- Congratulations also to Varian Johnson on the release of Saving Maddie, a book I’ve not yet read but am very eager to, because, hello, preacher’s kid, mysterious bad girl, reconciling faith and family. Follow Varian’s blog and go on tour with him; today he’s in the Author’s Tent with Melodye Shore.

- Debbi Michiko Florence has kicked off a new blog series—Coffee Break Tuesday—in which authors share a bit about their writing lives and paths to publication. When you’re looking for inspiration or company, check it out. The series kicks off with a few words from yours truly.

- I continue to encourage you to subscribe to Poets & Writers if you don’t already. This month, there’s a great profile of Sam Lipsyte (The Ask) and a masterful essay on the poetry of John Donne by William Giraldi. Both are only in the print edition, but you can read some of the issue’s content online. I love this quote from Lipsyte:

“One of my big revelations…was that nobody cares whether you write your novel or not. They want you to be happy. Your parents want you to have health insurance. Your friends want you to be a good friend. But everybody’s thinking about their own problems and nobody wakes up in the morning thinking, ‘Boy, I sure hope Sam finishes that chapter and gets one step closer to his dream of being a working writer.’ Nobody does that. If you want to write, it has to come from you. If you don’t want to write, that’s great. Go do something else. That was a very liberating moment for me.”

- I’m interviewed at Moonlight, Lace, and Mayhem, displaying my ignorance of all things Irish. And here’s a nice review of OWL at 60secondrecap.

- If that isn’t enough for you, I did a podcast interview with the International Reading Assocation’s ReadWriteThink blog while I was at NCTE this past fall. If the podcast is half as great as the conversation felt at the time, I think you will like. Many thanks to Jennifer Buehler for the time and care she put into this. (Teachers: I actually think there may be some potential classroom use for this and/or the video I made for Holly Cupola’s blog.)

Visual aids and purchase links—show some love to an author today by buying a book! If not one of these, something else you’ve been wanting…

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

Me and Varian at TLA 09. Pre-bangs.

Man. I can’t believe Otis is only 25 or 26 here. If he had lived longer…

Meanwhile:

- Over at Teen Fiction Cafe we are celebrating our third anniversary. To kick it off, I posted a reflection on the last three years of my career, including some Stuff I Have Learned. Today, Wendy Toliver posts, and there are going to be such posts every day between now and the 13th. Prizes, too, people. As in: free stuff.

- Good news for Once Was Lost: It’s been named to the CBCC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center) Choices list—their best of the year. Thank you, CBCC! And, a lovely five-star review from a teen reader at TeensReadToo. Thank you, Melanie.

- Wow, that was a good Olympics. So much epic drama! (If you were fascinated by the Vonn/Mancuso story arc, you will love Sara Bennett Wealer’s book Rival, coming out next year.) But man, we watched every minute of prime time coverage and it was exhausting. Back to 9:30 bed times.

- Huge thanks to Jacksonville Much Ado About Books for taking such good care of me at the Fest. Sometimes it’s hard to believe my “job” involves being served hors d’ouvres and forcing my own personal party escort (hi, Cindy!) to take pictures of me pretending to talk on the phone in a prop phone booth. It was especially great to meet the teens at the Mandarin Branch—many thanks to librarian Donald Carpenter for setting that up.

Congrats to the PEN/Faulkner fiction award finalists—a blessedly diverse group in light of the white-male-ification this season among the bigger awards. I’m especially pleased to see comrade Sherman Alexie honored for his wonderful collection War Dances. Congratulations also to L.A. Times Prize finalists; I love how comprehensive the categories are. The only book from that entire roster that I’ve read is Dave Cullen’s Columbine, which is definitely a worthy selection.

See you back here next week, or in Jacksonville this weekend!

