Nikki Loftin

Archive for January, 2010

Why I Love Texas: Reasons 567 and 568

This week, a friend invited me and thirteen other middle-aged chicks to her house for a night of food, fun, and Bunco. (Which, for me, is like saying, Margaritas, Mojitos, and Root Canal. I loathe Bunco. But I like this woman very much and I’d never seen her house, so…)

When I walked in the front door, the first thing I saw, displayed on a table, was a stuffed fox. No, not the toy kind — the taxidermied kind.  “Oh, is your husband a hunter?” I asked, admiring the fox’s glassy eyes, lifelike pose, and the chopped-off rattlensnake rattles they had used to decorate the base the dead thing was standing on. She said yes, but that he hadn’t actaully gone on a fox hunt. Then she explains to me that he saw the fox dying on the side of the road,and I quote — “Probably from rabies or something” — and decided to put it out of its misery.
And, with her full support, cooperation, even urging, they then decided to take it home, have it taxidermied, and put in the entryway of their house.

People, I don’t have to go far to come up with my characters. They come to me. I love Texas.

I also love Texas because we have extremely awesome writing conferences. The one I’m thinking of right now — THE ONE I’M GOING TO TONIGHT!!! I’m so excited, I can’t wait– is the Awesome Austin Destination Publication SCBWI Writing Conference.

Check out the line-up. Marla Frazee? Kirby Larson? Jacqueline Kelly? Rock stars, for crying out loud! Have you ever seen so many award winners and all-around gobsmackingly talented writers all in one place? I’m not even counting the editors (Cheryl Klein, Lisa Graff, Stacy Cantor, etc.) and agents (Ho hum, got a fabu one already, thanks, but I DO want to see if Nathan Bransford is really a surfer-boy) who fill out the star-studded line-up. Who needs NY SCBWI? (Well, I mean, Jane Yolen would be nice. Next year.)

I’m also going to the pre-conference dinner and post-conference BBQ, where I’ll get to hang out with authors (I have actually met and who talk to me) like Jennifer Ziegler (WHO I ACTUALLY KNOW FROM CHILDHOOD!!!), Jessica Lee Anderson (one of the nicest people in the world, not kidding), Bethany Hegedus, P. J. Hoover, and Shelli Cornelison (who is just plain awesome, with or without a book deal).

Sorry for all the capitals, folks, but I’m excited. In my defense, I DO live in the Capitol City: the Capitol Of Awesomeness.

Gonna be there? Look for me. I’ll be the one embarrassing herself at the punch bowl.

Love Notes to Authors

I just finished reading Betsy Lerner‘s The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers, and it spurred me to action. I decided, after reading her incredibly funny and depressing chapters about how disappointing and heartbreaking getting published can be (and here I thought the being unpublished part was sucking eggs), I had to speak out.

I love books. I love them so much there aren’t enough of them in the world for me to read. (Well, not enough of the kind I like, then.) I love them so much I must write MORE of them even though it is the most maddening process — the Chinese water torture of professions. Secret? Sometimes I even tell the books I love them. “Oh, dear, sweet Novel. You are the most wonderful book ever written. I will keep you forever, read you until your covers fall off, memorize passages, tell everyone of your charms.” And then the Novel and I smoke a virtual cigarette.

But do I tell the book’s authors how much I love their babies? Almost never! Shame on me!

So, this week, I decided to start my 2010 Valentine’s Campaign: Making Love to Your Favorite Authors*.

No, not the sex kind. Most of my favorite authors are probably like me, frumpy middle-aged women desperately trying to find time between appointments and homework help to write something thrilling. I’m talking about the “personal touch” kind of love. The Swedish massage of emails.

The fan letter.

I started yesterday, with a fan letter to Nan Marino, whose debut middle grade novel Neil Armstrong is my Uncle, and Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me, knocked my (and my son’s) socks off.

I’ve decided to concentrate my love on debut authors if I can, since I think they must be most like me — insecure, lonely, eating massive quantities of chocolate to keep them this side of the loony bin — and I know I need more petting than a neurotic cat. But I’ll also send love mail to those authors who have changed my life but never knew it.I’ll let you know who as I go.

Have you ever written an author love letter? To whom? And did they write back? Inquiring minds want to know.

