Here's the best part about being an artist or a writer - acceptance. And by acceptance I don't always mean financial acceptance like a sale - even though that is my personal favorite. Acceptance can also come in the form of an email from someone telling you they like your work, saying something to the same effect (gasp!) to your face, or bringing you good news in a real-life old school letter like the one I got in the mail the other day.

Seeing an actual letter envelope in my mailbox outside of the holiday season is akin to spotting a kangaroo out in the front yard. You know what it is but you still can't quite figure out what it's doing there. And because of the almost total shift to email communication has transformed my mailbox to nothing more than a bill stuffed bearer of bad news has me conditioned to get cold sweats when I hear the postal truck, this exotic delivery had me anxious at first.

Did someone die? No they'd call me on the phone to let me know that, wouldn't they? And then I flip it over and see the New York City address on the back flap. It's from one of my publishers.

Now here's the bad part about being an artist or a writer - you get rejected - a lot. And rejection is a soul-sucking black hole of despair that seems to exist for no other reason than to try to convince you to quit - to never ever draw another pretty picture or write anything other than a check to the utility company. And if you've been working for awhile there's a good chance that expecting rejection is your default setting.

So my immediate reaction to seeing that address was enough to cause my anxiousness to bloom into a full scale crushing sense of impending doom. My heart beating wildly, tiny beads of cold sweat turning my mascara into little rivers of black, I carefully pick at the edges of the flap, thinking if my ego's demise is in there, then I want to meet that fate in the light of this gorgeous summer day.

But when I draw the letter out it isn't a letter saying you stink, we think your work is poo, so go away and never slink back - no. It's a letter letting me know my new book, Big, Bigger, Biggest has gone in for another reprint - yay!

And even though selling books is fabulous financial acceptance, there was even more than that contained in that brief, one paragraph letter. At the bottom of the page my editor had affixed a little sticker of a goldfish with a speech bubble coming out of its mouth saying, "Awesome."

That letter's now taped to the wall above my computer screen because I know that in this business there'll be plenty of days where the acceptance uttered in that one word by that adhesive backed goldfish will be what keeps me drawing and writing. We all need a cheerleader some days. Mine just happens to be a goldfish for the time being.

What's yours?

Make Way for Ducklings

I attract strays. Example one: My sister and I are on the freeway, on our way to the coast to deliver some of my artwork to a gallery there. Suddenly all traffic stops. Through the jumble of cars I spy, no, please no, but yes, it's a dog. The big white dog cowers, slinks belly down on the asphalt toward me, terrified. I take its collar in my hand and lead it back to my sister's, oh yeah I forgot to mention, my sister's BRAND NEW car. After a trip to the beach and back where happy dog plays, then gets smelly sand all over sister's new car, we find the now not so white dog's rightful home.

Example two: Find one bag of bones dog, collar biting into neck wandering a park by my house - no ID. After a hefty vet bill and two weeks trying to find out where said dog actually belongs, found her a new home where someone ended up showing her what a good home is supposed to be.

Example three: Find injured pigeon in front yard with happy cats staring it down. Soon find perfect pigeon print pressed in the glass of my picture window. I took it to the vet. Yeah, I really did spend money on that flying rat. She was very sweet and because of her set broken leg and wing it was hard for her to stand up - hence her new name, Eileen (I - lean, get it?). Eileen ended up with a pigeon rescue organization. Who knew there was such a thing?

Example four: Every cat I've ever had.

Example five: The photo above says it all. Ducklings. Duckling are adorable but not so much when they're weaving in and out of traffic on a busy highway, no mom in sight only to make their way a quarter of a mile to the dog park near the tennis courts. Stupid ducklings. And who takes them? If you've gotten this far in my post you already know. My tennis friends gather them up and we dump them in a commandeered Styrofoam cooler. I lay a couple of tennis rackets across the top so they can't get out and make my way to the Audubon Wildlife Rescue Center. How do I know where it is? I guess I forgot to include the injured bluejay and the hypothermic baby chipmunk in my stray list.

