In Praise of The Writing Barn

Today I’m beginning the first of what I hope will be an ongoing set of posts about people who make a difference in my writer world, whose presence and work furthers me (and many others) on the winding path toward creating art that matters. For me, this is a long, long list of amazing humans who not only write but also work tirelessly in one form or another to create community. Children’s writers are mostly generous like that, in ways both large and small. But it’s easier than I used to think to get lost in your own head in this world of writers and books, to find yourself stuck in the business details, the endless often soul-sucking worry about the next book and the next and ‘will anyone notice this one? Why am I doing this again?’

 Which is why I’m so grateful for so many people who keep me focused on the wonder and joy of the process, the journey. Who pay it forward HARD and remind me to do the same.

Writing Barn interior

 If you don’t know about The Writing Barn in Austin, well, you should. And if you don’t know about its creator and director Bethany Hegedus, well, you should know about her, too. I can’t even remember when I first met Bethany, but it was at least five years ago and probably in Austin. I do remember posing for a goofy picture with her at the Soho Press booth in 2012 at ALAMW in Dallas. Soho was launching Soho Teen and there was champagne and somehow colorful squirt guns, I think for the Soho Crime inprint. In any case, our paths kept crossing, Bethany and I, including our twice yearly sojourns to what a group of us now lovingly call The Lodge of Death. Each time I learned more about her, about what had brought her here to Texas, about her writer’s journey and life journey and bunch of stuff in between. Plus we laugh a lot. A lot!

Bethany Hegedus

Bethany writes amazing books, including but not limited to the picture book, Grandfather Gandhi, which she co-authored with Arun Gandhi, grandson of yes, the other Gandhi! Yes, I know! It is such a beautiful, moving, meaningful book.

But The Writing Barn! Bethany and her husband Vivek have made a true book-lover’s haven in a wooded area outside of Austin. Retreats, workshops, lectures, special events. You can come for a few hours, a weekend, a week, depending on the event. You can work on your writer’s craft and learn from a growing and illustrious list of guest authors. (Nova Ren Suma! Jenny Han! Francisco X. Stork! Libba Bray and Barry Goldblatt will be teaching in October!) I am forever grateful for the weekend I spent at The Writing Barn learning about ‘emotional turnings’ in novel writing from author Sara Zarr. I have been back many times, including as a mentor and writing

me and Sara Zarr !

instructor this past summer for a week long Whole Novel Workshop, where I got to teach alongside amazing writers Tim Wynne-Jones and Nicole Griffin, and also learn from many others including Lisa Papademetriou and Hannah Barnaby.

Have I gushed enough?

Here’s a link to The Writing Barn. http://www.thewritingbarn.com

Check it out. Go!

Tell Bethany I sent you.

In Which I Am Reminded That It's About The Work: My Week at The Writing Barn

Anne Bustard, Nicole Griffin, Bethany Hegedus, Tim Wynne-Jones, me

Just back from a week (an entire week!) teaching and learning and writing at The Writing Barn, a truly magical place for writers, founded and created by Austin author Bethany Hegedus and her husband Vivek. Workshops and retreat spaces and lecture series and guest authors from all over--all talking writing and learning writing and digging in to their craft. I'd been there a few times--both as a co-guest author recently with Nikki Loftin for the Words and Wine event, and as a participant in long weekend workshop taught by the amazingly brilliant Sara Zarr. (this was in fact where FINDING PARIS was workshopped and received those last tweaks that pushed it from almost acquired to acquired and on the road to publication, culminating this past April when it released from Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins.) So I was beyond honored, and not a little nervous, when Bethany asked if I would help teach a week long Whole Novel Revision workshop with Tim Wynne-Jones and Nicole Griffin.

