[note: this post was originally titled, "My first Friday Five!" but by the time I had reached 500 words, no Fives had yet appeared.  So it'll be the Saturday Five. Or maybe Sunday.  We'll see.]

No way!  I am participating in a meme–Friday Five! 

When an esteemed grad school classmate asked, “Jess, what is a meme?” I was not very well prepared to answer.  (“In literature, it’s like a theme, although I don’t know why they don’t just call it a theme.  But on the web, a ‘meme’ is like a thing you participate in–kind of like a theme.  Um, yeah.”)  So maybe I’ll just teach by example and say that Friday Five is a meme in which bloggers note on Fridays the top five things they’re grateful for that week.  (At least, I think that’s what they are. Quick, nobody disabuse me before I write this next post.)

Before I go ahead with my list (I know, you’re just dying of anticipation; I am, too, to see whether I have five or actually ten), I wanted to note that I’ve been thinking lately about how if all you knew about me was from the web, you’d probably think I did nothing but read, write, occasionally give readings, and watch Mad Men.  Not that I don’t spend a ton of time on these things, but there is so much of my life that doesn’t even enter in here because it seems like so much is verboten on the web, and with good reason.  I don’t want to jeopardize anything at any of my freelance jobs, and I don’t want friends to feel like they have to watch themselves around me because they might be quoted on here.  I also don’t want friends to feel left out if I write about other friends!  With all these things I don’t want to discuss, it leaves precious little that I can include.

And this is sad to me.  Because I really wish I could have written about the  afternoon a few weeks ago when I ended up hanging out with some people who had previously intimidated me and we had such a rockingly hilarious time that I’m still thinking about some of our jokes and cracking up.  Or the way a recent interaction with a previously prickly person turned out to be really terrific.  Because what if these women read this and thought, “Hey, why do you say I’m intimidating?” or “Well, I never knew you found me so annoying before!”  Argh argh argh.  I mean, it’s a good thing I write fiction, so I can get out some of these ya-yas, but when I’m supposed to have a public blog persona and then feel like I can’t write about anything that’s actually emotionally important to me, I think I end up sounding like a total hermit.

Hm. 437 words and still no Friday Five.  I think I’ll save them for tomorrow.  But at least now you may think I have some kind of social life.  But do any of you bloggers either worry about the impact of what you post, or fear that you seem like you have no life?

Talk about stepping in the same river twice.  I did, a few weeks ago, with regard to my Vermont College MFA reunion (it was great, by the way.  None of my worries came to pass.  I am kind of a nudnik.)  I stepped in another familiar river this week when I went back to an old-but-not-dead piece of writing to revise it for its appearance in the Sunday paper.

Yes, you read that right!  The Louisville Courier-Journal, which (who?) featured Nice and Mean when it first came out, invited me to provide their August Sunday serial, so over the next four weeks, my friends and neighbors and anyone with the internet can read the first few chapters of what I hope will be my next middle-grade novel, NOT THAT GIRL, potentially with groovy art.  (At least, I think there might be some art.  Might have to check on this.)

There was so much craziness involved revisiting the story, including the fact that the request came while I was travelling [no--traveling; I always misspell that], and I had to ask my partner to brave my Extremely Messy, Filled with Deep-Dark Secret Documents that are Likely to Fall On You Shelf and extract my notes from when I workshopped this piece last summer, along with one of about a bijillion Clairefontaine notebooks.  (Do you use these?  Are they not a superior piece of notebookture?)  A side-note on this challenge is that she succeeded the first time around!  Go, A!

The biggest source of craziness, though, was how ridiculous some of the writing was.  The prose was spiffy enough; the characters, distinct; there’s a passage of dialogue whose punchline is “Where’s your butt?” that I enjoyed again, as though I hadn’t written it.   But what was sorely lacking was something that Grad School Advisor Margaret calls Emotional Residue.

Case in point: Not that Girl starts out with Jackie and Mel being shocked when their friend Zoe, previously uninterested in boys, unexpectedly brings an older guy to the movies with them.  Then, in the next chapter, I had a guy–an adorable one, unfortunately nicknamed Nathaniel the Spaniel, crossing Jackie’s path and Zoe and Mel strategizing about how Jackie can pursue him.  I had this line to the effect of, “I’ve been feeling a little weird about Zoe since the movies the other night, but I’m willing to listen to her advice.”

