Welcome, intrepid contestants, to my stop on the Exploding Flamingos leg of the YAmazing Race with MGnificent prizes, a blog hop featuring over 50 debut authors and the chance to win fun prizes from the Apocalypsies!

If you haven’t already done so, jump over to the starting line for the full rules. Remember, the race runs from noon Eastern on Wednesday, May 2, through noon Eastern on Tuesday, May 8! Winners will be posted on the Apocalypsies website on Wednesday, May 9. ETA: Winners have been announced!

Starting from Here

A YA novel coming from Marshall Cavendish on August 7, 2012
(Goodreads | Indiebound | Barnes & Noble | Amazon)

Sixteen-year-old Colby Bingham’s heart has been broken too many times. Her mother is dead, her truck driver father is always away, and her almost girlfriend just dumped her for a guy. When an injured stray dog lands at her feet, she decides to care for it, against her better judgment. But new connections mean new opportunities for heartbreak. Terrified of another loss, Colby bolts at the first sign of trouble, managing to alienate her best friend, her father, the cute girl pursuing her, and even her dog’s vet, who’s taken Colby under her wing. Colby can’t start over, but can she learn how to move on?

(Or, as I like to summarize it, “Girls. Dogs. Trucks.”)

Bonus Contest:
Comment on this post by noon Eastern on Tuesday, May 8, for an additional chance to win a set of three Starting from Here mini-buttons. (Shipping within the United States only, please.) I will post the winners here on May 9. ETA: The random number generator has spoken, and the winners of the bonus giveaway are Kristen Tifft, redheadedbookworm, and Catie. Congratulations!

Next stop on the Exploding Flamingos leg:
Jill Hathaway, author of Slide!

Everyone knows customer service is full of pitfalls. Sometimes they’re rude. Sometimes you’re cranky. Sometimes they’re vague. Sometimes you’re impatient. Afterward, you wonder what you could have done better—because usually there was a better way. And next time, hopefully, you’re ready.

This was not one of those situations. I was energetic, in a good mood, and ready to help. I greeted the patron, a stranger, brightly. I asked how I could help. And then we went down the rabbit hole.

This person rejected every single thing I said. She was angry. More than angry, she was accusatory. She was aggressive. She used intimidation: leaning across the desk, demanding to know my supervisor’s name, repeating irrational questions in a rapid cycle that, I swear, could be a real-life interrogation technique. What was most frightening was that she did all this without raising her voice.

Eventually, I was able to call another staff member to talk to her, but by then I’d gone cold and was shaking uncontrollably. I fled the department, sobbing. Since my usual reaction to difficult patrons is passive aggressiveness (though I do my best to keep it under wraps), I think it must have been the shock and unreality of the situation that triggered my panic. It was as if I’d offered her a cupcake, and she’d stabbed me in the hand.

It took half an hour for me to calm down enough to return to the desk, though I was still shaking a bit. In the meantime, this unpleasant patron had gone through two other staff members—one of whom already was familiar with her, and neither of whom was rattled the way I was.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it, and the patron approached me again, demanding to know my name and asking more questions I had no way of answering. She wasn’t as much in my face this time, but I didn’t want to risk her exploding at me. I did what any good librarian under extreme pressure does: I punted her questions to another staff member.

Here’s the thing: I’m not writing this to vent. I don’t really want to talk about this patron or the particulars of our interaction. But it’s necessary background for how I felt afterward.

First, I should admit that I have felt just a wee bit of temptation for revenge. Since the incident, I’ve learned this patron’s name and workplace. I could go there and make her life miserable.

But I have the feeling her life is miserable already. Whether she treats perfect strangers with such unkindness is because her brain chemistry is unbalanced or because she is going through difficult times or because she has a nasty personality, she is clearly not a happy person. I would take no joy in making things harder for her.

Earlier today, one of my friends posted this quote by John E. Southard: “The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.” The words really hit me, because oddly, revenge fantasies aside, what I’d felt after returning to the desk was the desire to be kind myself.

I was already putting the trauma behind me, and I wanted to prove that it wouldn’t stop me from doing my job, and happily. Because making other people happy makes me happy! That’s another reason I felt so awful about what had happened earlier. I was doing everything right, but there was nothing I could do to make her happy.

