Illustration by Mikela Prevost
It’s World Read Aloud Day (#WRAD)!!! And, we couldn’t think of better day nor better way to celebrate. So, throw on your party hats and let’s get ready for a GIVEAWAY! For the next 19 hours (you heard us … 19 hours!), you will have a chance to enter our #NewIn19 giveaway. What’s up for grabs, you ask? Lots and lots of the latest and greatest in picture books by some of our wonderful and oh-so-creative members. Some of these books aren’t even on the shelves yet, but will be soon! There are three #NewIn19 Book Bundles to win. So, check out each Rafflecopter below and enter. Good luck! You’ve got 19 hours and counting. Giveaways end at 1 a.m. on Feb. 2, 2019. We will announce the winners here on Feb. 4 and contact them via Twitter. Also, please make sure to read a book aloud to a child today. Bundle #1: FIVE On-the-Serious-Side #NewIn19 Picture Books HONEYSMOKE (signed copy) by Monique Fields, illustrated by Yesenia Moises HER FEARLESS RUN by Kim Chaffee, illustrated by Ellen Rooney PIPPA’S PASSOVER PLATE by Vivian Kirkfield, illustrated by Jill Weber SMALL WORLD (signed ARC) by Ishta Mercurio, illlustrated by Jen Corace WHEN GRANDMA GIVES YOU A LEMON TREE (an F&G copy) by Jamie L.B. Deenihan, illustrated by Lorraine Rocha
Bundle #2: FOUR Get-Ready-to-Giggle #NewIn19 Picture Books
CAVEKID BIRTHDAY (an F&G copy) by Cathy Breisacher, illustrated by Roland Garrigue NOAH NOASAURUS (an F&G copy) by Elaine Kiely Kearns, illustrated by Colin Jack PIRATES DON’T GO TO KINDERGARTEN (an F&G copy) by Lisa Robinson, illustrated by Eda Kaban UNDERWEAR! (signed copy) by Jenn Harney
Bundle #3: THREE All-the-Feels-and-Funny #NewIn19 Picture Books
LET'S HAVE A DOG PARTY (an F&G copy, bookmark and signed print) by Mikela Prevost NOODLEPHANT by Jacob Kramer, illustrated by K-Fai Steele THIS BOOK IS SPINELESS (a signed F&G and swag) by Lindsay Leslie, illustrated by Alice Brereton
Terms & Conditions
Giveaway begins February 1, 2019, at 6 a.m. CST and ends on February 2, 2019, at 1 a.m. CST. Winners will be selected randomly via Rafflecopter.com and notified via Twitter or email. New In Nineteen blog reserves the right to publish winner’s first name and last initial. Each winner will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is selected. New In Nineteen blog also reserves the right to choose a different winner in the case that the randomly chosen winner refuses to cooperate with rules, reply to winning email in 48 hour time period or does not have verifiable entries. Each author will ship their book to each winner directly. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery of prize, unless otherwise noted. Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads are in no way associated with this giveaway. By providing your information in this form, you are providing your information to New In Nineteen. New In Nineteen will not share or sell information and will use any information only for the purpose of contacting the winner. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Open to US residents only, ages 18+. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. If you have any additional questions – feel free to contact us: https://newin19.weebly.com/contact.html
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By Lisa Rogers There’s a good reason that “How do you get your ideas?” is an author’s most-commonly asked question. Creative inspiration is a mysterious process that teeters on the edges of a lifetime of experiences, a piece of information, a moment of observation. When that world tilts in your favor, aha! there’s your inspiration. At least that’s how it seems to work for me. A few years ago, that tilt led to the creation of my picture book, 16 WORDS: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AND THE RED WHEELBARROW. My world shifted one morning, when, as part of my breakfast routine (see my earlier New in Nineteen blogpost Breakfast is Ready, and so is My Manuscript) I opened The New York Times’ arts section. I noticed a headline: The owner of the wheelbarrow on which “so much depends” in the William Carlos Williams’ poem had been identified. My skin prickled. The owner of the wheelbarrow! In all of the many times I had read that poem, I had never thought about who might have hefted that barrow. I wanted to know more about him and how he inspired Williams’ favorite, and most famous, poem! I knew immediately that I had a story to write. It had to wait. I didn’t want to rush it. A few days later, I would be embarking on a family vacation to Venice and the Italian Riviera. I cut out Jennifer Schuessler’s story, tucked it into a folder with a tiny Moleskine notebook given to me by my closest childhood friend, and let my thoughts simmer. Then, on a train from Venice to Parma, I began to write. I merely outlined the story, but I knew I wanted to show the respect and caring between Williams, the doctor-poet, and his neighbor and patient, Thaddeus Marshall. I imagined the two of them, each going about their business, each filling an important role in their Rutherford, N.J., community.
