facebook, not my WIP, on the screen. Ssshhh.)

What's in your workspace? Spill! (The beans, I meant. Not the contents of your desk.)

Books have covers! Yet another sign that this is really going to be a book!

My Writing Routine

Do you find it helpful to have a routine to your writing? A rhythm?

I feel like I'm supposed to develop one. I mean, that's what I tell kids when they ask for homework tips. Designate a specific time and place for your homework. That way, it will become routine and it won't seem like such a chore.

So I try to follow my own advice and develop a writing rhythm. Up at four, feed the dogs, make coffee, write from 4:15 till 6:30, get ready for work, go to work.

Some days, that's how it looks.

This morning, it looked like this:

The alarm goes off at 4. Hit the snooze button three times.

Get up at 4:30.

Let three dogs out to go potty. Bring two of them back in. Holler myself hoarse for the third, who likes to lurk in the furthest and darkest part of the frozen yard and not come in.

Pour the last drip of water from the jug into the coffee pot, then search for the half-empty water bottles I know are lying around somewhere. Did I mention we have a water leak, so our water is shut off? Yup, no running water in the Dooley/Lilly house.

Call for dog again. To no avail.

Feed the cats.

Get chewed out by cats for not having any wet food.

Fill cat and dog waterer with the next-to-the-last of the half-empty bottles.

Step in waterer. Replace socks.

Call for dog again. To no avail.

Remember to put coffee in the filter.

Pin blanket that serves as office door open so the heat can travel, since the space heater is currently in the bedroom.

Plug in computer.

Call for dog. To no avail. Remember to push "start" on the coffee pot.

Re-tape computer with painter's tape so it will stay open.

Visit Yahoo mail, Google mail, 1 and 1 mail, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Verla Kay's Blueboards, Absolute Write, and Livejournal. Realize that 45 minutes have passed.

Hear an odd squeaking noise outside. Get scared. Then realize it's Dog Number 3. Let him in and feed him. Give other two now-whiny dogs an extra handful of breakfast to appease them.

Trip over angry cats.

Remember to pour a cup of coffee.

Now that so much time has passed, visit Yahoo mail, Google mail, and Facebook again to see if anything has changed. Squeeze in another trip to the Blueboards and LJ. Realize that another twenty minutes have passed.

Take a sip of coffee. Notice that it's lukewarm. Add hot coffee to warm it up.

Visit 1 and 1 mail and Twitter in case anything has changed.

Remove cat from revision notes.

Open novel file. Re-read two chapters to find your place and get your momentum.

Remove cat from revision notes.

Realize your fingers are too cold to type.

Take computer to bedroom. Sit on floor in front of space heater and type slowly and quietly to keep from waking partner.

Remove cat from revision notes.

Write one paragraph.

Remove cat from revision notes.

Write three more paragraphs. Remove cat from revision notes. Then realize it is 6:58.

Hurry to splash cold water on face from the last bottle, brush teeth, brush hair, and try to find some clothes that aren't covered in dog and cat hair. Put on pants. Remove cat from shirt. Put on shirt. Dust cat hair off of shirt. Remove cat from shoes. Put on shoes. Remove cat from jacket. Put on jacket.

Frantically look for coffee. Realize that it's cold. Chug it anyway.

Go to car.

Go back inside and turn off coffee pot.

Go to car.

Go back inside to get lesson plan book. Remove cat from lesson plan book. Go back to car.

Go to work.

Speaking of work, I want to share a couple more quotes from that nifty place with you, because they're totally worth it:

-----------------------

ME: "Hello!"

STUDENT: "Ms. Dooley, I'm sorry, but you're a terrible computer guy. 'Cause one time, on the bicycle computer game, you went straight instead of turning. But don't worry. I'll show you. You're not a terrible bicycle guy, you just have to learn to ride a bicycle. Just a bicycle on computer. And don't wreck when you, uh ... uh ... What was that word I was looking for? Oh, yeah. Just learn tricks and then just call ... just call ... Hey, do you know my phone number? Well, call me and I'll tell you how. I just live right up the holler if you need help."

ME: " ..." Cue crickets, chirp chirp!

STUDENT: "Hello! What are you doing? Why aren't we working?"

-------

And my favorite quote from today:

STUDENT: "Miss Dooley, if you promise to leave, I'll fill in for you!"

My Decorated Laptop

When I wrote Livvie Owen Lived Here, I lived at a boarding house in western North Carolina. The house was shared by the landlady, her daughter, two local fellows, my partner, me, six cats, and five dogs, and we all -- well, all the humans anyway -- shared one computer.

So when my landlady's daughter offered to sell me a laptop with a broken screen for $25, I bought it in hopes that I would be able to fix it, or at least plug it in to an external monitor and make do.

A month of saving, an Ebay spree, and a YouTube tutorial later, I installed a new screen. The laptop has worked beautifully ever since, save for one crash last year that was quickly resolved.

