"I Write Children's Books" OR How I Learned to Stop Fighting and Love the Stigma

In Fall 2009, I started college at a certain Ivy League school that shall not be named. All that I will say is that I didn't have a good time there. And that it's a color.

For the semester I was there, I was enrolled as a "Literary Arts" major. I never really found out what Literary Arts is. I think it's a more pretentious version of an English major, but I'm not sure.

I was in a class called "Literature of Children and Young Adults." On the first day, our teacher had us go around and say why we were interested in children's books, specifically young adult books. When it got to me, I told them--"My first YA book came out in 2009. My next one is 2011."

I pretty naively expected to be congratulated.

What I got was an A on my first paper followed by a paragraph that had nothing to do with my paper and everything to do with the way I introduced myself the first day. Saying I was published was unprompted self-congratulation that set me up as a precocious kid with an attitude problem. And, my professor continued, the A on the paper should not be taken as a sign that my writing didn't need a lot, a LOT of work. I was young and naive and full of myself. I was all bark and no bite.

Later, when I asked the kids in my class what they were working on, one of them mentioned that children's books were just practice for him, and--by the way--he was so glad he wasn't planning on perusing publication for years to come, because good GOD he would be so embarassed to have anything less than his very best life's work out in the world.

I don't think I have to tell you guys how hard it is to have any self-confidence at all in this business. From the outside, it's probably very easy to see published authors as self-satisfied assholes who refuse any more growth. From the inside, I haven't seen anyone who fits this stereotype. Not to say some don't, but I think this is far, far from the norm.

We're still scared. We're still searching. We're still learning and editing and crying into our pillows. I don't have to tell you guys this. You know.

They didn't. I was surrounded by people trying to knock me down a peg, except I had nothing underneath me when they did.

I stopped going out. I couldn't write.

I went home.

That professor and those students were not the reasons I left Brown.

They didn't help.

(Oops, look at that. Said the name.)

I transferred to the University of Maryland, I started out as a Theatre major just to try to get away from the drama (ha ha ha) and the baggage. It worked, but it turned out I was a really shitty Theatre major. I started my sophomore year a month and a half ago, as an English major.

I was fucking terrified.

My plan was not to tell anyone I was published. No one. Lips zipped. It was going to be my complete and absolute secret.

And then the first day of Introduction to Creative Writing, my teacher has us go around and say what we write.

Everyone else in the class writes poetry, short fiction, doesn't write anything but wants to start. A girl is working on a sci-fi novel. Besides that, no longer works.

He gets to me, and I say, "I write children's books."

I don't think I'd ever said this sentence out loud before. I hadn't been intentionally avoiding it, but this was the first time I'd spoken about what I write since Zombie Tag sold in June. Before that, I wrote young adult books. Now I write children's books.

And then my teacher said, "Are you published?"

Well, fuck.

What was I supposed to say to that?

So I said yes and he acted impressed and I said to the class, "I'm normal. I swear. I'm normal."

And my professor said, "Don't worry. I'm sure you're not here to show off."

And that sentence cracked my whole world open and filled it with sunshine.

The moral of this story is that I would have to be beaten heavily with a stick before I'd take another children's book class.

I love being an English major. I am absolutely crazy about 20th century American Lit and literary criticism and a million other aspects of this world. I'm considering doing a second major in English Education so I'll be certified to teach those English classes down there, like, ferrealsies. Surprising no one here, I love books. I love learning about books and learning about writing.

I like that I am branded as a children's book writer.

There is still a ton of stigma around writing children's books as opposed to "real books." This is another thing you guys don't need me to tell you. But it's working for my advantage now, and I love it.

It feels a little like playing a game, because I'm pretending to check the children's books at the door. And it probably looks that way. They probably think I'm holding everything I'm learning in a separate vessel for the day I grow up and decide to write a Real Book. People see my writing as this slightly hacky side career I do while I'm not at school learning about Real Writing.

They have no idea I'm stealing all the Real Writing techniques and bending them and shaping them and hacking them into pieces and smushing them together and simplifying them and extrapolating them and plugging them into my zombie book.