The ducklings peep-peep from the cooler. They are adorable and so tiny. I wind my way through the hills toward the Rescue Center when something pops into my peripheral vision, and then another thing. Ahhh! Ducklings! They're all popping up in an Orville Redinbacker frenzy through the little space between the tennis rackets. I grab three at a time with my right hand while trying to keep the car on the road with my left. I toss them as gently as my panicked self allows back into the cooler, only to have 3 more right back out again. By the time I dropped those little boogers off, I was sweatier than I was playing tennis in the sun.

I'm going back to those courts today and I'm hoping for some great tennis. What I'm not hoping for is more ducklings. I'm done with strays for awhile. Unless of course I happen across a stray George Clooney or something. That would be fine, that would be just fine indeed.

So there you are, cruising right along in your creative process. Your mind's zipping, ideas snapping like pop-its thrown down onto the sidewalk to terrorize your little sister. Oh wait, that's my memory - sorry, Mary...

Anyway, it's a good feeling, a powerful feeling because you know exactly where you're going.

And then you don't. You suddenly don't know where you're going at all. All engines stop.

I don't know about you but this is the most frustratingly, painful, wretched experience my work can throw at me. I can take impossible deadlines. I can stand up to first graders with pink eye or sixth graders with a major 'tude. Weathering this economy as a picture drawing, story making-upping, itinerant teacher? I'm still standing, baby.

But having your creative flow derailed - man, that's harsh.

So what's a body to do other than lie on the floor like a dead thing?

1. Step away from the keyboard or drawing table. If it's not working, it's not working. Taking a break, even if you've accomplished absolutely nothing so far is not being a bum, it's recognizing that your tanks are on E for empty. Take a walk, clean that bathroom (you know it needs it), watch daytime TV. Come on, I know you want to.

2. Find someone to wallow with. Complain to a friend, hopefully a friend that understands what you mean. That friend doesn't have to be an artist or a writer. If their frustration is that they haven't been able to find that perfect pair of shoes they just know is out there waiting for them if they could just figure out where they are, then they'll understand - believe me.

3. Read. Read. Read. Look. Look. Look. Read books by authors you love. Read books about authors you love. Read books about artists you love. Then go to galleries and the museum and stare at their work. Let all that creative goo get on you.

4. Find your network. Do you have a writer or artist critique/support group? If not, start looking for one. Chances are they've been in this same boat just as often as you have. And they'll be happy to remind you how non-special you are in your angst. Better yet, they may be able to point out the exact thing that's making you stuck in the first place. Don't know how to find such a group? That's what Google's for.

5. Relax. Have you ever tried to sneeze? It's a lot like trying to make the creative process happen. Once you get enough of these roadblocks under your belt, you'll know that this too shall pass just like Aunt Hildy's fruitcake. My apologies. If I wasn't stuck myself, I'd have come up with a much more appropriate analogy than that.

You will get back on the road again - eventually. Who knows? That road might even be a better one - one with lots of fastfood places and fiberglass dinosaur attractions to stop at. Gasp! Maybe even a corn maze.

Dutch has declared a winner as far as pet horror stories. And he has the experience to be a wise and fair judge. He's outlived two cats, a couple of dogs, and is holding his own against Twig the Terrible minpin puppy.

He approved oh so much of the chewed up pillows. In fact he said he's penciled that activity into his calendar. Wiener dogs aren't just about naps and passing gas you know. He also liked the Samoyed's sly attempts at owner disgrace through intestinal talents. And fat cats are always easier to catch, so that warranted a thumbs up.

Oops. I've been informed that it was insensitive of me to point out the old man wiener dog's lack of opposable digits. Sorry Dutch!

And the duct taped refrigerator was a painful reminder of the time Dutch got his head stuck in the crisper drawer so he had to go hide under the couch for awhile after reading that.

Ultimately, it was the cat spray story that won him over. It reminded him of his old cat pal, Sapphire that loved nothing more than slinking up and down the street marking the tires of every car and also the shoes of sluggish pedestrians. So "shelter-cats" please email me with your address and Dutch will send you a book right away.

If he had opposable thumbs, that is! Hey! Dutch! I was kidding. Step away from the pillows.

Rats. I'll send your book as soon as I'm done cleaning up all the feathers...

