Author Spotlight and Book Giveaway- DJ MacHale

I am thrilled to introduce best-selling author DJ MacHale for our author spotlight today. I met DJ last year at the Children’s Book Festival in La Mesa. When I saw that he was embarking on a new series, I thought it would be a great time to shine the spotlight on this talented author.

Bio

D.J. MacHale is the author of the bestselling book series Pendragon – Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space; the spooky Morpheus Road trilogy and the whimsical picture book The Monster Princess.  The first book of his new adventure trilogy, SYLO, will be published in the summer of 2013.  In addition to his published works, he has written, directed and produced numerous award-winning television series and movies for young people including Are You Afraid of the Dark?; Flight 29 Down and Tower of Terror.  D.J. lives with his family in Southern California.

Author Spotlight

WOTS: What was your road to publication?

DJM: My route to publication was different than most.  The short answer is that it was incredibly easy.  My agent sent the proposal for Pendragon to an editor, the editor liked it and the rest is history.  Most other authors hate to hear that.  But the real story is that I had been paying my dues for DECADES getting a TV career going, and then creating a few very successful TV shows for young people.  So by the time I came up with an idea that turned out to be too long for a movie and too expensive for a TV show and decided it would work best as a book series, I was already known as someone who created entertainment for kids and that made it easier to get published.  So the heartache, frustration and tenacity were all there, it just happened in a different way.

WOTS: Can you tell me a bit about your writing process? Do you plot or not?

DJM: My stories all have very intricately interwoven plotlines, which I feel makes it important to think things through before ever writing words that other people will read.  I go through the same process as writers who sit down and begin by typing:  “Once upon a time…”, it’s just that I do it in broadstrokes first.  It’s my favorite part of writing a story.  I don’t stress over coming up with the perfect words, I simply think through the story, the character arcs, the twists and the conclusion until it takes on a definite shape.  I take notes…which nobody will ever read.  Sometimes I don’t even read them myself.  It’s an incredibly pure way of creating a story.  I never get caught up with missing the forest because I can’t see through the trees.  When I start a new series, I first outline the entire thing.  Whether it will be three books or ten, I look at it as one big story, broken up into chapters that eventually evolve into individual books.  Each “chapter” (or book) is treated with its own outline that I tinker with until the story and the journeys of each character feel right.  It isn’t until then that I go back to the beginning and type:  “Once Upon A Time…”  I rarely even refer to the outline that I wrote.  It’s not about that document, it’s about having gone through the thought process of creating the story.  Though there will be times that I get stuck and refer to the outline…only to find that I have veered far off into the woods.  But that’s okay.  I don’t like being locked into an outline if the story takes me somewhere else that’s better.  But the main thing is I always know where I’m headed, and what the major touchstones will be along the way.

WOTS: Are you working on any new projects that you can tell us about?

DJM: Right now I am working on the second book in the SYLO trilogy.  Since I will probably be close to finishing the third book before I go on tour with the first, it’s going to be tricky to keep spoilers under wraps because as I said, it’s all one big story to me.  I have to keep reminding myself that readers will only get it one chapter at a time, and be careful not to let slip something that will happen in future books.  I’m also beginning to compile a handful of short stories that I hope to get published.  This last year I wrote a short story for Jon Scieska’s “Guys Read” series and had a great time doing it.  Over the years I’ve written so many stories that for one reason or another haven’t seen the light of day, so I’m going to wrap them all up into a nice little package of fantastical tales and see if anybody wants to put them out.

WOTS: Describe your studio or usual work space for us.

DJM: For the longest time I wrote in my home office.  It’s the best because I would go for weeks without ever having to put on shoes.  But after my daughter was born the house became a bit more hectic so I opened up another office in a film studio near my house.  It’s good to get out and pretend like I have a real job by going to an office, but now I have to put on shoes.  At least I can bring my dog with me.

WOTS: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

DJM: When I was young I wanted to be an astronaut, but bad eyesight and a lack of math-ability killed that pretty quickly.  Realistically I would love to do the same thing that most authors do, and that’s teach.  Over the years I’ve taught courses in photography and filmmaking and now I often run writing workshops for young writers.  I love it.  I would like nothing better than to teach a regular course in writing.  Or to fly in outer space.  One of those is more likely.

WOTS: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?

DJM: I’m an open book so if anybody knows me, they pretty much know everything there is to know.  My one embarrassing little secret is that I’m a long-suffering New York Jets fan…though I guess saying you are a Jets fan and long-suffering is redundant.

WOTS: What was your inspiration for the new SYLO Trilogy?

DJM: I always write about normal young people who are faced with extraordinary challenges.  Most of my principal characters are different forms of me so with Tucker Pierce I tapped into the part of my personality that would often rather take the easy road than stepping up and competing.  But life often doesn’t always allow you to coast.  Circumstances come up every day that force you to make a decision:  Do I take the easy way out and accept second best?  Or do I fight for what is right?  Tucker faces such a dilemma, and the choice isn’t an easy one.  It never is.  For his challenge, I loved the idea of creating an environment where people are isolated from the rest of the world.  I based the location of the first book on the island of Martha’s Vineyard…though I don’t call it that.  The people of this island, and Tucker, are confronted with a frightening challenge and being as isolated as they are, they can’t look to the outside world for help.  As much as SYLO becomes a massive adventure, at its core is the story of a young guy who has to find something inside of himself that will give him the strength to stand up and fight for what is right.

WOTS: What challenges did you face when you wrote your picture book The Monster Princess?

DJM: The biggest challenge was trying to ignore my publisher who constantly told me that it’s rare for a picture book to sell well and that we’re wasting our time.  That got old.  I think it’s a wonderful book, made especially so by the amazing illustrations done by Alexander Boiger.  The biggest frustration for me is seeing how young kids and their parents who actually saw the book, love it…but for whatever reason it never got the push it needed to become a real success.  (Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophesy from the publisher)   But I love that book and I still hope that someday it will find a larger audience.  It deserves it.

WOTS: We here at Writing on the Sidewalk tend to procrastinate with our writing. Where do you fit in—Procrastinator or Proactive?

