A sneak preview of the fourth Boreas book: Boreas en de vijftien vrienden! The cover isn’t final yet, but I am pretty sure it will be as exciting as the first three Boreas books. Pub date is set for early September this year, right on time for the Dutch National Children’s Book Week.
Today, I visited the clipper Stad Amsterdam, a tall ship from the Netherlands which is currently moored at the San Francisco Embarcadero.
Quarter Master Frank van Wamelen and Captain Andi Manser welcomed Boreas and me aboard their ship, where I presented them with copies of the three Boreas books for the ship’s library to entertain crew and guests during long ocean crossings.
So, from now on, Boreas will sail the seven seas aboard the Stad Amsterdam, too! Next destination is Mexico. I am excited and so is Boreas.
And the Captain and the Quarter Master? They can’t wait to start reading the books!
Here are some pictures:
Of course, I hurried back home to finish Boreas 4 which will come out this fall.
The San Francisco North and East Bay region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators had asked me to teach a workshop on plot for their Contra Costa County Meeting in Walnut Creek. Sixty people signed up, all children’s writers eager to hone their writing skills and improve their craft. Now, I love teaching, but when the room is filled with people who simply love what they are doing, people who are dedicated to and persevering in their dream to become better writers, my heart leaps. Yesterday was such a joyful day.
I set out to show how plot structure formats — and there are so many out there that a web search brings you 3.000.000 results in 0.76 seconds! — can serve as a revision technique and help a writer find the holes in a plot. Go for the one that speaks most to you, I told these writers. The one that speaks most to me is Blake Snyder’s 15 beats as conveyed in his acclaimed SAVE THE CAT! book. It’s an essential part of my revision process. Of course, when I start a new project I always have Aristotle’s Three Acts structure with its key plot moments hovering overhead, but I try not to pay too much attention to it as to not impede the organic flow of my story. Only after I typed THE END do I invite what I call Aristotle’s Cat in and let her have a go at my manuscript. Is the cat done, then I’ll pull up a blank document and start all over again.
Why no cutting and pasting? Because fixing plot holes almost always dramatically changes my story. It changes my characters, it changes their words and actions, their responses to the words and actions of the other characters. Cutting and pasting not only allows for inconsistencies and discrepancies, it also makes it too easy for me to leave in those darlings that need to be killed.
Anyway, I love teaching. I love writing. I LOVE teaching writing. Here’s some pictures of A PLOTTER’S PARADISE:
Introducing Aristotle’s Cat!
Love it when I get to use books of my favorite book publisher
Happy writers
Date/Time
Date(s) – 03/03/2018
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Location
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
1924 Trinity Ave – Walnut Creek, CA 94596
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators
San Francisco North and East Bay Region Contra Costa/Alameda County
Presents:
A PLOTTER’S PARADISE
Featuring: Mina Witteman
Please join us for a presentation on plotting by the plot master herself, Mina Witteman, at our latest 
SCBWI meeting in Walnut Creek. Mina’s plotting class is for picture book and middle grade/ YA authors. She will demonstrate the techniques required for all genres. Come prepared with paper and pencil to get the most out of this class.
Refreshments will be served.
Meeting Fees:
SCBWI Members: Online registration until 3/02 $10.00 / At Door $15
Non Members: Online registration until 3/02 $20 / At Door $25
ABOUT MINA WITTEMAN
Mina Witteman is a Dutch published author. Writing in English and Dutch, she has six middle grade books out in the Netherlands, the latest three in the very successful Boreas series. The fourth and concluding book of the Boreas series is scheduled to come out in October 2018. She is proud to be the author of a Dutch Little Golden Book, Mia’s Nest, which has been translated into Spanish (El Nido de Mia). In addition, Mina has over forty short stories for the young out in the Netherlands in magazines and the famous read-aloud anthologies of her publisher Ploegsma Children’s Books.
Mina is the SCBWI International Published Authors’ Coordinator, the Webinar Coordinator for SCBWI San Francisco/South and the co-coordinator for the 2019 Conference of SCBWI North and East Bay. Before moving to the US, she was the Regional Advisor for SCBWI the Netherlands and chairman of the Working Group Children’s Books of the Dutch Authors Guild. She is a seasoned freelance editor, trained through the Master Book Editing at the University of Amsterdam and works as an independent copy editor for Dutch and American publishing houses. She is a certified teacher of creative writing, trained at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. She teaches creative writing to children and adults, and mentors both aspiring and published writers. Mina teaches K-12 at the Berkeley location of the Dutch School of Silicon Valley.
Tagged: Creative Writing, East Bay, Mina Witteman, Plot, SCBWI, Walnut Creek, writing workshop
This week was the start of a new chapter in my life. I recently obtained a visa for the US, a so-called artist’s visa that identifies me now as an alien with extraordinary abilities in writing children’s books. Needless to say I am super excited at this opportunity to spread my children’s books wings.
But it’s also a life-changing leap into uncharted waters and I feel like the little ones in the picture below. Intimidated by the dark around them, you can see them think: are we going in or… I’m that little one at the end of the rudder. I made my choice and went in.
These next years I will be exploring and navigating these, to me, uncharted waters. I’ll be enjoying Californian life, too. Let myself be lifted by that special light that makes my writing soar, the barometric pressure that is so much less here and makes me feel like I can fly, the caressing comfort of fog rolling in, leaving a spray of mist on my skin, and this heart-warming community of Bay Area writers and illustrators that embraced me and took me in as one of their own.
But most of all, I will be working hard to make my dream come true.
And that brings me to a question for you: where are your dreams? Did you put them on hold? Or are you chasing them?
desperation crawls under her skin and robs her of worth not one ray of sunshine is left to show her where to go and find the light that night’s bleakest hour hides in that infinite sad while before dawn all she hears are the tacit words that bruise her heart words that break her and leave her nothing but the cruelest spurning of her self and no other choice than to cede her soul to the dark
Melancolia – Anselm Kiefer
Tagged: #amwriting, Anselm Kiefer, melancolia, Poem, Sunshine, YA literature
Mina Witteman 