Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

I always associate these lines with any sort of creative process, none so more than writing. Although not a writer myself, aside from some university dissertations which I dare not revisit, I become intrigued when I read this article about a collection of first edition books that have been annotated by their author and will be sold off at a charity auction. Some of the authors are rather scathing of their own work such as Yann Martel, who concedes he never completely liked the opening line of The Life of Pi. Other annotations include small details like Lynne Truss fixing a hyphen that appears on the title page of Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Despite the success that all these authors have continued to have, I did wonder if they slightly gnashed their teeth in frustration as they penned their annotations, being unable to permanently improve or alter their books.

The annotations made by these authors on their own works does speak to Eliot’s words, in that they must have pored over each page of their manuscript, made corrections, scrubbed out words only to later add them back in but at some point had to take their toast and tea and draw the line somewhere. In turn, as books now appear in digital as well as print, is there the possibility that an author could endlessly tinker with their work? This piece in the Christian Science Monitor a number of years ago pondered the very question with its author concluding that this could very well be a ‘doomsday scenario’. In journalism, it is not infrequent to have articles amended, so can the same opportunity be afforded to authors who may wish to use the malleability of an e-book to tinker with their own work as time goes by? Or once published, should they be left untouched? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Well, in a perverse way, Crombie’s speech hit home for me with a lot of the pitches I heard. SO many of them were fantasy of one sort or another—high fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian, historical, mythic, you name it, I heard it at least twice. I guess you could say these writers were not writing what they knew, in that none of them had lived in outer space or fought with witches. But by following so many of the genre conventions and storylines that have dominated YA over the last five years, I’d venture that these writers actually are very much “writing what they know”, i.e., writing in the same book worlds they’ve lived in for so long now.

So, here’s the plea I’ve made before on this blog—how about some realistic YA fiction for a change? I’d suggest that realistic YA offers writers a way to avoid both sides of the “write what you know” trap. For one, realistic YA has been in such short supply lately that there aren’t a lot of people to slavishly imitate. And second, as adult writers, viewing the “real” world through teen eyes is a total act of not-knowing. I’d particularly make this plea to my new friends in Texas, which is such a fantastic setting for realistic YA—hey, all you need to do is look to S.E. Hinton’s nearby Oklahoma for proof!

I’d say the subject that most dominated our discussion was the 1980s setting.  Jim and I both felt that though we love how it plays out in the book, it might have given us some pause as agents considering the book in the slush pile: as Jim asked, “Do kids care about the 80s?”  Fortunately, we had some researchers in the chat to uncover the answer for us.  Anecdotal evidence from Susanna Donato (@SusannaDonato) and DGLM client Brian Bliss (@brainbliss) suggests that teens didn’t mind the choice, might even have been intrigued by it, but would not have cared about the music referenced, which is the source of much of the bond between the two characters.  I was perplexed when Bryan reported that his teen creative writing students wouldn’t have bothered to look up the bands on Park’s mixtapes, until I realized that I didn’t bother to look up the comics that take up an equal amount of the narrative, if not more.  Of course, I’ve heard of them, but it doesn’t mean I fully understand the context.  In the end, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.

After all, that moment where Park first realizes Eleanor is reading his comics along with him and stops to let her catch up has plenty of impact no matter what.  That was one of Kellie Lovegrove (@k_love671)’s favorite parts of the book.  Other favorite moments in the first half included: the very end of the first half, which made Susanna’s heart race.  She also loved when Park asked his grandmother for batteries for his birthday so he could give them to Eleanor.  Jim swooned over “You look like a protagonist…You look like a person who wins in the end.”  And for me, the line referenced in the title of this blog entry, which I loved so much I ran across the room to get a post-it to flag it.

So if you couldn’t make it, tell me, what was YOUR favorite part?  And what did you think of the time period?  Do you have the same sense of dread about whatever Richie reveal is coming our way in the second half?

On May 14^th at 6 p.m. EST, Jim (@JimMcCarthy528) and I (@LaurenAbramo) will reconvene at #EandPdglm to talk with everyone about the rest of the book.  If you haven’t gotten started yet, please jump on in!  It’s a pretty quick, short, wonderful read.  (Though Jim and I were rooting for a contrarian to come along and mix it up—are you that person?  Come tell us why!)  I can’t wait to find out how the rest of the book will unravel.

And in case you want to catch up so you can join us next time, here’s a handy dandy widget with all the good stuff to come out of our chat under the #EandPdglm hashtag:

Tweets about “#EandPdglm”

For me, this point was put into sharp focus when I came across this piece of news. The article reports that Magdy El Shafee, the author of Egypt’s first graphic novel, Metro, has been arrested following clashes between rival political groups. Hearing of this news put back into mind when El Shafee was previously arrested by former President Mubarak and Metro banned for “offending public morals.” Only recently has El Shafee’s novel been made available in Arabic in Epygt.

So, tonight, when we have the privilege of exchanging literary treasures, keep in mind those who still struggle and fight to make their voices heard, if only for a night.

So, this spring season is no exception to my memoir craze. Right now, I’m really enjoying Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In (I know, I’m not the only one riding that train as evidenced by its #1 NYT bestseller status). Although it’s not a memoir, there’s a lot about her own history in there that I find compelling.

Other memoirs on my reading shelf at the moment are Emily Rapp’s The Still Point of the Turning World. This one is difficult reading. It’s about her son’s diagnosis with a fatal genetic disorder. He died just a couple of weeks before the book’s release. But Rapp is a transformative writer, her prose is gorgeous, and it is worth it to check this one out.

Being the mother of identical twins, I am fascinated by all twin stories. There is a new memoir, Her, by Christa Parravani, an identical twin who lost her sister at twenty-eight to a drug overdose. It’s a fascinating look at the identical twin connection and the intense grief when one sister loses not just a sibling, but a part of herself.

