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Pennwriters 2022: Friends, Fun, and Kidney Stones

caravanofcomposition 9 Comments

Faithful readers know that the annual Pennwriters Conference in Pennsylvania is one of my yearly highlights. Back in 2020, local writers friends and I were stoked to travel to Lancaster, a six hour drive from Buffalo, to connect with other writer friends and laugh until our sides hurt. But, as you may have guessed, the conference turned virtual and instead of jumping on beds, we jumped onto a video chat after the Friday night Read & Critique and exchanged lockdown stories. Things were virtual again in 2021, and while I enjoyed our ridiculous group chats, I missed the sound of my friends’ laughter, missed seeing their smiles after a successful pitch session, missed the energy that comes from a room full of creative people.

So when the opportunity came up to travel to Lancaster for an in person conference this past weekend, I didn’t hesitate. My friend Joy and I were chosen to teach a class on healthy habits for busy writers, and my faithful travel buddy Adrienne (we attended the conference together in 2018) was game for the trip. Unfortunately for this busy writer, the timing wasn’t great. Both boys were scheduled for their first soccer tournament of the season, and my husband had to work all weekend. My parents had only just arrived back from Florida, and my mother-in-law was recovering from COVID. It was like the universe didn’t want me to go.

But I went anyway. I wanted to see my friends and hoped the positive energy would help get me back on track with my writing. The conference was great. I loved seeing people I hadn’t seen in person since 2019 – actually giving them a hug and sharing unfiltered laughter. Our class was a hit, I learned some new strategies, and I got positive feedback on my new novel beginning. On the last night, my friends and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner at my favorite Lancaster vegan restaurant, Root, followed by the social.

That’s where things began to go downhill. Terrible pain kept me awake for most of the night, and by 5am I knew something was very wrong. Adrienne and I decided to leave early, packed up our things, and headed home. While I considered stopping at an urgent care in Pennsylvania, I decided it made the most sense to get home where I would be near my family and Adrienne could go back to hers. Bless her heart, she drove the entire way while I moaned in the passenger seat. I was nauseous and in the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. (Up until that moment, the award for worst pain went to a ruptured ovarian cyst in 2014.) We arrived at the ER around 1:30, where I waited with hubby for several more hours before being seen. Finally, after a CT scan, the prognosis came as little shock to others in the room who had experienced it (hubby and the attending nurse): kidney stone.

Thankfully, I appear to be on the mend and will be seeing a specialist later today. I’ve been examining the reason behind it, (aside from my initial reaction which I’ll admit is irrational – that the universe was punishing me for doing something for myself) and have discovered many of the items in my diet may be problematic. I eat a plant-based diet and drink mostly water and tea, but things like raw spinach, nuts, and soy are high in oxalates, which can cause kidney stones. I’ve been feeling pretty down about it the last few days, as I think about cutting back on some of my favorite foods (I laughed with the nurse, telling him I will probably be the only person who insists they can’t possibly give up spinach!) and I hope to find a nutritionist who can help me navigate the next steps. In the meantime, I was thrilled to find out on Sunday night, after returning from my nine hour stay at the ER, that my poem Bruised (featured in Time won’t give me time) won first place in the In Other Words Contest. I wrote a few other poems during the weekend, including my first slam poem, and I plan to find some in person readings where I can share them in public. Maybe even submit to a magazine and see what happens. Despite the way things ended, I am happy I went to the conference and look forward to next year’s.

Unfortunately, while we were away, there was a horrendous tragedy in my hometown – a local grocery store was ambushed in a racist attack and several innocent people were killed and injured. We are the city of good neighbors, a place where people can count on the kindness of strangers to help dig them out of a snow bank, a place recognized all over for its die hard sports fans and namesake food. I am heartbroken by the events of this past weekend and don’t understand how someone can hold so much hate. My heart aches for the families of those lost, and for the members of our community as we struggle to move forward. Buffalo is strong and resilient and full of hope. We have come together to help each other, as a city of good neighbors must, and we will seek justice and peace.

Sending love to all, far and near. ❤

EVERYTHING IT TAKES Book Birthday!

caravanofcomposition 2 Comments

Today my third verse novel enters the world. I’ve been a little nervous about this book because she had a bit of a rocky start. The idea came to me during a college recruitment event – I work as an Admissions Counselor at a Community College and part of my job is to attend local high schools and try to convince them to attend our school. The students vary in their level of interest and enthusiasm – some genuinely want to know more about our programs while others only care about the free pens. The opening scene in EIT comes from that observation, as I put myself in the shoes of a high school student, laser focused on getting into college in hopes of escaping her small town. I wondered what would happen if she tried to interview with a college and they rejected her for being too focused on academics and not well rounded, and how she would react. What if she had tried to find clubs to join but never truly fit in? What if her last resort was a group of environmental activists that challenged her rule following impulses?

And so, an idea was born. The original title was GREEN FOR GOOD, after the name of the environmental club, but my editor wanted something catchier. On a Friday afternoon in December of 2019, we went back and forth trying to decide on a title. My husband jokingly suggested LILY AND THE ECOTERRORIST, which our youngest latched onto and continues to use to this day. (He even told me he was going to white-out the title on his copy and write it in.) Finally, we landed on EVERYTHING IT TAKES and I proceeded to write the story.

Lily’s voice came to me immediately. I loved writing her character and watching her grow throughout the novel. The supporting cast was a lot of fun too. My biggest struggle was plot. My original outline needed revisions and I kept getting stuck about halfway in. In February I went on a camping trip with our cub scout troop (my last one!) and brainstormed with some of my friends. They helped me come up with the idea of the buried trash and got me over the plot hurdle just in time for my first draft deadline: March 15, 2020.

Hey, remember what was happening in the world on March 15, 2020?

Yup. I turned my book in just as the world shut down. My very first zoom meeting was with my editor, Caitie, where she lovingly told me that the voice was spot on but the plot, well, we needed to do some major editing.

Editing in a pandemic when all you want to do is hide under the covers and cry? Yeah, not fun. But the book meant a lot to me, and I desperately wanted it to have a positive environmental message. So I pushed through and am deeply grateful for Caitie’s help and patience as well as my husband’s constructive feedback. He is always my first reader, the one who assures me that, no, the book does not suck. He helps me brainstorm ideas and listens to me wallow in self-doubt (then promptly tells me to stop wallowing).

Final draft accepted – YAY!
Cover designed – YAY!
Book will release in April 2021, Earth day month – YAY!

World still a dumpster fire in 2021…
Book release delayed until December
Friends asking why Amazon says it came out in August and they can’t get a copy!??!

Publishing is not an easy journey. But here we are, my third book baby out in the world for real, and I am very excited. When the author copies arrived the other day I quickly re-read it and said to my family, hey, that’s not as bad as I thought it would be. And then my parents read it and told me they loved it. And Kirkus gave it a good review.

Lily is here and ready to take on the world. I hope you’ll give her a chance.

Behind the scenes of my second verse novel

caravanofcomposition 2 Comments

Book journeys are all unique. From plot bunny to manuscript, from query letter to author copies – every book has its own story. So what’s the story behind Listen Up, my verse novel newly released from West 44 Books?

In early 2018, while I anxiously awaited the launch of my debut novel, Second in Command, my editor called for the next round of pitches. A pitch is one sentence that describes the general plot of a book, but in this case, she was looking for a query and first 500 words. Fiction queries, letters of about 250 words designed to give an agent and editor an idea of the who, what, when, where, why of your book, are typically written when a book is complete. Writers often complain about them, but I’m actually one of those weird types who enjoy writing query letters. Maybe it’s all those writing conference sessions, or the satisfaction of being able to sum up the major players and conflict of a book in 250 words or less. Maybe it’s because I once got to hang out and pick the brain of literary agent and query guru Janet Reid, better known as the Query Shark, and she gave my query her stamp of approval. (It may have helped that my friend Dee introduced Janet to sponge candy the day we met.)

Whatever the reason, I wrote a query, sent it to Dee, who helped me clean it up, and wrote my 500 words. Hit submit.

Wait, back up. Where did the idea come from? you ask. My intent at the time was to do a modern retelling of Pump up the Volume, an awesome 90’s movie staring my teen heartthrob, Christian Slater. If you’ve never seen the film, you should watch it because, well, because Christian Slater. With no shirt on. Also it’s a pretty good movie. It’s about a super-shy kid who moves to a new town and uses the radio his parents got him, intended to keep in touch with his old friends, to start an underground radio station. He starts out using it to push boundaries but ends up tackling serious issues and uncovering a plot to remove “bad” students from the school. I knew I couldn’t take on something so huge in 10k words (and wanted my book to be inspired by, not a copy of the movie), so I kept the key elements: shy character, wants to speak out but struggles in real life so finds a way to do it anonymously. In the movie, it’s radio. In my book, he starts a video channel.

So I pitched the book idea in January 2018. Pitched another idea shortly after, about two friends who try to solve the mystery of a missing girl in their neighborhood. Neither were approved. But they weren’t outright rejected either. I started working on the second idea, wrote a few poems, read them to some of my writer friends, who promptly told me they were terrible. Which they were. So I worked on other projects. I wrote several short stories for another imprint, blogged a bit, and changed tenses and major plot lines in my YA historical fiction novel after an unsuccessful round of queries. Forgot all about Listen Up.

Then in October of 2019 my editor wrote to ask if I’d like to write the book. That she’d been thinking about it since I sent the pitch in nearly two years earlier. Oh, and could I write it in a month?

Queue excitement, followed swiftly by panic. Sure! I could write a book in a month. People do that all the time during NaNoWriMo. I made myself a schedule and spent nearly every soccer practice camped out with my laptop. Thankfully, the characters were very cooperative, telling me who they were and what they wanted. The plot was a bit more elusive, and as I approached the end, I realized there was a major hole that needed to be fixed. With a deadline fast approaching, I locked myself in my writing room one weekend and brainstormed until I figured out how to untwist the mess I had made and give the book a proper ending.