• Jacksonville, here I come! This weekend is the big Much Ado About Books festival in Jacksonville, Florida. I will be there, giving two (two!) sessions during which I’ll talk about my books and writing YA. These sessions are a great option for those interested in being published in YA—plenty of time for Q&A during which I will reveal my PUBLISHING SECRETS. (Okay, I don’t actually have any, but I do promise to tell you anything you want to know. About publishing.) The details:

Saturday, Feb 27 – Jacksonville, FL – Much Ado about Books

Free and open to the public! At the Main Library on Laura Street. All the info here.

11 a.m. at the Teen Library of the Main Library, ground floor

11:45 – 12:30 signing

12:45 – 1:00 signing

2 p.m. – Session off-site from the festival, at the Mandarin Library Branch (I will also be happy to sign afterward)

• Panic in the industry? Please. Some book lovers simply will not be stopped. For example, Michelle Witte is gearing up to open a new book store here in Utah, specializing in children’s and YA books. When I heard about this, I got very excited. The location, just north of Salt Lake City, is perfect as there is not a lot up there serving book buyers, and told Michelle to let me know what I could do to help. Right now, Michelle/Fire Petal Books is holding an auction to raise money for the venture. I’ve contributed a manuscript critique. And there are lots more great things for readers and writers, from signed books to a phone conversation with editor Molly O’Neill. All the info is here—bid early and bid often! Auction closes March 20. (Though some of the auction items are location-specific, you do not have to live in Utah to participate.)

Some road songs (hi Justin!):

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road – Lucinda Williams

The Road’s My Middle Name – Bonnie Raitt

Guitar Town – Steve Earle

Ventura Highway – America

Interstate Love Song – Stone Temple Pilots

Next Best Western – Richard Shindell

And here’s one I bet you don’t know – The Girl Who Never Saw a Mountain by Vince Bell, from his masterpiece, Phoenix:

‘Cross the plains
like a rangefire,
lakes like inland seas.
Freezing fields of powder
full moon flying through the trees.

Got to get that one onto iPod before I leave. (What, you think that hobo doesn’t have an iPod wrapped up in his bundle?)

Bobbie Pyron (THE RING---about a troubled girl who takes up boxing), Paul Genesse (DRAGON HUNTERS/Golden Cord series), me @ Salt Lake City Public Library on Saturday. This turned out to be a great event, the kind you always hope for but don't always get. Thank you Paul (from whom I got this picture), Bobbie, library staff, and audience!

For process nerds: draft revision set-up. On left, paper manuscript covered in context-specific notes. Index-card outline of new draft in Scrivener, on big monitor. On right, laptop with general revision notes on TaskPaper. I took this picture with Pano, an iPhone app that lets you take panoramic photos. Fancy. Of course it is too wide to actually display at decent size here. Oh well. This is my office desk.

I laughed when I noticed this coffee ring on my manuscript, because it's such a big old writer cliche. (I wouldn't want to spoil plot for you, hence the blurrage.) The little leather journal in the top of the frame is from Exacompta (through shopwritersbloc.com). The refillable insides are made from Clairefontaine quadrille paper---sooo nice with the fountain pen. I'm keeping a bit of a revision/writing life journal in it, having recently destroyed a bunch of journals that may have been filled with incriminating secrets. You'll never know. This is my home desk.

400 S / 300 E

“Young Adult Authors You’ll Love to Meet.” Yes! You will love to meet us, and we will love to meet you. It’s a panel with me, Paul Genesse and Bobbie Pyron. Whether you’re a writer yourself, an aspiring writer, or a fan, the discussion should be great. We will answer anything you ask. Within reason. There will be a signing afterward.

Friday, February 19 @ Aromas Coffeehouse, Omaha, NE – 7 p.m.

Fan meetup! This is my totally experimental/guerrilla/crapshoot thingie. I’m going to be in Omaha for the evening on this last-minute trip, and while it’s too late to line up any store events, I know authors don’t often come your way and I’d be happy to hang out. If you are in the area, come by to say hi and have a chat and a latte (and I will bring my good signing pen in case it become necessary). We’ll see how this goes…I for one am going to bring a book in case it’s just me, myself, and I.

