Authors on the Air

I've begun a new enhancement to my writing career. I'm still writing, but I'm now also talking to other writers on the Young Adult Cafe through Blog Talk Radio http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheairradio2

While there is a learning curve to understand the studio, research a the writer, match up time zones between the author being interviewed and me, and advertise the LIVE broadcast on social media, it's also been great fun. Writers tend to be solitary people, yet put two writers together and have them talk about writing the dialogue flows freely.

The focus of my show is authors of Young Adult, yet I also have plans for upcoming episodes where high school students discuss what they like to see in YA, the view from an editor in YA, and a panel of writers on their process.

The link above is for my show upcoming LIVE this Monday with Patty Blount at noon EST. Here are links to a few recent shows. Enjoy!

January 2, 2017 C C Hunter
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheairradio2/2017/01/02/c-c-hunter-takes-us-live-inside-her-paranormal-world-in-the-young-adult-cafe

December 26, 2016 Beth Fehlbaum
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheairradio2/2016/12/26/ya-author-beth-fehlbaum-visits-the-young-adult-cafe

December 19,2016 Rebekah Dodson
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheairradio2/2016/12/19/author-rebekah-dodson-reveals-details-of-her-ya-novel-live-on-young-adult-cafe




Happy Listening

Writing.

Accolades and Aching Feet

There’s good news and bad news. I’ll begin with the bad; the publisher still doesn’t want the revision of my sequel to BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA.

But hope is not lost. The other night my feet hurt, my ego was blown from yet another of my daily catastrophes on the job (I’m not very good at my temporary part-time holiday job), and all I wanted was to take a shower to wash off the day, don pajamas and my new fuzzy robe, and let the cat purr in my lap. I poured myself a glass of cheap red wine and checked my email.

Holy crap! The same day I received the latest rejection, my editor and the public relations director both emailed me to let me know my YA novel, BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA, is listed as one New York Public Library’s 50 Best novels for teens 2016.  

https://www.nypl.org/books-music-dvds/recommendations/award-winners/ya

It's been several days since I received the news and I’m still in a surreal state of suspension. Friends and family have all offered accolades but they have to because they love me. Strangers liked my book, strangers who read a lot of books.

Thank you, young adult librarians at the New York Public Library. You’ve made this former high school teacher/librarian’s feet ache just a little less.

Happy Reading.

Coming Soon to a Headset Near You

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheair/2016/08/03/jacquelyn-mitchards-summer-scribes-presents-author-laura-moe


I've been quiet on the blog front lately and here's the reason; I'm being trained for my upcoming radio show called Laura Moe Presents the YA Cafe. It will be a live call-in show part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. The weekly show will comprise of me interviewing YA authors of multiple genres, readers of YA, librarians, editors, agents, and writers in general about the process. And of course audience members are free to call in with comments and questions. Some guests in my lineup include Charlaine Harris, Cat Skoor, Elizabeth Christy and Valerie Stein. It should prove to be a fun 30-40 minute podcast which will be live at 3 PM EST on Mondays beginning.....SOON. Meanwhile, if you click on the Authors on the Air link above, you can hear my editor Jacquelyn Mitchard interviewing me.

Happy Listening.

How to use BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA in the Classroom

I will be part of a panel this weekend for the Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) where we authors present ideas on how our books can be used in the classroom. THE WEATHER IS NOT WILLING TO COOPERATE, SO I AM UNABLE TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE. HOWEVER, I WILL OFFER A DRAWING FOR A FREE COPY OF MY BOOK . WLMA MEMBERS PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT ON MY TWITTER https://twitter.com/LauraMoewriter, Use the hashtag #WLMABWN . AT THE END OF THIS WEEK I WILL ANNOUNCE A LUCKY WINNER

Here is one idea.

Steps to Writing an Ode/Laura Moe

Select a person, place, or thing you like a lot or care about.  Brainstorm by following these steps: (Remind kids to keep it PG.)

In my example of a thing I use coffee.

Write 5 phrases describing how your item makes you feel, and why you feel this way.

            I like coffee because it gives me energy, coffee smells good, coffee is warm, etc.

Write 5 phrases describing the unique qualities of your subject

Coffee is strong, dark, liquid, portable, etc.

Why is your subject important to you? Why do you adore or admire it so much?

            Coffee is important because it wakes me up, makes my mornings better, helps me face the day…

Now Revise by:

-Crossing out lines or phrases where words are repeated or are too similar

-Joining some of your phrases to create lines

-Adding more feeling to meaningless or figurative language to flat lines

-Picking a good opening line

-Ordering the lines into the best sequence

-Choosing an ending line that sums up your feelings for the object. Here is MY poem:

Ode to Coffee

It swims

dark as coal

warm as summer

in my cup.