So, okay, my partner and I like to throw snowballs. I mean, is that a crime?

According to my 20-pound Rat Terrier, it is. When a stray snowball hit the window this afternoon, Lola apparently darted under the desk, clotheslining herself on the power cord and smashing the computer to the floor.

Don't worry. It still works. If it didn't, you would not be reading this. And I'm so relieved that the screen didn't break, because, without my partner's help, I would never have been able to get all those tiny screws into all those tiny holes to put the laptop back together the first time, and I didn't fancy going through that again only a year later.

The problem is, one of the ... hinges, I guess you'd call it? Broke. Now the screen sort of ... wobbles around. I have to line it up right to get it to close. There's a jagged edge of plastic held on by one of those tiny screws I can't get undone, and part of the frame sort of ... popped loose and won't pop back.

There are many who would turn to a professional. But I'm broke, I've got no car, and there's a blizzard on.

Okay, so. Duct tape? Nope. I don't seem to have any. Electrical tape? Seems to have all gotten used when my cousin installed our baseboard heat. Superglue? Dollar Tree brand, which I'm not putting on my computer.

Aah, yes. Painter's tape.

When we moved into this house, we had high hopes and big dreams. We bought complimentary colors and began painting with gusto.

Six hours later, we were permanently done. Not the house, I mean. Just US. The trim still hasn't got painted. In fact, there's still painter's tape up in my office, framing the unpainted trim that I've just never gotten around to. Luckily, there are also still six unused rolls of painter's tape out on the porch.

And half a roll holding the screen onto my laptop.

Oy.

I love this little machine, though. It's a trooper, that's for sure. It'll be a sad day when I actually have to replace it.

Revision Bliss

In November 2008, I bashed out a 50,000-word middle grade novel for NaNoWriMo. It took me 17 days to finish, and afterwards, I let it sit for two weeks to gain a little distance from it.

Then I revised it.

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Next, I read and reread a few chunks to my extremely patient partner, and I let my mother and my sister read and critique the manuscript.

Then I revised it.

Soon after, I found a wonderful, generous, kind-but-appropriately-demanding, adverb-hating critique partner through an online message board and she read and responded to the manuscript.

Then I revised it.

I started submitting to agents and eventually one fantastic agent offered representation, along with excellent notes for revision of the novel.

So I revised it.

The agent started submitting to publishers and quickly sold the novel to a wonderful house. Shortly thereafter, the delightfully insightful editor sent me notes for revision of the novel.

So I revised it.

Then the brilliant and hawk-eyed copy editor read the manuscript and pointed out a few inconsistencies contained therein.

So I revised it.

Next, the extremely thorough proofreader and managing editor read it, and they, along with my editor, made more great notes for revision in the margins.

So I revised it.

After all this revising, I have just three questions left to answer.

Number one. As the creator of all these characters who are running around not knowing when they were born or which houses in their town are for sale or whether or not their feet hurt, shouldn't I be a little more well-informed about the answers to the questions said inconsistencies raise?

Letter B. Inconsistent w/ above. Change to "Number two." How is it possible that eight other people read the novel before the proofreader, but none of them pointed out my bizarre infatuation with the word “briskly”?

And, fourth, "Number three." Wwhat did I do to deserve being a part of this wonderful business? Whatever it was, I'm glad! This is so much fun!

NaNoWriMo!

I love November. November means NaNoWriMo, and thus, it is my favorite month.

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Last November, I wrote the first 10,000 words of LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE on November 1. This year, it's November 4 and I expect to pass 10,000 today. I'm taking it a little slower, but enjoying it no less. Of course my students are NaNoing with me, which makes it twelve times more fun (since I have six of them this year and they each count twice).

My favorite part of NaNo isn't the community, although I love that. It isn't the sense of accomplishment, or even the finished book I've got at the end of the month.

No, my favorite part of NaNoWriMo is the NaNoisms -- the typos and senseless phrases that occur when you type entirely too many words in entirely too few days.

My favorite NaNoism from last year involved an evil Twinkie in somebody's eye. I have yet to top that yet this year, but I'm still enjoying myself. Here are a few of my NaNoisms so far this November:

"The red and green lights reflected on the water, but the reflection was broken and choppy like my prose."

"Without paper, I had to jot my notes on the back of a something wrapper."

"As soon as they were out of earshot, I heard them giggling."

This morning's NaNoism is simple. Brief. But no less painful.

"... one hot June day in August ..."

That reminds me of my very first "NaNoism," long before NaNo, when I was seven and writing about a girl named Tina Telanium who wore elbow and knee pads to ride her horse past all the wild panthers in her suburban West Virginia neighborhood. I wrote that Tina had "straight brown curls." If only I'd known what a NaNoism was back then so I could embrace it!

I love November!