Fifteen minutes before closing, I had my chance. One of our regulars, a retiree who loves bulldogs above all else in life, was heading out. “I have something you’ll want to see,” I told her and loaded up Cesar Millan’s Bulldog of the Year Gallery. We spent the next several minutes looking at the dogs in the gallery and talking about bulldogs. She seemed so surprised and pleased for someone to take an interest in her and her interests. It was so simple, but it felt so good to do that.

I know it wasn’t selfless, not entirely. I’d had a bad experience I wanted to put behind me. I wanted to reaffirm my belief that most people respond to kindness and kindness. I didn’t want to continue the Chain of Screaming.

But so what if it wasn’t selfless? It worked. And it felt so much better than perpetuating unkindness.

My supervisor knows what happened that day. It turns out I’m not the only one who’s dealt with this problem patron, not by far. Now the library director is in on the conversation. We have a script we’re supposed to follow if something like that happens again. Next time, I’ll be ready for her. It’s hard to imagine how things could be worse than the last time, because I’ll no longer be shocked by her threats. If she’s going to surprise me, it will be with kindness.

Before I sign off, I have one more confession to make. There was one downside of my act of kindness: the bulldog fan was back today and talked my ear off about her favorite subject.

It seems a small price to pay.

Now, last month, in what was probably a coincidence, Fuse #8 issued a challenge for folks to re-imagine scenes from Dr. Seuss books in the style of yet another famous illustrator of their choosing — to “Re-Seussify Seuss.” She posted the results yesterday.

And they are really something. From a delightfully deadpan Jon Klassen-style Cat in the Hat, to a Seussian circus overrun by Curious George-ish monkeys, to an uber-creepy Gammell-style ghoul reciting words from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, each artist did, in my opinion, an ingenious job of capturing both the style of each illustrator while not forgetting the heart of Seuss.

And, um, I did one, too.

If you work with small kids, you’ve almost certainly seen — and, I’d imagine, been charmed — by the picture books of Todd Parr. His hallmarks are simple line drawings filled with bold colors, relentlessly cheerful characters, and the overt theme that diversity is not only okay but a wonderful thing in our world. (I’m also a big fan of Underwear Dos and Don’ts.) Hopefully if he sees this he’ll recognize it as the homage it is.

Please do check out all the submissions. The page was very slow to load yesterday, what with all the large images and heavy traffic, but I think things have settled down by now. And it’s worth the load-time, regardless.

The balance of the 2012 Stonewalls is a decided improvement. Taking the top award was Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy, by Bil Wright, features an Hispanic gay male protagonist, and the author is himself African-American.

Taking honors were Money Boy, by Paul Yee, about a gay, Asian-Canadian young man; Pink, by Lili Wilkinson, about a lesbian-identified white girl questioning her sexuality once again; a + e 4ever, by I. Merey, a graphic novel (!) about a girl and a boy experiencing the fluidity of gender and sexuality; and with or without you, by Brian Farrey, which does feature white gay protagonists.

So, yes: a much broader representation of ethnicity, gender, and orientation. I still feel like lesbian/queer girl lit was underrepresented, but what I’m going to take issue with now is the prevalence of all-lowercase book titles — two out of five, really? Just kidding. Sort of.

I like to see how the Stonewall Awards overlap with the annual Rainbow List, which is chosen by ALA’s GLBT Round Table. The Rainbow List is a more or less comprehensive list of LGBTQ books published for children and young adults, and they star ten titles as being the most distinguished.

This year, the honored titles were I Am J, by Cris Beam; Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray; Brooklyn, Burning, by Steve Brezenoff; Sister Mischief, by Laura Goode; Huntress, by Malinda Lo; Shine, by Lauren Myracle; Donovan’s Big Day, by Leslea Newman; She Loves You, She Loves You Not, by Julie Anne Peters; Gemini Bites, by Patrick Ryan; and Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy, by Bil Wright.

That’s one overlapping title. One. (Note to self: read that book, already!) This is how committees work, folks, and why we should not get overly bent out of shape when good books slip through a crack. Hopefully they’ll get caught in another and find the love they deserve.