DJM: Ha!  That depends on how close to a deadline I get.  I’m the world’s best (or worst, not sure which is correct) procrastinator.  But it’s amazing how focused and creative I can become when a deadline looms!

Thanks for stopping sharing with us.

If you’d like to find out more about DJ or his books visit his site: djmachalebooks.com

DJ has graciously offered a signed ARC copy of his newest book SYLO for our readers. If you’d like a chance to win DJ’s newest book leave a comment below before Midnight June 19, 2013. The winner will be selected at random on Thursday, June 20, 2013.

Happy Reading,

Suzanne Santillan

Writing on the Sidewalk

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Still Time to Enter

There is still time to enter to win a signed copy of Otis Dooda by Ellen Potter illustrated by David Heatley. Simply click this link and leave a comment. Winner will be picked at random on Thursday, June 13,2013.

Good Luck.

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Character Spotlight and Book Giveaway- Meet Otis Dooda

This week marks the release of a great new book Otis Dooda written by Ellen Potter and illustrated by David Heatley. This is a fun book filled with great humor especially for boys. On this extra- special Friday bonus post I thought I’d give our readers a chance to meet a few of the characters behind the story.

Title: Otis Dooda (Feiwel & Friends 2013)

Author: Ellen Potter

Illustrator: David Heatley

Book Description:

HARDY-HAR-HAR!

Meet Otis Dooda. Yes, that’s his name. Go on and have a good laugh. He’s heard it all before. He’s been called things like Otis Poopy Stink and Otis Toilet Twinkie. That’s right, yuck it up and get it out of your system. We’ll wait.

All right then. This is the story of Otis and the Dooda family (including their rat named Smoochie) moving to New York City, and the incredibly strange, but true, things that happened to them. It all started with Otis getting cursed by a guy in a potted plant in their apartment building lobby, and then meeting a bunch of their neighbors, including a farting pony named Peaches who was disguised as a dog. And that was just the first day.

Character Spotlight

Character name: Otis Dooda

Brief physical description:

Not to be rude, but his body is shaped like a Twizzler. Super skinny, very bendy. His toenails haven’t been clipped in a while so let’s not talk about that. Once, this girl said that he looked like the kid from the Home Alone movie. Then she asked him if he thought she looked like Selena Gomez. He said no, and she said, “Fine, then you don’t look like the Home Alone kid.”

He has very good teeth.

Strengths:

He is a Lego-genius. I mean it, this guy can solve any problem with some Lego bricks and a rubber band.

Weaknesses:

He’s got this phobia about subway zombies. Don’t ask. Plus he’s pretty terrified of Potted Plant Guy.

 

 

Character name: Potted Plant Guy 

 

Brief Physical Description:

Well, it’s going to be VERY brief, because no one has ever actually seen his face. He hides in a potted plant in the lobby of the Tidwell Towers apartment building. You can see his eyes though, and they are pure evil.

Strengths:

He has the ability to put curses on people who walk into the building. The curses always come true, too, though not in the way that you think they will.

Weaknesses:

We’re still trying to find out what they are.

 

Inspiration for your story

I noticed that my 7-year-old son was reading books for middle-graders. It wasn’t because he was an advanced reader either. He said he just liked those books better than most of the ones for his age group. Come to find out, a lot of his friends were reading those same middle-grade books too. Curious, I also read them. I could see the attraction. They were wry and subversive, and they made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion. The only problem was, they were dealing with middle-grade issues—crushes on girls, being popular, and other things that six- and seven-year old boys could give a hoot about. So I thought, what if a writer kept that tone but wrote about things that a seven-year-old did care about? Like Legos and ninjas and zombie tag.

Background for the story

While I was developing the character of Otis, I kept imagining him to be like Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye . . .  if Holden were in the third grade. He’d be highly observant, dry, sometimes snarky, He’d also probably be obsessed with Legos, like every other third-grade boy I knew. The other thing I kept thinking about was Seinfeld. What if I created a series set in an apartment building? What if there were a core group of characters with big, quirky personalities? They bickered, yes, but they also had each other’s backs when things got hairy. And things would get hairy all the time.

Researching this book was a cinch. All I had to do was listen. I listened to the stories my son told me about the kids in school. I listened to the things that made him and his buddies laugh. I listened to backseat conversations and lunchroom arguments. And of course I listened to fart jokes. Lots and lots of fart jokes.

So What About the Giveaway?

We will be giving away a signed copy of Otis Dooda to one of our lucky readers. Simply post a comment below and we will be picking a winner at random on Thursday June 13, 2013 . Entries must be posted by midnight on Wednesday to be entered into the contest.

Good Luck and Happy Reading,

Suzanne Santillan

Writing on the Sidewalk

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Author Spotlight: Ned Vizzini

Today we shine the spotlight on author Ned Vizzini. I met Ned and his family at the Children’s Book Festival in San Diego earlier this year. I am so grateful he could take some time from his busy schedule to visit with us today.

Bio

Ned Vizzini is the award-winning author of It’s Kind of a Funny Story (also a major motion picture), Be More Chill, Teen Angst? Naaah…, and The Other Normals. He has written for the New York Times, Salon, and the L Magazine. In television, he has written for Season 2 of MTV’s Teen Wolf and currently writes for ABC’s Last Resort. He is the co-author, with Chris Columbus, of the forthcoming fantasy-adventure series House of Secrets. He lives in Los Angeles with his family. His work has been translated into seven languages.

Author Spotlight:

WOTS: What was your road to publication?

NV: I started writing when I was a teenager. There was a local alternative newspaper called New York Pressthat I picked up religiously every Wednesday on my way to school. I loved the essays inside — by writers like Amy Sohn, Jim Knipfel, and Jonathan Ames. I wrote my own essay like that and sent it to the paper. It came back in the mail: not enough postage. So I put more stamps on and re-sent. That was how I started freelancing for that paper at the age of 15. Books, television, and film work followed in the ensuing 16 years.

WOTS: Can you tell me a bit about your writing process? Do you plot or not?

NV: My writing process is not regimented and it’s different for every project. I didn’t outline any of my YA novels but I have been outlining my new middle-grade adventure series,House of Secrets(which I’m writing with Chris Columbus). And of course I outline my TV and film projects. Novel writing is the only place where I let myself be free, and a lot of roads end in failure.

