Renewal

A few weeks ago, in the midst of this exhausting book tour for ASHEN WINTER, I saw this tree:

It's an old, hollowed out sycamore tree growing beside a stream in Fortville, Indiana. From the top of that seemingly dead trunk sprouts a vibrant young sycamore about six inches in diameter. I took a picture because the image plucked a chord within me.

Sometimes students ask why I became a writer. And I tell them it was the only job left after I got fired from every other profession I tried. I answer that way because it's funny, and I like to be extremely candid in my interactions with students--they can smell fakers from all the way down the hall.

But the truth is that I fired myself; I quit most of the jobs I held before I was a writer. I did a bit of everything: janitor, marketing executive, wine salesman, and remodeling company owner among others. In each job, I felt like that old sycamore tree, getting progressively more hollow as small daily iniquities rotted me and office politics gnawed my core.

Now, I feel more like that new tree, growing fast and proud from a base of failure. In another sense, though, all those abandoned careers were anything but a failure. Everything I tried informs my writing today. The new tree could not exist without the roots the old one put down.

The Value of Author Visits

Author visits can take a lot of time to schedule and prepare for. Teachers, school administration, and parents aren't always supportive. Some argue they aren't "curricular." (This isn't true. Unless writing isn't part of your curriculum. In which case your school has bigger problems than the lack of author visits.) They can be expensive.

On the author's side of things, they're exhausting. They take time away from writing. They can be a nice source of extra income, but for a new author like me, the income isn't very significant.

So why do we bother? Why do some librarians spend dozens of hours of their own time scheduling and preparing for author visits? Why do some English teachers take the lead in those sad schools that lack a librarian? Why have I done more than 200 author visits for free over the last year? (I charge now, although I'm very cheap.)

A student recently answered all those questions for me via email. I've asked for, and received, his permission to share the email with you. I've changed his name to protect his confidentiality. Otherwise the email is exactly as he wrote it:

My name is Fred. About a year ago you visited Cedar Rapids Iowa. You made a stop at the Linn County Juvenille Detention Center and i was a resident there. ever since you visited i have been big on writing. but just not stories. i have written alot of poems and different raps about my life. i was wondering maybe if i could get some expert advice on how they look. or what are some areas i need to improve. if at all possible i would like to send them to you in the mail and hopefully get some good advice. it was really nice meeting you. if you want to know how my life is going right now i am on my way to completeing an independent living program. i just celebrated my 17th birthday today and im on the road to success. writing has been a big inspiration in my life and with out the visit from you i know for a fact i wouldnt have started to write. i would really like to hear back from you soon. it was great meeting you.

Does anyone believe another high-stakes test would have had this kind of impact on Fred's life? Another reading program? Another teacher evaluation system? The things many policy makers and administrators focus on truly don't matter. What matters are the connections that librarians, teachers, coaches--even visiting authors, make with students and the impact we have on those student's lives. If you're involved in education, do your school and students a service: contact an author--any author--today and schedule what may be a life-changing experience for some of your students.

ASHEN WINTER by Mike Mullin

As ASHEN WINTER opens, it’s six months after volcano day. As you’ll recall, the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted in ASHFALL, and Alex set off on an arduous journey alone to his uncle’s farm in Illinois. He met (and fell in love with) Darla along the way. Now Alex and Darla get a clue that his father is still alive—and they set off back toward Iowa to find his parents. And things have gotten a lot worse this time. Think frozen wasteland filled with cannibal gangs and military contractors. And that’s all I’m going to tell you about the plot. Sorry no spoilers!

But that brings me to one of my favorite review lines about ASHEN WINTER (from Voya): “Mullin has outdone himself with nonstop action and injury.” And they’re right. AW clocks in at nearly 600 pages, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. (And Alex is pretty battle-scarred by the end of the book.) The pace is quick, and Alex (and Darla) are continually acting and/or figuring out things. Alex grows up even more in this book as he has to make some tough choices, but his actions are grounded in his love for Darla and his desire to protect all of his family.

All of that makes AW an excellent book “boy book” that should also appeal to us girls. I don’t like putting labels on books—like “boy book” or “girl book”—but the truth is that boys do like certain things in stories. And it’s important to direct them to good books they might like in order to get them to read. Author Andy Sherrod talks about what makes a good “boy book” on his blog (and he gives presentations on the topic). Boys are more likely to like a book where the protagonist (boy or girl):

1. Acts alone
2. Heads “out there” (as opposed to staying home)
3. And overcomes a physical challenge

And that’s ASHEN WINTER. Okay, Alex isn’t totally alone. He acts by himself in key parts of the book (minor spoiler), but he does have traveling companions on and off. He sets off with Darla, and he picks up two other kids along the way. All are strong characters. No damsels in distress anywhere in sight. (That makes it a good girl book, BTW.)

