Archive for Six Innings

Fan Mail Wednesday #25

January 14, 2009 / / No comments

Stand back, people. Everybody stand back! It’s Fan Mail Wednesday . . .

Dear Mr. Preller,

I just finished reading your book, Six Innings, and thought it was awesome. I am doing a book report on it. My favorite part was at the end when Sam realizes that Mike wasn’t feeling sorry for him being so sick, but just really wanted his friend to hang out with. I have never had a friend who has been that sick, but I know I would want to be a friend like Mike. I would love to see if you could make Six Innings into another story with Mike and Sam. Maybe Sam could get better and they have another championship game. Maybe have them go to a Met game!

I also have ideas for you for Jigsaw Jones mysteries. The title is The Case of the Missing Shoe. When someone loses their sneaker, Jigsaw Jones solves it by discovering Rags, the dog, had taken it and buried it in the ground.

Sincerely,

Billy
P.S. Lets Go Mets 2009!

Here’s my reply:

Dear Billy,

I’ll admit it. I’m sort of mad at you. Here I am, slaving away like a black dog on a hot day, desperately trying to think of ideas, and you shoot off a chatty email with more good ideas in it than I’ve had in a month!

Tell you what, let’s make a switch: YOU write the books, I’ll send the fan mail (but I’m not doing your homework, those days are gone).

Seriously, thanks. I liked your observation on Six Innings. You know, that was definitely an important moment in the book for me, too. When it all kind of flipped. As you may know, there’s a core of true experience in that book. My oldest son, Nick, age 15, is a two-time cancer survivor, five years of chemo. Hard, hard times. I was moved by the friendship he shared with another boy. Nick’s friend would visit, the boys would hang out together, do quiet things, talk. And somewhere it dawned on me that it was tough on both of them. That it’s hard to be sick, yes; but in some ways, even harder to be the steady, reliable friend. Grandma isn’t sending him presents in the mail, you know what I mean? But he’s still got to carry that weight, uncertainty, fear.

Back to your ideas: Maybe a sequel, but I don’t see it right now. Most times one book is enough. I would like to try another sports story one day. Ice fishing? Cliff diving? I can’t decide.

For Jigsaw, that’s a pretty solid premise for a story. If I were to pursue it, I might begin by asking some of these questions: Who would the other suspects be? Is it an important shoe? Does Jigsaw really need the shoe for something? A race? Or a wedding? It’s always good when the clock is ticking — it’s called the “ticking clock” technique — when the hero of the story has to find the solution by a specific time. You see variations of this technique in stories all the time. In its extreme form, for example, the world blows up at exactly noon if the hero doesn’t find and detonate the bomb. It gives the story urgency. Only five minutes left! Three, two, one . . . .

I tried to use that approach in Jigsaw Jones #20: The Case of the Race Against Time. And given that premise, I like how that story begins: “You’re late,” my mother snapped.

Just to be clear: I am NOT sharing the royalties with you. Your ideas are now officially my original ideas and I’m keeping all the money for myself. Or maybe you could keep the idea. Write it yourself. Remove the character of Jigsaw, make it somebody else. Hey, Billy, write your own story! Why not? Go for it. You might enjoy it.

Thanks for writing. And yes, absolutely, “Let’s Go Mets!”

JP

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Category: Fan Mail, Six Innings / Tags: , , , , , ,

Best Books of 2008, and so on . . .

January 2, 2009 / / No comments

I have a lot of ground to cover this morning — and hopefully some of it will be in the snow-covered woods and in the company of my dog, Daisy. So check this out:

Sue Corbett, author of 12 Again and Free Baseball, writing for The Miami Herald, named Six Innings in her list of “best children’s books of the year.” Which is just an incredible honor. Though I’ve been involved in children’s books since 1986, the year 2008 was like a coming out party for me. I published two hardcover books (I published only one before, in ’98 or so, and good luck finding it!), started this blog, and have had a lot of nice things come my way.

Sue writes of Six Innings:

The group portrait of the members of a Little League baseball team takes place over the six innings of a championship game. Perceptive and funny, sketches introduce us to the players while the nail-biting action keeps the pages turning. Kids will be nodding in agreement at the truths laid bare.

Sue Corbett’s full list:

NONFICTION

• “Owney the Mail-pouch Pooch,” by Mona Kerby, illustrated by Lynne Barasch.

• “Knucklehead,” by Jon Scieszka.

• “A River of Words,” by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet.

• “The Trouble Begins at 8,” by Sid Fleischman.

• “We Are the Ship,” by Kadir Nelson.

