We've sold the German audio rights to The Dead And The Gone, which, of course, greatly pleases me. I really need to start learning German.
I've been remiss in not putting this link to an article about Emily Bauer on the blog. Emily, of course, is the actress who did such an amazing job as he voice of Miranda in the Listening Library audiobook versions of Life As We Knew It and This World We Live In. Google was kind enough to let me know about the article, and I'm passing the information along!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Worry Abhors A Vacuum
I used to spend my summers at my family's country house in the Catskills, and one of my summer rituals there was to worry about money. How much did I have. How much was I likely to make. How soon would what I have run out and what would I do when it did.
I worried on the front porch. I worried in the front yard. I worried in the forest overlooking the stream. I probably worried other places and other seasons, and undoubtedly every time I worried, I had cause to be concerned.
My guess is all freelancers worry at some point about money, unless they make their fortune very early on and invest it wisely and don't overspend (and what fun is that). Even rich successful freelancers can hand their money over to Bernie Madoff and end up worrying. There's no security in self-employment (or any other kind of employment, I'm told, but self-employment has been my job history).
Right now, I'm going through one of those spells where I'm not worried about money. I have money in the bank, money due me, and an upcoming royalty check which should arrive later than I'd like but earlier than I'll need it. For many years, I tried to determine how soon I could start collecting Social Security. Now I think about how long I can hold off before collecting it.
I like having money. Although it's been my life experience that I actually do better when I earn less, I figure at this point I can handle what I get and keep my fantasies of what I might get under control. It also helps that I rent an apartment rather own a house, since I had a terrible habit of redoing kitchens and building additions whenever I felt I could afford it.
Now I let Scooter destroy the walls and carpet, with the cheerful shrug of a tenant.
So you'd think I'd be living a cheerful worryfree life, wouldn't you. Well, you'd be wrong. I don't worry about my next month's rent. I don't even worry about how I'll manage when my royalty checks peter out (which I probably should worry about, but prefer to be pathologically optimistic intead). Nor do I worry about the state of the world, which, in case you hadn't noticed, isn't so great. I'd say not so hot, except for that nasty global warming business, which is demolishing glaciers and coral.
What I worry about these days is my mother. My brother and I have both been concerned about her health all summer long. She's taken longer to bounce back from the pneumonia she suffered in July than we anticipated. There have been a number of visits to the doctor's office, a couple of trips for x-rays, and a quicky visit to the emergency room.
My mother has consistently said she feels fine, and she isn't nearly as worried as my brother and me. I don't think she'd be worried at all, if we weren't.
This afternoon was a perfect example of what's been going on. I called to confess to my mother I'd forgotten to order lunch for her from the dining room (she hasn't gone to lunch by herself since she got sick in the beginning of July). She didn't answer the phone. I tried again a few minutes later. Still no answer. I tried a third and possibly a fourth time to no avail.
There are reasons why my mother doesn't answer the phone, the simplest being she just didn't hear it. I don't think she's ever not answered the phone because she's been too sick or has fallen or any such crisis. I reminded myself of this as my stomach turned to knots. I made myself do a couple of jobs around the apartment, knowing that if there were something wrong with my mother, those kinds of jobs might not get done for a while. I decided if my mother didn't answer the phone the next time, I'd drive over to her apartment to see what was happening.
Of course she answered the phone. The reason she hadn't before was she'd gone to lunch in the dining room. Something she hasn't done in six weeks, but felt so natural doing, it didn't occur to her to call and tell me she was going.
It took an hour for my stomach to unclench.
I take after my father's side of the family and Pfeffers are natural born worriers. My brother is much more like my mother, and very easy going. I remember as a kid convincing myself that my father had been in a terrible accident, when he got home from work later than I expected (and given that he commuted on the Long Island Railroad, the amazing thing is he wasn't always later than I expected).
But coping with a 98 year old mother, even one who is basically strong and healthy and independent, makes me nostalgic for the time when all I worried about was having enough money to make it through the winter!