Before we get to the giveaway, here are a few other semi-random things I love about AW:

• Darla is the one who can fix anything.
• Ben is delightful—a high functioning autistic kid who is also a tactical savant.
• Despite the odds, Alex believes in himself and doesn’t give up—even when the adults do.
• The story is heartbreakingly believable but not without hope.
• The word flenser just gives me the creeps.

Oh, and I have a new appreciation for kale. ;)

And now for the WINNING OF STUFF. You can enter to win signed copies of both books by filling out the Rafflecopter thingie below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The ASHEN WINTER Blog Tour

The ASHEN WINTER blog tour has begun. Mundie Moms kicked it off yesterday with a giveaway--it's super easy to enter, and you could win both ASHFALL and ASHEN WINTER, autographed by Stephanie Meyer! (Well, I really mean that I'll do an extraordinarily bad job of forging Stephanie Meyer's signature if you want, although I'm actually better at signing my own name.)

Today I'm at Book Love 101 with an interview. Book Love 101 is totally the wrong title for this blog, by the way. Amanda Marie has AT LEAST a master's degree in loving books, so it should be Book Love 501, amIright? Anyway, you can go there to learn which book I think everyone should read (well, everyone who was born into a Western culture, anyway).

If you want to follow along for the rest of the blog tour, here are the stops. I'll update these with links to the actual posts as they go live:

Sept 23 - Mundie Moms

Sept 24 - Book Love 101

Sept 24 - Crossroad Reviews

Sept 25 - A Book Lovers Review

Sept 25 - Carina’s Book Reviews

Sept 26 - Good Choice Reading
Sept 27 - Page Turners

Sept 27 - Alluring Reads
Sept 28 - Book and Things

Sept 28 - Bookpics

Sept 29- Singing and Reading In The Rain 
Sept 30- Rhiannon Paille's Blog

Sept 30- Bea Book Nook

Oct 1- My Reading Room

Oct 1- Workaday Reads 
Oct 2- On the Verge

Oct 2- Unabridged Book Shelf 

Oct 3- Forever Young Adult

Oct 3- Bending The Spine
Oct 4- Tale of Many Reviews

Oct 4- Teens Read and Write

Oct 5- Speculating on Specfic
Oct 6- I’m A Reader, Not A Writer 
Oct 7- Books With Bite 
Oct 8- Hooked On Books

Oct 8- Xpresso Reads 
Oct 9- Literary Rambles

Oct 10- Musings of AMLYBNER 
Oct 11- Badass Book Reviews 
Oct 12-Once Upon A Twilight
Oct 13- Read Now Sleep Later 
Oct 14- An Avid Readers Musings

There will be at least six giveaways of signed first-edition hardcovers of ASHEN WINTER and paperbacks of ASHFALL--some open internationally. I also wrote about a dozen brand new guest posts--if you're interested in survival tips or taekwondo, you're in for a treat. There will also be some amazing interviews, so stay tuned! Many, many thanks to Savannah Valdez at Books with Bite for organizing the tour.

Why ASHFALL Has a New Cover

Three weeks ago I posted about receiving my author copies of ASHEN WINTER in hardback--it's the sequel to my debut novel, ASHFALL. (To summarize the post: squee!) I also got author copies of the paperback edition of ASHFALL with its new cover. Fellow blogger and author Lissa Price (I just called Lissa a fellow. Snicker. Sorry, Lissa!), asked a great question in the comments: why'd the cover change?

To answer the question, let me refresh your memory on what the hardback ASHFALL cover looks like:

I love this cover like Santa Claus loves reindeer. The artwork is a composite of photographs taken and digitally manipulated by Ana Correal--see more of her amazing artwork here. It's perfect for my book--tough, dark, and a little bit foreboding.

So why did it change?

In the world of book sales, there's one retailer that wields a huge influence over covers. Not the biggest retailer, that'd be Amazon. But Amazon carries everything--you can have the worst book cover ever, and Amazon will still sell your book. The most influential retailer of physical books is this one:

As I understand it, there was a rumor that someone at B&N didn't like the hardback ASHFALL cover. That they thought it was too dark and grey--a fair criticism, although life after a supervolcano would be pretty darn grey for a while. I have no idea if the rumor was even true. But here's the thing, B&N is so important to physical book sales, that even the rumor that someone there didn't love the cover was enough to spur a change.

