Watch this space. I will return with prizes of awesomeness and cheer.

Well, yes and no. The dangerous thing about muses is that no matter how we talk about them, think about them, complain about them, draw them, hate them, loathe them, yearn for them — they are still THEM. Not us. Separate. Distinct. Other. Unownable. They elude us, hide from us, tease us, leave us, love us. They are outside us.

Muses are so bloody Tennyson as well, so draped in chiffon and hair. Very vaseline-on-the-lens. Oh, the artist sighs, if only my muse were with me today! What great things I could have created. Other people seem to have a kind of Kujo muse with lots of needle-sharp teeth and a very bad reaction to being ignored. If I had a muse, that’s what she’d look like because she’d be mean as hell and wouldn’t give a crap how I felt or what mood I was in or whether I had ten hours or ten minutes.

But dressed in silk or dressed in leather, a muse that exists independently of me is just a way of distancing myself from my own creativity, pretending that I am somehow not truly the owner of my own imagination, that it is something with its own agency that I must attempt to entice — or that I can accidentally scare away.

No. It’s up to me whether the next half an hour is productive or not. It’s up to me to sit in the chair, stay in the chair, write when I would rather not. It’s up to me to plan, prepare, work and practice. I never never get to blame my fear or my laziness on my muse’s coy absence. I am my own muse. I am the writer, the artist, the creator. What I need is within me, both inspiration and execution. No amount of lounging around in linen blouses, no amount of red wine or laudanum is going to make me a better writer. Any time spent waiting for my muse to visit is time I could have spent writing. And I know which is more likely to get a book finished.

I don’t care if it worked for Byron. I don’t have that kind of time.

*While you’re here, why don’t you get yourself entered into my very wee contest.

In honor of figuring out how to put that little Google Friends thingy you see over there on the sidebar…

In honor of succumbing to the lure of social networking…

In honor of realizing that too much time on the interwebs is bad for my brain…

In honor of realizing that everyone loves a contest…

I will have a contest!

To enter, all you need to do is to connect to this blog via the Google Thingy (yes, that’s its official title). Then, let’s see — how about on 28 February, my son’s 10th birthday, I will pick three people and send them all something wonderful which I have yet to decide upon — although, let’s face it, it’ll probably be a book. But a really good book. A really really good book.

If you also do the whole social networking thing of twittering the contest, I’ll stick your name in again for tweeting, but leave me a comment on this post letting me know, okay?

Good luck! And happy writing or whatever it is you do to stay sane.

Elana Johnson, YA writer, is having a contest on her blog with some jolly good prizes such as query critiques and post-it notes! I love post-it notes. Go check it out here: http://elanajohnson.blogspot.com/2010/02/pay-it-forward-query-critique-contest.html

A related contest on Shelli Johannes-Wells’ blog which has daily prizes so get a move on as it’s Tuesday already! http://faeriality.blogspot.com/2010/02/get-ready-for-marketing-mardi-gras-byob.html

Oh, it’s Tuesday! Happy Fat Tuesday, all! I ate FOUR mini Peppermint Patties because I am living on the wild side, single parenting while Ed is away in New Orleans. On a conference. A dull, political science conference in New Orleans on Mardi Gras. Hmmm.

You should also check out Shannon O’Donnell’s blog — she’s celebrating having 200 followers! (I’d  celebrate too! In fact, I’d crack champagne and eat more Peppermint Patties!)

http://shannonkodonnell.blogspot.com/2010/02/200-followers-contest.html

Now go enter a contest and drink something. Or eat a pancake. Mmm. Maybe that’s what I’ll have for supper.

Update:  I have decided that since all the cool kids are doing it, I will have a contest too.

I’ve just figured out how to put that little Google Friends Connect thingy over there and if you friend me between now and say, Sunday night, I’ll stick you in a drawing to win something cool which I will think of later when I am not so tired. I’ll do a proper update tomorrow. Toodle-pip!

I think the reading sounds more likely. And I’ve begun to plan it out, at least a little:

1. JANUARY Eighth Grade Superzero
2. FEBRUARY: A Match Made in High School, Magic Under Glass
3. MARCH: Hex Hall, Reinvention of Edison Thomas, Princess for Hire
4. APRIL: Cinderella Society, The Witchy Worries of Abbie Adams
5. MAY: Harmonic Feedback
6. JUNE: Sea
7. JULY:
8. AUGUST:
9. SEPTEMBER:
10. OCTOBER:
11. NOVEMBER:
12. DECEMBER:

These are vaguely ordered by the months of their planned release, emphasis on vague. By May I will be better able to look forward and plan the rest of the year. That’s way too imaginary for me right now.

So. If I can make it through the snow, I’ll go to the bookstore tomorrow and get stuck in. At least that will give me an excuse not to do laundry.

However, poking around the virtual world of children’s writers, editors and agents isn’t random. It’s work! And I’ve stumbled across a few interesting things recently which I will list here, just in case you’re part of that world:

Elana Roth and Caren Johnson are running a one-day pitch fest where you post a 100 word pitch on their forums and they will read them and will request materials as a result. Instructions are here: http://www.johnsonliterary.com/forum/post/982144

Mary Kole, an agent with Andrea Brown, who writes a wonderful blog about children’s books, writing for children and the world of agenting and publishing those books, is running a Novel Beginning contest for MG and YA.

I’m still a devote of www.misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com, which, although I’m sure you know this, is the blog of (you guessed it) Miss Snark’s first victim. She runs monthly Secret Agent contests which are often kidlit in focus because she herself writes YA and they’re always useful and interesting. I did one late last year and found it terribly exciting.

