My ranking in 2007 was 78. In 2008, it was 81. This marks some real improvement, though of course I can look through the list and see several of my competitors at races who have ranks of 95 and above. And yes, they are in my age group.

What does this mean? Why does it matter for the rest of the world, who do not care about triathlon?

I think that writing novels, or really any pursuit in life, is about making small steps. Sometimes we see what we want to be and it is so far beyond where we are now that it seems impossible to reach that goal. And we give up. But when we set ourselves small, reasonable goals, week by week, month by month, we can do those things that seemed beyond us.

Sometimes people tell me that they can never be athletic like I am. It makes me laugh. I never thought of myself as athletic. I was a nerd. I swam because I hated PE classes and being on the swim team got me out of them. I never was much of a swimmer, even so. I showed up. I did what I was told to do. I never ranked high on my team, let alone state.

But twenty years later, I was still swimming. I didn't give up. I kept making small improvements, and I got better.

I was never a runner. I had bad knees. Until a sports doctor told me a little running would help my knee pain. I thought he was an idiot. To prove him wrong, I ran .1 mile on the treadmill the first day (he said to start out slowly). The next day, I ran .2 mile. I intended all along to go back to the doctor and tell him he was wrong, that I would never be a runner. I ran .3 mile the next day. And .4, waiting for the time when the knee pain would return. I kept at it until I could run 6 miles at a stretch. This was only in 2003, 6 years ago.

Baby steps, people. And not even every day. Just some days.

I have a new column up at IGMS, if you're interested, on writing a series hero. This was great fun for me, to try to sit down and figure out what it is that makes me read anything a writer cares to write about certain heroes (Miles Vorkosigan, Ender Wiggins, Harry Dresden, Fitz Farseer, Eugenides, for example).

Go here.

If you ask people to read your manuscript, it is important to remember that they are doing you a favor. Whether it is on an individual basis or in a writer's group, you as the writer need to listen carefully to what they have to say. You treat them with respect and you don't tell them that they are wrong. A reader's experience with the manuscript is what it is. It is one person's experience. And whether that person is an experienced writer or simply another reader, it doesn't really matter.

Except that there are situations in which readers are wrong. It is one of the most difficult jobs of the writer to try to figure this out. Even editors will give suggestions (editors are another class of readers, after all) that turn out to be just plain wrong. They may have identified a real problem, or they may not have. It may be that the solution to the problem is something that is in a completely different location or on a different level entirely than the feedback that they give. If you are very good, you may figure out how to fix it before your book is reviewed professionally and the solution is suggested there. But maybe not.

I have always found it difficult to completely ignore any reader's response. I want to please everyone. This is why writer's groups are a tricky thing for me. A book written by committee turns out not to be a very good one. It works better (a little) if you don't allow anyone to critique a book until it is completely finished and you know for yourself what you want to come out of it. But still, there are times when a reader will give you a criticism and you will simply have to say that you meant it to be that way.

And then worry over it even so, until the book is published and there's nothing more you can do.

Once a Princess by Sherwood Smith
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Freaks of Evolution and Me by Robin Brande
Your Heart Belongs to Me by Dean Koontz
The Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede
Midwinter by Matthew Sturges
Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg (reread of old classic)
The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale
The Devil You Know by Mike Carey
Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman
A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth Bunce
Bitten by Kelley Armstrong
Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon
Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt
Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy
Ill Wind by Rachel Caine

I have been in several different book clubs over the last fifteen years. One was when I was in grad school and there were only four of us. That one completely changed my life. One of the things that we read was my own first, very-very bad novel, THE SHEPHERDESS' DAUGHTER, which was passed around to friends of friends for a while. They seemed to love the me they could see in the novel even if not the novel itself. The three other women in the group and I are all still close, close friends. Even if we don't talk to each other for a year or so, when we see each other again, we embrace and chat as if no time had passed at all. We know each other's hearts and we love each other dearly.

After that, I had a book club with a much more disparate group of people. I read with them some books I really hated. Like ANGELS AND DEMONS by Dan Brown. Worst female side kick ever. Also, very bad writing. And surprises that weren't surprising. Anyway, I really liked the women in that group but when I moved I didn't leave my heart with them. Maybe it was just a different time in my life.

I tried another group that a friend of mine was in because I was looking for that bonding that I had in the first book club, but it didn't happen and I didn't go back for a second meeting. The people there just did not seem to be as passionate about books as I wanted a group to be. I mean, to me, books are bread and blood and breath. I cannot live without books. I need those other worlds to make sense of my own.

