Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

Posts from the “Children’s books” Category

Daily Distraction: Ducking the Line Edits

Posted on April 20, 2014
Daily Distraction: Ducking the Line Edits

Some writers are fast, determined, strong-minded. Me? Not so much. I’m line editing my manuscript and scrutinizing 90,000 words can be mighty disheartening. Being in the Bay Area doesn’t make it any easier.
I’m staying with friends and, man, talking books and life with them is so much more fun than weighing every sentence you wrote. The eldest of their kids easily lures me away from my mission with our common interest TV show Bones, the middle one loves talking science even more than I do, and the youngest is a master patisserie chef (you’ve got to taste those cupcakes). On top of that they have the cutest puppy and two kittens to die for.
Despite all that, I am frantically trying to pull this off. I don’t want to disappoint my mentor. I don’t dare to disappoint my mentor. So I’m glued to my laptop and stripping those 90,000 words like the wind stripped the Tiburon Hippie Tree.
You have no idea how much I’d prefer to arc out high above Richardson Bay on that old Eucalyptus tree’s swing.

Categories: A Bit of Everything, Books, Children's books, Thrillers, YA books

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Daily Distraction: Publishing Houses Belly Up

Posted on March 6, 2014
Daily Distraction: Publishing Houses Belly Up

Tucked away in a corner on page 24 of my newspaper, I read an unsettling newsflash. More and more Dutch publishing houses are going belly up. In the last quarter of 2013 the total loss of business was 9% compared to the last quarter a year before. The overall loss over 2013 was 6%.
Since 2008, publishing houses in the Netherlands have faced a staggering 20% loss of business and that is causing them to close more and more doors.

I was already proud and happy with the Little Golden Book and the Middle Grade adventure novel that will be published later this year, but now I also admire both publishers for their stamina, their perseverance and their unbroken trust in authors and illustrators. Chapeau Rubinstein! Chapeau Ploegsma Children’s Book Publishers!

Categories: A Bit of Everything, Books, Children's books, Thrillers, YA books

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Daily Distraction: Trees and Blue Skies

Posted on February 18, 2014

Daily Distractiion: Trees, Skies and How the Brain Works

Not sure if it was the blue skies or the whiteness of the bark, but this tree pushed me forward in my writing. It stands in a park outside Asheville and I looked up its trunk for a while, noticing how its now leafless branches fork out and reach up to the sky. From down below they seem all tangled up and yet, like a story plot, they form one single whole.

While standing there and staring up, I realized that I had to go back to the manuscript I am working on, shed all the leaves and study just the trunk, the boughs, the branches, the twigs. I did just that: strip the manuscript from all the fluff and scrutinize the bare bones. Today, I knew what it missed. Not the trunk that forms the storyline, not the boughs that reach out to the sky and layer the plot, not the branches or the twigs that fork out and make the subplots. What my story missed was a root. My mentor Ellen Hopkins had already pointed that out, but I failed to see what she meant. Now I do. One more chapter, that is all it needs. I will push it out tonight, in the confidence that it will root my story firmly to the ground.

Categories: A Bit of Everything, Books, Children's books, Thrillers, YA books

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Daily Distraction: True Colors and Free Will

Posted on February 5, 2014

Daily Distraction: True Colors

A typical Amsterdam view: a canal, 17th century clock gables, people wandering, walking, running, or colliding into bikes. But there is something odd going on in this picture. No one seems to notice the blazing fire at the end, an inferno that is about to burn the city to the ground. The great fire of 1421 revisited.

It took me a split second before I realized that it wasn’t a fire, but the sun showing its true colors: the colors of scorching hot plasma, 150,000,000 km away from the earth and yet so close. It immediately sparked an idea for a new novel. I love it when that happens. Just as I love to plot a new story. I love dreaming up alternate worlds, where I can take refuge from the real one, even if it’s only for a while. It’s the most exciting and at the same time the most comforting phase of story writing. It’s free will to the highest degree. Anything is possible. It’s up to me. I decide.

Next novel: True Colors and Free Will. Sounds good.

Categories: A Bit of Everything, Books, Children's books, Thrillers, YA books

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Daily Distraction: Post Manuscript Activities

Posted on February 2, 2014

Daily Distraction: Post Manuscript Activities

Today, I finished my manuscript, a middle grade adventure. Hurray! A load off my mind.
The final tweaks and refinements are always the hardest. It demands ruthlessness in killing your darlings and a scrupulous attention to detail. I’m good at killing my darlings, but the scrupulous attention to detail isn’t my forte if it concerns my own work. I don’t see the mistakes and typos as I do when I’m editing someone else’s work. I read what I think I wrote and I know that — particularly in those passages that are packed with action (and usually written at the same speed) — my mind outruns my typing. Thankfully, we have editors. Writers rely on editors. They are one of the most essential links in the publishing chain.

But the hardest part of finishing a manuscript is hitting the send button. I always hesitate, have to force myself to let go of the manuscript, place it in the hands of others. It feels like that moment dangling in mid-air when you are not sure yet where and how you will land. How appropriate was it that my son published a photo of himself in mid-air at the exact time that I hit that send button.
Isn’t life full of sweet coincidences?

Categories: A Bit of Everything, Books, Children's books, Thrillers, YA books

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Daily Distraction: Arctic Winds and Black Ice

Posted on January 29, 2014
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Midday in Sommarøy, a tiny island above the Arctic Circle. I love the bluish-gray light that is so characteristic for the days that the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon. This one was a particularly cold day, with a polar wind blustering in. We inched past an elk, our studded tires biting into the black ice. The elk was grazing quietly, confidently, still sure of its protection against the elements. Not a few minutes later it would skid the black ice like a child skating for the first time.

It reminded me of my first steps into the writing world, when every dash of the pen made me feel like I could skid and lose balance. Since, I have had three novels and 35 short stories published, and it feels like I have found my footing. And yet, sometimes when thoughts come but words fail, it’s like skating for the first time. The elk reminded me of that delicate balance between thoughts and the actual words you write.

Categories: A Bit of Everything, Books, Children's books, Thrillers, YA books

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Daily Distraction: Keeping a Log

Posted on January 25, 2014

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This winter, I am working for my Dutch young readers on a new MG adventure novel, which I have shaped into a logbook. Wherever I can I try and have a look at the logbooks of famous explorers and, without fault, they make me jealous. That is the way I’ve always wanted to keep a log, but never had the grit enough to keep it up for longer than a month. It’s one of my 2014 (or 2015) resolutions.

Of course, I am hoping that the new book will be illustrated, too. Maybe not as elaborate as the magnificent logbooks that were on display at the Polar Museum in Tromsø, but just enough to add that special feeling a travel log can give you.

How do you find the time and the willpower to keep a log or a diary? And if you do, is there a format you prefer?

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If you find yourself near Tromsø – and winter 2014 would be the time for there is aurora borealis galore – do pay this charming museum a visit. It is packed with the most amazing relics from the harsh life above the arctic circle.

Categories: A Bit of Everything, Books, Children's books, Thrillers, YA books

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