Search results for What are you working on now

In Which I Answer the Question: “What Are You Working on now?”

October 31, 2016 / / No comments

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I recently completed a series of interview questions at Deborah Kalb’s “Book Q&As” blog (not posted yet, or I’d share), and thought I’d pass along a brief sample. One of the unexpected challenges to writing a book comes after the book is finished — when you’ve got to figure out how to talk about it.

How do you explain it? How do you make it sound good in two sentences? How do you summarize 42,000 words to someone who is barely listening?

Obviously, I’m still trying to figure that out.  Read below and you can flounder along with me!

 

What are you working on now?

I am finishing up the revisions for a middle-grade novel, Better Off Undead, that I began seven years ago. That’s not a normal time-frame for me. It started as a misfit story, in this case a boy who survives his own death only to be told that, well, he might as well go back to middle school. I figured that “zombie” made him the ultimate outsider. But I didn’t feel satisfied writing just a zombie book, so the work stalled. As time passed, I became increasingly invested in a host of environmental issues, “climate change” in particular, even attending a huge march down in NYC. I kept looking at young people, including my own children, and felt the caretakers of the planet had failed them. We had failed them. At the same time, I felt that many of today’s young people had not fully grasped the severity of the situation. The book (Macmillan, 2017) casts a wide net, sprawls and morphs into a mystery/thriller hybrid, and touches upon dying bees, bats, droughts, wildfires, makeover shows, corporate greed, consumerism, politics, bullying, and, yes, the struggles of one lone zombie. If there’s a theme, it’s this: Everything connects. It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever written. I’m glad that I can still surprise myself — and consider it a good sign.

Here’s some more images from the spectacular “People’s Climate March” in NYC referenced above, attended by more than 400,000 citizens of the globe.

I traveled down alone -- but not alone -- by bus. So this is me on that great day, seeking attention to a cause that matters. In many ways, this march affected and inspired the book I wrote.

I traveled down alone — but not alone — from Delmar, NY, by bus. So this photo is me, taken by a stranger on that great day, seeking attention for a cause that matters. In many ways, this experience affected and inspired the book I wrote.

People's Climate March, 092114Some of hundreds of thousands take part in the People's Climate March through Midtown, New Yorkscreenshot-2014-09-10-131902_550x322climate-march-9_3000019b10_medium140921_climate_change_rally_nyc_ice_cream_earth_msm_605_60520140921-dsc_0050imagesA protester carries a sign during the "People's Climate March" in the Manhattan borough of New Yorkslide_389314_4706504_freeslide_370038_4261286_free140921_pol_peoplesclimate_11-jpg-crop-original-originalimagemarch-for-climate-changeimrspeoples-march-newam-crew-537x366

Category: Better Off Undead / Tags: , , , , , ,

“I’ll See You Around Campus!”

October 18, 2024 / / One comment

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“I’ll see you around campus!” I call back to my wife as I head out the door. 

It’s an expression I borrowed from my brother Billy, who first started  saying it back in the day. Fifty years ago, more or less. A little joke. For there’s no campus and we’re not eager co-eds from the 1950s. Get it?

And now I’ve adopted that phrase as my own. Not that anyone ever laughs. It’s not about getting a big reaction. The expression pleases me, tickles my fancy; it connects me to my past, and my brother, who I don’t see or talk to much anymore. I know, I know. I am a failed and foolish person. But I still carry Billy around in my failed and foolish heart, echoing his words. 

I also channel Billy’s humor when I inquire of a college student, usually the child of a friend, if he’s met any “co-eds” on campus.  

I can’t explain why that amuses me, or why it has persisted across 45-50 years, but it does. Why fight it? Maybe there’s pleasure derived from their puzzled expressions, the hapless groans. We go through life doing our familiar dance steps, hitting our marks, fulfilling low expectations. The cornball dad and lame jokester, coming at you.

Or I’ll channel my mother when a redoubtable opposing baseball player comes up to the plate in a tight spot, and murmur worryingly, “Oh, he’s trouble.”