They don't need to know. I'm not cheating. I'm learning. I'm enjoying myself. And I got to do it through being honest. And since I'm in classes for "real" writing, not children's writing, no one sees me as the girl who's there to show off. I'm the girl with the job on the side who's learning something totally new.

I have friends now.

It feels like I'm winning this game.

I can deal with being a hack.

A Brief Interruption

I know you guys want Part 3, but we need to do this first.

One year ago today...



Though it had been spotted in the wild before...




BREAK was officially unleashed upon the world.



I celebrated in the usual ways...





Since then, BREAK has received reviews like THIS:

Hannah Moskowitz delivers a passionate debut about one boy struggle to make his world sane by being insane. It's a story that I'll never forget!
A Must Read!

And like THIS...

I thought this book was absolutely boring and stupid. I am not trying to be overly harsh, but I found that I was bored throughout most of the book.

And I've received so many emails that made me do this.



So I would like to offer up a big slice of



to all the lovely ladies (and men--I know you're there somewhere) of Simon Pulse who believed in a crazy book like BREAK.

And to all of you--



Who have read BREAK, especially if you reviewed it, especially if you told a friend about it.

Thank you so much. It has been an amazing year.

Happy birthday, BREAK.

The Animals Were Gone

In honor of Teaser Tuesday, here's the first bit of THE ANIMALS WERE GONE, that sniper-shooting book I teased with a month or two ago. You'll see the title here, or a conjugated version of it--and yeah, it did come from that Damien Rice song.

A fun fact about that song--which is beautiful by the way, and highly recommended. It has one of the best lyrics in history: "Waking up without you is like drinking from an empty cup." So a lot of you know that about 6 weeks ago I was in a pretty bad car accident. I walked out of the car, but logically shouldn't have, given the state of my car. The police who found me kept shaking their heads as they looked at the scene, saying, "I can't believe you're alive." You can imagine that's exactly what you want to hear after an accident like that.

When I crashed the car, I was listening to the song "The Animals Were Gone," by Damien Rice. I haven't been able to listen to it since.

It's the same song that, a few months prior to the accident, so graciously lent its title to a book about how you can die at any minute.

It's weird how things work out.

(Note: despite the use of the word 'zombie' in this excerpt it is not, in fact, my zombie manuscript.)

--

I wake up to a quiet world.

When I do sleep, the only thing that wakes me up is this kind of still, the sound of a million things and thirty-four bodies not here and one boy breathing alone.

I open my eyes.

I can't believe I slept. I sit up and stare at my shoes on the floor. They're black canvas high-tops from Target. My mom got them for me, not for my birthday or anything, and not even because I needed shoes, just because she thought I'd like them. My dad said the last thing I needed was another pair of sneakers, and soon they'd be covered in shit anyway, so what did it matter?

I sleep in the basement, now, and I can feel how cold the tile is. I can feel it through my shoes.

I make kissing noises with my mouth. Nothing answers. My brain is telling me what is different but I am not going to think it, I won't think it. They're all hiding. They're all upstairs. Somehow they're out of their cages, but they're not gone.

I think it says something about you when you don't even untie your shoes to try to go to bed. I think it's a dead giveaway that you are a zombie. If there is a line between zombie and garden variety insomniac, that line is a shoelace.

I got the word zombie from my brother Todd. He calls me zombie, sometimes, when he comes home from work at three in the morning—Todd is so old, old enough to work night shifts and drink coffee without sugar—and comes down to the basement to check on me. He walks slowly, one hand on the banister, crinkling a page of the newspaper in his hand. He won't flick on the light, just in case I'm asleep, and there I am, I'm on the couch, two cats on each of my shoulders and a man with a small penis on the TV telling me how he became a man with a big penis, and I can, too. “Zombie,” he'll say softly, a hand on top of my head. “Go to sleep.”

Todd has this way of being affectionate that I see but usually don't feel.

I say, “Someday I might need this.”

“The penis product?”

