What's a "SnipTweet"?

A SnipTweet is a line or idea from a book. An author or reviewer might post a SnipTweet to give readers a provocative glimpse between the book's covers. It usually includes a link to the excerpted book.

The Writerly Sisters

I love the final Friday of each month because that's when a handful of writerly sisters converge on my little writer's cave--usually bearing some yummy nibble. We rejoice in one another's triumphs, encourage through disappointments, chat about current projects, brainstorm through writer's roadblocks, and discuss various aspects of our craft.

Please don't get offended, but you're not invited. We decided early on we wanted to keep the group small enough for each writer to get her fair share of the spotlight. We rotate through a schedule of presenters, each month featuring a primary and a secondary writer, The primary has the floor for as long as she needs to share her work, teach a mini-workshop, or discuss some writing-related topic. If time remains, the secondary takes the floor. The next month, that secondary will be the primary, and so we proceed through the rotation. It works well.

Last night, there were four of us; one was out of town. Fifty percent of our number arrived bearing gifts--books, of course! Writerly books! Huzzah! I am now the very proud own of five more volumes: Writing for the Soul by Jerry Jenkins, The Writer's Digest Handbook of Short Story Writing, The Giblin Guide to Writing Children's Books by James Cross Giblin, Character Naming Sourcebook by Sherrilyn Kenyon, and A Home in the Woods: Pioneer Life in Indiana by Howard Johnson. (Thank you, Kathi and Natalie!)

It was my turn at primary. We had a lively discussion about e-publishing vs. traditional publishing.

If you're a writer, I hope you're part of such a group. We'd love to hear about your experience.

Write on!
Because of Christ
Sharon

What Am I Reading Now?

No Longer a Slumdog

by Dr. K. P. Yohannan of Gospel for Asia

Were it not for the message of hope through Jesus Christ woven through the pages of this book, it would be nearly impossible to read because of the heartrending content. No Longer a Slumdog is a small book but an important one that every Christ-follower should read. Click on Dr. Yohannan's name above and hear him discuss the book.

HELP WANTED! Young Reviewers!

Only Kids Need Apply!

QUIRKY QUILL is my blog site geared to middle-graders and 'tweeners who read and write. It's a work of love in progress. At present, it features "Writer's Nudge" (a prompt to promote creative writing), "Fiction in Baby Bites" (a series of columns about the creative writing process), book reviews, and writer interviews (including some  with young scribes). 

I'll do some of the reviews, but I need help. Do you know some young readers? Let them know about QQ, and encourage them to submit a review. Visit QUIRKY QUILL for more details. Note that I don't want book reports. They get enough of that in school.

'Bye-'Bye, Borders

I'm sitting on a chair at a tiny table in the entryway of the Greenwood, Indiana Borders because this is the only seat left in the place. I feel as though I'm in the scene from You've Got Mail where the Shop Around the Corner is going out of business.

I know. I know. That little privately-owned children's bookstore had fallen victim to the big, bad chain store. My sympathies are with the small neighborhood shops, but since I've never lived near such a spot, except in my writer's vivid imagination, I am feeling sentimental about Borders' closings. Many pleasant, bookish, coffee-scented memories revolve around Borders--so many, in fact, I can almost forget Borders is a super chain. Or was.

My history with Borders goes back nearly a decade. My younger daughter, Dawna, introduced me to the joys that awaited just through those heavy red double doors. Before she went to South Korea to teach for a year, before she met and married a man from Nepal, before she had wee ones we would head for Borders, arriving around noon and staying until they ran us out so they could lock up for the night. Since that was pre-knee-surgery, she'd ask me what I wanted to look at. I'd dictate my wish list, and, while she went off to gather what she could, I'd order some scrumptious coffee and a sweet treat or an asiago-and-spinach-filled soft pretzel, warmed, of course. She'd return with a stack of books and magazines about writing, quilting, the arts, poetry, cooking, and literature. Once my nest was made, she'd go seeking after her own interests--arts, crafts, international cooking, travel, Chris Van Allsburg books (she's an illustrator and loves his work), and other miscellany. Then here she would come with a stack so high she could barely carry it, let alone see over it. And we'd stay for nine or ten hours, camping out while reading, sharing, drinking coffee, watching people, writing, and drinking more coffee.

When she married, we continued our Borders visits. Since her husband worked nights, we didn't have to hurry home. And of course, I never could leave without a few purchases. I suppose we should have paid rent on the table, too.

