Nikki Loftin

Archive for December, 2009

Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas Eve, Blog Friends!

It’s cold in Texas today and getting colder — beginning to feel (at last) a bit like Christmas. I got a stocking stuffer this week already — an essay of mine will appear in The Ultimate Christian Living anthology, out next March. Yay! (Of course, Santa may have to work a little harder next year — what I asked for was a book deal)

To all my friends, family, and cyber-stalkers: I hope you all get the gifts you asked for. Here’s a little something to read while you’re wrapped in your blanket/Snuggie/arms of a loved one. Grab some hot cocoa, and have fun reading Nikki’s Christmas Letter (as usual, written by Dave. Thanks, Dave!).

Stay warm, sing carols, and hug everyone you can. Tonight’s Little Baby Jesus Night — it doesn’t get any better than this.

A Christmas Gift for Children’s Book Writers

Ho Ho Ho! Here’s a link to a funny, fun video put together (and performed!) by a phenomenal picture book author, Kim Norman. Her newest book, Crocodaddy, is darling. Did I mention she’s also a critique partner of mine? (Okay, mostly she critiques my sad little picture books. When she sends a manuscript to the group, I have a hard time finding anything to say other than Wowza! I’m learning to live with it.)

Not only does Kim write amazing books, she also sings beautifully (see video), keeps a helpful and informative blog, and gives the best school presentations ever. Seriously, if you need help with those, New Authors, visit her site. She’s got a lot of helpful info up.

So… a role model, I guess you could say. Go watch the video already! Merry Christmas!

Hello, My Name is Nikki and I Write…

Give me a second and I’ll tell you, as soon as I figure it out.

I suppose I spend most of my time writing children’s fiction. So, when people who want the short answer ask what I do, I say that. (Actually, I say Middle-Grade Humor for Boys, although that’s not entirely true. My current WIP has a female protagonist). But I also send off an essay every, well, um, every week or so, to a literary journal/magazine/contest/anthology. Yeah, I know. That’s a lot of essays. And a whole bunch of them have seen print. So I’m an essayist?

Of course, I also have three (count ‘em!) puppet plays coming out in an anthology in January, and four children’s short stories that will go public sometime in 2010. So there’s that children’s fiction thing again… but the one title I never presumed to give myself is the one I’m wrestling with today: poet.

Gulp. That’s a tricky word. First, it sounds really pretentious to use it to describe yourself, and unreal. Like a joke you would write on your application for unemployment. Also, I don’t write THAT kind of poetry. You know, those poems that seem to be everywhere right now, that remind me a tangled balls of yarn made out of words. They’re just a mess, to me. Of course, that could be because I’m too thick to untangle their meanings. Very possible.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is this: I have had another poem accepted by a literary journal: Front Range. I am delighted, and humbled, and confused. Poets, to me, are rare creatures. Special, in a “not at all like me” sense.

I’m not sure real poets read vampire romances and books of fart jokes and drink strawberry margaritas.

What do you think?

Honest: Scrap

My agent-sister, Lisa DesRochers, nominated this blog for an award, the Scrap Heap Award. No, wait. Was it the Honest Crap Award? Something like that. As you may be aware, I refuse to post anything on this blog other than text. In my opinion, I’m one cut and paste away from putting pictures of my six-year-old’s birthday parties or revealing photos of Taylor Lautner in here. (Nobody wants to see those, right? So… you didn’t just click through that link to Mr. Werewolf Hotness? Thought so.) Since the only people who read this thing with any regularity are my parents, husband, and Google strangers, I decided a few months back that discretion is the better part of valor. So, words are it for me.

Still, in the spirit of the thing, to earn my Honest Scrap Award, I will now provide you, Avid Readers, with ten true facts about me. My Meme, as it were.

1. I type with five fingers. Three on one hand, two on the other. This would be heroic if I had lost the others putting out a raging fire in an orphanage or something, but no. I just never learned to type. Thanks, Mom. You were right. I’ll never have to be a secretary now. Great advice, that.

2. One of my first jobs (when I was 11) was to read to a blind woman. She had me read Albert Schweitzer, and she taught me how to pronounce the word pirogue. I thought she was extremely cool, and I had fantasies about being a competent, funny, blind octogenarian myself someday.

3. But I went mostly blind at 13 instead. I wore Coke-bottle glasses for two years, until I was old enough to babysit and earn money for contacs.

