Locked in like prisoners . . .

they were forced to read until they could read no more. And why could they read no more? 
Not because they had given up the will to read, but because-

they had come to the end of the book.

Obviously this headline was a clever ploy to grab your attention. However, the facts happen to be true. This last friday at the Staunton library a group of sixth grade girls and their teacher Becky McKenzie allowed themselves to be locked into the library overnight for a read-in. Of my tween novel Coyote Summer.

I couldn't be more proud. In fact, if family matters had not necessitated my going out of state I would have locked myself in with them. 

A read-in. What a great idea. How I would have loved that as a young girl. In fact, I can picture the exact space we could have used in the Morristown TN library. The new one, that is; there wasn't even room for all the books in the old library, And besides, it was kind of creepy.

I had another great encounter with a young reader this month. While I was up north, one of my 10 year old first readers  brought me her edited version of my next book. 

I must admit, I had not expected her mother to print it out in its final mark-up state. Nor had I expected a line by line edit and critique from a 10 year old. I kind of thought she was going to read it as a PDF and tell me if she liked it or not. 

But my cousin's daughter's daughter (I have no idea what that makes her) Natalie doesn't do anything half-way. Not only did she comment, she commented on the comments. My personal favorites were a comment she made to me while we were going over her suggestions, "I don't think that comment is right. You might do it that way if this was a YA book, but not for kids my age," and of course my personal favorite,"I think the way Margo did it was better."

And - she changed the title. 
Thank you, Natalie. I agree with almost all of your suggestions.

Perhaps you can suggest a read-in at your local library when the next book comes out. I'm still thinking about that title.

The holiday season has me in a mood . . . (giveaway inside this blog!)

Actually, several moods. They pretty much change every ten minutes, from appreciative of people's generosity toward the burned-out relative of a neighbor of mine, to irritated at the constant Christmas music blaring from a huge speaker at a house up the block, back to appreciative of people shopping downtown instead of at malls an hour away, back to irritated that everyone feels the need to do so much shopping at all.

Yes, I am in the running for the Scrootch 

+

award this year.

Much like every year.

So I've been thinking hard, (and yes, it hurts) and I believe I might have come up with a way to extend the appreciative and curb the irritation. 

Hmm, that kind of sounds like a 50's song lyric.
But I digress.

So welcome to my Scrootch avoidance plan for 2014.

Either:
1. Buy small, homegrown, or local.

Buy an autographed or personalized copy of  Coyote Summer at www.margosolod.com and I will donate the profit from the sale to our local food pantry. And they could use all the help they can get.

or- B. Give gifts.

Buy 2 copies  of Coyote Summer because everyone has a child/grandchild/niece or nephew. Give one to your local library or local elementary or middle school. Actually, I have no control over this. Do what you will with them. Just remember the blood, sweat and ink that was sacrificed . . . (Oops, I digress again. Pardon.)

Not only will I donate the profits but I will send you, ABSOLUTELY FREE an autographed copy of my memoir with recipes, Cuttyhunk: Life on the Rock. 

This is actually a triple win because now you will have an emergency gift for aunt Hilda when she brings you over an unexpected fruitcake. Or, even better, a gift for your child's school or sunday school teacher. Cookies are so old hat.

You give, I give, you give again, The food pantry gives. (and probably aunt Hilda gives the book away as well. It's the gift that keeps on giving.)

Start the ball rolling. 
(Irritation is so unattractive in a woman my age)

And we thank you.

Look what showed up in my inbox . . .

Dear Ms. Solod,

My name is Sage Cooley and I am 6th grade. You met my mom, Carol Cooley who is also an author, at the VCCA in September. She gave me a book you wrote called Coyote Summer. I just finished reading it and I thought it was really inspiring. It exampled the characters personalities strongly; it almost felt like I knew them myself. I thought Jessie’s discovery was so unique. The fact that she went out of her way to save Lancelot (that's so cute by the way) and the pups to replace a bad memory is heartbreaking. I got so involved in this book I refused to go to sleep.

I used your book for my English report. I matched all the main characters with animals that fit their nature. 