As last year, I find the Rainbow List to be very nicely balanced. I Am J and Beauty Queens feature trans characters; Beauty Queens, Sister Mischief, Huntress, Donovan’s Big Day, and She Loves You, She Loves You Not feature queer girl characters. White characters dominate, though the books do include queer Hispanic and Asian characters, plus the main character of Sister Mischief is Jewish. (And I haven’t read all the books, so it’s likely I’m missing details here.)

Looking at both lists, I’m pleasantly surprised: there actually was a pretty good crop of LGBTQ books for kids and teens last year. Did they make up a minute percentage of all the kids’ and YA books published? Heck yeah. But all I have to do is go back in time to high school, and I’m impressed once again by how far things have come.

Of course, I’m interested to know what the 2013 lists will look like. Already, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, by emily danforth (seriously: capitals, folks!), is garnering starred reviews, and I imagine it’ll walk away with some awards. Then there’s my book, Starting from Here, due out in the fall. Our fellow debut authors Elissa J. Hoole and E. M. Kokie will also be adding to the canon with Kiss the Morning Star and Personal Effects, respectively. Julie Anne Peters has a new one coming out this spring.

And you better believe I’ll have my eyes peeled for more. Let me know if you’ve got a hot tip!

But this year, for whatever reason, I ended up with three:

1. Wash dishes within a day of dirtying them. Dishes are my least favorite chore because they always need to be done, and without growing science projects in the sink I must do them promptly. Also, I have very little counter space in which to accumulate them. #1 downfall of this apartment = no dishwasher, in case you were wondering.

2. Write every day. It’s how I wrote my first (terrible) novel when I was fifteen, and it’s how I wrote the novel that landed me my agent, and it’s how I wrote Starting from Here. Even if it’s just a couple of notebook pages or an hour of revisions, write.

This past fall, especially as holiday season began, I fell out of the habit. It’s very easy to go from writing every day to writing almost every day, and from there it’s even easier to write most days and then some days, and pretty soon you’re lucky if you sit down once a week.

So, I’ve been reclaiming my writing time. The biggest step was to start setting my alarm for 6:30 a.m. I’m much better at daily writing in the spring and summer, because my eyelids flip open of their own accord at 5:30. In the fall and winter, I’m more inclined to roll out of bed when the sun seeps into my bedroom at 7:30. The flip side of getting up at 6:30 is that I need to make sure I’m in bed, falling asleep, at 10:30 sharp. No more staying up watching those last twenty minutes of Stephen Fry in America or Dollhouse. They must wait.

3. Moisturize.

(Was that anticlimactic?)

There are other habits I’d like to sustain throughout 2012: go to the dog beach at least once a week with Saffy, get back into crochet and other crafty activities, eat less spaghetti. But for now, these are the three promises I’m willing to make.

It’s Day 11 of the 13 Days of Doctor Who blog hop! Whether you arrived here via Ryann Murphy’s post about the music of Doctor Who or by some other means, welcome. Be sure to comment to be eligible for two fantastic prizes!

Must Love Doctor Who: An Open Letter to Potential Companions

Hey, you: lattegrrl75, k1ttyl0v3r, twizzlerama, reading my profile, deciding whether I’m cute and clever enough to message. You love baking cookies and downhill skiing, hoppy beers and unagi, Amélie and Haruki Murakami, not to mention solving crossword puzzles on rainy Sunday mornings whilst wearing flannel pajamas and fuzzy bunny slippers…but do you love Doctor Who?

I’m sure you’ve gotten an earful of online dating advice. Stick to the positives. Write in actual words rather than LOLZ. Be honest, be funny, and, for the love of Clom, don’t mention your exes. And remember: some Cybermen are best left in the closet.

But I refuse to conceal my fondness for the Doctor. Why admit something so geeky on my profile? It’s like the Eleventh Doctor and his precious bow ties. He’ll never stop wearing them, insisting, with just a hint of defensiveness, that they’re cool. If you can’t respect my Whovianism, I’ll tell you right now: mutual passion for fish fingers and custard or no, we’re going no-where, no-when.

Now, maybe you haven’t met the Doctor yet. That’s okay. No one is born knowing that 900-year-old, double-hearted, universe-saving Time Lord from Gallifrey. I’d never heard of him before college, when I made a friend who wore a Tom Baker scarf and a Dalek T-shirt, and it was years later that I met the Ninth Doctor and began working my way through the rest of the show.