WOTS: Are you working on any new projects that you can tell us about?

NV: Yes, my new book The Other Normalsis out now!  Please buy it and please come get it signed at my reading at Mysterious Galaxy Books on Saturday, October 20th!

WOTS: Describe your studio or usual work space for us.

NV: One of the advantages of living in Los Angeles is that I have a home office. It’s like a 3rd bedroom that turns into a guest room. I write there in front of a window that faces an ugly fence.

*Note* This is not actually Ned’s ugly fence, this is just my interpretation of his description.

WOTS: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

NV: I would like to be a brilliant computer programmer, but I’m not that brilliant at it.

WOTS: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?

NV: I would love to tell you the big thing about me that people don’t know, but then people would know it.

WOTS: Your book It’s Kind of a Funny Story was adapted as a movie, can you tell us how that came to be?

NV: It’s Kind of a Funny Story got turned into a movie because the directors, Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden, liked the book and wanted to make a movie out of it. It may sound simple but that’s the reason. The book got passed around Hollywood and Ryan & Anna reacted to it very positively. They had made Half Nelson and they really understood the book so I trusted them to do a good job with the movie. After the book was optioned, there was about a three-year gap before production began. I talk about the process in more detail in my IKOAFS set reports.

WOTS: What was the inspiration for your newest book The Other Normals?

NV: The Other Normals is about a teenaged geek who falls into a real fantasy world. It was inspired by my tales of woe at summer camp, by my love of Dungeons & Dragons, and by my desire to write about the journey that geeks have to make to stop being victims.

WOTS: We here at Writing on the Sidewalk tend to procrastinate with our writing. Where do you fit in—Procrastinator or Proactive?

NV: I’m a procrastinator for sure. I’m not as bad as some but I’m not as good as I’d like to be. I wait until the last day to write things — or the last three days if they’re hard. My mother says everyone’s like that and it’s the only way humans know how to work. All I know is, there’s a certain kind of writing that you only get when you have eight hours to do it.

WOTS: Thanks Ned for visiting with us today.

If you’d like to learn more about Ned or his books, please be sure to check out the following links:

book: http://nedvizzini.com/writing/#ton
website: http://nedvizzini.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ned_vizzini
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ned.vizzini

Happy Reading,

Suzanne Santillan

Writing on the Sidewalk

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Author Spotlight: Melissa Wiley

Well our summer break is finally over and I thought it would be a great way to kick off our return with a new Author Spotlight. Melissa Wiley is a fellow SCBWI San Diego member and had three, yes three, books launch in August. So grab a cup of coffee as we shine the spotlight on Melissa. 

Brief Bio:

Melissa Wiley is the author of more than a dozen books for kids and teens, including The Prairie Thief, Inch and Roly Make a Wish, Fox and Crow Are Not Friends, and the Martha and Charlotte Little House books. She lives in San Diego with her husband and their six kids. Melissa blogs about her family’s reading life at Here in the Bonny Glen and is a contributing writer for GeekMom.

Author Spotlight:

WOTS: What was your road to publication?

MW:I earned my MFA in creative writing at UNC-Greensboro—a completely wonderful experience in which I got to study with poet Alan Shapiro and one of my favorite writers in the world, the great Fred Chappell. While I was there, I served as Poetry Editor of the Greensboro Review and worked part-time at a children’s bookstore called B. Dolphin. I really didn’t have time for a second job, but I fell in love with that little shop the first moment I walked in, and I basically begged them to hire me. It was there, reading my way through the inventory, that I came to realize my heart was in children’s literature. After grad school, I took an entry-level editorial assistant job at Random House Children’s Books as a way of continuing to learn about children’s publishing while I worked on my own manuscripts. I left editorial when my first child was born and that’s when I began writing for a living. My first published books were work-for-hire projects like a pair of Carmen San Diego mysteries–a really fun way to learn how to grapple with novel-length manuscripts. Before that, I’d been writing mostly short fiction and poetry.In the late 90s, HarperCollins and the Laura Ingalls Wilder estate asked if I’d be interested in writing a series about Laura’s Scottish great-grandmother, and I was over the moon with happiness. I loved getting to dive into the family archives and go deep into the period to imagine what Martha’s life might have been like. It was a dream job–I got to write original novels deeply rooted in historical fact, and since very early on in the Martha series I was also asked to write a series about her daughter, Charlotte (Laura’s grandmother), I got to go back and forth between writing Martha as a little girl and writing her as a mother. It was an incredible experience.WOTS: Can you tell me a bit about your writing process? Do you plot or not?

MW: I plot loosely. Too tight and I lose interest–I have to leave room for my characters to surprise me. I usually know the main narrative arc, and I often jump ahead and write scenes out of order, but I work out subplots and even some of the primary events as I go. And then I usually have to go back and do a massive rewrite to weave everything together. And I always wind up writing far more than I actually keep in the book–sometimes sixty or seventy extra pages, scenes I need to help me get where I’m going but which don’t actually belong in the story.

WOTS: Are you working on any new projects that you can tell us about?

MW:Right now I’m deep in a historical fiction novel based on events from my own family history–a little-known chapter of the Civil War. It’s a story I’ve wanted to tell for a very long time. It will be published by Knopf in 2013, if it doesn’t kill me first.My newest novel, The Prairie Thief, comes out in late August. The title sounds Little-Housy but it isn’t anything to do with Laura’s family–its setting was inspired by a wildlife refuge I worked at during college, a gorgeous expanse of Colorado prairie. It’s another period novel–late 1800s–but it’s really a kind of fairy tale. Let’s just say humans weren’t the only creatures who emigrated to the New World in the the nineteenth century.I also have some early readers launching this month: a Level 3 Step Into Reading for Random House called Fox and Crow Are Not Friends, and the first in a series of Level 1 readers for Simon and Schuster’s Ready-to-Read program. It’s called Inch and Roly Make a Wishand is about an inchworm, a roly poly, and their bug friends.

WOTS: Describe your studio or usual work space for us.

