On Writing, by The Simpsons

If you missed the hilarious episode of The Simpsons last week about writing children's books, you can watch it on Hulu now! Even if you did see it, it's worth watching again.

I caught most of it last week but missed the first few minutes, so I'd been waiting to see it from the beginning, when Lisa finds out that everything she's ever known about young adult literature is a lie. Of course the painful discovery involves a piece of fossilized dinosaur poop. Isn't that always the case?



Some people were upset about the implication that the Harry Potter series was also ghostwritten by a team of idiots, but I think readers are familiar enough with Harry Potter to know that J.K. Rowling wrote the books herself and isn't a front for a room full of pill-poppin' lit majors desperate for work.

I loved the whole episode, but here are a few favorite moments:

Lisa breaking the news to Marge about Betty Crocker: My own mom still insists that Betty Crocker is not an invention of "Twenties-era ad men," but a real person.

"Follow that dinosaur!" Homer's response to this request from Lisa is "I've waited my whole life to hear that!" Haven't we all, Homer. Haven't we all.

Lenny turning down the offer to join the writing team: Homer and Bart go to Moe's bar to recruit Lenny, who can't join because he's "just adopted a Capuchin monkey and can't leave it alone during the bonding phase." I cannot wait to use this excuse.

The vampire genre has been sucked dry. Some of the titles on the library shelves during the team meeting: Vampire Cheerleaders, Southern Vampires, Vampire Frankensteins, Vampirates, Vampire Babysitters, Vampire Princesses.

Everything Neil Gaiman: Bart makes it clear from the beginning that Neil Gaiman's job is "to get lunch, and lose the British accent." Neil gets defensive later about his contribution to the book and points out, "That tuna didn't salad itself!" British Fonzie is right.

"After just two more games of online Boggle, I'll be ready to start writing." While Homer and Bart's team is busy finishing The Troll Twins of Underbridge Academy, Lisa is organizing her CD collection, building a tower of pencils, cleaning windows, visiting a book fair, and watching cat videos. In other words, BEHAVING EXACTLY LIKE A REAL WRITER.

So, what did you think of the episode, and what were your favorite parts? I'll enjoy reading your comments while I sip this Mai Tai.

That's What (S)he said: Weekly Round-Up

The other day I wrote about several recent and upcoming elephant books for kids. Thankfully, you can never have too many elephant books, and none of them look similar to my own book. But maybe you've had that problem--you had a great idea for a book, then discover that someone else (or a few someone elses) wrote a book a lot like it. Now what? See Jen Nadol's guest post on the Cynsations blog, "Oh No! Someone Used My Idea!"

A trending topic on Twitter that's funny for some reason we can't explain and might have stolen some of my productivity this week is #replacebooktitleswithbacon. Some favorites: Are You There, God? It's Me, Bacon, How Stella Got Her Bacon Back, and Something Bacon This Way Comes.

One thing that keeps me reading a book is wondering how in the world the character is going to make it through his predicament. Are the stakes high enough in your own book? Not until the reader can't see a way out. Kara Lennox has a great article, "Is Your Black Moment Enough?" on Anna DeStefano's blog.

If you're interested in author marketing, be sure to bookmark Kristen Lamb's blog. We authors are really good at networking with each other, but it's harder to reach out to our readers online. "The Secret to Selling Books Part I--Let's Get Sticky", shows how we can better connect with our audience.

Here's a video I just saw today, but I have a feeling it'll go viral. Perfectly captures the emotional stages a writer goes through when writing a novel. I especially love the editing stage:


What happens to an elephant who survives a land mine explosion? If she knows the right people, she gets a giant prosthetic leg! Edited to add: Just saw that there's a documentary being made about the hospital that cares for this elephant and others injured by land mines. Learn more and see the trailer on the Eyes of Thailand website.

In other animal news, how can you not love a girl who punches a bear in the face to save her dog?

Have a fun and safe holiday weekend! Watch out for bears. But if you do see one, you know what to do now.

Elephants: The New Vampires

It seems like elephants are everywhere lately, and not just in my house. They're showing up in a lot of books. (And an Oscar-worthy movie you may have heard of.)

The upcoming elephant books for kids I've seen all look awesome, and thankfully not too similar to my own (like what happens in the "Oh No! Someone Used My Idea!" experience).

Since you can never have too many elephant books, here are some to look for:

THE MASTERWORK OF A PAINTING ELEPHANT by Michelle Cuevas (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, October 2011)
I remember seeing the listing for this one back when it sold and thinking it sounded fabulous. Here's the description from the publisher's website:

Ever since he was an infant, Pigeon Jones has lived on the back of an artistically gifted white elephant named Birch. Birch is a loving father, but that doesn’t stop Pigeon from wondering about the human parents who abandoned him. Birch has dreams, too—of being a well-known artist, and of finding the acrobat he fell in love with while they performed together in a circus years ago.

