I love doing freelance work. It's like no-pressure writing for me--especially because I don't have to do it for a living and it's not about getting a manuscript published. It's like a bonus opportunity to learn about a new subject, do research and put pencil to paper...er...fingers to keys. There's just something about writing for the sake of writing that is calming and comforting and oh so me.

 

I don't know when nonfiction writing became fun, but somewhere between writing about my summer vacation and a critical response to Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine nonfiction writing became something more than just a school assignment. Talking to experts, reading reports, watching testimonies.

 

Half of you are probably gagging at this point. I live to serve.

 This weekend we had a roommate field trip to Georgetown to enjoy this great summer weather we've been blessed with. It was a great day for windows hopping and ice cream shakes from Haagen-Dazs.

 For the first time it what seems like forever, I crossed the country in--get this--an airplane. I think in the past year I have been doing more traveling by car than in the past ten years combine, so it was nice to be able to sit back and not be responsible to arriving to my destination on time.

I received my first rejection letter today, and it was actually a good experience. I'm not just saying that because you're supposed to keep your chin up when you're down and all that. It really was a good experience.

I got a very nice email (it was an electronic submission), not a form letter, telling me that she liked my writing, loved elements of the story, went "around and around" with her discussion, but ultimately turned down the manuscript. I emailed her back thanking her for her kind words and asking if she would be willing to receive queries from me on future projects, and within seconds she had emailed me back saying she would be happy to look at other things from me.

Overall, I think I had stilled myself for feeling totally dejected and receiving a form letter telling me thanks but no thanks. I know that selling a historical fiction manuscript will not be easy, and this is probably the first of many "no"s I will receive in the coming years. But if this is what it is like to be rejected, I think I am ready to have it happen some more.

Ask me about it again in five years when I have a pile of 100 rejection letters for three different novels and I will probably feel differently.

I feel like I am living in this haze at the moment. After spending over a year focusing so hard on getting one manuscript ready for marketing, I am ready to move on. That's right, I've started something totally new. And totally different.

While working on my last manuscript, I never really stop working on other projects, but some characters had louder voices in my head than others and so I had to get their story written before I could really concentrate on what anyone else was tell me. So I've been really worried that for the past few months, things have been kind of silent up there. I tried pulling out some old things to work on to see if those characters would start talking to me again. I wrote some short stories hoping to invite someone new to take up residence. I even started researching for a new non-fiction piece in order to call up some voices from the dust. But nothing was really coming alive for me.

Then a couple of kids moved in and wouldn't vacate the premisses. So now I have the voice of this sixteen-year-old girl echoing in my head, and I can't stop typing the most amazing things she is whispering to me. She and her best friend have an incredible story to tell, and though it's completely different from anything I have ever written or ever attempted to write, I feel blessed that they have chosen me to tell their story.

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf--her wolf--is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human--or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

(Re-post this and leave a comment here letting Maggie know you are a member of team Raving the Pen!)

Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Life is full of defining moments, and baseball is no exception. From Walt Dropo’s 15-hit run, to the immortal plays of Tinker to Evers to Chance to learning how to eat a hotdog (mustard and NO KETCHUP!), Mudville breathes new life into baseball legends and tells a great story along the way.

It’s all about the percentages. There’s a one in a billion chance that it will rain 8,030 consecutive days in a little town in the Dakotas, but with more than a billion towns that have existed on the earth, Moundville is the town that gets drenched. And it’s proof-positive of percentages that the rain started just in time to cause a rain-delay in the bottom of the fourth inning of the big game between Sinister Bend and Moundville. It has nothing to do with an old Indian curse or even the long-standing rivalry between the settlers and the natives, at least that’s what Roy McGuire would like to think.

So when Roy comes home from baseball camp to find his room invaded by his new foster brother, a descendant of the now-flooded town of Sinister Bend, Roy puts forth a worthy effort to make room in his life for Sturgis. But Sturgis doesn’t make himself easy to love or even like. While the boys finally connect with Sturgis playing pitcher to Roy’s catcher, there is still the issue of the unfinished game and Sturgis’ past standing between them.

Roy McGuire is my new favorite catcher—sorry, A.J. You know I will always love the 2005 White Sox, but I’ve got to make room in my heart for the up-and-coming players—and Moundville is my new field of dreams. Full of humor, great plays and characters that jump off the pages, Kurtis Scaletta has created a defining moment in baseball literature. And you don’t have to be a baseball fan to enjoy the romance of the game and feel a connection to the players that you hope both win and lose the big game.

(And you know this book is good when a White Sox fan gives it five stars even though the Cubs win the Cross Town Classic that Roy watches. At that moment I knew this was a fantasy novel.)

View all my reviews.

 Today I went to Trinidad and Tobago, Uzbekistan, Australia, Korea, Zambia, Venezuela and the Bahamas. No really, I did.

 

Okay, so I went to those embassies, and technically an embassy is considered foreign soil. And being on all that foreign soil was pretty cool.

 

With the different music

and textiles

and culture

and art

today was a fantastic adventure. Next year I was to go back and see some of the EU embassies.

 A lot of people post a Friday Five, and I realized I have never done that before. This was a really good week, so I could probably post a Friday Fifteen or even Fifty, but that would be a really long post. And it's getting late, and I'm getting up early.

Mission to the Moon: by Alan Dyer

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has to be the coolest book I have read in a long time. Last year I thought I had hit space-exploration gold with Team Moon: How 400 000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon, but Mission to the Moon puts Team Moon to shame.

