After an intense week of getting my YA fantasy novel, Maya and the Book of Everything, ready for its proof copy, this song by The Ramones captures the spirit of how I feel.
But God willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll be sending Maya out next week for the proof copy.
In the meantime, I wanna be sedated. 😉
As we Mainers might put it, this fall has been wicked weird. Last Friday, the town’s thermometer read 80 degrees, and in the evening Clif and I had drinks and supper on the patio. (We thought those days were long gone.) In short, this fall has been warm, and as with anything, there are pluses and minuses. On the plus side…we have had to use very little heat, and in a state like Maine, where it is cold for at least eight months of the year, this is a real blessing. The cost of heating is a real issue for many Mainers. On the other hand, this unnaturally warm weather is yet another reminder of climate change, and while northern New England might enjoy the milder weather, it’s not so great for the rest of the world.
However, this October Monday is seasonably cool and very windy. A good day for hanging fleeces on the line. The sky is bright blue, and the trees are ablaze with color. Maine is glorious in October, and if there is a finer place to be, then I don’t know where it is.
The gardens have their own beauty in autumn. The flowers are gone, and I miss them. However, the foliage has turned red and yellow and the seed pods add visual interest. This year, as Jason from the blog Garden in a City has suggested, I’m not going to cut back the perennials until spring. I’ve never done this before, and I have decided to give it a try. Not only will the uncut garden provide a place for beneficial insects to winter over, but it will also decrease the amount of work I must do this fall.
This, of course, brings me to my upcoming YA novel, Maya and the Book of Everything. I have been working like a crazy person getting the manuscript ready for the November publication. Clif and I have learned a lot with this first book, and for the second book in the series, Library Lost, we will have a much different time line.
But the major editing is done for Maya and the Book of Everything, and yesterday, a rainy fall day, I felt like a wet noodle. I spent most of the day on the couch, where I napped and read the current issue of The New Yorker. (I believe George Bernard Shaw called it a boiled sweet kind of day, where all you feel like doing is sitting in a corner and sucking on boiled sweets. ) I have found that an occasional day of rest is a good thing, necessary even, to recharge the batteries.
Today, I do indeed feel refreshed, ready to tackle the next set of chores for Maya.
Onward and upward.
My upcoming book, Maya and the Book of Everything, is a fantasy, and much of the action takes place on a fictional planet called Ilyria as well as in the mysterious Great Library. But some of the novel is set in East Vassalboro, Maine, a real town where my mother lived for over twenty years. I chose East Vassalboro because, through my mother, I came to know it well, and though it be small, East Vassalboro has a keen sense of community.
When Maya and the Book of Everything opens, Maya and her mother, Lily, are on their way to East Vassalboro to spend the summer with Maya’s grandparents—Mémère and Pépère Turcotte. (In another post, I’ll write about Maya’s Franco-American connection.) Maya comes from New York City, and although she loves the city, she also loves the little village of East Vassalboro with its homey charms. 
It has a corner store that smells of oiled floors.
A grange hall, freshly painted inside and out, where there are public suppers, plays, and book sales.
A historical society housed in what was once a school.
A little stream that runs through the center of town.
And most important, a small brick library, surprisingly new. (The old one, a converted cottage, burnt down years ago.)
Why do I use a real village in a fantasy novel? Because it provides a sense of place that grounds the story. From East Vassalboro, Maine, I can move Maya across the universe, but no matter where we might travel, Maya and I always know where home is.
Drum roll, please! The cover is done for my upcoming book Maya and the Book of Everything, and now I can share it. I’m not going to hold back—I am absolutely thrilled with how the cover looks. Really, if my creaky knees allowed, I’d be jumping for joy. Kudos to James T. Egan of Bookfly Design for doing such a great job and for being so good to work with.
Maya and the Book of Everything, a fantasy for readers twelve to adult, will be published in November 2016, and I will definitely keep you posted.
Here is a brief synopsis of the story:
In Maya and the Book of Everything, a not-so-ordinary girl comes into possession of an extraordinary book. The Book of Everything is sentient and, among other things, can provide facts about the past, present, and future. The book and Maya are being pursued by a group that wants to suppress facts and spread lies for its own gain.
Another group, called the League of Librarians, believes that facts do matter, and its mission is to protect the book. From the league, Maya learns about a place called the Great Library, which is where the Book of Everything came from.
In the course of the story, the Book of Everything takes Maya back in time, where she meets a boy named Andy. The book whisks Maya and Andy to another planet, where they become embroiled in a civil war. Will Maya be able to save the Book of Everything? Do facts really matter? And what, exactly, is the Great Library?
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Onward and upward!
This week (and perhaps next week), I won’t be posting many pieces on the blog. All of my writing energy will be spent on Maya and the Book of Everything as I work on the final editing. How exciting it all is, but I must admit I’m also a bundle of nerves. However, as I mentioned in reply to one of the comments about Maya, I’ve been working toward this for a very long time.
With all the work on Maya, there will be no homemade bread (to my husband’s dismay). It will be an English muffin kind of week. Meals will be very simple. Only the minimum housework will be done to keep the house clean.
Onward, onward!
Even though it’s still early, today has been a most exciting day for me. I received the first draft of the cover for my YA fantasy, Maya and the Book of Everything. Simply put, the cover is beautiful. I know. All mothers think their children are beautiful, but this cover—a rich blue with a book motif—really and truly is. I even love the font that was chosen.
