So Long, Farewell... and Welcome: Changes at Project Mayhem by Michael G-G

Dawn Lairamore

Matthew MacNish

One of the magical things about belonging to a group blog is the fellowship you find with other writers. Project Mayhem, since its beginnings in 2010, has been a tight-knit and supportive community. In the nearly 7 years we've been around, our writers have created over 1000 posts!

We have a list of sterling alumni, and it is now my bittersweet moment to add a further two to that illustrious roll. Dawn Lairamore and Matthew MacNish have been Mayhemmers before even I came on the scene (in fact, it was Matt who put my name forward as a Mayhem initiate all those years ago.) As with most of those who leave our tribe, they do so because of the busyness of life. But before they go, I asked them to pen a farewell letter. Goodbye, Dawn and Matt: we will all miss you!

From Matthew: It is with much regret that I leave Project Middle Grade Mayhem behind. I was always made to feel welcome here, and truly enjoyed working with my co-authors. I would like to both thank Rose Cooper for inviting me in the first place some six odd years ago, and to proudly take responsibility for in turn inviting Michael Gettel-Gilmartin. I really enjoyed being part of the blog, and wish that circumstances weren’t forcing me to leave.


If you’re looking for something to reminisce with, you could read:

My first post: The Character Should Make the Name
When I argued about YA/MG: Debate: The Book Thief is a
 MG Novel
Or something actually useful: Document Map, a Tutorial

From Dawn: It has been both a pleasure and an honor to have been part of Project Mayhem these past many years, and I remained amazed at what a talented, generous, and insightful group of writers we have here, bloggers and visitors alike. I'm so grateful for online writing communities such as this. Rest assured this is not so much a goodbye as it is a "see you around"--this is definitely a community worth holding on to. Happy writing, everyone!

Goodbyes often lead to "hellos," and I am very pleased to welcome two new members to the blog. I am so excited to see what Hilda Burgos and Linda Williams Jackson bring to the blog, starting in March. Here's the introduction to both of them.

Hilda Eunice Burgos

Hilda Eunice Burgos - Hilda’s first middle grade novel, The Castle of Kings, was a 2015 Lee & Low Books New Visions Award finalist, and is due out in 2019.  The story takes place in New York City (where Hilda was born and raised) and in the Dominican Republic (her parents’ native country).  Hilda received her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in French and Spanish literatures, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.  She now lives and practices law in the Philadelphia area.  She and her husband have two grown human children and a canine forever baby.  Hilda looks forward to spending more time writing now that her kids aren’t around as much to smother – um, mother.

Linda Williams Jackson

Linda Williams Jackson is a former information technology specialist, turned stay-at-home mom, turned author. She is the author of the historical middle-grade novel, MIDNIGHT WITHOUT A MOON (January, 2017), and the sequel A SKY FULL OF STARS (January, 2018). A small city in Mississippi is the place she calls home. She shares this home with her husband, three children, and a cat named Knoxville.

So long, farewell... welcome! Hooray for Project Mayhem!

“Scary” Books for the Chicken-Hearted by Dawn Lairamore

Chicken-hearted—that would be me. Okay, so I’m a little better as an adult. But as a middle-grader, I scared at the drop of a hat. Ghosts, monsters, things that went bump in the night—I didn’t want to read (or hear) about anything even remotely frightening. Otherwise, I saw strange shadows in the corners of my room at night and had to go to bed with all the lights on. Can anyone say overactive imagination? Yep, that was me.

So, in honor of Halloween this week—and because I know first-hand the trauma of being terrified by scary stories as a kid—I thought I'd take this opportunity to recommend a “scary” book that’s actually fairly light on the scare factor. It’s more suspenseful than anything else, and although it might get your spine tingling here and there, I don’t believe it ever crosses the line into full-blown scary. It’s the kind of story even I could have comfortably read as a kid, so I feel it might be a good option for youngsters who scare easily or perhaps aren’t quite ready for more intense storylines. Also, it’s just a really wonderful book—well-written and atmospheric with a unique and intriguing plot. I highly recommend it for all middle-grade readers, even those who might be a little sensitive to all things spooky.