I worried on the front porch. I worried in the front yard. I worried in the forest overlooking the stream. I probably worried other places and other seasons, and undoubtedly every time I worried, I had cause to be concerned.
My guess is all freelancers worry at some point about money, unless they make their fortune very early on and invest it wisely and don't overspend (and what fun is that). Even rich successful freelancers can hand their money over to Bernie Madoff and end up worrying. There's no security in self-employment (or any other kind of employment, I'm told, but self-employment has been my job history).
Right now, I'm going through one of those spells where I'm not worried about money. I have money in the bank, money due me, and an upcoming royalty check which should arrive later than I'd like but earlier than I'll need it. For many years, I tried to determine how soon I could start collecting Social Security. Now I think about how long I can hold off before collecting it.
I like having money. Although it's been my life experience that I actually do better when I earn less, I figure at this point I can handle what I get and keep my fantasies of what I might get under control. It also helps that I rent an apartment rather own a house, since I had a terrible habit of redoing kitchens and building additions whenever I felt I could afford it.
Now I let Scooter destroy the walls and carpet, with the cheerful shrug of a tenant.
So you'd think I'd be living a cheerful worryfree life, wouldn't you. Well, you'd be wrong. I don't worry about my next month's rent. I don't even worry about how I'll manage when my royalty checks peter out (which I probably should worry about, but prefer to be pathologically optimistic intead). Nor do I worry about the state of the world, which, in case you hadn't noticed, isn't so great. I'd say not so hot, except for that nasty global warming business, which is demolishing glaciers and coral.
What I worry about these days is my mother. My brother and I have both been concerned about her health all summer long. She's taken longer to bounce back from the pneumonia she suffered in July than we anticipated. There have been a number of visits to the doctor's office, a couple of trips for x-rays, and a quicky visit to the emergency room.
My mother has consistently said she feels fine, and she isn't nearly as worried as my brother and me. I don't think she'd be worried at all, if we weren't.
This afternoon was a perfect example of what's been going on. I called to confess to my mother I'd forgotten to order lunch for her from the dining room (she hasn't gone to lunch by herself since she got sick in the beginning of July). She didn't answer the phone. I tried again a few minutes later. Still no answer. I tried a third and possibly a fourth time to no avail.
There are reasons why my mother doesn't answer the phone, the simplest being she just didn't hear it. I don't think she's ever not answered the phone because she's been too sick or has fallen or any such crisis. I reminded myself of this as my stomach turned to knots. I made myself do a couple of jobs around the apartment, knowing that if there were something wrong with my mother, those kinds of jobs might not get done for a while. I decided if my mother didn't answer the phone the next time, I'd drive over to her apartment to see what was happening.
Of course she answered the phone. The reason she hadn't before was she'd gone to lunch in the dining room. Something she hasn't done in six weeks, but felt so natural doing, it didn't occur to her to call and tell me she was going.
It took an hour for my stomach to unclench.
I take after my father's side of the family and Pfeffers are natural born worriers. My brother is much more like my mother, and very easy going. I remember as a kid convincing myself that my father had been in a terrible accident, when he got home from work later than I expected (and given that he commuted on the Long Island Railroad, the amazing thing is he wasn't always later than I expected).
But coping with a 98 year old mother, even one who is basically strong and healthy and independent, makes me nostalgic for the time when all I worried about was having enough money to make it through the winter!
Friday, August 13, 2010
This World We Live In Is Now Available On Kindle
You may already know that, but I only discovered it this morning.
I admit I don't have a Kindle, but the people I know who do have one love it. So I figured I'd make an official announcement.
Consider it announced!
I admit I don't have a Kindle, but the people I know who do have one love it. So I figured I'd make an official announcement.
Consider it announced!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
You Won't Find These In Bartlett's (Well, Maybe One Or Two)
As you know by now, Google is always writing, always calling, always letting me know what's going on with my life.
