Mortification Monday #BlogInARound

Shannon Hale (@haleshannon) asked authors for embarrassing event stories after blogging about her own tales of mortification. Since it's a cold and miserable day, it seems like a fitting topic.

The first event I did to promote my first novel Lily's Ghosts was a visit at my then 13-year-old's school as part of a celebration of the arts. I was introduced as "Jessie's stepmom" which meant that every teen in the room promptly ignored me while the teachers chatted loudly in the back of the room. (Never a prophet in your own country?)

Another event I did was at a local book festival. I'd heard it could be a challenge to get families to attend book festivals in the summer, and even harder to get kids to sit and listen to an author when these festivals usually had clowns and guys like this performing as well. So I was happily surprised to see a sizable crowd gathered at the tent where I was supposed to present. I sat in the audience to listen to the man who was speaking before me. The man started to talk about his love of children, his fondness for gardening, his hopes, his dreams, his wish for peace and goodwill toward men. The sun got high in the sky. People began fanning themselves. He talked some more. Hopes! Dreams! Fresh vegetables! People fidgeted, checked their cell phones for messages. I'm not sure if the man was a writer because he hadn't yet mentioned a book, and the crowd was getting restless. Children were starting to whimper. Adults hushed them and consulted programs, most likely looking for the nearest snack bar or the time of the next Bubble Man performance. People started to leave in dribs and drabs, then in droves. When it was my turn to speak, the only people left in the audience were three people I'd invited, plus one child and his long-suffering mom. (Possibly the child was scared of clowns and/or bubbles?).

My book for adults, I'm Not Julia Roberts, was released in January in 2007. The first event for this book was a reading at a bookstore on a dark, wind-whipped Monday night, the temperature hovering around two degrees, the air filled with stinging needles of snow. The bookstore manager was the optimistic sort, and had set out, oh, about nine thousand chairs. Which were empty. Finally, one guy who ducked into the store to get out of the cold sat with the manager and listened to me read. A few years later, the bookstore closed. (I like to think that I had nothing to do with it.)

Around the same time as that ill-fated bookstore event, I was doing a tour of area libraries to talk about my middle-grade books. At these events, I was usually getting about twenty-five to thirty-five kids, which I thought was a great turn out. At one of the libraries, however, I was surprised to find a crowd of three hundred students and their teachers waiting in an auditorium for me. Awesome, right? Except I didn't have a microphone, or a PowerPoint presentation, or back-up dancers, or anything. So, I stood on stage and PROJECTED as loudly as could while waving my books over my head. Still, the kids were great and everything was going remarkably well, until I noticed that one of the teachers sitting dead center in front of me had fallen asleep. Not quietly. Think Homer Simpson: head thrown back, uvula vibrating, audibly snoring. I tried to ignore her, as well as the students around her, who were pointing at her and snickering (though these students were not as loud as the teacher). Finally, during the Q&A, the teacher woke up, stretched, noticed me yammering away on the stage, and raised her hand. When I called on her she asked me if I knew any agents I could recommend to her. I said, "Literary agents?" Clearly irritated by my stupidity, she said, "No, movie agents."

Most recently, I attended an author breakfast at which a local author was seated at every table to chat with attendees between main speakers (some of whom were quite famous). When I arrived, I went to my assigned table only to find every seat taken. A woman with pink hair noticed that I was looking for a seat. She said, "I'm sorry, this table is full." I said, "Yes, but I'm the author." She stared at me blankly. I said, "An author is assigned to sit at every table." She frowned and said, "But this table is full." I said, "I'm here for the Author Chats. It's in the program." She frowned even more deeply and said, "There's no room." I said, "Well, I can find somewhere else to sit, but you're going to have the same problem when they rotate the authors between tables." As I glanced around the ballroom, wondering if it would be strange to sit on the floor, someone else at the table realized what was going on and made room for me.