And so, on Pigeon’s tenth birthday, their search for fame and lost loves begins. Pigeon and Birch paint their way across the world, dodging an evil circus ringleader, freeing zoo animals, and befriending singing hoboes along the way. But when they reach the end of their journey, Birch must master the most difficult art of all: letting go and allowing his beloved Pigeon to stand on his own two feet.

Switching from fantasy to historical fiction, one that's completely different but from the same publishing house (Macmillan's leading the herd in the elephant trend) is the young adult novel AN ELEPHANT IN THE GARDEN by WAR HORSE author Michael Morpurgo (Feiwel & Friends, October 2011).

Lizzie and Karl’s mother is a zoo keeper; the family has become attached to an orphaned elephant named Marlene, who will be destroyed as a precautionary measure so she and the other animals don’t run wild should the zoo be hit by bombs. The family persuades the zoo director to let Marlene stay in their garden instead. When the city is bombed, the family flees with thousands of others, but how can they walk the same route when they have an elephant in tow, and keep themselves safe? Along the way, they meet Peter, a Canadian navigator who risks his own capture to save the family.

As Michael Morpurgo writes in an author’s note, An Elephant in the Garden is inspired by historical truths, and by his admiration for elephants, “the noblest and wisest and most sensitive of all creatures.” Here is a story that brings together an unlikely group of survivors whose faith in kindness and love proves the best weapon of all.

TUA AND THE ELEPHANT by Randal Harris, illustrated by Taeeun Yoo (Chronicle Books, March 2012).

Not much online about this one other than the Publishers Marketplace announcement where it was described as "...a middle-grade novel about the remarkable journey of a young girl who rescues and befriends an elephant."

And a couple of this year's elephant books that are already out:

I loved SMALL AS AN ELEPHANT by Jennifer Richard Jacobson (Candlewick, March 2011). It's a midgrade novel, but one that I think teens and adults would enjoy too. This was a hard one to put down, because I had to keep reading to find out where Jack was going to go next and if he would find his mom.

Ever since Jack can remember, his mom has been unpredictable, sometimes loving and fun, other times caught in a whirlwind of energy and "spinning" wildly until it’s over. But Jack never thought his mom would take off during the night and leave him at a campground in Acadia National Park, with no way to reach her and barely enough money for food. Any other kid would report his mom gone, but Jack knows by now that he needs to figure things out for himself - starting with how to get from the backwoods of Maine to his home in Boston before DSS catches on. With nothing but a small toy elephant to keep him company, Jack begins the long journey south, a journey that will test his wits and his loyalties - and his trust that he may be part of a larger herd after all.

Ann Downer's ELEPHANT TALK: THE SURPRISING SCIENCE OF ELEPHANT COMMUNICATION (Lerner, 2011) is fascinating nonfiction book about elephant communication.
Here's a bit about the book from Ann's website:

Everyone has heard a bull elephant trumpeting, in a Tarzan movie or at the zoo. When we think about elephant communication, we think about that call. But elephant communication is much more complex and much more interesting that what we can hear with our human ears. Did you know that elephants also communicate through low-frequency rumbles we can’t hear? Or that they read vibrations in the ground through pads on their specially adapted feet? Or that they send signals to rivals and mates using chemical signals and body language?

Share your favorite elephant books in the comments, if you have some I haven't mentioned here. Any others you know of that are coming soon?

Then go on and write that elephant-lion romance book. I know you're thinking about it.

Edit Letter Fun: Are You a Butcher Or a Coddler?

I've been spending a lot of time in the revision cave lately, but have crawled out for a while in an attempt to blog more often. Plus it's dark and there are spiders in there.

Last week I went to Austin with critique buddies Christina Mandelski and M.G. King for the Texas Library Association Conference, which was all kinds of awesome. It's so much fun to see what books are coming out later this year, and I caught up with some writing friends I don't get to see often enough.

During a conversation with one of those writer friends, I discovered that we were both working on editor-requested revisions, but her attitude was...what's the word? Healthier? Sane? Not completely twisted?

Here's a dramatization of the conversation. (We weren't dressed as bunnies, but bears in bunny costumes make adorable stand-ins.)

I hope I'm not quite as bad as Lavender Bunny, but I do feel a little stabbing pain in the heart when I hit "delete" over a scene that might not be working.

That's normal, right? (Right?) We spend a lot of time with these words, so it hurts to toss them out. They look so sad out there, all alone in the rain, faces pressed against the window...

