"I will always, always, always wasting away the time."

Photo credit: Quiet Delusions

This summer has been one of dabbling--I've been playing guitar, learning to cook a little, and for whatever reason, I've been working on three different writing projects all at once.  Not, probably, the best strategy when it comes to building focus and digging down deep into a story and making it big and real and saleable and full of high stakes and layers and awesome. 

It is, however, a pretty good strategy for getting back to the fun of writing when all that stuff starts to feel a little bit scary and serious.

So one of the projects I'm working on is this fantasy story I drafted a while back--before I had an agent, before I had a book deal.  I drafted it in between two revisions of KISS THE MORNING STAR, and for whatever reason, writing this story was the most enjoyable experiences I've ever had writing.  I love my little trio of heroes, I love the mythology and the magic of my little world, and I love the setting of the story, which is mostly in the real-world city I live.  It incorporates many of the things I love about home--the Lake, the crazy seagulls, and the beautiful stone "castle stage," which has always seemed to me the perfect place on earth to perform a Shakespeare play, and it's where my characters are performing the comedy Twelfth Night.

Anyway, I was reading through all the files of notes and beta comments and early drafts in my folder for this story, and I came across one I had almost forgotten, which was titled "Bonsai Remix".  What craziness I found when I opened the file to see this weird, mix-and-match junk poetry version of my first draft, which...hilarious and nonsensical as it may be, yielded some interesting thoughts and some fun lines.  My hazy memory and a few google searches brought back this funny little bonsai story generator, and I picked out a few silly lines to share with you, including the title of this post, which seemed pretty apt for me, especially perhaps for this summer of dabbling. 

(But sometimes...just sometimes, not "always, always, always"...the "wasting time" is really dreaming and thinking and turning over ideas that lead to a good story.  And sometimes dabbling in an old story to find back the fun of it all is so worth it!)

So here are a few more goofy nonsense lines of my bonsai story...will you share some of yours?  :)

The noise of them!” He laughed at her feet.

She slowed down, still wheeling and she was some serious wtf.

And a little puckering mouths gaping open and snapping closed, each crooning somehow melted together said the “transition apartment” that came with vampires or pacifists or pacifists or reading or anyone who had thrown that way.

out of my computer...and into the world!

So last week I got my copyedits.  I actually got them in the mail the day before we left on our little trip, and I was a bit worried that they wouldn't arrive before we left, and I'd have this mess of dealing with getting them back from the post office or whatever, but then  HURRAY! they came right on time, looking only slightly...battered.  :)

The outsides were intriguing enough!  (I love getting mail, real mail, in my mailbox...brown paper packages tied up with string, you know!)

But then!  Inside!  My manuscript!  With pencil marks and a post-it from Michelle Andreani at Marshall Cavendish, who READ MY BOOK! (and, at one point...I'm not going to spoil it for you because that's how nice I am, she MAY have written the word Lovely.  LOVELY!)  Read my book super carefully, too, like...did you know I have a character named "Norman Whatshisface"?  Did I know I had a character named "Norman Whatshisface"?  Well, Michelle does.  She also knows that, despite the fact that I had it written BOTH as one and two words in various places in my manuscript, earlobe is one word.  And bandanna has TWO N's.  And so many words either have hyphens that I did not use, or don't need the hyphens I did use...and also she kept careful track of when I capitalize the word "god" and when I do not (it was confusing!)

You know what else was awesome?  Michelle (my new bff) used a colored pencil to mark all the changes and suggestions and questions and typesetting marks.  And do you know what color she used?  My favorite, of course.  (This would be purple.)  So my mistakes were even aesthetically pleasing!

All these little excitements, though, were really nothing in comparison with the thrill of marking changes on the physical paper, thinking--this is it.  From here on, my story exists outside of my computer file.  (No, I did not go through my computer file and make the changes.)  At my editor's suggestion, I read through the entire manuscript out loud, and as I read through each sheet and made neat, upside-down pile next to my desk (I feel like I should have Michelle look this over--does upside-down have a hyphen???), the words were getting closer and closer to being an actual book.

An actual dream come true.  :)

road trip (and road kill) reflections...