So I wasn't surprised when the other day, Google emailed me the following cryptic message: We live behind the sorrow moon, we live in to the final day
I still have no idea what it means, and none of my further Googling has given me much information, but I like the way it sounds, especially the behind the sorrow moon part, which has a lovely melancholic ring to it.
But it got me thinking about those various catchphrases I use that don't necessarily have any meaning to anyone else. A few of them I've mentioned here over the eons I've been keeping this blog. But I figured I'd compile a dozen of them. Feel free to steal any that might come in handy in your life.
Ooh, I'll try to make them alphabetical. Now that should be a challenge!
Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded. That's Gertrude Stein, so it might be in Bartlett's.
Did he ever write Church, State And Freedom? Church, State and Freedom was the first book my father wrote, and a classic in its field. Whenever my father heard about someone else's accomplishments (say, Roger Maris's 61 homeruns), he'd respond by saying, "Well, did he ever write Church, State And Freedom?" Once, when I was listening to a friend extol the virtues of an acquaitance of hers, who was hardworking, brilliant, and chopped her own firewood, I thought, "Well, did she ever write About David?" But it works better with Church, State And Freedom.
Don't wait for Harry. Give me the axe. That comes from a Lizzie Borden biography. She was with a bunch of friends, who were always very careful about what they said to her, and one of them mentioned what a shame it was the view was spoiled by an ugly shed and someone else said, "Well, when Harry comes we'll ask him to chop it down," and there was an awkward silence, followed by Lizzie Borden's response. I went through a Lizzie Borden stage, but this is the one absolute best anecdote and a highly useful phrase.
If you can't trust your banker, who can you trust? From an episode of Maverick. People who know Maverick know that phrase. At least I've met someone who did once.
I hate her rotten f......g guts. In real life, I curse a lot, and when I use this phrase, I fill in the missing letters. This was said by the husband of a friend of mine, when the friend asked if he'd be interested in going to an Anne Murray concert. I think it stuck in my mind because I couldn't imagine anyone caring that deeply about Anne Murray. I probably don't say this particular phrase out loud very often, but then again, I don't say, "Did he ever write Church, State And Freedom" out loud that often either.
If you're going to America, go to America. The story goes that Grandfather Rabbi Pfeffer was making his way from Hungary to America, when he got offered a great job in Germany. He wrote his wife (at home with the five little Pfeffers, of whom my father was the littlest)to ask if he should accept the job, and Grandmother Mrs. Rabbi Pfeffer responded, "If you're going to America, go to America," so he did, and a good thing indeed that he did. It's a very useful phrase for keeping on target.
Life is for the living. My father's mantra, borrowed from Thomas Jefferson. Also a contender for Bartlett's.
Life With Its Sorrow, Life With Its Tear. I say this all the time, and I finally decided to find out where it came from. It's the name of a novel I never read. I figure I must have read a review of it somewhere and the title stuck in my mind.
Never apologize, never explain.This has something to do with Henry Ford, but I'm not sure what, since I've never read a biography of Henry Ford, a thoroughly unpleasant person from what little I know about him. The Ty Cobb of industrial magnates. As one prone to apologizing and explaining, it's good to remind myself that I shouldn't.
People Meet And Sweet Music Fills The Air. The title of a movie I've never seen, Swedish maybe, and maybe about sex.
There's More To Life Than The Hully Gully. I've definitely quoted this one in my blog. It's from a True Confessions story (although not necessary from the actual True Confessions Magazine; there were a lot of different confessions magazines and I read them all)about a girl whose dream was to be a go-go dancer, only her boyfriend thought she was misguided. Unlike Life With Its Sorrow, Life With Its Tear , I actually read this story. All the way through. Possibly more than once.
You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time and those are pretty good odds. Also from Maverick, and quite possibly from the same episode as the line about trusting your banker. On the occasions when I've written fiction about subjects I'm unfamiliar with, I let these words of wisdom from Bret Maverick's old pappy reassure me.