• “What To Do About Alice?” by Barbara Kerley and Edwin Fotheringham.

NOVELS

• “Airman,” by Eoin Colfer.

• “The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks,” by E. Lockhart.

• “Graceling,” by Kristin Cashore.

• “The Possibilities of Sainthood,” by Donna Freitas.

• “Six Innings,” by James Preller.

• “What I Saw and How I Lied,” by Judy Blundell.

PICTURE BOOKS

• “A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever,” by Marla Frazee.

• “How to Heal a Broken Wing,” by Bob Graham.

• “Sergio Makes a Splash!,” by Edel Rodriguez.

• “Swing!,” by Rufus Butler Seder.

• “Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes,” by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury.

Sue previously gave the book a starred review in Publishers Weekly and (outrageously) compared it/me to Judy Blume. (Thanks, I’ll take a dozen!) I especially appreciate Sue’s kind words, because she’s a real-deal baseball person. I know that Six Innings isn’t for everybody, and I’ve read how some adult readers complain that there’s too much baseball in it, so it means a lot coming from a stranger like Sue who knows and respects that world, who knows those boys, who can read it and say, “Yes, he got it right.”

– – – – –

Over at The Reading Zone, a sixth-grade teacher named Sarah appears to subsist entirely on books, dry toast, and water. After giving her list of favorites for 2008, she writes: “I read about 150 books this year, as of December 26th. These are just a few of my favorites. Ask me again tomorrow, and you will probably get a different list!”

I’m grateful that on this particular day, Sarah thought to mention my book, Six Innings, in such esteemed company. Again: I’m honored and grateful.

Sarah wrote of Six Innings:

I don’t even like baseball and I loved this book! A great book to hand to boys and girls alike, it goes much deeper than just baseball and deals with life. The characters are realistic and easy to relate to. It’s just a great book all around!

Hey, a convert to the Church of Baseball! Sarah’s full list:

Tennyson by Lesley M.M. Blume.

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost.

Every Soul A Star by Wendy Mass.

Six Innings by James Preller.

The 39 Clues (The Maze of Bones, Book 1) by Rick Riordan.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson.

My Father’s Son by Terri Fields.

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt.

The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter Memoir by Cylin Busby and John Busby.

The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

What I Saw And How I Lied by Judy Blundell.

– – – – –

I find this funny. Tony Abbott has been running a series on his blog that focuses on writers’ workspaces. He’s received and posted descriptions from Nora Raleigh Baskin, Elise Broach, David Levithan, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Lisa Yee. But recently it’s all gone downhill.

When first launching the series, Tony wrote:

“The actual earthly position a writer chooses (or maybe doesn’t choose) to do his or her work seems to me vital to the functioning of the art that takes place there. Or, if not, it’s at least interesting to me, and when I visit classes, I never fail to speak in revered tones about where writing happens, and where it doesn’t happen. For some writers, the space he or she works in is, possibly, the only three-dimensional reality they have.”

And at some point, Tony made the miscalculation of asking me. Or maybe it was a good idea, as counter-balance, because I couldn’t be more different. I don’t have any of those sacred space feelings, and am actually embarrassed by my (basically crappy) workspace. No revered tones here. In fact, no offense, I don’t think I’d ever be caught dead referring to it as a “workspace.”

Anyway, to learn more, stroll on over to Tony’s blog by clicking right here!

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Shea Memory, Childhood Illness, and Six Innings

December 7, 2008 / / One comment

As these photos taken by Joe MacDonald show, the destruction of Shea Stadium continues into winter. Come spring, our attention will turn to the new home of the New York Mets, Citi Field, with its beautiful Jackie Robinson Rotunda, and the promise of a new season to come.

But I’m not ready to go there just yet. Instead, my thoughts linger on Shea. I’ve been to many games over the years. My first was in 1967, the Mets vs. Hank Aaron and the Braves. I saw the 5th game of the 1969 World Series. Some great victories and some crushing defeats. A lot of memories.

I learned to love baseball from my mother, a former Brooklyn Dodgers fan who, after the Dodgers fled to Los Angeles, adopted the expansion 1962 New York Mets as her hometown team. She faithfully gave her heart to this hapless bunch in orange and blue. As I grew up, she taught me how to throw and catch, and somehow sold me on the preposterous notion that Ron Swoboda, the Mets thick-necked rightfielder, was graceful. I used to ask her, as I minced across the lawn, “Am I graceful, Mom? Am I graceful?” She assured me that I was. I’ve come to see that my love of the game is impossible to separate from the love of my mother; I cannot imagine one without the other.