I finished another round of revisions (maybe close the last one?) on Kiss the Morning Star this week, so I'd like to celebrate by sharing a little bit about the road trip that partially inspired the book, a trip D. and I took about ten years ago and which follows much of the same course as Anna and Kat follow on their "rucksack revolution".  We, too, carried some Kerouac in our backpacks, and like Anna, I carried a notebook in which I tried to capture both our actual experiences on the road and also my thoughts about life and love and truth and beauty and all that stuff that seems sometimes easier to think about while I'm speeding along a back road without an itinerary.

Some of the little details from my old notebook triggered scenes in KtMS, but most of the time, if I tried to put something that actually happened to D. and me on our trip into the book, it ended up not being believable as fiction.  One thing that we have in common with Anna and Kat, though, is the Roadkill Count--a gory list on the back cover of the notebook that documents the dead.  We tried to categorize the animals ("Coon", "Former Flyers", "Brown Furries", "Possibly a Beaver", and sadly, "Collared Critters").  You might be able to see this in the photo (that's my marked-up edit letter and manuscript underneath my notebook, by the way!), but we also wrote a few annotations ("Hit a few times!" "Big one!"), and on this trip we actually added a less morbid "Live Encounters Driving" section which tallies up to almost as many live creatures as dead ones (except one of them says, "Oops, hit this one!").

Several pages of our notebook keep track of the little details of our journey, such as where we spent each of the 77 nights we were on the road, and how much we paid for our accommodations.  We also kept track of every tank of gas we purchased, the price per gallon, and the mileage we got in my heavily loaded 1987 Mercury Grand Marquis, Berta.  The mileage wasn't great, but it is pretty amusing to remember how scandalized we were by the price of gas in certain cities--"It's OVER $1.75 a gallon, what the hell???" 

We also dedicated a couple of pages to silly signs or amusing quotes that we either said or overheard while on the road.  (One of my favorites, written in iridescent pink pen, goes like this:  Elissa:  Oh, it's okay.  I'm just checking to see if I have a live hornet in my pants.  David:  Um.  Maybe you should pull over while you do that?)

Interestingly (to me, haha!), as I flipped through my road trip notebook, I also found--in a completely unrelated part of the notebook that was from before we left--the little character sketch that inspired me to write Kiss the Morning Star in the first place.  The main character of this story was a girl named Harriet, daughter of a minister with a "golden voice."  The story began, "When she was fifteen, Harriet read three books on Buddhism for a research paper in English class.  She learned that life was suffering.  Harriet stood in the shadows between the stacks at the public library, a heavy book in her hands, and thought of her mother, who hated her."

I like being able to trace the origin of this story, and how it has changed and what it has kept--a little bit of Kerouac, a little about her minister father's voice, a little about the tragedy that shapes Anna's journey.  And I like being able to also trace the path of my own journey, so long ago, and to see how it has shaped my writing.  Most of all, I like to think about the experiences of the present, and where they might lead, about ten years from now.   :)

wrapping it up--2010

Christmas Fireworks

One year ago today, I wrote a post outlining my writing goals for 2010.  I...could not even have imagined, 365 days ago, the thrilling successes I would experience--finding my dream agent, selling my YA debut, working with a brilliant editor, finishing a draft of another YA manuscript, meeting so many amazing writers (and having them come here, to my blog, to say hi and offer their support! WOW!)...and so much more.

I do think it's funny how cyclical writing is, though.  Case in point, my first goal last year:

I'd like to remain thoughtful, objective, gracious, and rational about anything that happens with this book.

This book?  At the time, it was known as The Dharma Bum Business, and shortly after I wrote that, Sarah Davies offered representation, and we started working hard to make the book the best it could be before putting it out on sub to editors.   The letter arrived--pages of questions, suggestions, cautions--pushing me to take my book to the next step.  I kept those words from my goal in mind (I'm not going to say I always succeeded, but I tried!), and they helped me as I revised the book now known as Kiss the Morning Star.

Thoughtful, objective, gracious, and rational.  Well, a year later, and I'm still pushing this book--still working to make it the best it can be, this time working with the feedback of my editor, Melanie Kroupa.  A year ago, I was close to putting this book away, "trunking" it.  I had gone through many revisions, many rounds of querying agents, and I thought I had pretty much done everything I could for it.