Now, onto book club #4 which is the one I am currently in. It is related to my church and at first I admit I felt obligated to go. I was uncomfortable with the ban on books that had "bad language" or anything controversial because that seemed to cut about 95% of the book I read off the list. And also, I am really bad at remembering those sorts of things in a book because they don't bother me. People I recommend books to have to remember that. But about six months in, I am enjoying the group. I feel a hint of that same intimacy from group #1. I have liked some of the books, hated others, and now they want to choose one of my books for the book club book.

When this first came up several months ago, I said no. I didn't feel comfortable with the idea that other people would be reading my book and then making comments about it while I sat there. I didn't like thinking that they would feel obliged to curtail their opinions because of me, nor that they wouldn't curtail their opinions. I don't read reviews much and I don't really want to sit in a room with a bunch of reviewers. If they wanted to read one of my books, no one was stopping them. We didn't have to have a book club about it. They could talk to me about it privately if they wished.

But they were insistent. So, finally, I broke down and decided I would let them read one of my books, but not one that was already published and that I couldn't "fix" if I wanted to. Last week I handed out copies to everyone. We'll see how it goes. It seems a bit of a test. But who is being tested, me or them or just the group itself?

Here is my recent post on the Harper Teen blog, if you are interested. It's about the day THE PRINCESS AND THE BEAR came out and I went to the bookstore to scope it out and celebrate.

I am not one of those people who read the last page of the book first. I don't like spoilers, but I don't think they bother me that much as a general rule. I can know what is going to happen in a book and still enjoy it thoroughly. I think this must be related to the fact that I'm not very into surprises. I prefer gifts that I know are coming. I find I savor them more this way. One of my five children is like me. The other four are normal kids who like surprises and the anticipation.

I have been accused in the last couple of weeks of being a terrible spoiler several times. So I think I need to work on this. I don't intend to spoil. Sometimes I think I am keeping back the important information about an ending by saying something vague like, "I was surprised by the ending," or "I didn't want it to end that way" or "It doesn't end the way that you think it does." But I recommended a friend read THE ACTOR AND THE HOUSEWIFE and I completely spoiled the ending by telling him that the book was about proving that platonic friendships are possible and that the ending bears this out. Ack!

I think I'm going to have to learn to keep my mouth shut. About my own books, too, come to think of it. I think surprise is a great device in a book to draw readers in and make them want to keep reading. But if I ruin the surprise by telling too much about a book up front, then the pleasure of anticipation is ruined.

A couple of times this month I have been reading books that I was enjoying where I set them aside to read the ending later. Like I said, I liked the books, so why not rush through? Because there was a part of me that didn't want the book to end. I wanted to think about it in my head and play with different endings myself first. Honestly, as a reader my greatest pleasure is the set up of the book, not the ending. I love to see the complications and the rules of the world set up so that there are really interesting dilemmas ahead. How the dilemmas are resolved is not as interesting. A little weird, I admit.

15 is often frustrated by "incorrect" grammar use. In particular, the hypercorrection error of saying "you and I" in an objective case, not using "whom" when it should be used, quotation marks when there should be emphasis instead, or misused words. I myself am not much for "whom" or other artifacts of an older grammar style, such as not ending sentences with prepositions ("up with which I WILL put").

But though I claim to be a "descriptivist" instead of a "prescriptivist," there are a few regional variants here in Utah than get to me. For example, it is quite acceptable in normal conversation here to say "I says" or "they says." *Shudder* In terms of pronunciation, people say "sinGinG," with two hard G's as well as the "ng" sound. Also, shortening vowels so that the word "bowl" become "bull" or "kale" "kell" (a particular point since a family friend is named Kale). I laugh with 15 when advertisers say "guaranteed lowest price" in quotations, as though this is something that is being quoted and could be disputed, when they think they are verifying it. I laugh a little when people think they are talking better than everyone else by saying "with you and I."

Here is the point. I think it is impossible to be tolerant of other people when you have a viewpoint that you are "correct." You can believe that the person is good-hearted though misguided, but I don't think this is the same as tolerance because you are secretly making a judgment about whether they are right or wrong. It takes a real stretch to accept the possibility that you might be the one who is wrong in order to be truly tolerant. I can talk with tolerance about evolution, for example, because I don't insist on my view being the correct one. My own viewpoint is persuasive to me, but not definitive.

But it's easy to be tolerant about things that you don't care deeply about, that are not bound to your core identity. I have no interest in being tolerant about a certain group of things and will really argue about them. I hate the term "feminism" and even "women's rights" or "equality" seem a bit bound up with political philosophies I only partly ascribe to. But there is something about seeing women truly that I am very fierce about.