Rutherford’s sense of history and community is palpable. I walked the short distance between the Marshall and Williams homes. I walked to the Meadowlands Museum and examined a room full of Williams’ memorabilia: his doctor’s bag, his straw hat, his walking stick. I stood in front of Mr. Marshall’s home and imagined his garden. I stopped to see the stained-glass window in the village church, commemorating lives lost in World War I, to which Marshall contributed. I noticed every detail possible. Evanescent inspiration became real. The world tilted again when Schwartz & Wade Books decided this story should become a book. Illustrator Chuck Groenink has tenderly and thoughtfully brought this story and its people to life, enriching it with his own inspiration and making it something new. I hope it inspires you to do your own noticing. -- Lisa Rogers is an elementary school librarian and a former newspaper reporter and editor. Her debut picture book, 16 WORDS: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AND THE RED WHEELBARROW, will be published by Schwartz & Wade Books on September 24, 2019. She is a winner of the 2016 PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award. Find her at lisarogerswrites.com and on Twitter @LisaLJRogers. By Wendy Greenley If you want to be a writer, having no idea what to write is a big problem. Fortunately, this has never been a problem of mine. An interview of Oliver Jeffers last year by Maya Lim resonated with me. Ideas are everywhere. Scraps of paper litter my home recording moments of inspiration. So, what’s my blank page problem? Having GOOD ideas! Picture book worthy ideas (the age group I generally write for). Ideas that I feel passionate about, and have marketability. Because, let’s face it, some ideas are too similar to something already on the market (great minds DO think alike), some ideas are ahead of their time (when subversive veers off into downright controversial), some ideas are for the wrong age group, others don’t lend themselves to illustration, and some are just too niche for wide appeal. My initial drafts of LOLA SHAPES THE SKY (releasing March 12, 2019!) had several of these issues--and now it's a a beautiful book. Is it some rule-breaking book unicorn?! Sorry, but nope. It's the product of revision. Re-envisioning a plot while retaining the heart and passion that inspired the first draft. So my advice to all writers staring at a blank page--show the blank page who's the boss! Sure you can sit and stare at it, but why would you? When a page is blank, you don't have anything to work with. This is why I like paper drafts instead of computer prose. Paper feels like a draft to me and I don't hesitate to write ridiculous ideas. I cross out, circle, list options and shoot arrows linking ideas in every direction. I get something down on that paper. If you're really having trouble coming up with ideas--you're in luck! January is #StoryStorm month. Author extraordinaire Tara Lazar has a superb annual idea-generating series (once called PiBoIdMo, targeted to picture book writers, now StoryStorm for all genres) that helps writers develop their creative spidey-senses. A FB group and past posts are online for extra support during the remaining months. It is a genuine treasure and while I didn't come up with LOLA's story as a direct result of any single post, the first draft was written during a January PiBoIdMo month when my ideas were flying! Yay, StoryStorm! Follow @Taralazar on Twitter or FB NOW so you don't miss it! Hope you're ready to fill that blank page with some love. I'll be blogging again for #newin19 at newin19.weebly.com and at wendygreenley.com. Follow me @wendygreenley if you don't want to miss that (or all the other new picture book releases from my #newin19 debut picture book author friends!) --
Wendy Greenley's eclectic interests led her to be a dried flower artist, ice cream scooper, microbiologist, attorney, Cub Scout leader, Art Goes to School Volunteer and president of the local Friends of the Library. Now she writes full-time for children. She lived in NJ, DE, PA, England and TX before circling back to the Keystone State. She is represented by Stephanie Fretwell-Hill of Red Fox Literary. You can find Wendy at wendygreenley.com or on Twitter @wendygreenley. Her debut picture book, LOLA SHAPES THE SKY, illustrated by Paolo Domeniconi, encourages children to find the joy of being themselves. By Lindsay Leslie Starting in early 2015, I hit the query trenches and was a BIG FAN of all the various contests and pitch events on Twitter that seek to connect writers and illustrators with agents and editors. I felt it was a great way to get immediate feedback on my queries and overall story concepts. Back in March 2017, I decided to participate in #PitMad on Twitter, which is a huge pitch event covering all genres — everything and anything. I’ve participated in #PitMad a couple of times before, and I’ve always wondered whether picture books get lost in the scrolling madness of YA and adult novels. I’m glad I didn’t give up. I pitched four of my picture book manuscripts, and I only got one “favorite” that day. It was the only one I needed. That favorite came from Kristen Nobles, children’s publisher with Page Street Kids. I carefully reviewed my query letter and manuscript, and then sent it on with a fist bump and fingers crossed. And, I forgot about it. I seriously did. I was battling a mystery illness at the time and to this day I’m still shocked I even had the wherewithal to participate in #PitMad. (I was diagnosed a few months later with Tick-borne Relapsing Fever and have fully recovered now.) So, when I received an email from Page Street associate editor Charlotte Wenger a month and some change later with a request to revise and resubmit, I was floored. Absolutely gobsmacked. I think my mouth just hung open for about two hours. I worked with Charlotte back and forth for the next month and a half to see if I could shape THIS BOOK IS SPINELESS into a picture book Page Street Kids would want to publish. And it worked! I received an offer directly from Page Street. With an offer in hand, I quickly continued my search for an agent. Through various conversations with my Austin SCBWI friends and a call with a literary lawyer who referred me to Red Fox Literary, Stephanie Fretwell-Hill and I connected, and I’m happy to say she represents me. --
A diary keeper, a journal writer, a journalism major, a public relations executive--Lindsay Leslie has always operated in a world of written words. When she became a mom and began to tell her kids bedtime stories, Lindsay connected the dots to children’s literature. Lindsay is the author of THIS BOOK IS SPINELESS, her debut picture book (Page Street Kids, Feb. 19, 2019). Her second picture book, NOVA THE STAR EATER (Page Street Kids), will launch on May 21, 2019. Her third picture book, WANTED: DUSK RAIDERS (Page Street Kids), will launch in spring of 2020. She lives with her husband, two young boys, and two fur-beasts in Austin. By Ishta Mercurio It’s NaNoWriMo, and even though this is a picture bookers’ blog, and NaNoWriMo is about writing a novel, the “Buckle down and write!” spirit feels like it’s permeated everything. So how about a craft/process post! My process is long and messy and it involves many many many manymanymanymany drafts and rewrites and scribblings and doodles and dummies. I have a book that I use for picture book manuscripts in process, and it’s full of pages that look like this: So rather than get into every element of my process, which would make for a really long post, I thought I’d share one thing I do that really helps me when things have progressed far enough that I need to see the whole story at once. This is important for tracking my main character’s emotional arc, tracking the passage of time, checking the pacing of the story, and generally seeing any bumps in the road. Any time I need to do any of those things, I make a thumbnail sketch of the book. A thumbnail sketch of the book is when you take two pieces of paper and draw a rectangle for each page spread on them, and in each rectangle you very roughly sketch an image of what’s happening on that spread as the story is written now. It’s not a complete representation of the whole scene--rather, it’s a representation of the thing you’re trying to track in this particular moment. So if you’re focusing on your character’s emotional arc, you can just draw emoji faces to represent your character’s emotions. If you want to track something else at the same time, you can add that element to the spreads. So, for example, the story in SMALL WORLD takes place over many years, so I wanted to simplify the narrative a bit by making sure that the progression of seasons from one spread to the next followed the progression of seasons in real life. I didn’t want to be jumping around from summer to winter to fall. So I used colored pencils to simply color-code the spreads, so I could check that the seasons in which each spread were taking place followed a logical order throughout the book, while I was simultaneously