Lara = Deer

Susan = Koala

Jessie = Coyote (of course)

Mrs. Silva = German Sheppard

Susan’s Dad = Bear

Daniel = Rabbit

Amanda = Dolphin

I look forward to your upcoming books and I think you’re really talented. (Thanks for the autograph in the book 😊) 

Thank you so much for the amazing story,

Sage Cooley

Why Bayberry Island,

you may ask?

Well, because, bayberry. It's all over the east coast. It's on a lot of islands. And I wanted my island for the Summerhood Island series to be an island that could be anywhere, or at least more places than specifically off the coast of southeastern MA that could be seen from Aquinnah if you put a quarter in the binoculars at the edge of the cliffs and looked to your right.

Yeah. That island. Only a little broader in scope. 

So that's why I chose Bayberry out of all the names suggested to me for Jessie's island. And here's  a little discourse on the bayberry plant. You don't have to read the whole thing. You may skim. You have my permission.

Waxing eloquent on wax myrtle

·         Thursday, October 2, 2014

The Narrow-leaved Candleberry Myrtle 

One of the most popular (and prolific) trees in the Lowcountry is the wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera). This aromatic shrub grows everywhere – behind the dunes line on beaches, in woods along the marsh edges and in the natural thickets that often surround our shopping centers and building lots. Since it is unusually hardy and will take salt, wind and heat, the wax myrtle has become an extremely popular landscaping ornamental. There is hardly a landscaping plan that omits the versatile myrtle, especially for high-abuse places such as parking lot entrances and along roadways.

The wax myrtle has as many names as it has uses, and a remarkable historical record. It is variously known as Sweet Myrtle, Sweet Bay, Bayberry, Waxberry, Wild Tea, Tea Box, Tallow Bush, Merkle, Mucklebush, Mickleberry and, last but not least, the Candleberry Tree. For centuries, Lowcountry cooks have been using the slender, pungently “sweet bay” leaves to flavor stews and broths.

Yet, if we lived a century or two ago, the myrtle would have a far greater significance to us than mere food flavoring. It was not given the name “wax” myrtle for nought. The tree’s berries provided the wax to make the bayberry candles so popular for their aroma.

If you get up close and personal to a wax myrtle right now, you’ll find that it is chock-filled with clumps of small, round, greyish-blue berries. It was from these berries, harvested in the fall, that the wax was made for candles. The berries were placed in boiling vats, and as the wax rose to the top, it was skimmed off and strained. This process was repeated again and again until a cake of bayberry wax was formed. Enormous amounts of bayberries were required to produce a single pound of wax.

In 1732, English naturalist Mark Catesby described the annual fall ritual of harvesting bayberries and making wax from the bush he named the “Narrow-leaved Candleberry Myrtle.”

Wrote Catesby, “In November and December, at which time the berries are mature, a man with his family will remove from his home to some island or sandbanks near the sea, where these trees most abound, taking with him kettles to boil the berries in. He builds a hut with palmetto leaves, for the shelter of himself and family while they stay, which is commonly three or four weeks.

“The man cuts down the trees, while the children strip off the berries into a porridge pot; and having put water to them, they boil them until the oil floats, which is skimmed off into another vessel. This is repeated until there remains no more oil. This, when cold, hardens to the consistency of wax, and is of a dirty green color. They then boil it again, and clarify it in kettles which gives it a transparent greenness.”

In olden times, candles were generally made from two types of material, tallow and beeswax. Those made from natural beeswax burned with a more pleasant odor and generally gave off a more stable light. Tallow candles were usually made from fat extracted from beef and mutton but had a lower melting point and burned faster. Bayberry candles were considered better than those made of tallow and were probably the most familiar type of candle used in colonial America.

English explorer John Lawson praised them, writing in 1700, “the Berry yields a wax that makes candles the most lasting and of the sweetest smell imaginable. Some mix half Tallow with this Wax, others use it without mixture; and these are fit for a Lady’s Chamber.”

The wax myrtle was also esteemed for its medicinal properties. Root bark from the tree was collected in fall and boiled in water, producing an astringent and stimulant thought to be both a headache remedy and a curative for scrofula, jaundice, diarrhea and dysentery. A tea made from the leaves was thought to relieve a backache and would also “clean out the kidneys” and “overcome chills.”