It is a lovely thing to have the luxury of an entire week devoted only to the work. Okay, fun and food and a bunch of laughter slip in there, too, but even they are in the context of writing and revision and writing and revision and discussion of the same. Like a mini version of the residency session in an MFA program, but perhaps a bit less intense because there are no degrees involved! We learned from Tim's talk on dialogue and Nicole's on building novels by identifying the characters' emotions and even my own on crafting settings that matter, plus guest talks from Nikki Loftin and Anne Bustard (our TA for the week) and Brian Yansky. We ate our way through Austin at dinner. And we worked with our mentees, the hard, painful work that comes with talking about where a story has gone off track and how to make it stronger and better, how to make your vision work on paper. I was honored to do that, too, moved to tears many times by everyone's willingness to break through that fear and get it right.

 THIS is what writing is all about. It is about telling stories and digging for authenticity and peeling back the false stuff to get to the truth. It is about learning craft and building layers and finding the way to step back and let our characters soar. It is about knowing HOW to do all those things and making each book a better book than the one that came before it. It is about reading and learning and talking about those things.

It was good to be reminded. Sometimes I forget because there are the other pieces of this job-- the days when I feel lost in this endless loop of all the things beyond the book: How is it selling? Why did they say no to paying my mileage for that event? Did they say no to everyone? Will they buy another book? Will they promote it? Will it be enough? Am I enough? And on like that. Then I'll click to one of my list servs hoping for commiseration and someone will have typed a sentence like "Well, if they don't give you car service or send you to ABA then they're just not that into you." Or "Unless you get at least 4 starred reviews you can forget about another book." And on like that, filling my head with chatter about how I need to be on a Buzz Feed list. Now. Or someone else posts about how she wrote four books in 8 months and oh my god, maybe she could have done more if only she hadn't slept that one night.

The truth is that we can't ignore all that. It's a business after all. It's not just craft. But sometimes, it has to be about the work. Because without the work, the other stuff doesn't matter.

Last week at The Writing Barn, we talked about the work. We did the work. We lived and breathed art. It was GLORIOUS!!

Occasionally we had a few interactions with wildlife because out in this piece of South Austin there are deer and foxes and spiders and snakes and ants and bugs of all sorts. Nicole and I believe there was a bobcat trying to get into our cabin one night. Bethany believes we were hallucinating. To which I reply, it might have been a cougar.

Want to find out more about The Writing Barn? (So many great authors coming to teach, including Nova Ren Suma and Margo Rabb and Matt de la Pena!!) Here's the link: http://www.thewritingbarn.com

What I'm Reading Tuesday and Getting Ready for THE A-WORD

So far, April is not exactly, as the poem says, "the cruelest month" but it certainly has been the busiest! It is now officially less than a month until THE A-WORD (Soho Press) on 5/13 and less than month until the A-WORD Launch Party at Blue Willow on 5/17 and less than a week until the SCBWI Houston conference where I am once again honored to critique manuscripts, which I have been reading and pondering and scribbling notes on. It is -- as of yesterday-- also exactly one year until FINDING PARIS hits the shelves from Balzer and Bray.

In fact, yesterday Harper Collins sent me my Author Questionnaire! This always makes me both giddy with excitement and also panicked. Because it asks questions that in essence say, "What hugely famous people do you know who will say nice things about you and this book and thus make people buy a bunch of copies?" Okay, it asks other stuff, too. But that's part of it. You'd think this wouldn't phase me by now. You would be wrong.

But still! Another book! The crazy wonderful of this is NOT LOST ON ME.

But I have not  yet posted my TLA post and so that will come tomorrow. Like I say, it's been a busy few weeks.

Also just bought tickets for the Grand Ole Opry for when we're in Nashville this fall. I am on the fence about this, but I am told I will love it. So there you go.

And now on to what books I'm obsessed with this week!