11th and Jones in the Old Market Lofts building

1033 Jones Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68102, 402-614-7009

I will stay there until 8:30 for sure.

Now, Tomorrow, Six Months from Tuesday – The Comfort of Your Own Home

It’s the Glen Online!

Whether you’d like to improve your writing in a particular genre, or have a specific project in mind, the Glen Online offers the perfect opportunity to set reasonable creative writing goals with a mentor’s guidance, all while working at your own pace.

I’m teaching a YA fiction class—I know many of you have already contacted me saying that you wish you could do this if you had the money. If all goes well, I’ll be doing this well into the foreseeable future, so maybe it will work out for you later. If you’re not into YA, TGO also offers classes in beginning, intermediate, and advanced fiction, poetry, and memoir. All the info here.

While on tour for Once Was Lost, I picked up a signed copy of Matt’s latest book, We Were Here, at BookPeople in Austin and read it on the way home. This story, about three boys who break out of a group home and embark on a journey down the California coast, moved me from page 1, when the narrator, Miguel, muses about the book he’ll someday write:

“About what it’s like growing up on the levee in Stockton, where every other person you meet has missing teeth or is leaning against a liquor store wall begging for change to buy beer. Or maybe it’d be about my dad dying in the stupid war and how at the funeral they gave my mom some cheap medal and a folded up flag and shot a bunch of rifles at the clouds.”

Later, Miguel joins up with Mong and Rondell, and together they’re three characters I’ll never forget. While traveling for OWL and doing school visits and trying to connect with bored-looking teenage boys, I kept thinking, “I wish they could be listening to Matt de la Peña instead of me.” Not that I don’t have anything to say to bored teenage boys, because I think I do and usually once I get my talk rolling they are bored no more, but We Were Here truly speaks their language. It speaks your language, too, if you’re a writer, with prose that is both immediate and poetic, clear and complex, and has real drama and humor without straining for either. Matt and I have been having an email conversation about WWH for a few weeks—edited below for your reading pleasure.

My first and most important question before we even start: how do you get the little accent mark/tilde thing over the n in Peña?

So, the tilde over the “n” is tricky on the web. It’s easy on word — you just go to special characters. But I really don’t know what to do on the web. They make it hard to be Mexican online. And when I see my name without the tilde I feel naked. And I feel like I’m disrespecting my grandma.

(Fortunately, I figured out how to do this, because of course there is an entire wikipedia entry about it. On a Mac, you do option+n then the letter you want under the tilde. /PSA) Okay, at the risk of sounding like I’m asking where you get your ideas, what was the genesis of We Were Here?

When I was writing short stories I developed a weird strategy. I’d always take two partially finished stories and throw them together, no matter how odd the fit (sort of like Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked). It usually took me in totally new directions. One time I paired a landscaping story with a story about a relationship that was messed up by a cheating dude (not based on my own experience) (well, maybe a little). It seemed to work. For We Were Here I did something similar. Main character Miguel’s crime is something I took from a college basketball teammate of mine. He came to the first open gym of the year with one of those house arrest anklets. It wasn’t until six months later that he told me what happened. It broke my heart. And I always secretly watched him when everybody was goofing off or messing with each other. He’d be laughing like everybody else, but there was always something sad in his eyes. Such a complex crime (I guess I shouldn’t give it away). So, I took his crime and made it Miguel’s backstory. I also worked in a group home for a couple years after college. Tough job, but I remember looking through all the kids’ files after they went to sleep. Heartbreaking stuff. At least in some cases. So I threw Miguel into a group home setting. And last came the trip down the California coast. Seven years ago I started a failed novel about a musician living in LA. He’s originally from Stockton in Northern California. After his old man dies he drives the coast to LA and stops at random places to hang out solo. The book died because it didn’t have enough plot. But I stole the section where he travels the coast and gave it to Miguel, Mong and Rondell. And the last thing I had to do was find the right voice. Remember that story collection we were both in, Does This Book Make Me Look Fat? That was the first time I’d ever done 1st person in YA. And I was sort of practicing the voice I eventually gave to Miguel.

