Read, Write, Repeat.

This fall, I was fortunate to sell my first picture book manuscript — Sophie’s Squash — to Schwartz & Wade, an imprint of Random House Publishing. (Full, enthusiastic details of this event were shared here.)

And now, just a few months later, I’m doubly fortunate to say Schwartz & Wade has acquired another of my picture books, Sharing the Bread.

It’s awesome news. In fact, I’m still beaming.

But I’ve heard a lot of comments like this:

“It’s cool you sold your second book so quickly after your first. It must only have taken you a few weeks to write.”

Um … no.

I’m sure there are authors who dash off a manuscript in an afternoon, read through it the next day, smile, add a few commas, change a word or two and send it off to editors who greet it with shouts of delight and fight for the right to publish it.

But that’s not me.

So I thought I’d share the evolution — so far — of this 310-word story.

The initial idea.

Three years ago, I was in a meeting. It had nothing to do with food, families or cooking, but out of somewhere, these words popped into my head: “Mama be a cooking pot, cooking pot. Big and round and black and hot. Mama be a pot.”

That’s stupid. I thought. How could someone be a pot? (As you can tell, I’ve got a pretty critical internal editor.)

My internal editor wasn’t done lecturing me either. Writing a rhyming book is HARD. And you are not a rhymer. Remember that awful rhyming story about okra you spent months slaving over before you realized it was awful? Hmm? Well? Do you?

But I kind of liked the rhythm, so I jotted the words down. During the next few weeks I played around with them until I had several verses about a family making a meal together. At first, each family member was pretending to be some part of the meal. I vaguely thought the story might be something kids could act out.

Early editing.

But thanks to the wise counsel of my internal editor who was, I believe, making gagging noises, I realized this was not a good idea. So I had the family gather the ingredients and cook the meal without any play-acting. Mama was no longer a pot.

Not knowing what else to do with the story, I sent it to my critique group at the time. They didn’t love it. So the story sat on my hard drive, largely ignored, for a year while I worked on other things.

It might have stayed there forever if I hadn’t needed a manuscript to send to another critique group I belong to. I didn’t have anything new, so I dusted the story off and sent it out, cringing a little as I did.

Are you kidding? asked my internal editor.

But these group members liked it. “You need to work on this some more,” they said.

More revision.

So I did. I used their feedback to make the verses stronger and the rhythm better. I consulted rhyming dictionaries and tried to be as creative as possible. I shared it with a few other writing friends and took their suggestions to heart. I spent lots of time staring off into space tapping out the story meter with my fingers to make sure it was correct. My cat thought I was playing. My family thought I was crazy.

When the story was as good as I could make it, I sent to to someone with a well-deserved reputation as an excellent rhymer for a paid critique. Her response echoed my second critique group’s, “I really like this. I think you should work on it some more.”

Fierce revision.

She suggested a more traditional rhyme scheme and shared a few books written in a similar vein. Even though I sighed at the thought of the work involved in changing my rhyme scheme, I knew her advice was valid. So I read the books, ripped my story apart and started rewriting. And re-rhyming. And tapping my fingers on my desk. Again.

The new story revisited both my critique groups, several writing friends and a few family members. I made more changes. Eventually, I sent it back to the rhyming expert. “I think you can sell this,” she said.

But don’t cue the balloons.

I was tempted to celebrate. After all, this writer said the same thing about the manuscript that eventually became my first sale. Then I remembered it had taken several years and several more revisions before that sale occurred. Still, I sent out some submissions.

I heard back more quickly than usual. One form rejection. One note saying this wasn’t quite right but to send other things that I wrote. One note saying it was lovely but too quiet to stand out in the marketplace. This last editor did mention that the story might do well with a holiday or educational hook.

By this time, I had acquired an agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette. She and I decided to add a holiday angle to the story by having the family prepare Thanksgiving dinner instead of an everyday meal. Joan also showed the manuscript to Anne Schwartz of Schwartz & Wade. Anne liked it, thought a Thanksgiving angle would be helpful and asked me to work on it some more.

What rhymes with turkey?

So I dug in again. Only to realize that not much rhymes with turkey. (“Jerky?” “Murky?” “Perky?”) Or with stuffing. Or mashed potatoes. So I put the Thanksgiving words in the middle of the sentences so I could rhyme more common sounds at the end. I pruned. I polished. I pulled out large chunks of hair. But, I persevered.