I remember, for example, a recent story about a woman who insisted on being referred to with her proper title. Because I am a woman who has a PhD I actually sympathized with this. I feel like women sometimes are not given proper deference and then are forced into situations where they have to insist on it when the same thing would never happen to men. Then they can be either ignored or laughed at for being so uptight. I am a woman and this is a particular point of irritation for me. I am not interested in being tolerant about this. I just call it stupidity.

This is the real problem with tolerance. Everyone thinks that they are tolerant about the stuff that isn't important to them. It's being tolerant about the other stuff that is near impossible. I think maybe it's practicing the simple words "I don't know" that can be useful. Sure, everyone will have areas they cannot negotiate, but if we can practice saying "I don't know" more often, maybe we can be as open as possible. Maybe this is the beginning of tolerance?

I don't know.

15 is taking Pre-Calculus over the summer in her quest to finish college before she graduates from high school. Sigh. Here is what our nighttime conversation is now like:

15: Can you ever have a cubic asymptote? Or as asymmetric asymptote?
Me: That would make a great title for a book. Me and my big, fat asymmetric asymptote. Or possibly, Boys are All Cubic Asympototes.

I have been working on a book that is a huge mess. The scenes are fun. That's not the problem. It's the bigger picture. I don't have a bigger picture in the book, actually. And that's the problem. There are a handful of characters, but I guess it's the world building that is lacking. I have decided that it is time to let this novel sit for a while. There are times when pushing yourself to finish a book is just a waste of time. I could be wrong about this, but I don't think so. Hopefully my subconscious will work on it and then I will sit down one day and have it all figured out. I generally prefer my subconscious to work on such problems rather than my conscious mind. My conscious mind tends to have much less creative answers and is not able to synthesize in the same way

I read this book last week in a rush (putting off my own writing because I couldn't help myself) and I have been thinking it over since then, to make sure what I thought of it. Sometimes you read a book and love it, but the feeling fades. And I loved this one so much, I kept worrying that it couldn't possibly be as wonderful as I thought it was. But I already feel the itch to reread it. It is that good.

First, this is a book that touched a personal chord for me. I don't know if the same thing will happen to other readers. The Actor and the Housewife is a book about a married woman in love with her husband and absorbed in mothering four young children, who falls in friendship love with another man. I had been through something like this and was astonished at how well Shannon got all the feelings right. Wondering where the line is drawn between friendship and romance. The suspicions from others, the talk about how men can't have a platonic relationship with a woman. Advice, nasty comments, weird looks, and self-doubt. Yup, all there.

Second, this is a book that is about life in the Mormon world. Yes, Hollywood is in there for a bit, but it's mostly a contrast for the potluck dinners, Primary meetings, and general gossip of a Mormon ward group. I have no idea if the national audience is interested or ready for this. I am amazed at Shannon's courage in writing this book for them anyway. And for Mormons, too. I've read lots of books for the Mormon market written by Mormons about Mormons (well, I read a few early on, but not so many are good). Those books generally have a feeling of "in jokes." The culture is talked about, but never in a critical way. That is, everything is accepted as good and appropriate and if problems happen, they come from the outside. But the wonder of this book is that Shannon never for one moment gives you a sense that she doubts the truth of her Mormon beliefs, but at the same time, she pokes fun a little at some of the traditions. She questions the all too common one size fits all prescriptions that Mormons tend to live by. She shows Mormons as good-hearted at their best (which is not always) and as very fallible. They are hopeful that God's hand is in everything, and yet when they try to predict how that happens, they are humiliatingly mistaken. It is a marvel of acrobatics, this dance on the high wire. I am in awe.

Thirdly, this is a book that is probably being picked up by a lot of readers of Austenland which was a clear romantic comedy/chick lit kind of book. The Actor and the Housewife plays with the very idea of romantic comedy. The heroine is already married, happily, when the man of her fantasy dreams comes into her life. He is also happily married. So where is the romance? Well, there is romance in it. Only it doesn't end the way that romance readers will want it to. Romance readers, I am afraid, are not going to be happy with that ending. But it is a shame if they are not. Because this is a book of a generation. It is funny and tricky and just plain un-put-downable. But more than that, it is a book that will make you think. It will make you change. That's the kind of book that I aspire to write.

If you want sparkling dialog, it's here. If you want to laugh until it hurts, open this book. If you want to cry, you won't avoid it. If you want the kind of book you grip with white knuckles to find out what happens, here it is. If you want relationships that are real, if you want to be angry and then to forgive, if you want to see how a housewife uses her skills with pie to save the world--

I raise my glass of sparkling cider to you, Shannon. Well done.

