write on con started today.

The site went down pretty quickly.

I’ve found the conference moved to http://lisa-laura.blogspot.com/

Lots of really great stuff! I’m loving it!

I confess, I’ve never read any of Mr. Barron’s books. But after watching him in these videos, I’m going to rectify that. His passion is infectious.

I’m guessing, after hearing him, that he and I have different worldviews. I”m not a big one for looking for the hero inside. I know that’s a really common theme in children’s books and I’m the odd duck here. I know the power in our hearts is a widely held belief these days.

I remember when my son was three and he was in gymnastics. His teachers, a wonderful couple of the Baha’i faith, used to gather the little tykes up in a huddle at the end of their hour and they’d all put their hands in, one on top of another, and they’d shout, ‘I can do anything!”

And I, being the stickler that I am, would tell my son and daughter as we drove home, “‘I can do all things through him who strengthens me.’ Jesus is the one that gives us strength to do things. It’s not really true that you can do anything. You can’t walk through fire and live, for instance. You can’t run as fast the car. You can’t stay up past eight o’clock.”

Yes, I know. It’s a fine line and many people don’t see it. But I’ve always been determined to tell my kids the truth (no Santa for the poor things), and it really isn’t true that we can do anything, or that we can do anything we set our minds to. We can’t sprout wings and fly.

But we can think and dream and work and invent airplanes. Yes. So I understand that we need to encourage our children to dream big.

And so I can enjoy a man like Mr. Barron, who has a passion for his characters and his story and, most importantly for his audience. He wants to empower children, if I may use a rather tired word. He wants to encourage them to reach and stretch and to feel the wonder of who they are. And children should feel wonderful. Every child should understand that he is fearfully and wonderfully made, that he is unique, and that he has a voice and a purpose. Every child should know that he is wanted, if not by his parents, then by God, and every child should feel that he has the right to try and fail or, even, Lord willing, to try and succeed.

So I’m looking forward to meeting young Merlin and Basil and seeing what they have to say to me about what I can try, though I’m long past being a child. After all, I still need to be encouraged to reach.

In celebration of the freshly toured and newly released Calamity Jack, I am pleased to have the three Hales drop by for an interview.

OK I am a little more than pleased. I’m giddy with excitement that Shannon Hale, one of my favorite writers of all time, has condescended to visit my little blog and that she has brought her two talented sidekicks along with her.

So…On with the interview.

WoD: Shannon, Book of a Thousand Days is my favorite of your stories. After I read it, I was amazed that so much of it took place in a small tower with only two characters present for most of that time. And yet, in that confined space, with that confined cast, it was such a compelling read. I’m wondering, though, did you ever with that book, or with any of your books, hit times when you thought, “This can’t work. It’s ridiculous. I need more characters/scenery/action/humor/angst/whatever to make this work. This book just stinks!”

Shannon Hale: Wow, thanks, Sally. This book is very dear to me. There were definitely times (read: daily) when I thought to myself, This is crazy. You can’t write a book where there are two characters locked up in darkness for the first half! But the challenge of it intrigued me. Most of my books have big, epic landscapes, which I love. But the idea of trying to whittle down the story to the essentials was very inviting. Like writing a one-act play. After reading Maid Maleen (the fairy tale I based the story on) I was determined to start the book already in the tower. I knew it was risky, and maybe that choice has turned off some readers, but I also knew that having that space as the start would allow so much more movement later in the story and get it to where I wanted it to go by the end.

And to be honest, the risks and doubts come with every book, and often. Every time I start a new book, I think, This is impossible. How do you write a novel?

WoD:  Heh heh. That’s heartening to those of us who are struggling with trying to start novels of our own. You succeed in making it all look so easy. Do you have the most trouble with beginnings, middles, or endings on your books? Or once you get your start does the rest of it just flow effortlessly from your fingertips?

Shannon Hale: It’s really amazing, I don’t know what other writers complain about. I just sit down and the story flows through my fingers onto the computer screen as easily as a sigh. (Ah, if only…) They’re all battles, but the trouble spots vary with each book and each draft. First drafts are the hardest for me though. Once I have that, I have clay to mold. Rewriting is a lot more fun.