I have a long and unfinished post saved to my drafts folder about the process of this book becoming what it is, and someday, when the process is actually over, I may post it, but the moral of the story is...time and again, I have believed that the book is as good as I can make it, and time and again, I have been proven wrong.  And every time, the bar is higher, and the process is harder.  And I say those words like a mantra--thoughtful, objective, gracious, and rational.  And now, as I project this manuscript into a future where it will have a shiny cover and real pages and--OMG!--readers, who will be more than willing to give their feedback, I will cling to those words for support.

So I think that needs to be a permanent goal.

My other goals from last year were all accomplished:

Next goal is about the next book, and that is to finish editing it and send it out there spinning into the world as well.

 Done!  And though I still love this ms., it is sitting to the side for now until it fits better into the plan (it's a fantasy story.)

Third writing goal is to decide on the next project.... I'd like to get one more novel rough drafted by the end of this year.

 Done! My Cassandra WIP needs another go-around of serious revision, but I finished a draft, showed it to Sarah, and I hope I will be able to wrestle it into a shape worthy of submitting during 2011!

And last is for me to keep working on the one story, you know the one.

 Done! Not much done, but this book is making baby steps in and among the other projects, and it still excites me.  In addition, I wrote half of my very first attempt at middle grade with my summer-camp ghost story WIP, In the Hanging Shack.  So overall, my 2010 was a year of writing.  Tomorrow I'll share my goals for 2011, since this post has rambled on long enough, but I think a few more of them will focus on the personal life outside of the writing life.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Contract!

Took a short break from my editing (by the way:  AAAAAACKKKKK!!!) to sign my contract!  Hooray!

three weeks in three photos?

I'm still here, just so you know.  Most of my online presence in the last three weeks has been something along the lines of fkaosdig;aoinb;aoifaldskfj....or maybe a little less eloquent.  But I'm here.  And even though the last time I posted, it was all about writing difficulties, and even though I've had play rehearsals and book report grading and student learning conferences for my own students and for Jabber...I've managed to get my fake-NaNo MG ghost story up to 15k and also made three pages of revision notes for my Cassandra WIP, which needs...a lot of work. 

(Side note--as though any of this is not a side note--we found out tonight at Jabber's conference that he's doing well in all areas, and though I'm not saying I didn't *believe* Ms. S. when she said he only needed reminders to stop acting silly "every once in a while," I do believe I saw a bit of an eye-twitch when she said it.  Probably blocking out the trauma.  I mean, I'm pretty nice in conferences, too--for instance, usually I try not to say things like, "Well, I kind of wanted to scream at your kid fifteen times in fifteen minutes this morning, but then when I saw him in the hall, he waved at me, and I thought he kind of seemed like he might turn into a fully functional human in about eight to ten years," and besides, sitting there nervously next to their parents, they do actually seem like the sweet, interesting people they someday will become.)

(I also found out in a secret, late-night snuggle-conversation last night the name of a girl of whom Jabber says, "I really, REALLY like her, and I might want to marry her," but I would never tell, even if I did make him show me her artwork on the wall this evening at school--she has quite passable handwriting for a first grader, and she doesn't color too carefully within the lines...)

Oh, dear.  This is what happens when I don't post.  I forget how to be coherent.

So.  Picture number one is from Halloween.  I had a ninja (with a glowing light saber and a cowboy pistol) and a Spiderman (with the mask turned into a hat and a toddler who asked, of his padded muscles, "Mama, does my costume have nummies?")

Picture two is from our 9th Anniversary.  I got a new Day of the Dead ornament from D., and it just may be my favorite one yet.  Luckily my husband remains thoughtful (and a good shopper) enough for the both of us--I gave him a Halloween card and permission to buy himself a new knife.  So romantic.  I'm actually not sure how anything in my real world would get accomplished if it weren't for David, so it's probably a good thing he's been around for the last nine years.  I would be constantly doing things like...oh, driving on a flat tire, serving the children cereal for supper, and getting buried underneath a bunch of snow because I have no idea where a shovel might be.  (These are all just things I have done in the past week.)