But I did end up chatting with the woman with pink hair between speakers. Because it was an author breakfast, and people usually came to these things to talk about books, I asked her what kinds of books she liked to read. "I don't really read," she said. "I'm just here to see Weird Al Yankovic."

"Yes," I said. "Me, too."

Resurrecting Lily's Ghosts: from OP book to ebook

So, while I've been preparing for the Highlights Whole Novel Workshop in Fantasy that I'll be leading with the fabulous Anne Ursu, I've also been working on something else: turning my first novel, Lily's Ghosts, into an ebook.

When people ask me which of my own books is my favorite, I usually say that it's the book I'm currently writing, because that unfinished book still has a shot at becoming a shining jewel of abject perfection. But if I have to pick, I pick Lily. Lily's Ghosts was my first published novel, and you don't forget that. You don't forget that Kirkus Reviews -- yes, crankypants Kirkus -- called it "a slightly spooky, romantic mystery, capped by that rarest of animals: a twist ending that's totally earned. This should be a movie just so teens and tweens will come ask for the book."

So, I was sad when it went out of print.

But not as sad as I would have been had it happened a few years ago.

More and more people are putting their backlists online themselves — sci-fi/fantasy writers Diane Duane and Art Slade to name some entrepreneurial people comfortable with technology. Me? I'm easily frustrated and somewhat technologically challenged. When I have to look at long strings of numbers -- like ISBNs -- my eyes cross, the numbers get jumbled, and I have to snack to fortify myself. I don't even like the words "upload" and "format." I'm too disorganized, too distractible, too, too, too. But it made no sense to allow my book to disappear when I could keep it alive myself.*

And I was glad for the opportunity to give Lily's Ghosts a fresh look. I've always loved the old illustrated cover, but I wondered if it skewed a bit young for the tweens and teens I had in mind when I wrote the story. I wanted art that was photographic rather than illustrated, more iconic, darker and spookier. Here's the new cover, which I love, designed by Janie Bynum:

Right now, you can only get the ebook on Amazon US and UK; hopefully, it will appear on B&N soon. Still working on getting it into the iBookstore and elsewhere. (I was planning on using Smashwords for that purpose but I'm not happy with their kookoo-bunny formatting. Hmmm.) I'm also planning a print-on-demand version. Perhaps even an audio edition one of these days.

Today's my birthday, normally not that big a deal for me. But having Lily back on the (virtual) shelves? That's a great birthday present.

-- Laura

*Well, not entirely by myself. I hired Rob Siders at 52novels.com to do the formatting for me.

UPDATE: Now up at Barnes and Noble too.

Anger management and the coming apocalypse

When I was a college freshman, a close friend decided to record everyone on our dorm floor saying the one phrase she felt best captured his/her personality, the phrase they said most often. Mine? "I hate that. It bothers me."

Sigh. So flattering.

But, after a lot of thought, after going through most of the posts on RL LaFever's fabulous Shrinking Violets Promotions (a fabulous blog for all the introverted writers and artists out there), I've decided to change the name of my blog. Earth-shattering news this isn't, I know. But my own essentially rage-y nature is the reason I'm an author. Something irritates the sweet baby kitties out of me and I have to write about it, just to sort out my own feelings on the subject. Thus, the new name "Anger Management." In which I write about managing anger. Sometimes well. Mostly badly.

There's another thing I'm doing, and that's more blogging, more often. I'll be blogging here, and over at a new website eisforbook, about ebooks and the changes in the publishing business, or the publishing apocalypse, depending on your point of view. My first post here. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

As proof how ill-prepared I am for the "erevolution," I just learned how to put that follower widget thing on this blog. Awesome.

Highlights Foundation Whole Novel Fantasy Workshop

Highlights Foundation is now taking applications for our Whole Novel Fantasy Workshop that will take place May 1st through the 8th. Last year was the first year that the amazing Anne Ursu and I led this workshop, and I have to say, it was one of the best weeks I've spent with a group of writers. The thoughtful critiques, the intense discussions of craft, the immediate sense of camaraderie, the food, oh my goodness, the FOOD — awesome.