The aroma beckons,

wakens me

on black, icy dawns

as it takes the chill

from my soul

and melts the edge

off my morning meanness.

Coffee is like a gentle symphony

whose crescendo rises slowly

as if pushing up the sun with one hand.

Laura Moe, 2009

Time: 40-45 minutes.

Students may choose to revise poems as homework or in class the next day.

Standards met: Personification, Language development skills. Teacher note: Introduce this lesson by using some odes by Pablo Neruda. “Ode to a Tomato,” Ode to Laziness,””Ode to Summer,” and “Ode to a watermelon,” are favorites with MS and grades 9-10. Point out how Neruda uses simple diction yet juxtaposes and arranges the lines to engage readers. Kids who read will like “Ode to a Book.” If kids are stumped, suggest write an ode to a favorite food, pet(s), car, bedroom, phone, computer, TV show, movie, friend(s), or store.

References:

Peden, Margaret Sayers, tr., Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1990.

Tarn, Nathaniel, ed., Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems. Houghton Mifflin, New York: 1970.Happy Writing.

Students who enjoyed John Green's Looking For Alaska or Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell will also enjoy this book.

Crimes of Syntax

photo Alice K. Boatwright

I don’t know everything; in fact, sometimes I know nothing. Over the weekend I presented at the Write on the Sound Conference, a three day writer’s conference housed in a venue with a spectacular view of Puget Sound. My session was titled “Crimes of Syntax and How to Fix Them.” In my talk I used examples of my own wretched early-draft sentences for my YA novel-in-progress to demonstrate how revision strengthens the work. I gave the audience a brief background of my narrator, 19 year-old Michael, and his 18 year-old girlfriend Shelly. The participants agreed my revised syntax improved in each example. Then I showed them the following gem:

Original:

I think of Theo and Shelly alone in his apartment tonight. Those two have a history. She chose me, but she also said “this is where the heroine sets the hero free.” Does she want to be free of me? Are we just wandering atoms that attached, and will now disengage? Will she wait faithfully like Penelope, as I, Odysseus, drift alone at sea for the next five weeks?

I remarked the sentences in this are overwrought and melodramatic, and shared my revision:

My despair deepens when I imagine Theo and Shelly alone together for the next two days. Will they revisit their history? She had told me “this is where the heroine sets the hero free.” Does she want to be free of me? Are we like a rocket vaulting into space only to later split into separate components?

I clicked on a side by side comparison of the two, believing I had vastly improved my sentences. One woman raised her hand, and said, “If you were writing through an adult voice, this would be true, but your character is a teenage boy; his thinking at this critical juncture would be overwrought and melodramatic.”

I drew a quick breath and grabbed my chin. Holy crap, she was right. Why had that not occurred to me? Others chimed in, saying the melodrama added a touch of humor. One young man said the rocket image didn’t work nearly as well as the atoms, and they all agreed Michael would likely think of Odysseus given that he’s literary. Another woman suggested what may have bothered me about the original passage was the paragraph length and she suggested a spot where I could make a paragraph break.

As much as I wanted them to now rewrite my entire novel, it was ten minutes before lunch and I still had twenty more slides to show, so we had to move on. But my audience reminded me of a few things:

Years of writing, even having critical success, doesn't mean your next book is going to come more easily. In fact, it may be more difficult because you are competing with your best self.

Sometimes we grow too close to our stories to make critical judgments; we need a community of trusted early writer-readers who will provide objective criticism.

At a writer’s conference one’s audience consists of writers with varying skill levels. Even though I have more degrees than a thermometer, I always learn something new, or relearn something I already knew when I attend workshops, and often I learn these things from other participants rather than instructors. Students inadvertently teach if the teacher is willing to listen.

Which version do you prefer? My original, the revision, or something in between?

Happy Writing.

Another interview

Enjoy!

http://literary-agents.com/laura-moe-success-story-interview-author-of-breakfast-with-neruda/

Happy Writing.

The editor at my publishing house rejected my sequel to BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA; she said it lacked tension and not enough was at stake. When one works on a manuscript for two years, and tinkers through several drafts, this news can be devastating, and it calls for a night of wine and whine. Yet my editor was absolutely right. The tension and high stakes for the story were in there, but they were buried under 20,000 words worth of back-story.

I reread my book as an editor might, and asked Elizabeth, and she and I concurred on where I should start the story. As Les Edgerton says in Hooked The story begins at the inciting incident. It just took me 20,000 to show the reader where the good stuff was going to happen.

Just because I’ve written a semi truck’s worth of stuff doesn't mean I will remember my bad writing habits. Writing is like dating: you date the same damaged person over and over and try to save them, until one day, you finally acknowledge half of the problem is you. I get in my own way as a writer by clinging to my measly back-story as if the story will rush over a waterfall without it.