Pub Date Moved Up!

I've got great news! LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE is now set to be published in the fall of 2010! That's a whole year earlier than originally planned!

Wow, I'd better get cracking on that second book!

A Writer Meme

I'm trying to blog more often. There are three discrete reasons why I haven't been blogging, and they are:

1) I'm not currently teaching, so I haven't been spending my days with nine sources of inspiration, learning stories I just have to share

2) I've been busy moving across state lines, looking for work, finding work, working, disliking work, and looking for different work

3) It's summer and summer is Lazy Time

So, to correct this lack of blogging, I'm going to do a meme snagged from Chatty Anna's blog, and I hope you'll do it, too, so I can learn more about you.

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<< Here's a meme to tell your blog readers a bit more about who you are as a writer!


1. What do you write (genre, etc.)?
Middle grade fiction and the occasional lesson plan

2. Got any books published?
I just signed a two-book deal with Feiwel and Friends! My first novel, LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE, will be out in 2011.

3. Current project(s)?
Currently writing TEN THINGS THAT WON'T BURN and revising LIES ABOUT EDEN. Also, I just blew the dust off JUST ANOTHER HILL AND WE'LL BE HOME and I think once EDEN is revised, I might give JUST ANOTHER HILL some serious attention for the first time in three years, because I think I might know what the missing piece was that banished it to the shelf in the first place.

4. Favorite line(s) from said project(s)?

TEN THINGS THAT WON'T BURN: “Wish she prayed a little harder,” I thought as we slid down the last gravel slope toward the campsites. “She might have prayed up something more comfortable than a polyester/rayon blend.” The fuchsia sweatpants were making me sweat and their elastic bands dug rings into my ankles. I figured I’d be like a tree trunk when these things were done with me. You’d be able to tell how many days I’d been wearing them by the number of rings they carved into my legs. I was up to six, so far.

LIES ABOUT EDEN: Eden likes dogs. She likes them so much that she screams when we throw out the toilet paper wrapper with its picture of a soft puppy that I guess you’re supposed to compare to the softness of the product. This has always struck me as weird, but then weird has never bothered Eden. I’m forever pulling old toilet paper wrappers out of the cracks in the sofa cushions, where she’s gazed at them and crinkled them until she fell asleep.

JUST ANOTHER HILL AND WE'LL BE HOME: I don't have a favorite line in this one at the moment, because I haven't read it in three years and a lot of the lines are going to change. When I wrote this book, I was still writing what I thought small towns were supposed to be like instead of what I knew they were actually like.

5. Favorite character you've created?
G, Livvie's best friend in LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE. She's an upbeat, bouncy child who helps Livvie with her picture schedule and struggles with bookbag zippers.

6. Your goals as a writer?
To write what I see, not what I think I'm supposed to have seen

7. Your literary idols & influences?
Cynthia Voight, S.E. Hinton, Patsy Gray, Jean Slaughter Doty, Kate DiCamillo, Audrey Couloumbis

8. What do you plan to write next?
TEN THINGS THAT WON'T BURN -- I'm only 3,000 words in and I have a long way to go. It's a middle grade novel.

9. Your tip(s) for beginning writers?
Don't skimp on revisions. Learn to rip words and sentences and scenes and chapters out of your manuscript even if it feels like you're ripping out your own hair.

Also, more importantly, write what you see. Not what you think you're supposed to have seen.

Lies! All lies, I tell you!

I've been tagged by Nora for a fun meme! This will get my mind off of moving (UGH!) and let me have a little fun! Because if you know me, you know there's nothing I like more than LYING!

Sinful Nature

"Sometimes you can learn more about a person by what they don’t tell you. Sometimes you can learn a lot from the things they just make up. If you are tagged with this Meme, lie to me. Then tag 7 other folks (one for each deadly sin) and hope they can lie."

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Pride -- What is your biggest contribution to the world?
Fluffy pancakes that are done in the middle. It's a gift. My nephew still thinks they come from a box.

Envy -- What do your coworkers have that you wish was yours?
Jobs.

Gluttony -- What did you eat last night?
Fluffy pancakes, of course! That's what I eat every night!

Lust -- What really lights your fire?
Men with ponytails who are bald on top. They're so well-rounded.

Anger -- What is the last thing that really pissed you off?
My partner brought home more books! Where are we supposed to keep putting all these books? There's barely room to walk! We have too many books!

Greed -- Name something you hoard and keep from others.
Spatulas. I get to make the pancakes!

Sloth -- What’s the laziest thing you ever did?
I ate leftovers once instead of cooking a fresh new meal.

I tag the following people:

-Murph
-Bettie Lee
-Cynthia
-Rick
-Nelsa
-CynJay
-That was seven. I promise! Would I lie?

Sometimes your characters need to run out of toilet paper.