(By the way, I was going to post a photo with this blog showing me in the throes of revision. But when I revise, I run my fingers through my hair and end up with what my husband calls “edit head.” It is not an attractive sight.)

Joan liked this version, and sent it off to Anne. Anne liked it but shared an email full of further suggestions. So, in response, I varied my rhyme scheme slightly, added a refrain, deleted two stanzas, added a new one and reordered some of the others. The updated version went back to Joan. She had a few more ideas. I incorporated those, and Joan returned it to Anne.

Whew!

By this time, my internal editor and I were afraid we had used up all our chances to get this right. Personally, I was amazed at how much better the manuscript had become from the first time I’d thought it was done. But would Anne agree? Would it be enough?

A few days later, Joan called. Anne liked the manuscript and wanted to acquire it. To paraphrase Ernest Thayer, “There was joy in Mudville.”

But I’m still not done.

Anne wants me to work on it some more. I just got her line edits in the mail today.

And I seriously can’t wait to see how much better my story — and the ultimate book — will be after this next rounds of changes.

I grew up going to libraries. They were universally accessible, well-stocked, well-staffed and free.

So, sometimes, I forget that not everyone grows up with such easy access to books.

But I never forget that everyone should.

That’s why I was thrilled to hear about author Jean Reidy’s online auction to support the library at the Musana Children’s Home in Iganga, Uganda. Eighty orphaned children live there full time. Another 120 come each day from surrounding communities to attend school.

The home makes a difference, providing food, shelter, medical care, education and safety to people who desperately need it. But resources are tight. And the children’s needs increase each day.

Here’s what Jean has to say about the home.

“The Musana community was founded and is run by three young women from my hometown here in Colorado. In addition to dormitories and classrooms, the school has a small library badly in need of books … I hope you will join me at the auction and reach beyond our borders to celebrate literacy and a love of reading ─ as well as earth, space and a kid’s sense of place.”

Jean visited the home in 2010. (That’s her with some of the children in the picture.) She decided to use the publication of her most recent picture book Light Up the Night to raise awareness and funds for the library. She rallied other authors, artists, businesspeople and creative folk of all kinds to donate items that you can bid on, with proceeds going toward the library.

There is something for everyone.

Especially if you’re a reader, a writer, a librarian, a teacher or a parent. A partial list of items includes:

– Manuscript critiques by published authors and agents.
– Classroom visits by published authors.
– Signed books.
– Artwork by professional children’s book illustrators.
– Handmade jewelry.
– Home decor.
– Handmade baby blankets and quilts.
– And more, more, more.

It’s easy to leave a bid.

Visit the auction anytime between now and Nov. 18. And if you promote the auction via Facebook, Twitter or your blog, you can be entered in a separate contest to win a $100 gift card for — what else? — books!

If you’ve ever been grateful for being able to pick up a book and read it, this is one way to help someone else grow up with the same gift.

Stop by Jean’s auction today!

I was fortunate enough to attend the Rutgers University Council of Children’s Literature One-on-One Plus conference last weekend on the Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick, N.J.

And it was way cool.

The special thing about this conference is that there’s an equal number of aspiring writers and illustrators and working editors, agents, art directors and published writers. The conference makes one-on-one matches between the newer folks and the experienced folks, which can lead to a lot of learning and insight.

There are also group events and speakers. There’s no way I could do the entire conference justice, so I settled for pulling memorable quotes from my notebook and sharing them here. I know more people said more amazing things than I could capture, so I apologize to anyone I failed to include. I just couldn’t write fast enough to capture all the brilliance!

But, here’s what I did get.

First up was Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, author of Eighth-Grade Superzero. She kicked off the conference by sharing her success story. A former conference mentee, Gbemi shared her path to publication and thoughts on writing in general. Some of her comments that resonated with me included:

• “I write because I adore the magic and mystery of life. And I want to share it.”

• “Writing is an attempt to weave something beautiful from the chaos in our world.”

• “Writing and illustrating are acts of courage and acts of hope. There’s a beauty in the striving itself.”

• “I write to make magic and to listen between the lines. I write because I have faith and because I have a lot of doubts.”