Um, really?  Just “a little weird”? So glad I chose to make that event the focus of your first chapter, Jackie, because I can see that it brought a lot of emotional residue to your subsequent interactions.

Why aren’t Jackie and Mel more upset?  Why don’t they talk about this–instead of nothing relevant–in the scene before Nathaniel comes along? Jackie’s feeling of being caught between Mel and Zoe should drive the emotion in the strategy session, because it becomes the heart of the story.

Thankfully, I fixed these things.  I’m still kind of appalled that it took me so long to see them, and I await with dread the missteps I will find when I go back to The Novel Formerly Known as The Book of the Dead, which I will do tomorrow or so (today is maintenance day, as you can see.)  I guess I can just hope that even if I face-plant in the river, I will have plenty of chances to cross it again, because that seems to be what writers do.

Having long admired fellow mid-souther Shelli Johannes Welles’s blog, Market My Words, I am a bit agog to find myself on it.  (Well, I answered the interview questions; I can’t be that surprised.)  So if you still have a yen to hear my thoughts, you can head on over there to see what I said.   More importantly, though, you can read the other entries and pick up marketing tips! 

In other news, I went to The ALA C onference (American Library Association) this weekend in DC, and it was awesome!  I can’t wait to post pics and share tales.  Preview: teens weighing in about YALSA picks; book-cart drill team; Will Shortz.

I also look forward to telling you about how I’m seriously considering killing of one of my characters (meaning editing her out, not killing her in the book) and how great that will be if it’s the right choice.  But I must return to said manuscript and reread in its entirety today, so back to’it, missy!

I recently got an interview request from Louisville Magazine to share my thoughts about books.  A thrill!  Anyone who hasn’t read E. Lockhart surely must, and I will tell them so.  Also the fine nature of Curtis Sittenfeld’s “American Wife” must be trumpeted. They also asked me, Which book do you think should be required for high school students?

You’d think, what with all my opinions and the fact that I taught middle-school for quite a while, I’d be able to name one, but I am having the hardest time with that question!  Part of the trouble is that I’ve been traveling since I got the interview request, so I haven’t been able to look at the bookshelf, but I can picture it pretty well and can’t seem to name anything perfect.

I offered The Passion, by Jeanette Winterson, since, as Queen says (although not about this book), it is “guaranteed to blow your mind” if you are in high school.  A story about Napoleon’s chicken-cook and a girl with webbed feet, set in Venice, The Passion has history, love, world-melting, and beautiful language.  But does it expose the reader to new insights about the actual world?  Does it help develop empathy?  (It may, and maybe I just can’t remember, but that doesn’t seem to be one of its salient features, and high-school students can be so grounded in their own worldview that I’d want to recommend a book that forces discussion of differences.

For that, I might recommend The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, about four sisters stuck on their parents’ mad mission trip to the Congo.  Kingsolver alternates perspectives and each girl’s voice is amazingly distinct; we learn about history and geography, we’re moved by the stories, and the problems of Colonialism would spark a meaty discussion.  But the book is pretty accessible, and if I get to make students read something, shouldn’t it be something they might not finish on their own?

Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex might strike a good balance between The Poisonwood Bible and The Passion.  A story about an intersex kid growing up in Michigan, the granddaughter of Greek immigrants, this book won a Pulitzer Prize and is both world-broadening and stylistically cool.  But is the book a little cold?  Would high-school students want to keep going with it?

Oh, maybe Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison.  Everyone in my sophomore-year English class loved this story, about four generations of African-Americans in the south, for the rich language, aforementioned world-melting nature, and the fact that it recounted an experience outside of our own.  Hmm, that is definitely seeming like the most likely contender so far, maybe because I have firsthand experience of what it felt like to read it.  It was like hiking through the woods only to come upon a glacier field–gorgeous, unique, and totally unexpected.  On the other hand, this is already on lots of lists.  I want to make a splash in my fictional curriculum!

Any thoughts, reader friends?  What do you think all high-school students should read, and why?

I did an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal that’s going to run tomorrow (Sunday.)  Since so many newspapers put their content online in advance, I ventured to the internets to see if I could get a preview.

A preview was indeed what I got, as in a teaser that did not give the full story, so now I am very curious!  I get the sense it will be positive (features usually are), but there’s still that lingering wonder of, “What did I say that they will and won’t use?  Will they emphasize something I said that was totally uninformed/dorky/not really representative of me, even though I said it?”  What direction do you think this will go in?