“Yes.” Maybe not. I think my glory days are behind me. I am fifteen years old, and all I have is vague hope that, someday, someone somewhere will once again care about my penis and whether it is big or small.

The cats don't care. Neither do the dogs, the birds, the gerbils, the hamsters, not even the one bird I call Flamingo because he stands on one leg when he drinks. None of them care.

The vaguest of vague hopes of a deflated heart.

My bedroom is the basement because the basement is tile because I have thirty four animals total, and animals shit. And tile cures all evils.

I look around the basement. My alarm goes off. I should have slept through it. I shouldn't have heard it over the crowing, the barking, the crying and baying. This morning, five-thirty AM for school, my bedroom is a quiet, frozen meat locker because the animals are gone.

Stalling

I am sick and look DISGUSTING. (name that movie in the comments)

HERE'S AN EXCERPT. this is the first page of my WIP.


I only invented Zombie Tag three weeks ago, and we’ve already lost seven spatulas. For awhile, I stole my Mom’s, but now she’s out. I make my friends bring them now. Once our mothers find out where all their spatulas are going, they’re going to be so mad. They’re going to team up and form some kind of army against us, I swear. But we’d be totally prepared. Mothers can never be as scary as zombies.

I guess we could play Zombie Tag without the spatulas, but that doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun.

Today is Anthony’s birthday, so we should be sleeping over at his house. The problem is, Anthony has an awful house for Zombie Tag. His place is like a museum. There’s all this great stuff, but you can’t touch any of it. And there’s nowhere to sit.

But because it’s his birthday, we let him be Zombie God. That means he’s the one who writes the words on the post-it notes--BARRICADE, BARRICADE, BARRICADE, BARRICADE, ZOMBIE. It’s pitch black, so he’s using his cell phone. The air conditioning is on too high because my dad is always hot. It’s coldest here in the basement. We’re all jumping up and down and shivering while Anthony folds and shuffles the post-it notes.

Eben comes thumping down the stairs. “Dude, shut up,” I say. “My parents are sleeping.”

“All the lights are off,” he says. He’s panting from running through the entire house. He volunteered to do it. He should man up and stop acting like he just ran a marathon or something.

Anthony clears his throat dramatically. “Okay,“ he says, holding the post-it notes above his head.

“No trading, no showing, no sharing.” He passes them out. We peek at them and stuff the evidence into our pockets.

I can’t believe it. I’m Zombie. In our millions of games of Zombie Tag, this is my first time being the zombie. It’s like it’s my birthday.

But no one would know from my face. I am the world’s coolest cucumber right now.

“Okay, eyes closed,” our Zombie God orders. We snap our eyes closed, and I slowly open mine to make sure the other guys aren’t peeking. They have their fingers stuffed into their ears, just like they’re supposed to. I feel kind of proud that they’re following my rules so well. It’s not every guy who has a bunch of friends who really understand how sacred a thing like Zombie Tag is, you know?

Time to fulfill my first duty as Zombie. I walk away from the circle as quietly as I can. I put all my weight on my heels before I lean onto each toe. When I was a kid, my brother told me that hunters used to walk like this so they didn’t get eaten by tigers. I totally believed him and put it in early settlers history paper a few weeks ago, and Ms. Hoole gave me a C and wrote THERE ARE NO TIGERS IN THE UNITED STATES. And that wasn’t even the point. I hate when teachers don’t pay attention.

So I keep my tiger-sneak walk up until I’m well out of the circle, then I run to the table and pick up the dinosaur. It’s this plastic coin bank my dad got be as a souvenir when he went to Russia a few months ago. He was checking up how they’re doing on the development of Time-Based Travel. I think they’re beating us, because Dad was really depressed when he got home, and he had this whole stack of papers to work through and all these reports to file. I asked him if he was a spy, and he said “Quiet, Wil,” and gave me this bank. And, it’s like, I’m not six, Dad, but at least it comes in useful for Zombie Tag.

It’s our Key. The other guys need to find the Key, or else they’re stuck in the house forever, and I’ll eat their brains.

Teaser Saturday

We should get my name out of the way first. It's Body Count Beatrice.