The Aviary by Kathleen O’Dell tells the story of 12-year-old Clara Dooley, who lives in a crumbling mansion owned by Mrs. Glendoveer, a magician’s widow. It even has an iron aviary in the garden, housing the magician’s old collection of birds. When Clara discovers that the Glendoveer children disappeared from the home in a decades-old kidnapping that was never solved, she sets off to do some investigating of her own. But what does this horrible kidnapping have to do with her? As if this wasn’t mystery enough, the mynah bird in the garden has started to talk, screeching out the name, “Elliot,” whatever that means…

Magic, mystery, and a touch of a ghost story give this book just the right touch of creepiness, but at its heart it’s a story of friendship, loyalty, and family more than anything else. Besides, the human bad guys are far worse than any of the “ghosts.” (Incidentally, I think The Aviary is a great example for middle-grade writers of how to effectively use suspense.)

Does anyone else have recommendations for “scary” books that would be appropriate for middle-graders who don’t like to be scared?

-Dawn Lairamore

photo credit: barb_ar via photopin cc

This Is Why You Should Always Carry a Notebook

A common writer’s tip is to carry a notebook and pen at all times so when inspiration strikes you’ll be ready, and that perfect word, sentence, paragraph, or page won’t escape forever if it falls through the cracks in your memory, failing to reappear once you’ve hunkered down to write in earnest.

It’s a good tip, one I’ve meant to follow for a number of years now but somehow never managed to put into practice. I usually have a pen on me (blue ballpoint—for some reason, I’ve always hated writing with black ink), but a little notebook has never made its way into my purse. Perhaps it stems from an unconscious desire not to add yet another item to my already cluttered handbag. Or since I HATE writing by hand (anyone who’s ever seen my handwriting can probably guess why), perhaps I’ve unknowingly developed an aversion to notebooks over the years.

Whatever the reason, my failure to tuck even the tiniest matchbook-sized pad of paper onto my person has led me to utilize some pretty odd writing surfaces when something pops into my head that I just have to scribble down. Over the years, I’ve resorted to writing on:

• The sides and bottoms of the cardboard tissue box I keep in the car
• The blank pages in the backs of old paperbacks (which I then have to rip out before passing the book along to a friend or donating it to the local library sale)
• The labels of water bottles (the back of the label is blank for many brands, so if you rip it off the bottle, this makes a decent, if somewhat small, writing surface)
• The insides of gum wrappers
• The blank side of old receipts I’ve tossed into my purse (it’s amazing how many of these are for Chinese take-out)
• The blank side of old movie or concert tickets (why do I even still have these?!)
• The price tags ripped off clothing purchases
• Post-it notes stolen off any nearby desk (usually I’ll write on both the front and back of these, and I need about five to ten of them if I’m writing anything substantial, and then I have to try to keep them in order)
• Paper napkins
• Paper cups
• Paper plates
• The margins of take-out menus (I think we’ve established I eat a lot of take-out)
• The labels of vitamin bottles

Yeah, it would be a lot easier just to get a notebook. And maybe clean my purse.

Lol, am I the only one who writes on strange items? Do you carry a notebook or, like me, do you have to get creative when it comes to spontaneous writing surfaces?

-Dawn Lairamore

photo credit: benleto via photopin cc

My Time in the Secret Garden

This week, I read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett for about the twentieth time. I first read The Secret Garden when I was nine and borrowed it off my best friend’s bookshelf. We often played in one of the local gardens together, so she thought I’d love the book since it was “full of flowers.” She was right—and over the next couple of months I must have borrowed her copy two or three times before I finally saved up enough money to buy my own. I still have it, still read it, and it has been much worn and much loved over the many years since then.

