Idea Garage Sale: Serial Dreaming

It's official: I can't stop doing this! I have no desire whatsoever to have new story ideas at this time. I want to get on with the lesbian western, finish the research and get into that comfortable chapter-a-day groove of creation. And I still have plenty of old ideas to put up at the garage sale. Last night before going to bed I briefly considered which one I should blog about today; and what do I do? Dream a trilogy!

It could be three books, three movies, three graphic novels, or a three-season television show with a high rate of character turnover. I'm not sure how it broke itself down into three distinct parts (I don't think I woke up in between them) or how it relates to the other dream content I recall, and the details have blurred under the onrush of necessary Sunday chores, but the rough outline is clear enough.

Part 1: A woman with supernatural powers is pursued by a group with similar powers. She fears them, is hostile to them; but she also fears her powers and what she might do to people with them. I don't think she was a vampire, but an authoritative middle-aged Suit in the pursuing group was; he had none of the sadomasochistic sex appeal of the modern literary vampire. (Hmmm...neither did the last vampire I dreamed and blogged about. This guy wasn't played by Patrick Stewart, though - he had hair.) When, after numerous action-packed adventures in which she manages to keep her moral compass, she is finally taken, she learns that she had gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick about her pursuers. They are an agency whose job is to locate, evaluate, and recruit or restrain people with oddball powers. They have access to trainers, researchers, therapists, and other helpful resources. Since she has chosen the moral high ground time after time, she is offered an education and a job.

Part 2: After some lapse of time, the protagonist of Part 1 is leading her own team to contain an active threat, someone who has gone rogue from the agency. It wasn't clear to me why a more experienced leader didn't have this job, and the middle-aged vampire who became her mentor does not appear. You can always think of a good excuse for this kind of thing, though. She has to step into a leadership role, form a coherent team, outsmart someone who knows all the procedures and powers to be brought against him, and fight the bureaucracy on the side.

Part 3: The protagonist of the last two episodes and the middle-aged vampire are missing, teams are reshuffled, and strange orders are coming down from on high. The second-in-command from Part 2 (who resembles me; I was less of a spectator and more of a POV character in this part of the dream than in the first two) is not supposed to look for her, but of course does so anyway. Lethal force is authorized more than it used to be, team leaders are given much less autonomy in the field, narcs are planted in the teams, and supernatural people who in the past would have been recruited or considered so inconsequential as to require only casual monitoring are being confined. Solving the mystery of the disappearances also reveals a shift in the policies of the agency. It's warping from an agency that serves and protects to one that controls. The vampire leads some of the characters in going underground, while the protagonist determines to work within the organization to turn it away from the disastrous path it's on.

Obviously, this was setting up Part 4, but I woke up. The concept doesn't suck, but my husband reads this sort of thing a lot more than I do, and all the characters were adults. Besides which, I've already got a book to work on. Maybe it'll simmer and turn into something, but I doubt it. Certainly, I could have dozens of dreams containing story concepts as good or better by the time I felt able to focus on it.

All you have to do is prime the pump a bit. Once you have the habit, you have it, and can't turn it off.

Once more, into the breach

I'm mostly recovered now and trying to get focused on the next big phase of research: the Day Trip(s). (Though I also need to get some queries out again...sending queries is like sweeping; no matter how good a job you do, it'll need doing again.) I could research Civil War Texas for decades and not get done; but it's getting to be time to plot the story in detail and for that, I need to get away from the libraries and the computers and go out to look at things. The plot and the research are leading me inexorably toward Medina and Bandera counties as the necessary setting for certain crucial sequences; possibly, for the bulk of the book. I'd rather have it set in town, but some important things can't happen here.

I know that some people set books in places they've never set foot in, and for the life of me I can't understand how they do it. Maybe the left and right turns and the views from the heights and the particular quality of the light at certain times and seasons won't make it into the published book - but if I'm not anchored in all of that, I can't write the book at all.