Oh, happy day! Check it out - I have galleys, lots of galleys! And getting the box of them dumped on my doorstep felt like Christmas, my birthday, and Arbor Day all wrapped up into one because that's when I could actually touch this book (even though it's a galley, it still looks and feels like the real deal).

I'm weird about that. None of my books feel real until I actually hold them in my hands. Maybe it's because they've lived in my head for so long. First, I mull over an idea for weeks, months, sometimes years. Then I have to glue my butt to my desk chair and write the thing - oh bother. Then come the revisions, more revisions, and then guess what? More revisions? Thank you, don't mind if I do.

But I think that long time spent thinking about, writing, and then the fixing serves an additional purpose other than creating and polishing a book. For me, it allows me to detach from the project. Believe me, after the umpteenth revision, it doesn't feel like my book anymore, it feels like a jumble of places I need to make not suck.

But when that magical box arrives, it feels like a book again - my book. And because I've had that separation, and because now it's been many months since I've spent any time looking at the text, and because in the meantime I've completed another novel and started another, I get to look at it with new eyes. Have I read it already? Does my puppy poop on the rug? You betcha.

I've set aside one of my galleys to give away here. If anyone wants to read a "haunting story of three people dramatically thrown together by fate, each struggling to come to terms with their harrowing past" just post your own bad puppy, or bad kitty story in the comments section. I'll decide if one of those trumps my puppy's misbehavior and then you win!

Okay, lurkers, this is your chance!

Oh, and just in case you missed my plug the first time, here's where you can see more of cover artist Michael Morgenstern's wonderful work: http://www.mmorgenstern.com/

The Importance Of Being Geeky

I've been teaching art and writing to groups of 1st through 6th graders the last couple of weeks. You'd think the age spread would make working with them difficult because you'd need to shift gears all the time. But that's not the case, because all these kids are interesting. And what makes them interesting is their geekiness.

These kids are geeking out all over the place. One is all about mollusks. Another, video game cheat codes. Two others argue about the construction of ballet shoes - if, that is, they were worn by a hamster.

I tell you, this is good stuff.

And it's no surprise that they're all producing some great work. I'm always amazed when I run across self-conscious people. It's a little sad, I think, to go through life worried about looking foolish, concerned with putting your most serious self forward so you won't look like - well - a geek.

Geeks are fantastic! They know all about the best stuff, like cool mollusks and how much you'd weigh on Neptune. They are perfectly suited to being artists - and writers - whether they know it or not. Artists, and writers need that geek streak whether they know it or not. They can walk around all arty and everything with their little berets and ascots, but deep down inside?

They're geeks.

They have to be. To be able to put all the information you need to into your work you have to first learn about all that information. It has to grab you, nab you, and shake you like a terrier dispatching a rat. If you're not passionately in love with your information then your product's going to read, or look like, a tepid second date - all talk - no fireworks.

So what do you do if you are a little geek-phobic? You need to fugetaboutit. Try walking your dog in your rubber ducky pajamas. I do this all the time and my neighbors don't even call the police anymore. Name your dog something ridiculous, like "Twig" and hold your head up proudly in the park even when other people turn to stare. Ask the wait person at the restaurant for tartar sauce for your french fries without turning red when she gives you the fish eye.

Then, when you're ready, indulge your geekiness with information you find fascinating. Here's the best part - you get to choose what it is without worrying about it anymore. The geek-cops have been banished and now you're free to create at will.

You're free to be a geek.

Welcome home.

This may look like just a slightly washed out, grainy cell phone photo, but it's more than that - much, much more.

This is the first time I've seen a galley of my debut novel, Listen!

The official pub date is October but seeing this makes that down-the-road date feel oh, so much closer. Yahoo! Zowie, baby. It's real.

It's really, really, real. And when I get my own copy of a galley in my hot little hands, you better believe I'll be posting a clearer version. Artist extraordinaire, Michael Morgenstern, who also did the fabulous cover for Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, deserves to have his work showcased in something other than a slightly washed out, grainy cell phone photo.

To see more of Michael Morgenstren's work in all its glory go - here: http://www.mmorgenstern.com/

But for right now, I'm going to sit with the cell phone photo and bask a little. I'm feeling a little Golem-y about it. It's my new "precious".

Wow, look how easy it is for me to be creepy! Now that's talent.