There were many things I found magical about The Secret Garden as a child. Who wouldn’t want a beautiful garden all their own, locked away from the rest of the world, overrun with roses and lilies and daffodils and all sorts of beautiful growing things? I loved the old-fashioned setting where people relied on ships and trains and carriages to reach their far-flung destinations instead of cars and airplanes. I loved the colorful cast of characters, many of whom spoke in a charming Yorkshire accent that I couldn’t quite reproduce out loud no matter how hard I tried. I loved Dickon’s way with animals and wished I was talented enough to entice fox cubs, squirrels, and birds to sit on my shoulder and follow my every step. And because I lived in such a warm, sunny climate, I was entranced by the idea of romantic, rainy moors where the wind “wurthered” throughout the night.

I think even back then, I appreciated the book’s themes of regeneration—of a garden, an outlook on life, a family. I loved the idea of the transformative powers of nature. Of course, I couldn’t articulate these thoughts as a nine-year-old, but I knew these themes were there and loved them all the same. As an adult, I’m probably even more appreciative of quite power that comes off the pages when I read the book, of hope, redemption, regrowth, and rebirth.

When I finished The Secret Garden last week, it was the first time I’d read it in a couple of years, and it was a lovely reminder that I need to revisit some of the classic books of my childhood a little more often. If there is one book forever linked to my childhood love of reading, it’s definitely The Secret Garden. Sometimes, I get so caught up in new releases about magic and monsters and aliens and secret societies, I forget the quiet beauty of some of the classical works of children’s literature. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the exciting new books that make their way onto bookstore shelves as much as the next person. (Maybe even MORE than the next person.) But I’m trying harder these days not to forget some of the amazing stories that have been entrancing readers since long before I was a child reader myself. After all, they’re classics for a reason.

What classic books made your childhood magical?

-Dawn Lairamore

photo credit: ukgardenphotos via photopin cc

The Risky Business of Writing for Middle Grade

Some years ago I read the following article on CNN and bookmarked it because I found it so intriguing:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/19/health/mental-health/teen-brain-impulses/index.html

My favorite line from the article, written by Elizabeth Landau: “Neuroscientists confirm that teenagers do have brains.” Lol—that’s good to know! I know a few parents of teens who have wondered about this from time to time. And even though this article is about how teen brains are more wired for risk than adult brains, and how teen emotion will often win out over logical thinking, I think it’s a good reminder to middle-grade writers, too, that kids think very differently than adults.

One of the great challenges of being a middle-grade writer is getting into the mind of adolescent characters. Adult writers are writing for other adults, but writers of middle-grade are writing for a target audience to which we don’t personally belong. It’s a unique challenge—we have to constantly ask ourselves how a tween would react to a certain situation, how he/she would act when faced with this set of circumstances, what he/she would say to a parent, teacher, or friend during this conversation.

I’m someone who tends to be pretty practically-minded, so this article was a good reminder that some of my tween characters might need to react a little more emotionally to a situation than I might. It also made me think about risks, and about how some of my tween characters would likely be a lot more comfortable taking risks than I do.

A relative of mine likes to tell the story of the time he encountered a small brown bear rooting through a dumpster when his family was camping in a national park. (This was before the days of bear-proof dumpsters.) He was about 12 years old. Now if I was by myself on the outskirts of a campground at twilight and encountered a bear, even a small one, digging through a garbage bin, I would have been out of there faster than you could say, “bear bait.” Instead, his 12-year-old self thought it would be cool to try to get as close to the bear as possible for a good look. So he inched forward and forward, little by little, watching and taking note of the bear’s clumpy brown fur and how its enormous head and tiny ears bobbed up and down as it prodded through garbage with its snout. Only when the bear finally lifted its head, narrowed its beady black eyes, and growled did he decide that maybe it was a good idea to leave, after all.

Personally, I inch away from wild animals with teeth, not toward them, lol. I guess I really do think differently than a 12-year-old. But such things are a good reminder to me that my middle-grade protagonists are not necessarily going to think like me, that they are probably going to be more emotional and less introspective and probably more comfortable with risk than I would be in their situations. Luckily for us, while taking risks might not always be the best course of action in real life, it makes for great storytelling.

What do you do to get into the heads of your middle-grade characters?

-Dawn Lairamore

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar via photopin cc

Writing Soundscapes

Like many writers, I find an environment conducive to writing is a downright necessity when you're working on a manuscript. Of course, this is sometimes easier said than done. The sounds of kids playing, dogs barking, and that blaring pool party down the street might make getting the peace and quiet you need a bit of a challenge.