I think this has its source in Air Force Bratism. Though, looking back on it, I didn't have as peripatetic a childhood as some people, at the time it felt like we moved a lot: the Rio Grande Valley where I was born, the San Antonio area, two places in Alaska, Iowa while my dad was in 'Nam, Maryland, and finally West Texas, before I came to San Antonio and felt like I was finally in a place I belonged. One of the methods my mom used to ease the transitions was to read up on an area before we moved there, and then to aggressively read the local literature when we arrived. We stopped and read historical markers, went to all the log cabins and pioneer villages and museums, toured the houses of local celebrities, and found out all the cool things there were to know. The better you know people and places, the better chance you have to love them; or at least to rub along with them in comfort.

So now I have to go look at Medina and Bandera counties. I'm trying to reduce the mileage Moby and I have to travel by hunting up local sources of information on the Civil War period beforehand, so I can make arrangements to view them, but it's uphill work. As I believe I've mentioned before, the Civil War was a sufficiently nasty time for community relationships in western Texas that nobody wanted to remember. Consider this quote from a postwar letter to a Northern cousin by a Castroville man:

"I had a store before the war & sold a good deal, but during the war, I stopped selling, for there was nothing but robbing, stealing, hanging, & killing, that no one was secure of his life if he was a Confederate, but now the war is over, & everything quite as before, & I mean to reopen the store again."

(TX 976.442. Castroville, Texas 1844-1899, Illustrated by 3 Pioneer Families, the Pichots, Pingevotes, & Ihnkens. Yvonne Chandler Ludwig, "Bonnie." )

If that doesn't say "interesting times," what does? But as for what specifically happened when, who robbed and murdered whom, and why - nothing to see here. Move along. I need to call Ms. Ludwig and see if she has anything more on the topic, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I suspect if she had more she'd have put it in.

The story occurs between Appommatox and the beginning of Reconstruction, so I need to get moving if I want to view the geography at the proper season. At the moment, I'm planning to drive out to Bandera one day next week, see the Frontier Times Museum and scout the geography, do a little birding and hope for a lucky break. If I get one, good. If I don't - well, I write the story anyway. Maybe I won't happen upon a piece of ground and realize: "Here, right here, she finds the body," or be told the local ghost story that ties in perfectly; but maybe I will. Maybe I'll see the bird that achieves metaphoric significance. Maybe I'll come back feeling that I'm no further ahead, and then next week gain the key piece of folklore that makes it all come together, but wouldn't recognize if I were never on the spot.

It sure won't happen if I don't give it a chance.

The Kaleidoscopic Aftermath

TLA is only a memory - actually a shifting kaleidoscope of memories that are hard to sift through. Here's the sorts of memories that stand out for an author who is attending as a personal act, with no current book to promote and no particular agenda to pursue:

Kathleen Duey acting all overwhelmed that she was put on an all-star panel (the Tayshas author round-up) and me telling her emphatically (I was not yelling, don't believe what she tells you) that she's a National Book Award finalist and is finally among her peers; that in a line-up consisting of Kevin Brooks, Chris Crutcher, Matt de la Pena, Cory Doctorow, Kathleen Duey, and Shannon Hale, her name was far from the smallest one there.

I saw that Toni Buzzeo was signing so I crept up on the Upstart Booth, wondering whether she'd recognize my name or if I'd have to prompt her. She hasn't been on the mailing list where we met in years and I think I've only seen her face-to-face a couple of times. But she jumped up to hug me as soon as she saw me. I may have half-talked her into coming back. I hope so.

Standing in front of the regional SCBWI booth luring people to sign up for the raffle, holding my stack of speakers' booklets so they could use them as a table, and telling them about the booklets as they signed. They all took one - but will they use them? Time will tell...

Admiring the graphic album adaptation of Darwin's Origin of Species at the booth. The rep said they were free for librarians. I admitted sadly that I wasn't a librarian. She told me to take one anyway. It's gorgeous.

Standing in line an hour and a half for Gary Paulsen, reading Mudshark and listening to West Texas librarians discuss budget cuts in their systems, none of which seem to affect the admin side, only the teaching and library staffs. Then going to the next line, for Jacqueline Wilson, and getting through in five minutes. That must have been a novel experience for her! I hope the quality of fan she met made up for the quantity.

