Laurel Snyder

N is for NaPoWriMo

I failed, I failed, but still I’m glad,
I’ve had the bits of fun I’ve had.

Next year I’ll make it, swear to god!
I’ll thrash myself, not spare the rod.

Next year in April, good as gold,
I’ll put my whole darn life on hold.

I’ll lock the kids inside a chest.
Ignore my novel. I won’t rest–

Until I’ve gotten down and dirty
Writing poems. All damn thirty.

(sigh)

My friend Marc is a total rockstar!  From Lunch Weekly:

Editor of The Chattahoochee Review Marc Fitten’s debut VALERIA’S LAST STAND, a modern-day fable featuring a terminally cranky old spinster who finds equal fault with the new, the old, the foreign and the familiar in her backwater Hungarian village, but suddenly falls in love with the long-known but little-noticed village potter, and with this one deviation from character, the delicately woven fabric of village life begins to unravel, to Colin Dickerman at Bloomsbury and Alexandra Pringle at Bloomsbury UK, in a pre-empt, for publication in Spring 2009, by Bill Clegg at the William Morris Agency (world English).

German rights to DTV, in a pre-empt.

I have been watching this saga unfold, and let me just say, to those of you who are writing and revising and dreaming and hoping to publish… it WILL happen. I don’t want to rob Marc of his own tale, but this was a weird loooooong road, involving multiple drafts, agents, countries, etc. etc. etc.

 

What a BLAST! 

I had an amazingly incredible meal at 5 NINTH with my very best friend in the universe. I drank martinis and ate caviar (CAVIAR!) which I don’t actually like, but STILL!  I ate steak tartar and fish and an amazing beet salad and short ribs and a fabulous vegetable dish that was listtle tastes of all sorts of amazing things. Roasted radishs and tiny peas and zuchini blossoms. OH MY!

The next morning I woke up and got dressed and went out to walk (which is what I do in NY. One time I walked from 86th street downtown, and over to Brooklyn, alone). But the room I had slept in was windowless, and so I was shocked to find myself on the street in pouring rain.

POURING! So what’d I do?

I bought an umbrella. I yellow one. And then I walked and walked. 

There is an amazing choreography of umbrellas, in a city with dense pedestrian traffic.  As you bump shoulders, someone has to raise up their umbrella over the other person’s umbrella. So then there’s a canopy of different colored umbrellas. I LOVE IT!

I walked uptown, to Columbus Circle, where the lovely Ali met me, and we were off for lousy coffee and good conversation in a conveniently-located but thoroughly mediocre diner.  It was just right for the rainy day. Orange vinyl and all. The kind of place where you can sit all day.  Where a yellow umbrella looks at home.

Then I hoofed it to Random House, for the CRAZIEST DAY EVER!  Lunch was at Maison–Welsh rarebit and a nice salad (it was cold and I needed bone warming) followed by chocolate crepes. 

 With my truly perfect publishing team. 

And this is where I start to get REALLY GUSHY!

I am the luckiest duck in the world. Really.  I do not know how it has happened, but I have fallen smack dab into some magical world of family-style-publishing from the dream of a Stegner novel. The fantasy land where agents last forever, and editors let you try crazy things.  Where books get made with love and integrity.  Where you have a few drinks and open yourself up and then feel safe and valued and pleased.  Where you get to be an actual  writer.

I met with all kinds of people, from assistants to publishers (and even the daughters of said publishers— HEY, LUCY!) and they were not scary. They did  not make me feel small. They were warm and friendly and excited. They baked me (REALLY, I’m not kidding!) blackberry cobbler (I love you, Whitney!) like the one in my book. They served me lemonade and we sat around and had a little party.  They asked me questions. They answered my questions. They did not stare at my frizzy-from-40-blocks-in-the-rain hair, or my backpack.  They laughed at my jokes and allowed me to tell inappropriate stories (which I do when I get a little nervous).

I got to see the finished art, and a shiny cover, and we talked about the cover for the next book. I learned some things about marketing and publicity and distribution, but…

But mostly we just got to know each other. Faces, laughs, voices. Which is so startling and exciting and wonderful in this oh-so-virtual world.  Real people. My co-workers, kinda.  The people who are making is possible for me to write books.

I love them.

I don’t know how to explain this so that you can fully comprehend how warm it was.  How  welcome, and comforting– and also surprising. It felt shocking–

I hear so much about the evils of the cutthroat publishing world.  I have always been prepared to be disappointed. 

It felt like the opposite of the stories I hear. Like some  weird dream, this family of smart people who do good work and want to be friends.

How can it be? 

Do not wake me up.

(Then I came home to my babies. I came home on the train, to “tuggle”.  And that was even better. Like I said, I am a LUCKY DUCK!)

S is for Seahorse

A solitary seahorse,
Slipped lonely through the sea,
“I have no need for friends,” he said,
They’ll try to saddle me.”

 

L is for Lion

 A lion with a little lisp,
Was grateful to his core.
“Cause I just thank my lucky thtars,
There’s no damn ETH in ROAR!”

P is for Pony

A lucky little pony,
Was spoiled to the core,
He pouted, “Now I want a girl!
I’ll ride her to the store.”

I haven’t taken much time to actually blog lately.  Which feels odd, since it used to be such a massive part of my life. 

There just isn’t time.

But every day, I have thoughts, ideas, useless blips of things I want to share.  And someday… someday I’ll get to all of them.

I wish I had time to tell you about being home– about taking the boys out to the nursery last night to buy plants for my mom’s garden, and watching Mose wander around collecting rocks and fallen blossoms.

I wish I had time to tell you about seeing my amazing sister, and about how excited I am to see the next chapter of her life unfold.

I wish I had time to share all the goings-on of my fellow class member in 2k8.

And I wish I had time to share my thoughts on genre.  I’ve been pretty consumed with how my book makes me feel like a total poser.  I’m not a fantasy author at all, but my book seems to be getting classified as fantasy.  And there’s this whole world out there, of conventions and conferences and terms and points of reference I don’t know… and I wish I could participate in all of that… but I feel like a poser.

I don’t want to be the kid who carries a skateboard around, but can’t ollie.

Which is just another topic I don’t have time to blog about…

S is for Slug

A lowly slug, he slipped beneath
A cup, a bowl, a pail.
But all the same, he could not change
Himself into a snail.

I suggested aT shirt idea to a very cool lady I know, and LOOK!

R is for Rat

A rat I know feels badly,
About his reputation.
He cannot help his filthy ways,
And wants a dispensation.