In Arts

Author Jessica Leader has gone where few adults dare: back to seventh grade. If diving into the emotional lives of 13-year-old girls sounds as dangerous as swimming with sharks, Leader is living proof that you can go home again and emerge unscathed.

I’m wondering if it will show that even if the characters in Nice and Mean are, by turns, catty, manipulative, insecure and over-dramatic (and creative and resourceful and resilient, of course)–their creator, moi, is mature, thoughtful, poised, the possessor of excellently polished toenails, &c &c.  So I can’t wait to read it.

I am sure it will mention my toenails.

I didn’t like a word I’d used yesterday in my chapter, “swath.”  It’s the kind of word that would turn me off if I was reading–too studied–and, in fact, when I got to the paragraph with the offending swath, I skimmed over it.  Bad sign!  I needed a replacement.

Only thesaurus.com didn’t have any suggestions at all!  I suspect that thesaurus.com is not the most sophisticated website for thesaurily endeavors, but I didn’t have the time to search for a better one, so I thought, “Okay, what’s the closest I can come to providing a synonym, even one I wouldn’t use, and seeing where that leads me…How about ‘blob’?  Yes, let’s try blob.”

The ‘blob’ entry had many gross medical synonyms that I won’t name, but it also had, on the sidebar, a list of what I can only assume are frequently used terms involving blob.  They’re so intriguing, I had to share:

It’s a blast–a summer blog blast tour!  As a fan of America’s Next Top Model (yes, you can judge me now), I can’t help but think of New Cover Girl Lash-Blast Mascara when I hear the words “Summer Blog Blast Tour.”  But I should really put some new association to those words, because on Wed-niz-day, I am going to appear on said tour!  Yep.  That’s right.  Writer nirvana. 

The Summer blog blast tour consists of some of kidlit’s most thoughtful, provocative bloggers interviewing writers.  I’m pasting the line-up below so you can see that I mean what I say: some serious pith will be offered up.  

The cherry on the sundae–the lengthen of the lashes–is that I got to answer interview questions from my much-esteemed grad school friend Gwenda of Shaken and Stirred fame.  (Doesn’t her blog have the best name?  I wish I had a cool last name so I could give this blog something equally rich, but sadly, there’s nothing cool about–oh, wait.  I do have an extremely cool last name.  But all cognates–Leader of the Pack; Follow the Leader–sound obnoxious when applied to myself.) 

I so digress!  My point is, I hope you’ll stop by these blogs and read the interviews throughout the week.  And for goodness’ sake, don’t be a lurker!  Comment to show the love!  And thanks to Gwenda for looping me in on the coolness.  I can feel my eyelashes growing longer and thicker already!  

Monday, May 17 

Kate Milford @ Chasing Ray

Mac Barnett @ Fuse #8/ School Library Journal

Hazardous Players @ Finding Wonderland

Malinda Lo @ Shelf Elf

Barbara Dee @ Little Willow

Tuesday, May 18

Mary Jane Beaufrand at The Ya, Ya, Yas
Rita Williams-Garcia at Fuse Number 8
Jennifer Hubbard at Writing & Ruminating
Charise Mericle Harper at Shelf Elf
Holly Schindler at Little Willow

 Wednesday, May 19

 Michael Trinklein at Chasing Ray
Nick Burd at Fuse Number 8
Sarah Darer Littman at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
Tom Siddell at Finding Wonderland
Jessica Leader (that’s me!) at Shaken & Stirred

 Thursday, May 20

 Matthew Reinhart at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Jenny Boylan at Fuse Number 8
Lisa Mantchev at Writing & Ruminating
Tara Kelly at Shaken & Stirred
Donna Freitas at Little Willow

Friday May 21

Julia Hoban at Chasing Ray
Stacy Kramer at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
Nancy Bo Flood at Finding Wonderland
Paolo Bacigalupi at Shaken & Stirred
Sarah Kuhn at Little Willow

Things I could blog about if I weren’t so tired:

-The careers I would take on in another life (Broadway orchestrator; gynecologist; Olympic gymnast)

-What’s going on with my work-in-progress (I’m facing down the last few chapters and daunted about the prospect of pulling it all together.  That’s a photo of a ditched-out horse trail, by the way.)

-How it’s Derby season here in Kentucky and there were Derby Pie samples at the grocery store this morning and I almost fainted with delight (Derby Pie=pecan pie with chocolate chips.  It is SO GOOD.)

-Um

-Something else

-Probably another thing

-I’m really happy that Nice and Mean will be on the Summer Indie Next List–I told you that, right? 