 WoD: I would have guessed that you like rewriting. Your writing is fun to read, so I could tell you like to polish up the words to make sure the pictures you paint are just right. So, how long does it take you to write a book, on average, from idea to final draft?

Shannon Hale: 1-7 years, depending on the book and the daily time I can devote. I usually have two books going on at once so while my editor has one, I can be working on another. Yeah, I’m a little obsessive.

WoD: And obsessive people are so much fun to work with. Dean, when you and Shannon write together, do you sit together and brainstorm, or do you write one scene and she another?

Dean Hale: We brainstorm a lot, way before we even begin writing. We seem to do our best work when I’m trapped, like on a long car trip, or after something exceptionally heavy has fallen on me.

WoD: Heh heh. Who has final word on a scene if there’s a disagreement?

Dean Hale: Shannon does, mostly. From the beginning we had to decide someone was the boss, so we wouldn’t get mired down in turf wars and inevitable knife fights. Shannon is the boss at home, so that setup came naturally.

 WoD:  And I am thankful for that, because my favorite part of Calamity Jack was the romance. Whose idea was that? I bet you and Nathan thought the giant ants were enough to carry the story.

Dean Hale: Oh, no, the romance was all mine. I wrote this beautiful 12 page scene of Jack and Rapunzel talking about their feelings, but Shannon said that didn’t leave enough room for the giant ants. Giant anything takes up a lot of space. And yes, that was all a lie. Except for giant things taking up a lot of space. That’s true.

Shannon Hale: I remember in Rapunzel’s Revenge, you wrote the first draft of the last scene, that big romantic climax, and you scripted a very affectionate hug. I was like, nuh-uh. Step aside and let the lady handle the romance.

WoD:  Jack is such a sweet, clueless fellow who always seems to mess things up, but that’s what makes him attractive. He’s far from arrogant—he’s not sure of himself at all. He knows he’s screwed up and he is afraid that the smart and capable Rapunzel won’t be able to love him. When you write these graphic novels, or any of your books, do you have theme in mind? Are you trying to teach a lesson?

Shannon Hale: Themes are essential, and they come naturally with each draft. There are certain themes that just work with a story, enrich it. But I never try to teach a lesson. Didactic fiction doesn’t work. I hope that readers get what they need and teach themselves their own lessons.

Dena Hale: No, no lessons or themes, at least not in the moral sense. We have an idea of the journey we want a character to take, but mostly just try to find the characters, and if that’s working, the human-condition stuff comes with it. Also, I wanted to say “didactic,” too, but since Shannon beat me to it, I’ll have to shoehorn in a different nine-dollar word in the next question.

 WoD: I was amazed that you could get across such deep characterization (nine-dollar characterization, I guess you could call it, Dean) with so few words. How many words are in the novel? And does this mean a picture really is worth a thousand words?

Shannon Hale: The illustrations really take the place of a prose novel’s narrator. Nate is a storyteller, which is why we love him. His pictures and expressions are so wonderful. I’m not sure how many words it is, because our scripts have the dialog as well as the action descriptions. The final Calamity Jack script is 23,000 words, but most of that is description for Nate that the reader will never see.

Dean Hale: What she said. We also wrote character and world briefs, talking about the nature of Jack’s world and his internal journey. Then, magically, Nate took all that and infused the art with story-appropriate gravitas. There. There it is. “Gravitas.” Way cooler than “didactic.”

 WoD: Umm. I’m not so sure. Gravitas is cool, but didactic is pretty doggone tough to beat. But, moving on before we get into a fight about this…speaking of dear Nate, I have some questions for him, too.

Nathan, I’ve never read a graphic novel before. I really enjoyed Calamity Jack. I am so curious about how a collaborative book like this comes together. Shannon has just told that she and Dean do give you action descriptions. What does that look like? For instance, the text for The Great Sandwich Caper on page six, doesn’t tell anything about the caper itself. That story is told entirely through the pictures. Do you make up the story there, or do Shannon and Dean?

