In Which I try to Recap SCBWI, but really I just talk about a Toilet

Hey y'all.


It's good to be back. It's also bad to be back, because I had such a good time in L.A. meeting with friends and like-minded people (read "other crazy writers") and being inspired by such literary greats as Judy Blume, Richard Peck and Libba Bray. 


Also, just a warning, I took all of two pictures at the conference, and those two pictures were of the toilet in our hotel room. 


There's a reason for that. The toilet had two flusher buttons on top of it:

We figured out that the left flusher was sort of a "half-flush" option, I guess to be more environmentally friendly and less water-wasting. 


For the first couple of days, I pondered each and every trip to the bathroom, asking questions like, "Does what I accomplished in here warrant a larger carbon footprint?" and "Will the half-flush option be adequate?"


Then I would warn my roommates: "Just so you know, I half-flushed." Then I would warn strangers in the hallway: "Just so you know, I half-flushed."


Sometimes I would use the half-flush option, and then I feared that it wasn't enough, so I would half-flush two more times. 


By day three, I was tired of passing judgment on my trips to the bathroom. So I flipped the bird to the environment and full-flushed every time. 


And it felt good.


And yes, I did just spend the first half of the post talking about a toilet. 


Some other highlights:


*I was this-close to Judy Blume!

That lady looks like she's about to karate-shop Judy's arm.

*During dinner with my agent, I sat two tables away from Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon. I now count my degrees away from Kevin Bacon in "tables". 


*I heard Laurie Halse Anderson (SPEAK) speak.

She encouraged us to ask ourselves, in the words of T.S. Elliot, "Do I dare disturb the universe?"  


She also said, "Your muse is you." This makes it even more annoying when my muse doesn't show up for work. 


*Bruce Colville reminded writers: If you don't jump, the wings will never come.


*The amazing and eloquent Richard Peck spoke. 

He said: Unless you find yourself on the page very early in life, you will spend your life looking for yourself in all the wrong places. 


I love Richard Peck. At my first SCBWI conference two years ago, I told him my first book was currently on submission. And he asked, in his regal voice, "And what are you doing in the meantime?"


I thought about the answer he was looking for. I said, "Writing my next book."


He said, "That is the right answer."


So, directly after that conversation, I started actually writing my next book, because I didn't want to lie to someone like Richard Peck. That book was EVERNEATH. 


*I went to lunch with some awesome writers. 

(from the left) Josephine Angelini (Starcrossed), Bree Despain (The Dark Divine), Brodi Ashton (Everneath), Lindsey Leavitt (Princess For Hire),  Lani Woodland (Intrinsical), Leigh Fallon (Carrier of the Mark), Morgan Shamy (writer), Alexandra Monir (Timeless), Gretchen McNeil (Possess).

I stole this picture from Leigh Fallon's blog. She mentioned how the pic looks eerily like the Last Supper. It really does. But I prefer to think of it as the First Lunch. 


Okay, this post is getting really long. I'll have more stories about my toilet on Friday. 


But for now, I ask you, do you dare disturb the universe? Well? Do you?

Overheard this Weekend, Including Gems from the SCBWI Conference, Church, and Kid C

Hey y'all.  We're on the home stretch for edits. They're due this Friday, and I'll warn you now... blogging may or may not happen this week. And if it does, it may or may not sound crazy. 

Okay, crazier than usual. 

Last weekend, I attended the SCBWI conference, went to church, had a family dinner, worked on edits... so I thought it'd be fun to share with you some of the phrases I overheard during my exploits. (Who knew going to church was an "exploit"?)

Things overheard this past weekend:

"Pick me! I wanna be a leper! Me! Me!"

-From a boy in primary who was volunteering for a presentation on a parable

"Query hooks should be equal parts desirable and unique. A paranormal romance where the main character falls for a supernatural creature? Desirable, but not unique. A story about a child serial killer? Unique, but not desirable. Make it both."