I have a short story I am working on, about a ghost who loves shoes. This ghost is definitely not one of those characters who is like me. I am not a shoe person. This is how I buy shoes:

1. Go to Land's End online.
2. If they have mocs on sale in my size, buy them in whatever color is available.
3. Rejoice when the package arrives and the shoes fit my feet.

13 does not like this. She thinks that I should buy "cute" shoes. We recently had a conversation about this.

13: Mom, why do you always wear ugly shoes?
Me: They are comfortable.
13: So, comfort is all that matters to you?
Me: Pretty much.
13: Don't you own any pumps?
Me: Yes.
13: You never wear them.
Me: I wear them to church. Sometimes. Usually I wear my flats, though, because they're more comfortable.
13: Why don't you ever wear your nice flats on a weekday?
Me: Because then they would get worn out and I would have to go buy new church shoes at a store where I have to try them on instead of clicking a button.
13: Why is that such a big deal?
Me: I have to make choices. All the shoes call out to me to buy them, and I get confused and frustrated and want to leave desperately. I am very anxious about shoe shopping.
13: Mom! *Rolls eyes*
Me: I'm serious. It's like going into a pet adoption. You can only save one.
13: Mom, you can buy more than one pair of shoes, you know.
Me: But then, there's the anxiety of having spent too much money on shoes that you don't wear more than once a year, so I can't go shoe shopping for another four years.

That's how the conversation went as I remember it. 13 may recall it differently. I am certain that one of the reasons that I became an author is so that I had the chance to recraft conversations that didn't go quite perfectly the first time in real life. If I were funnier or wittier in real time, I would just be happy with how it went the first time through.

I didn't have enough quilts to finish lately, so I decided to do a class on T-shirt quilts. I myself have dozens of shirts from races that I don't know what to do with, and my husband has about half again as many. So I started cutting them up and as I figured out what to do, I taught other people how. The two quilts I did were not perfect, but they are very soft and I can hardly get them away from my kids. But the best part for me is that I now have some of those ancient T-shirts that I didn't want to throw away put back into circulation.

I'll sit down with my kids and point to each shirt and be reminded of what that shirt stands for. That one is the first event I ever did, in 2004, a marathon I had only trained 6 miles to run. That one is the first triathlon I did, and I got first place in my age group. That one is my Ironman Finisher shirt. I hated that race. But I love the shirt. That one is the first race I placed overall in. That one was the race where I took second because the swim was transformed into a run, and I need that swim advantage to take first.

I admit, I don't do photographic memories well. But I like the T-shirts as a history of my life. And I'm working on how to do a book on easy quilting. Of course.

I dragged my husband to a triathlon this weekend. For the first time, he got an age group medal (3rd out of 4) which was kind of fun. We actually were swimming together most of the time in the lake, which was completely coincidental. We did not plan to do that, and then my husband got out of the water about two seconds ahead of me, which was a change for him because he is usually behind me throughout. I'll take credit for this since I am currently acting as his coach, so even if he beats me I still win!

In the end, I got second place overall. It was a strange race for me because I was in the lead most of the bike, and I kept thinking, there must be someone ahead of me. Why can't I see anyone ahead of me? I guess this is the way it feels when you are out front. There is no one pushing you faster, no one ahead of you showing you the pitfalls and setting the pace. I would have expected I would enjoy it more, but I felt disoriented most of the time.

Then, about four minutes into the run, I turned back on one of the loops and saw the second place woman (I assumed she was the second place woman because she was going really fast and the people doing the sprint distance, half as long as Olympic, I figured would already be finished by then). She was wearing purple, which made her very identifiable. I kept watching for her on every switchback, and calculated when she would pass me, which was on the third lap of four (10K total run). Then I got to see the number printed in permanent ink on her right leg, which was "23." She ended up beating me by about a minute total, and I felt I was being very gracious. After all, it was probably her first race, and it was nice of me to let her win, don't you think, since I have had so many positive experiences at races?

Ha! I always take it easy on the swim, kick butt on the bike, and try to hold on during the run. I am working on that run.

Then, after the race I ended up "showering" in the sink in the bathroom because of time constraints to get a son to a birthday party. That was where I discovered my first two gray hairs. Yes, I am 39. Age is creeping up on me.

Here's to getting used to being out front more and enjoying it!

I went to a talk by Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary several weeks ago and am still thinking about it. He taught himself to be a cartoonist and showed some of his very bad early drawings. He gave up his good paying job and took a leap of faith to start doing what he wanted to do. He was trying to encourage other people to do the same, and to remind us all that no matter what we try, we will be bad at it at first. Why is this surprising to us?