I mean, really it's Beatrice Tanerbaum, but the Disco Dykes always were fond of alliteration. I've been Body Count Beatrice ever since Kiley, who was girl number two. Kiley was the accident. That's how I think of her in my head. Elizabeth was the tragic. Kiley was the accident. Lea was the mistake.

When the Dykes came up with the name, after Kiley, in September, it was joking, gentle, to make me feel better. You silly girl, can't you see it's a coincidence? You're a voodoo princess, they'd say, rolling their eyes, mocking me. Body Count Beatrice, two isn't so impressive.

After Lea, in January, no one said it, everyone pretended the name had never existed, because that rule they teach you in acting class, about how things are funny when they happen three times? It doesn't count when your girlfriends are dying.

And then in April, I started dating Benji, and the few people who hadn't been avoiding me because I carried death on my fingers suddenly were, and “Body Count Beatrice,” they whispered in my ear while they pushed me into my locker, “How long are you going to give the boy?”

The Publishing Process, or Why You're Always Afraid of Someone

I found Absolute Write when I was a 15 year old n00b. I had a few novels under my belt, most, but actually not all, of which were completely awful. I also had a lot of big ideas about publishing being some kind of corporate scheme, and agents were all part of some big capitalist machine of iron and steel and crushed dreams. To be honest, I didn't know a damn thing about agents except that I didn't want one and I was going to kick my little feet and cross my arms and tell everyone in the world I didn't want them.

So then I stumbled across Absolute Write, which is honestly the mecca of publishing information for a lost soul such as myself. And I went in there with my big ideas and my even bigger mouth and I got gently, but efficiently, slapped down to real life.

And these writers, who were bigger and older and more experienced and a hell of a lot wiser than I was? They scared the shit out of me. They'd been around the block, and they had shit like writing spaces and writing processes and writing schedules and writing pants or whatever, and all of it was stuff I'd never thought about and definitely never considered having, because I wasn't a real writer. I was the crazy little kid who wanted to get published before she was 18.

But luckily I was a crazy kid who listened, because I started querying, and goddamn was that the scariest thing ever. Forget being scared of writers, now there were agents. And agents were just the scariest fucking thing in the world, tweeting at each other and drinking coffee and taking phone calls and throwing around words like "slush" and "acquisitions" and "apartment." They were frickin adults, for God's sake. And here I was sending them emails and expecting them to waste their time on me.

I know people go through a lot of feeling when they get rejections, but does anyone else just feel embarassed? I think I'm over it now--now, if anyone rejects me, they're clearly heartless robots who don't understand my passion and prowess over the quill of amazing or whatever--but it used to be that every time someone sent me a rejection, I'd just want to email back I'M SORRY WHAT WAS I THINKING SO SORRY I MADE YOU READ THAT. Because I had it in my head that for some reason I wasn't worthy of agents' time. That they were up there on their Mount Olympus and I was down here in high school.

But I got an agent.

And then all of a sudden agents were my buddies and I could tweet at them and ha ha ha aren't we witty and oh my God, editors, oh my God.

And now it's holy shit, book reviewers.

This goddamn thing never ends, and it's awesome.

TO EVERY REVIEWER WHO SAYS (S)HE LIKED BREAK ENOUGH TO EXCUSE ITS WEAK ENDING

Thanks. Me too.

Just when you think...

...you'd kill yourself before you'd start another first draft, when you think you're SO GLAD you're on the second draft of your WIP and you NEVER WANT TO START ANOTHER BOOK AGAIN...

...a new idea comes along and slams you across the head.

God. Damn. It.

FINISHED

words left: 0

days left: 6

yessssssss. I did it! 58some thousand words, and it's all done! And I'm actually pretty happy with it, yay. And I have tons of ideas for edits.

Now I want to see if I can get a 2nd draft done before BREAK comes out. Clearly I am insane.

My release date is "soft," which means it's possible there's a copy of BREAK in your local bookstore RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND. SOMEONE ELSE COULD BE BUYING IT RIGHT NOW. ARE YOU GOING TO STAND FOR THIS?