Sometimes I didn't read; I just wrote and wrote for those hours. It was at Borders that I discovered the guilty pleasure of writing in Moleskine notebooks such as the one I'm using to pen these words. From their eye-pleasing pale green paper and thin lines to the natural cardboard covers and their sewn construction I love them.

Dawna continued to be my Borders companion, even as the children came along--one, two, three--though the visits became shorter of necessity and less frequent. Now, just as the children are reaching an age when they enjoy browsing and finding a cozy corner to peruse a good book, Borders closes those magical red doors.

Don't hit me with the old line, "It's not personal. It's business." While I'm quoting You've Got Mail, I may as well add, "It's personal to a lot of people." I don't want to get into a conversation about the economy. Nor do I want to discuss the things I didn't like about Borders. I just want to bid the chain adieu. Something will come along to take its place. Hopefully.

The table I rest my elbows on is for sale for $75. The two chairs, $50 each. They're sturdy. Everything is for sale. Every bookcase, display rack, coffeemaker, counter, shelf ladder, and peg board hook. Every rug and every mug. From my vantage spot, I watch the constant flow of customers entering empty handed and leaving with bags full of bargains. Those shoppers, what are their memories, I wonder. Are they the least bit sentimental about the passing of this icon? Are you?

Because of Christ,
Sharon

"Where Clean Teen Fiction Abounds"

I learned about Novel Teen at the American Christian Fiction Writers conference, held this weekend in Indianapolis, and thought it might be helpful for those who want to recommend good reading to the teens in their lives. While I don't necessarily recommend every book featured on the site, it's a good starting place. Don't neglect the classics, though. They're called classics for a reason; they cross over the generational lines to address issues common to mankind through the centuries. They're never dated. Novel Teen is sponsored by Word Press.

What books--classic or contemporary--would you recommend? Why?

Hot Bookish Summers

"No more pencils! No more books! No more teacher's dirty looks!"

We all chanted it as we erupted out of the school building, final grades clutched in our sweaty hands, and into the sunshine on the last day of school. Summer spread before us like an unsullied sheet of Goldenrod paper, an adventure story yet to be written. But reading, writing, and Goldenrod paper were far from our minds as we escaped the building.

I spent most of my elementary school days living in a cramped three-room apartment on the third floor of an old building at the corner of Broad and Fourteenth streets--one of the two main intersections of my hometown. The nearest other child lived two blocks away. We never had a telephone, and I was in fifth grade before we got a television set, a boxy Philco console--used, of course.

Hey, don't feel sorry for me. Two blocks from that little flat was the New Castle-Henry County Public Library. And I had my very own borrower's card. The library opened at 8 a.m., so at 7:45 on the first full day of summer vacation I showed up, waiting impatiently under the mulberry tree
 for that click that would indicate the unlocking of the door.

"I want to join the book club," I said to Miz Catherine Day, the children's librarian.

"Of course, you do, Sharon. Do you think you can read 20 books this summer?" She struggled to keep her round face from splitting into a grin. "That's how many segments are on the bookworm."

I think I rolled my eyes. Discreetly. Of course.

In those simpler days, they didn't have "summer reading programs" with lots of prizes, refreshments, jugglers, and face painting. No fancy themes, either. They had books, and that was enough. Miz Day handed me a sheet of paper on which was printed a smiling, cheesy-looking bookworm.

"Every time you read a book at or above your grade level, you get to lick and stick on a segment of the worm."

"I know."

"I know you know." She smiled ever so slightly. "Be sure you read them, because I'll question you about them."

"I know."

"I know you know. I just have to tell everyone that."

By week's end, scores of papers just like mine were displayed behind the circulation desk. Apparently there were a lot of kids from all over Henry County, Indiana, who liked to read. I was a competitive little cuss, so I kept a close eye on the other bookworms.

At least once a day throughout the summer, I went to the library, lugging towers of books--orange Bobbs-Merrill biographies, Andrew Lang's color fairytale books, The Black Stallion and its sequels, the Bobbsey Twins series, books about different countries and cultures, and more. I completed my bookworm quickly.

One summer, Miz Day departed from the bookworm idea. We collected author cards, instead. I liked that better than the larvae because once I had all the cards, I could play the game. Further, I learned about some of my favorite writers.

Miz Day has been in the presence of the Lord for many years now. (I hope she's not trying to categorize the glories of Heaven according to Dewey.) Those hot bookish summer days live as sweet memories to this writer and raconteur.

