Dina havranek
"Havranek creates a realistic and
relatable story, thoughtfully approaching mental health through the lens of a teenager just trying
to solve it all herself."Booklist
Signed author copies available in-store now at Brazos Bookstore and Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston!
dina havranek
Dina Havranek hails from Houston, Texas, where she teaches science to the excellent students at Timberwood Middle School. A former TV news reporter and local actress, she loves being onstage and has been a speaker at the DFW Writers Conference, where she is a regular attendee. She lives with her husband, her daughter, an out-of-control Lego collection, and a pair of extremely ungrateful cats.
See what the School Library journal has to say about GIDDY BARBER EXPLODES IN 11.
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ABOUT GIDDY BARBER EXPLODES IN 11
The hilarious and heartening story of a teen girl who makes several astonishingly terrible decisions in an effort to find the support she needs.A spectacular YA novel from a long-time teacher and debut author, perfect for fans of coming-of-age stories like Radio Silence and The Rest of Us Just Live Here.Giddy Barber knows with certainty she’s going to become a mechanical engineer. What she doesn’t know is the last time she smiled.With her parents overworked and unavailable, it falls to Giddy to make sure her siblings stay on track. But she’s exhausted. When you’re the person everyone else turns to, what do you do when you hit a wall?Giddy finds an answer online—if you can’t handle how things are going, shake them up. Is it sound advice? Unclear. But is Giddy willing to try anything? Absolutely. Putting eleven days on the clock, she’ll change her routine. But soon it becomes clear that some problems are bigger than what an online column can fix—her family is fracturing, her anxiety is mounting, and all she knows is this: Something. Has. To. Give.In Dina Havranek’s Giddy Barber Explodes in 11, a long-time teacher dives into the issues of depression, overwork, and lack of support many of her students are dealing with. In a results-obsessed society, how much are we demanding of teens? And what happens when their burdens become too much?
November 9, 2024There's been a lot of sadness, fear, frustration and overall concern for the fate of our country this week. I'm feeling it strongly. So are my friends and family. I can only hope that the impending change in our country's leadership doesn't devastate public education too greatly. I can hope -- but I'm not that confident.
It has led me to reflect on a trend I'm seeing among my students. Every year during Advisory (homeroom) we play a series of teambuilding games. One of the more popular questions that pops up is 'If you could be any age right now, what would it be?' I teach 11-year-olds. It used to be I would ask this question and immediately kids would start shouting out more adult ages -- 16 for car-driving, 21 used to also be very popular. However old it was, my kids wanted to be older. The implication was that they believed they would get to do more fun things once they were an adult, that things would get better once they were out of school and there was not one to tell them what to do.
But the last two years my students have resoundingly answered that they wish they were younger -- a baby, a toddler. They tell me they want to be tiny again, to go back to a time when everyone smiled and played with them, when they had no responsibilities.
What does that say about kid perspective when they would rather be an infant than an adult? I think it says they don't think being an adult is fun, that being an adult brings solely responsibilities and stress without any of the fun or comfort of being cared for. They aren't seeing the possibilities or wonder, aren't fantasizing about exciting careers who they will become as a person later in life. Or if they are, those feelings are eclipsed by all the perceived misery.
It speaks volumes when children notice things like this.
OCTOBER 19TH, 2024Today I was excited to sign copies of my book at Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston. What a delightful experience! And I got to sign my name on the wall.
Spending so much time around bookstores this week has also resulted in me having a brand new stack of books to read. It's October so they are ALL creepy. I look forward to thrills and hopefully chilly weather outside soon!
OCTOBER 16, 2024It's out! And I'm so excited!! Brazos bookstore held the launch event this past Saturday. Thanks so much to everyone who came out to see me. It's one thing to write a book -- quite another to actually see it on the shelf in a bookstore. Wow!
I will be signing copies at Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston this coming Saturday. This is really a dream come true!!!
OCTOBER 6, 2024Two brief lessons on thermal energy transfer.The first is from a lesson in my class this past Thursday, in which I trapped thermal energy in the top of an upended glass flask, rendering it impossible for the yellow hot water above to mix with the colder blue water below (it's a razzle dazzle convection lesson that's very popular amongst middle school teachers). Marvel at my base grasp of rudimentary thermodynamics WOO HA HA HA!
The second lesson wasn't planned. It wasn't even mine. It was administered to me by Mother Nature. It's called the 'don't-leave-your-crystal-ball-in-your-car-for-two-months' lesson.Heat from the Sun travels to Earth via thermal radiation. The refraction of light through a crystal ball has the nasty tendency to tightly focus light rays, not unlike the way you can set fire to a dead leaf using a magnifying glass. Or, in my case, a trench coat.