MW: Well, I live in a small house with a work-at-home husband (also a writer) and a small army of children. I work in my bedroom, on my laptop. My books and reference materials spill all over the room. Right now my bedroom wall is covered by a massive family tree made of index cards–my way of keeping track of my current large cast of characters.

WOTS: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

MW: Gardener. I spend a lot of time working in (and then ignoring for weeks on end) my little butterfly garden in the backyard. And I do this thing–I’ve always done it–where I plant imaginary gardens in the yards I pass on the street. I’d love to have other people’s gardens to play with.

WOTS: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?

MW: I have a secret weakness for really awful disaster films–catastrophe stories with dubious special effects and far-fetched plots. The kind where a supervolcano erupts or an asteroid is about to hit the earth–I’m a complete sucker for those. I generally don’t enjoy post-apocalyptic films–the bleak, grim kind where bedraggled souls wander a gray landscape–but I adore an apocalypse as it unfolds–the more preposterously, the better.

WOTS: How do you juggle being a writer and the mom of six children?

MW: It depends entirely upon what my husband is doing, professionally. When he was an editor working long hours in an office, I wrote on weekends–and it took me three years of Saturdays to write The Prairie Thief. Now he’s a freelancer working from home (as he was during the years of my Little House work), and I get a nice long writing shift every afternoon. And Scott does all the laundry. It’s a pretty ideal arrangement. I get to spend all day with my kids (we’re homeschoolers) and then go off and write for hours.

WOTS: What challenges did you encounter writing the “Little House” Series?

MW:Well, I wrote the first Martha book in a hospital room while my daughter, who was a baby at the time, was undergoing treatment for leukemia. Researching that book was a challenge, to put it mildly. My wonderful editor connected me with a scholar in Edinburgh who handled the legwork for me–I would email her my questions and she’d send back boxes, literally BOXES, of material for me to read. Writing Charlotte was much easier–I was able to go to Boston and visit the area where she had grown up. And each year, there was more and more available via the internet. It wouldn’t be nearly as difficult now.But all historical fiction poses a specific challenge, which is that it’s very easy to get bogged down in the tiny details. You’re trying so hard to be completely accurate in all things, big and small. Sometimes it seems like you have to stop five times every sentence to look something up. But I love that part of the work, too–it’s hard, but exhilarating. You get to go on all these little treasure hunts. It keeps things lively and you learn so much.WOTS: We here at Writing on the Sidewalk tend to procrastinate with our writing, where do you fit in Procrastinator or Proactive?

MW: Oooh, it depends! I’m a procrastinator by nature but my circumstances don’t allow for it–I have to jump on writing time when I have it, or seventeen other things will crowd in to chew up the time. I have a mighty terror of missing a deadline. It has only happened once.

Thanks Melissa, for visiting with us on the Sidewalk. If you are interested to learn more about Melissa and her books please check out the following links:  Website: melissawiley.com, GeekMom: wired.com/geekmom, Webcomic: thicklebit.com, Twitter: @bonnyglen.

Happy Reading,

Suzanne Santillan

Writing on the Sidewalk

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Illustrator Spotlight- Terry Naughton

I had a chance to meet Terry Naughton at the Children’s Book Festival in La Mesa back in May. He was there to help promote the book My Personal Panther by Jerry Cesak, who I featured in an Author Spotlight two weeks ago. I was so impressed by Terry’s art I thought it would be fun to feature him on the blog. So, today I will do my very first Illustrator Spotlight. I hope you enjoy it.

Brief Bio:

Terry is a former animator with Walt Disney Studios. Now he’s a freelance illustrator. He was with Disney for 17 years, and worked on almost every feature film produced from 1985 until 2002. Some of his credits include: “The Beast” in Beauty and the Beast, “The Genie” in Aladdin and “Zazu” in the Lion King to name a few. Terry worked on projects with the N.F.L. book illustrations, sculpted sports action figures, story boards and some motion picture work (Warner Brothers). He was also an official football artist for U.S.C. and U.C.L.A. When not doing art, he enjoys sports of all kinds. He coaches  high school wrestling and is the strength coach for the football team. He was a competitive Olympic weightlifter back in the old days.

Illustrator Spotlight:

WOTS: Are you working on any new projects that you can tell us about?

TN: I am working on several new projects. First, Jerry Cesak and I have decided to start working on book 2 of the “My Personal Panther” series. Secondly, I have started to do some paintings that will be in a two man art show in a gallery in L.A. with Rich Arons. Also my Jungle Jocks series is being revitalized. These are a few new things I’m involved with.

WOTS: What artists do you look up to, and how have they inspired your work?

TN: My inspirations growing up and still today are: Darrell Millsap, Norman Rockwell, Frank Frazetta and for drawing Heinrich Kley. These masters taught me how to stay loose in my drawings. Norman and Frank were master story tellers in their art. Darrel Milsap taught me how to lose unnecessary edges in my paintings. All of these artists taught the world how to have passion for their art.

Norman Rockwell

WOTS: Describe your studio or usual work space for us.

TN: My studio is a 12 ft. by 24 ft. space. In it I have an area for painting and drawing and I have a space for 2 computers for my digital work. Like most studios, it’s a little cluttered. I have many paintings on my walls and many works from my mentors. My work hangs on my walls as a reminder that I am a talented artist. This may sound narcissistic but, really it’s a way to build up my confidence when I feel untalented or uninspired during a difficult period of a painting. I will look at my previous successes and say “See you can do this!” My mentors work is there for inspiration to strive to do work worthy of them.

WOTS: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

TN: Professional football player. It was my dream all the way into college. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in God’s plan for me. So I paint the football as if I played. I also watch and coach as much football as possible.

WOTS: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?

TN: Most people don’t know that “I” was the first man on the moon, not Neil Armstrong!!! Ok, Ok, not true. Most people don’t know that I was a competitive Olympic weightlifter and I attempted to get in to the Olympic Games in 1984 and 1988.

WOTS: What did you use for inspiration for the illustrations in My Personal Panther?

TN: The best inspiration was Jerry Cesak (the author of the book) himself. Jerry knew just what he wanted in both characters, a very rare occurrence. Also, I had a cat before myself and used that experience. For the main character Lucy, I thought about 2 Disney girls from the Rescuers and Oliver and Co. for inspiration.

