I am officially done with copy edits for THIRD GRADE BABY. Now it’s in the hands of those super talented people at FSG who take a manuscript and make it into a book.
They do stuff like choose a font and…ummm…well, i have no idea actually. Book design is a complete mystery to me. The only thing I know for certain is that I am extremely excited to see my book!

I am also excited for Fall!

It is my absolute number one favorite season. Just this past weekend the weather turned brisk, and I had a very strong urge to buy school supplies. Unfortunately, I no longer need school supplies. I do get to buy office supplies, which I enjoy, but it’s not quite the same as the big back to school shopping spree I had back in my elementary days.

Maybe one day I’ll write about a character buying school supplies.

This fall, however, I am going to go back to school. Some wonderful teachers and librarians that I have agreed to let me into their classrooms and libraries to practice my school visit presentations. I am very excited for this opportunity. I’ll be sure to post more as the time draws near!

Hmmmmm…I wonder if there is any such thing as school visit supplies…

So, I’m finally taking a break from my current work-in-progress to post.

Right now, I’m writing a first draft. For me, this is the absolute hardest part of writing a novel. I mean, really, imagine closing your eyes, concentrating really hard and conjuring up a lump of clay with nothing more than your measly 10% brain power. Now you kind of know what writing a first draft feels like.

Whenever I’m writing a first draft, I try to get it out as quickly as possible, otherwise I lose my train of thought. Then I have to go back and reread everything I’ve written before, and as the book gets longer and longer, that takes longer and longer and then Boom! the baby wakes up from his nap and I have to stop writing and I haven’t even written anything yet.

So, if I could, I’d like to take a whole week and write non-stop, maybe at some beautiful writer’s colony or five-star-hotel. The only problem is that I can’t really manage more than 1500 words at a time, even though I want to write more, my 10% is kaput.

Maybe someday I’ll unlock the secret 90%. Maybe then I’ll be able to simply telepathically transport my book into other people’s brains rather than having to write it and get others to buy it. Do you think that would be illegal?

Now, back to work! Because once I get that lump of clay, then I can really dig in and have fun. Get my hands wet and slimy and sculpt and sculpt and sculpt. (Revise, revise, revise!)

But first I have to get there. Which means I need to go hit my 1500.

Bye.

P.S. Sorry, still can’t tell you what it’s about.

once upon a time
on a laptop far away
there was a blank screen

there was a writer
a whisper; an idea;
a pile of words

which, in some order
that is still a mystery,
become a novel

Okay, the rules:

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

So…eight?
This is going to be tough.

1. I am Marcia Brady. Well, sort of. There are three boys and three girls in my family and I’m the oldest girl. (However, I have never been pegged in the nose with a football.)

2. Sometimes I write my books while I’m sleeping. That is, I wake up hearing my characters talking in my head and I know that I was dreaming about them.

3. I once shot an M-16. (At a target!)

4. I am still sort of afraid of the dark. I no longer take giant running leaps onto the bed to avoid monsters grabbing my ankles, but I don’t like walking around the house at night without lights on. Did you see the movie Sixth Sense? This is why.

5. My first kiss was in France on a hill overlooking the most idyllic view of the French countryside. We rode up there on the boy’s motocyclette. It’s a better story than it was a kiss.

6. In fourth grade I witnessed my teacher save a classmate from choking on a Twinkie by giving him the Heimlich maneuver. He tried to swallow the whole thing at once on a dare. It put me off Twinkies for life.

7. I love board games!

8. I’d rather be reading would be the perfect bumper sticker for me.

That’s some sort of right of passage, no?

1. Are you a writer or an illustrator? Or both?
Writer, definitely writer.

2. How long have you been blogging? Who inspired you to begin blogging?
I’ve only been blogging consistently for a couple of months, (although I made one post a year ago when I set up my account. It’s since been deleted because it said something dumb, like “Look at me, I have a blog.” I was inspired to blog by all the other great children’s book writers whose blogs I enjoy reading.

