I left home just after 4:30 yesterday morning to catch a train into Manhattan on one of the muggiest, steamiest days of the year.
Whatever would possess me to leave the lake on such a day?
I had a noon lunch date and editorial meeting with my editor for Marty McGuire, Frog Princess. I was an hour early because I fully expected to get lost and end up wandering around Brooklyn when I changed trains on the subway. I didn’t, though, which left me some time to explore the neighborhood and the Scholastic Store. I’m sure the sales people thought I was a little crazy because I couldn’t stop smiling, looking at so many of my favorite books and imagining Marty among them in 2010.
I recognized my new editor as soon as she came into the lobby (Google Image Search is a many splendored thing). She is as marvelous in person as I knew she’d be, and she has great ideas for how to make Marty a stronger, funnier story. We agreed on all the most important issues — character development, plot elements, and dessert.
They called this gooey wonder S’mores. It was a graham cracker with a brownie on top and a torched marshmallow on top of that. That’s homemade chocolate malt ice cream on the side. I traveled home high on sugar and book talk and arrived back on Lake Champlain well after midnight a very tired but very happy writer.
I went to Ripton, VT yesterday for research in the latest revision of my MG novel. It’s currently titled MAPLE GIRL but needs a new title (but that’s a whole ‘nother story).
What’s in Ripton? There’s a country store that still sells penny candy. There’s Robert Frost’s summer cottage, which was in the news recently when kids broke in and trashed it during a party. And not too far away, there’s a short trail through a forest and blueberry fields – the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail.
I’m trying out a scene where my MC comes here with her mother and grandmother collecting leaves for a school project. There are whispers of Frost throughout the novel, but right now, my MC needs a place where she can understand her mom and grandmother a little better. She also has to collect a whole bunch of leaves — fast — so she doesn’t miss her deadline.
I’ve hiked this trail before, but not recently enough to remember the kinds of tiny details that make writing real — the electric blue damselfly, the feel of sap stuck on your skin after you touch a pine bough. And I wanted to read the poems again.
The Frost trail has short poems and quotes from his work posted all along the walkway, in places that relate to the poems. This was one of my favorites, near a lush marsh buzzing with dragonflies.
And this one…posted at the entrance to a bridge with dark woods on the other side.
Here’s the reason my MC wanted to come here…
The trees are already identified for her, so she doesn’t have to use her leaf key.
While I was walking the path, I kept a lookout for someplace where my MC might observe her mom and grandmother from a bit of a distance. Then it appeared in front me – the perfect climbing tree! Of course, I had to climb it in the name of research.
There was an amazing, amazing view from the top, and best of all, I discovered that my MC could duck behind a branch to see and hear people passing on the trail below.
When I climbed down and rounded a bend in the trail, I found another well-placed quote from a Frost poem.
Heaven gives its glimpses onto to those not in position to look too close. ~from “A Passing Glance”
I got home last night more than ready to tackle my new chapter. I’m back to manuscript, pen, keyboard & screen revisions today but with visions of mountains and butterflies to carry me through.
The research for this novel has fed me in more ways than one. Last year when I was drafting it, I had to make and eat three batches of Italian wedding cookies before I got one right. (Definitely more pleasant than getting stung by a bee, which is research
When my husband and I first looked at a house in our neighborhood fourteen years ago, it wasn’t the actual house that convinced us to make an offer. It was the sense of community, embodied in events like this…
On Independence Day, every kid in the neighborhood, plus lots of grandchildren on vacation, gather at the beach for the annual Fourth of July Bike Parade. It’s serious business, led by a fire truck blaring “Stars and Stripes Forever” through the bullhorn.
Kids are inducted in to the festivities at a very young age.
And this part always cracks me up… Neighbors without kids come outside with their morning coffee, line the parade route with lawn chairs, wave, and applaud when the kids ride by.
My photo today is the island I see off my back deck, and though I’ve posted photos of it before, I don’t think I’ve ever shared its story.
This is Crab Island, one of my family’s favorite places to picnic on the rocks and check out fossils. It’s about a mile by kayak in summer or cross country skis in winter, and it’s one of the most historical spots on Lake Champlain.
Crab Island was a hospital during the Battle of Plattsburgh in 1814 — part of the War of 1812. Before the September 11th battle, hundreds of sick soldiers were cared for here. On the eve of the battle, they were moved to Burlington, and after the battle, Crab Island became a graveyard for both British and American troops who were reportedly buried together in trenches on the north end of the island. A simple monument honors the fallen, though the graves remain unmarked and thankfully, undisturbed.
‘s journal for a full list of bloggers posting photographs of their hometowns this week. I’ll be posting an extra-special photo of my neighborhood’s Fourth of July tradition tomorrow.
And thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! Did you know that Elizabeth Bunce, author of the fabulous A Curse Dark As Gold, is a July 3rd girl, too? You can head over to her LJ (
‘s challenge to post a photograph of home every day this week. Today, we drove with some friends to a trailhead along Route 86 in the Adirondacks and hiked 1.2 miles into the woods. Here’s what we found at the end of the trail.
Copperas Pond is one of our favorite swimming holes for a few reasons. Because of the climb to get there, it’s rarely crowded. There are huge rocks that you can jump from, into cool, deep water below. And there are giant tadpoles and bullfrogs galore.
My main character in Marty McGuire, Frog Princess would have loved it.
I’m sharing another photo from the backyard today. About a week ago, we noticed that a mother duck had moved into a new nest on top of the neighbor’s sea wall. She’s hard to see, but she’s there, tucked in the plants behind an owl decoy meant to scare off seagulls.
Today, she finally left the nest long enough for me to take a peek.
We’ll be watching quietly and waiting these next few weeks. I’ll keep you posted!
Where I live, there’s no bridge across Lake Champlain. There’s one up north, near the Canadian border, and one down south, where the lake narrows, but nothing here. So if you want to cross between New York and Vermont, you have a few choices:
a) Wait until the lake freezes. Then ski, snowmobile, or drive your pickup truck across.
(Be really careful if you choose a.)
b) Cross on a sailboat, motorboat, jet ski, or kayak.
c) Take the Lake Champlain Ferry.
E and I took the ferry to Vermont this afternoon in perfect last-day-of-June weather. We got out of the car and went up on the top deck to enjoy the sunshine and the view.
I used to live on the New York side of the lake and work in Vermont, so this ride was part of my daily commute for a while. When you make a trip so often, it’s easy to take the journey for granted. Today, though, we were joined on the deck by people who were obviously on the ferry for the first time. They drank in the views, pointed to the sailboats, and snapped photographs…and reminded us just how special it is to cross state lines by boat.
has put together a list of bloggers sharing photographs of their hometowns this week, so stop by her blog and check out the links for many, many more photographs of the amazing places we call home.
, author of RULES and the upcoming middle grade novel TOUCH BLUE, is posting a picture of her hometown on her blog every day this week and has invited other writers to do the same. Here’s my first contribution – a reminder that Lake Champlain is home to families other than mine.
We were instantly reminded of the end of Charlotte’s Web when we discovered these babies on our deck a couple weeks ago. They’re all gone now — except for a few who have spun webs on the posts nearby — but it was fun to share their first weekend in the world.
As writers, we all experience those moments when an idea shows up out of the sky and suddenly, everything lights up. I love those moments, just as much as I love the way nature lights up the sky over Lake Champlain. It’s happened a lot this week.
But what about when the sky doesn’t light up? What about those times when it’s just cloudy and murky, and we feel like we might not have anything to say?
I read two fantastic blog posts today – both about writers’ block and about showing up to write, no matter what.
Question: What was your defining moment in becoming a writer?
Laurie’s Answer: It happens every morning, about 5:30 am. I put my cereal bowl in the dishwasher, I pour a second mug of tea, and I sit down to write. The conscious, mindful decision to write every day makes me a writer.
In my opinion, writers who regularly find way to pass their time other than by putting words on paper – a large subset that includes myself – do not deserve to take refuge in so dignified-sounding a condition as “writers’ block.” We should call it what it is: procrastination. And we should teach our children and our students that it is best conquered by force: Forcing ourselves to sit down and get the job done. Not knowing what to write and struggling over it is not writers’ block. It is writing.
Last month, I posted some photos after a family trip to Washington, DC. But there was one I couldn’t share at the time.
Okay, I guess I could have shared it with a caption that said “Here I am outside the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.”
But that would have led to comments like “Who’s on the phone?” and “Why do you look so awestruck and goofy?”
And I would have had to give one of those cagey, secretive, I’m-not-allowed-to-tell-you-yet answers that frustrate blog readers so much. So I kept quiet, mostly. But agent-goddess literaticat says I can spill the beans now. It was her on the phone, telling me about the news that hit Publishers Marketplace today.
June 21, 2008
Children’s: Middle grade
Kate Messner’s MARTY MCGUIRE, FROG PRINCESS, an illustrated chapter book about a second-grade tomboy who would much rather be a scientist than a floofy pink ballerina; she is cast as the reluctant lead princess in the class play, with wildly unexpected and comic results, to Kara LaReau at Scholastic, in a two-book deal, for publication in Summer 2010, by Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown Literary Agency.
By the way, a bunch of my LiveJournal friends share the credit for this sale – I revised MARTY this past winter, under the encouragement of jbknowles‘ January Revision Club. Thanks, Jo and friends, for the community cheers along the way.
As for my photo…if there were a caption, it would simply say “EEEEEEEE!!!!!!”
After Jenn shared the news, I closed my phone. Then I skipped the entire length of the National Mall. I don’t think my feet have touched the ground since.
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