WOTS: We here at Writing on the Sidewalk tend to procrastinate, where do you fit in Procrastinator or Proactive?

TN: Getting started on any project is always difficult for me, there is always so much thought that has to go into it. Once I start, I tend to plow hard all the way to the end. I Hate, Hate, Hate, to miss a deadline!!! It doesn’t happen very often to me, I’m proud to say.

Thank you Terry for taking the time to visit with us.

If you’d like to learn more about Terry, you may visit his site or follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Suzanne Santillan

Writing on the Sidewalk

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ONE DAY I WENT RAMBLING by Kelly Bennett, Illustrated by Terri Murphy

It seems fitting that today, Father’s Day, is when I am hosting a delightful author-illustrator team who created the oh so charming One Day I Went Rambling. My father was a great rambler, in every sense of the word. He wandered and discovered and delighted in finding unexpected treasures. Just like Zane, the main character of this picture book written by Kelly Bennett and illustrated by Terri Murphy. This rhythmic rhyming story celebrates imaginative play – I think teachers from preschool through elementary could use this book as a jumping off place for lots of fun lessons  and inspiration.

I’d love to read this with a group of kids, then take them exploring. We’d write about our finds — we could write fiction and/or non-fiction, and then we’d have an art lesson using the “treasures,” we’d chart and graph to organize our finds, and we’d make a treasure map… the ideas go on and on!

This busy duo took the time to answer some questions for us here at Writing on the Sidewalk. (WOTS)

WOTS: Please tell us about your writing/illustrating journey.

KELLY: No big surprise that I’d write a book about Rambling. I’ve gone down many different paths, from writing confession stories with titles like “He Was King of the Rodeo While I Was Stuck Back on the Ranch” and “Trapped in an Elevator With a Naked Man,” to Harlequin-style romance and non-fiction for Kindergarners about Labor Day and Chesapeke Bay. Rambling is never the most direct route: More than six years was spent traveling throughout North America meeting storytellers and tribal elders while collecting Native American legends about Spider and Tricksters; 4 years focused on  Cambodia in order to research a memoir about a boy’s struggle to survive the Khmer Rouge; umpteen and counting years collecting doggy puns for a beginning reader mystery series that remains to be sold (and about which I remain hopeful), countless dollars and hours creating fishponds after becoming obsessed with goldfish while dreaming up Not Norman: A Goldfish Story, and who knows how many megabytes of memory writing magazine articles. Rambling as I do means I’m never first and I miss some opportunities.  But boy am I seeing and learning a lot along the way – from parenting to traveling, otters to orangutans, craters, dead bodies and leaches. Every bend, twist, upset, experience is writing fodder. 

Terri: As a kid who loved to draw, I vividly remember that thunderstorms inspired me. I’d smell rain coming and lay out art supplies on the kitchen table as the sky darkened and the thunder cracked.  Later I painted for fun, but I never thought of it as a way to earn a living until I was in my early-twenties. I went to art school and freelanced before my two sons were born.  Then the world of children’s books opened up to me and I didn’t know who was having more fun with bedtime stories, them or me.  Soon I had a revelation…I could do this!  A lot of years of learning the art of picture books and rejection and waiting and small victories were part of that terrain.

WOTS: Did you know each other prior to working on this book?

Kelly: Terri and I met the summer after our first book together, Dance, Y’all, Dance, was published (Bright Sky Press, fall 2009); prior to that we had never met, spoken, texted, or tweeted. I happened to be in Chicago for an IRA Conference and Terri and I met to begin planning a picture book workshop for SCBWI-Brazos Valley. That first meeting was a little awkward at first, sort of like a blind date. But soon after exchanging howdys, we were chattering away, and the workshop was a blast! So I was delighted to have another opportunity to work with Terri on One Day I Went Rambling. But even then, although we knew and liked each other, and exchanged emails occasionally, we didn’t discuss Rambling until the art was almost complete.

Terri: Kelly and I published a previous book together called Dance, Y’all, Dance with the same publisher, Bright Sky Press. We met once in Chicago, and in Texas we facilitated a conference together on picture book writing and illustrating.  I enjoy Kelly’s humor and easy going style, in both her stories and in life.

WOTS: Have you discovered any treasures in the rough as you ramble along?

Terri: The word “yes” is a pretty good treasure. The slow stories of old men, diamonds dancing on waves, rekindling sparks with long lost friends, the odd look of recognition in a stranger’s eye, a hug that lasts one moment too long, dandelion bouquets, the smell of newborns.  I have a theory that we can choose the moments we wish to replay before our eyes when we leave this earth, so as they happen I make a silent wish to “remember this one.”

Kelly:I am always on the lookout for treasure. I have a carved wooden pyramid-shaped cupboard from Indonesia in which I keep my finds. The cupboard has 4 levels of drawers, and each drawer is divided into tiny cubes. I tag each treasure with the date and place I found it and put it into the cupboard for safekeeping. Every so often, I open a drawer and peek inside. 

But I’d be remiss, and untrue to my calling, if I didn’t note the best treasure of all that comes from rambling, and that is stories, the stories we only learn when we slow down enough to watch and listen.

WOTS: What tempts you toward procrastination? 

Kelly: Every-single-thing, except television (and probably only because I don’t know how to turn our set on.)

I’m like a cat. I circle, circle, circle, clean, prune, purr, grumble, circle more, before I can settle down to work. It’s as though I have to be on a deadline, and if I’m not on one, I’ll impose one on myself as a way of putting on the needed pressure. I actually have to set a timer to make myself sit down. It works!

Terri: I’m a true believer in procrastination as long as it’s mixed in with a healthy dose of work.  It’s a time to regenerate, think differently, play attention (I misspelled that but I think I’ll leave it!) and see the possibilities. It’s Rambling Time! I’m still a kid at heart so my sons’  humorous banter and roughhousing will draw me in every time, even though they are now taller than me.  I also like to eavesdrop on conversations, follow dragonflies, photograph nature, write in funky cafes and sometimes just drive down the road and see where that takes me.

WOTS: What’s next on your journey?