Nathan: It changes from panel to panel. That scene you mentioned was written out by the authors. Other times, they’ll just say “They Fight.” And leave the action to me. There are authors who go into detail on every panel and what should be in it, Shannon and Dean were pretty easy going and let me have free reign on many scenes.

 WoD:  How long did it take you to illustrate this novel?

Nathan: Just under a year.

 WoD: Yikes, that’s a long time. But I can believe it when I look at the details in those pictures. Which do you like best: drawing giant ants or drawing people kissing?

Nathan: Ant people are easy, I can draw one of those without even sketching it out. People kissing is a little trickier—you really have to plan it out. For the kisses in CALAMITY JACK, I looked at a lot of old movie posters from the 30s and 40s trying to find good poses for “Adventure Kisses” for lack of a better phrase.

WoD: Mmmhmm. Adventure Kisses. heh heh. That must be a guy thing. OK  This has nothing to do with Calamity Jack, but I just want to tell you I loved your twelve days of Christmas song on your blog. In fact, your entire blog is totally cool. How many hours a week do you spend on it?

Nathan: Oh thanks! My blog is a new thing. I actually started posting on a daily basis after JACK was finished. I now do a cartoon every weekday. Really it depends on how busy I am at the time. I put a lot of hours into THE 12 DAYS OF ROBO-CHRISTMAS. Most days I try to spend about 65 minutes or less on each post.

WoD: 65? Not 60 or 63? You’re an author as well as an illustrator. Which is easier; illustrating books you’ve written or ones written by others?

Nathan: Illustrating my own stories is a lot easier—I know exactly what I want to do and where I want to go. Collaborating is more challenging, I have to illustrate to the author as well as the audience. But collaboration leads to some cool things that I never would have come to on my own.

WoD: And you have certainly all three come up with some very cool things in Calamity Jack, the graphic novel. Well done! And thanks to all three of you for dropping by.

If you’d like to learn more about the three creative Hales, please visit them on the web. Here they are at home:

• Shannon
• Dean
• Nathan

OK Tour Fans, I’m as pleased as peacock in a pigsty to bring you an interview with that talented teller of tales, that wonderful weaver of words, that amazing maker of myth, Mmmmmmiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….. Ingrid Law. (Put your hands together everybody!)

Ingrid loves small-town quirkiness. That love comes through in Savvy, her debut novel, which won both a Newbery Honor Award and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor. It also spent three weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers List, was voted one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Books of the Year (2008), and was chosen by Booklist as one of the Top 10 First Novels for Youth (2008).

Ingrid, thanks for taking the time for this interview. I absolutely loved your prose in Savvy—you kind of pile up words, proving the adage, “less is more,” is not always true. More can be more when all the words add to the narrative and roll off the tongue in an interesting way (muddled and muzzy, and hollering hoo-ha, to pick two bits of fun from a random page). My question is: Where did you pick up this voice for Mibs? Have you ever known anyone who spoke the way she does?

Ingrid Law: Mibs’s voice is all her own. I had been reading a lot of tall tales at the time, so the tone definitely springs from that. But she uses a lot of alliteration and repeated words, or reduplicatives like “willy-nilly” and “shilly-shally.” I love words and love fitting them together into pleasant or fun-to-say combinations. Sometimes I’ll have to restructure a sentence just because it has one too many syllables–I get funny about my writing that way. Adages should be ignored and rules should be broken… at least every now and then.

Well you ignore the adages well. Yes, I can tell you love words. Scumble! What a great word. I was unfamiliar with it before I read this book. Do you read the dictionary for fun? Are you a painter? How did you decide on scumble? Or is a common word and I’ve just been living under a rock?

Ingrid Law:  So many people think that I made the word up. There aren’t actually too many words in the book that aren’t real. I don’t read the dictionary, but I do collect words. I have 4-5 “word of the day” sites I love. And if I’m reading and come across a new word I like, I’ll always write it down. “Scumble” just seemed like the perfect word for the “art” of learning to control a larger-than-life talent. If I understand it right, in painting, scumbling is a technique that ultimately helps balance all the hues in a painting, placing a thin layer of transparent paint over a tone that stands out too much so that it blends better with the rest of the image. If you think of that like a whole person, scumbling is like balancing all the elements of yourself so that no one thing (like the ability to make storms or hear other people’s thoughts, in the case of the characters in Savvy) takes over completely.