The last picture is two of my old journals, which I have been reading my way through lately for some reason.  Actually, both of these are from the months leading up to my engagement and wedding, which was kind of fun to read, so close after the anniversary.  I've learned a lot about myself in this trip down memory lane, but I think I'll sum it up into three neat bullet points.  Maybe I can even avoid using parentheses (but I cannot give up dashes) (okay, starting in the next paragraph!)

• I learned that I've made a lot of progress as a writer, both in terms of craft--I'm a better writer, a more confident writer, especially in fiction--and in terms of business.  A lot of the time that I was writing in these two journals, I was dreaming of being published someday.  Of course, I had hoped at the time it would be soon, but I've been persistent and patient, overall.
• I learned that probably the biggest point of unhappiness in my life had to do with finding a balance as an introvert and as a person who likes the company of interesting, intelligent people.  I still have to work to find the balance between solitude and loneliness, and I still get overwhelmed when I don't have alone-time to recharge, but do better when I'm forced out of that alone-time to interact with others.  
• I learned (and in all cases, "learned" is more of a "reaffirmed my thoughts about") (damn, I got SO FAR without parentheses, too!) that the times in my life that I have taken a big risk, stepped completely outside of my comfort zone and tried something that was really difficult for me, it has turned into a hugely valuable experience for me.  

Okay.  So there was the last three weeks of my life, in which I have failed to blog but only because there are not seventy-six hours in each day, and because sometimes, I need to spend my time lying in the dark next to my nearly seven-year-old son, learning the names of the people he believes he might marry.  (That way I won't have to find out on facebook!)

confessions of a children's book lover

Illustrations by Sharon Wagner

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators--SCBWI--Minnesota Annual Conference in St. Paul, MN  October 2, 2010

My first writing conference was...well, it was so nice that I fear I will overuse the words "great!" "wonderful!" and "amazing!"  I will try to rein in the exclamation points, but the conference was a fantastic experience, and I came home excited about writing.  Which is always a good thing.

The day before the conference, I did a search on twitter and found a few people who had tweeted about the conference, and then I took a look at Anne Greenwood Brown's website, and read about her Lake Superior mermaid WIP.  I also have a Lake Superior mermaid manuscript, in a way, so I sent her a message.  We sat together, and she is a delightful person.  I have my fingers crossed for excellent publishing news in her future, and I'm so glad I got a chance to meet her!

Jay Asher, author of Thirteen Reasons Why, gave the keynote speech  about how to sell a book in twelve years or less; he very humorously related his entertaining path of a dozen years, from his very first picture book submission in 1994 to the publication of his first YA novel in 2007.  As I listened, I started thinking back to my own first attempt at publication and realized that I, too, have been submitting writing for twelve years. I, too, have tried to submit picture book manuscripts in that time, and yes...I, too, have vowed to quit writing, have found myself with an idea I was not yet ready--for a multitude of reasons, in my writing and in my life--to write.  At the book signing, I talked with him about my book blogging students having an opportunity to interview him about the process of becoming a writer, as many of them are very interested in writing books.  So exciting!

In a later session, Jay also gave us useful advice about injecting suspense in every book, every story.  What he said was clear, helpful, and again--funny as hell.  The guy is  a PowerPoint Performer.  The notes made me excited to take a look at my Cassandra WIP with a new eye for the role of story structure in the creation of suspense.

Next Heather Alexander, editorial assistant with Dial Books for Young Readers, gave a presentation about the tools editors use to convince their editorial board about a book, and the way the same tools are revised to sell an author's book to bookstores.  She read us a story and allowed us a chance to practice using the tool on a picture book.  It was interesting, and I gained a better perspective on some of the discussions that my editor, Melanie Kroupa, and I have had--especially the conversation we had before she offered on the book, before she presented KISS THE MORNING STAR to her board.

Poet Susan Marie Swanson gave an amazing talk about creating metaphors for our writing, about the value of literature and the joy of children's poetry.  She was full of glowing recommendations for amazing children's poetry and beautiful readings of all her favorites.  I spoke with her about my students and bought the book This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort an anthology of poems created for New York City schoolchildren after 9/11 (hers is titled "Trouble, Fly").  I came away with ideas not only for my teaching, but also for my writing.  Almost everything I've written has poetry in it in some measure, and I'm struggling a little with the poetry in my Cassandra WIP, so I was inspired on a lot of levels. 