Anyway, that’s a very long-winded answer to your question, I know. The point is, We Were Here is a bit of a mashup. It came from all over. But the genesis, the core story I wanted to explore, was what happens to a kid who commits the kind of crime Miguel commits. What does that do to his psyche moving forward.

Ever since you mentioned Half Baked, I am jonesing.

Sara, I want you to seriously trust me on something, okay? Häagan Dazs’ Caramel Cone. Please try a pint. This son of a bitch ice cream is so good I can’t believe it.

(Insert several-day interval during which I ignore Matt’s advice, yet do consume a pint of Everything But The, against doctor’s orders.) The case files. The scene in which Miguel reads his friends’ case files had this powerfully physical effect on me I don’t often get when reading. I had to keep putting the book down, and was talking aloud to myself: “Oh God. Oh no.” Did you know when you started the story what would be in each of the three main characters’ files? On a related note: how much do you know when you start a book? Do you have it pretty well mapped out or do you allow yourself to be surprised, and allow the story to change because of those surprises?

Check this out. I’m in a writing group here in NYC made up almost exclusively of adult novelists, and they think it’s hilarious that I outline. Seriously. They tease me at least once a month, like I’m the lowest of the low.

“You don’t REALLY outline, do you?” they say.

“I outline.”

“Honestly? But why?”

“Because I don’t want every damn book I write to take twelve years,” I shoot back, which hits a couple of them where it hurts.

Before I really start writing a book I take tons of notes. What if this happens? What if that happens. Maybe this character does this or says this. Stuff like that. I just looked back at my We Were Here notes about the group home files. I wrote down a ton of ideas, but almost all of them went out the window when I started writing. One note, however, made the cut. I thought I could use the files as a way to hide exposition about the guys Miguel is traveling with. It grew from there, of course.

In my final outline before breaking ground, I have one line about the files: “Miguel takes files before he breaks out / on the road at some point he reads Mong’s and Rondell’s but not his own.” It wasn’t until I revised the scene that I knew what it meant to the story. When he reads the files he “sees” the guys for the first time. The become real people with real sadness. Hopefully they become more real to the reader in this scene, too.

When I started the book I didn’t know what the files would say. When I got to the actual scene I still didn’t know. It wasn’t until I finished the first draft that I went back and wrote that part. And then I understood that for Miguel this is a huge moment. He develops empathy for his guys. His protective shell is penetrated. He also starts to rebel against the idea that a file can define who he is, who Rondell and Mong are.

I think outlines are good — though I do agree that they can be taken too far. My initial outline is only a page. It lists the major plot points and reversals. And even THOSE change along the way. At this point I think it’s all about balance. I like to have some sense of where I’m going, while still leaving room for epiphanies. I think there’s a saying in playwriting: Always leave a door open because you never know who’s going to walk in.

When Miguel reads the files, you get to see him for the first time, too, in a new way. Though he probably wouldn’t call it this, it’s like he’s experiencing being on the giving end of compassion for the first time. And you hope he figures out how to be on the receiving end of it, too, as the story goes on. One thing that I’d think was challenging for you as a writer: you have these three boys, all from the kinds of lives and experiences that lead them to being in a group home, and the way to survive is to NOT share your feelings, NOT be vulnerable, NOT show compassion, NOT talk about feelings. Yet the book hangs on their connections with each other, and in truth it’s a very emotional story. The book is Miguel’s journal, essentially, and a lot of times it’s clear that he feels completely opposite of what he says he feels—he cares when he says he doesn’t, he’s sad but tried to dismiss his sadness, he feels obligated to the other two though he makes claims about them all having their own lives to lead. Was it hard to write this emotional story through the eyes of a guy whose survival depends on not feeling things too deeply?

