Tom Swifties

Posted on July 7, 2013 by madelynruth@yahoo.com

I went to hear Elmore Leonard speak at the Coolidge Theater in Boston about 10 years ago. My biggest takeaway was that he never used adverbs when his characters talked. You should be able to tell from the dialogue if they said it angrily or nervously, he said. As we had always eschewed adverbs in newspaper work, I found it easy to adopt his policy for my own.

And then, last week, my son came back from summer camp and introduced us to Tom Swifties. It’s shocking, really, that I didn’t know about them before. I love word games and I love bad puns, and the Swifties (named for  a character developed by Edward Stratemeyer, but tracing its roots to Dickens, if you believe Wikipedia) have both.

The basic rules: Make up a quote, have Tom say it, throw in an adverb that shows how he said it, but make the adverb break into a pun based on the original quote. Er… as in all writing, it’s better to show, not tell, so let me try again by giving you a Swifty that my son made up:

“Maybe we could go camping,” Tom said tentatively.

Get it, tentatively?

Here’s another one, also courtesy of my kid (because as much as I love these things, it seems I’m pretty bad at them): “Let’s go through the window,” Tom said indifferently.

It’s what my improv teacher would call a groaner. Beautiful, right? Here’s another favorite, found on some internet web site, but never found again so I can’t give the writer proper credit: “I can’t remember the name of Artemis’ twin,” Tom said apologetically.

There are other variations of Swifties, some that don’t even require adverbs. (For example: “I’m losing my hair,” Tom bawled.) But I prefer the first kind. I’m sharing them with you now, in the spirit of long summer car trips, for when the license plate game gets old. If you have any you want to leave in the comments, I’m happy to groan along with you.

Posted in cars, family, summer, tom swifties | 4 Comments

Books and chocolate

Posted on June 28, 2013 by madelynruth@yahoo.com

I’ve had countless kids come up to me and ask when I have a new book coming out. I could let it go to my head and think they are excited about my writing. But the truth of the matter is, they’re excited about the chocolate fountain I borrowed from Rachael Walker to celebrate the last one.

Posted in Canary in the Coal Mine | 3 Comments

How to Be a Good Book Friend

Posted on June 27, 2013 by madelynruth@yahoo.com
Lots of people have asked how they can help support me now that my book is out in the world. Usually I say something like “Oh, you know…” But actually, you may not. And after reading an article that talked about how crucial the first three months are in determining whether a book ends up on a book store shelf or in a cut-out bin, I decided to take the what-can-I-do question a little more seriously. Because small things help. And because some of my best friends are writers who can use a boost.  I’ll bet some of yours are, too. And as my three-month window is now nearly over (ahem) I figured it was time to get cracking.
– Ask your library to carry your friend’s book(s). Most libraries have an online form you can fill out, asking the library to stock certain items. This will get your friend’s book to the masses. For free!
– Check out your friend’s book from the library. Even if you’ve already read it. Even if it’s a kids’ book and you don’t have kids!
– Donate a copy of your friend’s book to your school library.
– Buy the book. There are lots of ways to find it — through your local indie book store or online. If you buy through your local store, you get extra karma because you’re helping them, too. And if it’s not in stock, they’ll order it for you, thus putting the book on their radar.
– If you like the book, please consider putting a review on Goodreads or Amazon or Barnes and Noble. This helps more than you know. A rating or a kind word goes a long way!
– If you see something about the book on social media, retweet or share or comment. Not all of the time (we know you are not a walking billboard) but sometimes. One tweet from my brother resulted in a book sale to his high school friend’s little sister. And, okay, it’s just one sale. But put another way: It’s one sale!
– “Like” your friend’s book page on Facebook.
– Does your friend have a book trailer? Share that, too! I know my kids would appreciate your sharing the one that they made for me, because they would really like to get as many hits as PSY.
– If your author-friend is going to visit a library or book store, try to get your other friends to go.
– Tell your best friend the teacher/reviewer/book festival chairman about your friend’s book.
– Remind your author friend to stop worrying and obsessing. Then kick your friend in the butt and tell her to get back to work on the next thing.
-And finally: Know that your author friends appreciate you. If there’s a way we can help with whatever you’re doing, we’d love to see a list.
– Two quick additions for 2015:
– Adding the book on Goodreads to your to-be-read pile helps because then other people know the book is out there.
– My friend Linda Budzinski, whose book Em & Em shares a book birthday with How to Behave at a Dog Show, suggests that buying a book in the first couple of days it’s on sale will help, too.
THANKS SO MUCH, FROM ALL OF US.
Posted in kidlit, marketing, Mission Possible, world domination | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Things We Do with Friends

Posted on June 25, 2013 by madelynruth@yahoo.com

Things we do with friends:

Walk. Eat. Laugh. Cry. Talk into the wee hours of the night. And sometimes? We write books with them. Which is what I did with Mary Crockett.