How I would love it if one of these days some child would walk up to a children's librarian somewhere and say, "I read Up the Rutted Road. Can I put a sticker on my sheet?"

I would hope that the librarian would ask some questions:

"Who is the author?"

"Sharon Kirk Clifton."

"Good. What terrible thing happens to the girl in the book that causes her to run off into the mountains?"

"Oh, that's easy. Her--" Shhhhhh, child. Don't give it away.

[Gentle reader, what are your memories about summer reading? What whetted your appetite for books? What were some of your favorites from childhood? How have the books you read then influenced your life now? Please click on "Comments" and share your answers.]

A Boy, a Book, and an Old Yeller Dog

[Note: Blogger has decided that today it will not necessarily retain my paragraph breaks uniformly. Sorry.]

I am so pleased to welcome guest blogger Kristi Rice today. How do the books children read affect their lives? Read Kristi's story and find out.

My "Yeller" Dog
I can't fathom the idea of not having any children in the single digit age group. As of today, that is exactly what has happened. Where did the time go? My St. Patty's Day boy has turned ten. We thought we would do something really special to mark this occasion and so decided to give him a pup--a yeller pup.

It all started this summer when my Ethan's cat ran away for the zilynth time. Ethan decided he was fed up with cats. Dogs were the way to go. My response? Heck no! I just had brand new carpet laid. No way were we going to house break a new puppy!

Then, my big mistake. See, the fall is my absoulte favorite time of year. I am an outdoor girl. I still love to climb into big old trees with a good book. I decided it would be sooo nostalgic to take my children along with me and read a classic novel. "How about Old Yeller? I thought. Well, let me tell you, it worked out just as I had it in my mind--no, better. My children loved the book. Ethan especially loved it. At the end of the novel, he looked up at me with a tear streaked face and said, "Momma, I want a yeller dog." Oh boy, if that didn't pull at my heart strings.

That brings us to this past Saturday. I put out a search to see if anyone knew where I could find one. A fellow homeschooler emailed me that he had golden retriever pups ready to take home.

It was road trip time! My daughter Olivia and I took Ethan in the car. (My husband would have come, too, but he had to attend to some other business.) We told Ethan we were taking him to get his birthday present.

His eyes lit up. "Are we going to Wal-Mart or Target?" Olivia and I laughed. Neither, was our reply. We told him he would never guess in a bizillion years where we were going.

When we pulled into the home of the dog owners, Ethan asked, "Where are we?"

"You don't remember this place?" I said. He, of coarse, had never been there.

"Uh...kinda..."
The front door opened, and a very smiley man invited us in.

"Ethan doesn't know why he is here," I said. "He just knows he is getting his birthday present." The man's smile broadend even wider. He said he had to go put the big dog away and then we could take a look.

As the man walked away, Ethan looked up at me with the same face I remember from right after we had read Old Yeller. My heart melted, and tears burned my eyes.

"I'm gettin' a puppy?" He spoke softly as tears leaked down his face. Oh boy, I lost it. We both stood there in this stranger's kitchen weeping. The man returned with a look of bewilderment on his face. I couldn't even speak to tell him what was happening. I'm not sure that I would have been able to explain it to him anyway.

Ethan went in to the kennel room, and within five minutes he had snuggled up to one "yeller" pup in particular. Now that pup, which he named Lady Bella Elizabeth Rice, is living in our home.

We have already had some pretty exciting adventures which I hope to write about soon.

Do, do tell us more, Kristi, as the days go by. Guests of this blog may visit Kristi's blog, also.

Now, gentle readers, would you be so kind as to comment about a book from your childhood that significantly impacted your life? If you are a writer of children's literature, how do you hope that your work will influence your readers?

Review: RUBY HOLLER by Sharon Creech

Published by:  Joanna Cotler Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, 2002
310 pages

First line:  Dallas leaned far out of the window, his eyes fixed on a bird flying lazily in the distance.

From now on, I will include the first sentence of any book I review. We are told as writers that the job of that first sentence is to hook the reader so that they have no choice but to continue reading. By the time the reader finishes the first page, the hook should be deeply embedded in the gristle of the reader's jaw. That just didn't happen with this book.

As a child, I found myself reading a lot of first pages before tossing the books aside when those first pages failed to tantalize. At some point around junior high, I decided that was unfair and began reading the first one hundred pages before deciding whether or not to continue. So I did with this book.