• Want a lovely, thoughtful, gorgeously illustrated picture book with an amazing story and message? Then pick up a copy of GRANDFATHER GANDHI, co-written by my talented Austin friend Bethany Hegedus and the grandson of Gandhi, Arun Gandhi. There is a post-9/11 story behind this book and it is just as moving and magical as the book itself. 
• Still plowing my way through book 2 of the Outlander series. Jamie and Claire. Scotland! Romance! War and rebellion! Weird historical facts about lice and medicine and childbirth! Scottish dialect that sticks in my head and makes me say to the dog, "you're such a wee piggie" and then try to speak Gaelic!
• Alternately also reading two prized galleys I picked up at TLA: WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart (to whom I shall always be grateful for blurbing Sweet Dead Life) and THE TRUTH ABOUT ALICE by Jen Mathieu, a talented and brilliant debut author from right here in Houston. (in fact we'll be signing together, along with Kristin Rae, on 6/28 at a co-sponsored event at BOTH Murder by the Book and Brazos Books!)

Both are must reads. LIARS has an enormous marketing campaign behind it so you've probably heard about it. Something has taken the main character's memory of a horrible accident and she is trying to piece things together. There is wealth and secrets and life-long friends and a love gone wrong and a powerful family and so much more. Mostly it's the writing. You may actually guess the secret early on. But Emily Lockhart's prose and style just thrill me. Such a cleverly crafted book.

Likewise for ALICE. Mathieu has hit it out of the park on her first book and it's receiving a very warm welcome. Multiple narrative voices. A small town. A girl named Alice about whom there are salacious and abundant rumors. And the truth that lies somewhere in between.

Actually it's a good pairing, these two books. And it's been interesting reading both while finishing the edits for FINDING PARIS, which is also about family secrets….

What are you reading this week?

Little Turnings: Of the Writing Barn, The Official Sara Zarr, and a genius named Bethany Hegedus

The Official Sara Zarr and Me *

Spent the weekend in Austin in an intensely wonderful 3 day workshop with the brilliant YA author Sara Zarr. The topic was what she calls the "little turnings" of emotional pacing. It was a truly amazing time-- filled with hard work, lessons of craft, and the opportunity both to have my writing workshopped by 20 other mostly published authors as well as to workshop their pieces for them. There is, let me say for those who have never experienced, a certain level of bravery involved in stripping your work bare in front of 20 other writers. A great level of trust and respect that must exist for it to work.

Sara Zarr -- whose STORY OF A GIRL (Little Brown) was a National Book Award Finalist-- and who has written many other equally brilliant books that make me want to read them over and over, is a fine and thoughtful teacher. We talked about tools of writing craft, about beginnings, middles and ends. About how your readers are stepping through the door of your book and you must work to ensure that they are not confused. About character self-awareness and how it guides backstory. Prologues and flashbacks and methods of storytelling. 3 act structure and about the important marker that occurs somewhere at the first 30 or 35 pages. About emotional growth. And much, much more.

By the time Chris Mandelski (THE SWEETEST THING, Egmont) and I hit the road at 5:30 for Houston -- along with EVERY cyclist who had ridden the MS 150 from Houston to Austin and was now driving home on 290, bumper to bumper with us-- we were pleasantly exhausted from learning, talking, digging into the work. Also, there is a certain amount of red wine that is consumed in these events, particularly when 6 of us stay on the top floor of the Albert Oaks B&B and thus ensure that the party continues for a good long while...

Bethany Hegedus, whose most recent MG novel is TRUTH WITH A CAPITAL T (Delacorte/Random House) is not only an author and my friend, but also the Creative Director of an amazing space for writers in Austin called The Writing Barn. Her latest creation, this series of Advanced Writing Workshops designed for working writers rather than novices, is truly fabulous. If you want more information on the Barn,  click HERE .

We writers need our tribe. This weekend allowed us to bond and work and create and laugh. Amazing stuff!!

*Photo by Sam Bond

Up later this week: THE LAURA LINE by Crystal Allen and a contest for an advanced ACTUAL copy of THE SWEET DEAD LIFE!! (you know you want it!!)