This is what can happen when you leave a crystal ball in the back seat of car in full sunlight for two months! We are lucky the entire car didn't catch fire.Now, in my defense, it's not MY crystal ball. It's Shawn's and it was in the car because he loaned it for use in a theater show. I helped him carry it to the car when the show's run was done and neither of us thought about it again except at traffic lights when we'd hear it rolling around on the floorboard and we'd look at each other and say 'we need to get that out of the car.' We'd then promise to do it. Later.In Shawn's defense, HE'D thought about the physics of thermal energy and had wrapped the crystal ball in the trench coat to shut out all sunlight (rotational and translational physics being more salient because it eventually rolled out of the trench but that's hindsight, really).So there you have it: two lessons on the transfer of thermal energy, one via convection and the other radiation with an assist from refraction. I have been schooled. Now so have you.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2024You know what's daunting about writing and submitting a partial instead of a full WIP? Knowing that big things will change.I like to send complete manuscripts out that have been gone over detail by detail by me, then Shawn then Agent Jim. It's like having a big, comfortable pillow to rest on! I feel very safe because I know I'm sending out something that's been vetted very thoroughly. Now, I know I can still vet the partial. And reedit it. And reedit it again. But it's a partial. Things... will... change... later. Characters will be dropped. Plots will be dropped and added and dropped and added again but modified in some heretofore unforeseen way. And I know this. And it bugs me.However...A partial is what is currently required for very good reasons! And the job of a partial isn't perfection anyway. It's job is to garner enough interest to move forward.BUT I LIKE PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT!That being said, the partial is pretty much ready to send out. I just need to read it a couple more times. Maybe tweak something here or there. And try to dial back the obsession with getting everything right the first time.In the interim, I visited Krispy Kreme and tried their fall donuts. I couldn't decide so I bought them all and took one bite out of each.Don't you dare judge me! I can feel you judging. Quit it!
SEPTEMBER 7, 2024OK. I think I've got all my ducks in a row. Yes, even that duck.Meaning I did everything I needed to do in the last post. Meaning I got to go to the pickle festival today !!!
They do this in September every year in Kingwood. Parking is almost impossible. At times I was pressed into back to back foot traffic. People will park almost a mile away and walk to this thing just to get in. I had Shawn drop me off and he circled with the car until he found something.As tempted as I was by the emotional support pickle, I went with some incredible fair food on a stick and a neat haul of really tasty jarred pickles!
If you've never had a fruit juice flavored pickle, you are missing out. At least try a grape one sometime.I will leave you with this picture of an ungrateful cat sitting on the monologues I'm supposed to be studying.
AUGUST 26, 2024These are busy times. I have a promotional video to make for GIDDY with a due date of early September, a book launch to plan for in October, and a synopsis and three sample chapters to write and submit to an editor who is quite thrilled with the pitch and now needs to make sure other people are equally thrilled by it. If they are, I might have another book deal!Also I want to audition for a play coming up. It's STEEL MAGNOLIAS. The competition is going to be fierce so I'm not really sure I have a chance but I LOVE auditioning! It gives me a serious rush. And sometimes I get lucky. I've gotten to play some very nice parts in recent years both in Houston and Conroe.Tonight I'm working on my synopsis which needs to be 2-4 pages double-spaced. My new novel outline is, by contrast, 25 pages single spaced. Last night I winnowed that outline down to 11 pages single spaced. Then five. Then four. Then tonight I finally it to three double-spaced pages and by now the text is swimming in front of me and I'm no longer sure this sounds like a synopsis and maybe more like a query?I promise to pull it together by deadline:) In the meantime, here's a picture of a Dr. Pepper doughnut, proof yet again that Dr. Pepper syrup tastes absolutely amazing in anything it is added to with the possible exception of soda.I know. Weird!
AUGUST 20, 2024My book cover is yellow. There's a reason for that -- I asked for yellow. There's a reason I asked for yellow -- and it's the book to the left pictured below:
Years ago I was in a bookstore and I saw the book Chemistry by Weike Wang all the way across the room. It stood out with its bright yellow cover like a great big neon light bulb. Of course I went directly to it. I picked it up, read the blurb (which was also compelling), bought it and read it.It's a really good read, by the way.So when Peachtree asked me if I had any druthers about the cover I told them I would like a yellow cover and I explained why. I love how my book cover turned out. I love that I found the novel that inspired it so I could hold them side by side and look at them. It's a really neat feeling.Also this week -- Brazos Bookstore sent me a really nice promo picture for the book launch! It's on the main page if you missed it (which you probably didn't because it's super pretty and shiny and all).So long for now!
AUGUST 12, 2024CONFIRMED!I have a book launch on October 12th at Brazos Bookstore in Houston at 3PM! I am so excited!!!This is a short, but happy blog post. More next weekend!