Admittedly, this is the highest number I’ve words I’ve incised from a single manuscript. Did the story fall apart? No. In fact, the liposuction helped give it a smoother shape. I’ve since added in 24,000 additional words, but these words are muscles, not fat. Around 8,000 of those words are reworked as flashback scenes from the 20,000 that fell to the cutting room floor, but most of the new material drives the reader deeper into Michael’s struggle. In THE LANGUAGE OF THE SON the stakes are clearer and the conflict apparent right away. It's a much better book.

So my next step is back to the soul crushing stage of of querying agents, accumulating rejections, and meanwhile writing book three of placing Michael in yet more peril.

Spoiler alert: Michael will be in this city:

Good Neighbors Tear Down Fences

(The old living room)

Moving across the country alone is a leap toward Mars. My friends, my routines and even my standard of living were left behind. Ohio is a relatively cheap place to live, but I was headed to Seattle, now in the top ten of most expensive places to live in the US.

(The new living room)

Shortly after I arrived I purchased a one bedroom condo for almost the same price for which I sold my three bedroom house on half an acre. I traded the comfort of an attached garage, washer and dryer, and well manicured lawns for outdoor parking, coin-op laundry and a view of the parking lot in the front and a senior trailer court in the back. But I knew ahead of time I was trading comfort for culture. Plus, I’m close to the Pacific Ocean.

One strange phenomenon is nobody in my neighborhood knew my name. There was no chance of running into someone saying, “Hey, Moe, how’s it going?” at the grocery store, or waving at a friend as they drove by during a walk. Back in Ohio I knew enough people I frequently ran into friends, neighbors and students, and my social life was fairly busy.

Luckily for me some of my family and a couple of friends live in the area, so I was not totally isolated. I was also proactive in obtaining my library card and finding a book discussion group. I tried on a couple of writer’s groups, but nothing seemed to fit. Initially my social life revolved around friends I’d made in two book clubs. I maintained a parking-lot-greeting acquaintance with my immediate neighbors, but didn’t “know” anyone in my complex.

This gave me a lot of time to write.

In order for me to do laundry and pick up my mail I need to wander through a labyrinth of narrow, shrub sidewalks behind several ground floor residents’ patios. During the winter rain drizzled almost daily and very few neighbors ventured outdoors. As the weather warmed up early in spring I met Robin, who spends a lot of time tending the lovely flowers extending way beyond the boundary of her single patio. When I first looked at my condo, I commented to my realtor that the grounds were nicely landscaped. It turns out the section I remarked on was largely due to Robin, and she and I conversed frequently whenever I walked by her place.

One afternoon I was trekking back from my mailbox. My friend Leslie was driving up for the weekend from Portland and I expected her any minute. I said hello to Robin, and she introduced me to Frankie, who lived across the courtyard. (It turns out Frankie had also contributed much of the interesting landscape in the complex.) I remarked I had a friend coming from out of town and wondered where we should eat. They recommended a neighborhood restaurant I hadn’t heard of which featured a 5.99 steak and egg breakfast served all day.

Have you ever watched the Love Boat? It’s a terrible show from the 70’s about a cruise ship, and every episode ends in a predictably outcome. But there’s a character on the show, the ‘social director,’ whose job it was to make sure everyone had a good time. Frankie is our condo social director. Shortly after meeting him, if I was doing laundry or walking to my mailbox, he’d wave me over to meet another neighbor. Soon, I was regularly invited to barbecues at Frankie’s and met even more neighbors and friends of Robin and Frankie’s. Since then I’ve dined out, gone to the movies and bowled with some of these folks, and I occasionally run into my new friends and acquaintances at the nearby grocery.

(My little social animal)

Writers tend to hole up behind our keyboards and pages, yet man is a social animals, so it’s good to go outside. Breaking bread, discussing books, and sharing movies with people helps me feel part of a place. I’ll always feel part of Zanesville Ohio, and vice versa, yet I have a second “family” here in  my new home, too.

Writing  prompt: What makes you feel at home?

Authors on the Air

My imaginary friends and I are on the air.... yes, I sound like a wackadoodle when I talk about my characters, but other fiction writers get it. We stay strange so you have something to read.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheair/2016/08/03/jacquelyn-mitchards-summer-scribes-presents-author-laura-moe

Happy Listening!

Authors on the Air

My imaginary friends and I are on the air.... yes, I sound like a wackadoodle when I talk about my characters, but other fiction writers get it. We stay strange so you have something to read.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheair/2016/08/03/jacquelyn-mitchards-summer-scribes-presents-author-laura-moe

Happy Listening!