Even more letters from an editor

Perhaps I should just call this series of posts -- Ursula Nordstrom 1, and 2, and 3, and etc.

I agree with several comments I've had on Face book -- that we'd love to have had an editor like that. Such letters of encouragement.  Such letters begging the authors and illustrators to work harder/ send her more, more, more.  Even letters asking them to come visit her.

Any editor I've suggested visiting, simply because I'm a visual person and wanted to be able to visualize the building they worked in, quickly told me that they'd be out of town the days I'd be in town. Ooo-Kay.

These days, we get NO answers/ No letters from editors, because editors read our submissions on their eReaders and simply delete and go on to the next one, leaving us hanging, wondering if they ever received our stuff at all.
Wondering if we should give up on Them and go ahead and submit elsewhere.
Just wondering, wondering, wondering.
(Or we get no answers because they were trying to decide/ took it to committee and it was shot down/ or forgot about it while they got excited about someone else's manuscript.)

I wish I had started writing sooner, while she was still alive.
I wish I had had an editor like Ursula Nordstrom.
Don't you?

More Letters from an Editor

So, I continue to read Dear Genius, the Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, collected and edited by Leonard S. Marcus and I come upon this series of letters:

To Crosby Bonsall     December 14, 1965

Dear Crosby,

Where is the book?

Love,

To Crosby Bonsall     December 15, 1965

Dear Crosby,

Ou est le livre?

Love,

To Crosby Bonsall     December 16, 1965

Dear Crosby,

Donde esta el libro?

Love,

To Crosby Bonsall     December 17, 1965

Dear Crosby,

Achtung!

Wo is der buch?

Love,

(Il libro, dov'e?

To Crosby Bonsall     December 21, 1965

Dear Crosby,

Hereway

isay

hetay

ookbay

?

Ovelay,

(What book does Ursula want from Bonsall?  The Case of the Dumb Bells, an I Can Read book by Crosby Bonsall which was finally published in 1966)

Hmm, this reminds me of a saying I've heard -- "I love deadlines.  I love the sound of them as they wooosh by."

And for those who love nonfiction -- Nonfiction Monday is at Prose and Kahn today. Click on over.

Letters from an editor

So, I'm reading Dear Genius, the Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, collected and edited by Leonard S. Marcus and mumbling to myself, "Why don't editors write letters like these any more. There she is, practically begging authors to send her stuff."

And the letters of encouragement she sends.  WOW.

And then I hit this letter -- and burst out laughing.

To Hilary Knight,  September 18, 1964.
    I hesitate to worry you, but I thought I should tell you that some enemy of yours is writing me very angry letters, and signing your name to them.
Have a good week.
Love,

   ==  ==  ==  ==  ==
The footnote (you gotta read every footnote in this book as well) explains that there had been a series of delays about the publication of a book and tempers were getting a little frayed all around.  Marcus does NOT give us the letter from Hilary Knight that inspired this response but it sounds like it had been a letter we are cautioned to never ever send to editors nowadays for fear of offending them.

New warning from the Writer Beware blog

The Writer Beware blog is required reading for anyone wishing to truly be published.

Here is their warning about new ways the sharks are eating up people who want to be published.

(note, NO legit publishers ask authors to pay for ANY of the publishing process. Money flows TO the author, not away from.) On the other hand, is the self-publishing model where you do the work and you have control.

These are the sharks who wait in the gap between those two publishing models, with their tooth-infested mouth open, waiting to take money from the unwary.

Be warned.
Beware.

How to write -- Advice from Dr. Seuss

Ted Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) had this to say about the writing process when he discussed writing the very first Beginning Reader -- The Cat in the Hat.
----
I spent half a year working [on this limited word story].

When I came up, I solved my problem by writing "The Cat in the Hat." How I did this is no trade secret. The method I used is the same method you use when you sit down to make apple stroodle without stroodles.

You forget all about time. You go to work with what you have! You take your limited, uninteresting ingredients (in my case 223 words) and day and night, month after month, you mix them up into thousands of different combinations. You bake a batch. You taste it. Then you hurl it out of the window. Until finally one night, when it is darkest just before down, a plausible stroodle-less stroodle begins to take shape before your eyes!

Since "The Cat" I've been trying to invent some easier method.  But I am afraid the above procedure will always be par for the course. At least it will be just as long as the course is laid out on a word list. (New York Times Book Review, November 17, 1957, Quoted in the book by Caroline M. Smith,  Dr. Seuss The Cat Behind the Hat, revised edition. Chicago: Chaseart Companies, 2012.

SCBWI Annual Conference

If you missed the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators annual conference (they now call it the International Conference, recognizing that a lot of writers come from Canada, and other countries), then you can hop on over to the wonderful Lisa Yee's wonderful blog to see pictures. (She calls this entry, Where authors and agents and editors collide.

She also has a link to the official SCBWI conference blog where you can read summaries of ALL of the workshops and events -- almost like you had been there.
Go
Enjoy

California is different

I've been working on a list of things that are different here in southern California from my old homestead in Maryland.

One of the most outstanding differences is the weather.
Besides the fact that there's no snow here (yea!), oftentimes the hot and cold spots seem to be reversed.

For example.
In Maryland, we go to the mountains (Appalachians -- only 3,000 to 4, 000 feet high) to get cool. When we go to the beach (down to the Ocean), we know it's going to be hot, hot, hot. That we'll have to walk across a good bit of very hot sand in order to reach the warm-ish ocean to swim.  Warm-ish because the Gulf Stream in the ocean sweeps up from the tropics to warm our coast.

In southern California -- it's the opposite.
By the beach, where I live, it's cool.  We've been in the 60s all May, June, and July while the east coast warmed up to the 90s and higher.  Yes, the sun is stronger and we have to wear hats to protect our skin from its rays, but that means it's only warm while the sun shines.  But we have clouds (the marine layer) every morning and evening, so that warmish feeling doesn't stick around very long.

Where can we go to get warm?  To the mountains, of course.
Take yesterday, for example.  Temps here by the beach were in the 60s. Further inland, 70s to 80s.  In the mountains (6,000 - 7,000 feet high) it was in the 90s! And to the east of the mountain is desert where it was 106 degrees.

So, Californians come to the beach for cool weather.  Go Figure.