And yet, in your descriptions, you often paint in vibrant colors (and your fans are thankful because your characters are so much fun). Where did you learn how to describe people so quirkily? You have a sense of humor, obviously. You give us a thin man with thin hair, but he’s not just a thin man–he’s so thin he’d have to stand up twice to cast a shadow and his thin hair is combed over his head like a blanket (unless, of course, it’s flapping like a flag in one of Fish’s mighty winds). I can see the man hunched over, protecting himself, covering his bald head, holding his clipboard like a shield. He’s about to be blown over by the wrath of the preacher. And yet, he has that pink tie and that carnation on his overall strap and so I think there must be a something more to Lester—some bit of self-confidence. I mean, he’s wearing a pink tie. Come on. I guess my question here is: Did you plan all this out or did the people just plop onto the page with their pink ties and their combovers?

Ingrid Law:   Ha! Yes, often they do just pop into my head. I love quirky characters. But I think that everyone has something a little quirky about them. Most people just try to hide their quirks. That same character, Lester, also has a shoulder twitch when he gets nervous. So do I! I was kind of hoping that if I gave it to him, it wouldn’t bother me anymore. In a way it worked–I still do it, but now I share my quirk… and my sense of humor about it. I think our quirks make us interesting. And, because we all have them, even if we won’t admit to it, they help us relate to or bond with characters who have quirks of their own. Our quirks can tell stories about us, and we should always be proud of our stories–or be able to laugh at them!

Three characters I never laughed at were Mibs’ brothers. I loved those boys–especially the two I saw most. But because I loved Fish and Sampson so much, I felt a little cheated that I didn’t get to know Rocket better. I would have loved to see a little romance there for Rocket and Bobbi. Any plans for bringing all these characters back in future books? And what, pray tell, is Sundance?

Ingrid Law:  Sundance, Wyoming, is where Uncle Autry’s ranch is located… remember the end of the book? Rocket? Is going… where? Sundance is also where much of the next book takes place. And, as a fan of Rocket, I hope you will be pleased, because he’s in it much, much more… though, he will be older. There may be romance, but I’m still working on the story, so I don’t like to promise anything. I love this family tree of wild characters, so yes, there will be more. But the next book is told from the perspective of an all new character–one you’ve not met before in Savvy. Still, there will be familiar faces along the way: Samson, Gypsy… but for now, Mibs’s story has been told.

OK I had forgotten where Rocket was going. Yes! I’m so glad he will be in the next book. 

And speaking of glad…. I’m sure you were crazy with gladness when you saw the cover to Mibs’ story–Yikes! It’s so good!–and even crazier with gladness when the Newbery people called, but can you pick one moment in this wild ride you’ve been on and say it was the most satisfactory?

Ingrid Law:  I cannot pick one moment, no. It’s been such a series of amazing moments! I love the cover too! Brandon Dorman is a genius. He’s working on the next cover as well, and, so far, the sketches are amazing, I hope the book lives up to its cover! Aside from the Newbery call (ASTOUNDING), seeing the book in the store for the first time was pretty amazing. The call about making the New York Times Bestsellers List was cool, too… I was cleaning out the very last items from the mobile home I’d lived in for the last fourteen years when my agent called with the news. I couldn’t have moved if it hadn’t been for the book.

Wow. Living in a trailer. Do you know who else was living in a trailer as he was writing his first bestseller? Stephen King. He wrote Carrie on a board stretched between the washer and dryer in his mobile home. And…guess who else is writing great novels in her trailer?

That’s right. Me. 

I’m just saying. 

Writers are often shy and in the FAQ on your website you say, “Like Sampson, I prefer solitude.” Do you enjoy school visits, then? How is your new “stardom” sitting with you? 

