moose in a sprinkler; quest to write a short, simple book

Some moose/sprinkler adorableness (keep watching for a little while -- there's a shy one that comes out later. [Smile.]

So, this weekend is the SCBWI national conference in LA, the one we always go to and love, the one that has made all the difference for me in learning to finish books and get published -- but we decided months ago not to go anywhere this summer (Comicon either) but stay home, meet deadlines, save $$, etc. But. . . wah! I wish we were there! It's such a good time.

Strangely, I woke up this morning thinking about the novel I abandoned four or five years ago when I decided to commit to Blackbringer instead. I had been going back and forth between them, never making significant progress on either, until I realized I had to give one up. (Interestingly, it was meeting a fabulous editor at the SCBWI conference who showed interest in my faerie characters that helped sway the choice to Dreamdark.)

I've always known I wanted to get back to the other one, which is YA, but in the meantime a lot of other ideas have jumped in line in front of it in the queue of books-waiting-to-be-written. But now. . . I wonder. I do love this story. . . And the best part is that it might stand the best chance of being. . . simple (God, I shouldn't say that. That's like asking for trouble, right, writers? To say a book will be simple? That's like tempting the muses to make mischief with you!) Okay, simple? I don't know. But with the drubbing that Silksinger has given me, I'm keen to write a shortish book with a contained p.o.v. I've been thinking of trying first-person, even. First-person has always scared me, but I really have fun with it in my short Sunday Scribblings fictions.

Speaking of short, "simple" books, I'm almost done with The Adoration of Jenna Fox, which I don't think I would have picked up based on the cover (though it is lovely), because it doesn't look mysterious, I guess. But. It is mysterious. Highly. I read a review of it at 7-Imp (and being highly impressionable, promptly ordered not only it, but another book they compared it to: Nancy Farmer's multi-award-winning House of the Scorpion). But anyway, at 7-Imp, they said that this book is, unexpectedly, science fiction. Who knew? It's about a 17-year-old girl who wakes up from a year-long coma and has to unveil the many secrets surrounding her accident, including: why does her family seem to be hiding her? I don't want to spoil any more than the book jacket does, which isn't much -- it's an interesting risk to take, to market a book so mysteriously that you basically risk alienating the audience that would buy it if they knew what it was about, just in order to get the non-sci-fi readers to pick it up. You know? I could easily have missed this one.

Anyway, I wonder if I have it in me to write a short, "simple" book. It sounds so delicious right now. And really, Lips Touch is simple, and it was a joy to write -- I think I need a little writing joy, looking forward. Revisions, after a while, can knock the joy out of any story.

Happy Saturday!