AUGUST 5, 2024I love sharks! I'm a big fan of Shark Week, so I was super disappointed to miss most of it due to Hurricane Beryl knocking out my power for 11 straight days. But I didn't always love sharks. I used to be terrified of them, so terrified that I couldn't even stand to look at a picture of a shark. In fact, when I was in Biology class in high school, I actually folded over a page in my textbook that showed a picture of a great white breaching the water so that I wouldn't accidentally have to look at it.What I couldn't figure out was WHY -- why was I scared of sharks? I'd barely ever been to the beach. Certainly I'd never encountered a shark. And why would that fear continue to haunt me from early childhood all the way through high school?The answer turned out to be the solution.During my senior year, my mom went back to school to get her masters degree and she wound up taking psychology classes. She gave me this suggestion: think about your fear, write about it before you go to bed, maybe the reason behind it will come to you when you wake up. So I did it. And I had a very odd dream.In the dream, I was in a dimly lit cave with piles of debris all around me. I was confused about where I was. Then I saw something familiar -- a blue bag in the corner of the cave. I suddenly knew exactly where I was!I turned around toward the light source -- an open mouth with teeth! I was INSIDE A SHARK'S MOUTH!!! I jumped out of the mouth and into the light.I woke up knowing why I was afraid of sharks.When I was about four years old, my parents left me with a well-meaning teenage babysitter who brought a game for us to play -- this one:
The way it works is you try to remove debris from a great white's mouth without touching the pressure plate that causes its jaws to snap shut. The shark looked scary to me and I was reluctant to play but the babysitter convinced me -- she even hooked and removed some plastic debris just to show me how easy it was. So I took the hook and locked my eyes on what I thought would be easiest to remove -- a little blue plastic bag. I remember being oh, so careful...The jaws went SNAP! I dropped the hook and ran screaming around the house. The babysitter had to calm me down. The game was put away and never mentioned again. Also, I forgot completely about it.But that moment in time was there, locked at the back of my brain and it was deeply affecting me. My fear of sharks? It vanished just like that! So years later when Shark Week came along I decided to watch and learn about sharks. I now find them beautiful! I love learning about sharks. I love looking at pictures and videos about them. Someday I would enjoy seeing them up close from inside a shark cage.I thought about this story after buying this shark folder yesterday:
I'm not sure what I'll use it for, but it was so cool I just had to have it! I hope my students enjoy seeing it and don't find it too scary.What a nice start to the school year:)
JULY 29, 2024Well, tomorrow school starts up again meaning summer's over. I'd be taking the news a lot better if a hurricane hadn't robbed me of almost two weeks of enjoyable vacation. Now the bright side:I managed to almost complete a first draft of my work in progress (and might very well finish that draft tonight). It's going to be longer than I reckoned which means I'll have to make some cuts but I've had to do that before. GIDDY was sold at a whopping 117k so I'm pretty sure I can handle what come next.My birthday was Saturday! I turned 52. I celebrate my birthday by a) getting a slice of cake from the Dessert Gallery in Houston and b) binge-watching horror movies! I watched three movies. Here are my reviews for Late Night with the Devil, Men, and Abigail. SPOILERS ARE COMING SO STOP NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT THINGS SPOILED!!!Still with me? Good!We'll start with this one:
This is the one I was looking forward to watching the most. I have a long background in television both on and off screen and I was excited by how RIGHT the visuals felt. This was very late-night 70's, very Johnny Carson and I appreciated the set, the costume choices, the aspect ratio and a fine mimic of poor transmission quality (at times you could see lines of color on the screen in odd places in a way that reminded me of the rabbit ear TV antenna era).Quick synopsis: A late night talk show host attempts to lift sagging ratings by having an occult-themed night complete with a demonically possessed guest. As you can imagine, things go poorly.In a nutshell, I loved the bulk of the movie but not the ending. There was a wonderful slow ramping up of tension with well thought-out characters. The ending felt uninspired, as if somebody wasn't sure exactly how this movie ought to end. I still recommend it. The reviews are very good so I expect a lot of people will disagree with me about the ending. Up next: Men!
