What's (Not) Happening?

Not much is going on in the blogosphere.

Understandably.

It's a super busy time of year. The days are longer; there are places to go and yardwork to do. If you have kids, they're going on field trips every other day right now. Plus, there are the track meets, music recitals, choir concerts, softball tournaments, birthday parties, barbecues, and graduations.

If you're a student or a teacher, you have finals.

Or maybe the decent weather has prompted you to get out and make some money in this sick economy.

There's some wedding stuff, too. I've wondered how the bridal industry has been hit by the recession, which has led me to thinking about depression weddings: if there were fewer than usual, if the gifts were more less-expensive or even homemade, if the feast was pared-down and the guest list trimmed.

Seriously, though. I don't have time to think.

I have All Of The Above, plus two manuscripts to revise.

It might be crazy spring, but it's time to get crackin'.

Conference Aftermath

If you want to find me, my new address is: Jennie Englund, Under A Rock, Oregon.

I had taken the college car to the writing conference in Seattle, but got back too late to return it to campus. So I kept it until the next day. But I wasn't supposed to, so I had Daney and Rees unload it--fast--before we hauled it an hour up the interstate.

Days later, I looked all over the house for my yoga mat. Rees told me it was still in the college car.

"You forgot to get it out?" I asked him.

"Well, I just shut the trunk," he told me.

Gulp. "Was... there... anything else back there?"

"A lot of stuff," Rees said.

So I kept the car longer than I should've, and I returned it with a bunch of crap still in there. All this, during the week of my review for professorship.

After losing it with Rees and Daney, and melting over the "Sorry" card they gave me, I called the Car Secretary. "Oh, yes," she said. "There was a yoga mat in there. And some other things: a prom dress." Mine. "Some really high-heeled shoes." Mine. (Long story). "A brown bra." Yes. "And..." Oh. God. "A box of feminine products."

"Uh, those aren't mine," I told her. "I don't know whose those are. But they're definitely not mine."

They were totally mine.

When I drove the hour back up the interstate today to pick up the yoga mat, the prom dress, the stilettos and the bra, the Car Secretary handed over the Tampax, and said, "I'm just going to give these to you anyway."

Yep. She knew they were mine.

Now I'm just going to crawl under a rock for a while.

A Simple Little Love

My little girl has her first crush. It's a fourth grade boy with sparkly blue eyes and an appreciation for baseball.

"Should I tell him what's in my heart, Mommy?" she asked me after school. "What if I tell him and he doesn't like me back?"

"That's the thing about love," I told her. "It's a risk."

Daney took the risk and called the boy. "I just think you're a really great person," she said.

He said he thought she was a really great person, too.

He's right.

At the Mercy of the Lego Police

What happens when you're asked to pick up your five billion Legoes ten times a day for eleven years straight?

Yep, unfortunately the Lego Police (a.k.a. "Daddy") takes away the whole thing and leaves you with 112th of what you had.

Oopsie.

Loving the Unreliable Narrator

"The way it looks is not the way it is," says Keir Sarafian, main character of the amazing Inexcusable.

In this National Book Award Finalist, author Chris Lynch has mastered the line between truth and perception, leading the reader to draw certain conclusions from events that aren't quite represented fairly.

Curtis Sittenfeld does the same in Prep; everything Lee Fiora sees and thinks and says and does, we believe to be right. Even if it isn't.

Plotting this is tricky.

Believe me.

I'm trying to do it.

An editor has explained the narrative triangle to me: the way the character sees himself, the way other characters see him, and the way the reader sees him.

What's challenging is crafting an unreliable character who is also likable, relatable, and believable. What he says is not the way things really are, and although that's the only truth we have, we have to love him.


What do you think? Do you have any other examples of other unreliable narrators? Do you have any tips on creating one?

So I came home from Seattle with that fun "Breakout Honor" award; some books signed by Adam Rex, John Sciescka, Keely and Velani, Grace Lin, and my hero, Ellen Hopkins; a teeny tiny Japanese maple tree; and some new friends.

What I came home to is five miles of laundry; 30 essays to grade; 2 kids with pneumonia; a car in the shop from that WinCo fiasco; and a missing sock basket.

Oh, LA Conference, you're already looking really good.

SCBWI Western Washington Winner!

Seven hours and 46 minutes after leaving Seattle yesterday, I got home at 1 AM.

It was so far, but so worth it!!!

After a gracious manuscript consultation with an editor, I won the "SCBWI WW Breakout Writer" honor!

Now, I have another manuscript to revise with another editor of another publishing house. And still, no agent. But I'm going to work on that.

Check out Keely Velani, the powerhouse team who wrote and self-published the clever and timely Davey Brown Discovers his Roots:










All best to these girls, as they pitch Davey in New York!

I'm going to be watching Kjersten Anna Hayes. LOVED her! And Kim Baker was fabulous, too.

Delacorte Editor Krista Marino was as sharp as it gets, when it comes to snapping up great books. Her last five acquisitions are exciting, with The Oracles of Delphi Keep and The Witch's Alphabet at the top of my to-buy list.

San Francisco agent Nathan Bransford was way more down-to-earth than I ever would've imagined.

Every editor, agent, author, and volunteer worked really hard to pull off the incredibly smooth weekend.

But for sure, the whole thing would've been a lot less fun without hilarious (and talented) upcoming Razorbill author Suzanne Young: