WHAT PART OF 'BOOK GIVEAWAY' DID I NOT MAKE CLEAR???

      I offered a book giveaway contest this past week and have not had a single contestant.  Obviously there's been a failure of communication here, and I will now try to rectify it.
   
     This contest is a multistep process, as follows:
           Step One: I set it up and announce the rules.
           Step Two: People enter the contest.
           Step Three: I choose a winner and deliver the prize.
    
     I've performed Step One.  I cannot, however, perform Step Two, because it requires action by persons other than myself.  Nor can I perform Step Three, because there is no way in this world that I can select a winner from among nonexistent contestants.  I've actually given the matter some thought, but - nope. Can't do it.
     So. Whoever you are and wherever you live, please - step up to the plate. Enter the contest! Maybe win a wonderful book!  And if you don't win this time, I have a lot more giveaway contests in the pipeline, but someone has to win this one first!  Don't make me come after you!!!!

Why Is a Raven Like a Writing Desk?

     The answer: It isn't. The Mad Hatter had no idea what the answer was to his own riddle, and that's because it wasn't a real riddle, the answer to which would have been based on a clever pun; it was just a nonsensical question without an answer, which infuriated the practical-minded Alice.

     On the other hand, there are such things as questions that may sound nonsensical, but that are, in fact, so sensical that even Alice would approve. Here's one: why is the process of performing revisions on a novel like the process of preparing an argument before the state Supreme Court?
     I guess I should explain. I have two jobs: (1) being an appellate lawyer, which consists of writing briefs and orally arguing cases, and (2) writing novels, which consists of writing novels. The first job brings me a paycheck; so far, the second one doesn't.
     For the past week and a half, I've been in the throes of revising my latest novel. In the process, I've come to realize that I managed to create the characters and narrative, and write an entire first draft, all without being aware of some major themes I'm now discovering.  I was trying to understand how this could even be possible, when - eureka! I discovered an analogy to my other job.
     When I prepare an appeal for the lower of the two state appellate courts, I do research; I analyze the issues; I organize my arguments. By the time I've written my brief, no one knows my case the way I do.
     Depending on how the case is decided by that court, it has a small chance of eventually winding up, one way or another, in the higher-level state court, which always entails my not only writing a second, more focused brief, but arguing the case orally as well. In my state, there are seven Justices who hear all the arguments, and each of them can, and often does, interrupt the attorneys at any point during their argument to ask any question he or she chooses to ask at that moment. The attorney must immediately stop what she was saying, perhaps mid-word, and pivot on a dime to answer the question asked, as well as any follow-up question asked by that same Justice, or any of the others. I'm not kidding - that's really how it works, and I live in New Jersey, not Wonderland. In other words: in order to prepare for a state Supreme Court argument, an attorney has to try to anticipate, and be able to answer, just about any rational question about the case that might be thrown her way.
     I've done a lot of those state Supreme Court arguments over the years. Almost without exception, during the period of intense preparation leading up to them, I've experienced a moment in which I suddenly realized for the first time what the case was actually about. I'm always stunned by this. How could I possibly have missed it before? And yet, I did.
     Revision is about taking your novel to a higher level. It's about knowing your characters so well that you could answer any question about them that anyone could throw at you. Revision teaches you that you were only scratching the surface before. All those things you thought you knew? You hardly knew them at all.
     Why is a raven like a writing desk? Beats me. But when is a novel really a novel? When its author  could stand up and defend it before the Supreme Court - and win.

    

GIVEAWAY CONTEST: R.J. PALACIO'S WONDER

All righty then. Here I go with the first of my giveaway contest series, and the prize is well worth your contest entry: my own virtually pristine copy (I treat my books well) of this bestselling MG novel, published last year by Knopf.  It's an easy contest for me to begin the series with - easy peasy, as Maddie from CODE NAME VERITY would say - because I've already reviewed the book on this blog.  I should add, though, that as I just learned today, Auggie's facial deformity is due to Treacher-Collins Syndrome, which is a very real condition and which Palacio obviously researched extensively in order to be able to create such a compelling version of it in Auggie.
     So.  Are we ready?  The correct response, as my son and I have learned during our epic crossword-puzzle matches: "I was born ready."  Okay, let's go.  Here's the question:
                
As a child, what were you told (other than not to stare) about people who were "different" in some way?  Looking back now, what do you think about that advice?

That's it!  This contest will run until next Sunday night at midnight Eastern time, or until however long I choose to extend it beyond then.  The person who submits the answer I like the most will win my copy of the book, regardless of where in the world he or she lives.  LET'S DO THIS THING!!

BACK TO BLOGLAND

     I was at the New Jersey SCBWI Conference this past weekend, and it's given me a much-needed jolt of energy.  I got some positive feedback about my book, as did my friends Michele and Julie about theirs, but that wasn't all.  I've been going to this annual conference for years now, but this year, the sense of community really came together for me.  I was able to celebrate with Yvonne Ventresca about her new book contract.  I met Jennifer Hubbard and asked her if I could at some later point interview her for this blog, and she said yes.  I watched Ame Dyckman graciously accept her Crystal Kite Award.  I saw and experienced a lot of people doing some very kind things, expecting nothing in return.  And, sappy as it sounds, I kind of felt like I was home.
     Since I got back on Sunday evening, I've been thinking about the revisions I need to make to IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY?, as brought to my attention by my critiquers, and I've actually gotten a running start on making them.
     And one more thing.  In past years, the chapter has held fundraising raffles at this conference, and I've gotten in the habit of setting aside excellent YA or MG novels after I've read them during the year, in order to donate them.  This year, as it turned out, there was no raffle, and I completely forgot about my bag o' books until I just happened to stumble across it yesterday.  Eureka!  What a perfect find!  I need to get back to blogging, and here's the perfect way to do it.  Here and now, I commit to running a book giveaway contest at least once every two weeks until all those books have been placed in loving homes.  So, please!  Stay tuned to this blog!  I'll try to connect each contest question to a theme running through that book, and the person coming up with the best answer will soon have my gently-used copy of said book winging its way to him/her.
     I'M BACK!!

MERCURIAL ME

     I haven't posted in 18 days. Why? Because I'm mercurial, that's why. Oh, sure, I'm also old, dull and stodgy, but in a very mercurial way, ya know? And for 18 days, my brain has not connected to this blog. Now, as I sit at home with nothing to do, waiting for a repairman who's "running a little late," I will try to make up for lost time.
     In the past few weeks, I've been to two funerals and one wake, and it's all taken quite a toll on me even though I'd never met two of the people who had died.  It's only been five months since my father-in-law passed away, and it began to feel like an endless downward spiral.
     But life has moved forward around me in other ways.  Notably, my daughter got her driver's license and is now the owner of a 2002 Toyota Corolla:

     (Those are balloons and streamers, by the way.)  She's been driving to school this week and, aside from locking her keys in the car the first day, has suffered no mishaps - at least none that she's told me about.  Sometimes I stop and think: "What have I unleashed on the world?"  But mostly I deal with it almost as if I trust her to act like an adult.
     My son is home for his summer internship in New York and, oh my God, he gets up in the morning, irons his dress shirt, puts on a suit and tie, and departs for the legal department of HBO.  Is that cool, or terrifying?  I haven't decided.
     In a week and a half  I'll be going to the New Jersey SCBWI annual conference, where I will attend workshops, carry out my mega-important volunteer assignments, and meet with agents who will critique the first 15 pages of my book.  They'll like what they've read, and nothing will come of it.  Mark my words. 
     Old, stodgy, mercurial and jaded.  That's me in a nutshell.  Funny, though.  My saving grace.

Where Have I Been?

     It's been two whole weeks since I last posted.  Why?  Hard to say.  Finishing my first draft has left me at loose ends, not quite knowing what to do with myself or what to blog about.  But it's not as if nothing has happened in my little sphere.
     I took my daughter to visit two art schools: Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.  Both fabulous.  She's applying to a lot of other schools too, but those two visits have been enough to convince me that there will be a place for her when she graduates high school, and she will be happy.
     Last week she took the SAT, and three days ago she took, and passed, her road test.  We're in the process of buying her a 2002 Toyota Corolla.  Her march toward adulthood is quickening its pace.
     My friend Alyssa's niece, who had been missing for a month since disappearing from her home, has now been confirmed dead.  Her body was found last week near the George Washington Bridge.  A lovely, bright, talented girl with everything to look forward to, kidnapped and killed by the demon of depression just before her 22nd birthday.  I don't know what I believe in, but if Paige's soul is anywhere now, I hope it's a place where it can lie down in the sunlight and know peace.
     My friend Sylvia's husband passed away a week ago after a different kind of struggle.  After 70-plus years of robust health, he developed ALS, and lived with it for two years thanks to her ferociously loving and devoted care.  I don't know what she will do now.  She married him at 19 and is now in her 70's.
     Life is beautiful, cruel, fragile, short.  Honor it, make the most of it, and be a shining light to those around you.  And thank the mothers in your life every day, not just the Hallmark day.