tracking other things like the progression of shapes Nanda encountered throughout the book (from simple to complex) and the progression of geographical concepts throughout the book (from house, to immediate community, to her city, to her county, etc.). It looked like this: When you do this, you can see very quickly and easily where you messed up: where you have a winter spread happening in the middle of summer, or an emotional turning point that’s coming too early in the story, or whatever. It’s a really good revision tool. I hope this has been useful, and I hope it helps some of you move your picture books on to the next stage. Happy writing, everybody! -- Ishta (pronounced EEESH-ta) Mercurio is an author, actor, and lifelong environmental activist. Raised in the US, she has also lived in England and Scotland, and has visited Venice, Italy; Paris, France; and a range of beautiful places all over the United States. One day, she hopes to visit her relatives in Cebu. She now makes her home in Canada, where she homeschools her two sons and films and photographs plants and wildlife, from the tall to the small, in her backyard. Find Ishta at www.ishtamercurio.com or connect with her on twitter at @IshtaWrites.
Her fiction debut, SMALL WORLD (illustrated by Jen Corace), is a STEM-concept picture book that explores a girl's journey of growing up in the world and discovering its beauty and marvel. By Kristin L. Gray
Like many writers I know, I spent several years (about seven) studying, reading, and writing picture books while my children were young. As luck would have it, though, my longer work was picked up first. To back up a bit, I took the opening pages of Vilonia Beebe Takes Charge, what would become my debut middle-grade novel, to two writing conferences for feedback. One was a local SCBWI conference, and the other was the Andrea Brown Literary Agency’s Big Sur Writing Conference set in beautiful Big Sur, California. There, I was lucky enough to be assigned to Caryn Wiseman’s roundtable. Caryn simply got Vilonia’s heart and humor from those early pages. That was a huge boost to me as a writer, to have an industry professional connect with my work. I returned home and finished drafting. Thankfully, Caryn still loved the manuscript a WHOLE YEAR later and—joy—connected to my picture book texts. We agreed to work together. To say I was over the moon is an understatement. But so much of publishing is waiting and more waiting, revising and more revising. This is why it’s a good idea to have projects in various stages, so while you are waiting on notes for one project, you are also drafting something new. I’m still finding this balance, but one of these side projects became my debut picture book, Koala is Not a Bear. This text underwent numerous revisions while I tried to balance the fun animal facts with the fictionalized storyline, and in one frustrated email to my agent, I wrote I wanted to set it on fire. I’m so glad I didn’t! And I’m so thankful Sterling Kids loved it enough to publish Koala in May. If you are new to the writing journey, take heart. You don’t have to travel across the country to meet an agent. The query inbox is alive and well. Just be sure to follow the agency’s guidelines. But if you do have the means and drive to attend a reputable conference, go for it. I was both excited and terrified. I knew no one. But I remembered a quote which stated life expands in proportion to one’s courage. So, I took a deep breath, went, and doors opened. Having just enough courage for the moment and then following through to finish that manuscript were key for me. And when I grow overwhelmed by my current WIP, as I often do, I remember this: I summon that same courage every time I sit at my desk. It’s worked for me before. It can work again. And it can work for you. I’m rooting for you. xx Kristin Find me online at kristinlgray.com or on social media here: Twitter: @kristinlgray Instagram: @kristinlgray By Kim Tomsic My journey to publication includes a mixture of focused effort, magic, and hijinks. In 2008, I’d just finished reading all of Richard Peck’s books to my son and decided rather than waiting for the great R.P. to write another tale, I’d write one myself. I set to task, and 55,000 words and a year later I finished a novel. I hired a professional editor who gently informed me I was not ready to query, but that I should join the SCBWI. Two months later, I was on a plane headed to one of the most magical experiences of my life—the 2009 SCBWI International Conference in California.
Heck no, I wasn’t going to cry. I was too dazzled by the experience to even realize the critique wasn’t going well. In fact, internally I was dancing because information is power. This critique gave me greater capacity to see my errors, gain new tools, and sharpen my skills. Everyone at the conference said participating in a critiquing group was key to growth, so when I flew home, I joined two groups, read several craft books, read gobs and gobs of children’s literature, and kept working. A few years later, I enter the hijinks phase of my publishing path. In 2011, I attended another SCBWI conference in California. I noticed an “unofficial” scavenger hunt posted on Twitter that was orchestrated by Chronicle Books editor Melissa Manlove. The rules of the hunt said to form a group of five and follow the hashtag for more instructions. I wrangled five fun strangers and spent the Saturday night gala searching for items, taking photos with kid-lit celebrities, answering book-ish questions, and then posting all answers to the unofficial hunt hashtag. We won! The prize: cocktails, conversation, and a chance to pitch. If you’ve never met Melissa Manlove, here’s what you should know: she’s incredibly smart, she’s a fast and organized thinker; and she’s fun. She treated our team to watermelon martinis and other fancy poolside cocktails. When it was my turn, I pitched a story idea for a novel. Melissa listened and then gave me a piece of advice that I might have heard a thousand times before, but for some reason, this was the first time I actually digested it. She said, “It sounds like a lot of things are happening to your character rather than your character making things happen.” This was my lightbulb moment.
Fast-forward to today, my debutnonfiction picture book, GUITAR GUINIUS, How Les Paul Engineered the Solid Body Electric Guitar and Rocked the World, edited by the fabulous Melissa Manlove and illustrated by Brett Helquist, will release with Chronicle Books on April 9, 2019. The elephant story (title tbd) releases with Chronicle in 2020. Oh, and by the way, thanks to Melissa’s initial advice, I learned how to write active characters. Please check out my two novels edited by Maria Barbo and published by Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins, The 11:11 Wish (February, 2018) and The 12th Candle (October 2019). ----
Kim Tomsic was the "new girl" at 8 different schools where she played four square, volleyball, and the flute. She never learned to play the guitar, but she likes to brag that she’s the mother of a guitarist! Kim lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband, two children, and two dogs. She believes in miracles, magic, and music. Beyond writing, she is also a yoga teacher, a pet wrangler, and the Co-Regional advisor of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Kim’s debut novel,The 11:11 Wish released with Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins in February 2018. Little Lester Polsfuss’s music teacher told him he’d never be musical. She was wrong! Guitar Genius, How Les Paul Engineered the Solid Body Electric Guitar and Rocked the World! (April 9, 2019 Chronicle Books), is a perseverance story centered on National Inventors Hall of Fame legend and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame icon, Les Paul. Les faced ridicule, hardships, and struggles as he worked to engineer devices and recording techniques that proved to be revolutionary in the music industry. By Lisa Robinson Every summer we go to Brooklin, Maine, (you read that right, it’s Brooklin, not Brooklyn) and rent a cottage one mile down the road from E.B. White’s farmhouse. On one side of the cottage, a grassy field rolls down to a rocky beach strewn with seaweed, shells, and sea glass. On the other side, towering pine trees march to the shoreline. I like to think that the spirit of E.B. White imbues this landscape with creativity and inspiration. Each year I bring home new additions to my sea glass collection—brown, green, blue, clear, and occasionally purple pieces—and place them into a jar on my bedside table. Small and large, jagged and smooth, shiny and dull, the shards wink at me during the long, cold New England winter, reminding me of summer. Combing the beach for sea glass year after year has shown me the best way to find these mementos, or at