Men was my favorite of the three but it won't be a favorite for a lot of people. It's surreal and some have called it experimental horror. For me it worked beautifully.The synopsis: A widow rents a countryside home to isolate and process grief only to be pestered repeatedly by the men of the local village who seem bent on making her feel guilty over her husband's suicide.I didn't realize it while watching (I'm pretty terrible with faces) but all of the men who bother this poor woman are actually played by the same actor, this guy:
They change up his costume, his accent, even his teeth and at one point they CGI his face onto a teenage boy but IT'S THE SAME GUY! And this is important, because the load of crap this woman keep hearing is a familiar refrain among controlling men: if he was unhappy, it must have been your fault. And they all find ways to reinforce this narrative, preying on her grief and doubt. My favorite exchange was with the local vicar. When she confessed she threw out her husband after he hit her, the vicar asked 'Well, did you give him the chance to apologize? Men hit women. It's not generally a big deal.'Yeah. I pretty much felt like punching the screen!When the actual monster shows up things get really, really weird and open to interpretation. This doesn't always work for me (example: I hated the experimental horror movie Skinamarink). Diving too deep into the surreal can make me feel like maybe the writer ran out of ideas (cough... Skinamarink!) But I didn't think that was the case here. For me, the ending of Men reinforced the circular logic behind victim blaming and how that logic can be used over and over to subjugate a partner in a toxic relationship. I recommend it, but again, it has a lot of weird in the ending so you have been warned!Up next: Abigail!
My husband who doesn't like horror was actually intrigued by this one and made me promise I would watch it last so he'd have time to get back from the theater and watch it with me. I loved it! He only liked it. He was disappointed with the direction of the movie. It really worked for me.The synopsis: A band of skilled ne'er-do-wells kidnap and ransom a rich man's ballerina daughter only to find out too late that she's a dangerous vampire.If you haven't seen the movie trailer, watch it. It's one of the most compelling I've seen in a long time. The characters are the sort you don't mind seeing killed off -- after all, they kidnapped a kid! There's some inventive combos of ballet/slashing. Shawn wanted it to be a straight up simple monster movie and was a little disappointed it wasn't. Abigail gets a little more complicated than that by the end, which worked for me and I would be first in line to see Abigail 2 if they make a sequel!Of course I also saw Deadpool 3! You think I live in a cave?
Loved it. Won't say anything else. Bye!
JULY 21, 202411 days is a long time to be without electricity in Texas in July, folks.
11 days of 90+ temps and no air circulation.
11 days of mold accumilation on walls and surfaces because of the intense humidity.
11 days of competing with other Houstonians for resources like food, ice, hotel rooms.
I'm not kidding when I say it was an absolute living hell. Some people STILL don't have power.On day 9 my school principal and my assistant principal hand-delivered a generator to our house so we could plug in a cord and activate a portable AC unit. This lowered one room of our house to 86 degrees, allowing us to sleep more comfortably. I am extremely grateful to them and to the PTA person who made sure they had the generator to loan out.There's a lot of local press about how Texas needs to take better care of its power grid. For our part, Shawn and I are saving up for a standby generator. They are very expensive to buy and even more expensive to install. But I have zero confidence in Texas to fix this problem.By Friday we'd had one day of decent, whole house air-conditioned rest and we were up to taking on a theater task: acting as ushers for a Rocky Horror Picture Show fundraiser for the Owen Theater in Conroe, which is close to Houston. All we had to do was show up but OF COURSE we weren't going to do Rocky Horror without being in costume! So here we are:
This was my costume inspiration picture from the movie:
Shawn went for a more Dr. Frank N. Furter look. We had a blast ushering people to their seats and the theater made a ton of cash for the night! After the show, we took pictures with friends and members of the cast:
We considered this a well-earned post-Beryl distraction!I got ZERO writing done while I was without power, BTW:(. This means I remain at about 78k on the first draft of my new novel. BUT I will get back to it right after this blog.Time to Time Warp outta here!
JULY 15, 2024Beryl was bad. REALLY bad. And at only a Category 1.For those unfamiliar with hurricanes, categories define strength. A Cat 1 hurricane is considered minor compared to, say, a catastrophic Cat 5.Beryl was only a ONE and it knocked out power to five million Texans. 2.2 million of those people live in the Houston area. A quarter million in the Houston area remain without power 8 days later. Like me. I don't have power. And it's 90 degrees outside right now. My 85 year old parents (one of whom is in the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease) also don't have power. My daughter and husband helped my folks secure a hotel room Friday because they were sleeping in their running car all night because of the intense heat. But hotel rooms are scarce. We got lucky. Super lucky.Trees are down everywhere. Here's a pic of a neighbor's front yard:
And this isn't unusual. I can drive around the block and point out five or six homes that have trees down. Several homes in our neighborhood have trees that fell straight through the roof. Not our house, thankfully.I'm camped out in my parent's hotel room through at least Tuesday. Power is supposed to come back on at my house and their house on Wednesday. This means Beryl will have knocked out power to us for ten straight days. In July. With highs in the mid-nineties.This has been a resource management nightmare for Houston. Huge waits for things like gasoline or bottled water. Ice was nonexistent for about the first three days. Restaurants saw long lines and they ran out of food stuffs fast. Most are operating on limited menus. So imagine 90+ temperatures with no AC, possibly no gas for your car and longs lines and limited access to food. To add insult to injury, several of my friends who have tried applying for FEMA disaster aid have been told 'our area doesn't qualify' yet.Centerpoint Energy, Houston's major power supplier, has been criticized for inadequate preparation and poor response time. So CEO Jason Wells took to the air waves to reassure us that he understand our frustration -- while sitting under a thermostat that clearly read 70 degrees:
May his legend live on , especially next July when city leaders tell us we all need to set our home thermostats to 80 so as not to stress the Texas electrical grid. I know I'M hanging on to this picture.A big shoutout to Ettin Games in Humble, Texas who have let us camp out and use their electricity and wifi. My husband, daughter and I also rented a room at Ettin a couple of evenings to play Dungeons and Dragons. With air conditioning and snacks, our mood was lifted:
So for us, it's 48 more hours AT LEAST until we get electricity.Man, I'm cranky! It will probably be better next week. In the meantime:
JULY 7, 2024Well, hello Beryl.
