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Friday Five from a Mountaintop

Truth in blogging requires that I tell you I’m not on the mountain any more, but I spent a good part of the afternoon here…

I had a million things on my to-do list but decided that the weather was too perfect and loaded up the kids to go hiking on Poke-o-Moonshine instead. (When I mentioned this on Twitter, several helpful people suggested that I add "climb mountain" to said list and cross it off upon my return, which I thought was brilliant.) So we went. Kids hike fast, especially on the way down, and now my knees hurt.  But it was a lovely, lovely day.

Oh…those five things?

1. I finished revisions on my dystopian storm novel this week and sent the manuscript to my editor, who immediately emailed back to tell me she’d been watching tornado documentaries in preparation for its arrival. This made me love her even more than I already did. Now that book-set-in-the-future is off to NY, my brain will be firmly rooted in the present again…until the revision letter comes.

2. That means I can turn my attention to REAL REVISION, the teacher resource book I’m writing for Stenhouse.  I’ve collected some amazing middle grade author interviews already, and I’m hoping to have a draft done before I head back to school in the fall.  This may be overly ambitious, especially since I keep leaving to climb mountains on writing days. But you know how mountains are…

3. I started reading an ARC of Jennifer Donnelly’s REVOLUTION last night. I’m only a few pages in, but already intrigued.

4. I stopped by my classroom this week to pick up a cd I needed at home and had a pang of missing book-talk with my students. I cherish every minute of summer, but when September comes, I’ll be ready to be reading and writing with my students again.

5. This weekend, my daughter and I are heading to Manchester, Vermont to visit Hildene, the Lincoln family home and (more importantly) the site of an awesome book event on Sunday.  Loree Griffin Burns is doing a family workshop based on her new Scientists in the Field title, THE HIVE DETECTIVES: CHRONICLE OF A HONEY BEE CATASTROPHE.  It runs from 1-2:30, starting in the Welcome Center and ending at Hildene’s observation hive.

Loree is an amazing scientist, a talented writer, and a fantastic presenter (plus there will be bees!!)  so if you’re within striking distance of Manchester this weekend, I hope we’ll see you there, too!

THE MERMAID’S MIRROR by L.K. Madigan

I was up until 3am reading last night, and it is all L.K. Madigan’s fault.  L.K. Madigan and her darn mermaids…

I’ve been reading this gorgeous book for a couple weeks, little by little, because a) I’ve been really busy and b) I was so in love with the California Coastal setting that I wanted to savor every scene.  But last night, I hit a spot in the book that made it impossible to stop reading until I turned the last page in the wee hours of the morning. And I’m not even a tiny bit sorry. It was just that good.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my favorite books with magical elements begin solidly rooted in the real world with characters who feel as immediate as my neighbors.  NEED and CAPTIVATE by Carrie Jones are like that, firmly grounded in the Maine woods for pages and pages, so that when the pixies show up, you don’t even question it because the whole world is already so real.   THE MERMAID’S MIRROR has that same kind of perfectly introduced magic, only with a California beach town setting so vivid you’ll be able to smell the salt water while you’re reading.

When the story opens, Lena is about to turn sixteen. She’s grown up in a town full of surfers, loves swimming, and has been longing to try surfing herself, except her father has forbidden it.  He was almost killed at the surfing spot known as Magic’s years ago, but it turns out he’s not telling Lena the whole truth about his experience or about her mother’s death. Lena decides to have a friend teach her how to surf behind her father’s back.  It’s partly because she loves the ocean but mostly because of the mysterious woman she’s seen in the water at Magic’s. Could it really be a mermaid?  Secrets pile on top of one another in this gripping YA novel, and when Lena finally plunges into the world she’s wondered about, I couldn’t help plunging in right along with her.

There were so many things I loved about this book:  the surfing scenes that made me want to try it myself, the perfectly rendered beach town setting, Lena’s family, which is loving, scarred, and imperfect all at once.  And of course, the magic of the ocean.  I can’t tell you all the best parts because it would ruin the journey for you, so just believe me…it’s one you’ll want to take yourself.  Reviewed from an ARC I picked up at ALA and due out from HMH in October 2010.

Camping in the Adirondacks

So I went camping this week.  Which might not seem like a big deal, but it is.

Because the last time we camped in the Adirondacks, I woke up at 4 am, floating on the air mattress in what can only be described as a small pond inside our tent.  There were words spoken between my husband and me.  I believe "but it’s waterproof" and "never again" were among them.