Kelly: Ah, the road ahead leads down a dark, twisted path toward… Vampire Baby, my next picture book. It’s being published 2013 by Candlewick Press.

Terri: More rambling! Although I’m known for my style of children’s illustration, an artist becomes stagnant and bored if they keep doing the same thing.  This summer I will discover new and inventive ways to digitally incorporate my macro nature photography as patterns in illustration.  Here is one that has a graphic novel feel to it. Time to ramble, to play attention!

Here are the bios for this incredible and  creative team!

Kelly Bennett, all set for Girl Scouts!

Kelly Bennett is the author of many books for children – mostly picture books. Her stories, such as Not Norman: A Goldfish Story, Dad and Pop, Your Daddy Was Just Like You, and Your Mommy Was Just Like You, Dance, Y’all, Dance, and her newest release, One Day I Went Rambling, celebrate imagination, families, friends, pets… all that goes into being a kid!

A native of California, Kelly has rambled through all 50 states, 3 continents and 19 countries on all kinds of transportation from tuk-tuks to tricycles, bajai to bicycles, ojeks, rickshaw and rafts, trains and planes, helicopters and horses, dogs, elephants, camels – oh yeah, cars and feet, too! She holds an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College. Visit her at www.kellybennett.com.

Terri Murphy is in her second childhood, and there she plans to stay. Born to immigrant parents, she spent a lot of her time as a child observing people, their expressions, and the natural world as she learned the language. Her favorite toy was a pair of binoculars. Now she surrounds herself with with sketches and paint and is once again, immersed in another language.

Terri is an illustrator for children’s books and magazines, educational materials, music cds, and outdoor murals. She is also the representative in Illinois for the Illustrators Network of SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). In 2013 she will be the premier illustrator for Illinois’ summer iREAD program, creating posters and illustrations that will be shown in all Illinois libraries and 24 countries.

When not illustrating for children, Terri hosts traveling art workshops, is a nature photographer and enjoys rambling/ finding treasure in the ordinary. See Terri’s illustrations at www.terrimurphyart.com

Thanks for rambling on by today, Kelly and Terri!

Sarah Wones Tomp

WRITING ON THE SIDEWALK

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Author Spotlight- Jerry Cesak

I am thrilled to present author Jerry Cesak for our latest Author Spotlight segment. I have listened to the “Jeff & Jer” program for years driving the kids to school. When I discovered that Jerry had written a children’s book, I thought it would be exciting to feature him on our blog. I had a chance to meet Jerry at the Children’s Book Festival in La Mesa and found him to be very kind and gracious. I invited him to share a little time with us on the sidewalk.

Brief Bio:

Jerry graduated as a theatre major from the University of Maryland after which he took a short thirty-year diversion into radio. He’s been waking up San Diegans on the top-rated “Jeff & Jer” morning show since 1988.

For as long as he can remember, Jerry’s been passionately involved in campaigning for animal protection. He is a member of the Board of Directors of The Humane Society of The United States and founder of The Unicorn Foundation which raises money to fight animal cruelty.

Jerry is a produced playwright and author of dozens of short stories and screenplays.

He and his wife Pam live in La Jolla, California in a house owned by six cats.

In the picture with Jerry is the “real” Aja, whose prima-diva personality inspired his book “My Personal Panther.”

Author Spotlight:

WOTS: Can you tell me a bit about your writing process? Do you plot or not?

JC: I always know the first line of anything I write. Even if it’s dialogue that starts the story. And I always know the very last line. That leaves me with this inconvenient thing called “in between”. I do plot, but in arcs. I’ll have an umbrella story arc and then fill in with arcs that get me from one end to the other, like stepping stones.

WOTS: Are you working on any new projects that you can tell us about?

JC: Like everyone else who lives in Southern California,(in accordance with a law passed in the 1950′s I think,) I’m working on a screenplay.  It’s called “Old Rock Stars” about four guys who used to be in garage bands in the 1970s. Now they suddenly find themselves being the biggest rock act in the world. I also have a play in progress called “The Lobby”, and of course, another “My Personal Panther” book–the prequel.

WOTS: Describe your studio or usual work space for us.

JC: Great question. I love to know where people work. For me, it’s at home in my office with the door shut. It’s away from the rest of the house. My wife Pam gave me an office makeover for my birthday several years ago, so all the furniture is custom built-in and my desk is enormous.  I usually have music on. Lots of jazz/rock stuff like Donald Fagen (Steely Dan). If I’m stuck I’ll put on Van Halen or Motley Crue. If I really need to concentrate I turn everything off. When a project is nearing completion, I’ll have it on big cards like a storyboard spread out all over the floor with me on my knees in the middle. I finished up “My Personal Panther” on the floor of our room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I had to tell the maids “don’t clean the living room”!

WOTS: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

JC: I’d like to be a locomotive engineer on a steam tourist railroad like “The Strasburg RR” in Pennsylvania.

WOTS: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?

JC: I cry listening to music a lot. Henry Mancini, Gino Vanelli, Sondheim, Jerry Herman and 50 others. Their music is so beautiful.

WOTS: What was your inspiration for My Personal Panther?

JC: We have 6 cats, all rescues, or course. During a check-up, our vet, Patty Unger of Kensington Veterinary Hospital casually mentioned to me that a house cat is physiologically no different than a lion. Same thing – just smaller. I thought “Hmmm…what if a little girl and her cat both thought the cat was a panther?”

WOTS: How did you team up with Terry Naughton to illustrate the book?

JC: It easily could not have happened. About 15 months ago on The Jeff & Jer Showgram, I casually mentioned I was writing a children’s book an needed an illustrator. I asked anyone who was interested to send me a sample of their work. I thought I’d get 3 or 4. About 50 people send me stuff. One of them was Terry, and I instantly knew he was the guy. Interesting thing though: Terry wasn’t listening that morning. A friend of his was though, and called him.

WOTS: Can you tell me a little bit about the work you do for animals?

JC: I am on the Board of Directors of the Humane Society of the United States, which is the largest, most effective animal protection organization in the world. Wherever there are animals suffering, on factory farms, behind the doors of research laboratories, in the middle of the ocean, in dog fighting rings, puppy mills, – wherever cruelty happens, HSUS is there to confront it. Pam and I also work locally. In 1989, we founded The Unicorn Foundation which raises money for animal protection.