I write characters who wear shoes that don't fit. They tug at crumpled hemlines and try to suck in their bellies so they don't look quite so funny in their pieced-together outfits. My characters have tangled hair. Broken glasses. They eat Doritos or cheese toast or fried eggs for dinner. They fight with their sisters over the last of the toilet paper.

My partner and I had an argument tonight. Not over anything. That's the trouble with being broke. More...It doesn't take two seconds for an okay evening to disintegrate into a bout of venting and taking stress out on each other. When you've just dusted a silverfish off your only "clean" plate so you could share the last piece of toaster strudel for dinner after a long day of -- him, job hunting in an impossible economy, and, me, teaching and an hour-long commute in bad traffic, well -- you just don't have the patience left for somebody to say to you, "Honey, did you remember to pick up the toilet paper?"

If I had, it would have been with our final dollar. I've been hanging onto the thing all week for exactly this moment. The number of non-toilet-paper items I've used as toilet paper this month is astounding even to me. Paper towels, of course -- that's a given. But we're never actually in possession of those. Coffee filters, but you have to crinkle them a while first so they're worn and not so crisp. Paper shopping bags. The empty toilet paper roll. Eventually it gets to the point where you just have to jump straight from the toilet to the shower. This is the reality of being flat broke and I've moved past being ashamed of it -- after all, I work hard for what living I make. I get up at 4:15 to hop on the computer and write until 6:00, when I embark on the hour drive to the high school. Once there, I spend eight and a half to nine hours straight with the kids, with no planning time or lunch and only the briefest of bathroom breaks (although there is usually toilet paper there).

Then I rush home to relax with my partner. Sometimes this means watching ghost-hunting shows and spooking ourselves silly. Or we get down on the floor and wrestle with the dogs. A lot of times, we relieve our stress by giggling uncontrollably while stretching our dollar at the grocery store. We've gotten really good at budgeting. We've also gotten quite good at alienating other shoppers, who happen to be passing by when we, for example, scoop up entire fistsful of the sample butterscotch chips lying out in the baking aisle. Or make the fish in the seafood section talk to each other. Or name the veal. Or wonder aloud what it might taste like to fry Jello.

Only when we get really down low -- when there's no food and no money and the landlords are mad because of the ink stain on the carpet and our basement apartment is filling up with ugly basement-type bugs -- When we get really low, there is less relaxing than there is verbal sparring. Not that we're not in love, because we are. Quite deeply. But we're in our fifth year of hollering such sentences to each other as, "Babe, will you bring me the coffee filters?" and frankly, it's easy to get cranky.

I know there is true poverty in this world, and I know that it's not us. After all, in this very post, I've mentioned having a television, a car, and a computer, all luxuries I relish after years of dreaming of them. I understand that what we are is just good ol' fashioned broke, and we are certainly not alone. I also realize that being broke has made us good at things like finding our way out of jams and making dollars stretch for miles. And I have a hunch -- a very strong one -- that I get my characters from being broke, and I wouldn't trade my characters even for a lifetime supply of Charmin. So, usually, I try not to wallow or to dwell on what we don't have.

But an Angel Soft commercial just played and I sort of feel like my hair is on fire.

Well, my partner just interrupted me to give me a kiss on the cheek and a bite of his sugar-free, fat-free pudding (45 cents at Go Grocery). Now he's trying to close the computer with his foot. So I guess we're making up. Which is the good thing about being broke. He and I have been through so much together, we can't bear to stay mad long.

Anyway, this was all by way of saying:

When you're writing -- or when you're out in the world, dealing with people -- just try to remember that some people are a little chafed from using coffee filters in ways God never intended, and they didn't plan on wearing plum PJ pants with a green sweatshirt to the grocery store -- that's just sort of how it happens. I hate to read over and over about characters who are always rested and clean, with dinner foods at dinner time and a magical supply of endless toilet paper. Sometimes characters just need to be crabby and messy and frustrated and griping at each other for the heck of it. That's life. And it's usually a good read, too.

Places I Have Lived

In almost all of the stories I've written, the protaganist is either moving to a new home or attempting to find a new home to move to. I guess that's because I've lived in 42 different places in my life, and each one is a story.

I think they're in order, but I can't promise.

1. The Uncle Lewis Place in Mt. Nebo, WV. I don't know why it was called that or if there was really an Uncle Lewis. It was an old, white, haunted house where we lived till I turned one. When I say it was haunted, I mean both that it was listed in a book of haunted houses and that when you used a camera in that house, sometimes there were snakes in the photos that weren't there in real life.