-What does it say about me that I repeatedly bury the lead?

-Also might as well mention that I’ve almost confirmed dates for launch parties in Louisville, NYC, Providence and Boston

-I bought pretty Indian bangle bracelets to give away as swag for Nice and Mean and kind of all I want to do is make them ring-a-ling all day long

Yeah.  That’s about it.  If you would like to propose a topic for me to blog about, please go ahead.  Especially if you’re my friend, and you once heard me talk about something funny, please remind me what it is so I can talk about it.  I would welcome a little direction.

{Remember: if you leave a comment on this or any post, I will donate a dollar to the funds-needing Louisville Public Library!}

This is kind of one of those cheatery posts in which I refer you to something else, but something is going on right now that I so enjoy that I can’t help but refer you to it.

You may have heard of the Morning News’s Battle of the Books, in which 16 books compete in March Madness style for the winner.  School Library Journal is doing the same for children’s books. 

I so enjoyed last year’s, not just because I got all but one right (I never succeed in predictions like this), but because the judges, all seriously honored authors, share such intricate, thoughtful reasons for preferring one book over another.  I am a judgmental reader, to be sure, and to be honest, I feel like my opinions have sound reasoning.  But hearing what these veteran authors think–authors who have been writing ten times as long as I have, who have served on award committees and seen all kinds of things come and go–always opens up my brain to different kinds of judging.  They make me want to read more widely, write more widely, and become a part of  The Conversation. 

For this week’s reading pleasure, here’s Julius Lester on why he chose the magnificent Tales From Outer Suburbia  by Shaun Tan over Newbery Medal Winner When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.  People are pretty shocked.  When You Reach Me was the only book I can remember that earned Newbery buzz early on, retained it, and won with great enthusiasm–so little of the grousing you might hear when a surefire winner walks away with the prize.  People just love this book, but Lester chose the graphic novel, and I think his reasons are compelling and thought-provoking.

Also, you should read both of these books!  http://ow.ly/1qnFD

Several very cool things happened this weekend.

First, fellow Louisville author, fellow Tenner, nifty gal Julie Kagawa released her young-adult novel THE IRON KING, which has been getting great buzz all over the internets.  (It’s on my TBR pile.)  Congrats, Julie!

(That’s Julie looking writerly next to her trademark Mountain Dew.)

Second, I went to the party with Kelly Creagh, fellow Louisville author, fellow Tenner, author of NEVERMORE, coming out in September.  (Are you seeing a theme?  It’s cool to be a debut YA author from Louisville!) 

  Here’s Kelly looking glamorous with these amazing bouncy-balls from Borders, which not only contain sparkly glitter–they light up if you bounce them the right way!  (Well.  They lit up when Kelly bounced them the right way.  As for me…I pretty much just admired hers.)  (And apologies for all the white space.  I seem to have issues arranging photos tonight.)

The third great thing was that three completely awesome book-bloggers were there, two of whom I’d been corresponding with about hosting my blog tour in June–The Story Siren (aka Kristi), The Page Flipper (aka Chelsea) and Wastepaper Prose (aka Susan, who took pictures cuter than mine and you can see them on her blog.  I’m showing you these so you can get the alternate perspective.  Top row Susan, Julie, me, Kelly; Bottom row, Chelsea, Kristi, ladder.)

It was great to celebrate with Julie and hang out with Kelly, whom I briefly shared a writer’s group with two years ago and who I’d always remembered for her kick-ass writing.  She has a YA set in Santa Land (hope that’s okay to reveal!) that is so original and hilarious and will take the world by storm one day.  I must say that while I occasionally dislike writing that everybody else enjoys, a surprisingly large percentage of the writing I think is great goes on to some kind of fame.  So if I think you’re great–you will be!  (Yes!  It works just like that!)

The final amazing thing, though, was the dedication of the bloggers.  Between them, I think they drove 6 or 7 hours to attend the signing!  Blook boggers (ha, I mean book bloggers) are inspiring in their dedication.  They read and write reviews of more books in a week than I might in a month.  They’re more on top of what’s being released than most writers I know, and they’re so generous about using their powers to help promote authors, no matter how new and humble we may be. I felt lucky to be able to spot these rare creatures in the wild, to chat with them a little, and to revel in the booky goodness of it all.  In fact, I’m adding a new tag just for you: Book Blogger Lovin’.  May it get used frequently!