The book itself is a feast for the eyes. Not only is it a collection of the choicest NASA archival photos, but it tells a great story as well. It balances history with modern science, moon-myth with lunar technology. The past and the future collide to explain how the lunar program has developed and where it is going in the years to come. It's like reading an encyclopedia with all the facts but still holds the excitement of going to Cape Canaveral and seeing the American space program in action.

But the jewel of this book is the DVD it comes with. It splices together old NASA reels along with some period documentaries. While it shows Neil Armstrong's famous first steps, it also talks about lift-off, the equipment left behind, splash-down and debriefings. The extras on the DVD go on to document the Apollo 13 disaster (or miracle), astronaut training from the beginning to the present, Earth Rise and some goofy footage of the Apollo 11 crew.

You don't have to be a space nerd to love this book as it appeals to both the novice and the expert alike. If you like history, or if you like science, this book is a great interactive choice for middle-grade readers. And for parents, you could not ask for a better comprehensive product for your money--it is worth three times as much as Simon & Schuster is marketing it for.

View all my reviews.

Baseball season is once again in full swing. And I am planning to catch a couple of games this summer. Being in DC offers both good and bad elements to baseball season.

Bad: The Nats are a terrible team. I don't plan on attending any games they will win or even come close to winning.

Good: Tickets are dirt cheap. When you already know the outcome of the game, not many people are willing to pay in excess of ten bucks for a ticket.

Bad: The Sox are in the American League while the Nats are in the National League. This means I won't be able to see the Sox play this summer as I won't be going to Chicago until Labor Day when ticket prices will be well out of my range.

Good: My neighbors have the MLB channel and have promised I can actually watch games. They think my obsession with the Sox is highly entertaining, so they will more than likely spend most of the game watching me watch the game.

Bad: I won't be able to watch the games with my dad, sister or brother.

Good: I will have plenty of excuses to call my dad, sister and brother to discuss plays, stats and standings.

The life of a baseball fanatic has its ups and downs, but mostly it's just about the love of the game.

My Big Nose & Other Natural Disasters by Sydney-Louise Salter Husseman

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I approached this book a little differently as I read it aloud with my roommate, and I can't imagine having read it any other way. It was so much fun to read this book with a friend and be able to share our own stories of poor self-image, lousy boy experiences and horrific summer jobs. We could totally relate to this book, and not because we had experienced some trauma that had a profound effect on our lives, but because we are every-day girls who deal with every-day life.

Jory Michaels has a problem, and it's as plain as the nose on her face, mostly because it is the nose on her face. Her two best friends have emerged from their ugly-duckling phases and are now beautiful, confident young women ready to take senior year by storm. Her little brother Finn is a soccer star two years her junior who managed to score a date to senior prom when he was still a freshman. Her mom is perfectly proportioned, her dad is a workaholic and everyone around her knows where they are going in life. If only Jory's massive shnoz and perpetual virginity would stop getting in her way.

Her summer plan includes finding summer employment to pay for a nose job, discovering a passion and having sex. But it won't be that easy when she is a horrible driver and the only job she can find is delivering cakes. Not to mention that when water skiing, yoga, soccer, reading and classical music fail to perk Jory's interest, she begins to run out of things to become passionate about. Then her best friend starts hanging out with the guy she has been crushing on for twelve months, six days and however many hours, and the only boy who seems to be taking any notice of Jory is a juvenile delinquent with a super-snout of his own.

Sure there are times when I wished Jory would shut up about her nose and get more supportive friends, and don't even get me started on her superficial mother. But isn't that how life is? We get fixated on something so securely that we can't see past it and we let it rule our lives--that is part of human nature.

At a time when YA fiction has been flooded with books about beautiful, aloof, perfect girls, Sydney Salter has written a heartwarming books about an ordinary girl with ordinary problems yet managed to make an extraordinary novel. Full for laugh-out-loud funny moments, hide-under-the-covers embarrassing moments and call-your-mom-to-tell-her-you-love-her moments, My Big Nose stands out from the crowd.

View all my reviews.

I didn’t think I looked like a New Yorker—I don’t have the posh stylings of a Manhatten diva, nor do I have the big hair of a flashy girl from Queens. But I must have some look that screams “City Girl!” because, despite the iPod that was permanently embedded in my ear and my horrible hair thanks to the hair dryer I left sitting on my bathroom counter at home, four people stopped me to ask for directions. Yes, four. In two days. Maybe I just look approachable? Or maybe I walk with confidence? Really, I only knew where I was going because I was constantly referencing my new cell phone’s GPS feature—God bless you Verizon!

My trip to New York City this weekend was all about books. Traveling alone meant I could actually sit in cafes and parks and write whenever I wanted, and I think I filled half a pocket notebook with the most random story ideas and research notes. I wanted some me-time to read a few of the books that have taken over my desk as well as make a quick (ha!) trip to my book Mecca—The Strand—because their book bags are the perfect size with the perfect give, but after four years of constant use and abuse, my old bag deserves a long, quiet retirement. Check out all the loot I got.



Really, this trip was just a poorly veiled excuse to meet my online book buddy Lisa McMann. While there were tons of people at the Books of Wonder event, I did have a chance to actually talk to Lisa for a while. We’ve been exchanging book recommendations for years now (I can’t believe it’s actually been years), so I couldn’t pass up the chance to meet her in person. But after a couple weeks on tour, Lisa had been smiling so much it looked like it actually hurt. When I asked if we could get a picture, I told her smiling was not necessary. It’s too bad the first picture was so blurry, because we looked fierce.

 Part 1: Mini parking spaces