I'm not the least bit looking forward to this. This isn't Harvey or Ike (if you don't know who they are have fun looking up the pictures of destroyed communities) but even at a Cat 1 she's going to make lives quite miserable in the next two days. I'm fortunate. I'm not coastal. I'm inland enough that by the time she reaches me she'll just be really, really nasty weather. Probably I'll lose power. She threw some impressive wind and rain at me earlier. One minute, clear skies. A minute later, this:
I find it ironic that a hurricane is a major plot point in the book I'm currently writing. I'm up to 73,000 words with a goal (hope) of not going 90k. Hopefully Beryl will allow me to get some novel writing done today!
JUNE 30, 2024Orange birthday cake has been made and eaten! I very much enjoy baking and decorating Shawn's yearly orange cake. This year's cake was decorated with gnomes (per his request). Because he also secured the lead of Chris in the Crighton Theater's production of The Play That Goes Wrong, I wrote 'I am gnome the director!' on the cake.
I made the gnomes out of fondant, marizpan and tiny vanilla cupcakes. Shawn and I also celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary this week with a fondue extravaganza!
I did NOT make the fondue extravaganza. Somebody else made it and served it to us and it was DELICIOUS!
Having Shawn's birthday and our anniversary makes the last week of June a really fun time every year:) But I was also productive in terms of writing! I am now up to 51,000 words in the first draft of my next novel. I really, really want it come in around 90k so I'm trying very hard to keep things concise. This is resulting in a very fast-paced read. But I think in the end it will be worth it!Onward!
JUNE 23, 2024It's been a productive week! In four days I wrote the first 27,000 words of a first draft of a new novel. I hope to have this first draft completed before I return to teaching in August.
Summer is an amazing time to be creative, not just for me, but also for my husband. He's also a teacher and right now he's spending his summer directing two different plays and starring in a third. Also today is his birthday, so... orange cake is forthcoming!
I was also contacted by Penguin Random House a couple of weeks ago about the upcoming audio book for GIDDY BARBER EXPLODES IN 11. I got to listen to some samples from voice actors and give the publisher my feedback. It was very exciting to hear the voices of professionals who might voice GIDDY!
Birthday cake pictures are likely forthcoming but for now... back to work:)
JUNE 16, 2024I went to the American Booksellers Association Children’s Institute in New Orleans! I was there for a day and a half. This event is designed to bring independent booksellers together with authors. Here's a picture of me in the program. Also the hotel was gorgeous!
I’ve never been to an event like this so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I first attended a panel on advice for newly published authors. The panel discussed how to plan book launches and how to best collaborate with an independent bookstore. Author James Ponti was on the panel. I remembered him from when he spoke several years ago at the school where I teach, Timberwood Middle School.
To my delight, one of the panelists was bookseller Tegan Tigani of Queen Anne Book Company in Seattle. I found out she had already ordered copies of my book for her store! How tremendously cool that GIDDY BARBER EXPLODES IN 11 will reach an independent store in Seattle!
Later I got to sign books and meet more booksellers. These are Advanced Reader Copies (known as ARCs). They are what we give booksellers in advance of the book coming out. Mine is out on October 8th. Advanced Reader Copies look very similar to the published book but they have a ‘not for sale’ label on them. There were about 30 author tables. I was amused to see they had assigned me table number 11. It can’t be a coincidence that 11 is in my book title.
I sat next to New York Times bestselling author Jodi Meadows and we bonded over knitting and crochet! She even gave me some knitting! Jodi is a delightful person who had tons of valuable advice about the publishing industry. She also helped me take some corny pictures.
New York Times bestselling author Julie Murphy was there. She is the first person I ever did an elevator pitch for, once upon a time at the DFW Conference in Dallas!