WOTS: We here at Writing on the Sidewalk tend to procrastinate with our writing, where do you fit in Procrastinator or Proactive?

JC: Ahh! Let me share something Paul Theroux (yes, Paul Theroux) told me one night while he and Pam and I were at dinner. (Another story for another time). What he said changed my writing life forever – despite having read or heard everything else about “writer’s block” and “putting it off”, etc. He said to me: “Amateurs wait for inspiration. The rest of us just go to work every day”.

Thanks Jerry for spending some time with us today.

If our readers would like to learn more about Jerry and his book please check out his “Personal Panther” site. We’ll keep you posted on his next book as well.

Happy Reading,

Suzanne Santillan

Writing on the Sidewalk

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Meet Beep and Bah: An Up Close and Personal Interview

I am pleased to announce the upcoming release of “Beep and Bah”  the newest book from author James Burks.

Beep and Bah   

By James Burks

©2012 Carolrhoda Books

Here is the description of the book:

Beep is a robot who hungers for adventure. Bah is a goat who wants to stay out of trouble. When Bah discovers a single sock, Beep knows there’s only one thing to do: find its match! Together, Beep and Bah begin a winding journey that takes them up high hills and into the deep ocean. On the way, they‘ll meet monkeys, whales, and angry bears—but will they find the missing sock?

Today we have the honor of interviewing the stars of this fun, rollicking tale. We have been warned that Mr. Bah is sometimes difficult to understand, so Mr. Beep has graciously agreed to translate:

 Beep and Bah is scheduled for release on March 1, 2012. Be sure to keep your eye out for this hilarious book.

Happy Reading,

Suzanne Santillan

Writing on the Sidewalk

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Author Spotlight: Karen Coombs

The December meeting for our SCBWI- San Diego chapter features local published authors sharing lessons that they have learned throughout the year. This is a highly informative meeting and I always come away feeling truly inspired. This year, local author Karen Coombs shared her experiences of turning an out of print book into the ebook “Bully at Ambush Corner.” I was inspired by her story and invited Karen to visit with us on the Sidewalk

.

Karen’s Bio:

Karen Mueller Coombs is the author of nine published fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults. Born in Wisconsin and raised in Northern Alberta, Karen is a former elementary school teacher now living in Southern California, where she ice curls and plays golf when she isn’t reading and writing.

Author Spotlight:

WOTS: Can you tell me a bit about your writing process? Do you plot or not?

KMC: I’m definitely not a plotter. I usually have an idea of how I want the story to end, but the road between the beginning and that goal often goes back and forth and around and around. I’m like a night traveler with a lantern that illuminates only a teeny bit of the dark path ahead. Fortunately, both the traveler and I can reach our destinations one step at a time, and if I’ve created characters with enough depth and breadth, and if I love and trust them, they will lead me in the right direction. I admire people who plot out an entire novel, scene by scene, before they write the first sentence. I think I’d lose my enthusiasm for the work if I did that. I seem to work best by hurtling down that dark path and getting excited by the ideas I stumble over on the way.

Because I don’t plot, I once had an unnerving experience. I was working on the first draft of a middle grade novel and was excited about what was going to happen next, but didn’t make a note of it. Why should I? It was such a marvelous idea, I couldn’t possibly forget it. Ri-i-i-ght! Life intervened and I didn’t get back to the story for a few months. By that time, my wonderful plot point had dribbled out of my brain. An excellent—though frustrating—lesson. When you have a brilliant idea, write it down no matter how much you trust your memory!

WOTS: Are you working on any new projects that you can tell us about?

KMC: I have quite a few manuscripts underway. Some are picture books, which I’d love to see illustrated and published, but which I forget to submit. (Did I mention brain dribble?)

I have a humorous, young adult contemporary novel circulating among agents and editors. The main characters are two 15-year-old boys. An agent is interested, but wants a revision, which might require me to restore at least one of the two subplots I had previously cut, but which I WROTE DOWN. The story is cleaner without the subplots, but I don’t think it has as much depth, which is what the agent felt too.

Currently, I’m totally engrossed in revising a middle grade historical fiction set in the west in the late 1800s. This has been a long-term project, and I believe this rewrite is the version it was meant to be. Gee, if I were a plotter, I might have reached this point sooner. But by working slowly, I’ve really gotten to know my hysterically funny, rebellious main character (based on a real person) and to enjoy her company longer. When this book is finished, I’ll miss having her rattle around in my head and sharing her hair-brained schemes, which are meant to solve her problems, but which only complicate her life.

The latest project is an eBook collaboration with a group of other published writers. We are banding together and working with an eBook coordinator to update and publish our out-of-print biographies under the series heading Spotlight Biographies.

WOTS: Describe your studio or usual work space for us.

KMC: In high school, I had a home economics teacher who daily drilled us on the maxim, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Since I’m an organized person who has difficulty thinking straight if I’m surrounded by a mess, in my office everything does have a place. That being said, I’ll confess that when I’m in the middle of a number of different projects, my desk looks like someone tossed a recycling bin on it. However, I am very, very fortunate to have a dedicated office of my own, with lots of desk space to litter, book shelves all around, and all the necessary equipment, paraphernalia, and reference books at hand. I have windows on the south, and French doors on the east looking out on a fountain, whose trickle I find soothing when the writing’s not going well, and which attracts an entertaining parade of birds that ruffle around in the water or sit at the edge and take dainty sips when they aren’t at the nearby bird feeder. Once, flocks of crows decimated the feeder on a regular basis, digging in with their greedy beaks and flinging out the seed as fast as we could add it, so it’s now covered with a plastic grid that allows the smaller birds to go through or behind, but keeps the crows out. It was fun watching the crows’ first visit after the barrier was added, trying to come up with a way to get past it. Now they seldom bother to come. Fast learners, crows.