Does this bother me? Not in the least. Because I got new covers out of the deal:

They're also by Ana Correal. See, more color! I love these even more than Santa Claus loves his reindeer. Even more than he loves reindeer even if he loved them in highly inappropriate ways, which he doesn't, but I'm just . . . oh, never mind.

And that's why the cover of ASHFALL changed. Look for the shiny new covers in a bookstore near you on October 8th!

Courage, Passion, and Determination

This weekend was a trifecta of writerly inspiration. On Friday night my wife, Margaret, and I went to a dinner sponsored by the Indiana Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I sat next to Alina Klein, whose debut young adult novel, Rape Girl, came out last year. So of course I dragged my copy along and bugged Alina for her autograph.

Rape Girl is an amazing book, one that belongs on your shelves alongside books like Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and Scars by Cheryl Rainfield. But what I find most inspiring about Rape Girl is the fact that it exists. You see, it's loosely based on Alina's own experience as a teenage rape survivor. (A fact she discusses in the author's note at the back of the book.) I can't even imagine the courage it took to write this book.

I've been kicking a blog post around in the back of my brain for more than a year--one that would deal with my middle school experience with child molesters--but I can't summon the courage to write it. Yes, I break concrete blocks with my bare hands, but I'm a wimp compared to Alina. It takes real courage to write.

Saturday night Margaret and I went to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at Conner Prairie. I guess you'd call them a swing/jazz band.

What amazed me about BBVD was their passion--they're totally committed to their music and their audience. They break the conventions of their genre: electric guitar in a swing band? Banjo? Sure--they make it work! They play with an infectious abandon--if the Greek god Dionysus returned to earth, these guys would play for his procession.

As I enjoyed the music, I thought: this is how I want to write, with a wild disregard for everything but the words and my audience. I want to write words that unleash an irresistible flood of emotion, words that inspire laughter, dancing, or tears. It takes passion to be a writer.

Sunday was a day for yard work at the Mullin home. I bought two cubic yards of hardwood mulch to spread across the flower beds in our front yard. As the attendant at the garden center cut into the pile of mulch with his front-end loader, I noticed it was smoking. Even an hour later, the mulch in the back of my pickup truck was hot to the touch.

Unloading that much mulch from the truck to the wheelbarrow to the flower beds is a lot of work. My score? Five blisters formed, one popped. As I turned up yet another spadeful of black mulch, a spot of green rose to the top. It was an acorn, still a beautiful light green color despite its sojourn in the smoking mulch pile. I have no idea how long it had been buried there or how it escaped being ground to mulch, holding onto its life while all the neighboring twigs and leaves turned a uniform dark brown.

I felt I had a metaphor rather than an acorn on the end of my spade. All writers spend time buried among the thousands of others querying literary agents or struggling to find their readership via self-publishing. A few of us, like that acorn, hang on long enough to be unearthed. It takes determination to be a writer.


My weekend reminded me of the traits I aspire to as an author: courage, passion, and determination. How was your weekend? Let me know in the comments, please.

Author Copies of ASHEN WINTER!

One of the wonderful traditions of the publishing business is author copies. When your book is published, a box shows up with however many free copies of your work are specified in your contract. In my case, it's twenty.

I'm fortunate to be published by Tanglewood Press, a small, reputable children's and young adult publisher based only two hours from me, in Terre Haute, Indiana. (If you aspire to write for kids or teens, they're a great house to keep in mind. Unlike most publishers, you don't need a literary agent to submit work to Tanglewood.)

So last year when I heard that ASHFALL was in from the printer, I couldn't wait for them to be shipped--instead, my wife and I hopped in the car and picked them up in person.

I'm not sure I can adequately describe the joy of holding the result of three yeas of work in your hands in the form of a finished hardcover book. It doesn't exactly wipe out all the rejections, all the time spent agonizing over the perfect words, or the sleepless nights wondering if anyone will enjoy your book; but it does make all those worries seem less important somehow.

The other thing about author copies? Our cats love them, too. When I got home from Tanglewood, I laid the books out on the bed for a photo, and all three cats had to come check them out.

I figured that this year, when the author copies for my second book arrived, it would be no big deal. Been there, done that, right? Not so much.

When I got home from my taekwondo class Thursday night, there they were. Twenty hardbacks of ASHEN WINTER, and twenty of the new paperback edition of ASHFALL.