Either I have a short memory, or I’m a pushover for the kids, because I found myself in the same tent, in the same mountains this week. Happily, the weather was dry and things went much better.

We heard coyotes howling at night (in a good you’re-in-the-wilderness sort of way — not in a bad they-are-about-to-eat-you sort of way) and enjoyed hanging out with this little red squirrel who shared our campsite.

We hiked to our favorite Adirondack swimming spot, too. Copperas Pond was full of the usual bullfrogs & tadpoles, as well as many half-frog-half-tadpole creatures we decided we’d call "froglings."

We spent most of Tuesday jumping off rocks into the water enjoying the view.

There were also s’mores.  I will never ever outgrow loving s’mores.

The rest of this week, we’re back to civilization and revision and all things almost-August.  Hope you’re enjoying your summer, too!

Friday Five: Things I cut out of my novel this week

I’ve spent my afternoons this week at a great little coffee shop in Boston, doing another revision pass on my upper-MG dystopian novel.  Early in the week, I made a plot map showing where things move along nicely and where they slow down, and I decided that cutting some fat would really help the book’s pacing.  Here’s what got the axe:

1. Dr. William Noyes.  He was a secondary character whose job was already being done by another, more interesting secondary character. Goodbye, Dr. Noyes.

2. A whole bunch of getting-from-one-place to another scenes. When I’m drafting, I often feel the need to take every step of a journey with my characters. If they’re having a picnic in the woods, for example, I need to step over every pine cone with them, hold back every branch, feel every squish of every sneaker. I think that helps me get mentally to the place where the action is going to happen, but my readers don’t need (or want) to take so long getting there, so many of these scenes are shortened a lot or deleted when I revise.

3. The word "actually" — about a thousand instances of overuse.

4. The phrase "what looked like" — ditto. While I’m a frequent abuser of "actually," this was a new one for me.  Reading through the manuscript, I’d find myself writing things like this:  She had what looked like jam all over her fingers.  Really?  If she’s sitting there with toast, can’t we just make the leap and call it jam?  Delete.

5. Most of Chapter 5 and half of Chapter 9. Don’t worry. You’ll never miss them.

I’d love to hear from some of my writer friends in the comments. What kinds of things do you find yourself cutting out of your works-in-progress during the revision stage?

Thankful Thursday: Cambridge Edition

As we wind down our week in Cambridge, MA, I’m feeling thankful for all the opportunities, expected and unexpected, these six days in the city have brought.

  • Son’s iPhone application programming day camp at MIT. Their days, interestingly enough, sound a lot like our days at my writers’ retreat last week — write quietly for a few hours, eat and talk, play a little, write quietly for a few more hours — only with programming instead of writing. But with that same sense of being around "your people" while you work. 
  • Daughter’s afternoon camp at the Museum of Fine Arts. We have arts & crafts programs at home, too, but none where you can walk downstairs to see and learn about the Egytian art before you sculpt your own canopic jar.  Very cool.
  • Bike lanes and bike paths. Cambridge has worked hard to make bike commuting a reasonable alternative to driving, and we’ve biked almost everywhere this week. The traffic’s a little nerve-wracking at times, but most people are very aware of bikers.
  • Espresso Royale Caffe – the coffee shop not far from MFA where they serve a tasty iced latte and don’t seem to mind if you talk to yourself while writing in the corner.
  • Revision time. I’m just about ready to send my dystopian storm book to my editor at Walker/Bloomsbury. (It’s coming next week, MK!)
  • Research time.  I have pages and pages of notes for a future project.  All the kinds of tiny details that you can’t really get without being in the place and using all your senses. 
  • Writer friends!  We got to meet up with Ammi-Joan Paquette, Loree Griffin Burns, and Valarie Giogas and their families. It’s always so much fun to see writer friends in person when we usually just get to talk online.
  • Museum time. We especially loved the MIT Museum with its Artificial Intelligence and hologram exhibits. Today, we’re going to see the glass flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and tomorrow, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum before we head home.
  • Going home tomorrow to see my husband and the lake…and the big crew of family coming to visit on Saturday!

Boating, Biking, Barbecue, and Buttons: An Update from Boston

A tiny apartment in Cambridge, MA is my home base for the next few days – I’m in Boston this week, doing research for a future book and getting some writing done while my kids are in day camp. This weekend, my husband was here, too, so we met up with some friends and took a ferry ride out to the Harbor Islands.  I would have been happy with the boat ride alone.