2. Bent Tree Farm, somewhere, I'm not sure where, in West Virginia. We raised goats and chickens and a cow or two. When I say "we," I mean Mom, who also took care of us three girls. Dad, too, of course, but I think he also worked in the mines at this time. I'm not sure; it's a little fuzzy. I know the chimney burned once. I know there was a swimming hole. We left when I was three because somebody vandalized the place so bad we couldn't live there anymore, and a neighbor's dog killed the goats. Years later, the whole house burned. I think it was actually burned on purpose as a practice exercise for the fire department. There was a neighbor called Jug who sat on his front porch with a jug. Years later my sister drove me back to find the place, and there Jug still sat, like not a day had gone by. Waved just like he knew us.

3. The brick house in Cottle, WV. This was a little brick house and I remember that the neighbors had a cook-out and I lost my jelly shoes. We left when I was ... still 3? Four, maybe? This house also burned later.

4. Williams Road, Craigsville (I think), WV -- a green house where we took care of a stray dog for a while. I had nightmares a lot. We had a yardsale. It was the first place I noticed that mist made me nostalgic. My sister accidentally cut herself on a neighbor's knife. We made up imaginary friends named Dusty, Waggy, and Marbly. I was four. I carried a lunch box and desperately wanted to go to school.

5. Coke Road, Craigsville, WV. This was actually called Bottle Plant Road, but we called it Coke Road. I had my first best friend, named Amber, but I didn't really like her. Her grandmother made good chocolate chip cookies. We made cornhusk dolls. I think I was still four. This one also burned later.

6. Pine Trailer Park, Summersville, WV. There was red carpet. I started Kindergarten at the Christian Academy. My mother worked there and after my half-day classes, I bounced around the halls on a bouncy horse. My horse-loving root, I guess. I wet my pants a lot. I wanted Snuggle Bear from the dryer sheet commercials as a pet.

Edited to Add: 7. Lee Street. White house with black shutters. We had a puppy named Sunday, but we only got to keep him from one Sunday till the next before we had to give him back. We walked out at dusk to get ice creams from the U-Save gas station. We had a cat named August who got hit by a car right in front of us and killed. This house always seemed creepy to me, though not for any real reason.

8. The Carpenter House in Mt. Nebo, thus named because we rented it from people named the Carpenters, but I also thought it was because the house was wooden. We three girls shared a room at the top of the stairs, and I liked to stand on the top step and watch storms. My favorite song was "Wake Up, Little Susie." My sisters and I played Civil War and Wild Horses and Gold Rush. I stepped on a hamster in the sandbox and it crunched. We liked MacGyver. I rode an imaginary horse everywhere I went. We had a brown Chevy Suburban named Teddy Bear. I was six.

9. Uncle Emmett's place in Mt. Nebo, WV. I don't remember an actual Uncle Emmett, though. My sister grew crystals for a science project. My other sister won a red ribbon in a social studies fair. There were two dogs, not ours, but they loved us enough to chase the schoolbus We walked down to the gospel sing to use the payphone. There were bunkbeds. I was seven. I started the first of three elementary schools I would attend in my second-grade year.

E.T.A. -- 10. Summersville Place, a retirement home, with my grandmother. We weren't allowed, but we did anyway. I remember watching Westerns and eating strawberry candy. There was a lady upstairs we thought was a witch. I don't actually remember sleeping there, but Mom says we stayed in Grandma's bed and she took the couch.

11. At a Christian bookstore in Muddletly, WV, for forty days and forty nights. The owners let us use their back room and I think my mom helped in the store. We weren't allowed to read. There were prayer meetings and the lady we lived with kept a bowl of glass-like green candy, which I loved. There were bees in boxes, and a stream out back. I remember we had a snow day once. I wanted a horse. We got a little gray car that my parents told me dropped from Heaven, and I never did know where it came from. I switched to the second of three elementary schools in second grade. My second-grade class shared a room with the third-grade class and it was too cold to use the playground, the whole time I lived there. We decorated shoeboxes for Valentine's Day.

12. With Yvonne in Canvas, WV. There were plastic runners on the carpets, and one whole white room of furniture that nobody, including Yvonne, was allowed to use. A mirror jumped off the wall during a prayer meeting and shattered on the living room floor. Yvonne had shoulder pads and liked Cool Whip on peanut butter sandwiches. Maybe this was where we weren't allowed to read. Or maybe it was both. There was a room in the back she didn't use, and that was our hideaway for Mom to read to us. Or maybe that was at the bookstore, too. Yvonne finally sat our stuff out on the sidewalk. Luckily, my parents had gone out and found us a place that very day. I'm not sure what we did about school, but I never did go to one in Canvas.

13. Maria Estates, in Glade Creek, WV, for two delicious years, my eighth through my tenth. We stopped going to church. We were off school during Indian Summer because of the teacher strike of 1990. We had a cat named Panther J. Andrew Cade who could knock on the door. My mom read us everything. The neighbor had a horse, but she didn't like us at first. Then she taught me to ride in the back meadow, and I don't remember being scared. We were convinced the meadow was haunted. She was my first real best friend. I liked listening to "Back in the High Life" by Steve Winwood and "Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley.