Ugh, when did I become such an annoying little publicitywhore?

But you guys love me anyway, right? (say yes)

Point of No Return

I just passed 10,000 words on the manuscript I'm working on (All Together with Feeling, still.) Generally, I consider 10,000 words to be my point of no return. It's where I've invested too much in a book to give up on it.

Granted, this isn't foolproof--I've given up on books at 15K, 40K, 52K, but usually if I reach 10K, I'm in it for the long haul.

Do you have a wordcount that works as verification that the ms is going to work? Or are you one of those freaky people who finishes everything she starts?

I have no willpower

Aaaaand here's what I started tonight.

--

SOPRANO: Etta is a not-chubby-just-curvy racial minority chirping her way through the high notes, despite her maturing voice trying to push her down an octave. She sweats too much, laughs too much, and has a penchant for parties and Oliver Hayes. Too bad he’s gayer than a Liza Minnelli playlist.

ALTO: Bianca isn’t ambitious, per se…she just knows her strengths. And her main strength happens to be that she’s the best damn singer in the chorus, and her director knows it. If only Julian weren’t holding her back, trying to get her to sing those drippy duets with her. Doesn’t he know she should be the one calling the shots?

TENOR: Julian’s not jealous of his girlfriend’s relationship with the choral director. He’s not. He’s just worried Bianca’s being used. And worried she’s getting in over his head. And worried that being a tenor really does mean he’s one ball short of a home run.

BASS: Oliver thinks he has it all in the beautiful, unobtainable jock who sits in the back of the choral room and moves his lips to the words. Too bad he’s not so unobtainable after all, and Oliver’s going to have to face exactly why he doesn’t want a real relationship. Alternatively, he could see if his fling with his director pans out.

In ALL TOGETHER WITH FEELING, a 50,000 word YA novel, four seniors in a high school choral group tell the stories of their quests to out-sing the competition—both on the stage and off.

It's been awhile...

...and Baby Ghost has been long abandoned in favor of an old, previously abandoned manuscript! I'm about 51,000 words into it thus far.

Today is my eighteenth birthday! I'm a teenage writer no longer.

Baby Ghost

Baby Ghost is a holiday, but not like Christmas or New Year’s. It’s more like President’s Day, or Martin Luther King. The days you have because someone died. Because maybe you’d forget exactly when they died it if not for the holiday. The holidays don’t give you a chance to forget.

Baby Ghost keeps on going and I wonder when it will end. It’s still going on the day I go back to school. I think it’s on something like it’s second week now. I can’t say Happy Baby Ghost to anyone because no one would know what the hell I’m talking about. And I’m not quite sure if it’s a happy holiday, either. I’m waiting for someone to tell me.

Sydney’s oboe is hanging from my hand. Of all the things she’s asked me to do so far, this is the one I’m least looking forward to. Oboes are gross.

Someone has to play in the concert, she said. It’s not like I can.

Sydney’s the only person who really talks to me anymore. Really talks to me, I mean. Beyond asking how I’m feeling. Baby Ghost is her holiday. I don’t know if it’s good or not. She hasn’t told me.

I guess it’s good that my dead girlfriend’s talking to me.

Maybe.

“Happy Baby Ghost, Baby Ghost,” I tell her in the mornings.

Thanks, she says back.

I’ve only been out of the hospital for a week, but supposedly it’s time to go back to school. My parents hugged me extra tight before I left. They’ve been touching me a lot lately. Mom has this way of cupping my cheek and stroking I wonder what she thinks of me. It’s impossible to tell anymore. I’ve lost my ability to read my parents. I don’t think that has anything to do with the accident. I think that has to do with being sixteen.

I have to carry this oboe inside. I have to remember my locker combination that has fallen out of my head sometime in the past two weeks. I don’t have a choice about these things.

4 24 19. That’s my locker combination. I remember now.

Leif claps me on the shoulder. “Nice to have you back.”

He’s the one person I’d tell about Baby Ghost. I suppose I could. It’s not one of the rules. It’s just something I don’t think would be smart.