In the spring of 2003, my oldest son, Nicholas, was diagnosed with leukemia. It was a relapse. He had first been diagnosed in the summer of ’95, at 26 months. We had been there, done our hard times, and believed the worst was behind us. But again we settled into an exhausting routine of doctors and medicines, blood tests and spinal taps, the chemistry of hope and fear. Much, much harder for Nick the second time around.

Meanwhile, my father-in-law, Ed Ginsberg, a lifelong Yankee fan, contacted the New York Mets. He made phone call after phone call, telling one person after another Nick’s story. Weeks passed. While undergoing treatment, Nick got an infection. His immune system too compromised to fight it, Nick was forced to stay on IV-drips in the hospital for twelve long days until his temperature settled below 101 degrees. On one particularly bad day a letter arrived from Chris Brown, the New York Mets Community Outreach Coordinator. He invited Nicholas and three guests to a special day at Shea Stadium.

When Nick felt strong enough, down we drove from our home outside Albany, New York — Nicholas, his stepmother Lisa, his grandfather Ed, and myself. Chris Brown met us at the gate two hours before the game, shook our hands, and brought us inside to the secret, special places. He opened a door and led us onto the field, where Nick stared in wide-eyed wonder. We stepped into the dugout, felt the bats in their racks, eyed the neat rows of clean helmets, and snapped picture after picture. We walked into a long concrete hallway under the stands, where we stood nearly alone outside the Mets clubhouse door, as real live ballplayers — guys with names like Vance and Ty, Joe and Cliff — walked past us on their way to the indoor batting cages. Some players stopped and briefly chatted, signed baseballs, and smiled for photos with their arms resting on my son’s shoulder.

I couldn’t help but think of my mother, and how our love of the game had brought us to this singular moment. My boy, sick with cancer, smiling into the camera, a Sharpie and a signed baseball in his hand. All those games we had watched together, our spirits dashed by defeat and lifted in victory. All of that time and energy invested, all of that life we poured into the game — all of it, truth be told, a little absurd. After all it is just a game. Not life, not death, and certainly not childhood cancer. But standing in that gray basement of Shea Stadium, I knew with certainty that it all had been worth it.

We loved the game. And sometimes, amazingly, it loved us back.

—–

It was why I wrote Six Innings, why that book was so important to me. Because it’s all in there, all that stuff, a roiling wave that carries the words along, the love of the game, a lifetime of baseball, and sometimes the hard things that get in the way.

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Category: Greatest Hits, New York Mets, Six Innings / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Fan Mail Wednesday #20

November 11, 2008 / / 3 comments

And so I find that I’ve become what I had always feared:

Homework.

Dear Mr. Preller,

My name is Elliott and live in a small town in the suburbs of Chicago. I did a book report on one of your books, Six Innings, and I thought I should share it with you a little bit and tell you that I thought your book was one of the best books I’ve ever read. I did my book report in the form of a board game, the objective being to start at home plate and try to be the first one to go all around the board and reach it, with obstacles at every corner (I have attached some pictures of my game to this email). I also got an A+ on it, which is another reason I thought I should send it to you. I deeply hope you reply to this email when you get it.

Your reader,

Elliott C.

P.S. I know you’re a Mets fan, and I’m a baseball fan too, but I’m more of a Cubs type. I also know that you’re ashamed that the Mets didn’t make it to the playoffs, so I am deeply sorry.

I replied this way:

Dear Elliott:

I wanna play, I Wanna Play, I WANNA PLAY!

Thanks so much for sharing this with me. I love the photos you sent, too. They confirmed my deep-held belief that I have the best-looking readers in all of children’s literature. Rowling may be making more money, others may get the awards, but my readers brush their teeth.

And that means the world to me.

Elliott, I’m impressed with the energy and creativity you put into your project. Not only did you deserve that A+, I believe your parents should buy you a new car (hopefully one of the more eco-friendly hybrids, but let’s not push it).

A Cubs type, huh? No problem. A couple of years back I finally made the pilgrimage to Wrigley Field. You are lucky to have that historic ballpark in your backyard. My home park, Shea Stadium, is being torn down as I type this; but at least we’ll get new digs, hopefully this time with running water.

But I do have to say that, contrary to your comment, I’m not at all ashamed of my team, the New York Mets. I thought they played hard and came up short. Too many people label that as “choking.” Sometimes you don’t win. I thought their bullpen was deeply flawed. Try as they might, they couldn’t overcome the injuries and roster weaknesses. I thought the effort was there.