*I wanted to title my post this, but was afraid it would get me listed on a bunch of p0rn sites, so…

A Rattlesnake in Paradise

Living where I do, I’ve always known it was a possibility a rattlesnake would take up residence in our yard. Considering our “yard” is six acres of scrub-brushy Texas hillside, it was a certainty that the critters were out there all along. But our unseasonably warm weather this week brought at least one of ‘em out and into our fenced-in yard. Our dog’s yard. And my precious rescue-dog Tony (the dog we got from the Lockhart Women’s Prison — tell me, have any of your dogs done hard time? Mine has!) was bitten on the back leg.

He’ll live, but it’s a long hard recovery, involving lots of hands-on treatments for me, medicine for Tony, and enormous vet bills for the whole family to enjoy. Life is full of complications, isn’t it? I know a lot of folks would put the house on the market at the first sign of rattlesnakes, but I’m a native Texan and I love my home. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, snakes and all. It’s part of the, um, natural charm. (Now, I just have to buy some really tall boots for the kids…)

The whole incident got me to thinking: Are there enough snakes in my fictional back yard? It’s tempting, when I’m writing middle-grade fiction, to write in a fake — a plastic snake, a garden hose, even a non-poisonous garter snake — or to go too far and write in a forty-foot long Anaconda. But good, thoughtful writing requires the “snake” to be believable, and right for the story. Me? I tend to de-fang my snakes before introducing them to those characters I love so — but I’m determined not to do that in my current WIP. It makes me feel kind of sorry for my main characters, though.

On this week’s writing menu? Snake. (Cue evil laughter: Bwa ha ha ha hah!)

And now, for something completely different: It was my Grandma’s 90th birthday today. We had a family celebration, and she had a blast. Looks good, doesn’t she?

On the writing front, my lovely agent, Suzie Townsend, has signed some new clients! I wish them all much success. They’re going to love working with Suzie — I do! Click on the link to Suzie’s blog and you can find all of them on her blogroll.

I also received a very sweet blog award from the talented and soon-to-be-published Jenni James. (Love Jane Austen? You’ll love her books!) My next blog post will be 10 things that make me happy, in honor of Jenni’s award.

Who knows? Maybe by then I’ll have another happy thing to add to the list. Always hopin’…

Questions Writers Get

So, when is your book going to be published? That’s the one, right? That annoying one that unpublished writers get all the time. (Especially, as it turns out, unpublished agented writers. Who’d a thunk it?) My stock answer is both philosophical and Southern: How long is a piece of string?

But recently, someone very near and dear asked me a different question: Why did you choose to write Middle Grade?

My first impulse was to defend Middle Grade literature itself, followed swiftly by a less defensive, but even more woo-woo explanation: I didn’t choose it, it choose me. I ended up explaining how I quit my day job to write romances, but found myself sitting down every day with a head full of stories for Middle Grade kids, and that’s what came out (in fits and starts, accompanied by scads of essays and some truly horrible poetry).

But that question got me wondering — why do you, Writer Friends, write what you write? Whether you write angsty YA novels in verse, or Sci Fi tomes, or naughty limericks (Side note: I memorized all the words to “There once was a man from Nantucket” this week. ‘Cause a girl needs to have a few masterworks of the poetic canon at hand when she gets snarky questions about what kind of poety she writes.), there must be some reason that you feel drawn to that subject matter.

Anyone feel compelled to share? I’ll hum Kum Ba Yah over in my corner of the Internet while you comment if you like.

I remember sitting in workshop after workshop in grad school, listening to people tear apart my writing, wondering why I didn’t care all that much. (Okay, sometimes I cared.) I felt just that divorced from the text — from my own work. I had to write fiction, of a certain length and style — it was in the course description. Literary, no bones about it. And it wasn’t what I felt drawn to write. But at the time, I didn’t feel drawn to much of anything. I remember admitting to my mentor that I felt like I hadn’t lived long enough to write the stories I had to tell.

Can you believe I was that wise at twenty?

So, why did I choose Middle Grade? Because I’ve finally lived long enough to write it. I have two kids of my own who provide me with endless material, and a couple of decades of working with children of all ages. For what it’s worth, I think writing Middle Grade is at least as hard as writing literary fiction, maybe harder. But it’s the type of story I have to tell right now, so I work at it, every day.

But also, truthfully? I didn’t choose it, it chose me.

Pablo Neruda said it about poetry, and said it best, but it’s the same for anyone who has found her genre, I think.

Happy Writing, Friends.