While there are no doubt many other phrases I use at just the right moment (I watched a lot more TV than just Maverick), a dozen is enough for now. But if anyone wants to offer one or more of their own, feel free to share in the Comments. Just be careful with the four letter words!
So I wasn't surprised when the other day, Google emailed me the following cryptic message: We live behind the sorrow moon, we live in to the final day
I still have no idea what it means, and none of my further Googling has given me much information, but I like the way it sounds, especially the behind the sorrow moon part, which has a lovely melancholic ring to it.
But it got me thinking about those various catchphrases I use that don't necessarily have any meaning to anyone else. A few of them I've mentioned here over the eons I've been keeping this blog. But I figured I'd compile a dozen of them. Feel free to steal any that might come in handy in your life.
Ooh, I'll try to make them alphabetical. Now that should be a challenge!
Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded. That's Gertrude Stein, so it might be in Bartlett's.
Did he ever write Church, State And Freedom? Church, State and Freedom was the first book my father wrote, and a classic in its field. Whenever my father heard about someone else's accomplishments (say, Roger Maris's 61 homeruns), he'd respond by saying, "Well, did he ever write Church, State And Freedom?" Once, when I was listening to a friend extol the virtues of an acquaitance of hers, who was hardworking, brilliant, and chopped her own firewood, I thought, "Well, did she ever write About David?" But it works better with Church, State And Freedom.
Don't wait for Harry. Give me the axe. That comes from a Lizzie Borden biography. She was with a bunch of friends, who were always very careful about what they said to her, and one of them mentioned what a shame it was the view was spoiled by an ugly shed and someone else said, "Well, when Harry comes we'll ask him to chop it down," and there was an awkward silence, followed by Lizzie Borden's response. I went through a Lizzie Borden stage, but this is the one absolute best anecdote and a highly useful phrase.
If you can't trust your banker, who can you trust? From an episode of Maverick. People who know Maverick know that phrase. At least I've met someone who did once.
I hate her rotten f......g guts. In real life, I curse a lot, and when I use this phrase, I fill in the missing letters. This was said by the husband of a friend of mine, when the friend asked if he'd be interested in going to an Anne Murray concert. I think it stuck in my mind because I couldn't imagine anyone caring that deeply about Anne Murray. I probably don't say this particular phrase out loud very often, but then again, I don't say, "Did he ever write Church, State And Freedom" out loud that often either.
If you're going to America, go to America. The story goes that Grandfather Rabbi Pfeffer was making his way from Hungary to America, when he got offered a great job in Germany. He wrote his wife (at home with the five little Pfeffers, of whom my father was the littlest)to ask if he should accept the job, and Grandmother Mrs. Rabbi Pfeffer responded, "If you're going to America, go to America," so he did, and a good thing indeed that he did. It's a very useful phrase for keeping on target.
Life is for the living. My father's mantra, borrowed from Thomas Jefferson. Also a contender for Bartlett's.
Life With Its Sorrow, Life With Its Tear. I say this all the time, and I finally decided to find out where it came from. It's the name of a novel I never read. I figure I must have read a review of it somewhere and the title stuck in my mind.
Never apologize, never explain.This has something to do with Henry Ford, but I'm not sure what, since I've never read a biography of Henry Ford, a thoroughly unpleasant person from what little I know about him. The Ty Cobb of industrial magnates. As one prone to apologizing and explaining, it's good to remind myself that I shouldn't.
People Meet And Sweet Music Fills The Air. The title of a movie I've never seen, Swedish maybe, and maybe about sex.
There's More To Life Than The Hully Gully. I've definitely quoted this one in my blog. It's from a True Confessions story (although not necessary from the actual True Confessions Magazine; there were a lot of different confessions magazines and I read them all)about a girl whose dream was to be a go-go dancer, only her boyfriend thought she was misguided. Unlike Life With Its Sorrow, Life With Its Tear , I actually read this story. All the way through. Possibly more than once.