• “Give your work the love and respect it deserves.”

There was also a panel discussion featuring Meagan Bennett, art director for Abrams Books for Young Readers; Barry Goldblatt, agent; David Lubar, author; Deborah Kogan Ray, author and illustrator; and Harold Underdown, editor and creator of The Purple Crayon website. Their discussion was funny and lively, but they didn’t always agree, which I thought was a plus. Conversational gems included:

Meagan:

• “A good story starts in one place and takes a child someplace totally new, achieving the goal of transformation.”

• “Love what you do. If we don’t think you’d be fun to work with, we won’t want to work with you.”

• “What about your work is different? Focus on that and pull it out.”

Barry:

• “The trilogy that is four or five books is also very popular now.”

• “Write like your very life depends on it. No safety net. No seatbelts. No crash carts.”

Deborah:

• “No matter how many words are there, your mind may come to just one illustration.”

David:

• “A joke is a story in miniature. If something makes you laugh or wonder ‘what-if,’ write it down. Otherwise you’ll lose it forever.”

• “Write your best possible pieces and get them out there. Then, try to write something better.”

Harold:

• “There are many secrets to getting published. All these different stories. All these different paths. There’s no predicting how you will find your path.”

The conference closed with Jon Scieszka speaking. I would share many of the wonderful things he said, but I was so busy laughing that I didn’t write anything down except the title of his latest book series, Spaceheadz. The man is seriously funny. Anyone who writes a chapter of his book in hamster (Eek! Squeak! Eek!) and then reads it out loud dramatically, is my kind of guy.

So as I said, it was an awesome conference.

If you ever have the opportunity to go, I highly recommend it. I left with the ideas listed here, along with several story-revision ideas and stronger industry knowledge from my one-on-one session with Chelsea Eberly, an assistant editor at Random House books. Chelsea also did a better job of explaining story hooks than I had ever heard before.

Oh, and I guess I do remember one quote from Jon Scieszka, so I’ll leave you with that:

“You don’t have to have all the answers. But you have to be willing to use your curiosity to find them.”

I’ve had two pieces of good news recently, and I’m sharing them now because I’ve only just stopped breathing deeply into a paper bag.

My first piece of good news.

I sold my first book! From the slush! To one of my all-time favorite publishers!

It happened after four years of writing, revising and submitting MANY manuscripts and receiving 126 rejections. (Not that I was counting.)

Here are the details:

Which manuscript?

Sophie’s Squash, a picture book. It’s probably the fourth or fifth one I wrote. And it was one I had revised and reworked at least 10 times. But it was worth it, because the story got drastically better each time.

To which publisher?

The amazing Anne Schwartz and the lovely Lee Wade at Schwartz & Wade, a Random House imprint. Have I mentioned I adore their books and the other authors they’ve published? Well, I do. A lot. And I’m still having trouble believing I’m going to be part of their list.

Want to see why I’m so excited about working with them? Read this interview they did with Ilene Cooper at Bookmakers.

Want to see all the cool authors they’ve published like Candace Fleming, Lenore Look, Jenny Offill and Patricia McKissack? Check out this link.

Where’s that paper bag? I think I need it again.

How did it happen?

I had a day off work and had just gotten home from exercising. (A shout-out to my friends at Phitness Plus.) I was sweaty and sticky, so when the phone rang and the caller ID said, “Random House” with a 212 area code, I thought perhaps I was a little light-headed from the crunches I’d done.

Plus, I didn’t recall sending anything to Random House. But when the person on the line said, “This is Anne Schwartz from Schwartz & Wade and you probably don’t remember sending us Sophie’s Squash …” I knew exactly what was going on.

I had sent them the manuscript in early January, and they called eight months later. For all my nonwriter friends, waiting that long for a response is not unusual in the publishing world.

What makes this more unusual is I had sent the book to them after I saw a website that said they accepted unsolicited manuscripts. Apparently, this is incorrect. Anne said they normally don’t look at slush, but they had just gotten a new editorial assistant and decided to have her go through some.

That assistant pulled my manuscript on a Wednesday, and Anne and Lee called me on Friday. So … wow! (I’ll even say it backwards. “Wow!”)

When will the book come out?