Bay leaves were also thought to be an excellent insect repellant. Leaves were placed under and over beef at slaughtering time to keep flies away. Branches were strewn around houses, chicken coops and in beds to repel fleas. Rich in tannin, they were also used for tanning leather during the Civil War.

All in all, the wax myrtle is a simply wonderful shrub. It grows in sand; it will take both sun or shade. It looks wonderful when it is pruned ornamentally and just as good when it is left to its own abandon. Birds love the tree, both for nesting and for its berries. It even smells good.

Of all the wonderful natural abundance we have here on our coast, the wax myrtle is right up at the top in my estimation.

Next time you smell the alluring scent of a bayberry candle, give the valiant wax myrtle an appreciative nod. It has been doing good duty to both man and nature for a long time.

Suzannah Smith Miles is a writer and Lowcountry and Civil War historian.

And now . . .

I'm off to Virginia Center for Creative Arts (hereafter referred to as VCCA) for a two week writing residency.

ok, that's an easel, yes. but behind the easel is the barn where the studios are.

The purpose of the above heretofore mentioned residency is to attempt, nay, to Succeed in finishing, completing, concluding and drawing to a close book the second in the greatly beforementioned Summerhood Island series.

note Summerhood Island in script under title

Why, you may wonder to yourself, (or even out loud) is she writing in this peculiar, unusual, nay, even abnormal and irregular way?

Mostly because I can. And right soon now I am going to have to get serious, buckle down and put my nose to the grindstone (ouch)

and write at a middle reader level.

Please, all of you who are just about to make some clever retort to that last remark; hold your respective tongues. Or hold another's tongue, if one happens to be within reach . Ick

Anyway, once you have gathered up all the extraneous words in this post and thrown them out the back door you will be left with this:

I'm outta here for a while. To come back with my new book

2nd in the Summerhood Island series -
Summer of the Ghost/Thief

 
or on it. 

I shall send you juicy tidbits from the  reading and writing world so you won't forget me.

Until I return, I remain
yr hmble and obdnt srvnt

Back to the story . . .

When last we left our heroine, she was waiting-

To keep from going crazy that first week I sketched a rough outline of changes that needed to be made in books two and three.

The second week I swore off writing altogether and read thrillers, 

 took long walks with the dogs,

 and pretended to be social. I hadn’t gone anywhere or seen anyone for more than a brief hello for the past month.

Except, of course, for my sacred Wednesday clamming date with one of the Paul’s or with Arnie. I freely admit it, I am a clam slut.

 I will with go to Nashweena pond any Wednesday with anyone who has a boat and is willing to go at low tide, whether it be 6 a.m. on a foggy cold June morning or a scorching noon in August.

But I digress. I digressed a great deal during those weeks.

I made lists of other publishers who might look at the book without an agent.

I made lists of people I knew who might know agents who might look at the book.

I made lists of things to be done once I got back to Virginia. And lists of dog breeds I liked, and old friends I hoped to see again.

Books I wanted to read. Sheet and towel colors.

I read more thrillers, and worked on the second book in the series.

Finally, what seemed like thousands of years later

but was actually about three weeks, ( I can digress a tremendous amount in three weeks), I received a reply.

Brandylane would like to see the rest of the manuscript.

I think it took me four minutes to attach the book and send it back.(three and a half minutes were spent jumping up and down.)

I won’t make you wait again. They accepted Coyote Summer for publication.

Then the real fun began.

When last we left our author . . .

She had just dusted off her old middle reader book manuscripts-

And was appalled to realize how badly they were written.  Passive in voice, boring verbs, and a severe lack of attention to detail. 

But the plot line was strong and the characters fairly well drawn.  There was some good stuff there, and the books were, I felt, worth saving.  Armed with my newfound knowledge in how to write decent prose, I immediately set about attempting to rewrite all three novels at once.