Another example:

Last night I was teaching the last class in a four week session on making a T-shirt quilt. My promise was pretty simple, that if you showed up for all four weeks, stayed for an hour, maybe an hour and a half, by the end, you would have a T-shirt quilt. I am not a professional quilter. I do a lot of cheating and fudging and I don't care if it comes out perfect. This is a T-shirt quilt, meant for snuggling up on a cold night or for picnics to be thrown on grass. No one is going to notice if your corners are lined up perfectly. Nonetheless, one of the women I was helping was getting so frustrated that she puckered a seam up a couple of times. I tried to reassure her that it wasn't a big deal, and that I did it, too, and it didn't matter. I said to her, "How many times have you done this before?" She said it was her first time. So why did she expect to be good at it. Then she said that I just had a gift for this. I don't. Really, I don't. I just keep at it. I've made a lot of really lousy quilts and now i make some passable ones and one day I might make good ones. I don't expect to be great. But it's starting and trying that matter.

I know that kids sometimes have problems with this, but I think that it is worse for adults. For some reason, adults have this "can't teach an old dog new tricks" idea that is so harmful. There is no reason that you can't learn something as an adult that you want to learn and that you never got to as a child. Yes, you will be a beginner. That means you will be bad. But why is it that adults don't want to accept that? We get used to being good in one particular area and then we don't challenge ourselves anymore. We identify ourselves with labels and we stay inside these little boxes.

There is nothing so terrifying about being bad at something. I firmly believe that everyone needs a hobby, something they enjoy but don't have to be good at. Sometimes your hobby changes if it becomes a profession and then you need a new hobby. It is frustrating, sometimes. I tried to play the piano for a family song this week and it came out horribly. I asked myself what am I learning to play the piano for, anyway? But then I remembered. I play the piano because I like it. I do it because it is an interesting new way for my mind to work. And I like to be learning new things all the time.

How can we teach children to embrace failure if they never see us do it ourselves?

While running with a friend last weekend, we passed another runner and then a minute later my friend turned to me and said, "What is going on? Everyone is getting a boob job." I told her I hadn't noticed what she meant. She said I was naive. Apparently the passed runner had had an obvious lift and I did not notice. This set off a long, five mile discussion of women and body image problems. My friend claimed that I was the only woman she knew who did not have body image issues.

"I have body image issues!" I complained, not wanting to be left out.
"No, you don't," she said."
"But I'm always complaining that I don't have a waist."
"You don't care about that."
"And also, I weigh more than people expect."
"But you don't care about that. You think it's funny to tell them how much you weigh. It doesn't embarrass you at all."
"I started wearing tinted moisturizer/sunblock this year because of all my freckles," I said.
"Big deal."

Then I told her about a conversation I had with a woman about her running. She started running a few years ago, and got up to about four or five miles a day. But after a year, she quit. Why? Because she only lost about 5 pounds. What is it with women and the number on the scale? It is true that I do not understand this. A number on a scale is just a number. You should run because it makes you feel healthier and better and because it makes your stronger and more capable of doing other things. Not because it makes you skinnier or because of a number on a scale. Who cares about that? It really makes no sense to me. Possibly you want to look better, but that does not necessarily equal being skinnier or wearing a smaller size.

I spent most of my preteen and teen years being teased by boys about having big breasts. I hated it. I was so happy a few years ago when I started exercising more intensely that they went away. (I know my husband is not so happy.) But I do not understand why a woman would want something that just gets in the way of normal activity. If I see a woman with big boobs all I think is that I am sorry for her. Ditto women who have no muscles and are a size 0. And don't tell me this is because I was born skinny. I was not born skinny!

When I was in sixth grade, I weighed about what I weigh now. I remember my dad told me he was worried I would become fat. His family has a tendency to obesity. He told me I had ankles like his mother. But I joined the swim team and I was healthy and I accepted my body. Also, I was a size 14 about six years ago after having 5 kids and I was as accepting of my body then as I am now. My body was doing what I needed it to do at the time. That's what it is doing now.

When my kids were little, people would tell me that when they were teenagers, they would be MUCH more time consuming and that I should cherish all those moments. Well, now they are teenagers and they are very time consuming. However, I must say that the years when they were small were MUCH more trying than now. I just wanted to sit down and read a book without having a child crawl over me and try to eat it.