But there was also a fascinating beach on the other side.

This is Spectacle Island, which used to be a landfill, so the rocky beach is strewn with sea glass — everything from pieces of milk bottles from the 1940s to Depression-era pottery shards.  We had an amazing hike, looking at everything the waves have washed up over the years and making up stories about who might have owned it.

We stopped at Georges Island, too, which is dominated by a Civil War era fort.  Here’s a view from one of the lookout towers.

I’m loving the bike lanes and bike paths all over Cambridge – we haven’t used the car much, and the ride along the Charles River is especially pretty.

Last night brought a couple fun surprises – on the walk home from my son’s camp at MIT, we stopped at a restaurant called Koreana and experienced our first Korean barbecue.

And then on the way home, we saw this…

"The whole world is covered in buttons, and not one of them is mine!"  ~ Toad (from Arnold Lobel’s Frog & Toad Are Friends)

Whose buttons were these?  Did they spill out of someone’s craft supplies box?  What is up with the buttons? For some weird reason, this explosion of buttons on the sidewalk made me incredibly happy.

The rest of this week, my mornings will be research-time, and afternoons will be spent here…


I checked out this coffee shop near the art museum yesterday, and it has a very good writing feel to it.

If you happen to come by, I’ll be at a table in the corner, revising… looking for the unexpected buttons — those moments of discovery and surprise that make a story richer, more vivid, more real.

What Happens at a Writers’ Retreat

The first time my friend Marjorie and I cobbled together a group of children’s writers for a short retreat, my husband was fascinated. "Really? What are you going to do all day?"

"Write."

He looked at me for a few minutes. "That’s it?"

"Pretty much. We’ll also take breaks to eat and talk about writing."

He nodded skeptically, the same way you might nod at a kid who promises she won’t use that flashlight to read under the covers. Once the retreat started, he came out for a quick visit. "Wow," he said. "I can’t believe everyone’s just…writing."   There were two writers with laptops on the downstairs porch, four more above them on the upstairs porch, a few scattered on couches and chairs, and a handful more at long tables in the designated quiet room.  But really, the whole place was quiet, and my husband was stunned. I think he’d been expecting to catch us setting up the disco ball for the DJ.

Last week, our group got together again, for four days of…yes….mostly just writing. You can have a writing retreat anywhere there are beds and some public space for get-togethers.  We have ours here, at the Valcour Inn and Conference Center on Lake Champlain because it’s a lovely setting and a big space with lots of places for people to hide away and write.

We do take some breaks for talk and exercise — some people went for runs and hikes at nearby Ausable Chasm. We had a yoga instructor visit for a Tuesday morning session to counteract all that sitting time, and there was time to play on the big lawn, too.

But mostly, there was a lot of this…

…writers scattered at tables, in rocking chairs and at picnic tables, on couches and chairs with bare feet tucked up under them, or scribbling in notebooks on the rocks down by the lake.  Sometimes there were walks, quiet conversations about characters or themes or sticking points before people fell quiet to write again.  And every afternoon at 5:00, or 5:15 or 5:27, or whenever we reached that good stopping point, we wandered up to the second floor porch to share what we’d accomplished that day and celebrate one another’s work.

This was one of my favorite parts of every day, hearing what people had done in the quiet hours.

"I really connected with my character this afternoon."
"I finished my proposal, and I’m ready to send it to my editor!"
"I came up with another metaphor."
"I’m halfway through my revision."
"I sat by the lake and wrote down the colors of rocks for one of my settings."

Glasses were raised, accomplishments cheered, and then we went downstairs to eat dinner. The last night, we gathered in one of the big rooms, and everyone had a chance to read five minutes from a work in progress.  These were just magnificent, and I went to bed late that night, still lost in settings and visiting with all those characters in my mind.  I’m so thankful to my fellow retreaters for the gift of their company, the gift of their words.

I’m home now. It’s not quite as quiet, and I’m making dinner every night again, but I’m still working, still revising.   Somehow, the spirit of those four days keeps me going, long after the inn has emptied out.

PENNY DREADFUL by Laurel Snyder

It’s another hot, sit-on-the-dock, read, swim, and eat-watermelon day, and there is both good news and bad news to report.