So, before you click that button to message me (because, after all, I am extremely cute and clever), watch a few episodes. Try the gripping, creepy, and ultimately joyful duet of “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances,” or “Blink,” a mind-bending, breath-taking thriller. Or perhaps the first episode with the Ninth Doctor, “Rose”—the episode where I first stepped into the TARDIS for myself.

See, Doctor Who fans aren’t merely viewers; they’re the Doctor’s Companions, adventuring through the universe across time and space as surely as Rose and Mickey, Martha and Donna, Amy and Rory. The TARDIS has room aboard for you, too—trust me: it’s bigger on the inside—if you can meet a few simple conditions.

Strange people and places should excite you, rather than frighten or bore you. You should enjoy having silly conversations and solving mysteries and pondering big questions. You must not be afraid to be ridiculous. And you should believe people can rise above greed and violence, selfishness and apathy, to create a better universe.

I guess you could say I’m looking not for a companion, but rather for a Companion, in the Whovian sense. It doesn’t matter whether you’re trapped in a banal, soul-sucking job like Rose or Donna, or whether you’ve nearly lost hope of regaining the magic and wonder you experienced as a child, like Amy. What matters is that if the Doctor suddenly appeared in his blue box and unfolded the universe at your feet, you’d go with him. Because that’s what I want: a Companion to have adventures with, across time and space.

So, watch Doctor Who, and ask yourself: are you Companion material? If so, fantastic! Brilliant! Allons-y!

But if not, don’t bother writing, no matter how cute and clever you are. It’ll never happen between us—unless the Daleks have exterminated everyone in the universe but you and me.

And even then, probably not.

Fantastic Prizes!

Grand Prize Drawing

For the grand prize, The Complete Sixth Series on DVD, please leave a comment with your name and email address. You may enter once at every stop on the blog tour for a total of thirteen chances. The grand prize giveaway is limited to the US and Canada, due to regional restrictions on the DVD. Entries will be accepted until midnight CST on December 24th. Erica and Eliza will post the winner on December 25th and notify the winner via email.

ETA: Grand Prize Winner
Erica reports that the grand prize winner is Mrs. S, who commented on Phoebe North’s post about the Doctor as an anti-hero.

Bonus Raffle

Commenters on this post will also be entered to win a signed copy of The Wee Free Men: The Beginning, by Terry Pratchett. This paperback volume collects the first two Tiffany Aching adventures, The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky, about a gutsy young witch who falls in with a clan of drinkin’, fightin’, stealin’ folk known as the Nac Mac Feegle. If you love Doctor Who, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy the excitement and humor of Sir Terry’s Disc World. Shipping is limited to USPS. Contest closes at midnight CST on December 27th. I will post the winner on December 28th and notify the winner via email.

ETA: Bonus Raffle Winner
The random number generator has spoken! Saskia is the winner of the bonus raffle.

Next Stop!

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to visit Pamala Knight’s blog next for her discussion of Neil Gaiman and the allegory of the TARDIS! And if you’ve missed any stops along the way, consult the blog hop’s Wibbly Wobbly Schedule.

*13 Days of Doctor Who banner by Studio D

Peace Cabin at Stargazen Women's Retreat. The owners kindly cut me a deal on rent since it was the off-season.

This was my second personal retreat of this nature. The previous one was a six-day stint at SuBAMUH in southeastern Ohio, two years ago. Six days in near-solitude turned out to be on the long side for me, so this time I tried four days at Stargazen Women’s Retreat. I think next time I’d split the difference. Considering travel time and settling-in time, four days didn’t feel like quite enough.

Peace Cabin, from the inside. Bed, couch, kitchenette... just about everything but running water.

I totally lucked out in terms of the weather. All week, it was sunny and in the 70s. It could have proved distracting, but I managed to stay more or less on task. There was a big, grassy hill near my cabin where I took my notebook, my books, my guitar, and even my laptop to work and rejuvenate. Spending hours undisturbed in the warm sun, in October no less, made the retreat worthwhile right there.

Squirrel outside my window. I eventually saw some deer, too, farther off in the woods.