least, the best way for me. Perhaps others have a different strategy. What I’ve discovered is that if I search for sea glass head-on, eyes glued to the beach, it’s unlikely that I will find it. No matter how far and wide I pace, focus and determination rarely produce results. However, when I soften my focus and stroll the beach in a leisurely fashion—with one of my daughters at my side, waves splashing my feet, seagulls soaring overhead—it’s likely that I will stumble upon a sea-glass treasure. It might be lurking under a rock, a seaweed frond, or a clam shell. One day it occurred to me that this was exactly how the inspiration for my story ideas comes to me. If I go looking for an idea, I don’t usually find one. But if I maintain loose attention for ideas as I go about my day—reading the newspaper, making a meal, talking with clients, jogging through the woods, watching my kids at the circus gym—the ideas often pop up. In fact, I’ve discovered that this kind of unfocused, mindful attention often results in more ideas than I know what do with. However, not every piece of sea glass goes into my pocket to join the ones at home in my jar. Some are too shiny and fresh—newly broken glass—and some are too similar to pieces I already have. I leave those on the beach for others to find. Similarly, when I come across a story idea, I have criteria for whether or not I store it in a file for later use. The main one I use is my emotional response: do I feel a tickle of excitement? Can I imagine spending a lot of time working on the idea without losing enthusiasm? Do I wish I could abandon my current project and dive right into this shiny new one? (I try not to do that—but that’s a topic for another day). Our annual summer vacation in Maine—a time when I don’t write—has taught me one of my most important writing lessons: if I wander through my day with my mind open to possibilities, ideas inevitably wash up on the shore of my imagination. Inspiration is everywhere. -- Lisa Robinson is a child psychiatrist and author of four forthcoming picture books. Her debut picture book PIRATES DON’T GO TO KINDERGARTEN (Two Lions) arrives on July 9, 2019. You can find her at author-lisa-robinson.com or on Twitter: @elisaitw By Lindsay Leslie I walked into my youngest son’s room, and it was as if the idea pole-vaulted from the floor into my ear and wiggled its way toward my brain. I had accidentally stepped on one of my son’s picture books, and thought, I just broke its spine. Then my mind pinged and ponged to: this book has a spine, what if it were spineless, this book is spineless. I looked at my son and shouted, “This Book Is Spineless!” I jotted the idea down. That’s how it all began, but it probably began way before that, as with all stories needing to be told. I was always an anxious person (good at faking that I wasn’t), and I feared a lot. I remember going to Six Flags with my family. We were all staring at the Shockwave, a big loop-de-loop ride I believed would be my certain death if I went on it. Overactive amygdala, much? My mom pulled out the bribes, and I’m not just talking ice cream here. She promised me a puppy. Yep, a puppy. I looked her square in the eye and said, “No way!” The anticipation of an event, like riding a roller coaster, always overwhelmed me. Anxiety continued in various forms throughout my life. Some helpful, some very hurtful. But because of my experiences, I knew that a book about it being spineless and afraid of the story on its pages was one I needed to write and could write. I could take on a serious topic like anxiety and make it palatable, a bit light-hearted, and a little silly. I’m one of those use-humor-to-defuse-a-situation kind of folks. Also, I was set on writing the narrative arc to mimic the rise and fall of those anxious feelings, making sure the reader was invested and helping the book along way. I knew I needed to share that anxiety can be managed, can be faced, and you don’t have to face fears alone. Going back to the topic of inspiration, I’m often asked when does inspiration strike and where do I get my ideas. This is tough to answer in a finite way. Ideation seems so organic to me. But when I really throw a brain cell at what I’m doing during those idea-creating moments, I can nail down two ways I come up with ideas: creating associations and active sensing.