I’d love to hear from our readers what memoirs you love, old or new, that I can add to my large and growing collection. Until then, I will be reading the memoirs on my shelf and looking for new projects in this category to blow me away.

What interested me about this device however is that its output consists of graphs, numbers and statistics, data which does not visually reflect the more subjective and emotional side of sleep, which is dreams. Does the empirical complement or explain the ethereal? Can raw data explain why I always miss the last minute winning goal for my boyhood soccer team? (It’s a recurring dream, so I’ll always get another chance).

With this swirling around my head, I was drawn to this article on the Guardian. The article posits that e-books are a different genre from print books because, “With the book, the reader’s relationship to the text is private, and the book is continuous over space, time and reader. Neither of these propositions is necessarily the case with the e-book. The e-book gathers a great deal of information about our reading habits: when we start to read, when we stop, how quickly or slowly we read, when we skip pages, when we re-read, what we choose to highlight, what we choose to read next.”

To link my personal anecdote with the article – will the e-book and its possibility to trace and digest our preferences change the role of our relationship with books? Much like the alarm being set to suit the sleeper, will the e-book become malleable to the reader’s preferences?

I am still chewing this over and over. I see the journalist’s point, that by being able to extrapolate a reader’s reading habits through an e-book we would be able to see what kind of reader we are through a set of data, that can then be used to adapt the text, “If 50% of readers stopped reading you postmodernist thriller at page 98, the publisher might recommend that for Version 2.0, the plot twist on page 110 be brought forward.”

It is indeed an interesting perspective to the future , but is not yet the reality, which is why I am still mulling over the possibilities over private vs. public reading habits. In the meantime, let me know what you think of this article. Is this the way you view e-books? I’ll get back to you in a future blog post with more thoughts on this debate and I’ll let you know if I ever score that winning goal!

There is little doubt that these are wonderful new ways for us to communicate with each other and make new “friends” and contacts;  for those of us who “follow” – they are often enormously entertaining, sometimes even enlightening.

But, it seems to me that they are becoming such a distraction that they are taking us away from the serious writing we should be doing.  Indeed some of my authors spend so much of their time on social media – to promote their work or for other reasons – that they complain they have no time left to write their books.

I found this article by Matthew Dicks in The Huffington Post last Thursday and thought it was relevant as it speaks about those things that keep us away from our writing and how many of us have trouble overcoming them: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-dicks/when-do-i-write-in-the-cr_b_2775893.html?utm_hp_ref=books

Indeed, I am almost afraid of the potential addiction of social media knowing that many of my colleagues spend so much time on it.  There’s a fine line between using social media wisely and abusing it to the exclusion of our more important work and it’s one I struggle with as much as everyone else.

I wonder what you think of all this?  Has social media taken over your life?  Do you feel you are drowning in it?  Or, do you want to spend all of your time chatting  with your “friends” and “tweeting”?

Doubtless the anticipation for the new book, entitled The Goldfinch, will heat up when it gets closer to its October publication date. But I was tickled that even the initial Amazon listing merited attention, because it highlights one of the things I love about the book biz—that readers are willing to wait, and in Tartt’s case, to wait a loooong time.

I mean, what other media or cultural event can sustain that kind of lag time anymore? I suppose there’s a lot of excitement out there for Star Wars VII right now, but there have been a ton of other Star Wars material to keep the franchise relevant since the last movie back in 2005. On the other hand, the band My Bloody Valentine just released their third album after a 22-year wait, and while the band’s fame and influence has exponentially increased over that time, from what I can tell the reaction has been muted, at best.

What’s especially heartening about the Tartt news is that with the rise of ebooks, we’re constantly told that content is king, and that you need to produce new work continuously or else the world will pass you by. And yet, an author like Tartt can wait over a decade to publish a new novel, and it still makes headlines—and better yet, gets readers excited.

Are YOU excited for The Goldfinch? What other authors have you been waiting on for a long time now?

Now, the reaction to this redesigned cover was articulated by generations of readers who identified with the work and had personal memories with which the new ‘chick-lit’ like cover had no resonance. What about newly released books, though? Their covers have no history, so to speak–they are there to draw the reader in, tempt them to open the book to the first page, and ultimately purchase that book.

As the Plath incident shows, there is no universal design that can satisfy everybody. Which is why I was curious when I came across the piece in the Millions that examined the difference between US and UK covers.

Being a Brit living in the US, I feel unofficially qualified to pinpoint and understand the difference in covers and offer an explanation. The result: I can’t. In fact, I preferred the majority of the American covers. I’ve racked my brains, and all that I can say is that my judgment is based on purely aesthetic taste, whether it be on the type, composition, colors, or images; rather than national sensibilities that I grew up with “across the pond,” or have picked up while living in America.

What kind of cover draws you in? What’s your favorite cover? And have any redesigns of your favorite book stirred your emotions – good or bad?

So, let’s all just give up now, right? I mean, did you read the piece in The Paris Review about the writer who approached Philip Roth in a deli on the Upper West Side with his just-published novel, and was told he should quit while he was ahead? That’s not the most inspiring story to share with our blog readers.

But this one is. Perhaps you’ve heard of Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love, one of the biggest books of, well, all time. She read the Paris Review piece and has something to say to Roth, and about being a writer. Let’s just say she puts a more positive spin on the subject than Roth did. It’s entertaining and hopeful, and pretty funny.

So while the gloom and doom scenarios about publishing abound, and all of us in the business will face inevitable rejection (repeatedly), writing and the business that surrounds it will always be a place we can go to find creative energy and inspiration in the art of creating something from nothing. And how many jobs can you say that about? Not many so chin up, keep writing, and welcome to the club!