The next session was pretty fascinating...Anne Ursu, author of The Cronus Chronicles, a middle grade fantasy series that looks terrific (my blogger students are going to freak out to read The Shadow Thieves) and also a teacher at the MFA in Writing for Children program at Hamline University, spoke with her editor, Jordan Brown, who edits with Walden Pond Press and Balzer + Bray at HarperCollins. 

The two of them talked about the whole process...the way they work together, how they first started, the steps they've taken at each stage, their thoughts along the way.  The presentation was entertaining and very enlightening--I thought they did a  terrific job making the panel move seamlessly forward.  I really liked what they said about how readers can only read what's actually on the page, and how difficult it can be, as an author, to understand that we really didn't transfer the story of our head as neatly onto the page as it might seem to us.  I could relate to that.  :)

Also helpful was the First Pages critiques, where Jordan Brown and Heather Alexander gave critiques to a number of first pages that were sent in by conference attendees.  I imagine this is a tough job--to articulate their thoughts on a single page, on the spot and in front of a crowd, one of whom is the author of the page.  The two of them did a fantastic job giving helpful and specific criticisms to the writing we heard.  I didn't put any pages in because the Cassandra WIP isn't ready for that level of scrutiny just yet.  I sort of forgot about A TANGLED WEB because writing a fantasy book isn't my focus right now, but it was interesting anyway to hear their thoughts on the other people's first pages.

Overall, an amazing day for writer elissa!

making a difference

There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them.  --Elie Wiesel

I'm fifty pages from the end of my first pass of edits for KISS THE MORNING STAR (and six days away from my personal deadline for finishing said first pass), and I thought I'd give you a glimpse into why I haven't been posting very coherent blog posts lately.  I looked up at my screen, and that's really what it looked like:  four documents all competing for my attention on my little monitor, a sixteen-foot-long banner of colorful notes taking over my keyboard, plus the eight tabs of firefox, my itunes, and three more documents minimized at the bottom.  (Document titles:  KTMS August 2010, July 14 melanie thoughts, answering melanie3, Hoole more revision notes, Editing KtMS3, scraps, kerouac quotes and sources.  Tabs open on firefox:  not telling.  :P)

This is exciting.  The yellow-highlighted notes on the document on the left of the side-by-side view (Editing KtMS3) are notes about scenes I've rewritten, progress I've made, additions, subtractions, successes, haphazard attempts, experiments, and in other words (as if that weren't enough words), STUFF I DID TO CHANGE THIS BOOK and, I hope, STUFF THAT MAKES IT BETTER. 

This next fifty pages, I'll admit, need the most work.  The world won't really end if I don't finish before school starts, but I know it would make me feel better overall.  I also know this is only the first pass--the first round of changes I've made for a real, live (and brilliant!) editor.  I know some of what I'm writing will never see the light of day, and in fact, some of it will never even make it through my next pass before going to Melanie. 

I've been approaching these edits with a very open mind, thinking of the whole book more from a "What if this would work?" or maybe a "Hey, maybe I should try that?" or possibly even a "Wouldn't it be sort of crazy if I went in this direction?" kind of mindset, knowing that if this doesn't work, or I really shouldn't have tried that, or yeah, this direction is really crazy and not in a good way...I can always go back a draft or two.  I have at least twenty to choose from, after all!

And now.  Yeah, you know it.  Back to work.

how I'm spending my summer vacation...

My summer feels a little bit like a swirling vortex of unfinished projects.  And it's okay...I think.  Summer is still in full swing, and I have to remember that it's not like my world will come crashing to a complete halt and snow will start falling the day school starts.  I mean, the snow thing is unlikely.  (Because undoubtedly, I will have to endure two or three weeks of sweltering heat in my classroom full of stagnant, sweat-laden air and floor-to-ceiling windows full of sun...)

BUT REALLY.  I'm editing a book.  This in itself is a vast, uncertain project that sometimes feels like going backwards.  So far this summer, I have spent at least five or six straight weeks reading my book, thinking about my book, talking about my book, ignoring my book, making color-coded plot and character notes on endless streams of dot-matrix paper for my book, writing TWELVE THOUSAND words of notes (so far) about my book, and...I have yet to change a word of the actual book.  The best part of all of this is that even though the process is overwhelming and...well, overwhelming is probably the best word I can use, actually...right now, at this moment, I actually feel eager to dive in and make this book better.  And possibly more importantly, I feel confident, like I might have the ability to do so!