14. In the car, moving to and from Illinois. I don't remember much, only that there was a rest area with phones that you could pick up and they would automatically tell you the weather. I thought it was magic.

15. Camp. This is to say, my grandmother's camp in Mt. Nebo, WV. I started fifth grade at the same school I'd attended for a couple of months in second grade. I made a friend who liked horses, and she broke her arm on the playground. My grandmother didn't have indoor plumbing and we washed in basins outside with water from the well. I ate peanut butter toast in the dark before school.

16. Dotson Trailer Park, Glade Creek, WV. There was a horse named Diamond who lived down the road. He was my best friend. I was eleven. There was a blizzard that winter and we made roads in the snow. There was an orange cat named Misfit. The neighbor boys and I built a fort down in the valley. I remember spending a lot of time walking in circles and brooding. My bedroom was in a corner of the living room.

17. E.T.A. -- Camp again, apparently.

18. Battle Run Campground in Mt. Nebo, WV. We couldn't afford rent, so we moved into the campground. We had to switch campsites every two weeks, as per their rules, so actually there were lots of little moves in between. We had a brown Nissan truck, and sometimes we rode in the back and held our tents, still pitched, against the wind while Dad drove us to a new campsite. It was easier than taking them apart and putting them back together. We hid out in the shower houses during the biggest storms. Of all the summers to live on Summersville Lake, we picked a drought year, the year they drained the lake early. There was a lot of mud and dry, cracked earth where there ought to have been water. I started seventh grade from the campground and yelled at the campers next door, who played a song about a muddy river over and over until one in the morning on a school night. I had a different best friend every week because the old ones would stop camping and go home. I did my homework in the laundry room. My roller skates went through the side of my tent. I had a boyfriend who was gay, like me. He took me to horse shows. I was twelve.

19. An old post office, Canvas, WV. My sister and I had a mail slot between our rooms. The walls didn't quite reach the ceilings. There was a horse a mile away named Star. Just past her lived my best friend, Kari. There was a swing in the back yard. I danced by the creek to classical music. I kept a journal of my daily activities with my imaginary horse. I wrote my first novel, about a magical land of horses called Aquilla. I was twelve.

20. A red cargo van, first moving to, and then back from, Elizabeth City, North Carolina. It just didn't feel right once we got there.

21. Harold Court, Summersville, WV. Hidden Springs Farm was a mile away and I got a job there cleaning stalls in exchange for riding lessons. Kari rode there, too. I met my best friend Stacie. My sister moved away and came back several months later with a baby. It was sweltering hot and it was my other sister's turn to live in the living room. I had a cat named Mikey who stole tomatoes off the counter. We lived there for three years and I started high school.

22. A haunted green house in Enon, WV. My father and my uncle built me a barn and I brought my first horse home from Hidden Springs Farm. Stuff and I rode for hours up and down country roads. He was scared of calves. Best friend was still Stacie and she learned to drive and visited a lot. I lived in the attic. Something knocked on the walls from the other side. My sister and I watched the X-Files religiously and I learned to bake cakes with green X's made of sprinkles to celebrate the release of the X-Files movie. My other sister visited on weekends with the baby. Kari and our other horsey friends visited and we bet dirty socks and broken hair bows on the Kentucky Derby every year. I lay on Stuff's back for hours and hours, reading horse books. We had a cat named Carter who slept on Stuff's back. He was killed by a car when he was one. We got a cat named Milagro next. I did my homework on the barn roof. I was seventeen.

23. Kintacoy. This was a half-finished apartment in a barn in the wilds of Mt. Nebo, WV. I lived upstairs. My parents lived downstairs in the kitchen, and Stuff lived up the hill in a rough, half-finished little shed. My parents spent a lot of time at the neighbor's haunted house. I was too scared, so I stayed alone at Kintacoy. We had our first computer with Internet and I built a website about my horse. I read a lot of X-Files fanfiction and watched Sports Night religiously by holding onto the TV antenna to get reception. There was no indoor plumbing. Or outdoor plumbing, either, once the porta-john got repossessed. I remember freezing my private parts peeing on the ground in January. It was one of the coldest winters I remember and I was very, very moody. I was still seventeen.

24. Hester Hall, Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky. I spent one semester majoring in journalism. I had a best friend named Annie. I minored in equine science and came home after one semester to be with my own horse. Found out western Kentucky was too flat for this mountain girl.

23, revisited. Kintacoy again. Still moody. Stayed part time with my sister in her apartment in town. She drove me to Glenville College's Nicholas County campus, back when there was one. We fought tooth and nail to keep Sports Night on the air, of course a losing battle. We drank Dr. Pepper and I attended her entire distance learning lab with her without an instructor ever knowing. We ate lemon poppyseed muffins and argued politics for fun.