The YARebels are a group of seven new YA writers who are doing weekly vlogs. They are quite entertaining and I have learned some neat stuff from them. You can catch them here on YouTube.

Casey McCormick’s blog has an Agent Spotlight feature with lots of very interesting, up-to-date agent bios, with a focus on children’s literature agents.

I’ll come back with more next week. Right now, though, I have to go polish an entry or two. Enjoy the NYC SCBWI conference if you’re going and if, like me, you’re not (alas) tune into the SCBWI team blog.

I imagine some people move through life in a measured, thoughtful manner. They probably consider their choices carefully. Perhaps they even weigh options and decide what might work best for them in the long run. Only then do they buy the couch, accept the wedding ring, move to Pakistan.

I don’t. I don’t know if I think diving is a good idea until I’ve actually jumped off the cliff. It’s the doing of something that makes me capable of thinking about it, weighing it, adjusting to it.  I was all chirpy and peppy about having a child and only did the ‘oh-my-god-what-have-I-done-can-I-still-return-this-I-have-the-receipt-somewhere’ bit of the adjustment after the poor child was born. At which point (she said wisely, halfway down the cliff and accelerating) there was no convenient way to turn back. This doesn’t mean that I do ridiculous things (on the whole). It just means that I spring forward using only instinct and energy, and engage the rational brain somewhere down the line.

There’s no turning back now. I’m halfway down the cliff and accelerating. Hope the water’s warm and deep.

As soon as it had left my email, though, I was seized with dread. What if it wasn’t as good as it might be? What if it really needed another month or two of editing? What if I had left a typo in? What if it was in fact a steaming pile of poo?

I therefore refused to look at the book while I waited to hear back from the lovely editor. I didn’t want to see anything that I couldn’t fix. It’s not like I could send her another copy with a sheepish email saying “Oh sorry! I really didn’t like that adverb half-way down page 124 and come on, what was I thinking on page 76?” Better that I just didn’t know that I had sent something seriously flawed. I simply pretended that this book did not exist and got working on another book. Well, several other books. I’m a bit of project floozy.

But things didn’t seem to work out with lovely editor so now I am taking my book back. I am reading it again. I am opening myself up to critical readers and sharp eyes. I have spent the morning with a printed copy and a pen, scrawling all over the damn thing because you know what? It really could have been better. Much better. Oh, the flaws! The inconsistencies! That darn Renaissance Fayre father figure with a pipe! As Charlie Brown so eloquently said, “AAAAUGH!”

I am taking some comfort that in 45000 words I have only noticed two actual typos. But honestly. Is anything ever ready? Is it ever done? I certainly felt a sense of satisfaction when I had “finished.” I mean, I was satisfied enough to let an editor actually read the darn thing. Now I blush to think of it. Oh where can I put my face!

I can see a load of minor things to fix — several sort of middling things that need tweaking — and one whole character who needs to be kicked in his woodsy arse. (Yes, Renaissance Fayre intruder, I mean YOU! Take your stinky pipe and beat it!) And it’s rather exciting. The book is done — which means I don’t have to wonder whether I will ever actually reach the end, which is my usual fear. My trap is not slapdash first drafts: it’s first drafts that never get finished because I’m so busy worrying and editing and worrying and fretting about the first half that I give up in exhaustion before I get to the second half. So this will be a whole new kind of work. Like, oh I don’t know, planting flowers after you’ve dug and weeded and edged the bed. The really tough slog is done. This is about turning it from a piece of ground with a few flowers into a proper garden, everything in place, each plant leading the eye to the next, making a satisfying whole out of the many disparate parts.

This book is going to bloom. It is going to be the damn Longwood Gardens of books. I am going to weed it ruthlessly. Dig whole bits under if necessary. I am going to transplant and fertilize and lots of other good gardening metaphors!

And then I’m going to let it go again and eat ice cream. Actually, if I’m honest, there will be lots of ice cream all the way along. But there will be ice cream then too.

So to hell with casual!

HEY YOU GUYS!

Crow Toes Quarterly describes itself as “filled to the gills with ‘playfully dark’ short stories, poetry and artwork for children nine and up” and their latest issue includes a story by me! It’s called Broken Glass and to say that I am excited would not be the half of it. I’m really really really excited. And happy. And a lot of other slightly more complex stuff (including snackish for something but I can’t figure out what).

Subscribe! Buy the reasonably priced special print edition! Buy the even more reasonably (verging on ridiculously low) priced PDF! At the very least, check out their website and support their efforts to bring more deliciously shivery moments to young readers.

Hmmm. Maybe I’m snackish for raspberries. Or maybe I want to find raspberries at the bottom of a large glass of champagne…

It seems contradictory. Why throw more wood onto a fire that is already burning merrily? Why add another blog post, another website, another comment when there is already too much to read?

This is a bit like asking, why should I write a book when there are so many good ones out there already? Yes, there are. But YOUR book isn’t out there yet. And your (my) book is an utterly unique expression of your (my) utterly unique perspective, experience, life. And the miracle of that is that although we are all utterly unique, when we write from our most truthful selves, the world nods and murmurs, “That’s right. That’s exactly how it feels.” That is connection of the most profound sort.

So write on. Blog on. The world needs your book, the internet your voice. It will be richer for it.

(And, of course, people will be able to find you when they Google your name and not that wretched second cousin who shares your name but who moonlights as a bounty hunter and is a member of the NRA. Ick.)