The bad news is that my ARC of Laurel Snyder’s PENNY DREADFUL got dripped on a little and is the tiniest bit soggy.

The good news is that I finished reading, and…wait…that’s bad news, too.  Because I’m going to miss this book a lot.  It’s one of those stories that feels like cold lemonade in summer or steaming hot chocolate in winter — timeless and comfortable and homey.  It’s about a rich girl from the city, Penelope, who turns into a not-so-rich girl in the country, Penny.  Where Penelope lived in a mansion and had a tutor, Penny lives in an old country house. She has awesome, eclectic neighbors (Oh, how I wish I could have had zany, messy Luella as a friend!), inner resources, and Adventures with a capital A. 

This book felt familiar to me when I was reading, and it took me a while to figure out why. When I was a kid, I loved Pippi Longstocking.  I wanted to BE Pippi Longstocking. I wanted a monkey and a tree to hang from upside down and braids that stuck out like that. It was a book that I read over and over and wished that I could live inside. PENNY DREADFUL has that same feel to it — that sense of setting off on a wonderful adventure with true friends who might be just a little dangerous and are all the more fun for it.  It was a perfect dock-swimming-summer-day book.  Sorry about the soggy pages, Laurel, but it was too hard to put down.

Other dock reading happening at the Messner house this week:

Son (14) – THE PASSAGE by Justin Cronin

Daughter (8) OUT OF MY MIND by Sharon Draper

Husband (who probably would not want his age mentioned) WEATHER ON THE AIR: A HISTORY OF BROADCAST METEOROLOGY by Robert Henson

Up next for me: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE ORIGAMI YODA by Tom Angleberger

What are you reading this week?

Thankful Almost-Thursday – Special Rocks

I think I mentioned that we’re reworking a storage room in our basement into a writing room — a quiet place where I’ll be able to get work done, even when the rest of the house is full and noisy.  It’s almost done…and it’s given birth to a related project.  There is an empty, dirt-filled area right outside the window by my writing room desk where I’d like to plant a small rock garden.

About a mile offshore from my house, there is an awesome island with really cool rocks. They are better than regular lake rocks, and I am not just saying that because they are way out on an island and therefore, difficult.  They are really, really great rocks.  Heavy, too.

While we were hiking around the island this afternoon, I mentioned to my husband that what I’d really like is a whole bunch of these special island rocks for the garden.  I thought he’d probably laugh.  He didn’t.  He offered to spend a morning going back and forth with the little motor boat, moving rocks.  I’m thankful for that today.  And for him.

OUT OF MY MIND by Sharon Draper

Yesterday afternoon went something like this:

Sit on dock.
Read.
Get too hot to read.
Jump in lake.
Dry off for five minutes to avoid dripping on library book.
Read.
Repeat.

Eventually, I finished this book…

…and then I sighed and just held onto it for a few minutes. (Don’t worry, library people…I was dry by then.)  Sharon Draper’s OUT OF MY MIND is definitely one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.

The narrator of this middle grade novel is Melody, a fifth grader who is smart, spirited, and funny.  Melody is almost eleven and has never walked on her own or spoken a single word because she was born with cerebral palsy.  Being inside her head makes it a little easier to understand what it’s like to feel trapped inside a body that doesn’t work right, and readers will indeed feel Melody’s frustration, anger, triumph, and determination.

Melody tells her life story, a story of parents who try their hardest, doctors who didn’t understand and a wonderful neighbor who always did, a little sister who seemed to be born perfect, a school that sometimes fails her, and classmates who react to her in ways that are heartbreaking and authentic.  All of that leads up to fifth grade — the year Melody begins to leave her special education classroom for inclusion classes and starts using a piece of assistive technology that helps her communicate.  The new computer empowers her to try out for the school’s quiz team, and she surprises her classmates and her teacher with her performance.

Without giving too much away, I have to say that the last fifty pages of this book absolutely floored me.  What happened was not what I expected, and yet it was exactly what needed to happen for this book to pack the real and powerful punch that it does.  Sharon Draper’s OUT OF MY MIND is smart, funny, touching, and dare I say it… really important.  It’s a book that will open minds.  And even though Melody is a little younger than the 7th graders I teach, this is definitely going to be one of the books I share as a read-aloud with my students this year. 

You should read it, too — especially if you work with kids, but really, even if you don’t.  This is one you really don’t want to miss.