Going by the signing area during the Bluebonnet luncheon on the theory that the lines would be short. I was right! Joelle Jolivet had time to make elaborate drawings along with her signature as she signed Oops! and 365 Penguins.

The librarian from Laredo assuring the rep for Arte Publico Press that the sorts of books they produce are passionately wanted along the Rio Grande.

The D&D-playing kid who sold me a book at the Otter Creek Press table, which I would not have bought on my own because there's no point studying the list of self-publishing houses and I justify the books I buy here as market research. I ran into him again on Friday and he told me he'd found some D&D books. I hope he can get into a good group.

Realizing there were books behind the hand puppets at the Overlooked Books booth and having to break out the credit card.

Me, Christine Kohler, Kathleen Duey, and Dori Hillestad Butler sitting in the registration area after the exhibit hall closed gabbing. I gradually got time limits from everybody and herded them down the Riverwalk to eat at Acenar, where the dishes are just as pricey as at other restaurants, but you can get a perfectly good lunch off the appetizer menu. Christine and Dori knew each other online and Christine, Kathleen, and I all knew each other from before; I'm afraid we spent a lot of time gossiping about people she didn't know, which wasn't because she wasn't interesting.

Running into local SCBWI stalwarts Cyn and Greg, Maritha Burmeister, and Lupe Ruiz-Flores periodically. The line of librarians around the Simon and Schuster booth waiting for free display copies. Being first in line for Brian Yansky to sign arcs of Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences. Hearing the scoop on how nice Rick Riordan's mother is - she was at one of the cocktail parties. Seeing the line for Suzanne Collins an hour before she showed up and throwing in my hand. I heard they gave away wristbands and people ran to get them, but I didn't see that. I told a teen-age boy Kathleen was signing Skin Hunger and Sacred Scars right now and he immediately headed over to get them. Publishers pushing free chocolate. A bronze hippo bench. Library system reps wearing Fiesta paper flower wreaths.

Sore feet, full backpack, books by friends, books by strangers, everybody everywhere I turned completely into the books.

It's always the same. That's why I go, even in off-years when I have no books to promote, even when cash flow is poor, even when it pours down rain, even when I know I'll need three or four days to recover.

Idea Garage Sale: Heroic Guido Bros. & the Fairmount Hotel

I'm still recovering from TLA, but it's a matter of discipline to do an Idea Garage Sale on Sunday so here I am. This is part of my repertoire of downtown stories that I trot out when people come to town for events, the story of the Guido Brothers and the Fairmount Hotel. And I'm going to do it the way I do it on the tour, straight out of my head, factual fudging and all.

Once upon a time, developers bought up most of the land east of the Menger Hotel and west of the highway to build Rivercenter Mall. To make room, they tore down the existing buildings. However, one building, the long-empty Fairmount Hotel, was protected by historical statutes and the Conservation Society (known locally, with various degrees of admiration, affection, and irritation depending on circumstances, as The Little Old Ladies in Tennis Shoes. Though they no longer look as old to me as they once did, but that's neither here nor there.) They could not get permission to tear it down and they could not or would not incorporate it into the mall design. A buyer was found for the building, but the parties could not agree on a good way to preserve the Fairmount where it was and also build the mall. The only option was to move it.

This raised two problems. One, no one had ever moved a building the size of the Fairmount before; and two, to get to the new location, on the edge of La Villita and across from Hemisfair Park and the Convention Center, involved crossing at least two, maybe three, bridges over the Riverwalk. It was a massive job of engineering and few companies even bid the job - but Guido Brothers (yes, they've heard the jokes) stepped up to the plate.

They did a lot of math, reinforced the bridges, and took several days or weeks in preparation. When the big day came, the streets and relevant areas of the Riverwalk were closed. News cameras were everywhere, including the national news. Maybe some international, too, I don't remember, but probably. I was working downtown but I didn't get to see any of it; not willing to fight the crowds. It took all day long, easing the great bulk of hotel through the streets. But I remember this: As the hotel rolled majestically over each bridge, the senior Guido Brother stood beneath it, saying: "If it breaks through, I'd rather be down here than up there."

