Eggs Benedict

I'm home from my delightful, delicious overnight stay at the Miners Pick bed and breakfast in Idaho Springs.

Here is everything that I did.

I drove up to the mountains, leaving my house at 2:30 and arriving at the bed and breakfast at 3:30. It felt charming and welcoming as soon as I walked in. I chose the room I wanted, the prettiest one, of course, or at least prettiest in my opinion: see above. I loved the quote stenciled on the wall above the bed: "How to dream with your eyes open."

I established myself cozily in the little common room and read an entire doctoral dissertation for a defense I'm attending in the College of Education next week; the dissertation is on the alleged" boy crisis" in education. I read the recent newsletters from the Authors Guild and the Society of Writers and Illustrators. I read the fabulous first chapter of Little Bee by Chris Cleave, which I had borrowed from my friend, Rowan.

Then it was time for dinner. I strolled down the one inviting little commercial street in Idaho Springs and bought myself two bars of lavender-and-oatmeal soap at a soap boutique. Then I dined at Mangia, a lovely Italian restaurant a few doors down. I ordered myself a glass of Pinot Noir, which I enjoyed with their wonderful, warm fresh-baked bread, followed by a perfect salad and stuffed shells filled with spinach and cheese.

Back "home" again, I put on my nightgown and actually graded ten midterms: yes, I did bring them with me, and it felt so good to make progress on them as a kindness to my future self. And then I read another amazing chapter of Little Bee before I fell asleep.

This morning I arose at six, made myself some tea, and wrote Chapter 37 of my novel. Breakfast was at eight, just me and Vicky, the world's most hospitable innkeeper: cranberry-pomegranate juice, a small bowl of cut-up watermelon and kiwis, and the most attractive and delicious eggs Benedict I have ever seen or eaten.

And then I packed up and drove home, about as completely content as a person can be.

Miners Pick

As if I haven't been having enough joy in my life lately, I leave tomorrow after teaching my second class and having lunch with a favorite grad student to drive up to Idaho Springs and spend the night at the Miners Pick bed and breakfast. This is the treat that I won for myself in my church's silent auction a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, this is going to be bliss, bliss, bliss. I'm going all my myself. I'm taking my book-in-progress with me, hoping to get at least one chapter written and maybe two. I'm taking a whole stack of books to read - after all, I'll have part of an afternoon, and a whole entire evening, and then a whole entire morning. Even though I could definitely use some of that time on grading my midterms, I am planning to leave that little pile of work at home.

I have heard that the breakfasts prepared by innkeeper Vicki are amazing, so expect a report when I return.

Typing, Typing, Typing

The good of writing my books by hand, with my clipboard, narrow-ruled pad of white paper, and Pilot Razor Point fine-tipped black marker pen, is that I can write them so cozily anywhere. I can write in the airport while I'm waiting to board the plane; I can write on the plane cruising at 35,000 feet; I can write lying in my bed in a motel room in Warrensburg, Missouri; I can write in a new friend's charming guestroom while listening to her play her original compositions on piano and hammered dulcimer; I can write by a kiva fire in Taos; I can write in a crowded French patisserie in Santa Fe.

The bad of writing my books by hand is that when I come home from all this cozy writing I have to type up heaps and heaps of pages of my nearly illegible handwriting.

Usually I don't mind typing up my chapters after I finish writing them. It gives me an opportunity for a round of revision as I go, changing a word here, a word there, eliminating repetition, adding a needed transition. But usually I do this a chapter at a time.

I wrote six chapters during my spring break travels. Typed, this will be around 50 double-spaced pages. That is a lot of typing to do, especially when I'm on fire to write more new chapters - I'm so close to the end of the first full draft of this book, with maybe just another six more chapters to go. But I need to stop writing today and start typing, or else I'll be facing the need to type 100 double-spaced pages. Besides, my handwriting is so truly illegible - more of a shorthand than actual cursive - that I can't even read it myself if I wait too long; I can read it only because something about those squiggles on the page triggers a recent memory of what I actually wrote.

So today that's what I'm going to be doing: typing, typing, typing.

My Shoes from Warrensburg

I'm back from my spring break jaunt to Taos and Santa Fe, where I wrote by the fire in the kiva fireplace in the motel in Taos, and in a lovely French patisserie in Santa Fe. Now I'm catching up on email, and I am proud to present to you the picture of MY NEW SHOES from the shoe-buying party at the Children's Literature Festival in Warrensburg, taken by fabulous author Vivian Vande Velde, who always snaps hundreds of photos each year of all of us. I requested a photo of my shoes, and here it is! (The brown thing is the tag, which I've now taken off.)