I'm also painting my back deck.  This project is surprisingly similar to the editing project.  Both of them are bigger than they first appeared.  Both of them involve broad strokes that require courage and vision and tiny, fiddly little details that require patience and sustained attention.  Both projects are taking a lot longer than I anticipated and include hidden work that nobody will ever see but without which the end result will be less likely to stand the test of time.  Both projects have been delayed by rain, so to speak.  Both projects mix poorly with rambunctious children.  Both are about making steady improvements.

The nice part about the two projects is that they play well together.  I do some of my best editing while wielding a paintbrush.  Many times I have reached a mental obstacle in my editing process--or probably more accurately, I have found myself unable to focus my attention on editing (i.e. I fall asleep or find myself on the internet in the middle of a sentence), and I have left the desk and headed for the deck, only to return later with some of that obstacle chipped away by the brain I thought was fully occupied by brushing and belting out songs playing on my ipod.  Somewhat sadly, this doesn't seem to work in the other direction--my subconscious has so far not managed to paint anything while I'm on the computer.  (But psssst! Brain! If you should manage to start doing that, I encourage you to focus your attention on that damned lattice!)

In all likelihood, the deck will be finished well before the edits.  Luckily, I live in an old house, and there's always another project.  Likewise with writing.

In the meantime, we're off to play in the sandbox!

insert post here

Jabber: Mooo-oooom!  Monkey keeps saying our spaceship is a doghouse!

Monkey: It IS a doghouse!

Jabber: It's a spaceship!

Monkey: It's a space-doghouse!

Jabber:  (stomps feet, raises voice)  It is NOT a space-doghouse.  It has WINGS.  It's a spaceship!

Monkey: (draws on wing) I'm coloring this wing purple.

Jabber:  AHHHH!  (tears purple marker away from Monkey)  NOT LIKE THAT.  IT HAS TO MATCH.

Monkey:  No!  (grabs marker back, screeches shrilly)

Jabber: MOMMMMMM!  MONKEY KEEPS WRECKING THE SPACESHIP!

Elissa (through the window, staring at editing notes with hopelessness):  Siiiiigh.  How about if you draw on the left wing, and Monkey draws on the right wing?  That seems fair.

Jabber (in a voice that can be heard several blocks away):  MOM!  WHAT GOOD IS A SPACESHIP IF IT'S NOT SYMMETRICAL?

I know, I know.  This happened like a week ago.  And yes, shortly after this I sent the kids away to their grandparents' houses for the weekend.  A weekend which unexpectedly stretched out into four days.  Yes, I missed them.  No, I didn't blog.  Yes, I've been ensconced in editing thoughts.  No, I haven't blogged.  Yes, I have read like five books in the last week.  No, I haven't blogged.  Yes, I began the tedious project of painting my back deck in the hot sun.  No, I did not get a tan on my legs. (Yes, I did get a smattering of freckles on my nose.) 

Yes, my editing has brought me to tears.  To driving my husband to yard work.  To throwing things.  To giving up.  To starting over.  To getting excited.  To tears again.  To inspiration.  To throwing things again.  To emailing my agent with my crazy showing.  To meeting an amazingly sweet and kind writer who shares my wonderful editor.  To appreciating all the wonderfully supportive people who make it possible for me to even contemplate doing any of this.  To tears again, these of a different sort.  And now to work.

(And no, I didn't blog.)

Itchy McItchers

I promised a post about my office filing/shredding adventures, and I do try to fulfill my promises, at least when I have some suspicion that the person I made the promise to might remember, so here we go.  (I believe I also promised that it would be a "super exciting story", but I'm sure I meant it sarcastically.)

Anyway, I am prone to exaggeration, but I am telling the absolute, non-hyperbolic truth when I say that I had a stack three feet tall (okay, okay! 30 inches, maybe?) of paper that needed to be sorted through--bills (most of them paid), birthday cards, pay stubs, brochures from nice people who offered to paint our house for like thirteen thousand dollars but we said no thanks we can do it ourselves but really who are we kidding our house is never getting painted, and other assorted trash and treasure.