I tell this story a lot. I can sort of see the picture book in my mind's eye. Wouldn't it be a good one? The kind that inspires kids to become engineers? But it would have to end with the triumphant opening of the hotel, not with the punchline.

I'm not gonna write it. Picture books and non-fiction are not my genres. By the time I'd interviewed the principles, checked the quote (which is maybe less of a quote and more a summation of what people assumed to be his motivation), researched all the facts, and uncovered a couple of other anecdotes (because you always uncover more cool stuff when you research) it'd be too long for a picture book and the energy with which I tell it would be lost.

Telling a story in the oral tradition is one thing. You're in a dynamic relation with your audience and if you have to guess, fill in memory gaps, simplify complex politics, and generally pull the longbow on the fly to keep the story running without getting sidetracked, well, you do. When you put things down in cold print, you have time for accuracy; and because of this, people trust print. Most folks who aren't involved in producing printed text have this vague idea that somebody, somewhere, has the job of stopping writers from publishing inaccuracies. Especially in picture books, which are for children and, therefore, educational by default, right?

And if you're a Guido Brother and you're reading this - enjoy being a hero of legend, okay? Even if I never have bothered to learn your first names.

Why You Want to Go to TLA

Maybe it's a long drive into San Antonio, you're at a stage of your career at which the whole schmooze librarians/collect catalogs/study the resources round seems less important than staying home with your butt in the chair writing, you've got a day job that's nothing to do with libraries and you'd have to justify taking a day off, it's supposed to rain some more today, your niece's birthday party is tonight; so you're thinking: "Naw, I don't want to go to TLA."

Yes, you do. Check out who's signing today:
Suzanne Collins - 10-12 in the Author Signing Area.
Chris Crutcher 10-11 in the Author Signing Area.
Kathleen Duey 10:30-12:30 in the Author Signing Area.
Shannon Hale 10-11 in the Author Signing Area. (She also signed yesterday.)
Gary Paulsen 2:30-4:00 in the Author Signing Area.
Liz Garton Scanlon 11-12 in Booth 1031, Simon & Schuster Children's
Cynthia Leitich-Smith 2-3 in the Author Signing Area.
Jacqueline Wilson 2-3 in the Author Signing Area.

Check out who you missed yesterday:
Karen Cushman
Kimberley Willis Holt
Ingrid Law
Rick Riordan
And that's only the ones I know will make most people in juvenile/YA lit squee; you may well have a favorite author in the schedule whom I skipped.

It's almost 8; Exhibit Hall opens at 9; I'm not dressed yet. If I want to catch everybody I want to catch I need to get going. So - see you there. (I'll be the one in the hat, the beautifully matched green stripes, and the big black backpack.)

Overload

The Ides of April are upon us and I've let things get atop of me again. Here's what's happening today:

Last year's tax return due (did that in February, already got the refund - yay Block!);

First quarter estimated taxes due for us self-employed types (wrote the check two days ago, it's sitting in the mail slot waiting to go out; since I can't predict my income I take the money I made in the relevant months, divide by 3, donate 1/3 to the gummit and 2/3 to savings. This pretty much guarantees a refund rather than a nasty surprise at tax time.);

Manning the SCBWI booth, #2649 at TLA, 2-5:30 (printed the instructions, have backpack partially loaded);

Support Teen Literacy Day (Zoned completely on this one till Cyn mentioned it to me; however, looking at the SA Library Event Calendar, the Enchilada doesn't seem to be doing anything specific for it, either, so I refuse to feel bad);

Operation Teen Book Drop (Aagh! I've dropped the ball on this one, and no excuses. Technically it's not too late if I can get my act together. Perhaps if I drink more caffeine and clear my head - get thee behind me, Meniere's!); and

Getting together with friends at TLA. Often when there's a big convention in my town I'll do a lot of welcoming prep, take responsibility to coordinate everybody so we can meet at a specific place at a specific time - one year I even printed and distributed maps for my ALA company - but - not this year. The only person I've met so far is a friend of my husband's, for whom we acted as native guides Tuesday and Wednesday.