I don’t know. The illustrator has to be chosen first. And I have edits to do. Once those two things happen, I’ll know more about a release date.

Now, my next piece of big news.

I also have an agent. The awesome Ammi-Joan Paquette from the equally awesome Erin Murphy Literary Agency!

Pause for a moment while I take a few more deep breaths into that bag … There, I’m feeling better now.

Again, I feel extremely lucky. Joan, whom I heard speak at the Spring 2011 Iowa SCBWI Conference, represents a lot of people I am very impressed with. And, she’s a very good writer herself – with a picture book (The Tiptoe Guide to Tracking Fairies) and a middle-grade (Nowhere Girl) already published and a young-adult novel (Paradox) set to come out in 2013.

And, I really like the way she talks and thinks about writing and books.

Finally, some thank-yous.

I could not have written or sold Sophie’s Squash without the help, advice and support of many people. So a thousand thank-yous to:

Two wonderful people who got me on track early in my writing efforts.

Authors Jill Esbaum and Linda Skeers. I attended their picture book retreat soon after I decided I wanted to get serious about writing for children. I brought my earliest draft of Sophie along.

They were very encouraging, but said that the plot needed work. So we sat down and brainstormed what could happen. They supported me and offered advice along the way — even when I didn’t seem to be making progress. They definitely made me a much better writer.

My writing friends and critique partners.

Everyone listed below looked at various versions of lots of my stories, some of them many times. They’ve made me a better writer, too.

Sharon Hart Addy, Kate Carrigan Blackwell, Carolyn Cassel, Andrea Donahoe, Kim Falkenstein, Ned Gannon, Susan Herr-Hoyman, Janet Larscheid, Ellen Lawrence, Kiz Leppert, Pat Lessie, Joanne Linden, Bridget Magee, Lisa Morlock, Cathy Stefanec Ogren, Norene Paulsen, Eve Robillard, Jessica Vitalis and Jeff Waltz.

Thanks also to all the fun and talented folks at the Wisconsin and Iowa SCBWI conferences who have always been welcoming, positive and willing to share their expertise.

My family.

I’ve always heard you shouldn’t trust your family’s opinion of what you write. After all, they love you and can’t be objective about your work.

That’s probably true.

But families are great at telling you to keep trying, reminding you that you have what it takes, not getting mad at the time you spend at the computer and feeding you chocolate when a particularly painful rejection arrives.

So thanks to Faye Clow, Dick Miller, Gwen Miller, Lynn Miller, Mark Miller, Sonia Miller, Pam Wells, Allen Zietlow, Jean Zietlow and Tom Zietlow for believing in me during the journey so far and celebrating these recent milestones with me.

This post probably makes it sound like my writing journey is at its end, but I know it’s really only beginning. I also know writing and publishing books can take a while. But that’s all right with me. I think it’s going to be a fun, fun, trip.

As long as I don’t misplace my paper bag.

I hang out with second graders regularly – reading them books and helping them complete reviews for this blog.

But last week, I got to spend time with 15 middle school students talking about writing and story structure. I’m never nervous about meeting with the second graders — they’re always happy to see me — but I was worried the middle schoolers might be different story.

I have one middle schooler at home, and know how hard it can be to keep her engaged and on task. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with a whole group.

I shouldn’t have worried.

The kids I spent time with were excited about writing. Most of them wrote on their own one way or another — whether it was journaling, poetry, short stories, books (!) or as one seventh-grader said, “just random junk.”

And, they had lots of enthusiasm and thoughts to share, whether we were discussing the initial incident in The Wizard of Oz, why Harry Potter had to struggle for his story to succeed or how to learn more about our characters’ backstories.

I was amazed by how readily everyone participated in the getting-to-know- your-character exercise. Everyone chose a picture of a teenager and then responded to questions about that person to come up with a robust character outline.  

And the thoughts they came up with were impressive. Some created very serious scenarios about broken homes, jailed parents, murder and drug use. Others took a humorous approach with unrequited crushes, Barbie and Ken fixations, and a desire for swag.

Most impressively, it seemed like everyone wanted to share what they had done.

My favorite moments of the session were when:

• The girl who told me she wrote “just random junk,” later said, “You make me want to write a book.”
• A boy who had been very quiet during the session stayed after to privately show me the character sketch he had created.
• A teacher said another student in the class asked if he could stay in and keep working on the project instead of going out for noon recess.