Shaking hands with booksellers and telling people about my book was a huge rush. I’m not used to this many people approaching me, wanting to hear about what I’ve written. Alison and Morgan with Peachtree Publishing did a wonderful job shepherding me through the evening which moved at a breathtaking pace! Later I was asked to speak about my book at a bookseller dinner where I got to sign more copies.
The most amazing thing to me was when booksellers asked me to personalize the copies for the girl they wished to give the book to. My protagonist is a hypercompetent teen who’s taken on too much responsibility. So some of them had me write ‘slow down’ to the people I signed the book for:)There were so many incredible authors at this event! I loved meeting them and I took home some very nice ARC copies of other books home and I’m diving in and reading them and enjoying them dearly! I am thrilled and exhausted, but I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Thanks Peachtree!Also, I’m saving the view out my window as the new lock screen for my phone.
June 9, 2024I'm very excited for two reasons. Reason one: I read my 25-page outline of the new book I'm working on to my husband and together we spotted no glaring errors -- just small places where minor questions still needed answering and a couple of tiny suggested plot changes. In short -- tiny stuff! I think I only need to tweak the outline one more time and with any luck I will be starting the first draft within days!Also, in two days I get on a plane and fly out to New Orleans for the American Booksellers Association Children's Institute. I will sign copies of my book GIDDY BARBER EXPLODES IN 11 and I will be expected to speak for a few minutes at the event. I haven't flown on a plane in years but I like air travel so I'm looking forward to it!I expect to post lots of pictures from the event when I update this blog again next Sunday. Standing in for those pictures for the time being are my two ungrateful cats:
The Stig
Geremee
JUNE 2, 2024Yea! School’s OUT!This is just about as exciting for teachers as it is for students. Summer is when I get most of my writing done. It’s also when me and husband Shawn find the time to go to fun little festivals around the Houston area. We both love art and Studio Ghibli. We recently visited an art event in Houston and got to add some wonderful Princess Mononoke art to the walls of my coffee nook.
One of the wonderful things about the movie Princess Mononoke is that there are no real bad guys – just people at cross purposes who APPEAR to be evil when viewed from the opposition’s side. So much that happens in the film is tragic because neither side is willing to communicate with someone they are pretty such they don’t agree with and have nothing in common with.The movie is, at its heart, a struggle between nature wanting to remain untouched in the face of mankind’s encroachment. If you love animated films (or even if you don’t but really love bad guys who aren’t really all that bad once you come to understand them) then this is the picture for you.
On my summer to-do list: more festivals (especially art and food-related events), completion of the latest novel outline along with a first draft (ideally also completed), and I have a stack of books I am itching to dig into. It wouldn’t be summer without a to-read pile. To-read piles represent pure, unadulterated joy!For now, coffee with bacon-pralines (from a Bacon Festival, of course)!
MAY 26, 2024I outline before writing a novel. I tried NOT to outline once and the result was a meandering mess. I ended up having to scrap everything I’d written and, yes, write the outline anyway before proceeding. The resulting novel landed me my agent.I am noticing a trend though: the more books I write, the longer and more detailed my outlines get and the less time it winds up taking me to write the first draft of the novel.I can spend a couple of months on an outline. The current outline I’m working on is 20 pages long. It will probably be a little longer by the time I’m done with it. Which should be soon. I’m thinking one… more… detailed… pass… and the outline will be ready for me to start my first draft. So basically here’s how I start every book:I get an idea. That’s fine. I get those. Usually they go nowhere.I get an idea AND a great beginning to a book in my head. That’s promising. That’s more than I usually get. I can sit on a great beginning and great idea for years sometimes.Then I get a great idea for an ENDING and I’m like… wow! Need to write this. Problem is I need a middle. Sometimes it all falls apart at this stage.I get a great idea, a beginning, an ending and ONE SCENE I absolutely MUST WRITE in the middle… and I’m ready. I start outlining.First round outline is a rough outline of plot and a vague notion of a protagonist and secondary characters. It’s about a page and a half. It’s nowhere near ready.Second round outline: I get VERY detailed on the plot, laying out every little thing that I think is going to happen and in the order it happens in. Nothing is skipped over. There’s no ‘well, I’ll figure out what to do when I cross this bridge.’ Nope. We are not putting off bridge crossing. That bridge is getting crossed RIGHT NOW! Because if I don’t cross it now, that stupid bridge is going to be out when I need it and it will derail my novel. Bridge. Open. NOW!Third round outline: I start asking myself if my protagonist would really do all the things I want he/she/they to do. Do I need to change my plot or my protagonist? I make some tough decisions. I cross some itty bitty bridges.Fourth round outline: I start fleshing out the secondary characters so that they are more than just support structure for the story. I’m not as good at this – if my agent’s going to ding me for anything in the final draft that I send him it’s probably that I need to flesh out secondary characters more. My husband spots this in my first drafts a lot as well.Fifth round outline (where I am now, by the way): It’s looking pretty much like an actual book. Which is great. But now there are questions. For example: in my current outline my protagonist plays high school soccer (which is cool, because I played high school soccer). But on reflection, I don’t use the fact that she plays soccer much at all in the outline. Should I remove it? Change it to another activity? I will tackle this when I go through it again. Because I firmly believe all things added into a book should serve a purpose otherwise I’m just wasting the reader’s time. And I really hate wasting a reader’s time. I mean, they could be getting coffee somewhere or saving lives or something or GASP putting my book down because they got bored. So… extraneous stuff that I put in the outline because it felt cool in the moment but ultimately does nothing for the cumulative structure of the work as a whole? Cut, cut, CUT!!! Down to the cutting room floor with ye!The nice thing about working an outline over so thoroughly is it makes the first draft so much easier. Everything flows. It’s relatively painless. Honestly, I lose the least amount of sleep while writing a first draft because of the wickedly buff outline it was based on.The second, third, fourth and fifth drafts on the other hand, are whole other stories:(Here’s a Mammoth Cave coffee cup filled with biscotti. For morale!