Right.  Well it seems like a good idea at the time,

continuity girl

 given that I was going to have to make changes in the first novel that would run through the other two.  And in theory it was a good idea.  It’s just impossible to rewrite three books at the same time and keep everything straight.  At least it was for me.  I either needed to go back to rewriting the novels one at a time, or hire a continuity girl.

There’s never a continuity girl around when you need one.

So I started with Coyote Summer, both because it was originally the first book in the series and because it felt the most complete. I’d played with switching the other two in the series around a bit, and even taken Hurricane Summer out of the series entirely and re-written it as a YA novel. They were going to need some major work.

I re-wrote Coyote Summer 

sentence by sentence. 

Literally.  I tightened and restructured, and moved my heroine's age up a year.  I’d read that kids liked to read books where the hero or heroine was at older than they were, and I intended this book for the 8-12 year old average age range. 

I then sent the book off to my editor for Cuttyhunk: Life On The Rock, and held my breath.

She liked it. Oh, she had many editorial suggestions, and I ended up paying her for a professional edit of the book.

I wanted Coyote Summer to be the strongest possible story when I sent it out this time around. I gave the professionally edited manuscript to  my partner Deborah, and waited rather breathlessly for her opinion. 

It had been quite a while since she’d seen the book.

Her comment? “The end is too rushed. You need two more chapters.”

Surprisingly, this proved to be very easy. I think I must have had the same thought brewing in the back of my mind for some time.

Finally, it was as done as it was going to be. I had researched publishers who would look at this sort of book without an agent, and made a small list. First on the list was a publisher whose work I’d seen at the VA Festival of the Book when I read there the previous year. I’d taken a copy of his catalog, and Coyote Summer seemed a good fit.

I composed an appropriate introductory letter and sent off the first three chapters.

to be continued . . .

I've been very busy

Not writing this blog, as you may have noticed. Or, perhaps not. Either way, it has been not happening here, right under your collective noses.

I have been writing postcard poems, instead. One a day, for the 31 days of August. And haikus, some of which you've seen on my facebook page, if you read that sort of thing. 
And trying to master social media to promote Coyote Summer. 

I did begin to write the story of how the Summerhood novels came about, but it's kind of a long and twisted tale. So I am taking a page from those young upstarts Dickens and Twain and serializing it. 

Here we go- Part the !st.

I first started what has now become the Summerhood Island trilogy (Coyote Summer, Summer of the Ghost/Thief, Hurricane Summer) more than fifteen years ago.  I had been away from Cuttyhunk Island just long enough that I could begin to think about using it as the background for a story. 

I’m not sure why now that I decided to write what was then called a “middle reader.”  Perhaps it was just an age I felt most comfortable with, that period just on the cusp of adulthood, those last few moments when you are convinced that anything is possible if you try hard enough, if you want it enough.  That brief moment when you’ve got full control of your body, 

before the judgments and restrictions of adulthood begin to settle on your shoulders.

As I began to write, I quickly realized that my heroine was largely the girlchild I wish I had been; the child I believe I could have been had I been allowed that freedom.  I actually reined my character in somewhat, as I wanted her life to be  more believable than my imagination.

After I had written the three books in the trilogy I began to shop them around, and quickly discovered there was no market for books like mine at the time.  The bottom had fallen out of the children’s book market, although there was still a small market for picture books.  No one was taking chapter books and the concept of a young adult market was still on the horizon.  Even the classics, the Newberry winners, the Caldecott medalists, were dropping in sales.  

After forty-two straight rejections of any or all of the books, I resigned them to the top drawer of an old file cabinet

where they languished from 2002 until 2012. Meanwhile, I went about my business, writing poetry, opening and closing restaurants, and in general, acting like the adult people told me I had become.  I didn't leave Cuttyhunk Island completely behind, however; I made island the subject of my first nonfiction work, a memoir about running an inn, cooking, and the great people who lived there.

Heartened by the significant if small in scope attention that this work engendered and by the upswing in interest of YA and ‘tween' novels (as middle readers are now called), I pulled my manuscripts out of their dusty file cabinet to see if they were worth saving.  I still remembered and cherished my main character, a strong girl named Jessie, and hoped she would have something to say to a new generation of young readers.