And my daughter (who I think was privately worried I would embarrass her) even heard some good comments from her peers. 

I brought a copy of Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter and held a drawing to give it away. Response was so enthusiastic, I wish I had been able to give a book to everyone.

I also wish I had remembered to bring my camera. Then, I could have shown you all their smiling faces.

Never fear, we’ll return to author interviews and kid book reviews shortly.

But for today, here’s a collection of some interesting things I’ve seen online lately. I’ve even sorted them by category for your browsing pleasure.

Picture Books

• How much is too much? Lisa Von Drasek responds to the often-cited argument that picture books are too expensive by comparing the cost and value of picture books to other things parents frequently spend money on for their children.
• Is there a silver lining? Monica Edinger shares the good news she sees about picture books.
• Which books should you check out now? The Book Review has identified its picks for the best-illustrated books of each year since 1952. This is the 2010 list. And Amazon shares its top list, too.

Writing — for children and others

• Tips to improve your business writing from Bonnie Budzowski. Although they’d apply for almost any type of writing.
• Seven ways to ensure your reading is helping your writing from Daphne Gray-Grant.
• SCBWI Metro NY News presents: What are picture book editors looking for?

Books I want to read

• Soar Elinor by Tami Lewis Brown
• When Stella Was Very, Very Small by Mary-Louise Gay
• Sugar and Ice by Kate Messner

Miscellaneous fun

• Season of Love and Hope. An auction supporting author Bridget Zinn. Bridget was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 2009. After receiving treatment in Portland for 18 months, Bridget and her husband, Barrett, are now traveling to Phoenix for one week every month for innovative treatment at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Not all their costs for this promising treatment are covered by insurance. Bridget and Barrett’s friends and family are rallying to help them pay the bills. Artists, authors, and others have donated items in the spirit of love and hope.
• Blogger Jama Rattigan posts on cats in literature!

Every fall, the Wisconsin Chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators gets together to listen, learn and laugh. And the line-up at this year’s conference was one of the best yet.

Authors, editors, an art director and an agent spoke about all facets of children’s books from writing and revising to publishing and marketing.

Here’s a quick glimpse at some of the memorable quotes from the past few days.

Bruce Hale, author of the Chet Gecko mysteries, on SUSPENSE:

• Anxiety is the engine that drives your book. If you can get your reader to ask the big question, ‘What happens next?’ you’ve got them hooked.
• When your character has a secret, it’s like trying to keep a beach ball underwater. There’s energy that wants to come out.
• You don’t want to reveal everything at once. There’s a reason a stripper starts out wearing all his or her clothes.

Learn more about Bruce and his books at his website.

Loraine Joyner, art director at Peachtree Publishers, on PICTURE BOOK ART:

• No one wants to flip through a picture book and see just one point of view. You want your pictures to be up and over and in and out and around and under. They should be graceful, like choreography.
• Good artists add their own unwritten story line for the children to notice the third or fourth time they’re listening to the book. Everything doesn’t have to be told in words.

Lisa Yoskowitz, an assistant editor at Dutton Children’s Books, on VOICE:

• Ask yourself, is my voice age-appropriate  for kids? Is it well-drawn and multidimensional? Is it original?
• Make the voice of your book shine through in your cover letter. If your book is a rollicking adventure story, don’t write a somber, solemn query letter.

Deborah Wiles — author of Love, Ruby Lavender, Freedom Summer, Each Little Bird That Sings, Countdown, and more — on WRITING FROM THE HEART.

• You can take your life and turn it into stories by asking, “What do I know?” What do I feel?” “What can I imagine?” We’re always telling our stories the best we can.
• I wrote about everything I loved and was frightened of when I was 10. You have to be brave enough to go there. It’s where stories come from.
• No one can tell your stories but you. It is your obligation to tell your stories.

Learn more about Deborah’s life-based fiction at her website. And, to see what she wrote about this retreat, visit her fine blog.

Greg Ferguson, an editor at Egmont USA, on SIMPLICITY:

• Keep your story simple. You don’t need to gun for this blazing metaphor. You can be subtle. Your readers will understand.

