Hello, lovely readers… you really are looking nice today. *wink and finger point*

I’ve decided to take a break from the blog. It would seem that my life has no balance, and the blog has been getting a disproportionate amount of time and energy. Time and energy that should be put elsewhere.  This probably seems weird since most of you are saying what time and energy? you hardly ever post?!? It’s a mystery, for sure. There is some sort of time/energy vortex that opens when I sit down and open up my blog. I sit for long periods of time, stewing and vexing, and then in the real world there isn’t much to show for it. (I request that some more scientific studies are done on this anomaly. But not by me.) I feel badly that there is time and energy being sucked from other areas of my life that deserve more attention. I’ve wanted to write “for real” for sometime, and if I would put as many words-per-day into my novel as I put here… well, maybe I’d be an actual novelist by now. Or not. Who knows…

So farewell for now, friends. If I can get it all together, get all my balls in the air, and then figure out how to get the blog back in there without all of the balls falling… well, that would be ideal, wouldn’t it? You can keep me on Google Reader, maybe I’ll surprise you sometime. For now, though, I’m focusing on family and other interests. I’ll still peek in on your blogs, though, from time to time.

Until we meet again…

Today was day 2 of the Children’s Literature Forum. For me, it was much nicer than day 1. The mingling was easier. Like, at lunch, two old librarians sat next to me and chatted me up. The one told me that I “look like that movie star, Cameron Diaz” and then the second old librarian said “oh no, you are much more beautiful than that Cameron Diaz”. And then I hugged them both and cried, because they were the first people to be really nice to me during the whole conference and WOW, were they nice. (I didn’t really hug them, because that would have been weird, but I wanted to.) The speakers today were pretty dang phenomenal, too. I loved listening to Brandon Mull speak during the luncheon. He’s all about being a champion for the fantasy genre… so of course I wanted to hug him, too. But I didn’t. Because, again, the weird factor. He talked about his active imagination (as a kid and as an adult) and I completely identified with him. He talked about the “nerd-stink” that went along with his love for fantasy during his teen and young adult years. The guy was brilliant and honest, despite his admittance to not being a “public speaker person”. At the end of his talk he apologized for not making the correct eye contact or whatever other speaking faux pas he may have inadvertently made. It was awesome. I applauded enthusiastically to his presentation, all the while wanting — of course — to hug him. But can you blame me? C’mon, a fantasy advocate? Bless him, dude. Frickin bless him.

The best session, though, was the one led by Ann Dee Ellis. She was pregnant, funny, smart, a little nuts, and a kindred soul if I ever did see one talk. (I’d say “a kindred soul if I ever did meet one”, but I didn’t actually meet her.) She held up a copy of The Bell Jar and asked if any of us had read it, and my hand flew up. She proceeded to tell how she identified completely with the story… and I nodded. And listening to her talk I thought, holy cow, I want to be this chick’s friend… but that would be weird to say that to someone, so of course I didn’t. Our seemingly similar paths ended when she said “I didn’t read this book until I was in graduate school…” Huh. Graduate school. Maybe we aren’t twins after all.

That’s when it really struck me how frickin far behind the learning curve I truly am. People who should be my peers would be my instructors. I’m old, man. I can’t imagine that if I’d actually gone to school on a normal time table I could be teaching writing at a college instead of learning writing at a college. Recounting this to Jon tonight, he said “Are you sure you want to go to school this fall?” I said, “yes.” He said, “You’re going to be sitting in classes with 18 and 19 year old kids.” I said, “I know.” He said, “If you wait another 10 years, you can go back as an old granny, and then people will say ‘oh, look at that cute old granny going back to school, good for her.’ If you go back now, people will just think it’s weird.” I thanked him for pointing out the painfully obvious things that I’d already been thinking about for two days straight. But seriously, putting off school another 10 years just because it will be embarrassing? Would it really be any less embarrassing in another 10 years?

But here we are. The forum is over, and I have much to think about.

And I’ve just realized — again — that I’m not getting any younger.

Today I spent the day at UVSC for the Children’s Literature Forum.

Book signing frenzy.

I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. I was so going to be be in my element. I’d be surrounded by others with similar interests. It would be a melting pot of creative juices and well-wishing mojo. Or this is what I thought. And it was sort of like that… kinda.

I spent the day actively listening to the speakers, taking copious notes, nodding when someone said something that I could identify with. I went solo, though, and it seemed as if I was the only “single” soul in the building. Everyone else had a posse, a group of creative cohorts with whom to share the experience. I made a few fruitless attempts to break into the conversations of other groups, but everyone seemed tight-knit. So instead I just sat back and observed. And what I observed was a hundred people all trying to do the same thing I want to do. A hundred people who all thought they could write, just like me. A hundred people who think they’ll be the next big author, just like me. I was adrift in a sea of me’s.

I sat in on a few really great sessions. The first was led by Kirby Larson , who is a Newbery Honor author. She gave a few pointers on collecting research and finding your character’s voice. Her pep talk made me think that maybe finishing a novel and eventually being published was something I could almost do.

The second session was led by Anne Bowen, a picture book author and retired teacher. She gave fantastic insight into the structure of a picture book (something I knew nothing about before today), and also touched on pacing and text. It was great stuff. I was taking notes at a furious pace. My mind was going over how I could apply all of these things to my fledgling picture book. My rhyming fledgling picture book. It was at this point she pulled out the old quote about how it is rarely a good idea to try to rhyme, which took a significant amount of wind from my sails. Because I so love my rhyming story. It’s precious. I love that it rhymes. It has meter and rhythm. But now I’m not so sure about it…

The third session was led by Sara Zarr, the author of the award winning YA novel “Story of a Girl”. She talked about writing authentic YA material, telling us it was good to be “gritty” and “raw” when it lent itself to realistic teen fiction. There was more furious note-taking. It was also good stuff. Then there was some discussion among the people in the room — some writers, some educators — that mentioned “fantasy” was on it’s way out. Fantasy is waning. Apparently teens don’t want to read so much of that anymore. They want something more realistic. Which is great… because my fledgling YA novel is fantasy. So it was good to hear up front that teens probably won’t want to read it.

I know, I was totally throwing a pity party for one. There was an imp on my shoulder playing the world’s tiniest violin, just for me. I walked out of the last session thinking that I would have to scrap everything I’ve been working on for years. Start all over. *sigh* And no doubt the new stuff would be crap as well… (more violin).

I walked to the campus bookstore and licked my wounds by buying bags full of paperbacks.

Paperbacks are soothing to the soul, the smell of new paper and the smoothness of the cover… paperbacks are like a massage in book-form. I picked up the Sara Zarr book and a few non-kid books, as well. I also picked up “My Friend is Sad” by Mo Willems, because Mo is the man. If I ever met him, I just know that he’d somehow be like a long lost brother I never knew I had. (I imagine that we would have a secret handshake and inside jokes.) I came home and immediately read it to my kids, and it was met with truck loads of belly laughs. Like I said, Mo is the man. If only I could write like Mo…

Tomorrow I go back for another day of sessions and schmoozing. Except that I really need to learn to schmooze better. My networking skills are lacking. But tomorrow I will try to jump in more and let the imp play the violin a little less. And I’ll try to stay out of the book store.