Onward, 2012

I'm still tergiversating about what to write, blogwise. You'll find me at Project Mayhem on Boxing Day, and there is an exciting blog tour, featuring a middle grade historical, scheduled on Middle Grade Mafioso for mid January. So even as I eat, drink, and make merry, the writing wheels are turning.

Thank you all for reading this blog, and the two afore-mentioned, this year. It is always nice to read your comments and to have your comradeship on this grand adventure. If you have any movie recommendations for the holidays, or know of a great literary quiz, let me know.

Otherwise, have a happy end of 2011, and a happy New Year. See you in 2012!!

What's Your "Word of the Year?"

From my beloved Shelf Awareness:

Dictionary.com's Word of the Year: 'Tergiversate'

"Tergiversate" ("to change repeatedly one's attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc.; equivocate") was named Dictionary.com's 2011 word of the year, the Huffington Post reported, observing: "So we could say that, in 2011, the stock market tergiversated; or that the public tergiversated about Occupy Wall Street." Jay Schwartz, Dictionary.com's head of content said, "We're taking a stand on this choice. We think that it's immensely rewarding to find existing words that capture a precise experience, and this year, tumult has been the norm rather than the exception. There are contested public spaces around the world, where people are demonstrating in one direction or another. Opinions and circumstances have been oscillating so much." This year's verbal shortlist included "occupy," "austerity," "jobs" (both the noun and the person), "zugzwang" and "insidious." Don't know when I'll next be using tergiversate in conversation. Or "zugzwang," for that matter. I have just googled it and found it means "compulsion to move" and is often used in chess. Perhaps I'll tell my Christmas dinner companions that I'm "tergiversating about my zugzwanging." After which, I'll probably have to dine alone. Any wonderful words you'd like to share from 2011? What's YOUR word of the year?

Bakers' Dozen Agent Auction Update

To recap: My MG novel, Shakespeare on the Lam, was one of the entries in Authoress's Bakers' Dozen Agent Auction. Which meant my logline and first 250 words got a whole bunch of amazing and helpful critiques. And then on Tuesday, starting at 11 EST, the agents started bidding.

Was I glued to the action on screen? Well, I would have been--except that Tuesday was the day for my annual adventure with my father-in-law to snag the cheapest Christmas tree in the tri-county area. Last year I blogged about my trophy, the $10 tree that fell off a helicoptor on its way to Mexico. This year, we took a much more leisurely tack and bought $20 Groupons for Christmas trees and a half pound of organic coffee out at Boring Bark. (The Boring bit is the name of the town, not too far from Portland.) My father-in-law's 9 foot Noble is a nice-lookin' tree--and without the Groupon it would have cost $60. So we were chuffed little happy campers.

I got home around noon PST, to an excited voice mail from my wife. She'd been snooping over at the auction and called to let me know that several agents had been bidding, and that the full manuscript of Shakespeare had gone to Victoria Marini, an agent at the Gelfman Schneider agency (the agency that represents one of our favorite writers, Chris Bohjalian.)

I followed Authoress's instructions and e-mailed the full to Ms. Marini. She has a week's exclusive. After that, other bidding agents can make requests.

It was great fun, and I have to thank Authoress for the auction and for the sense of community she fosters on her blog. If you haven't found Miss Snark's First Victim, do yourself a favor and check it out. As one commenter once wrote, it's like Match.com for agents and authors.

A couple of the other entries I liked did well also: Karen Akins's LOOP and Tara Dairman's GLADYS GATSBY TAKES THE CAKE.  Read them if you have a moment. They're great.

So there you have it. I'd worry and fixate, but I still have a ton of Cybils books to read and a Christmas tree to decorate. Have a great weekend.

I'm Being Auctioned Off

Ever wondered what sort of stuff I write when I'm not entertaining the world with my blogging and tweeting skills?