My goals for the retreat were basic: to get away from my regular day-to-day life (especially that great time-waster, the Internet) and work on my current writing project. When I set more specific goals, I find I constantly have to reevaluate and revise them. It takes longer than I thought to write a scene; I thought I could plow ahead with the plot, but it turns out I need to go back and revise first; etc.

And spending several hours per day writing, rather than my usual one or two, forces me to confront problems that I may otherwise spend days dancing around. On this retreat, I discovered that something I’d considered a central plot point late in the story just didn’t make sense; the story as I was writing it did not lead to that place. It was time for me to stop trying to force it and accept that the characters had other plans.

Another view from my window. I was the only person on retreat that week, so mainly I saw a lot of trees.

I went a full 48 hours without human interaction, but I broke from my retreat one afternoon to meet up with Julie Bowe, fellow writer, Chudney Agency client, and friend. We met up at Norske Nook, a Scandinavian restaurant known for its pies. They didn’t disappoint. I tried lefse (“Norwegian burrito!” Julie said), the sour cream raspberry pie, and locally made root beer—yum. Even better was the conversation with Julie.

Today's specials: Julie Bowe and me at Norske Nook.

When and where will I retreat again? I don’t know. The larger question for me, as I think it is for anyone who’s been on retreat, is how to carry home the openness, reflection, and diligence I experienced in the woods and not to slip back into the day-to-day. I fear it’s already too late—that it was too late the minute I walked back into my apartment and checked my Facebook account—but it’s something to strive for.

Arguably we’re in constant transition as the Earth circles the sun, yet winter and summer somehow feel like destinations, as concrete as Breckinridge or the Bahamas. Spring and fall are the journeys between.

Transitions are exciting. They spark the imagination. Hopes and fears flare as vividly as the leaves of a sugar maple a week past the autumnal equinox.

Everything is certain at the extremes of the year. We are guaranteed sweltering heat and humidity in July, ice, snow, and bitter wind in January. But in spring and fall, each day is a question. Will it be T-shirt or sweatshirt weather? Will I need my sunglasses, umbrella, scarf—or all three? Will today bring green buds to the trees, or will those same leaves, now brittle and brown, finally fall?

This fall seems to be full of transitions in my personal life, as well. My supervisor is retiring, and I wonder who will replace her. (I’m not applying for her position, but I’m on the interview committee.) I’m hoping to adopt a dog soon; it’s been four months since Carly died. But when and how will I find the right companion?

I’m struggling with transitions in my writing, too. This summer I finished a major revision of a “new” project, and now I’m waiting to find out if my editor wants it. It’s hard shifting gears to work on something else. I’m free; I can do anything. The possibilities are tantalizing yet also overwhelming.

But today, I put aside my hopes and fears for a while to journey around town and enjoy the fall splendor. To appreciate the “getting there” without worrying about where “there” is.

I’ve varied the series format a bit from year to year: the number and length of sessions, the age of the kids, the activities, the amount of free time. My modifications are based on lessons learned the year before—lessons learned the hard way. This year went fairly smoothly, though. I’ll still have some lessons to apply next summer, but there were also some things that really worked.

Program Format

Kids had to be entering grades 3 and up. Due to self-selection, the oldest were entering 6th. I capped registration at 30 and set up the room with tables and chairs for 24. Attendance on any given week never exceeded this number.

We had four weekly meetings during the month of July. Each meeting was 90 minutes long. The first 30 to 40 minutes, we did some kind of group activity or writing game. Then kids worked independently. Once they were busy, I called tables up to get a snack. The snacks were simple, if not the most healthy: white corn chips, unsalted pretzels, sandwich cookies, and water. The chips were most popular.

The last 5 to 10 minutes were reserved for cleanup and, on some days, sharing. I had mixed feelings about the sharing. Some kids were eager to share, but I had trouble getting the rest of the class to listen. This is why I’m not a teacher.

Writing Games

The best activities, I found, were the ones that got kids interacting with each other and sometimes even moving around a bit. Ninety minutes is a long time to be sitting and working alone. (NB: None of these games originated with me. If you trawl the web, you’ll find all kinds of variations.)