Mary and I first met in the mid 1990s when our friends Mike Van Haelewyn  and Lisa Applegate asked us if we wanted to teach a creative writing class for teens at the Salem YMCA. Mary brought the poetry. I brought the fiction. And we started working in the evenings with a group of kids who refused to believe that the color spectrum included anything but black.

We both had lengthy commutes for our jobs, so after the class ended (or maybe while it was still going), we started giving each other writing exercises to think about during our respective drives. Later we even toyed with writing a romance novel, put together during said commute. And though we got some lovely feedback on the first three chapters that we sent to Harlequin, we abandoned the project before our protagonist ever learned the truth about that FBI agent.

But we did finish a project we’ve been working on (and off) for the past three years. And now we are happy to report to that said project, Dream Boy, is going to be published in July 2014 by Sourcebooks. It will be the first young adult novel for each of us. And, of course, for both of us. (Note: Young readers of my previous books, please wait a few years before you tackle this one. I promise to have more for you soon!)

I’m sure I’ll post a lot about what it’s like to work on a story with someone else. As we get closer to our pub date, I will perhaps even fill you in on The Bloody Chin Controversy of 2012. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to a summer trip to Blacksburg, where Mary and I will get to take some publicity shots together. Which, let me tell you, is much more appealing than taking them by myself. I will not even let the fact that Mary used to be a hand model intimidate me. (Though there’s a good chance that in the photos, my hands will be behind my back.)

 

Posted in Dream Boy, kidlit, summer, world domination, writing | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Audio Appreciation Month

Posted on June 17, 2013 by madelynruth@yahoo.com

We spend a lot of time in the car, especially during the summer, and though we all love music, stories have been winning out lately, even on short trips around town. As a reminder that summer reading can also be summer listening, the following is a list of audio books that have worked for all of our family members, including my husband, who can be a little hard to please in this department. Actually, we all can. There are audio books we’ve returned immediately, just because the person reading it has been wrong, wrong, wrong. (Which makes me quake a little, as I wait to see who will read the audio version of my own book.) Note, my listing is in no particular order. As it’s audio appreciation month, I think I’m going to go ahead and put the listing under the names of the readers instead of the authors.

Jim Dale, who reads the Harry Potter series. My kids think he’s a rock star, and both believe listening to his narration was even better than the movies. Only negative is that my husband and I have to try to do those same voices when we do a rereading of HP. I do a great Dumbledore, and my husband does a grand McGonagall, but that’s about as far as we get. We’ve also listened to Dale on Peter and the Star Catchers and A Christmas Carol. Stellar, both.

Oliver Wyman, who reads Adam Rex’s Cold Cereal. Adam Rex has a huge and varied cast of characters, so lucky thing he was paired up with Wyman, who has incredible range. Biggs. Emily. Mick. Scott. My kids wanted to stay in the car and keep listening after we arrived at our destination.

Mark Turetsky: Narrator of Origami Yoda series and Wendy Mass’s The Candymakers, among others. We picked up Wendy Mass’s book based on the narrator alone, and now we’re fans of both. We love the way he did Tommy for OY; we would follow him anywhere.

Kirby Heyborne: Cosmic. We will read anything by Frank Cottrell Boyce to begin with, so it wasn’t hard for Kirby Heyborne to win us over with the narration on this one. I just saw he’s also worked on Gone Girl. Excited to listen (but not with the kids). We were also huge fans of Framed, which was read by Jason Hughes.

Lana Quintal: I am pro Junie B. Jones, and always have been. I have been known to argue with parents who are in the other camp the way I argue with fans of the Yankees. Or Duke. What I should have done was just hand out audio versions read by Lana Quintal. If you are NOT pro Junie B, Lana is the person to help you see the light. She reads these books with pluck and sensitivity and humor, humor, humor. She also does narration on the Dork Diaries.

Lynn Redgrave: I will not forget the screeching of the head witch in The Witches for a long time. The late actress also read the Chronicles of Narnia, though we haven’t gone there yet. Soon!

Neil Patrick Harris: Of COURSE Neil Patrick Harris is Henry Huggins. An easy sell. What’s not to love?

Kevin Free and Katherine Kellgren: The kids loved the Percy Jackson series, but when it came to audio books, it was the performances on the Kane Chronicles that really drew us in. Katherine K does a great job with Angie Sage’s Araminta Spookie books as well.

Joshua Swanson: The narrator of Riordan’s second Olympus series. Swanson led us, in turn, to Aliens on Vacation, which was a car hit last summer. Aside from acting and producing, it turns out Swanson has a pool business, another summer reading tie-in.

Daniel Pinkwater: Great readings of great works that Pinkwater makes available for free on his web site. We have listened to The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death countless times, along with Borgel and Lizard Music. We LOVE these books. Love them. And love speculating about how much Pinkwater Wes Anderson must have read as a kid.

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