Now, where do you get your ideas? How do get inspired to create? And, is it hard for you to nail down exactly the process you go through to drum up ideas? Write on! -- A diary keeper, a journal writer, a journalism major, a public relations executive--Lindsay Leslie has always operated in a world of written words. When she became a mom and began to tell her kids bedtime stories, Lindsay connected the dots to children’s literature. Lindsay is the author of THIS BOOK IS SPINELESS, her debut picture book (Page Street Kids, Feb. 19, 2019). Her second picture book, NOVA THE STAR EATER (Page Street Kids), will launch on May 21, 2019. Her third picture book, WANTED: DUSK RAIDERS (Page Street Kids), will launch in spring of 2020. She lives with her husband, two young boys, and two fur-beasts in Austin. By Lisa Rogers Breakfast is ready, and so is my manuscript. My husband is an essential part of my writing process. True, he reads my work and lets me know when it falls flat or is missing something. But one of his most important contributions is making breakfast. Every morning, he prepares a different breakfast than the day before, and the day before that. He lays out placemats and utensils, grinds the coffee beans, warms the coffee cups, sets the first section of The New York Times to the left side of my plate, a glass of water with exactly three ice cubes to the right, and copious amounts of blueberries, strawberries, or raspberries just in front of where he’ll place my filled plate. Then, as the coffee drips into the Melitta carafe, he calls me to come downstairs. You, a writer dedicated perhaps to Trollopian chunks of scheduled writing time, might think I’m lazy, sleeping when I could be working—or at least getting ready for work—during those careful and generous preparations. You know Anthony Trollope, right? The British post office inspector who got up at an ungodly hour every morning and wrote for a specified amount of time? If he finished a manuscript before that time was up, he began another. And another, and another—he’s one of the most prolific writers ever. Sometimes, unlike Trollope, I am sleeping. But usually I am writing. Writing, letting the lines of a story move through my mind until they settle into a pattern, like wavelets lapping in a protected cove. Before I head downstairs, I transcribe those lines in pencil on actual paper—not so they can be erased, but so I can hear and feel the rhythm of my words as lead meets the paper’s tooth. For a long time, I didn’t think I had a writing process. I figured actual writing required extensive periods of sitting. I dislike sitting. I’d rather be walking my giant foxhound, Tucker, running, lifting barbells at the gym, or involved in one of my many creative passions. Even my wonderful job as an elementary school librarian, which provides plenty of inspiration, involves little sitting. Then I heard the admirable Andrea Davis Pinkney speak at an SCBWI conference. Writers must write every day, she said. Early each morning, she puts her feet on the ground and meditates for 30 minutes. Then she writes. Then she swims. Then she gets her children to school and goes off to her own job as a children’s book editor and publisher. I was in awe. Am I a writer? I wondered. I don’t write every day. I don’t meditate. And then I took the train home from the conference and wrote a story in my mind as I looked out the window. Before I returned to Boston, I put it on paper—the Trollopian way. When I was a reporter, I wrote every day. There wasn’t time for meditation. There wasn’t time for revision. One of my colleagues told me he always felt satisfied at day’s end, because he had filed his stories. They were finished; he was done. I never felt that way. I always wanted to go back and try them again. Experiment with a new beginning. Find more sources. Make that story better. More complete. I’m a different kind of writer now. I have the opportunity—the imperative—to revise. My stories can sift through my mind, always changing. I can do more research. My story can become a better one. That conference was a couple of years ago. And I’ve realized that even though I don’t put my feet on the ground, I do meditate. I do write, every day. That meditative time is my real writing time. That inspiration, that working out of whatever problem in my story has come up, that answer to the question of how to wrap it up in a way that resonates—it all happens just before breakfast. Lisa Rogers is an elementary school librarian and a former newspaper reporter and editor. Her debut picture book, 16 WORDS: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AND THE RED WHEELBARROW, will be published by Schwartz & Wade Books on May 28, 2019. She is the winner of the 2016 PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award. Find her at lisarogerswrites.com and on Twitter @LisaLJRogers.
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Who's #NewIn19?We are a group of authors and illustrators with trade picture books debuting in 2019. Find out more about us here and about our books here. Archives
November 2019
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