Plot from a Bag

This was a great icebreaker for our first session. I packed a laundry bag full of ordinary, unrelated objects: a can of split pea soup, a tennis racket, a roll of toilet paper, etc. I began the story, “Once upon a time…” and blindly pulled out an object. The challenge, then, is to somehow incorporate the object into the story. For example, I pulled out a tube of toothpaste, so decided to start our fairy tale with a royal dentist. I then walked around the room with the bag, and everyone took a turn until the bag was empty.

(Idea from Jennifer Knoblock)

Magnetic Poetry

This turned out to be an interesting exercise not only in creativity but in cooperation. Emulating magnetic poetry sets, I printed out a bunch of fun, vivid, and functional words on cardstock. It’s important to have “people, place, and thing” nouns and regular verbs to which you can add “s,” “ed,” or “ing.” I also included adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, and articles. You don’t actually need magnets.

Each table got an envelope of words, and their task was to create a poem or story with them. Some groups embraced the activity and tried to use up almost all their words, with great success. Other groups nitpicked or argued. It was definitely interesting to see the “personalities” come out.

Fortunately, Unfortunately

I started this activity by reading Remy Charlip’s classic Fortunately. Even though it’s a picture book, it’s funny and engaging, plus it’s a great example of how to keep a plot moving through changes in a character’s fortune. Afterward, the kids paired up to write their own story. I gave them a chart something like this:

On my charts, I’d actually ended with an “unfortunately,” but the optimist in me prefers to end on an up note. As an aside, it was truly impressive how many ways the kids came up with to kill off their characters…sigh.

Mad Libs

By our fourth session, I was running out of steam, but this was an easy activity to pull off. Ahead of time, I prepared a “Mad Libs” style story-starter of about 100 words, leaving out about a dozen key words. In class, I read off the missing parts of speech, and kids produced their answers on a sheet of notebook paper. Next, I passed out the story-starter worksheets, and the kids filled in the blanks. Then they continued the story.

I missed the group-work element in this activity. Next time, I might prepare two story-starters so that one kid can take my role in reading off the missing parts of speech. Then they can switch off.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

In years past, I’ve dealt with sibling rivalry, girl-boy rivalry, inappropriate behavior, all of which were problems that—whether due to this year’s format or the kids who participated—weren’t an issue this year. But, of course, there were other challenges.

Appropriateness

This was my biggest struggle. I told the kids at the beginning of the program that this wasn’t school and I wasn’t going to ask them to write about particular topics. However, a few kids took this to meant that anything went—especially blood and guts and potty humor.

I didn’t want to be a censor, but there are limits as to what I’m willing to put in a magazine that will be scene by parents, grandparents, my boss, and the Library Board. However, explaining this to the kids in question didn’t seem to make an impression. After all, gory deaths and gross-out humor are popular at any age.

It was when one kid finally said, “Ohhh… you mean it has to be appropriate,” that I realized the word meant something concrete to them. They heard it from parents. They heard it from teachers. Now, they’ll hear it from me, too.

By the way, lest you assume boys were the worst offenders…they weren’t.

Comic Strips

Even though it’s ostensibly a creative writing program, kids were also welcome to draw illustrations and comic strips. A lot of the boys, especially, loved drawing comics. What they don’t love is drawing the boxes themselves.

After the first session, I put together a worksheet that consisted simply of a grid of boxes. No more rulers required, no more lopsided “squares.” Kids could stick to the fun part: filling in the boxes with funny drawings and explosions.

Author Visits

In past summers, we’ve sometimes had an author visit/workshop in place of a literary magazine meeting. Sometimes, we’ve had barely half a dozen attendees. In contrast, last year, when we didn’t offer the lit-mag series, we invited Marlene Targ Brill to do two writing workshops for kids instead. They attracted dozens of kids.

This year, we didn’t offer an author visit during the summer. On the whole, I think this was an acceptable choice. There were a lot of other activities going on, and since the creative writing series was only four sessions long, there wasn’t the opportunity to incorporate it into our schedule. But perhaps next year we can make an author visit a separate event and attract even more kids.

In Conclusion…

That’s it! I always forget what a huge amount of work assembling and formatting the magazine is after the program is over. But no matter how many challenges the summer has offered, it always seems to turn out beautifully—and I start wondering what I’ll do with the kids next year!