Miguel’s character was surprisingly easy to write. In fact, while I was finishing up the final draft of the book I kept thinking, Man, I think I totally figured out how to write a book! It’s gonna be smooth sailing from here on out! Of course, I couldn’t have been more wrong. My next book, I Will Save You (which I just revised for the 28^th time), was the most difficult writing experience I’ve ever had. So, yeah, I still don’t understand anything about this novel writing thing. It’s so damn elusive.

I think Miguel was easy to write because of my background. I grew up in a tough, working class family/neighborhood. Machismo was coming up through the floorboards. In my family dudes don’t cry or show their feelings in any way. Let’s say I got hit by a car, and one of my arms was laying on the north side of the road and my other arm had landed under a bush on the south side of the road. My dad would point down at me and said, “Bro, you better not cry!” Growing up in that kind of world, you learn the little subtleties that stand in for emotion. Like you said, We Were Here is a pretty emotional book, it’s just the emotion is related in a different language, and the characters are all armed with serious defense mechanisms.

Beautifully done. Speaking of revision, how do you approach it? Like, imagine you’ve got your editorial notes in one hand and beverage of choice in the other…then what? Or do you revise a lot on your own before your editor even sees it?

First drafts are painful for me. Staring at a blank page, making those big sweeping decisions. But I love revising. I’d say I probably revised We Were Here about 18-20 times before I handed it in. But that’s mostly because language means everything to me. Sounds and rhythms. Sometime the sound of the dialogue mean as much to me as the content. Especially with the kind of kids I’m writing. They have to flow. Have it hit right. Cap on each other quick. I also think good urban language (like most types of language) has to have a poetic sensibility. If that makes sense. Beautiful-ugliness, that sort of thing.

I get really stressed out before I read my editorial letter. I think this is one of the biggest challenges authors face. We sit with these books for months and months, all alone, complete control, and then we have to step back and consider some else’s vision. It’s extremely helpful, of course, but it’s hard to mentally adjust at first. I usually try to read the letter and then read the entire novel from my editor’s POV. And then I take notes for a couple weeks. Just jot down little thoughts, possible changes, etc. During this process I figure out which elements I agree with my editor about and which elements I plan to fight. At the end of the two weeks my editor and I will have a long conversation about everything. Sometimes it goes great. Sometimes I want to leap off the Brooklyn Bridge. Then I put my head down for a couple more months and basically rewrite every sentence in the book. I think I have a pretty inefficient revision style, but at this point I still feel the need to go through and tinker with every sentence, just in case the sentence works better a different way.

That work pays off—this book is filled with so many little gorgeous moments. And they sneak up on you, in the middle of an otherwise ridiculous verbal wrestling match among the boys, for example, or in a remark Miguel would consider off-hand but is an emotional punch in the gut. On the topic of things that make you cry, Rondell has got to be one of the best characters I’ve ever encountered. How did he develop?

Rondell. Of Mice and Men was obviously an influence. But Rondell is mostly based on one very religious ex-teammate of mine. At least he was who I pictured. This guy from ghetto Miami. He was simple and complex at the same time. He said five incredibly dumb things in a row and then he’d come out with something profound as hell and you’d look at him and go, “Dude, who ARE you?” Rondell is all heart. He lives in the now. His one intangible hope is that God is able to see him, too. Even though he’s messed up a couple times. The hardest scene to write in the entire book was [redacted by SZ to keep spoilers out!]. I love Rondell. So much. But I knew I had to show the other side, the reason he was in the system. The line that kills me is when he turns to Miguel, after what he’s done, and says, “I’m scared.” That makes me incredibly sad.

I’m so happy you like Rondell. Miguel likes him, too, even though he’s always saying what a pain in the ass big Rondo is. It’s funny, I didn’t plan to have Rondell play such an important role in the book, but he kept popping his head back in.

I love this quote: “…if there was really a so-called God he better be seeing Rondell. Even when the guy was locked up. It’d be entertaining as hell. Plus it’d be messed up if somebody who was God only cared about seeing seeing people who did everything right, or rich people, or smart people. He should see people like Rondell, too. Rondell’s life shouldn’t mean any less than anybody else’s.”