Of course, not all writers need quiet. I've heard some writers say they write to heavy metal playing full blast on their speakers. I personally would find that a bit difficult, to say the least. Of course, interestingly enough, I also find complete silence EXTREMELY distracting. I need a little something--if only a bit of music or white noise--to fill up that oppressive silence that lingers in the background while I work. Otherwise, it really starts to bother me.

Usually, I fill it up with a little bit of classical or new age music, playing very, very softly. I find music with vocals or lyrics way too distracting. My mind always seems to want to focus on the lyrics of the song rather than the words I'm trying to put down on the page. I also love nature sounds--birds chirping, wind blowing, a low rumble of thunder in the distance. And what is it about the sound of rain, in particular, that I find particularly soothing and inspiring? I can't really say, but I sure like to write to it. Recently, to my utter delight, I discovered that some wonderful folks on YouTube have posted tons of lovely nature soundtracks. This is my current favorite, ten hours of freezing rain. Yes, ten hours. Sometime I play it all day:

This is great to listen to at home. But if I do happen to find myself in an outside environment where noise is a problem, I can simply plug my headphones into my laptop, turn up the volume, and suddenly I'm listening to a lovely rainfall that is just enough to drown out the conversation of the people at the next table.(Yeah, I sometimes like to write at restaurants or cafes.)

But what's so interesting to me is how different writers are when it comes to the sounds and environments they prefer. The heavy metal thing obviously wouldn't work for me, and a writer friend of mine told me listening to hours of falling rain would just make her want to go to the bathroom. I guess we all have our preferences when it comes to what we like to listen to when we write.

What's your writing soundscape?

-Dawn Lairamore

photo credit: Neil Kremer via photopin cc

Tesla's Attic - An Interview with Authors Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman

Project Mayhem is very happy to welcome authors Eric Elfman and Neal Shusterman, who kindly took time out of their busy promotional tour to answer a few questions for us about their new middle-grade release, TESLA'S ATTIC. In TESLA'S ATTIC, protagonist Nick discovers the junk in the attic of the old Victorian house his family has moved into has some very odd properties (like the toaster that hits him in the head). He and his new friends soon learn these items are the last inventions of the famed Nikola Tesla. Now they have to keep them out of the hands of a mysterious secret society in this exciting start to a new trilogy. 

You can read more about Neal and Eric at their websites (links at the end of this post). But without further ado, here's our interview:

Please tell us about your exciting new middle-grade release, TESLA'S ATTIC. What inspired you to write this book?

NEAL: Have you ever been to a garage sale where they have all this weird stuff and you don't know what any of it is? That happened to me a while back. A guy was selling all this electronic equipment, and I asked him what one thing did, and he said, "I don't know. But I'll sell it to you for five bucks."

ERIC: When Neal told me about that, we were developing projects for TV and film. We started to work on the idea, and it eventually became the novel, TESLA'S ATTIC. Our story begins when fourteen year old Nick moves into a house his family inherited, and he finds a bunch of antiques and rusty appliances in the attic. Nick wants to use the attic as his bedroom, so he sells all the rusted junk at a garage sale.

NEAL: Only after it's all gone, our kid discovers that they were the last inventions of Nikola Tesla, the greatest inventor of all time. Now, with the help of his friends, he has to get them all back. Except he didn't count on a secret society of physicists called the Accelerati, trying to beat him to the inventions.

The two of you co-wrote TESLA'S ATTIC. Is it challenging writing with another author? Did you ever butt heads (politely and respectfully, of course) regarding the direction you wanted the story to move in or any other aspect of the book?

ERIC: We love working together -- mainly because we have similar senses of humor and  sensibilities about story, so it's great fun for us to work as partners. Also, writing is usually such a solitary activity, so bouncing ideas off another person is a treat -- especially when that person is Neal.

NEAL: And we make it a point to never disagree about the direction of the story -- we both have to agree, or it doesn't go in the book. If one of us doesn't like something the other came up with, we have to come up with something we can both agree on. But that's easy, because we trust each other's instincts.