I hitch my backpack up my shoulder.

“How are you doing?” he says. He’s making those eyes like a mother animal.

“I’m okay. Walking to school was kind of hard. I got lost.”

“How’s your chest?”

I fractured some ribs. I keep forgetting about them. They don’t even bind broken ribs anymore, because they’re afraid you’ll get pneumonia. Broken ribs just hang out there in the morning and feel very unimportant.

Shrug.

I’m sort of a dick to Leif lately. It’s not fair. He’s trying. He’s come over every day since I’ve gotten home, but I’m so boring he usually ends up helping my sister divide fractions or sorting through the homework the school insisted on sending over starting like an hour after the accident. He did some of it for me. Leif’s most likely gotten smarter off my family’s dysfunction.

He guides me down the hall, his hand on my back, after I don’t answer. He keeps looking at me, and I know he’s so worried. Leif has these green eyes that crinkle all up. Worried looks lonely on Leif.

We’re not normally the touchy-feely types.

“Wait,” I say. “I’m supposed to go to the band room.”

“What?”

I hold up my new schedule. “I have band.”

“Why in God’s name...shit, you’re playing oboe?”

He looks at the oboe like I have a choice in the matter. Like I have a choice about any of this. I’m just the messenger, I want to say. I’m just the ghost of a ghost.

I got to choose one thing. What to name this—this holiday, the remainder of my life. I don’t know how long it will last. I don’t know how long Sydney’s speaking to me will even be noteworthy. But I got to name it. I called her Baby. So I call this Baby Ghost.

Except when I’m talking to her, I call her Sydney.

“Sydney,” I used to say, my hands on her shoulders arms stomach thighs, kiss me listen to me hold me complete me “Sydney.”

Ghosts don’t touch. She laughs at me when I ask if she will.

Her laugh still sounds like an oboe.

Oh dear Lord

I'm writing again.

Two thousand words in so far. It's called Baby Ghost.

I'll post an excerpt tonight.

Care to give this a title?

Fun fact: I rarely, rarely come up with my titles.

Started this evening:

Dustin learned a long time ago that the easiest way to control Jeremy was to remain close. He’d touch Jeremy—sometimes, not always. A hand on the shoulder, around his ankle, maybe palm-down on his forehead. Every once in a while, murmur something comforting. “It’s okay.” “Everything’s fine.” “You’re with me.”

Just after seven o’clock, when the light started to get pink through the trees. Dustin turned a page in the newspaper and wondered how long it’d been since he’d seen his name in print. Certainly not since he moved up here. To escape the fame, he’d said, but the truth was the fame escaped him ages ago, and this was just a cover for the rest of his pride. There was no more fame to escape by the time he bought the cabin—just the whole word outside afternoon tea, Jeremy and his nightmares, and Avi.

Only half an hour until Avi arrived. Dustin knew he should get up, make himself attractive. Make himself...something. Whatever. Avi knew every inch of him. Even when Dustin wanted to feel self-conscious, it was hard to feel anything but boring next to Avi. Avi, who had a tattoo of a tattoo gun. Avi, who had You were wrong—it’s just darkness in black ink on the sole of his foot. “For when they hang the toe tag,” he said

Jeremy shivered when he saw it. But Jeremy did a lot of shivering. Like...now.

“Everything’s fine,” Dustin said, running his hand down his brother’s back..

Jeremy whimpered.

“I’m here.” A lot of good that ever seemed to do.

Just after seven o’clock—much too early for most sixteen-year-olds to sleep. Dustin cupped his hand around the back of Jeremy’s head and slipped his fingers into his curls. Seven o’clock was Jeremy’s worst time. Right when the drugs started to kick in. Strong enough to put him to sleep, not nearly strong enough to calm him down.

Jeremy bit down hard on his tongue.

“Nuh-uh-uh.” Dustin worked his fingers around Jeremy’s jaw until it loosened and pulled away just as Jeremy snapped at his fingers. “Hey.”

And Jeremy was so sweet when he was awake.