If you or someone you know has a completed fantasy manuscript — middle-grade or YA — and would like to spend a full week steeped in monsters and magic with fellow fantasy lovers, being inspiring and getting inspired, then this Whole Novel Workshop is for you.

Snorting the coffee out of my nose

Ursula LeGuin's response to Harpercollins' new "morality clause" in its publishing contracts.

December 7th, Columbia College, Chicago

Anyone in the Chicago area want to come hear me yammer about strong characters in YA lit? Head down to Columbia College Tuesday, December 7th -- TOMORROW -- at 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

Strong Female Characters in YA Lit
Discussion with Laura Ruby

Description: Join award winning Young Adult author Laura Ruby for a frank discussion about strong female characters and feminist themes in YA lit. Ms. Ruby is the author of "Good Girls," "Bad Apple" and "Play Me." All of her books for teens include themes of female sexuality and the societal consequences of being a strong girl in today's fragile climate. Her books for teens are notable for their "heartbreaking" characters (School Library Journal), "pertinent, provocative, and dramatic" storylines (Kirkus), and their "frank, realistic portrayal of teen life," (VOYA).

E-mail 5bonds@comcast.net

Tue Dec 7 2010 4:00PM -- 6:00 PM
Columbia College
600 S. Michigan, Classroom #1

The Story That Ate My Brain

Great visit with some gifted/accelerated/fabulous kids -- including my niece -- at Holmes Middle School in Wheeling, IL yesterday. So many great questions about so many different things. My favorite, however, was the one I had the most difficulty answering. A girl asked, "How do you know if your work is any good?"

I said, "You have radio U-SUCK playing in your head, don't you?" The class laughed, and I went on to recommend Bird by Bird and told her that she had to focus on the feelings she was experiencing as she wrote. That if her writing was moving her, she had to trust that feeling. That she was the writer, but she was also her own first reader, and that if her work didn't move her, well it wasn't going to move anyone else.

And that's true, except when your despair and self-loathing drowns out every other feeling. Or when you've read your work so many times you have it memorized, and everything on the page sounds like the worst kind of cliche, and you're about as emotionally responsive as the half-dead ficus in the corner of the dentist's waiting room. The truth is, a lot of times you don't know if your work is any good. But you keep working anyway, in the hopes that you'll find your way to your story. And if helps any, kids of Holmes Middle, you're not alone . We all feel like we're right in the middle of the story that is eating our brains, and will, we are sure, be the death of us. Welcome to the wonderful world of writing. The thrills! The glamour! Who knew?

Right after I got home from my visit, my agent called with the good news that she liked my latest novel, and the somewhat deflating news that she wants me to revise the whole thing from the POV of a different character. Or maybe it was the POV of a chicken or cumulous cloud, I'm hazy on the details. I can do it. I can't do it. I change my mind every fourteen seconds or so. Maybe more coffee will help. Maybe the cats have advice. Maybe I can hire the children of Holmes Middle to write the book for me a la James Frey . I'll pay them entirely in Mountain Dew and Warheads. We will call ourselves Patheticus Gore and make a million little dollars. Or at least, I will. (Don't look at me like that. Kids love Warheads.)

But I wasn't lying when I told the kids that revision was my favorite part of writing. That I'd much rather wrestle with a malfunctioning manuscript than face a blank page. What I'm not sure I got across was the little period of mourning you endure when you hear that your story -- your baby -- is kind of cute but also a malformed and quite possibly psychotic, that it's got no arms, a couple of extra legs, fingers poking from the top of its wee furry head, and a single eyeball where its nose should be, and that the eyeball is staring RIGHT AT YOU, demanding you love it anyway. And when you stop feeling sorry for yourself, you find that you do love it anyway, and you get back to work.