ERIC: On a technical level, we've started working in GoogleDocs, because it allows us to both be in the same document at the same time, even if we're hundreds of miles apart. We'll sometimes even be in a coffee house working together, with both our laptops open to GoogleDocs, so it looks like we're playing a game of Battleship.

Both of you have written for older audiences before. What do you think is unique about writing for middle grade? Do you have any tips for those interested in writing for a middle-grade audience?

NEAL: It’s like writing for adults who can’t drive. The writing still has to be the same quality, the story as strong and compelling, the characters and relationships as solid, the climax as powerful. The trick is telling the story from a middle grader's pov. You have to ask yourself 'how would a fourteen year old react to this obstacle?"

What is the best piece of writing advice anyone has ever given you?

ERIC: For me, I'll never forget an interview with a well-known author I heard on the radio when I was a teenager. He said, "I guarantee, if you keep writing, you will get published." And I took that to heart, and just kept at it. A lot of my friends, good writers, stopped writing and took other jobs, but I persisted. And that writer was right, I did get published.

NEAL: Write out of your comfort zone.  Different styles, different genres. It’s the only way to grow as a writer.

What are the links to your websites, and where is best place for readers of this blog to go to find out more about TESLA'S ATTIC?

NEAL: My website is www.storyman.com and my Facebook fan page is www.facebook.com/nealshusterman.

ERIC: My website is www.ElfmanWorld.com; for writers seeking advice, my coaching site is www.ericElfmanCoaching.com; and my Facebook fan page is www.facebook.com/EricElfmanAuthor.

Thanks again for stopping by Project Mayhem, Neal and Eric! We hope everyone will rush out and grab a copy of TESLA'S ATTIC. (I know I will.)

Why Write Middle Grade?

Since the holiday season is the perfect time for reflection, I thought I’d use my December post to reflect upon why I write middle grade. I get asked this question from time to time. Most people are genuinely curious, although sometimes the question comes, unfortunately, with a hint of condescension. (Why would you want to write something like middle grade when you could be writing more substantive and important works like adult literature?)

For me, the decision to write middle grade was an especially easy one. My middle-grade years were when I first fell in love with reading, and when I first learned to appreciate everything a good book had to offer. I was a military brat, and when I look back on my middle-grade years, I have to confess, they were kind of lonely. My family moved every two years or so. I was always the new kid at school, and I was never able to have lasting friendships. It didn’t help that I was painfully shy, so it wasn’t exactly easy for me to make friends in the first place. Usually, just about the time I started to feel settled some place, just about the time it started to feel like home, it was time to move again.

I didn’t have any siblings at home, so after school and on weekends, I often found I had to find ways to entertain myself. I quickly learned what wonderful company books could be. I had an affinity for the classics. I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden and The Little Princess, and Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry. Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series and Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain swept me away with their magic and made me love fantasy and adventure.  My copies of all these favorites followed me wherever I went, whether my family moved to the other side of the country or the other side of the world. I still have them today, a little worse for wear but still much loved. They’re actually gazing down on me from the top shelf of my bookshelf as I type this now.

And then there was the feeling I got every time I walked into the local library. A great sense of excitement always washed over me—all those wonderful stories right at my fingertips!

If, as a writer of middle grade, I can give young readers that same sense of excitement, offer them stories and adventures they can get lost in, that can make them feel a little less lonely or help them forget their real-world worries for an hour or two, I consider that a worthwhile endeavor indeed.

Please share. Why do you write middle grade?

-Dawn Lairamore

photo credit: shawncalhoun via photopin cc

High Concept in Middle Grade

Okay, confession time: while I’ve always been a huge lover of middle grade, for many years I never had that much interest in YA. I had nothing against it, of course. It just wasn’t what I was personally interested in reading. But a little over a year ago, my book club, which is usually dedicated to adult literature, decided to start a YA subset, and suddenly I was poring over YA bestsellers like Hunger Games, Divergent, The Fifth Wave, etc., etc. And I have to admit, I love them! Really love them. Yeah, I’m hooked.