Ingrid Law:  I never knew I had it in me to stand up in front of 350 kids and speak, but the kids always make my visits great! It’s hard not to have fun when they are such a great audience and ask so many wonderful questions. It’s true that I am a person who needs a lot of time hidden away in my own little world, but visiting schools has been fun. Now that I write full-time, school visits also help get me out of the house! Though, I do limit the number that I do. It uses a very different part of my brain and my personality than writing–one is so public, the other so private. My life has become one of social extremes. “Stardom,” however, is not a word that I warm to quickly, because it’s not one that I’ve ever longed to strive for. One of the comments I received after a recent school visit was “you’re just like a normal person who wrote a book.” I wasn’t sure if they were disappointed or surprised, but I was pleased to be able to show people that authors ARE just regular people too.

That’s very encouraging and I’m glad you’re giving that to the kids. 

This is your debut novel. I saw in a wonderful interview that you wrote this book in 2007. But what is your writing history? Had you been writing long before you got the idea for Savvy? Do you have manuscripts filed on some old hard drive or stored on floppy disks in the bottom drawer of your desk? (I’m kidding. I’ve seen your pictures. You’re hardly old enough to remember floppy disks.) Can you tell us a little about your road to publication, or give a link to blog posts on it, or something.

Ingrid Law:  I DO remember floppy disks! And yes, the first book I ever wrote (a mystery–and a bad one) was stored on one. I’d have no way of accessing it now, so I’m glad I printed it… though, nobody will ever, ever read it unless I’m dead. I began writing off and on over fifteen years ago, but I never took my writing too seriously until recently. So, yes, I have manuscripts in drawers and boxes–which is where they will stay! I’m all about moving forward. Savvy was the second manuscript I tried seriously to peddle. The one before it found 45 rejections from agents–including one from the agent who took me on as a client with Savvy. But I’m glad it got rejected now, or I might never have written Savvy.

Oh, I also have novels collecting dust and I also have collected some rejections I’m thankful for. The similarities between us are eerie. (OK what writer hasn’t collected rejections? But there is still that trailer thing. Many wannabe authors don’t live in trailers. Hm. I better shut up about it before they all get the idea to move.)

So, were you a reader when you were young? What were your three favorite books?

Ingrid Law:  I didn’t become a big reader until the fifth grade. After that, I loved the Anne of Green Gables books, the Lord of the Rings, and anything by Diana Wynne Jones. I didn’t give you three books, did I. I gave you three groups of books. I’m bad at favorites.

Eerie, I tell you. Anne and The Lord of the Rings are two of my favorites, also. And I adore Diana Wynne Jones’ story worlds. I was reading The Spellcoats when I had a huge breakthrough in how to craft a story world that felt real.

There were several things that I adored about Savvy, though. Quirky details but also theme. 

One thing Mibs learns is that we can all be happy with how God made us and what mean people say about us is not who we really are. But we have to silence the critical voices and listen to the encouraging voices. I loved the way Lester inflated under Lill’s praise and encouragement. She breathed life into him. You obviously want to encourage kids to find their own savvies and to know that no matter what people say about them, they have worth. Can you tell us a little about why this message is important to you? Did you start with the message or did it grow out of who the characters were?

Ingrid Law:   Actually, I think this all came out of the fact that when I began working on Savvy I promised myself that every time I had a self-critical thought about what I was writing, or thought “no one will like that” or “people will think that’s too weird,” I would ignore it. So writing Savvy became a practice in trusting my own voice as an author. That, then, got into Mibs’s character and helped shape her as well.

Well, it sure worked. You gave us a wonderful story with fun language, fabulous characters, and fathoms of depth.

Thanks so much for the interview!

And if any of you readers want more, Natasha has a really good interview up over at Maws Book Blog.

Neil Gaiman stopped by last week to comment–he and I are such buddies.

I was happy to see him here, though, and I told him I like to use his name in my posts every so often because it’s good for business.

I’ve criticized him for his Susan Pevensie story, sure, and I’ve not gotten into his books (not because he lacks talent but because I hate horror)  but I saw this recently at Book Moot and thought it was great. He’s not only smart and talented, but he also has that cute accent.