I definitely err on the secret side. A very select few know about what story I am working on right now. Fewer still know what I am planning next.

I sometimes wish this was different. Sometimes my work delights me so much with its promise that I want to blog it, scream it, gush about it on the phone with my mom, share with the world my every little victory. Writing a novel is a long journey fraught with peril, so why not celebrate each milestone we reach?

But here is the problem. The stories we write, they are so fragile. I feel like, one word too many to my friends, and the novel will run away from me. One boastful post here about my progress — and the next thing I know, my WIP, that magic graceful unicorn with wings, will land hard on its bottom and turn into a mule on me.

It is so so hard to keep such secrets, especially in this age of tweeting-posting-sharing. It is so hard to keep quiet on the heels of an inspiring weekend.

And yet, it is a matter of survival for me as a writer, I am afraid. I hate being chained by superstition, but yes, there is a lot of it – this feeling that inevitably, if I share some good writing progress news, the Universe shall punish me with writing-related torture in the weeks and months to come. I am like that just-pregnant woman who is afraid to tell the world of the joy she hopes to hold in her arms less than nine months from now. She can’t wait to tell — but she keeps quiet, because what if after all the celebration she turns out to be wrong?

This is kind of what happened last year with me continually keeping you posted on my progress with my second manuscript, The Refuge. I kept blogging about each revision — it felt so good to share the triumphs and the difficulties alike. Then, the story that I once loved, that my writing friends reviewed a thousand times, that my agent read twice now, in a very different incarnation each time, that supposed “masterpiece” just sunk out of my sight. It was horrible. It felt like the earth caving in under my feet.

This year, I am trying to be wiser. Stronger. Quieter.

So now you know. You know why I have been blogging just a bit less frequently, lately. You know why I post book reviews. Compile lists, etc. I am acting like Kathryn Sockett who, legend has it, kept her work on “The Help” secret from friends and family. I am that little Soviet child in the picture below who is forced to keep her mouth shut. She won’t share her dreams and her secrets, not until her time comes.

Sh-sh-sh…

What about you? How much do you share? Do you blog to celebrate your completed first drafts, eureka moments, ambitious hopes, revisions, submissions — and make out okay?

I’ve been thinking: why does the New Year excite us so much — why does it inspire and scare us so?

A poem a friend of mine wrote a few days ago led me to an answer. I think the key to the New Year’s is in the word “new.” A new relationship. A new child. A new house. A new draft. A new story. A new year. Newness means hope. Another chance.

Last year — the old year – was good for me in so many ways, great even. It brought countless moments of happiness and love. It brought new revelations, achievements, new lessons learned. And yet, if I said the year brought me everything I wanted I would be lying.

I didn’t sign that contract I’ve been dreaming about.

But it’s not even that — what was worse — way worse — was that I didn’t finish the story I thought would surely be making the rounds by now.

That was my heaviest disappointment of the year.

But that’s the way it is, isn’t it?

At the start of each year, we are nervous and hopeful. As the ball drops, our hearts lift with desire. We hope that maybe this year we will get it right. This year we will re-invent ourselves.

But what I realize now, is that there is no need (at least for me) to keep trying to be this new person every year. This shiny idea of the perfect me is just that — an idea.

Here is what I am beginning to understand: every year will bring joy –and disappointment.

And the two are interwoven together tightly as the strands of hair in a braid.

My not completing the novel I hoped to finish led me to re-evaluate my revision methods. It pushed me to try new things.

Saying “hello” to 2012, I am going easy on hopes and wishes this time around, while continuing to focus on my goals. The things I can do. Revisions. Completions. Submissions.

I don’t care about a book contract in 2012.

Okay, maybe that’s a lie. I care. But I don’t wish for it. Nope. I am hereby striking it from my list of hopes and wishes for this year. In fact, I am keeping that list very short, and here it goes:

To reach my own goals. Hit my own deadlines.

That’s all I want for this year.

Happy 2012, everyone!

May your joys this year outweigh your disappointments. May you have the strength, committment and wisdom to keep your resolutions, and may those bring you closer to your dreams.

credit: Flickr by skpy

So today is the first night of Hanukkah (and a few days before Christmas). I got out our ever-growing collection of dreidels. Wrapped the Hanukkah presents and put them under our Christmas tree. (Yes, our family is that shamelessly interfaith). Put the menorah in a prominent place, candles by its side, ready to be lit. Waiting now for my son and husband to come back home from Karate and work to celebrate.

And — after all the wrapping and the running around – for a moment there I suddenly find my excitement waning.

