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June 26, 2008

Shi-Shi Neela

Pardon my spelling, and my dialect as well, I'm sure, but what I'm trying to say is "thank you" to the publisher who brought Hattie Big Sky out in Chinese. I know it's coming out in two Chinese versions, and I have to confess I don't know which one this is, but it makes me very happy nonetheless.

This is another example of the wonders this Iowa orphan has brought to my life. If you haven't heard my story, let me just say this: I worked on HSB for over four years, during a period in which I did not sell one thing. Not one thing. It was my grandmother's push and my own stubbornness that kept me going.

I can tell you about down times because I have surely had them. But, as my dear friend Derek Munson says, "It can't be easy street for our characters, so we shouldn't expect easy street for ourselves."

I've heard from several authors and illustrators in recent days about how publishing sucks. It does, it does. But we can't do a darned thing about that. The only thing we can control -- as my other cherished friend, Brenda Guiberson often reminds me -- is our own work.

So give yourself over to your work. Embrace the whole messy, crazy thing and give it room to shine. If you do, you will one day find yourself published and published well.

I'm living proof!

And that needs no translation.

Posted by kirby at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2008

Just Blown in From the Windy City

I know it's been awhile since I posted (thanks for the reminder, Ann!). While my external hard drive kept me from losing most of my valuable information when my computer crashed, there was one teeny little problem. On my old computer, I had just bookmarked my blog so when the mood struck to create a new entry, I got on-line, clicked on "Kirby's blog" and my user name and password were filled in automatically. When I tried to log on after the crash, I realized I had no idea what my password was. I wasn't even too sure about my user name. Thanks to my son-in-law, I'm now back in business. But here is another lesson you can learn from my mistakes: write your user names and passwords down somewhere!

I'm just home from my first trip ever to Chicago. I had the chance to speak to the wonderful folks at the NIU-NIRC Reading Conference in Naperville. They are not only the most gracious people imaginable, they are the most patient. Note to self: make sure all essential technical equipment is in hand before leaving the hotel. For the lack of the proper dongle, my Power Point presentation was on hold until my darling husband could navigate the tollway to our hotel and back to the conference site.

Our plan was to spend 2 nights in Naperville, then wend our way to the Windy City. However, my husband is a state capital magnet. So we checked out of our hotel and drove 3 hours south to Springfield where we were enthralled with our tour of Lincoln's home, and the neighborhood in which it sits. There was time for a quick run through the Lincoln Museum and the requisite photo of Neil standing on the steps of the capital building. 13 state capitols down, 37 to go! Oh, joy.

Chicago. Sigh. We drove in along Lake Shore Drive, found our hotel and quickly ditched the car. It was simply not needed in that great city. We got around by foot, boat, free trolley, bus, cab and L, taking in the Hancock Tower, the Institute of Art and the Field Museum. We cheered the Cubs on to a 1-run win over their crosstown rivals, the White Sox, and we felt buoyed by the unrelenting cheerfulness of every person we met.

Are buildings huge in Chicago, or what?! Take the Field Museum, for example. What hit me when I saw the Field was, "think of the vision." When it was first built, I suspect that not every hall, nook and cranny was filled with fascinations galore, as it is today. There were no doubt many empty rooms, many bare shelves. The museum board didn't look at what was but what could be. The same holds for the skyscraper architects, city planners and mail order tycoons.

So I came home, eager to Chicago-ize my writing. I'm going to let myself dream and dream big. Sure the current novel manuscript is full of holes -- something I knew and my critique group recently confirmed. I am celebrating those holes because they mean I've got room to build something bigger and grander than what's on the page right now. I can build this book as high as the Hancock Tower or as massive as the old Marshall Fields building.

But I can't do that while blogging. So -- it's back to work!

Posted by kirby at 03:22 PM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2008

Woe Betide Thee, Molly Whuppie

When our daughter was little -- I mean, teeny tiny -- her absolute favorite book was Molly Whuppie, lushly illustrated by Errol Le Cain. Quinn is now in possession of the book, but I remember the angular, pointed qualities of Molly and her sisters and the round ferociousness of the giant. This retelling by Walter de la Mare, was long, very long for a 3 year old to listen to every night. But every night, our little princess begged for "Molly Whuppie." And so Neil and I would take turns, never forgetting to read with gusto the giant's threat, "Woe betide thee, Molly Whuppie, if ye ere come back again." That book became so enmeshed in our family culture, we even adopted a family saying, to be used when someone had finished a task: "That's one thing done and done well, Molly Whuppie."

But back to the "Woe betide thee" part. The giant called out his warning to Molly, but on Saturday morning, my computer hard drive called out no warning to me. Not even one little gasp to let me know it had giga-ed its last byte. Four days and multiple headaches later, I finally have email up and running, though my darling new MacBook just can't seem to see my printer. Sigh.

The one stress I do not have in all this is the stress of having lost precious files. And that's because my accountant, type-A (and adorable) husband insisted I purchase an external hard drive some months ago. All I have to do is click and drag and those umpteen revisions of the latest novel are tucked safely in their new folder.

So, woe betide thee if you have not yet installed an external hard drive.

If you already have one in place (or some other recovery system in place), pretend I am patting you on the back saying, "That's one thing done and done well, Molly Whuppie."

Posted by kirby at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)