25. Buskirk Hall, Marshall University, Huntington, WV. My sister and I lived and breathed Election 2000. After a sleepless night watching the returns, which proved to be mostly pointless, I crossed campus to Jenkins and changed my major to education. We drove back and forth across West Virginia nearly every weekend.

26. First Avenue, Huntington, WV, with my sister and Stacie. I came out as a lesbian. I rode the bus out to Barboursville to work with an autistic teen and to ride my horse.

27. Fourth Avenue, a little efficiency apartment, my first solo place, Huntington, WV. I had a balcony three stories above the street. I lived above the deli and the Chinese restaurant, and just across the street from the bus station. I started dating. Eventually I started dating a woman named Tracy, who later came out as a transgendered man named Jake. I got a cat named Sage, and then found a cat named Henry (see cat-hat in userpic) in Wal-Mart.

28. Tenth Avenue, a haunted, scary house, with the campus gay and lesbian group. We rented the downstairs and our friends rented the upstairs. Something kept locking and unlocking doors and scratching mirrors. The gas got cut off and I learned to take cold showers. We got our first truck, an '88 Ford Ranger.

29. A trailer with no plumbing. Huntington, WV. The wheel fell off the truck and we started walking the mile and a half to catch the bus. I was supposed to start student teaching, but the wiring failed and we had to move into ...

30. Jake's sister's dorm room for three consecutive days at a time, the maximum allowed. Then my friend Steve's apartment for a night. Then back to Jake's sister's room. All the while student teaching.

31. Linden Circle. Huntington, WV. A pretty apartment, but with scary neighbors and a scary neighborhood. Jake and I broke up. He moved out. I graduated college and bought a gold Chevy.

32. With an opera singer, Brevard, NC. First by myself. Then Jake moved to NC to be with me and we got back together. My first year of teaching special education. Stuff, my beloved first horse of nine years, got sick suddenly, and I drove all night to be at his side when he passed away. My cat Sage disappeared, but came back three weeks later. We were asked to leave.

33. At the boarding house, Brevard, NC. It was gorgeous. It was perfect. We lived there till school was out, then left for Virginia, where I'd accepted a job. I was given a sick horse who turned out not to be too sick. That was Magnum. We rode in a show in the rain and got a blue ribbon.

34. With my sister in Charlottesville, VA, for a few days, on the floor of the office.

35. A sublet in a scary neighborhood in Charlottesville, VA. I started teaching at a private school. We had a dog named Hunter who hated apartments.

36. A farmhouse you got to by driving through cow fields in Afton, VA. We brought Magnum home and got him a pet goat, a Nigerian Dwarf. Learned that goat fencing must be water tight. We drove our car without insurance. My sister moved away to Philly and it was just me and Jake with the animals. Something knocked on the door in the middle of the night, most nights, although we were the only house for miles. We got evicted with five days to find a new place, and we had to part with Pete the goat.

37. A horrible hodgepodge week where we lived in our car, drove back and forth from my parents' apartment in West Virginia, and stayed in cheap motel rooms. Our car broke down and was towed away and that left us stranded in a cheap motel with a hole in the wall. I pulled Henry-cat out of the wall by his tail. He was traumatized. We maybe all were.

38. My parents helped get us into a cottage on a horse farm in Staunton, VA. We kept Magnum there and worked in the stable while I also commuted 45 minutes to the private school. The horse farm owner possessed a strong personality and the farm was never peaceful. We got rid of Hunter because she was sick and we couldn't afford her care. We knew we were about to be homeless. My Henry-cat couldn't take the stress and ran away in January. I found him dead on the road in March. He was four. We were finally asked to leave. We left the dead Chevy sitting there next to Henry's grave.

39. With a friend named Julie, for about a week. She was awesome. So was her dog. Sage was lonely. So was Jake. So was I. We didn't talk much. We drove a tan minivan with 300,000 miles on it.

40. Back to the boarding house in Brevard, NC. I count it separately because it was so different this time. The cast of characters had changed. I taught preschool, then started my third year of teaching. I got my dog, Lola. Jake got his puppy, Buddy. Lights flickered willy-nilly and there were disembodied footsteps that walked through the house. I wrote LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE. We were asked to leave. Jake came out as trans and changed his name. We ditched the van and bought a Bonneville from my coworker. Still haven't finished paying.

41. A rental in Asheville, NC, with a friend named Erika. Obama was inaugerated. Erika moved back to Florida. She was the perfect roommate and I miss her like crazy. This was the first rental in a long time that I don't regret.

And, finally,

42. A basement apartment that is half apartment, half dank, creepy, unfinished basement. No kitchen cabinets. A jazz band practices down here once a week. Occasionally, somebody taps you on the shoulder, even if you are alone in a room. This is where I live. I'm twenty-eight.

In just a few weeks, Jake and I are moving back to West Virginia. We're not sure where to, exactly, so we might be doing the campground thing again. I kind of hope so. Of all the places I just listed, it was one of the most fun.