This year I think I am a little more impatient with the holidays than usual. Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year, all of them. They feel like too much of a chore — last-minute shopping, all the crazy cooking, etc.

Holidays pull me away from my writing, when all I want to do is fly ahead into my current project — fly, fly, fly! And then write the next story! And then that other one that has been waiting its turn for years now!

But then I look down under the sturdy floor underneath my feet and remind myself that sometimes it’s okay to fold your wings and breathe in that smell of cooking. Holidays are there for a reason. I remind myself that work — even if it’s beautiful, magical, dream-work — can take you only so far.

Writers like Isaac Asimov and Jane Yolen famously contended that if they knew they had only minutes to live they would just write faster. Me? When I take a moment to consider it, I realize that if these were my last moments on earth, I’d let those untold stories go. I’d gather around with my kids and husband, just sit with them on the floor of our living room maybe, and just hold them, all quiet and breathing with my family.

Well, thankfully — hopefully — my dying moment is far enough away. Far enough, I hope, that I’ll get to write down those poor stories that are waiting their turn. But holidays are — or can be — the times to pull away, as though the world is about to stop turning.

Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year, Kwanzaa, Yule, each holiday has its own reason, its own truth, its own story. And yet sometimes I think we are all celebrating the same thing here. We are celebrating love, and life, and warmth despite the cold outside, and the lights flickering in the darkness.

Happy holidays, everyone!

I am looking for the AWESOMEST literature for young adults that takes place in a real historical time and place, with all the usual elements of historical fiction, but has magic driving the story, or at least its parts. (Adults’ books are fine too, for a separate list, but I am thinking I won’t find as many…)

I already have a few great titles on my mind.

“Revolution” by Jennifer Donnelly deals with the present age and the French revolution, with the two coming together through scary ghostly magic.

“Book Thief,” by Mark Zusak, set during World War II in Germany, is told from the point of view of Death.

In “Apothecary,” by Maile Meloy, three cold war era-kids use magic and alchemy to stop villains from setting off an atomic bomb.

This is going to be so much fun.

Have you ever come across something amazing that would fit this list? I’ll take recommendations!

Harper, 2011       

The winner of this year’s National Book Award for the best YA title of the year just happens to be another great find for my Best Contemporary Historical Novels list, and I couldn’t be more excited!

This aching and spare novel in verse (which totally deserves the honor!), tells a story of a ten-year-old girl, Ha, whose family must escape from Vietnam in the last year of the war, and start over in Alabama.

I think it’s the details that really brought this story to life, and made it great — the taste and look of papaya, Ha’s favorite fruit; her apt descriptions of people in her home country and in the new land; her struggles with English and with being made to feel “dumb.”

That, and the characterization of the tough, spunky heroine who knows what she wants and what she doesn’t. And the voice, at once spare and lyrical.

———————————————————————————————————————————

My new teacher has brown curls

looped tight to her scalp

like circles in a beehive.

She points to her chest:

MiSSS SScott,

saying it three times,

each louder

with ever more spit.

I repeat, MiSSS SScott,

careful to hiss every s.

She doesn’t seem impressed.

I tap my own chest:

Ha.

She must have heard

ha,

as in funny ha-ha-ha.

She fakes a laugh.

I repeat, Ha,

and wish I knew

enough English

to tell her

to listen for

the diacritical mark,

this one directing

the tone

downward.

My new teacher tilts

her head back,

fakes

an even sadder laugh.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Isn’t this beautiful?

I think this is especially perfect for a middle-grade social studies classroom. Kids would learn a lot about that period of time by reading this book. And not just kids — I know I have.

Congratulations, Thanhha!

I’ll tell you, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that magic mirror. I had so many questions! Imagine, all the things I would learn about the world? All the people I could spy on! All the secrets I would uncover! But each time I’d finally see my mom, I’d ask, “where, where, where is it?” And she’d go, “oh, man, what did I do with it? Where did I put it?” Or she’d say, “Your grandmother has it, because you are with me now, and that way she can keep track of what’s going on with you.”

The magic mirror became my Santa Clause. My tooth fairy.

It became something I held on to even after I grew up and learned that my babushka,  my grandmother who raised me, was the one who shared all the details of my days with my mom. Of course I was really upset when I found out. I’ve been had!

Still. I will never forget this thing my mom did for me – this story she left me with. I am not sure I would have even become a writer, if I didn’t have my magic mirror.

In late November 2009 my agent suggested I start something on blogger or wordpress, or anywhere. A conversation. A virtual calling card. It seemed fitting to name my new blog after this great legend of my childhood.