(to be continued . . .)

I know, I know. Mea culpa.

It's been almost a month.  And besides informing and amusing you, this blog is supposed to keep your interest so that every once in a while I can subtly slide in a plug for my new book.  Which at this point happens to be Coyote Summer.

buy the book, buy the book.

Okay, that's done.

I have no real explanation except that it's spring, and I am in a new house, and that means a new garden, and an actual yard, both of which entail a great deal of physical labor.  Which, at this point in my life, is not my strong suit.

So instead of writing I am playing in the dirt.  

And doing some promotion and publicity.  Nothing compared to Chris Grabenstein 

http://chrisgrabenstein.com/kids/newsletter-6-14.html

Author Chris Grabenstein

chrisgrabenstein.com

Wow! The book is already a New York Times best seller, an Agatha Award winner, a Nerdie award winner, and nominated for all sorts of state book awards.

who shames me daily on Facebook, but some.

None of this would be possible without help.  I have an amazing law student helping me with my book promotion, doing all the computer things my hands cannot.

And we have most wonderful caretakers, an old friend from my college theater days who I had not seen for thirty-five years.

dick and dr d replant an almond that got too big for its britches

 He and his wife have moved into the cabin and are caretaking our beloved property.  We went to dinner there this weekend, and it was an odd feeling, sitting in a dining room that had once been ours.  But they have made the house and land a part of themselves with so much love

the "veranda"

that I can almost be all right with leaving it.

Almost. It's always going to hurt.

But I have my new yard to play in, and my tiny garden.  And my friend and I have accomplished many projects,an amazing arbor

dick exiting arbor, stage right

for (hopefully) kiwi vines, and capturing the cherry pie tree

and the blueberries

so they cannot run off.  You would think that the fence would be enough to keep them in, but honestly, think about it.  If you had three dogs peeing on you, wouldn't you want to run?

especially these dogs

Anyway, the world is now safe from fruit. and the birds, let me tell you, the birds are pissed.

The dogs have moved on to more proper city dog pursuits, like telephone poles and even the occasional hydrant. 

And me? I am moving on. I am. I'm just a bit slower than my dogs.
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So I just got back

from a week in New England, and considering that it’s been forever since I wrote a new blog I really should be working on one. Instead, i find myself using those precious pre-dawn hours when no one but me is awake

(well okay the dogs are awake, but just barely, drowsily awaiting their walks) 

catching up on posts from Jenny Lawson (a.k.a. The Bloggess), watching videos of dancing dogs, and reading articles from the Guardian that my aunt sends me. 

Oh, and free cell.  We mustn’t forget free cell.   I use it as a sort of mental barometer. If I can’t win a game of free cell I should just go outside and play in the dirt but not attempt anything more complicated than that.  Or cook something.  I can weed or plant things or cook with approximately 1/3 of my brain working.  But everything else should be put on hold.  

This is all to explain that since I have returned from New England where everyone is reasonably well and the island of Cuttyhunk 

(which is so suspiciously similar to the island in my book Coyote Summer) has obligingly remained much as I left it, I’ve had a serious attack of the shoulds.  

I should be promoting my new book. 

I should be working at setting up readings, getting the book into bookstores and libraries, probing my friends for addresses of places to send promotional material, harassing people who have read the book into reviewing it on Amazon, or at least giving it four stars.  Five stars of course are preferable, but I want to allow you a little latitude so it doesn’t seem like I’m pressuring you.  

And mostly, I should be writing a blog post.  There’s a problem, though.  

There are lilacs blooming outside my office window.  My strawberries are flowering. 

My basil and nasturtiums need to be hardened off,

my sunflowers, carrots, and beets need to be planted.  

and this poor little guy. what about him?

Need versus should.  I should be promoting my book.  I need to have my hands in dirt. 

before

after

i was just kidding 

So this is what you get: ramblings with no real purpose and a little announcement at the end. 

I have a reading and book signing at Books and Company here in  Lexington, Virginia on Saturday, May 17.  11:00 a.m. Suitable for both children and adults.I
There will be cookies.  And I would so like to see you there.