This summer, I often have to be three places at once. Like today:

5:45-7:45 At the gym/pool
7:45 15 needs to go to non-local high school for pre-calculus class
8:30-10:00 Writing time
10:00-11:30 9 to church activity
11:30-12:00 9 to violin lesson
12:00-1:15 Writing time
1:15-3:00 9 and 13 to ballet lessons
2:00 15 needs to be picked up from pre-calculus class
3:20-4:30 13 and 15 to orthodontist
4:30-5:30 Writing time
5:30-6:00 piano practice

Then dinner, putting younger kids to bed, a little time with my husband and maybe some reading if I am struck with insomnia.

This has led me to think again about what a "good" parent does. I complained a lot when I was a teen about adults who seemed to stand in my way. Now I get to see it from the other side, how exhausting it is to be the support team for an ambitious, driven teen, and how painful it can be to see the emotional impact on them of not quite meeting their impossible goals.

And yet, a "good" parent is support, advice, and mostly does the best possible to encourage the teen's goals and dreams. I do not know if I have done really well at this or if I simply have extraordinary kids, but all of mine seem to have a good picture of what they want in life. No wandering around wondering that they are going to do. They have DREAMS. Not my dreams, either. I don't try to get them to take any classes, thank you. They come to me and beg me to drive them and pay for it.

One other thing that a "good" parent does, and that is show a good example of balance. I have come to believe that it is vital for me as a mother to show both daughters and sons how a woman reserves a little of herself to herself, maintains dreams of her own within the family sphere, is a public and a private person, has career and hobbies as well as relationships. There are lines and there are times when I say no, when I will not do that one extra class because that time is mine and I won't take it up.

In high school a friend I carpooled with to swim team had a mother who ran every morning at 5:00 with her friends. She encouraged him to be on the team, but she didn't drive. She arranged for a taxi to pick us all up when it was her turn to do the car pool. I thought it was so strange at the time. Now I look back and admire her. Way to go, Mom! He got to swim team just the same and she did her running and sometimes that's the only way to have it all.

A writer friend recently asked a group of us to send advice about revision in ten words or less for a class she was teaching. I wrote to her:

Clarity first. Pretty words second.

OK, first of all, Michael Phelps--

I have been your friend and defender for many months now. BUT when you start writing children's books, you lose me. Have you no shame?

Second, I have been thinking about the different shapes of fiction. You always see the standard plot that rises evenly to a climax and then falls sharply with a denouement. Or sometimes has little bumps to show conflict and resolution moments. But it is not always this way. I think most fiction has a closed shape, so that it returns to the beginning when it ends. But the shape in between varies depending on the author's design (conscious or subconscious). One of the great problems of being an author is finding the proper shape for the story you are trying to tell. I think this is one of the reasons that I find outlining of so little use. Outlining can help me find out some of the scenes that may happen or a character arc, but I have to write down the parts first before I begin to see the shape that I want to make out of them. The placement of those scenes determines the shape, but I also find that when I am first working out a draft, I do not match properly the scene with its importance in the shape of the novel as it will turn out in the end. Does this make any sense?

Example from a work almost no longer in progress, THE PRINCESS AND THE SNOWBIRD. I originally pitched the book as a romance in which the two main characters do not meet until two thirds of the book is finished. I thought this would make an intriguing novel and a challenge to me as an author. Well, it was a challenge all right. It didn't work. That was a shape that wasn't right. I had the book shaped in different sections, telling a hundred pages or so from one pov and then another section from another pov, until the last hundred pages there were alternating povs for each chapter.

The next draft required a major shape change in the manuscript, as well as some scene changes that had to be tweaked, but it was the shape that was the most important. I went back to the standard alternating chapter povs that I used in THE PRINCESS AND THE BEAR, and which is a fairly standard technique to allow both povs in a story to shine. Of course, I thought it was working until my editor pointed out a major problem. I puzzled over it for a while, and then found a new shape that isn't like any other shape that I have worked with and feels strange to me, a little spiky.

The new shape has alternating povs for the first section of the book, and then a new section of the book which begins with a couple of chapters from a different pov than has been seen before, and then a much looser structure of alternating povs from chapter to chapter. Sometimes the neat structure that you imagine at the beginning of a book's conception simply does not work. Sometimes that scene that you think is amazing (and it IS!) just doesn't work because it doesn't fit the shape that the book needs overall.

This is where so much of the hard work of writing comes in for me. It isn't in the sitting down and working out a scene. I can do that easily enough. My characters are alive and I can imagine them in lots of situations. The hard work is when I have to figure out the new shape and then look through the whole book to see what works and what doesn't, and then plan out what new scenes I will have to invent. Beginning writers (and I am speaking of myself, years ago) are always trying to save bits and pieces of the manuscript that they love, maybe trying to save themselves this hard work, but more likely because they simply cannot figure out how to begin to think this way.

