C. Lee McKenzie

Young Adult and Middle Grade Author

Monday Miscellany, Pardon My Burps

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I don’t know about anyone else, but during this Thanksgiving holiday I abandoned all thoughts of “good and sensible” when it came to eating. I stuffed myself fuller than any holiday turkey could ever imagine. I’m now on Alka Seltzer and Tums. If anyone mentions food or doing dishes this next week, they’re toast.

I did get in some hiking on a couple of forest trails and I did two super beach walks.

Samuel B. Morse Trail
Carmel Beach

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One treat I always enjoy is going to Spanish Bay and waiting for the Piper to pipe the sun down. Here he is on the day after T’day doing an excellent job of sending the sun into the Pacific.

The Piper at Spanish Bay

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What was your holiday like? Family? Friends? Long break from work or regular routine? Ready to get back and dig in? I AM.  For me, it’s back to sensible eating and writing and remembering the wonderful moments during this holiday.
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Christmas Count Down: 30 days!

Monday Miscellany, Mostly Thanksgiving!

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November  19, 2012

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Thanksgiving

Last week as I was driving into town, wild turkeys attacked my car with demands. “You can pass if you sign this petition,” they said. A petition being shoved in your face would have riled most people so soon after this long, drawn out election process, but I needed to get to town. Long and short . . . I signed and here you see the beastly birds allowing me safe passage through the woods.

Safe from me!
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Amazon

I’ve heard that Amazon will not be allowing authors to write reviews anymore.  At first, I thought, “Rats!” Then I thought,  “Can they do that?” I mean a lot of writers buy their books from Amazon. Isn’t there going to be a rebellion or a protest or some kind of Tea Party action?
I’ve check and so far my review are still up for books I’ve read and commented on. I still have all my writer reviews for my books. I did hear from one writer that two of her writer reviews for her book disappeared! Anyone else checking? What do you find?
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Promotion: On getting more reviews

  • Who has heard of/used TweetAdder? What do you think? 
  • How about using the non-automated Twitter to ask for reviews? Have you tried that? Any results?
  • Ask David? It offers reviews. Any ideas about this site? 
  • Knights of the Round Table is on goodreads and offers its members reviews. Anyone in this group?
  • LinkedIn group called Book Reviewers is interesting. A PW reviewer is offering to review books for members. You might check this out.

If authors really are shut out of reviewing on Amazon, where would you go to ask for more reviews?

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I WON’T BE POSTING UNTIL NEXT MONDAY, SO 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 

EVERYONE. 

Thanksgiving 2011

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Here it is again.  
THANKSGIVING.

The day to eat, of course, but also a day to take a moment for reflecting on all of the things we have to be grateful for, and, as we pull out our chairs to sit with family and friends, to remember those who aren’t with us at the table anymore. It’s a day to give to others who might need something hot to eat. It’s a day to appreciate the history of our country and to encourage our children to know what we are celebrating.

There are any number of children’s books about this holiday, but here are a few that my family has read and that are on our bookshelves to read again and again.

If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 by Ann McGovern, Anna DiVito (Illustrator)

In lively question-and-answer style, this fact-filled book answers all sorts of questions about the Pilgrims’ journey on the Mayflower and their first year in America. Why did the Pilgrims leave England to live in America?  What items did they bring with them on the Mayflower? What were the hardships they endured? What was The Mayflower Compact?

We liked this one because the author shared details about the Pilgrims’ everyday life.

Turkeys, Pilgrims, and Indian Corn : The Story of the Thanksgiving Symbols by Edna Barth, Ursula Arndt (Illustrator)

Each of our holidays has its own familiar traditions: Trick-or-treating on Halloween, eating turkey on Thanksgiving, waiting for Santa Claus on Christmas, exchanging cards on Valentine’s Day. But where do these customs come from, when did they begin, and why do we continue to observe them?

Edna Barth explores the multicultural origins (something dear to my heart) and evolution of the familiar and not-so-familiar symbols and legends associated with our favorite holiday. This book is full of  historical details and little-known stories, that are shared so that kids enjoy learning about that time in our history.

We also like Laurie Halse Anderson’s book, “Thank you Sarah:The Woman who Saved Thanksgiving.” It’s a story about Sarah Hale an editor who recognized this holiday was in danger of being forgotten. She set out to “show” everyone just how mighty that pen could be, and she saved the day we’ll be celebrating on Thursday.