3.Where do you blog? What noise is in the background?
Well, I blog at my dining room table, in the comfy chair in my office, in bed, on the couch. Right now the noise in the background is my toddler reading himself Byron Barton’s Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs.

4.What is the primary reason you blog?
Well, I guess it’s to market myself, but that doesn’t sound so nice, huh? How about I blog because I have a lot of random things to say and I think the world might be a better place if I put them in cyberspace?

5.What has been the unexpected delight of blogging?
Getting comments, definitely! People actually read this?

6.What has been the hardest part of blogging?
Blogging.

7. Describe your day in detail from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed.
Are you kidding me? If I did that you’d understand that I really don’t have time to do that.

8. Have you ever had a guest blogger or done a virtual book tour?
No. I think you have to be cooler than I am to do that.

9. Of all the blogs you read, what is your favorite?
Well, I always check Brotherhood 2.0 and John Green’s blog. I also enjoy reading Lisa Yee’s blog, Editorial Anonymous, Fuse #8, Meg Cabot’s blog, Maureen Johnson’s blog and Blogging for Mom

10. Which kidlit blogger would you like to meet in person?
That’d be John Green. For the laughs, and because maybe some of his magic sheds and would get stuck to my clothes.

In writing news, I just received the line-edited manuscript from my editor. Apparently I am rather limited in my ability to convey embarrassment. Several times in my book I describe the main character feeling heat rising into her cheeks. Each time my editor oh-so-gently penciled the words “hot cheeks” in the margin, and I came up with new and varied ways of describing humiliation.

However, now, I can’t stop thinking that hot cheeks sounds like a rather frisky nickname, as in
“How do you like my book, hot cheeks?”

Could I say that to a reviewer, or would that be cheeky? (I know, but I couldn’t resist.)

This was posted on Publisher’s Marketplace yesterday afternoon!

Children’s
Jenny Meyerhoff’s THIRD GRADE BABY, a chapter book about the growing pains of a spunky, clever, resourceful girl whose out-sized personality makes up for her under-sized height, and GIRL IN WAITING, a contemporary YA retelling of the Book of Esther on the high school football field in which a teen cheerleader, caught between first love with a crush-worthy quarterback and familial duty to an Orthodox cousin turned team kicker, sorts out her Jewish identity, to Beverly Reingold at Farrar, Straus, in nice deals, by Michelle Andelman at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (world).michelle@andreabrownlit.com

Now everyone in the publishing world (who read the deals section of PM between yesterday afternoon and right now) knows my great news. Yeah!

I went to visit a six-week-old that I know the other day, and boy was he cute. He’s in that very first smile stage when the side of their nose crinkles as they try to get the corners of their mouth lifted. Sooo cute! But by far the highlight of the visit was getting to use the funniest baby product I’ve ever come across…the breast bottle!

Yes, you read that correctly. It is a squishy silicon bottle shaped like a you-know-what! (Thankfully it was the hold in your hand variety and not the kind you strap to your chest!)

Also got an email from my editor yesterday. (MY EDITOR! YAY!) That ought to keep me on cloud nine for the rest of the month.

Hope you have a purple day!
Jenny

http://jennymeyerhoff.com/2007/03/19/150/

So, here’s what I’ve learned about myself this week since I got the offers for my books and started blogging (well, posting twice.)
1. I have a really hard time accepting complements
2. I have a really hard time talking about myself
Connected? I think maybe. And maybe that’s why I write, too. It’s much easier to go there with characters I’ve made up, then with myself.

But since I’m here….
No news yet on final details of the deal, but I find for once it’s easy to be patient. I have a new young adult novel (book #4) I’m just beginning, and I’d like to get some momentum going there. I also have book #3, a funny story about a 10 yr. old boy, that needs to be revised. Plus another little project I’ve got goin’ on. Once the deals for #1 and #2 (okay, get your heads out of the potty) are done, I’ll probably be swamped with revisions.

Sooo, I should be writing not blogging right now.

(Not that I don’t want to blog with you right now, but I really shouldn’t be talking anymore. Okay? Bye!)