Here is what I think this boils down to: The words on the page are not your book. When an editor asks you to change them, think about what the real book is in your mind and how the editor is asking you to change that. Then think about whether this newly envisioned book is a better one than the one you envisioned before it. If it is, go ahead and change away. Don't do it stintingly. Don't hold on tight. Let it go. The new words are almost always going to be better ones.

It's the first week of summer and my kids are all interested in earning money so they can have fun spending it. Of course, they come to me, and ask if I have any manuscripts they can get paid to read. (I always remind them I don't pay them to read my manuscripts, but to critique them, but that gets lost in conversation.) I made a list of manuscripts that I had either written recently or rewritten recently enough that I could use some more feedback. Then I gave them a little precis of each and a recommendation based on what I know of them, which book they might be most interested in.

15:
A: Cinderella's stepmother has her own ball, her own prince, and her own fairy godmother with pumpkin magic. But it doesn't turn out quite the same.
B: Before Arthur goes to Camlann, he spends one last night with Guinevere and conceives a son who is born and raised in a monastery. Everyone thinks that he will be the next High King of Britain. But that is the last thing he wants. He likes quiet, contemplation and books. When Lancelot comes to train him with a horse named "Merlin," he is terrified and runs away.

13:
A-Ordinary girl with a special exemption to get through the metal detector at school because of a pin in her broken leg discovers a boy with a special exemption and both of them have some unusual abilities, including healing immediately from cuts, amazing memory, and some frightening combat skills. What are they for and who trained them so secretly even they don't remember?
B-16 year old discovers that all women have magic, but it can only be used to persuade, to beautify, and to make men fall in love with you. And also, it can be stolen from other women who aren't careful about keeping it to themselves.
C-A teenage girl makes a love potion to give to her best friend, who is in love with someone, but she won't say who. Then the girl accidentally takes it and falls in love with the boy she has just met and hates. While she works on making a cure, she struggles not to tell her boyfriend, who is really a nice guy. But she finds out that her best friend is in love with her boyfriend and complications ensue.

12:
A-Everyone thinks that Germans were especially prone to Nazism, but what if we in the US were in a depression and a charismatic man rose and offered to save everyone, if only he had the power to do whatever he wanted?

9:
A-A fourth grader tries to hide that she still believes in magic and then one day finds a fairy godmother dressed as a janitor in her school bathroom, offering her a wand--with a price. It might make her fart or wear bad clothes or make dogs chase her. But she could also save the magic of the world.

B-If you had time travel from the day you were born, what would you do? Adults always want to stop JFK from being assassinated or save the Titanic. Kids would be more likely to redo their birthday and drink so much rootbeer they throw up. Or figure out how to stop that bully by giving a little back.

Two manuscripts were read the first day. Another is close to being finished. What I find most interesting is that there is really nothing I can do to get my kids to finish reading a manuscript they don't love. Money isn't enough. The money is to pique their interest and to make them sit down and let me ask them questions or do things like rank chapters in order of interest which they wouldn't ordinarily do while reading. But kids simply do not read books as medicine in the way that adults will.

A few nights ago I was at a schmoozey sort of thing with food, authors, agents, editors, booksellers, illustrators, and so on. I spent most of the time catching up with other authors I haven't seen in a while (like, weeks!). It was fun, unstressful, and the kind of thing I can do without breaking out in a sweat. I was aware that what I probably should have been doing (in terms of benefits to my career) was introducing myself to booksellers and editors, talking up my own books, making myself generally appear confident and brilliant (possibly witty, as well). I just didn't feel like it. [Whine!]

My husband came with me and he ended up in a conversation with an editor who has a craft manuscript of mine. He assured my husband that they were still very much interested in it. My husband told him the story of its previous life as a much-sought for and then canceled book with another publisher (which story I had not told said editor). I was aware that they were chatting. They had met before in comfortable circumstances. But I was interested in my conversation with Claudia Mills about how to write children's fiction when your children were all grown. And besides, I didn't feel like promoting myself. Actually, I almost never feel like promoting myself. I like getting sweaty when I exercise, but then I shower and put new clothes on and I don't have to worry about whether or not my deodorant is going to work or not.

A bit later that evening, my brother-in-law, who was in charge of the schmooze fest and always looking out for me, decided that it was time to push me a bit into a promotional moment and suggested that my husband and I drive one of the editors (whom I hadn't met) back to her hotel room because she was tired and things were starting to wind down. I agreed and we chatted for a few minutes about inconsequential things. Then, as we drew closer to her hotel, I realized that I was supposed to be promoting myself here, dammit! So I tried it.