When I first heard her say that, Mom was talking about the Cardinals 3B Mike Shannon -— a “dangerous RBI man” in the parlance — and it was probably 1968. The years slide past; the names change. Now Trouble arrives with a new face. These days, baseball-wise, Trouble is named Max Muncy. But the idea remains, the voice of my mother still in my ears. And the reverse, when the New York Mets need a hit, I’ll remember her and repeat her comment, “He’s due.”

Once again I’m watching a ballgame, fretfully, as always, and my dear old Mom miraculously sits beside me, both of us working over the same anxiety. The small agonies of fandom. 

“Hell’s bells,” she’d say, exasperated. 

I love the old expressions. For the charms of a lost language, certainly, but also because they provide a lifeline to the past. And the past is the only place where some of my favorite people still reside. 

Some days I’ll remember an expression out of the blue, unbidden. “For the love of Pete!” my mother used to exclaim. 

Who’s Pete? I’d wonder. Is he a substitute for God? How did Pete get that big job?

I surmise, thinking now, that Pete must be Saint Peter, an important guy once upon a time, busy guarding the gate into heaven, I guess. I wouldn’t know. The expression has fallen from common use, like so many before it.

But oh, it feels good to hear those words coming from my own mouth. Keeping it alive. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” she’d cry. My brother’s humor, the expressions of my late mother. Our glorious, battered, yellowing past. Dissolving in my memory. Still clinging to it, connecting with it, even as it fades away, like an old polaroid snapshot left out in the sun. 

Thanks for reading, folks. And in the meantime . . . 

I’ll see you around campus! 

Category: Family / Tags: , , , ,

Edits: The Last Few Lines of BEFORE YOU GO

September 27, 2024 / / 2 comments

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I came across this document from my only true YA novel, Before You Go (Macmillan, 2012), which even got a kind review in The New York Times of all places, and landed with a thud in the marketplace. My idea for this book came when I was confronted by the Pink Wall of a YA display in a bookstore. It just seemed so extremely female-dominated. So I decided to try to enter that world from a male perspective. I always strongly disliked the cover. But the book’s shortcomings in the market surely has more to do with my own failings, or predilections, as a writer. What I liked, what I tried to do, did not fulfill the desires of the reading audience.

I guess, I don’t know. Too slow, possibly. Too male? That’s what I was trying to do. 

We go through these questions, as writers, after books die on the vine. We wonder why and search for answers. And if you are me, the easiest and most obvious target — once we move past the disappointing cover and the harsh publishing world where almost nothing gets promoted vigorously — is me. The fault is mine. It might be as simple as what I like, in this case, is not what the majority of readers wanted.

Anyway, I still like the book a lot, always have.

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This snippet (below) is from the final revision I did in the copyediting process. The book was typeset and just about ready to go to press. I was still fiddling with words, working that last scene, Jude at Jones Beach, alone, waiting for the sun to rise, possibly in love, throwing a stone into the ocean.

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Okay, thanks for listening. I’m not sure about the availability of this book. It’s a strange publishing world out there now. Books can be “available” but “not in stock,” which is confusing and not gratifying. It might be completely out of print. At the same, you can usually find books in libraries or secondary markets if you are willing to click around for two minutes. I think it’s a good read. 

Thanks!

 

Category: Before You Go, the writing process / Tags: , ,

Here are 6 Videos I Made for Teachers and Homeschoolers to Share with Young Readers

March 26, 2020 / / 3 comments

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I posted a week ago about our collective struggle to find ways to do something meaningful, helpful, positive during this challenging time. As a children’s book author, my immediate goal has been to provide some online material that teachers and parents can share with young learners.

As of today, March 26, I’ve created six videos and posted them on my own Youtube channel (link below). I’ve also learned how to embed them here, also below. For me, that’s saying something.

Technology: ick.

But, as we’re finding in these days of physical distancing, a valuable way to connect.

Please feel free to share these videos with fellow teachers, media specialists, parents, students, children.  If you have ideas or suggestions for future videos, I’ll be happy to respond to that. Thanks for what you are doing.