Just seeing the first draft of the cover has put me in a happy state of jitters, and it will be hard to focus on anything else. But, cover or not, the laundry needs to be hung, and we will be going for a bike ride on this fine summer day.
As soon as the cover is finalized, I will post an image of it on this blog. This means, dear readers, that aside from family, you will be the first to see it.
Exciting times, indeed!
Tomorrow, my daughter Dee will coming from New York to spend a week with us. Is there any better time to visit Maine than August? Some would say September or October, but nothing can beat August for time spent on the patio, where we can drink wine, eat grilled food, listen to the crickets, and watch the birds. Dee looks forward to this, and when she came in July for the Maine International Film Festival, she was sorry that she didn’t get any patio time.
Dee’s visit will be filled with all sorts of simple but fun activities—an appetizer night at a friend’s house; a pizza and movie night here; plays at the Theater at Monmouth, just down the road from us; a couple of movies at the cinema; and most likely a trip to an art museum or two. It will be a lovely interlude from our usual routine. No matter how satisfying a life might be, it is always good to take a break from time to time.
Readers will be happy to know that last night I made my decision about which book to read. The choice was between Barkskins by Annie Proulx and White Trash by Nancy Isenberg. (For more of a description of these two books, see yesterday’s post. ) Jason, from the blog Garden in a City, suggested I go with Barkskins, and I independently came to the same conclusion. I read some of Barkskins last night, and at 12:45 a.m., I reluctantly put the book down so that I could turn off my reading light and go to sleep. Now comes the challenge of finishing the book before it is due in two weeks. At 736 pages, Barkskins certainly qualifies as a tome, but I do feel I am up to the challenge.
I’m not sure how much I’ll be blogging next week. I might post a picture or two, but I expect I won’t be writing much.
I hope all of you have a wonderful week.
No, the title of this post does not refer to my upcoming book, Maya and the Book of Everything. I am right on schedule for that. Instead, I am referring to two other books, which I recently checked out from our town’s library.
The first is White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg. This title pretty much explains the premise of the book, and as someone who has come from an underclass—I am Franco-American—I am always interested in how class plays out in our supposedly classless society. (Such a foolish premise. Where there are humans, there is always a class hierarchy. )
I’ve begun reading White Trash, and it looks as though it’s going to be a very good book. I’ve already begun peppering it with little sticky notes when I find passages that are especially engaging.
The second book is Barkskins by Annie Proulx, and it’s a novel of two Frenchmen who come to New France in the late seventeenth century. Steven, my Franco book buddy, put this on our must-read list, and knowing there were a lot of holds on Barkskins, I told him I’d see what I could do about getting the book from the library. As luck would have it, Barkskins came far sooner than I expected it would, and now it sits, along with White Trash, on my night stand, two hefty books waiting to be read.
And here we come to the crux of the problem. White Trash is 480-pages long, and Barkskins clocks in at a whooping 736 pages. Both are due in two weeks, and for one of those weeks—next week, in fact—my daughter Dee will be visiting from New York.
Now, I am a fast reader, but to read over a thousand pages in two weeks is a bit much, even for me. Amazingly enough, White Trash has lots of holds, over fifty I was told by our library’s director. I guess I’m not the only Maine reader who is interested in class in America. Barkskins also has a lot of holds on it. No surprise there.
This means that renewing either book is out of the question, and. most likely, I will be able to finish one but not the other. Yesterday, I dipped into White Trash. Today, I will dip into Barkskins. Then, I will have to make a choice.
I wasn’t kidding when I chose this post’s title. Under book pressure, indeed.
At the little house in the big woods, in mid-July, the gardens went into a slump after the glorious burst at the beginning of the month. But now they’ve gathered themselves again with the bosoming of the daylilies. (Eliza, so sorry you missed them! But flowers will be flowers, and they bloom in their own time.)
I am also happy to report that we—Clif and me—are making great progress with my YA fantasy book Maya and the Book of Everything. All the material for the first part—synopsis, blurbs, and other necessary information—is done and ready to go. Clif is designing an oh-so-lovely author’s website for me. I know. I am lucky to live with a computer geek who also has terrific graphic sensibilities. However, I did have to ask him to remove the flying saucer he put in over the castle. (There are no flying saucers in Maya, but there is indeed a castle.)
I have ideas brewing for a presentation, if I am fortunate enough to be asked.
Busy, busy, busy! But in such a great way.
Soon, I will be sharing the cover.
Exciting news at the little house in the big woods. Soon I will be publishing a book I’ve been working on for some years. It’s called Maya and the Book of Everything, and here is the tagline: One Girl, One Boy, One Book Against the Forces of Evil.
This October is the projected month for publication, and in the meantime there is much to do to get the book ready. Therefore, I’m going to be taking a little break from the blog. Oh, I might post a picture from time to time as I do like taking pictures, but I won’t be writing much of anything for the next few weeks.
The book feels a little like my baby, and how gratifying it will be to see it in print.
Stay tuned for an upcoming synopsis of Maya and the Book of Everything. Here is a teaser: Some of the book is set in East Vassalboro and Waterville, Maine, and some of it is set at the mysterious Great Library.
Notes From the Hinterland 