On my office walls, there is a print of the loaded shelves and the spiral staircase in the Trinity College Library in Dublin for inspiration, two prints by Canadian “Group of Seven” artists A.Y. Jackson and Tom Thomson, which remind me of home, and another of shaggy Highland cattle, which reminds me of my heritage. Writing awards, family photos, and handmade gifts from my children when they were small are scattered around the shelves. But my pièce de résistance is a housekeeping doorknob hanger I pinched from a hotel in Scotland. Whenever I don’t want to be bothered, I close my door to reveal the hanger, which does not say, “Privacy Please,” but the more direct, “Leave me alone.”No one pays it any mind.

WOTS: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

KMC: There are quite a few professions I would have loved to attempt. Heck, since I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be, perhaps I’ll still try them!

When I was about to graduate from high school, the career counselor called me in to discuss my career plans. I told her I wanted to be an interior designer. Why? Because I had recently seen a movie that made that job look romantic and exciting. Wonderful logic!

The counselor never looked at my grades to see where I excelled. She never suggested journalism or creative writing, or even teaching, so off I went to college to study interior design, completely forgetting that my tenth grade English teacher had told me I could make my living as a writer. If only I had known how many different kinds of jobs existed in that field.

It wasn’t long before I was getting F in furniture design—because I couldn’t remember a Queen Ann-style leg from a Victorian—and getting A in English and psychology. I ended up becoming a teacher, because I didn’t know there were such jobs as journalist, columnist, or foreign correspondent, careers I might still choose if I go for a do-over.

However (shhhh, don’t tell), my longtime secret, secret dream was to be a singer. A country western singer. What stopped me? The big hair and big skirts they wore back in the day. What stops me now? My voice dribbled away like a certain plot point, going from mellow to screech.

WOTS: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?

I’m an avid ice curler who is able to feed my passion because there is a curling league in San Diego. We don’t have a dedicated curling rink, so use arena ice. But for those of us who love the sport, it’s still curling, and we’re grateful to be able to slide, sweep, and, occasionally, crack our heads. Had curling been a viable profession when I was in high school, it would have been my number one career choice, relegating the country western singing to the shower. And if curling had been an Olympic event back then, I would have aimed for that. Two of my loves—curling and the Olympics. Heaven!

And for those of you who think curling is a boring, wussy sport, please join us. You’ll learn how much of the game depends on skill and strategy. And I’ll provide the Tiger Balm.

WOTS: Your recent ebook release, Bully at Ambush Corner, is a revision of a previously published book, can you tell us what led to this decision?  

KMC: For a few years, life was crazy and demanding, and I wasn’t able to write. When I returned to it full time, the business had changed. (Plenty has been written about how different it is today for writers trying to sell their work, so I won’t go into that.) Where once my manuscripts would easily have found a publishing house, now I struggled to get an overworked agent or editor to even read them. I am persistent, determined, and a hard worker. (I’m a Taurus, after all.) But my efforts seemed to be getting me nowhere. Frustrated, I began paying attention to all the talk of eBooks, and decided my out-of-print books might be worth converting to that format. From my middle grade novels, I chose Beating Bully O’Brien for my initiation, because the topic of bullying is timely and timeless. I chose BookBaby to design the cover and do the conversions to all formats. After a revision, the greatly improved book, renamed Bully at Ambush Corner, was published on November 1.

 WOTS: Can you share some of the highs and lows of republishing a book as an ebook?

KMC: Publishing my ebook was a wild roller coaster ride. The same challenge could fit both the high and low category. For example, for a (recovering) control freak it’s a definite high knowing I had complete control of the entire book, cover included. At the same time, complete control meant I also had full responsibility for the book’s failure or success, because promoting it fell entirely on my shoulders. A definite low.

Getting the perfect cover design was a challenge for me. The first cover samples from BookBaby seemed too busy and the characters didn’t match their descriptions. I ended up spending hours and hours on Photoshop designing the cover myself. A downer. But the final results are exactly what I had in mind. An upper.

Release day was more anxiety-producing than for any of my previous eight books. I knew I hadn’t done as much preliminary promotion as I should have. I wasn’t even sure what kind of promotion I should be doing and was playing catch up as quickly as possible. Then, when I discovered errors in the book, I immediately went into a massive stomach clench. (You can read about that on my blog.)

One difficult aspect of my journey through eBookville is the lack of feedback I’m getting to date. Because I used a third party to convert and submit my manuscript, I don’t get sales figures directly from the booksellers, but have to wait until BookBaby receives them and sends them to me. So I have no idea if or how many books are being sold. Patience. Patience. Gr-r-r-r-r.

The biggest challenge, however, is the promotion itself. It takes oodles of time to contact news outlets, to blog, tweet, and post on Facebook, and, to date, there is little to indicate if my efforts are going out into a big black void of silent indifference. An invitation to guest on another blog, such as Writing on the Sidewalk, is a massive high.

Weighing the highs and lows, would I do it again? Sure. It’s great knowing my out-of-print books can be made available to a new generation of readers. Double darn sure I’d do it again if sales reports indicate I might actually earn some money. And since we’re already moving ahead with the Spotlight Biographies series, whose first book is soon to be released, I guess I’m committed. Here’s hoping.

WOTS: We here at Writing on the Sidewalk tend to procrastinate with our writing, where do you fit in Procrastinator or Proactive?

KMC: Both. When I have a book underway, I’m eager to get to my office and write. In between, not so much. I’ll dither and dawdle, toy with different ideas, organize a lot of cupboards and drawers, play computer games, and read. And that last act is the one that gets me back to my desk. Then, once I have seat of pants on seat of chair, I remember how much fun writing is and I get enthusiastic about a new idea, a new book. So, for me, first comes the perspiration, then the inspiration. If I waited to be inspired, I’d never write. Occasionally I’ll come up with an idea that sends me scampering to my computer, which is what happened with my current YA contemporary, but usually I dive in first and then I get fired up about my work.

A quotation by Emerson is posted above my desk: “May the work that you do be the play that you love.”

When it comes to my writing, that says it all. Now excuse me while I go and play.

WOTS: Thanks Karen for visiting with us today.

If you’d like to learn more about Karen or her book Bully at Ambush Corner please be sure to check the following links:

www.karencoombs.com

www.bullyatambushcorner.com

Happy Reading,

Suzanne Santillan

Writing on the Sidewalk

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