Stay smart, keep safe, and enjoy the moments we are given. In my house in upstate New York, we are hunkered down with two of our three children, Gavin (20) and Maggie (19), along with my midwife-wife, Lisa (no age given). Our oldest, Nick (26), is in his NYC
apartment, working online. We miss him terribly. Each night, we’ve been enjoying lovely family dinners. We’re rotating who cooks and (purportedly) who cleans. In many respects, it’s been a beautiful experience. Trying to hold onto those positive feelings. Not worrying, for now, about all the lost income, the stress about bills, all the money stuff. There will be time to recover from that. For now, we embrace the now.

Here’s a link to my Youtube Channel.

I’ve included a brief description and target age level immediately below each video

 

THIS IS THE FIRST VIDEO I made, and the shortest, and it touches upon a theme I try to emphasize before every student I meet, regardless of age (though the delivery gets more sophisticated at middle schools): “You are unique. You have stories inside you that only you can tell.”

 

I MADE BOOKS WHEN I WAS a little kid. I sold them to my friends and neighbors. My mother saved one and I read it here. Kind of funny, I think. Hopefully this video inspires young people to make their own books. In the case above, I needed help with the words from my oldest brother, Neal. Ages 4-up.

 

FOR FANS OF JIGSAW JONES: Here I talk about what I was like as a kid — more of a spy than a true detective — and how I gave my favorite childhood toy to Jigsaw Jones. I read a scene from THE CASE OF THE BICYCLE BANDIT.

 

FOR GRADES 4-UP, JUST RIGHT FOR MIDDLE SCHOOLERS. THIS VIDEO LESSON centers around a writing tip first offered by Kurt Vonnegut Jr: make awful things happen to your leading characters! I discuss that idea and, to make the point, read two passages from BLOOD MOUNTAIN, my most recent middle-grade adventure novel and a 2019 Junior Library Guild Selection.

 

HERE’S ONE FOR THE YOUNGEST READERS, ages 3-up, where I read from WAKE ME IN SPRING. I also describe the creative process, the thinking, behind the story. And again, as always, I try to turn it back to the reader, to inspire their own creativity moving forward.

 

MY “SCARY TALES” BOOKS are often wildly popular on school visits. Though the books seem to hit that sweet spot of grades 3-5, I’ve met very young readers who are impervious to fear, second graders who love them, and also, by design, readers in uppers grades and middle school who have enjoyed this high-interest, low-reading level stories with the super cool artwork by Iacopo Bruno. For some, their first successful reading experience of a full-length book that is not heavily illustrated. Here I read from the first two chapters of GOODNIGHT, ZOMBIE. 

 

I’LL CONTINUE TO POST MORE VIDEOS — including a full reading of “ZOMBIE” — as time allows. Please, by all means, feel free to share these videos far and wide. Obviously, if I hear positive reports, I’ll be encouraged to do more. Thanks for stopping by.

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Category: Around the Web, In the Classroom, Jigsaw Jones, Scary Tales, School Visits, the writing process / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Working on My Gratefulness: “Scary Tales” Given the Manga Treatment

December 9, 2019 / / No comments

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Somehow I’m going to have to become a more positive person. This job, you know. It has so many beautiful, rewarding aspects to it. Yet it’s easy for me to fall down that rabbit hole of negativity. It’s how I roll. The good books that don’t sell. The rejections. The struggle to earn enough money. And on and on.

It’s all so dumb. I don’t control those things. All I can do is . . . the best I can do. What happens after that is beyond my grasp.

And sometimes — quite often, really — amazing things come back to me. Kind words. Fabulous partnerships with illustrators. School visits. Even awards, books that get recognized.

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I think that’s it, actually. We all want to be seen. This is true in all aspects of life. In our work, in our relationships. “I see you.” I guess that’s the thing with awards and starred reviews and invitations to visit schools and fan letters. In those instances, the world says, “I see you.” It’s all we can ask.

One of the really fun things is when a book gets translated into different languages. I’ve been lucky to see some of my titles in French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Korean, and more. This is one of my favorites, a Japanese translation of a zombie story from my “Scary Tales” series. This kind of thing just mysteriously happens. Rights are sold, talented people get to work, and I don’t do a blessed thing.

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So cool, right?

(Working on my gratefulness.)

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Category: Scary Tales / Tags: , , , ,
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