MAY 19, 2024I always knew that, if I secured a traditional publishing deal, there would be editing. What I didn’t reckon was how much and how detailed.My editor said my manuscript was one of the cleanest she’d ever seen. That’s a high compliment. And I did work that thing to death, not just in terms of structure but in terms of copyediting. I tried very hard to make it mistake-free. It wasn’t. Wow, were there a lot of mistakes!Here’s what the editing process looked like.ROUND 1 OF DEVELOPMENTAL EDITSDuring development edits, major changes can occur to a manuscript. GIDDY was sold to Peachtree at a whopping 117,000 words. For those who write YA, you know that’s high. We trimmed. Giddy lost a class – gym. We also cut a subplot in which Giddy honestly learns to skateboard. There were other edits but these are the cuts that affected the manuscript the most. This took days. GIDDY’S final word count wound up being closer to 107,000.ROUND 2 OF DEVELOPMENTAL EDITSFiner edits and a second reworking of emotional details in the ending. This also took days. Some of it was quite hard and I worried a lot about making mistakes I would have to live with. I’m not worried about that any more. I’m very pleased with how the book wound up.COPYEDITSRemember when I said this manuscript was clean? There were copy edits on almost every page. It wasn’t uncommon to see seven or eight copy edits on a page. Here’s a screenshot of just one page:
Now imagine 352 pages of that. Some of it was pretty straightforward – turns out I’m not great with commas. Some of the edits required me really thinking about what I meant to convey:
And there were a few edits that weren’t really edits, but just comments in places where the editor got into the story and wrote something like ‘wow, this part really twisted my gut!’ I really treasured those comments. I treasure any opportunity to see what someone is thinking in response to something I’ve written. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.My 8-year-old $99 chrome book couldn’t handle it. It kept locking up. I’d click ‘yes’ to an edit. Then wait 30 seconds. Then click ‘yes’ to another edit. Wait another 30. I was so concerned I’d miss my deadline due to my laptop not being able to handle edits that I contacted my editor to say as much. But I made the deadline anyway.PROOFREADOh, we’re not done. Now I had to read the proof and sign off on it. The best way I can describe a proof is it’s a pdf doc that shows how the book will look laid out page by page – fonts, spacing, etc. It was incredibly exciting to see this! And thankfully my chrome book didn’t mind the proof as much as it had the copy edits. This part didn’t take near as long.REVIEW PROOFREADER’S MARKSYep! Proof is back in front of me at this point and now I’m checking it over again, looking at proofreader notations and answering more detailed questions about what I intended to say in certain scenes. Not near as many as copy edits. This also didn’t take long.FINAL CHECKSFinally we were down to just TWO lines on GIDDY that needed addressing. I read them, thought about my responses, and sent my input back. This wasn’t too difficult. But it was still stuff I felt like I should have caught – things like saying a character ‘frowned again’ when this was the first time they were frowning. I kept thinking ‘how am I missing these things?’ And the answer is, it’s just a LOT. All in all, this was how long the editing process took:
EDITING TIMELINE: JULY 28, 2023 - MAY 7, 2024Manuscripts are long and involved. Editing is important. It is a job on its own. Editors don’t get paid enough for what they do! (Side note: I actually have no idea what an editor gets paid, but I’m deciding right now it’s not enough. Double it or something.) Because in the end, GIDDY looks amazing and I know if I’d had to do all this myself she wouldn’t look near this good. This is the benefit of a lot of people doing some very detailed work on a project.Also I replaced the old chrome book. Goodbye, old friend.