4. I was a huge nerd in middle school. My winter coat in eighth grade earned me the nickname: The Fonz.

5. I was NOT a nerd in high school. Armed with my new contacs, some nice clothes, a new set of decent-sized boobs, and a deep, overriding desire to hide my intelligence from everyone, I embarked on my career as a dance team girl. Three years of smiling inanely, and doing the splits every single day.

6. In college, I dated a guy who was, among other things, a pool hustler. Once I had to rescue him from the pool sharks at the UT Student Union, who were offering to break his fingers in exchange for the (nonexistent) money he had bet on a game. This was the first time I ever used an ATM. Probably why I hate ATMs so much: bad memories.

7. I am (sometimes) cheap. I clip coupons, buy my clothes at thrift stores, and send my kids to school in hand-me-downs. But I don’t cheap out on vacations. June? Disneyworld, people. The Polynesian Hotel, concierge level. I’ll be the one with the pina colada, who doesn’t know or care where her kids are.

8. I am a registered Scuba diver (advanced level). Fave dive: Cayman Islands, North Trench. I have no fear of sharks.

9. I was scouted for singing talent in fifth grade (I was Annie in the school musical). I ended up cutting some demos, making hundreds of dollars (which made me feel like Richie Rich for a few weeks), and I can still sing the lyrics of the songs.  (You know you like to eat and drink the sweetest things around. You’ve earned a reputation, for the sweetest tooth in town… Yeah. Classic, mega hits.)

10. The first poem I wrote that was published (in the local paper)  was about the Trojan war. I was 9, and had just read the Odyssey and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. In honor of my next published poem (coming in December), I will post my first one here. Keep your eyes open, folks.

Hey! That was fun, and cheaper than therapy. And you’re still reading! Thanks, honey.(I’m thinking only my husband got this far, right?)

BTW, I sold another puppet play last week. So, yay!

No More Books About Toy Rabbits

Okay, children’s book writers out there, I’m giving you fair warning: If you’re planning to write about a stuffed toy that learns to love a child, you’re going to need to make it a bear, or an otter, or a hedgehog or something. My husband has declared a permanent moratorium on stuffed bunny books in our house. And, after wiping the tears last night from the faces of my children, myself, and (almost) one or two from Dave, I have agreed.  No more bunnies.

The Velveteen Rabbit has long been known as the go-to book for sick, evil kids who want to watch their parents cry. (You know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen their eyes when you get to those last chapters. They’re watching you try to hold it together, not paying a bit of attention to the story. Little sadists.) Anyway, last night I read the last seven chapters of Kate DiCamillo’s book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (the rabbit in question), to my kids. We’ve been reading a couple of chapters a night, a very Norman Rockwell-ish thing to do, if I say so myself. It was all going very well until the formerly beloved authoress, Ms. DiCamillo, who gave us that lovely little mouse Despereaux, and her new, gloriously magical The Magician’s Elephant — Winn Dixie for crying out loud! — turned on us… and killed off a precious little four-year old character, a wonderful, flaxen-haired girl (there’s illustrations, yanno) who loved the rabbit, and her brother, and Jesus, and apple pie, and ponies (you get the picture) so much. The little girl we all fell in love with, just a little. Until she died. Gone. Kaput. Dead as a wedge. Buried. Worm food.

The tears started then. I kept reading, thinking surely this must have a happier ending. Surely, Kate wouldn’t do this to us! My children kept sobbing, my six-year old asking “Why, Mommy” Why did she die? Can’t she come back alive?” — and I never wanted more than to race down to my computer and revise a book — and I kept reading to find the happy ending, realizing as the pages left to read grew fewer and fewer, down to three, two, one… that it was not coming.

And then — no I’m not going to tell you what happened — a small, joyful burst of “happy tears”at the end, but too little. Too late.

An hour and a half of crying, four lullabies, and a couple of stiff drinks later, we were all able to move past it. (Um, don’t worry, The drinks were for the grown-ups.)

Do I recommend this one? Sure. If you want to weep yourself senseless. Just don’t make it your bedtime read-aloud. The writing was, as usual, glorious, so beautiful that at times I wanted to re-read it just to hear the words again. (Sound of Nikki tamping down jealousy here.)

So, Kate is a master at her craft, but she’s really, really mean, too.

I hope someday I can be just as mean. Now, it’s back to my own manuscript,where no one dies (well, not yet), and my MC has just performed inadvertent CPR on a dying man who was choking on a fishing lure.