-paraphrased from Chelsea Eberly, Associate Editor at Random House

"Mormons are lucky they don't drink. They wake up in the morning and they know that how they feel at that moment is the best they're going to feel all day."

-From my uncle at the dinner table

"Voice [in writing] can't be taught. But it can be cultivated, like a garden."

-Matt Kirby, author of The Clockwork Three

"If you want to keep something secret, put it in the instructor handbook."

-From a church leader at an instructor training seminar

"It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is with a poor one."

-My mother-in-law quoting her own mother 

"Shots kill kids!!"

-Shouted from Kid C to the waiting room as we were leaving the doctor's office after receiving our flu shots.

So, what did you overhear this weekend? And how is everybody doing?

M.T. Anderson's Break Out Session, or Why My Head Exploded at SCBWI

Howdy.

I promised I'd do a post on M.T. Anderson's breakout session for Experimental Fiction at SCBWI. 

Here he is practicing his speech in a corner before the class. We thought that was so cool. 

He started things off by discussing a poem by Kurt Schwitters.

It's probably not a surprise that this man wrote Experimental poetry. Anyway, we discussed his "Poem 25". I tried to find it on the stupid internetz, but no luck. So, I'll do my best to recreate what I remember.

25

25, 25, 26

26, 26, 27

27, 27, 28

32, 34, 36, 38

33, 35, 37, 39

56

9, 9, 9

57

8, 8, 8, 

58

7, 7, 7, 

59

6, 6, 6, 

3/4, 6, 6, 

48

4, 4, 4, 

3/4, 4, 4,

4, 1/4, 

4

Okay, so that's not the precise poem, but it's something like that, and it is weird for two reasons: 

One: this poem happens to be my exact answer when somebody asks me my age.

Two: I don't know if you noticed, but this poem is made up entirely of numbers. 

Somehow when M.T. Anderson read it aloud, though, it made perfect sense, and I started thinking, "Duh, of course 59 would be followed by three 6's. It's an inevitability! And the third line is just foreshadowing the triumph of the number 4."

Thankfully, M.T. hit on something closer to my own reading level next. 

He's all, "Notice how Seuss goes from counting the fish to discussing the colors?"

I start nodding my head emphatically. "Yes! Yes! I get that! I totally noticed that!"

At one point, Matt Kirby (or He Who Shall not be Named on the Blog) wondered how to translate experimental examples like these into longer works, like novels. 

Matt has a point. I wouldn't want to read an entire novel written in numbers.

I'm a little unclear on the concept, and I'm not familiar with large works of experimental fiction, but the lecture reminded me of how much I enjoyed the movie Brick.

The movie uses words in a new way (to me), where the dialogue means what it sounds like spoken aloud, even if the words don't make sense by their lonesomes. 

For instance, after the main character Brendan gets beat up by a thug, he confronts the gang leader "The Pin". Read it out loud. Don't be afraid. Even if you're at work:

Brendan Frye: Your muscle seemed plenty cool putting his fist in my head. I want him out.
The Pin: Looky, soldier...
Brendan Frye: The ape blows or I clam. 

And later, telling his friends he doesn't want to involve the authorities:

Brendan Frye: No, bulls would gum it. They'd flash their dusty standards at the wide-eyes and probably find some yegg to pin, probably even the right one. But they'd trample the real tracks and scare the real players back into their holes, and if we're doing this I want the whole story. No cops, not for a bit. 

Cool, huh? 

I wish I could compose some conclusive sentence, summing it all up, but I lack the brain cells. Maybe Matt Kirby could. He seemed to be on the same level as M.T. 

Leave a comment, so I know I'm not the only one going... Wha??? 

Or just tell me what y'all are up to this weekend.

LA SCBWI Recap, in which I meet my Agent, and dance the Love Shack with M.T. Anderson

Hey y'all! 

So, I'm back from the L.A. SCBWI conference, and although Sam told me to take plenty of pictures, I ended up with about 10 of Michael Bourret, and about 4 others.  