It was almost as squee-worthy a moment as seeing the first book. Aren't they lovely? Here's a close-up:

The cats--well, one of them, anyway--were pretty excited, too:

A huge thank you to everyone who bought, read, talked-about, or blogged about ASHFALL. You made the paperback edition and the sequel possible, and I owe my joy to you. Thank you.

Ashfall, Ashen Winter, and Oral Surgery

I'm off to the oral surgeon today. One of my molars has been missing for six years, but until I got my first royalty check in February, I had lacked the funds to replace it. I'm told they're going to drill a hole in my bone and jam a titanium screw into the hole. I can't say I'm looking forward to that, but it'll be nice to have all my teeth again. Maybe I'll have Alex and Darla engraved on it, like this guy did:

Or maybe an ASHFALL cover would look better? I could put my two two books side-by-side like this on the new tooth and the one next to it:

I got this lovely screen printed cake at Appoquinimink High School, and if they can screen print cakes, why not teeth, right?

 On second thought, maybe I'll just settle for naming my new tooth. It'll be named ASHFALL, of course.

Mrs. Gick's Library

Last week in this space I wrote about two uncomfortable experiences I had while visiting libraries. But I’ve presented in dozens of school and public libraries over the last six months, and the vast majority of those visits have been wonderful. So this week I’d like to talk about the value of libraries. I’ll illustrate my point with a story about a typical library visit.

On December 9^th I spent the day with Sherry Gick at Rossville Middle/High School. The library wasn’t the biggest one I’d seen, or the newest, or the fanciest. If anything, it looked a little tired. Until the students came in, that is. I’ve never seen a group of teens more excited about reading, their library, or their librarian.

The book discussions over lunch were non-stop and so varied as to be dizzying. We didn’t just talk about my book, ASHFALL—we covered Cashore, Collins, Shusterman and a host of paranormal romance authors I haven’t read. I finally wolfed my cold slice of pizza during the passing period after lunch.

This is what a great library does: It develops passionate readers. How does Mrs. Gick achieve this? Even in my brief time there, I noticed a few things. First, the library is laid out like a bookstore. Fiction is separated by genre—science fiction, paranormal romance, realistic fiction, etc. Big, inviting signs hang over each section. The books all have their original covers, and some of them are faced out. There are paperbacks available for those who prefer them. And the first thing you see as you walk in isn’t a row of computers; it’s a book display on the counter of the library desk. (The computers are around the corner to your right.)

But even more important than the physical layout of the library is its emotional tone. The first question students hear isn’t, “Do you have a pass?” it’s something more like, “How are you doing today, Todd?” One girl told me she volunteered to work in the library during 7^th period because it helped her wind down after a stressful day of classes. That she loved the library because it felt “safe”—her word, not mine. Another student told me about coming to Mrs. Gick for assistance with a disturbing and thorny issue with another teacher, and how Mrs. Gick had helped her resolve it. These teens have so much trust in their library and librarian that they feel comfortable asking anything. During our discussion of ASHFALL, one student wanted to know about my use of the term “spooning”—did that mean Alex and Darla were having sex? As I listened to the question, I expected raucous laughter and teasing. Instead, her question was met with nods and some embarrassed glances. What followed was a thoughtful discussion about the definition of spooning and the role of sex in ASHFALL—why it wouldn’t have been appropriate for Alex and Darla to have sex in the scene under discussion, and whether it was appropriate at all.

By all measures—books circulated, computers used, and classes taught—Mrs. Gick’s library and thousands like it are excelling. But both school and public libraries across the country are facing devastating budget cuts. Between 2000 and 2008, the per-student funding available for school library materials fell 31% in the U.S. It’s not that we lack money for education. Between 2002 and 2008 we increased spending on standardized testing by 160%. Overall education spending increased 21% between 2000 and 2005. Why do we starve libraries while throwing bushel baskets of money at testing companies like McGraw-Hill? The short answer is that McGraw-Hill has better lobbyists than the American Library Association. (Which industry do you think spent more on lobbying in 2011—defense or education? If you guessed defense, you’re wrong.)

Library funding is being cut despite a long and rich history of studies linking school libraries to student achievement. But the most important way libraries matter isn’t measurable in studies. It’s the things librarians like Mrs. Gick do—creating passionate readers and providing students a safe place to reflect and learn. 

Let’s spend more time and money on what works—reading, libraries, and librarians—and reduce the amount of time and money wasted on standardized tests. Every student deserves a library like Mrs. Gick’s.

p.s. If you’re interested in having a day of presentations at your school or library like the one I did at Mrs. Gick’s school, I’m offering them at no charge in 2012 and for a nominal fee in 2013.  There’s more information here. 

Mrs. Gick and me