But, yeah, it was disappointing. As a Cubs fan, I guess you know all about that.

Thank you again for your letter, for reading my book, and for creating the coolest board game ever. I am humbled and grateful. You should also be thankful to your teacher, who was equally creative and open-minded in accepting, and probably encouraging, a book report that comes in the form of a board game. And, yes, I still wanna play!

Your friend,

James Preller

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Deleted Scenes 2: Six Innings

November 6, 2008 / / No comments

When revising Six Innings, I eliminated about 25% from the first draft (for more on that topic, click here). One of the plot lines that got axed involved Alex Lionni’s relationship with his father, a man utterly disinterested in sports who gets involved as an assistant coach after his divorce.

During this editorial stage, we generally minimized the role of adult characters. There was another scene when Mr. Lionni called Coach Jeff Reid and, despite his woeful lack of baseball knowledge, asked to help with the team. He was a man in pain, looking for some way to connect with his son. But, but, but.

As writers and editors, we often wrestle with the issue of balance, fiction’s inverse relationship of “pace” and “depth.” It’s a push-pull situation: pace/depth; plot/character. To move fast, you have to travel light; but if there’s not enough meat, nobody cares how quickly the story goes. So you are always making choices, bargaining. Slow it down, speed it up, linger here, hurry forward, skip the stone across the water, or let it sink below the surface.

The deleted scene below is backstory, character development, an exchange that took place about two years before the championship game of Six Innings.

“Here, Dad.”

Alex tossed a baseball to his father in the parking lot after the game.

Casper Lionni muffed it, at the same time fumbling the thick book (an epic poem, Homer’s The Iliad) that he’d tucked under his arm. The book fell with a thud. The ball bounced away and rolled under a Honda Odyssey.

“My bad, I’ll get it,” Alex said.

The boy stretched out on the pavement, reached under the minivan and recovered the ball.

This time, he handed it to his father.

Mr. Lionni wore a puzzled expression.

Alex explained, “If you hit a home run, they let you keep it. See,” he pointed to some writing on the ball, “Coach even wrote down the date.”

“Neat.” Mr. Lionni moved to return the ball to Alex.

“No, keep it,” Alex said.

“Me?”

“Yeah, Dad,” Alex said. “I think batting practice really helped last week. Not to mention the new goggles. So, um, thanks. I want you to have it.”

“But Alex,” Mr. Lionni protested. “This is your home run ball.”

“That’s okay,” Alex replied. “I’ll hit another.”

They did not speak of the problems at home. How Alex’s father was moving to an apartment, how everything was turning upside down. Sometimes it was better not to talk about these things. At this moment, in a parking lot beside a baseball diamond, Casper Lionni tucked a baseball into his jacket pocket. He ran his thumb over the seams. “Thank you, Alex,” he said. “I’ll treasure this.”

And so he would.

The ball would be displayed in a plastic cube on a mantel in the living room of his apartment. The place he called, awkwardly, his “new bachelor pad.” On silent nights, when Alex was away sleeping in the old house, Mr. Lionni would remove the ball from the clear plastic cube. He would hold the home run ball in his hands, thumb feeling the raised red seams, thinking about victories and loses, trying to understand how things had ever come to this, how a lifetime could have possibly led him here, alone in an apartment, filled with regret.

“How about we stop at Jim’s Tasty Freeze for some ice cream?” he suggested. “We’ve got a home run to celebrate.”

Alex Lionni thought that was a most excellent idea.

NOTE: I have to add that it tickled me when Mr. Lionni dropped The Iliad, and fumbled the “homer” ball, which rolled under a Honda Odyssey. Clever, huh? But not, I hope, “look at me” clever.

Or Elmore Leonard wouldn’t approve.

For the record, I’m fine with those cuts. It’s a matter of pulling back and trying to look at the whole, as opposed to becoming too attached to the specifics of a given scene. It also comes back to trust, and with Six Innings I had faith in my editors, Liz Szabla and Jean Feiwel. To keep the zip and zing of the thing, some decent background material winds up on the cutting room floor. It was more challenging with Six Innings, since I was interested in an ensemble piece, an Altmanesque approach that included many characters, many plates spinning at once. A strategy that works against a singular forward focus. Of course, the game itself became that focus, the engine that pulled everything else up the mountain and down the track.

Here’s a sixty-second example of a deleted scene from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” It’s a boring scene and, though it may have told us a tiny bit about Harry’s friendship with Ron, and coyly foreshadowed the chess game, it would have brought the movie to a crashing halt:

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Category: Six Innings, the writing process / Tags: , , , , , , ,
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