LIFE AFTER LIFE

                                                               

 



 I just finished reading Kate Atkinson's LIFE AFTER LIFE (Little, Brown, 2013).  And even though it's being reviewed everywhere, including in today's New York Times Book Review, I have thoughts about it too, and isn't sharing thoughts what blogs are for?
     I'd previously read Atkinson's STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG, and found it weirdly compelling, and I was fascinated by an early review of the current book, so I went to an uptown Barnes & Noble in New York on April 17th to hear the author read an excerpt of it and to get my newly-purchased copy signed by her.  After the reading, I actually had a dialogue with her that lasted perhaps 20 seconds.  I told her as she signed my book that I had a feeling she'd be incredibly charming, and that I'd been right.  She replied, "I'm not really that charming.  I'm going to go back to my hotel room and - " and here she hissed and made a feral gesture with both hands, like a lion extending his claws.  We both laughed, and I said, "Yes, but we [the audience] don't know that!"  Yes, Kate Atkinson and I shared a moment.
     The fact is that Atkinson was (is) incredibly charming.  Someone asked her at the reading if LIFE AFTER LIFE was about reincarnation, and she furrowed her brow and answered that she never knows what to say when people ask her that, because after all, isn't the essence of reincarnation coming back as someone else?  Which led her to share with us, in her delightful dotty/brilliant style, that her mother had died in December, which had prompted Atkinson's young granddaughter to ask, "If Nanny comes back as an animal, can we keep her as a pet?" and to confess that she herself found that prospect absolutely terrifying (as a result, Atkinson seemed to hint, not of her own fear of reincarnation, but of her fear of her mother in any form).  Evidently this then led to a family discussion of reincarnation, during which that same granddaughter (or possibly a different one?) announced that if she could come back, she would like to do so as chicken pox, "because then I'd always be warm, and I'd always have friends."  And to me, it seemed perfectly right for Atkinson to have exactly that kind of granddaughter.
     So, about the book.  It is not, as Atkinson accurately pointed out, about reincarnation, because although Ursula Todd does repeatedly return to life after she dies, it's always as herself, and always into the same circumstances, although she never ends up quite the same twice.  It's disorienting at first to read of a baby who dies immediately after her birth in 1911, strangled by her umbilical cord because the doctor couldn't get there in time, only to next see her rescued from that same circumstance by that same doctor, who this time managed to beat the snowstorm.  But you get used to this sort of time travel after a while, and after a longer while, you begin to discern a pattern.  Each time Ursula survives an incident that had previously killed her, a fog lifts for her infinitesimally.  Little Ursula, a child at Fox Corner again and again, doesn't know about any of her past experiences, but she eventually begins to recognize events and places that she has no reason to recognize; to develop a sixth sense about people and neighborhoods and days like Armistice Day in 1918; to suffer inexplicable terrors at certain junctures, that cause her to act in slightly different ways than she might otherwise have.  So, although at first Ursula stumbles through her life as blindsided and infuriated and tortured by circumstances as the rest of us, she is very, very slowly given opportunities to learn.  To, in Atkinson's words, "get it right."
     Once, on her sixteenth birthday, Ursula, feeling completely powerless, is raped in her own house by her older brother's visiting friend.  Her mother, unaccountably, blames her and ceases to love her, and Ursula 's ensuing loss of self-respect leads her later in that particular life into alcoholism and an abusive marriage.  On her next sixteenth birthday, Ursula stops the would-be rapist in his tracks by punching and kicking him.  Never again does she have a drinking problem.  Never again does she subject herself to emotional or physical abuse.
    Time and again, Ursula lives through waking nightmares - in particular, the London Blitz, which mars each of her adult lives no matter what she's done in the previous ones.  But if it weren't for the
nightly bombing raids and her eventual role as a witness to them, Ursula would never have learned of her own courage, stamina, power.  She would never have been able to finally carry out the deed for which she ultimately realizes she had been born.
     TIME AFTER TIME is prefaced by quotes from Nietzsche, Plato, and one Edward Beresford Todd, the latter being Ursula's beloved, irreplaceable younger brother, who says: "What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right?  Wouldn't that be wonderful?"   Yes.  It would be.  It is.  As wonderful as it is to learn that an assassination can be committed not out of hatred and rage, but out of self-sacrifice and love.  As wonderful as it is to come to know Ursula and to watch her complete her circle.