My new goal for this week is to work out how to post photos on my blog. I have just been to Linda Sue Park's LiveJournal and she puts lots of photos on hers. Makes it lively and colourful. She also has a reading record of what she has read with comments, and she talks about being in a book group where they read and discuss middle grade and YA books. Now that's a book group I'd be interested in!
I'm still struggling with the DVCode. It's OK... I have to keep fighting the urge to run up to KMart and buy something else to read (can't go back to the library until I have paid my late fines!). Yes, I know I should buy from an independent bookshop, and I do, when I'm travelling around. There are none near me.
Still editing. Can't call it rewriting if it's only fiddling with words and sentences. Started on the YA novel - at least two years since I looked at it and am quite surprised at what is there. More than I remember. Not that my memory is so hot these days.
Still the problem with the ending. Always it's the endings with me. In adult short stories I love an ending that leaves a lot up to the reader (but not one that confuses or leaves you hanging, unresolved). I think there is a fine art in saying just enough and no more.
However it seems in middle grade and YA that more is needed, not that your readers are dumber, rather that they made a journey through your book and want something substantial to take away with them (unless you're writing Captain Underpants or just stuff that's designed for fun). So here I am battling with the need to add more guts or strength or "tangibility" to the ending without overdoing it.
And at the same time I have a picture book that my agent says is great ... except for the ending. Now I have to re-think that one as well.
Noah Lukeman wrote that writing book "The First Five Pages" - I think I need to ask him to write "The Last Five Pages" !
Still, I should be really happy that I have finished manuscripts to work on, considering I have about 15 unfinished or in first drafts.