Wanna know a secret? That is not easy when your book consists of nothing but poetry. You have to figure out a way to move or rewrite in chunks while keeping the story flowing and the poems intact. When I finished the first draft, I brought it to my husband and asked him to, “Please tell me if this sucks.” He’s a no BS kinda guy, so I knew he’d be honest. And he was. He told me it didn’t suck and helped me fix the parts that were confusing or unclear. I’m deeply thankful for his insight and for my other three beta readers: Adrienne, Alexis, and Carla, who were able to quickly give me notes before I turned it into my editor. And for the random student I met during an instant admit session who answered my questions about Autobody classes. I think his name was Joe. Thank you.

I’m also deeply indebted to my editor, Caitie. Her notes are always kind and helpful, and my favorite part of the process was when I turned in my first draft and she called me a “writing superhero”. Her faith in me has been a huge confidence boost.

Sadly, the journey from acceptance to release day hasn’t been sunshine and rainbows. The pandemic caused a lot of problems in the publishing industry, especially in educational publishing. I originally wrote and planned to publish this post on October 1, but on that day there were no books available to order. I haven’t gotten my author copies yet, and the library rejected the request to carry it because their supplier didn’t have any copies. But my friends, family, and coworkers have been encouraging – sending me texts, pre-ordering the book, letting me read some of the poems at our weekly meeting. And my mom called to say her friends were all excited to get their copies. I’m thankful for all of that, truly.

There is so much I love about writing – I love creating characters and stories, of letting my mind wander into all the what-if’s. I love the way it feels like therapy sometimes, like it’s this free, easy way to work through the garbage in my head. But I mostly love when someone reads something I’ve written and tells me how it made them feel. When a student admits my book is the first he’s ever finished and another sends me the poem she felt inspired to write.

I went into a few classrooms to talk about Second in Command, and I am hopeful that I’ll be able to do that again someday. In the meantime, if I can get my procrastinator’s butt into gear, I’ll put together some video clips of me reading the book and would love to find ways to interact virtually with my readers. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here are the links to order a copy if you’re so inclined:
West44 Books
Amazon

And if you read the book, please leave a review. Thank you all, for the support. ❤

The importance of real pants

caravanofcomposition 2 Comments

Social media memories are a blessing and a curse. I love looking back on times when my boys were cute and cuddly and my face had fewer wrinkles. But during a pandemic, it is heart wrenching to wake up, click memories, and be instantly reminded that we can’t do those things right now.

Three years ago today, the weather was beautiful, and we had a packed Saturday. I hung out with my family at our town’s annual Oktoberfest, where the boys participated (and ROCKED) a keg rolling contest, and then headed to our local library to celebrate the launch of my friend’s latest middle grade novel. We ate snacks from a communal table, sat next to each other, and hugged.

Hugged.

Now, I’m not much of a hugger to begin with, but I miss that human connection. I miss Wednesday night writing sessions at Wegmans and Friday afternoon gab sessions at Spot. I miss launch parties. My book releases next week, and I don’t have anything planned to help launch it into the world. Many of my writer friends continue to self-quarantine, and the thought of doing something virtual does not exactly thrill me. While I appreciate their ability to connect us safely, I am pretty burnt out on web-based social gatherings.

Our local writing group held its first meeting of the season (virtually of course) earlier this week. It was a craft session, which is always fun, 80’s themed – double bonus points, but I just couldn’t get into it. I missed the collective energy normally felt in a room full of writers. I stared at the blank page as it mocked me.

I had to finish a project in March/April due to a deadline, but since then? I’ve written once. And only because one of my Pennwriters friends organized a virtual write-in, and I felt like I had to write something in order to not be a complete fraud. I pulled out an old project, added about a page and a half, and that was it. The sum total of my writing output for the past six months.

There are projects. There are ideas. There is also a very tired mama who doesn’t wear real pants anymore. Who thinks, do my stories even matter? With so much hate and hurt in the world, what could I possibly add to the narrative? I keep waiting for the proverbial lightbulb to go off in my head. For the magical idea that will send my fingers tap-tapping again. Do you know how many blog posts I’ve drafted in my head these past several months? The sleepless nights I spent thinking, “This is what I have to say,” then instead of getting out of bed and writing it down, allowed my nay-saying brain to dismiss it all?

(A LOT.)

The world needs stories, especially now. Cheerful ones, sad ones, true ones, and fictional ones. We need to step away from social media, from the negative energy of everyone spewing their anger and ideals and also from the memories of all the things we can’t enjoy right now. I’m confident those days will return – the days of launch parties and writing/gab sessions. In the meantime, we need to keep doing the best we can, no matter how low the bar. This morning I put on real pants. They are uncomfortable. But I needed to send a message to my brain that this is serious. Life must move forward. Fingers must hit keys in order for words to get onto the page. They don’t do anyone any good swimming around in my brain like lost tourists.

So here we are. Doing that thing where the journey starts with a single step. Mask up and join me.