But, we have to be practical too, and think about what's good for the story. Maybe it's a nice scene, but it's not moving the story along or it's taking the reader out of the action. Editors are good at spotting those things that we overlook because we're too close to the story and the cuddly words.

So which writer are you--the butcher who sees the cutting as part of the job, or the coddler who wants to cling to your words?

And those of you who've been through it before, share any tips you have for getting through the edits! Don't forget to put on your bunny costume first. It's the best way to deliver difficult news.

More Children's Books From The Celebrity Apprentice

If The Celebrity Apprentice saw a jump in ratings this week, they probably have the children's literature community to thank. Writers, book lovers, and publishing professionals tuned in, knowing it would be somewhat painful, but we had to watch, even if we'd have to do so while peeking through our fingers like we were watching a horror movie.

The challenge for each team this week was to write a children's book and perform the story in front of a group of real, live children. (And you know someone on staff had the task of checking cast members' probation requirements to make sure that was okay.)

Here's where it gets more interesting--the book had to be about someone on the team. A children's book. About one of the Celebrity Apprentice cast members. Have you seen the participants? The only way it could get train-wreckier is if they threw in the love child of Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson.

Editor Margery Cuyler of Marshall Cavendish advised the teams, not knowing that she should tell them to do the opposite of what she really wanted them to do. She told the men's team not to write a rhyming story. John Rich (of Big & Rich) interpreted that to mean he should take on the challenge of writing a rhyming book.

No, John, she wasn't daring you to try it. She really meant it. Don't.

But, the men do have two songwriters on the team--John Rich and Lil Jon, so maybe it wouldn't be too bad. The team chose John Rich to write the text of the book, probably because they couldn't decide whether Lil Jon's "Can't Stop Pimpin'" or "Move Bitch" would make a better picture book. Lil Jon did end up being the main character, though, as a boy who was teased at school because he was, well, lil. Of course the teasing intensified because the schoolchildren reasoned, naturally, that his shortness precluded him from learning the alphabet and counting. But Jon showed them at the end, via rap, that he did indeed know his ABCs and 123s. Then he promptly bust a cap in their kindergarten asses.

The women's team, after two hours of screaming arguments and insults, settled on a book about LaToya the Lion, who couldn't roar. (Spoiler alert--she was able to roar at the end!).

I know there's so much we miss because of editing, so I can't help but imagine some of the discussions that ended up on the cutting room floor. Here are some titles I would like to have seen come out of those conversations:

Gary Busey: "I got it. Let's write about a pigeon named Gary and make a book kinda like Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. We'll call it Seriously, Do Not Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. For the Love of God and the Safely of All, Do Not Let Him Drive the Bus. Or The Snowy Day would work too. Am I wearing pants?"

Richard Hatch: "No, kids like Dr. Seuss. We should write something like a Dr. Seuss Book, like Oh The Places You'll Go. Federal Prison, For Example.


Jose Canseco: "We're not doing Dr. Seuss!"

Meat Loaf: "Put the chair down, Jose, or I will beat you with my sequined jacket."

Jose: "We should do something more classic, like a fable. Kind of like Jack and the Beanstalk, but it's Jose and the Beanstalk. And instead of planting the magic beans, he eats them, and he gets big and strong. Then he kills the giant with his bare hands..."

Gary Busey: "How's he gonna get to the giant, Jose? You have to climb the beanstalk to get to the giant! You can't climb the beanstalk if you don't plant the beans! Everyone knows that! He's gotta plant the beans, man!"

On the women's team, I liked Marlee Matlin's idea to have a deaf character in the book be the one to teach LaToya the Lion how to roar. Fun twist at the end of the story. But no, Dionne Warwick said that would be too much of a downer, since the children would just feel sorry for the deaf character, of course. And children aren't ready for that kind of diversity. (So shouldn't they have made all the characters in the book the same kind of animal? They had a dog in there! And the lion was friends with a chicken! That's the kind of diversity NO ONE is ready for.)

Marlee Matlin: "If we're not going to have a deaf character, let's do a sign language ABC book. I'm thinking R Is For Roundhouse Kick to Dionne Warwick's Face."


Playmate of the Year Hope Dworaczyk: "How about a new version of Pat the Bunny? It'll be a lift-the-flap book--"


Lisa Rinna: "No, I've got it--you know what would be fun? A sing-along story, like The Wheels On The Bus. You know, like THE BUS YOU ALL F-ING THREW ME UNDER!!!"

Certainly this is just a partial list; there's so much potential in this cast. What other children's book titles do you wish came out of the Celebrity Apprentice teams?