Hope you’ll share some of your favorite books about Thanksgiving and tell us what you’re thankful for. And may you have a most wonderful day, no matter how you spend it. Now where did I last see that turkey?

NCTE and Me

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I’ll be taking a break from the Write Game from Nov. 13th to Dec. 2nd.  This will give me time to do a presentation at NCTE in Orlando on Nov. 19th, and then stuff a turkey for the following Thursday. Why does everything happen at the same time?

I thought that since most of my readers are writers I’d give you a bit of preview of the presentation.

The title is Why Ain’t and Gotta Gotta be in Today’s Books for Kids and Teens and I’ll be chairing the session which will include: 

Cheryl Herbsman (Breathing)

Erin Dionne (Models Don’t Eat Chocolate & The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet)

Cynthea Liu ( Paris Pan Takes the Dare & The Great Call of China) 

Kurtis Scaletta (Mudville & Mamba Point)

Carrie Ryan (Forest of Hands and Teeth & Dead Tossed Waves). 

Am I in good company or what?

I took on the job of chair because of my background in linguistics, so I’ll be establishing the framework for this session about Literary Dialect.

So what is literary dialect anyway? It’s a way of speaking that marks regional, cultural, ethnic and social differences among characters in your books. In other words: accent, word choice, and grammatical usage. And there are many ways to approach capturing performance and putting it on paper.

In my latest WIP I wanted to characterize a character from Texas, but I didn’t want to clutter the page with the typical y’alls, so I used standard spelling, but in the attribute I described the character’s speech. Since this book will be in first person pov, it will be the protagonist who comments on the Texas accent. Here’s one example:

Texas character.”So what do you say?”
POV character. Dad’s question comes out in slow Texan.

I like this technique because readers can hear whatever Texas accent they want.

In Sliding on the Edge I had a non-native speaking Vietnamese character and to capture his voice I omitted unstressed words that a native speaker of English would never omit. “The” is often barely noticed, but since it’s a morpheme (a unit in our language that carries meaning) if it’s missing we know. I chose to omit the for another reason as well. “th” is a rare sound in the languages of the world and often difficult for second language learners to articulate. Here’s how Tuan sounds in my story.

“Las Vegas!” He spits into the gutter. “Hoodlums do this. All time.”

In The Princess of Las Pulgas I have a feisty character, named K.T., with attitude as her middle name. Here she is giving my poor MC a dose of that attitude.

“There you go again, thinking I’m stupid. I heard all that scratchin’ your pencil did and I seen those pages full of writing.”

K.T. isn’t stupid, but she likes to break as many rules as possible, including grammar. Here she mangles standard English by using the past participle, seen, instead of the simple past, saw. It doesn’t make the meaning unclear, but characterizes her perfectly.

 If you noticed, the word, scratchin‘, is respelled and that will be the technique I’ll go into more at the conference. When I start blogging again in December I’ll go into it here as well. It’s an interesting technique that’s often used, but it’s controversial among linguists as well as writers.  So come back in Dec. and I’ll share what I know about respelling.

Well, that’s enough. Happy Thanksgiving. Come back to visit when you’re full of good food and holiday memories. I look forward to your visit.

One Tired But Happy Blogger Reporting to Duty

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There are not enough English words to describe a hike in Yosemite and English has more words than any other language in the world. Well, that’s hard to determine, but possible to speculate.

Anyway about words . . . I don’t need many to tell you what I feel.

Mountains.
Trees.
Water.
Sculpted Granite.
Sequoias.
Silence.
Thank you.

This is not Haiku, but maybe next time.

Photo Credit.

Thanksgiving

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I’m taking a break. It’s time to get outside and do some hiking, so I’m off to Yosemite for a few days. 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

When I come back it’ll be time to end the first CONTEST for the free signed copy of Flash Burnout. Looking forward to sending that to someone. 

Thanksgiving Books

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Before I don my chef’s hat and pull out the mixer from the back of the cupboard I have to share a couple of things in an about the world of writing for young readers.

Jen Robinson has a great post about The True Story of Thanksgiving, an upper middle grade non-fiction book that would be a wonderful addition to anyone’s T’day celebration. Just from the description you can tell how much richer the history of our special day really is. I’m off to the bookstore this afternoon, so I can share this around our table tomorrow.

Laurie Halse Anderson’s book, “Thank you Sarah:The Woman who Saved Thanksgiving,” is another source to begin reading about the true background to our national holiday. It made me want to know more about this woman, so after the holiday flurry I plan to do a bit more digging into Sarah Hale.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.