May 12, 2024Couple of quick and exciting announcements. I will be at the Children's Institute in June where I will be very excited to meet booksellers and take in New Orleans for the first time ever! Also my advanced reader copies are in along with one of the most lovely notes I've ever received from Senior Editor at Peachtree Ashley Hearn. Comfortable shoes are purchased and flight is planned. Onward!
May 5, 2024The turtle.I don’t know if other writers have so-called mascots sitting on their desk but I have mine. He’s a little bronze turtle. He has ruby-colored eyes made from tiny beads. Under his belly there is a stamp: Made in India. I acquired turtle when I was in the fourth grade.
We were on a field trip comprised of two parts: an operetta and a visit to the Museum of Natural History. The operetta was an eye-opener. I wanted to be on stage. I wanted to do what the actors were all doing.The subsequent museum visit concluded with the gift shop. I had $5 from my parents to spend. This meant I could buy a mood pendant necklace OR a bronze turtle. I went with the turtle. I was the only one who picked him. Everybody else who had money bought a mood pendant. The back of the pendant was squishy and it changed colors like a mood ring. Nobody was interested in my turtle. Everybody traded mood pendants on the bus and played with them.By the end of the bus ride, the mood pendants had all broken. All they displayed was the color black. Bored, students began taking interest in turtle. I put in him my window at home, satisfied I had selected the best souvenir of them all.The thing about the turtle was he had longevity. He didn’t break and he held up to handling. I decided he was special even though I had no idea what he represented. I kept him in my window for years. When I went to college, he moved into my dorm room window. When I got my first full time job he sat on my desk. When I bought my first computer and started typing out a novel he sat on my desk and I declared him my ‘writing turtle.’At some point he fell off the desk and lost an eye. I couldn’t, despite my best efforts, locate the missing bead in the carpet. So I made a decision. When I finally got an agent, I would replace his eyes.That’s exactly what I did. Only his new eye wound up being a trifle larger than the other. But you do what you do what you can in a craft store and it’s not like turtle had any choice.
Recently I submitted a pic of turtle to the Reddit thread ‘What is this thing?’ and discovered he might represent an albino flapshell, seen here:
I suppose I’ll never know for sure. One thing I do know. He holds a business card brilliantly:
APRIL 28, 2024One of the wonderful things about TV shows based on novels is that you can read the books after watching the show. This is especially handy if a wonderful series gets canceled after season one. Exhibit A: Lockwood and Company.
I was SO into this show! Of my gosh I can’t even adequately express it. The concept. The characters. Plus the whole ordeal of a society that overburdens kids with unrealistic expectations is something of a hot button for me and a big part of why I wrote GIDDY BARBER EXPLODES IN 11 in the first place.Then Netflix canceled Lockwood after one season and I was devastated. Are the two main characters going to make a connection or not? What’s behind Lockwood’s mysterious door? Will everybody solve this terrible ghost problem? So… many… questions. Fortunately…Lockwood and Company is based on a series of books! So I will get the answers I’m looking for. I’m on book two. My understanding is that the Netflix show stopped at the end of book two so I’ll get new stuff in books three, four and five. I’m super excited! But this isn’t the first time I read the books to know stuff ahead of television. Exhibit B: Silo.
Now THIS one has been renewed on Apple TV. The problem is the writers strike set a lot of productions back, including this one. So I got tired of waiting to find out what the hell is really going on in the surface world and so I read all the books. They are awesome! Really, really awesome.I’m currently watching The Big Door Prize on Apple TV (also based on a book). And no, I’m not deliberately choosing things that are based on books. I’m just so happy when I see that something’s based on a book. Because suddenly it’s me (not the streaming service) who has the control over whether I know the ending or not. And that’s pretty great. And finally…
Fallout the TV show is as good as everyone says it is. That’s all! Back to writing other things now:)
APRIL 21, 2024I like to think of myself as a Spring illness 'early adopter': I get the bug and then a week later everyone else in my school has it. In a way, I'm doing everyone a solid. I try it out first so they get to see exactly how much they're going to despise it.
Below is my version of a hot toddy: fresh lemon juice, raw honey, cloves, fresh ginger root. The latter two have marvelous anti-inflammatory properties.
By the way, DON'T get clever and decide you're going to put the cloves and fresh chopped ginger root in the electric kettle as it boils so as to better infuse the water with their essense. Kettles aren't made for that. It will overboil and pour across your kitchen counter and you'll be cleaning boiling water off your counter before it can spill to the floor all the while feeling physically awful.But I would never do that. Certainly not. I'm just warning you, you know, in case YOU might.