I'll get into specifics later, but here are the highlights of the trip:

- I met my agent Michael Bourret for the first time ever! 

He was a rock star at the conference, and every time he walked through the lobby, he got mobbed as if he were Keith Richards at a Stones concert. To his credit, he was kind and gracious to everyone.

 (Michael Bourret, me)

I had an hour with him, so of course I spent the first forty minutes discussing my obsession with Rafa, because that's exactly how I like to manage my time with my agent.

In my defense, I had just met a movie producer guy who hinted that he could introduce me to Rafa, and that's not a good thing to say to me as I'm heading off to meet my agent for the first time. 

It went something like this:

Michael: "Brodi, it's so good to finally meet you!"

me: "Hey! Speaking of "meeting", did you know there's a guy over there who said he could introduce me to Rafa Nadal? What can you do to make it happen faster?"

Great first impression.

-M.T. Anderson was at the conference. 

He wrote books like Feed and Octavian Nothing, so yeah, he was King. 

I went to a breakout session of his, where some random guy from the audience got to help him set up his projector. 

(M. T. Anderson and Random Guy (aka Matt Kirby) having a total fanboy moment)

Sorry, that's the only picture I got of M.T. I know it's blurry. And that's not a random guy. That's author Matt Kirby, but Matt accused me of blogging about him "all the time", especially about his "dancing", so I promised Matt I wouldn't mention his name in any of my conference blogs.

I'll blog more about M.T.'s breakout session on Friday.

- I went to the Hearts and Souls Ball. 

(Emily Wing Smith, Bree Despain, me, Sydney Salter)

I learned my lesson last year when I tried to wear shorts to the ball, and was promptly laughed off the dance floor. (btw, laughing someone off the dance floor is not as fun as it sounds. It is difficult to achieve, and painful for the target.)

This year, I wore a skirt! Unfortunately, I did not win "best costume." I think I was robbed.

- We danced!

(Me, Matt Kirby, Emily Wing Smith, Bree Despain)

Okay, so I don't have pictures of us dancing... unless you count this one.

Matt Kirby (a.k.a. "He who shall not be mentioned") claimed he couldn't (or wouldn't) be dancing, but the second the band started up with B-52's Love Shack, there was no stopping him. 

Eventually, M.T. Anderson came over to our little circle and danced with us, prompting this inscription in my book:

"To Brodi: What fun we had in the LOVE SHACK"

Which made my hubby laugh and laugh. And laugh. And I think raise an eyebrow.

- I went to a breakout session led by Michael Bourret and Jill Alexander, author of The Sweetheart of Prosper County. 

Michael and Jill killed in there. Literally, there were bodies, and limbs, and various types of bodily ooze, everywhere. They were that funny. 

After the cleanup crew bleached the place, I got a picture.

(Michael, Jennifer Hunt - editor at Little, Brown books, Emily, me)

-I got to meet up with authors!

That's the very cool thing about going to SCBWI. You get to hang out in the lobby and make friends with people who love children's books, and who are just as crazy as you.  Yes, you. I mean, me.

(Bree, me, Emily, Lindsey Leavitt -"Princess for Hire", Lisa Schroeder- "It's Raining Cupcakes")

- Did I mention I met my agent?

(me, wonderful girl whose name I don't know, Michael, Emily, Alice Pope of Team Blog fame)

Did I mention Michael accused me of blinding him with my cheap-a** camera? Did I mention I had to steal the camera cuz I don't have one of my own?

When he found out, Michael frowned and said, "We need to get you a book deal." I couldn't agree more. I'd like a deal at least large enough to buy me a camera that doesn't cause retinal damage. So, $250 should be fine. 

Okay, this post has gone on long enough. I'll have more later! I missed you all, and I would've blogged from the conference, but the hotel charged for Wi-Fi, and if I can't afford a camera, I certainly can't afford to pay for Wi-Fi, which should really be as free as air.

So, what have y'all been up to?