Most of the books we end up reading in my YA book club seem to fall into the “high concept” category. I’ve heard “high concept” defined a number of ways, but it all seems to boil down to this: high concept is a story with a hook. Not a quiet, coming-of-age type story, but a story where the premise is key. It can usually be summed up in one sentence in which the often blockbuster nature of the story is evident. For example, I just finished reading the YA time-travel All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill. (Loved it!!) I can easily come up with a summary that conveys the intrigue of the plot in one sentence: Girl in 2013 tries to keep her best friend alive after an attempt on his life, not realizing that an older version of herself from the future is the one trying to kill him.

Reading all this YA lately has me comparing it to the world of middle grade, and I can’t help but notice that the stories often seem “bigger” in YA. I’ve heard many people in the industry describe the difference between middle grade and YA (besides the age of the protagonist) this way: middle grade is closer to home and more inwardly based. The protagonist usually faces conflict that has to do with their everyday lives, such as conflict with their parents, siblings, and friends or problems at school. In YA, on the other hand, external events typically play a much larger role in triggering the internal change experienced by the protagonist. The scope is larger. Often the main character is starting to step outside the world of his or her childhood, and conflicts and consequences are more substantial and wide-reaching.

So lately I’ve found myself wondering: does the “larger” nature of YA lend itself better to high-concept storylines? Certainly we see high concept in middle grade. Look at books like Artemis Fowl and Harry Potter. Nathan Bransford points out that even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is high concept: kid wins a golden ticket to a mysterious candy factory.

Still, is it me, or does YA often seem a lot more "blockbuster-y" than middle grade? Of course, as I’ve confessed, I’m still pretty new to YA, and these are largely the musings of sleep-deprived mind after midnight. But I’m curious what others think. Does YA lend itself better to high concept than middle grade? And is that good or bad for the world of middle grade?

-Dawn Lairamore

photo credit: Stuck in Customs via photopin cc

Getting Away to Write

I’ve attended many SCBWI conferences and other writing events—including the fabulous National SCBWI Conference in Los Angeles, which was absolutely amazing—but until now I’d never been to an extended, craft-based workshop. I have writer friends who regularly attend such workshops and always come back with tons of lovely things to say about them, so this autumn I bit the bullet and headed off to the Better Book Workshop, a three-and-a-half-day craft intensive for writers of YA and middle grade.

The Better Book Workshop was held north of San Francisco, California, at a retreat center in the hills near Santa Rosa. We were a bit isolated from the rest of the world, but to me, that just increased the feeling that we were really there to focus on our work without outside distractions. It was a small group, only 21 writers, and we were joined by the wonderful faculty of editor Sara Sargent from Balzer + Bray, editor Heather Alexander from Dial, agent Victoria Wells Arms, and agent Erin Murphy.

  

Over the next several days, we spent lots of time talking about voice, character, scene, and plot. We explored how to approach micro-editing a manuscript at sentence-level, as well as macro-editing while focusing on the story as a whole. We watched the movie adaptation of Louis Sachar’s Holes and discussed how what we had learned about scene and plot applied to the film. A fair number of us (yes, including me) started to cry when faculty members read excerpts from Because of Winn-Dixie and The One and Only Ivan as examples of voice. (In our defense, they are very touching books.) Most exciting to me, we spent a lot of time critiquing each other’s work in small, interactive groups with faculty and other attendees.

And since our retreat center had a bit of a new-age bent to it, that meant there was a meditation hut and walking labyrinth on site (OMG—I LOVE labyrinths), as well as a flock of wild turkeys and lots and lots of deer.

So, being a new alumni of a book workshop, would I recommend attending one?

Absolutely!!

Being around other writers and immersing ourselves so thoroughly in the writing process was very illuminating. But what really made this a standout event for me was the focus on craft and the opportunity to delve into your writing at a level that usually isn’t possible at conferences. That alone was worth the price of admission to me. And, okay, the labyrinth didn’t hurt, either :)

Have you ever attended a writing workshop? Please share your thoughts and experiences.

-Dawn Lairamore