Now, two years later, I am still amazed each time I read someone’s comment. Each time, it feels like magic. The fact that there are people out there whom I have never met, but whom I can see, can hear, can understand, can know, through a magic mirror.

Cheers, guys! And happy birthday, Magic Mirror

I don’t remember how old I was — I want to say, ten? — when I fell hard for Ray Bradbury’s legendary short stories. I remember the Martians with their beautiful golden eyes. I remember a children’s bedroom with Safari-themed wallpaper (or something) that came alive.

But the story that touched me the most was one called “Tomorrow’s Child.”
In the story, a family is using some sort of a crazy-futuristic-experimental procedure to have a baby. And of course, there is a problem. The baby is born — um, a triangle. No it isn’t a deformity or an extra chromosome  – through some sort of weird accident the baby got born into another dimension, and that is why he looks this way to his horror-stricken parents.

The parents try everything.  In the end, they come to the best solution of all. Instead of trying to change their child, they decide to use the weird-experiment-machine-process-whatever to enter into their child’s dimension, themselves.

Here is what the beautiful ending looks like: to the rest of the world, the mother, father and their baby are freaks, some sort of shapes, which ones I don’t remember. But to each other, the three look completely normal. More than that — they look beautiful.

Something about this ending grabbed me and never let go. I just loved it so much, the idea that you can be a triangle, and you don’t have to change. The others can change for you, if they want to.

Ready for it?

It’s a novel written in the 1930s, once burned, and barely completed before the author’s death in 1940, but only published posthumously in the late 1960s; it is one of the most outrageously unique stories of all time… my beloved . . . my crazy . . . my favorite …

“MASTER AND MARGARITA” by Mikhail Bulgakov.

The devil visits Moscow under the guise of having a performance contract with the city circus. (And don’t automatically assume the devil is the bad guy. Though the Moscow bureaucrats certainly would say so.) Remember too, that the Soviet Union prided itself for its atheism. Do you now see how this story wouldn’t go over too well in its motherland during the oppressive 1930s?

Here is what else happens in the story:

A rich and beautiful, but miserable woman who is in love with a poor scorned, close-to-crazy writer leaves her husband, and with the help of the aforementioned devil, becomes a witch and runs away with her lover (the writer).

These little summaries are just scratching the surface. The book takes a reader on a wild ride that features the mundane (but hilarious) existence of idiotic bureaucrats and a re-told story of Jesus Christ’s last days (a story that imagines Jesus very differently from the blue-eyed guy we’re all used to).

“Master and Margarita” is a book of love and trickery, the good and the bad forces within us playing together to create what we are.

I first picked up this story when I was 13 years old. I could see where some American readers might think I was way too young then for such a read — for one thing, there is nudity in the story (though no sex!). There is some violence and of course, adultery, and God save me, the book forces you to actually . . . gasp . . . think deeply and question the biggest issues that humans face, such as love, good and evil.

Throughout adolescence and adulthood, I have been reading it the way my son reads the Harry Potter series – over and over and over and OVER don’t ask me how many times. I am reading it still. Sometimes I think my life is one small tribute to that book. My second manuscript, the troubled fantasy some of you might have been reading a bit about on this blog, is based in the same scary time period and the same confusing place as Bulgakov’s masterpiece — the 1930s Soviet Union. My manuscript (which is resting at this moment ) is part historical fiction, part fantasy; this book is part fantasy, part contemporary fiction. Yes, he actually witnessed those absurd, hilarious times, he actually became a victim of those restricted times, when a voice like his could not possibly be allowed into the chorus of praise that was Soviet literature.

If any of you are brave enough to venture into the nutty world of “Master and Margarita,” I hope you give this book a try sometime. If you are an adventurous, open-minded soul who likes to ponder what it really means to be a good person, I think you will be richly rewarded!

I know I have been.

Yes, I am. My name is Katia, and I am a book junkie.

The library people know me. At my approach, they roll up their sleeves and retreat into the back room, from which they emerge carrying huge stacks of books I have requested. They smile at me and say, “thanks for keeping the circulation going.”

I am amazed that they thank me, because as much as I love to support fellow writers and buy their books, if it weren’t for my local library, I would be broke.

Anyhow, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanted to tell you about my favorite books of all time — those early ones that got me hooked. The ones that started it all.

Okay, I have an ulterior motive. One of my fave authors, Beth Revis, is hosting this incredible month-long giveaway, in which she blogs about her favorite books and asks us to do the same, for the chance to win one ginormous prize containing fifty-three gazillion books. Okay, actually, nineteen, but that’s A LOT OF BOOKS, right? With all the people participating in this, the chances of winning are . . . ahem . . . not necessarily in my favor, and I’ve never won a giveaway contest before — EVER! I am not one of those contest people who win prizes – never been, really, but then again, when has that stopped me from trying?