Well, you have the chance to view--and even critique--the opening of my middle grade novel, SHAKESPEARE ON THE LAM (Lucky Number 52). It was one of 35 YA/MG entries (out of 350) to be chosen to take part in Authoress's Bakers' Dozen Auction over at Miss Snark's First Victim. Come Monday, 15 agents will be doing the agent equivalent of the Black Friday dash into the Mall of America, nudging each other aside as they bid on the number of pages they want to read from the entrants they most covet.

Till then, the rest of us get to comment and critique. I would love to see you there--and I promise that if you have any constructive criticisms I will be delighted. I want this piece to be the strongest it can be.

A Writer's Thanksgiving Dinner: Jane Austen's Bringing the Madeira

Jane Austen, waiting for me to pass the wine

The other day, while driving and listening to NPR, I had the good fortune to come across the following story. Miles Hoffman, the music commentator, was answering the question about which famous composers he'd like to have around his Thankgiving table. (The only stipulation was that they had to be playing piano in the afterlife.)

Can you guess which famous musical dudes Hoffman chose? If you answered Bach, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, and Bloch you need to zoom on over to the Hoffman homestead to hobnob and help yourself to some cranberry sauce. (You can listen to the broadcast here.)

Got me to thinking. Which writers (at their heavenly desks) would I like to have around my Thanksgiving table? I love Jane Austen, and figure she'd be a lot of snarky fun. Robert Burns would be a good sport, especially if he brought along a bottle or two of Scotch. Everybody who knows me also knows I have a thing for Shakespeare. He'd be on for a sonnet or several.

Who else do you think should join the fun?
(I'm light on Americans, and it IS their holiday. Any recommendations?

[Thanks, everyone, for kind comments on my previous post. To all my faithful readers and commenters: I will be raising a glass to you this Thanksgiving, grateful that you are all a part of my life.]

What Do You Do When The Blogging Well Runs Dry?

There is a tide in the affairs of, well, everything. Shakespeare knew it; the writer of Ecclesiastes knew it. (What would he write now? "A time to tweet and a time to stay silent?") And now I know it. To run a good blog takes time, energy, and creativity. God only knows how the post-a-day bloggers do it!!

These days, I'm pretty much running on empty--at least with ideas on what to blog about. It doesn't help that I am spending every waking moment driving my son to theater rehearsals, reading 145 middle grade novels, and trying to finish the first draft of my WIP. The middle grade novels get reviewed on Middle Grade Mafioso, other ideas get lined up for Project Mayhem, and The Year of Writing Dangerously thrashes/faffs about looking for direction.

This may be how it's supposed to be at this stage of my writing life. I have no "I have an agent" stories to make a hullabaloo about; no tales to tell of the road to publication. And other writers do a much better job writing about the craft of writing (Janice Hardy, anyone?)

So I'm pulling up the drawbridge for a while, hoping that if I don't HAVE TO write something, inspiration will arrive. I'll still be a Mafioso--so pop on over there if you miss me.

Have you ever felt your blogging well run dry? What did you do: walk away or retool?

Win a Scrumptilicious Copy of The Cookiepedia!

I must be one of the luckiest writers alive. Remember my post about Stacy Adimando's book signing, where attendees got beer, books, and cookies? Well, the good folks at Quirk Books came upon this, and now I have my very own copy of The Cookiepedia:Mixing, Baking, and Reinventing the Classics.


O joy! O gustatory rapture! I am spending a happy afternoon drooling over Stacie's recipes for Cardamon Cookies and Snickerdoodles, along with photographer Tara Striano's mouthwatering portraits of Thin Mints and Poppy Seed Squares. Every writer should have The Cookiepedia to hand, because even a Muse gets a bit peckish at times.

Here's where one good turn deserves another: Comment or Tweet to @MGMafioso, introducing me to your favorite cookie (or "biscuit") and I'll enter you in a drawing for your very own copy of The Cookiepedia. Commenting AND Tweeting wins you extra sprinkles!! (International commenters and tweeters welcome--there's a nifty conversion chart at the back!)


I love this quote at the beginning of The Cookiepedia:

"Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap."
                                                                                     - Robert Fulghum