SCBWI Conference

On Saturday, I attended a one-day SCBWI {Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators} conference here in town. About 130 people attended, writers and illustrators. The food was hideous, actually worse than hideous, but it is what it is. It made me appreciate all the more the many conferences put on by RWI and the numerous RWA conferences I attended in years past. Yes, having coffee and tea available for X number of hours costs money, but sometimes it's money well served!

And for those who do wonder where their entry fees go--flying the various editors/agents into town, paying for their rooms, paying for their food, and sometimes paying them for their time. It pays for the conference room, the art illustrator room, the tables, the microphone system (yes, each mic has an additional fee), and the video system. The professionally presented folders given to each attendee, the paper fliers inside the folders, the name tags {though I did think it a little crass to request the plastic name tag holders to be returned. Yes, I know they cost, but really?}

And, of course, the food . . . which ran out. I happened to be table 11 out of 13 tables and by the time I went to get my food, there wasn't much left . . . except onions. Who in their right mind would have a bushel of sliced purple onions for a bunch of women to put on their ham/turkey/ beef sandwiches?? Okay, there were men there, too, but would you eat onions if you wanted to talk to an editor? More tomatoes, please.

Onward to the presentations:

There was one art director who went over the process of matching illustrator to author, and how they design the roughs into finished product. I've seen this presentation before, but it still brings the point home about how the text is only 50% or less of most picture books. Prior to this conference, I had the revelation about picture books . . . they are similar to screenplays--very pared down to allow for illustrator interpretation.

Then there was an editor who specialized in early readers: 5000 words and about 80-90 pages. Think Magic Treehouse books. There are illustrations, but it isn't so picture heavy as picture books. They are used more to break up the text and help the reader enhance the story.
One major thing I took away from her talk was to keep the early chapters shorter. At the early reader age, kids are very proud to say, "I read a chapter!" I remember this when my daughter was first reading. Yes, dear, you read a chapter . . . it was only a page and a half, but it was a chapter!  Once the reader is intrigued and invested in the stories, the chapters can become longer.

Another editor from a different house talked about action, action, ACTION! Unless you've been living under a log, you would realize that everything in today's world is instantaneous. Video games are action packed . . . and if books aren't action-heavy then you've lost your reader even before you start! This is a tough age to write for--early middle grade.

And the last speaker was an agent, who talked about reasons for rejections. Like we need to hear that, right? Well, this was a little different take on the topic. The reasons an AGENTED story is rejected by an editor. This agent shared intensely detailed reasons for picture book rejections. It really gave the audience some valuable insight as to the depth an editor views the story.

There it is in a nutshell.

Later, Peeps! I have a picture book to finish!

Wow! The Things I Learned!

This week I plan to devote my blogs to what I learned at the SCBWI conference.

First of all, I have to mention that we had the most beautiful snowfall on the day of the conference. Tulsa doesn't usually get snow in March, much less 6 inches! We beat the record by ten days and five inches. Wow! So, of course, since it IS Oklahoma it is now melted with only a few traces of snow remaining.
--Drat! the ground is too soft to do any of the gardening I have planned!

I really liked the way this SCBWI program was set up. We had six speakers who spoke for 45 minutes then we had a 15 minute break to get up, walk around, get coffee or use the restrooms. Throughout the day, they had a box for questions that would be used during the panel session at the end of the day. The moderator spent the second to the last session reading and organizing the questions. She was able to group similar questions together forming a question that composed all the questions. Very well organized!

Since this is a SCBWI conference, the I stands for illustrators. There was a separate room for illustrators to show their portfolio, their product. and there was a first and second place winner. In addition, the illustrators were able to hold a 'pitch' type session with the Simon & Schuster art director. I don't know if this was an extra charge for the illustrators, but talk about an opportunity!
--Just like the editor critique that I paid $30. Best money ever spent! I'll blog about it tomorrow.

Just like any genre, children's books have sub-genres, BUT within each sub-genre comes another set of sub-sub-genre. Yeah, it is very complicated because there are no real delineations between them. So how does a writer figure out where her work resides?

I had my epiphany during Kristin Daly's talk. An editor with Harper Collins, she talked about the role of Easy readers and chapter books. Many ER's and CB's feature a series character: Henry and Mudge, Amelia Bedelia, Junie B and Judy Moody. Some of these are CB's, but they are also Easy Readers. Same thing goes for picture books and easy readers. How do you tell the difference? Other than PB's being cut on larger sized paper?

Now, I think the editor will have the final say in this decision, but you have to know roughly where your work resides. Take my Peter books. I always thought they were picture books, but came to the conclusion they were really Easy Readers. It's a combination of many things: sentence structure, vocabulary, and identifying with character--read that as building a series. When I wrote them I envisioned children reading the story, BUT an adult can also read to the child. The words are simple, but there might be one or two the child would have to decipher within the context of the text or pictures.

Hopping around here: Half of the picture book story MUST be told within the illustrations. While the illustrations in Easy readers tend to confirm the written text.

And while we're at it, throw word count to the dogs. There is no place for it in these books. Some chapter books are as short as 500 words or as long as 15000 words, depending where they fall in the child's reading development. Children's books have to fall in a very structured book format, except the longer chapter books. Even the Magic Treehouse books fall into this category and they are beginning chapter books.
PB's, ER, and early CB's have to be 32 pages. Period. Which means you have to make each page count. If you thought adult readers were unforgiving, children are worse. Do NOT bore a child.

So this week I've taken five different books off my daughter's shelf and will be typing them into the computer. I plan to use single space, but will double space between the 'pages'. I want to visualize the rhythm, pattern, and pace of these published books before I edit my Peter stories. I think the Peter stories will do well, but I need to figure out the formatting and pacing before I send them to the editors and agent.

I now have the tools to improve my stories, and I intend to use them. We all know how stubborn I am about my writing, but to ignore this chance to improve my story would be stupid.

Write on!

Oklahoma's SCBWI Conference

On Saturday, I'm attending my first SCBWI conference. For those not in the know, SCBWI is the acronym of Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. In Oklahoma they hold a conference every year, splitting each year between OKC and Tulsa. Yay! This year it's in Tulsa. I only have to go downtown for an all day seminar.

I also spent some extra bucks for a writing critique by one of the agents or editors. I sent in my first picture book story, Peter's Messy Room. Since then I've written a total of 8 Peter stories and I'm working on another PB along with a MG book.

To tell you the truth, I've been in a blue writing funk. I can't seem to write on ANY story, not even my adult UF. Ever since I entered Demon Within in a couple of writing contests, I'm stumped. What if I actually get some feedback that will help me figure it all out?

I think part of my problem is mental. Isn't it always? I know I'm going to get feedback on my pb, so why write something if I might actually get some constructive critsism? But I can tell you right now, I can almost guess exactly what the crit will be: Nice writing, but nothing special.

The story of my life. I've never excelled at anything. Oh, don't get me wrong, I've tried. I've tried all sorts of things, but I'm just not gifted at any one thing. And it's frustrating. I've trained horses, writing romance, teaching MT's and aerobics, and even my old career as a MT bench tech. I was good, efficient even if all my evaluations were true, but I didn't excel.

I'm just sick and tired of sucking at things. Hell, I can't even lose weight though I'm exercising my wazoo off at the moment. Damn plateaus.

Sorry, didn't mean for this to turn into a gritch session.

I am excited about meeting other writers and learning the secret handshake of children's book publishing, but I'm not holding my breath.
--that way I won't get disappointed.

I'll let you know how it went on Monday's blog.