Nikki’s Surefire Woo Woo Writing Restoratives

I’m not one of those writers who has to “feel the Muse” to get my work done, exactly. I’ve had to write for deadlines before, and I don’t really want anyone as Woo Woo and unpredictable as a mythological creature for my writing buddy. But lately I’ve been wishing I had a Muse, so I had someone to blame for my lack of productivity. I feel like I’ve been trying to light a bonfire with wet matches. As my mom would say (decidedly Woo Woo, as she is an acupuncturist and Reiki Master), I had no chi left. No spark.

The problem is, I’m still at what should be the thrilling, “sparky” stage of my current WIP. (Now I’ve decided: If I ever get a Muse, I’m naming her Sparky.) But for some reason or combination of reasons (Um… Christmas holidays? Kids home for three weeks? Father-in-law living here for a month? A #$%@ton of rejections for magazine pieces? Illness and turmoil in the family? Torpor from too much Xmas pigging out?), my pilot light almost completely went out last week.

I mean, here I was, sitting back down at long last to my fabulous little WIP, that darling creation of pure genius (Thank you, Sparky!) that had lured me away from all the other darling possibilities my popcorn brain sent to pester me at 11:30 p.m. as I was falling asleep– and poof! No words — no spark, no fire in the belly, nothing.

Sigh. Since I’m not one of those Woo Woo writers, though, I made myself sit down to write. And I did. A thousand uninspired words here, a few hundred there. Not loving any of it, until I figured out what was wrong.

So, here’s the slightly less narcissistic part of this blog post: my own personal list of ways I get my spark going again, when I’ve lost it. It seems to be working for me. I hope if you, Writer Friends, are experiencing anything like this (Heaven forbid!), that one of these will get your little campfire going.

Nikki’s Surefire Woo Woo Writing Restoratives

1. Lunch with a writer friend, no drinks allowed. Be selective. Only your very best writer buds will listen the whining anyway, so leave your non-writer friends out of this.

2. Long walks. Go outside, and don’t take the dog or anyone else. This does it for me almost every time, which is why I live on a hillside in Texas Paradise, so I have constant access to nature/my Happy place.

3. Writing Smaller Stuff. This is like the kindling to the novel-logs of my fire. What I’ve discovered is that when the novel won’t light, if I churn out a couple of fun, silly essays or stories, it’s a little like turning on the gas in my modern fireplace. Whoosh!

4. Reading. Preferably not Twilight or anything that will take you away from the job at hand for too long. Something I’ve read before works for me, so if and when I get a good idea for my WIP, I feel perfectly happy to put the book down — I know what’s going to happen anyway.

5. Critiquing a friend’s work. This can help, as long as your friend isn’t a vastly superior writer, or producing something really depressing and angsty. So, I avoid critting Kate diCamillo or Laurie Halse Anderson’s work when I’m spark-deficient, no matter how they beg. LOL

Stuck? Chi-less? Try a few and see what happens, and add your personal remedies in the comment section if you like. It would be a dark world without all our creative blazes. I hope yours shines brightly this week.

New Year, New Links

Happy New Year! Yes, I know I’m a little late with that, but I’m still digging out from under the tinsel… no. No. I’m not one for New Year’s Resolutions, but I resolve to stop lying on this blog in 2010. I haven’t been taking down Xmas decorations, working on the novel, writing thank-yous, or cleaning up the house. I haven’t even been showering sufficiently. I have been reading. Reading reading reading. I’ve been on a book-a-day reading jag, and it feels GOOD. I just finished Graceling by Kristin Cashore, two books by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn and Elantris), Kim Harrison’s White Witch, Black Curse, Pier’s Anthony’s A Spell for Chamelon (re-read, a fave when I was a kid), and I’m halfway through four more. (All excellent, BTW.) I know I left out a bunch, but they’re re-shelved already.

Why all the reading? I’m prepping for the Season of Many Words that the next few months will be. I have to finish at least two of the novels I’ve got going, or my superstar agent will start sticking little voodoo pins in a dolly with my name on it, and Dave will tell me to go out and get an actual job that pays money. (Oh, the humanity!) I can’t have that, so I’ll be uber-productive and avoid the whole ugly scene. On a related note, check out this blog post. I love this writer! She’s so… terrifyingly accurate.

Also, for those friends who wanted a link to the storysomething site where you can read my stories (and some other people’s, whatever;-) ) personalized for your own child/grandchild/inner child, visit here. Bonus: The beta’s still free. I can’t wait to see the illos for my stories! But I must. My writer buds Shelli Cornelison and David Simon both have stories there, too, which are hilarious. Read them all. I did.

My eyes hurt. Is there such a thing as too much reading?

Nah.