I'm a good native guide. She's writing a paper on O. Henry, so we took her to the O. Henry house. We took her to three restaurants (Twin Sisters, La Margarita, and The everlovin' amazing Cove) she probably couldn't have found on her own, took her to see some of the Missions and the egret rookery at OLLU, walked her all over downtown to show her selected highlights and get her as oriented as we could, brought her home to see my husband's Sherlock Holmes collection, and even managed to get her to Cheever's Books, though not to any of the other used bookstores on Broadway; all with a steady infodump on how various places were haunted, what happened to who where, what used to be here, what's going to be there, why I regard the Guido Brothers as heroic despite their being part of the overdevelopment of my beloved town, and all the other stuff that spontaneously spills out of me if you dare to accept my help. But that was two afternoons I didn't spend doing other stuff.

It's always like that. It's always going to be like that. More stuff should be done than anybody can actually do. So I chant my mantra - All I can do is the best I can do - and now I need to find my center and figure out what I can still do about Teen Book Drop (I don't feel good about leaving books lying around for people to find; it's supposed to rain all week - maybe the bus drivers would let me leave something on the wheel well? - and I don't think I have any backed paper to print the bookplates on) instead of fretting about how hard it all is. Then it'll be lunchtime and then time to head downtown, and no housework done, and I haven't had a moment to look at the historical maps on the CD I bought at the San José gift shop yesterday but - at least the birds are fed and the blog is posted, right?

And I'm only a little lightheaded. Nothing is spinning. Physical limitations suck.

Upcoming Events

Mid-April, the Month When Everything Happens. You won't see me at BEA, Bologna, or London Bookfair. Even if I had a book to promote, I'd be unlikely to have the sort of book that inspired publishers to cover expenses to go to such places, and besides, there's plenty going on right here in San Antonio. Everything's blooming or about to. Weather fronts are playing holy hell with my internal gyroscope. Fiesta starts this Friday, preceded by Fredstock, the live music festival hosted by the only real radio station in town (KSYM); but I'll barely be able to notice that because it's San Antonio's turn to host TLA!

Yes, for $20 plus round-trip bus fare of $2.20 per day (drive and park downtown? As if!) I can wander the floor, see what's coming out, snaffle up as many freebies as I can carry (and thanks to superior backpack design, I can carry quite a bit), discreetly schmooze the editors and marketing people and librarians, meet up with other authors, and generally overstimulate myself from Wednesday morning to Saturday noon, if I'm up to it all. I'm getting a bit of an early start, because an online friend of my husband's is coming in a day early and we'll be going downtown this afternoon to play native guide. On Thursday I'll be on the floor from 2:00 to 5:30, manning the SCBWI booth, #2649, so if you're in town, too, that's where to find me.

Despite our historical anti-intellectual track racord, Texas by virtue of its size is ridiculously influential in the American school market. A lot of publishers that would send only sales reps to most regional library conventions will spring to send editors and authors to TLA; and they're usually happy to come. After all, who wouldn't want to be in San Antonio in April! It was at TLA one year in the early '90s that I experienced what is probably my lifelong high point in terms of celebrity: a librarian I ran into at a booth looked at my name tag, did a double take, and informed me: "You wrote Switching Well!" Yes, I did, ma'am, and thank you for noticing.

Hey, I'm an author. I'll bask in any flickers of limelight I can.

SCBWI booth attendants will not be there to promote their own work, but to give out speaker booklets to interested parties and educate people about the resources SCBWI offers - to librarians and to writers. We are, however, holding a raffle of signed books by local authors and illustrators. Most of the booth attendants, naturally, are locals, but in addition to San Antonio authors we'll be representing, and represented by, people from Austin, the Brazos Valley, Houston, and North Texas.

If you've never done a TLA, my advice is to spend most of the day Friday working the dealer's floor systematically, entering raffles, collecting free catalogs, and making notes of the booths with the most interesting products. These will include not only books, but audiovisual resources, teaching aids, jewelry, toys, and librarian-themed clothing. Concessions are expensive and unhealthy, so carry a backpack with trailmix or something in it! Wear comfortable shoes. Keep purchases to a minimum. Then, come back Saturday morning and hit all your favorite publishing booths, because they'd rather give away their display copies than carry them back to New York!

See you there.