Miguel’s reactions to Rondell were some of the most profoundly moving parts of the book, to me. At the same time, Rondell provided a lot of much-needed comic relief, as in the scene in which Miguel tries to explain international currency and Rondo’s just not getting it. Comic gold.

Anything you can tell us about I Will Save You?

It’s a love triangle. Narrator, Kidd Ellison, has run away from a county house for disturbed youth. He’s spending the summer as an assistant maintenance worker at the San Elijo Beach Campsites in California. He immediately falls in love with one of the campers, a rich white girl named Olivia (who has a secret). Olivia gives Kidd hope. Makes him want to try hard at life. But then Kidd’s oldest friend, Devon, shows up. And Devon has a serious death wish. And he’s not leaving until he teaches Kidd a few things about life. And Olivia.

Why am I already worried about Kidd? Okay, so I don’t think of you as a “writer of color,” but I’m curious if you have any thoughts about your identity as such.

When I was in college I worked at a schizophrenic house. It was both fascinating and frustrating as hell. There was the guy who thought he was Batman. An older woman who was constantly eating her clothes. Literally. Many of the residents didn’t speak at all. But the resident I’ll never forget was a long-haired Mexican man named Manuel. Every time I went to work we’d have the exact same convo, word for word:
Manuel: Excuse me. Hi. Can I ask you something?

Me: Okay.

Manuel: Do you got some Mexican blood in you?

Me: Yeah, I’m half. How’d you know?

Manuel: I could just tell. I see it in your face. What’s your last name?

Me: de la Peña.

Manuel: Oh, you got a cool name like me. Do you know my Auntie Rosa?

Me: I don’t think so. Why, does she live around here?

Manuel: No she lives in Mexico City. But she died twenty years ago. By any chance do you know Sheena Easton?

Me: I don’t.

Manuel: Did you know I’m gonna get a Harley?

This exact exchange probably happened over 200 times. And I engaged every time. One day my supervisor asked me, “Why do you go through that every time you walk in the door?” I told her I didn’t know. I went home that night and thought about it. A couple weeks later I wrote a poem called “Manuel” (pretty creative title, right?). In the poem I said how I would ALWAYS talk to Manuel. Because Manuel was my grandma’s tamales hot off the griddle. And he was my uncles talking shit and throwing horseshoes and drinking beer. And he was everything I ever wanted to be.

I think most writers have their little hang-ups. One of mine is the guilt I felt growing up about being the lightest in my family. I never felt Mexican enough. I felt like a sellout for going to college. Pretty stupid, right? But my fiction always seems to include these mixed race kids who are trying to navigate both the landscape of the story at hand and their own complex identity issues.

“Complex identity issues” could be the pitch for the entire body of contemporary YA.

More author interviews

Matt’s web site

Ball Don’t Lie (the movie) at IMDB

Read Matt de la Peña:

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

• How about them Saints? I thought it was a pretty great game, as Super Bowls go. Of course the best part of the S-Bowl is that it’s an excuse to re-arrange the furniture for maximum TV viewage, have people over, and eat the kind of crap food one normally denies oneself, such as kettle chips with classic onion dip. A veritable bomb of salt and fat. Until next February, my sweet!

• Over the weekend I read Richard Yates’ The Easter Parade. While I’ve always admired Yates’ prose and Revolutionary Road is a favorite (if you’ve only seen the movie, read the book!), it was pretty bleak (as is RR but this felt more so). Characters trying to transition from post-WWII times to pre-Vietnam, going from cocktail to cocktail and lover to lover, children neglected hither and yon…basically it’s Mad Men without the laughs. Okay, a couple of laughs, but it really could have used an in-office John Deere mishap. It was a fast read, about the same length as your average YA. For Sara the Slow, that is a plus. But now I want to read something happy. I’ve been peeking at G.’s library copy of Douglas Coupland’s Generation A, which looks promising if not happy.