So now you know why I write what I write. I just listed 42 novel ideas, minimum.

What's your writing root?

Have you ever seen the movie But I'm a Cheerleader, where a girl gets sent away to a "straight camp" when her parents suspect she's gay? Remember the scenes where all the gay (and presumed-gay) kids are trying to figure out their "root," the one childhood memory that was responsible for their homosexuality?

Perhaps this is an odd leap, but Sruble just posted a set of questions for novelists that got me thinking about my "root" as a writer. In my response to her questions, I described my own writing "root," which occurred when I was six:
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When I was six, my mother read us The Outsiders (not a typical book for a six-year-old, but I had older sisters and Mom read to us all together). When she revealed that the author was only 16, I decided at that precise moment to become a novelist. I knew grown-ups wrote books, but no one had ever told me kids could write! I started "noveling" that very day, in a green notebook I found in my mom's purse. My handwriting was big and clumsy and I could only fit ten or so words on a page, but for several days after, I happily chronicled the misadventures of "Tina Telanium, horse rider." All I remember is that she wore elbow and knee pads to ride her horse, and that she at some point battled a panther (probably because my big sister had recently read me Danger on Panther Peak.)

So writing a novel as a grown-up made sense; ever since I picked up that green notebook, I've been trying.

I'm curious. Do you have a "root," a moment in your life when you decided you would be a writer? Did you know you would write what you do, or did you just know you had something to say, even though you hadn't figured out yet how to say it? Were you taken seriously when you announced your intentions? Did you take yourself seriously, or did you just have this nagging feeling that you might be a writer, like it or not? Whatever your writing root, I would love to hear more about it!

Good News

What a great week for the writers!

First of all, my students got their galley copy to look over on Thursday. I was thrilled to learn that they were more interested in seeing their characters' names in print than their own! I can't wait to get back from spring break so we can pick up our final copies and go out into the world with them. First stop? The local indy bookstore for a book signing. The kids have made posters and prepared a short reading. They've been working so hard on this project!

Then yesterday, on the first day of spring break, my wonderful agent, Laura Langlie, sold my own novel, LIVVIE OWEN LIVED HERE, to Feiwel and Friends! This is the novel I wrote right alongside the kids during our NaNoWriMo project. How perfect that I got this news in time to share it with this year's class!

I am just over the moon about all of this!

"Ralph the Traveling Mouse"

Or: An Update on my Students' Writing

So, we have a major mouse problem in my classroom this year. They have caught nine mice in my classroom in the last four days, including the one the custodian picked up with his bare hand as it was running across the classroom. The mice have been stealing packets of oatmeal from one of my students and eating them, packet and all, in their favorite hiding place under the microwave. And remember a few weeks ago something had crawled into the ceiling and died? Yeah, this mouse problem is major.

It's also been good for several hundred collective words! The day we saw the mouse (and my two classroom assistants screamed and ran across the room, which the kids loved), the kids went back to their writing afterward eager to add the mouse to their stories. We all did it. The mouse has become a major character in my story. Here's what he became to my students' stories:

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ONE: The evil dentist blows up the good dentist's office to get rid of the mouse, but the mouse is the only thing that survives the blast. Now the good dentist and the mouse are on a quest to steal all the evil dentist's candy.

TWO: The weather forecaster is jumping around on a desk, screaming, because there's a mouse under her desk, and people think she's trying to tell them about a scary storm moving in.

THREE: Jennifer Heather Porter put the mouse in Frankie Muniz's prison cell (don't ask) and he got mad that she played a prank on him, so he signed her up to be in the dunking booth at the carnival

FOUR: The mouse ran through the school of which Mr. Rooster is the principal. Now Violet Fern Charlotte has to get a cat to chase the mouse. But the cat is much more interested in becoming a librarian than in concerning himself with mice. (I mean, this is brilliant!)

FIVE: The mouse scared the horse. The horse ran fast. (This guy's worse than me, I'm telling you. If I wrote down what he said verbatim, every other word would be "horse." I have to keep stopping him and explaining that, yes, we're still talking about horses, but sometimes it's okay to use other words.)

SIX: The mouse is on ice skates. No more mouse. (That one rang kind of ominous, but I was a little scared to ask what she meant. Did she mean he skated away into the sunset? Did she mean he had a skating accident? Or -- *gasp* -- could she have mixed up her prepositions again and meant "under" instead of "on"?)

SEVEN: The eight-legged rat is in the kitchen. (It grew in retelling.) The teachers run screaming to their cars. The students sit and laugh.

EIGHT: The mouse scares the football player, so the cheerleader bravely picks it up and tosses it outside.

NINE: I eat french fries. The mouse hides. (I guess it's lying in wait?)

NANO 2008!

AND THEY'RE OFF!