I have a filing cabinet.  Filing tubs.  A nifty paper shredder that claims to be able to shred those credit card offers with the fake plastic card inside but which I have managed to overload on numerous occasions.  What I don't have--a desire to fill my hours with drudgery--caused me to designate the area underneath the desk in the office as my "file pile" for the last, um, six or seven  years? 

So. Anyway. (Note: this post has escaped its point in a completely unbridled, parenthetical sort of way. *wrangles*) In the middle of this precarious archeological dig through my financial life, I discovered a large manilla envelope which contained a form rejection ("Dear Writer: Please excuse the form letter. While we do read all submissions...") and the manuscript of my first (and only) picture book, PRINCE ELLIOT AND THE INCREDIBLE ITCH. Look!  I wrote the page numbers on the bottom with a Sharpie marker! I also included a color photocopy of this, my sample illustration. 

On the one hand, this submission kind of embarrasses me--I cringe to think about how I sent all this weird stuff out to editors--I'm pretty sure my letter said something about how all my friends loved my story and how I wrote it for my son, I had a goofy email address, I had no idea how illustrators were chosen, etc.

But in addition to the reminder of how far I've come in terms of understanding publishing (and I'm still so clueless, believe me!), what this discovery really brought back to me is the memory of writing the story, the absolute frustration and agony and worry and shame and confusion that I felt for three months of my son's life when at age 9 weeks he suddenly erupted in what I thought at first was cradle cap...what progressed into a full-body itchy, oozing rash, a staph infection, elimination diets, compresses, bath oils, steroids, an immuno-suppressing cream that I used daily on my tiny child, only to find out several months later that it had been found to cause cancer--all of the chaos that came with the discovery that my little Jabber has a pretty severe case of eczema.

I did a search here and was shocked to see how little I've talked about Jabber's eczema.  Those first few months were basically awful: when both sides of Jabber's little jaws were covered in open sores that oozed and itched him so much that he couldn't sleep but spent hours whimpering and rubbing his face against his shoulders, when strangers looked at my precious baby and blurted out, "What's WRONG with him?", when David and I were only able to keep him from clawing his skin off in his sleep by placing him between us in the bed and holding his tiny arms all night long.  We almost didn't have any more children simply because we couldn't handle the thought of watching a child suffer like that again (luckily, Monkey did not have eczema like this!)

Just look at his eyes!  There's such a "Mama, why the hell is this happening to me?" look in them.  And I remember being up all night with him, calming and holding his hands and bathing his scalp and crying and he couldn't even nurse because he was trembling with itchers and around dawn, he fell asleep at last, twitching in the middle of the bed with his skin so angry and red, and I was crying and I couldn't sleep...and I went into the living room and wrote this story--the story of a little prince with an incredible itch that moves all around his body, who tries every remedy he can think of (and makes a huge mess in the process!) and finally the itch is cured when he hops into bed between his Mama and Daddy.  It's a sweet story--all silly rhymes and messy situations.

Prince Elliot fills up the tub to the top,
And begins adding soap to the water, Plop! Plop!
The bubbles pile up, up, up,
UP to the ceiling!
"I'll wash off this itch!  I'll scrub off this feeling!"

Now there's nothing a good bubble bath cannot cure,
Be it headaches or ulcers or warts, I am sure.
But this itch of Prince Elliot's really is trouble,
for it just keeps on itching him, bubble for bubble.

It tickles his tummy,
It bothers his back--
It rankles his ribs
Like an old burlap sack!

He rubs with a washcloth,
He scrubs with a sponge,
But the itch won't wash off
Like the regular grunge!
 

It seems like this would be a story that I would read to Jabber growing up, but the truth is, I can't.  As silly as the story is, I cry when I read it, and I think it would make him miserable, too.  Even now, six years after I finally discovered (despite directions to the contrary from a pediatrician and dermatologist) that eliminating dairy from my diet at least allowed the open sores to heal, Jabber still struggles with his eczema.  We still have sleepless nights.  We still try every new "cure" we hear about (this miracle lotion and that gut-flora method), and the itch still itches on.