Pat Schmatz, — author of Circle the Truth, Mousetraps and the forthcoming Bluefish — on REVISION:

• I used to want to publish a book. Now, I want to write the best book I can possibly write.
• To revise, you must have both commitment and curiosity in large and equal measure.
• I usually revise two or three times before I have what I call a first draft. Then I say, “Oh, THIS is what the story is about.” And then I revise some more once I know that. Most of my books go through at least eight full revisions.

Learn more about Pat and her books at this website.

Mary Kole, agent at Andrea Brown Literary, on A WIDE VARIETY OF MATTERS:

• If it falls out of the sky or crawls out of the ground, I probably don’t want it. The market is pretty saturated with paranormal creatures.
• There are more than 300 editors working in the children’s book market. Agents know their editorial styles. They can tell you who’s a good fit for your manuscript.
• Visit independent bookstores. I go every two weeks to see what’s on the shelves. The books there are the cream of the crop. They’re what’s selling. They’re the winners.
• Writing is an art and a craft, and it takes time to learn.

Mary also has a blog that’s well worth reading.

Thanks to Pam Beres, Judy Bryan and a host of other volunteers who planned and delivered an excellent, uplifting conference.

If you’d like to learn more about the Wisconsin SCBWI, visit our website.

Writing rebuses looks like it should be easy.

They’re short. There are pictures where some of the words should be. And the language is usually simple and repetitive.

But rebuses are really the sudoku of the writing world. A specific arrangement of words needs to fit into a defined space, follow a rigid set of rules AND tell a compelling story. And if that doesn’t happen, a rebus simply doesn’t work.

Wisconsin writer Pat Lessie might be the master of the rebus. So far, she’s sold 10 to Highlights For Children. And not only does her work meet the format’s stringent requirements, many of her rebuses rhyme.

Pat’s latest rebus, “Lightning Bugs,” will appear in the July, 2010 issue of Highlights.

Here, she describes her journey as a rebus writer and shares her tips for success.

What got you interested in writing rebuses in rhyme?
I was working in an elementary school. One of the students was an autistic girl.  She spoke little and had a short attention span.  However, in music class, she sang songs along with the rest of the class. I thought rhyming rebuses, written in verses similar to songs, might be something she would like. It turned out that the girl wasn’t much intrigued by my rebuses.

When did you write your first one?
I wrote my first one in about 1999.  At that time, I was writing long rebuses, two or three times longer than those I write now.

How long did it take before you sold your first one? What was it about?
I tried to market my long rebuses, a collection of eight, to a few educational publishers first, without success.  Then, in early 2001, I read several rebuses in Highlights for Children.  I decided to send one there. The editor asked me to shorten it to 14 lines or less.  It was about snow.  It was published in early 2002.

What are the easiest and hardest parts of writing a rebus for you?
Nothing is easy about writing a rhyming rebus. However, the ending is usually the hardest section for me. That part has to have a point or a surprise or something amusing. 

What are your secrets to success? What tips would you give a beginning rebus writer?
I don’t really have any secrets. I enjoy doing these, but I work hard on them. I write my first attempt, then polish it over several days, trying to get the rhythm as perfect as I can. Then I set it aside for some period of time before I take it out to rework some more. Of course, some of my attempts end up in the trash.

I would suggest writing some non-rhyming rebuses first. Someone starting out should read lots of rebuses. Language must be simple for early readers. The editors at Highlights won’t accept anything over 14 lines. That’s roughly 100 words. They want a rebus picture in each line, and would like rebus pictures repeated. The rebus pictures must be nouns.

One of my recurring problems is wanting to put more information in a 100-word piece than there is room for or than a beginning reader needs.

Thanks, Pat!

Here’s one of Pat’s rebuses. It it illustrates how much information and plot need to be effectively packed into a small space. This one is illustrated by Wisconsin artist Bonnie Leick. So in case you were wondering, the rebus writer does not need to draw his or her own pictures. They do, however, usually indicate which words they think could be illustrated and then the publisher hires the illustrator.

To learn more about Pat, visit her website.

To learn more about rebus writing, check out this article from Writing World. Or this one from the Institute of Children’s Literature.