So, I hereby take up Beth Revis’ “thankful for books” theme. I can’t possibly fit all the important ones in one post — all the books that affected me deeply in those formative years, the books that made me the reader and writer and dreamer and person that I am today. Here are some of them. Watch for the follow-up at the end of the week!

1. Old Soviet picture books

Nope, those weren’t anything like “The Little Engine that Could” and “Goodnight, Moon.” I remember a story about a good doctor who travelled to Africa to cure hippos with chocolate. There was also one about a fly that married a mosquito. And something about a mailman. I loved that one, though I don’t remember it too well right now. Also, I loved the one about the mean capitalist, a clueless American named Mr. Twister, who traveled to the Soviet Union and learned better ways there.

I remember turning the same pages over and over. I remember the comfort they gave me — the words settling into familiar patterns every night, the pictures like old friends waiting.

2. Fairytales

The Russian folktales featured lots of animals, and moody pale princesses. There were also sets of three brothers, with the youngest being the stupidest usually, who was the nicest of them all, and ended up winning the girl — and the crown. I also loved Christian Andersen’s tales — the tricky soldiers, the abandoned Christmas trees, matchboxes that talked, the sad story of the poor little mermaid (not at all like Disney’s Ariel)… Those fairytales didn’t always have a happy ending, but they did open up a universe of possibilities.

3. Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas

This was my great love at age 11. I read it, then re-read it, about six times, dreaming of one day meeting a brave and passionate D’Artagnan who’d love me. Each time, I cried at the exact same spot, you know the one, at the end. Over the pages of the book, my heart broke, over and over. Maybe this was mental practice for my turbulent adolescence that followed.

How about you? Is there a title or two that stands out, a bunch of images, or a storyline that calls from your past? Do you want to take up Beth’s challenge and blog about it?

P.S. Just looked at Beth’s contest link again and realized I haven’t done this right, exactly. She wants us to blog about A SINGLE book that made a difference, and, in addition to including a link to her contest, she wants us to include this cool graphic as well:

So, I guess I’ll do it right later this week. But I am still keeping this post. And there may be a part 3 next week as well. This is just too much fun!

I hope so, anyway!

Medeia, Joyce and/or I will be writing to you shortly.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

But I am not done here yet. While we’re on the subject of winners, I wanted to talk to you about this year’s National Book Award.

Here is the list of all the worthy (I am sure!) nominees for 2011 which were announced in mid-October:

Franny Billingsley, Chime (Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Group USA, Inc. )

Debby Dahl Edwardson, My Name Is Not Easy (Marshall Cavendish)

(Love the title — AND the fact that it’s published by an awesome small publisher!)

Thanhha Lai, Inside Out and Back Again (Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)

Albert Marrin, Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy (Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books)

Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now (Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

What a diverse and interesting-looking bunch! I look forward to reading each one, and probably reviewing my favorites.

But, I wanted to mention one more title, which, in my eyes, is THE National Book Award winner this year. I know many other writers, readers and YA lit afficionados feel the same way. I am talking about “Shine,” by Lauren Myracle.

Set in a small, religious Southern community, the story follows a 16-year-old girl whose gay friend became a victim of a brutal hate crime. The main character, Cat, is on a quest to find the perpetrator. And while the answer to the mystery seemed just a bit questionable to me (but that’s a matter of a personal opinion), the story was executed with beautiful and aching honesty that took my breath away, the setting was rendered exquisitely, and the real complex characters acting under powerful pressures kept me turning pages. I am one of many who believe that this book deserves the highest literary honors for its powerful story.

Enter the National Book Awards. The committee’s representative called the author, Lauren, earlier this month, telling her that she was a finalist. Joy, congratulations and many cheers in YA lit circles followed by the announcement. Until — oops — it turned out the National Book Awards committee made a mistake. You can read about it here, if you don’t know what happened: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/lauren-myracle-withdraws-national-book-awards_n_1015649.html

I could rant to you about the unfairness of it, how poorly and disgracefully the whole thing was handled.

Instead, I am going to focus on what everyone else in the kid lit community has been talking about: Lauren Myracle. In her honesty and grace under pressure, Lauren reminded me of “Shine’s” brave protagonist Cat. So, cheers for all the National Book Award finalists! Cheers for Joyce and her wonderful books as well, and cheers for Medeia, the winner of our contest giveaway. And, finally, cheers for Lauren Myracle and her beautiful, important, miraculous book.