I haven't actually worn them yet. I buy new shoes so seldom that it creates somewhat of a sensation in the Philosophy Department if I appear with a new pair of shoes upon my feet. "You got new shoes!" comes the chorus of voices.

So maybe I'll make that sensation when I return from spring break to teaching tomorrow. Or maybe I'll save them for the start of my "new life" for April on April first. Either way, I'm very pleased to have them. New shoes!

Home for a Few Hours

I'm back from my blissful day with the children at Chapel Hill Elementary. I spent the whole day with a group of some 35 children who had earned the privilege of "lunch with the author" by reading books, writing book reports, and generally demonstrating that this opportunity meant a lot to them. So I had an audience of extremely motivated fourth and fifth graders.

It was a busy day. I presented my standard author talk, complete with finale of the ape dance. I led a writing workshop on the theme of "show, don't tell," complete with performances from willing children who mimed the emotions of shame, joyful pride, and anger, so we could decide how best to describe these in our writing without labeling them explicitly. And I showed a PowerPoint of photos of my childhood, of writing-related trips, and of illustrations from my books.

The very best part of the day, though, was waking up in April's guest room at 6 a.m. and then writing a chapter of my book while listening to her play her original compositions on the piano in the other room - it was like being in our little artists' colony of two. And second best was writing my poem for the day on the plane coming home.

Now tomorrow I'm leaving before dawn for a spur-of-the-moment getaway to Taos and Santa Fe with a friend. I'm doing laundry and packing up my writing projects. I feel some poems coming on...

Greetings from Gladstone, Missouri

The festival was wonderful. It is always wonderful. This year I'm lucky enough to have my book The Totally Made-Up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish on the master list for the Mark Twain Award, Missouri's children's choice award, which means that thousands of schoolchildren all over the state have been reading my book. So my audiences at the festival were larger than usual. There is always such great adrenaline and energy in speaking to bigger audiences, and I had fun sharing my stories with them of how I became a writer, culminating as always in the performance of my "famous" ape dance.

I bought not one, not two, but THREE pairs of shoes at the festival shoe-buying party at Brown's shoestore in downtown Warrensburg: one pair of street shoes, one pair of house shoes, and one pair of boots. I, who love to travel unencumbered with the world's smallest and lightest suitcase, am now dragging with me a huge shoestore bag stuffed full of shoes. One of the festival authors took a picture of my feet in the new street shoes - photo to come once she arrives back home and emails it to me.

Now I'm at the home of April Armstrong, the librarian at Chapel Hill Elementary School in Gladstone, Missouri, where I'll be speaking tomorrow. April is not only librarian extraordinaire, but a passionate musician and composer. She plays hammered dulcimer, piano, violin, to name a few. Her home is filled with musical instruments, quilts, and cats. Right this minute, she is playing a haunting original composition on the piano, with a cat on her lap, as I type this blog post on her computer, with a cat sitting on the modem.

I'll be home tomorrow, but right now April's house feels like home.

Only with more cats.

Off to Missouri

It's now officially spring break, and tomorrow morning at 7:52 a.m. I'll be on the bus to the airport to fly to Kansas City and then ride to Warrensburg, Missouri, to attend the Children's Literature Festival sponsored by the University of Central Missouri. I've lost count of how many times I've gone - fifteen? At least a dozen.

The festival takes place during their spring break, which this year also falls during our spring break at CU. The whole campus is turned over to dozens of authors and thousands of school children, arriving by the busload from schools within a three-hour radius of Warrensburg. Each author gives four talks a day; each group of children gets the chance to hear four authors a day. It's intense and wonderful.

The most fun is reconnecting with the other authors, who come back year after year as I do. We'll have dinner the first night at Heroes, in downtown Warrensburg. The next morning we'll take a long walk to look at cows, followed by a luncheon and book signing/reception. Monday and Tuesday we give our talks. Monday after the talks we'll go buy shoes at an old-timey shoe store downtown right near Heroes; this has become a festival tradition. That night we'll have dinner catered for us in the university library. Then on Tuesday I'll leave to go spend Wednesday speaking at Chapel Hill Elementary near Kansas City, and then I'll fly home.

With at least one new pair of shoes in my suitcase.