Ruby Holler is a book of characters. I hear you. You're saying, "Sharon, all novels have characters." That's not what I mean. These people--on and all--are, to quote Merriam-Webster Online, people "marked by notable or conspicuous traits."

The protagonists are a set of orphaned twins, Dallas and Florida, who were abandoned as infants, left in a box on the steps of an orphanage operated by a couple named Trepid (think Miss Hannigan, Carol Burnett's character, in Annie). The Trepids treated all children in their care cruelly, but they especially disliked Dallas and his sister Florida, whom the Trepids called "the trouble twins."

If a line can be drawn between sympathy and pity, I drew that line, for I felt sorry for the twins, but it took awhile to truly sympathize with them. They were unlikable children who seemed bent on destroying everything around them that could be destroyed.

When Tiller and Sairy Morey, a couple of "old people," arrange for the trouble twins to spend the summer with them, Dallas and Florida expect more of the same treatment. They're astounded that the Moreys seem prepared to forgive any mischief they do.

Usually the foster parents (all of them quite bizarre)--and certainly the Trepids--dole out cruel punishments for misbehavior: hours of solitary confinement in dank, dark cellars with nothing for company but hairy spider, lizards, snakes, and "putrid" rats; scant rations of tasteless, meatless food; and days of back-breaking, heavy labor such as well-digging. The kids are baffled by the love the Moreys give them. There seems to be no limit to forgiveness, even when the children break two precious, hand-carved objects, split the railing of the front porch, cut down Tiller's favorite maple tree, and hack a "window" hole in the barn "to let in more light."

Love and forgiveness are streams that run through Ruby Holler. Though no one ever says, "I love you," it is expressed by the things the residents do for one another, even the trouble twins.

The book ends leaving a lot of questions unanswered, inviting a sequel. For example, who is Z, a character who jumps in and out of the story, gaining prominence toward the end? Are his suspicions about Dallas and Florida correct? Where is the twins' mother? Why did she desert them?

Ruby Holler can be understood on several levels, making it an excellent choice for multi-generational book discussion groups. In my days as a classroom teacher and gifted/talented facilitator, I often lead such groups that were made up of both the students and their parents.

Sharon Creech is the author of the Newbery Medal winner Walk Two Moons and the Newbery Honor winner The Wanderer.  Ruby Holler was a Young Hoosier Book Award winner in 2005. Creech has written many other books, as well.

First Manscript Finished!

How long can it take to write a first novel? Is 15 years too long? I think not, considering that the writer has to allow time spent honing her craft.

I've written most of my life. In fifth grade, I rewrote Longfellow's epic poem "Song of Hiawatha" into a play that my class presented on the radio. That was fun, and it got me out of math. Throughout my school career, I entered about every writing contest that came along and usually did fairly well. Then, after a nine-year stint as a newspaper journalist (winning a couple of awards there, too), college (English major), and ten years as a classroom teacher, I returned to my first love: writing fiction.

Originally, Up the Rutted Road was to be a picture book, but when an editor with Farrar, Straus & Giroux asked me to expand it into a middle-grade novel, I agreed. Now, I cannot imagine it as a picture book. FS&G didn't take the manuscript, but good rejection letters can be an education in themselves. I began to seriously study my craft to discover what URR needed. I also joined an excellent critique group through ACFW and continued to grow my writing. I interviewed people from the area of my setting (southeastern Kentucky), attended a major writers' conference and several smaller workshops, read books, studied on-line sources, and sought the wisdom of published writers.

Today I embark on another journey: a quest to find a publisher and/or an agent that would be a good fit. For some time now, I've been scoping out "possibles," noticing especially those who consider middle-grade novels, but now I'm looking for more.

Meanwhile, I'm also putting together a proposal. The chapter synopses are done. Now for the dreaded query letter. Fortunately, I have some excellent blog and website links right here to the left and down. Several of them address query and cover letters.

I am praying that God will lead me to the right agent and/or publisher early in my quest, since I have another manuscript waiting not so patiently in the wings.

What if I don't find either an agent or a publisher? Of course, that's a possibility. At least I have completed the manuscript and learned a lot along the way--about patience, about persistence, about writing fiction, and about how God works in our writing.

Oh, and by the way, in case you are a novice writer, Gentle Reader, please know from the beginning that the process of becoming does not end. A writer never fully arrives as long as she draws breath. We continue to read, to learn, to hone this precious gift that our Creator entrusted to us.