Me: So, what kinds of books do you publish?
Editor: I do picture books and have a cool MG fantasy that just came out. [Name of book, and a little blurb].
Me: I love fantasy. You have a lot of Utah authors who write fantasy on your list (which can actually be said about almost every publishing house in New York).
Editor: Yes, we do.
Me: Are you interested in acquiring any more MG fantasy?
Editor: Well, it has to be well done and you know, not the ordinary kind of fantasy. There is a lot of fantasy being submitted right now and so we don't just accept everything that comes in.
(This seems a very strange and obvious comment to me).
Editor: Oh, you're one of the professional authors who came to the event, aren't you?
Me: Yes. [Clearly she doesn't know who I am and I have done a bad job of introducing myself with book titles). I myself don't like a lot of fantasy. Just really smart fantasy. (As if anyone would think of themselves as an author of stupid fantasy).
Editor: Well, feel free to send something to me. Let me get you my card. (She hands it to me).
Me: I'll see if my agent, BG, would be interested in doing so. (Now, at last, I present myself as a "real" author. Why didn't I do this before she has her hand on the door?)
Editor: Oh, BG. Well, he probably won't want to submit to me. He already knows all my bosses and will want to submit to them. (She is looking at me a little differently, but still does not know that I have actual books published, with titles. Or that I have a name that she might wish to remember. I do not have any cards with me or books. I feel increasingly stupid. Should have kept on with the regular chit-chat).
Me: Well, nice to meet you.
Editor: You, too.


This is the reason that I get so frustrated with the aspect of the writing business that is called self-promotion. I am an idiot at it. Truly, I am. I know I could be better at it if I tried harder. If I planned things out in advance in my head. Who am I going to meet? What should I say? What books have I read that they have published? How can I compliment them? What will make me memorable?

I have the feeling that some people do this, and that for others it just comes naturally (I hate those people, by the way. I hated them in high school and I still hate them. Not that they care. Or even notice, really). I keep thinking that writers are supposed to write, aren't they? Not be stand up comics or personalities or entertainers/educators for young children. I signed up for this job because I LIKE to sit at a computer all day and imagine fake people in fake worlds doing fake stuff that came out of my head. Why do I do this? I mean, I could be out dealing with real people if I wanted, but I'm not. Think about that.

And then about writers and self-promotion and which writers are going to be the most successful at self-promotion and which at writing.

I was talking to a writer friend last night about her writing group and felt a little jealous. It has been about five years since I was in a writing group. I spent eight years before that in a fairly intense writing group, but it broke up messily and I was a little shy of trying to find a new one. Also, I had realized by then that *I* have a problem with groups because I tend to share books too soon, before I know myself what they are, and then change them too readily and generally try to write them by committee.

On the other hand, that group I was in taught me some very important things. They encouraged me to read in the genre I wanted to publish in (an obvious thing, but it hadn't yet occurred to me in those early days). They gave me encouragement but made it clear that I needed a lot of work. They taught me what purple prose was, and what a ridiculous metaphor was. They taught me what a good scene looks like, how dialog can sparkle.

But there were also some of the bad parts of a writing group. After a few years, some writing groups can start to say all the same things. One writer will read, but you know already what everyone will say about it. There is jealousy that rears its head, and some other smaller pettinesses. And the real difficulty is that when you start to get comfortable with each other, you stop asking the very questions about the usefulness of the group that will force you all to re-examine your own writing and get dramatically better at it by taking big chances.

I keep wondering if it's time for me to find a new group. There are several good groups in the area, but I'm worried more about whether *I* have changed enough to make them useful than if the groups will work. The author friend I was talking to said that she had been "workshopped" to death and that over and over again, she would receive directly contradictory advice from workshops. This is what was happening to me in my group.

One very clear example was from the last book I sent out to the group five years ago. It was called THE DOG KILLER. This was a title suggested by one of the group members. At the meeting where we discussed the book, the first thing one of the other group members suggested was that I change the title because it was too jarring. She also recommended that I not have a scene in a book for children (even teens) where one of the characters kills the dog that belongs to another character. As you can probably tell, this was the very essence of the book. The writer who suggested it was someone who loves animals and couldn't bear the thought of a book even existing with that content. I did not know what to do with the book after that. Or with the group, really.

I do miss the chatting about the business and the sense of camaraderie. I have begun to wonder, though, if other writers are the wrong people to ask for feedback at a certain point. They look at it from the wrong side, so to speak. They look at the bricks instead of the walls. Unless they are able to still read as readers instead of as writers, which is a very tricky thing.

Editors are something else entirely.