Photo taken by Luigi Diamanti. Available on FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

If you, like me, were enough of a word geek to watch the National Spelling Bee recently (The brainpower! The drama! The quirkiness!) you probably noticed that in the vignettes featuring the spellers, they asked them their favorite words.

The spellers’ choices included words like schadenfreude, pfeffernuss and onomatopoeia. As each speller named the word, he or she spelled it out using giant letter tiles. So, of course, this prompted conversation in our house. What were our favorite words? And were we picking them based on what they meant, how they sounded or a combination of both?

Apparently, choosing a favorite word is not that uncommon. In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert describes how she learned to speak Italian and fell in love with the word ”attraversiamo,” which means “Let’s cross over.”

And, in one of my favorite “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strips, Calvin and Hobbes are using modeling clay and Hobbes is going on about how much he likes his smock. Then he says, “Actually, I just like to say smock. Smock, smock, smock, smock, smock, smock.” To which Calvin replies, “What on earth is wrong with you?”

Well, rest assured, you’re among friends. If you tell me your favorite word, I will not ask what’s wrong with you. So leave a comment if you wish and share YOUR favorite word.

I’m still trying to figure out my favorite word. “Perpetuity” is fun to say. So is “litigious.” And I like “bassoon” for reasons I can’t fully describe. Then, there’s “bibliophile.”

So get out your own giant letter tiles and tell us. What’s your favorite word?

I’ve always been fascinated by names. When I was young, I told my mother I wanted to have children just so I could name them. At the time, I was leaning toward Esmeralda, a name that – in my mind – was strangely underused.

I did not end up using that name for either of my children, although I still see its appeal. But I did put a lot of thought into their names. To me, a name should pass four tests:

• It should sound good when it’s yelled out the back door late on a summer evening.
• It should sound good when it’s announced at sporting events. As in, “Now on the line shooting one-and-one …”
• It should sound good completing the sentence, “According to noted Supreme Court justice …”
• It should sound good with the last name and not be so unusual that the child is condemned to a lifetime of spelling and pronunciation problems.

If you write fiction, the same amount of thought you spend naming real children should go into the names of your characters. This is not the place to make a quick decision. Think of well-known children’s books. Would Newbery winner The Higher Power of Lucky been as effective if it had been called The Higher Power of Kayla?  Would The Wednesday Wars have been as powerful if Holling Hoodhood were called Bruce Smith?

Sometimes, I see books where it seems like the author took the easy way out.  Naming errors I see often fall into one of two categories:

• The names aren’t current. The book is set in a present day middle school and the main characters’ names are Roger, Susan and Betty. There’s nothing wrong with any of those names, but very few of today’s pre-teens have them.
• The names aren’t diverse. Schools today are much more diverse than they were when many authors were growing up. And unless you’re specifically writing a story where the cast needs to all be the same race, it helps to have characters who reflect the actual make-up of the schools where the book will be read. Obviously, no names belong exclusively to people of one background, but being conscious of why you chose the names you use and how they might be interpreted by your readers helps. For an enlightening look at author Lauren McLaughlin’s decision to diversify her books, read this blog post.

Looking at baby name books and Web sites is one good way to find modern name options. Another way is to look at the names posted on lockers and over coat hooks at schools.

You may be amazed at what you see. Here’s a sampling of names I’ve seen posted at the schools, sports camps and other activities my kids take part in. And I don’t live in an especially diverse area.

Alberta, Alfonso, Araceli, Arun, Ashlyn, Athena, Azalea, Bram, Brigit, Carnita, Daijon, D’Angelo, Darius, Dharma, Diamond, Emmanuel, Ezra, Felix, Gordon, Greenleigh, Griffin, Harley, Haven, Helena, Ike, Irene, Isndro, Jade, Kyrie, Lelah, Leo, Magdalena, Masha, Milinda, McCall, McLain, Nazelah, Nico, Niharika, Orlando, Oscar, Sage, Sasha, Selma, Solara, Tawyme, Thiago, Trinity, Vivian, Xavier, Yume, Yuritzr and Zeb.

Happy naming! If you’re looking for more advice, try these sites:

• “Name that Character,” by Anne Marble.
• The Social Security Administration Web site. It lets you search the most popular names by birth year and even state.
• “Namestorming,” by Leah Tribolo.
• “What’s in a Name?” by Scott Nicholson.