You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time and those are pretty good odds. Also from Maverick, and quite possibly from the same episode as the line about trusting your banker. On the occasions when I've written fiction about subjects I'm unfamiliar with, I let these words of wisdom from Bret Maverick's old pappy reassure me.
While there are no doubt many other phrases I use at just the right moment (I watched a lot more TV than just Maverick), a dozen is enough for now. But if anyone wants to offer one or more of their own, feel free to share in the Comments. Just be careful with the four letter words!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Leading Off And Playing Shortstop, Lieutenant Sulu
Yesterday, while watching a baseball game, I had one of those realizations that other people don't need to have because they have brains.
I think I had a brain once, but I misplaced it.
The realization was when baseball players indicate that there are two outs (which they do with their index finger and pinkie spread and their middle two fingers touching each other), they do so with their throwing hands, which are their dominant hands. It'd be kind of silly for them to do it with the hand that's in their glove (that's the part people with brains realize without thinking).
I've been aware for a very long time that I can do the Live Long And Prosper gesture from Star Trek a whole lot better with my left hand than with my right. So I started indicating two outs, and that too, I could do a lot more successfully left handed than right handed (see all those nifty self-portrait photographs).
This got me wondering, as I have in the past, whether I am a natural lefty, or even more likely, a natural neither (or maybe both).
I do everything right handed, and I have no memory of switching hands. I remember every injustice I suffered in kindergarten, and I'm sure if my teacher had made me go from left to right handed, I'd still be sulking about it.
But I also know that I could only tell which was my right hand and which was my left by wearing a ring on my right hand and a watch on my left, and that when I played baseball as a kid, I could never remember which side of the plate I was supposed to stand on. When my friend Christy taught me how to crochet while facing me, I learned mirror image and stitched with my left hand (Christy thought that was very funny, and I promptly started crocheting right handed, because I am extremely sensitive to peer group pressure).
So yesterday, in search of answers to this lifelong question, I went to Google. I learned the history of Live Long And Prosper. Note how well Mr. Spock does it with his right hand.
And while I didn't learn the history of the two men out gesture (trust me, you don't want to Google "two men out"), I found this fabulous left hand/right hand hit the dot test, which I did both yesterday and today and got identical scores on (24 right, 14 left). I'm not sure what that means, except that I'm consistent in my successes and failures.
A number of years ago, there was a wonderful article in The New Yorker about twins. The article said lots of pregnancies start out as twins, and many of them terminate almost immediately, and some terminate with one fetus living and one not, and that since identical twins can be mirror image (one right handed, the other left), it could be that left handed people started out as twins but the righty didn't make it. Whether that's true or not, it's a nifty image, and you'll never look at left handed people the same way (and if you are left handed, well, you'll never look at yourself the same way, until you forget about this blog entry, which will probably be immediately if your brain is any way similar to mine, and if it is, you have my condolences).
But given my 24/14 (I must take that test again; I'm certain I could do better next time) and my lefthanded crocheting, I'm starting to wonder if I was one third of a set of triplets when I first began, one lefty, one righty, and me in the middle.
If that's true, then my poor mother. I'm sure it would have been much easier for her to have the All Righty Susan Beth Pfeffer or the All Lefty Susan Beth Pfeffer than the All Mixed Up Susan Beth Pfeffer she's been stuck with for so many decades!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Teacher, Study and Discussion Guides for Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, and This World We Live In
While many of the following links are available on the side of the blog, I thought it might be helpful to have a single entry with links to various teacher's, discussion and study guides, book talks, and other useful things for Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, and This World We Live In.
I'll try to keep this entry up to date, with new links as I find them.
The single best source remains the University of Missouri eThemes for LAWKI.
Amongst its links are those for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Classroom Resources for all three books, and Scholastic's guide for LAWKI.
Here's the Teen Book Guide to LAWKI.
There's a Super Summary Guide to LAWKI.
I just discovered this Life As We Knew It book unit with writing prompts.
The invaluable Nancy Keene has book talks for Life As We Knew It and The Dead And The Gone.
Here's my blog entry, full of links, for program ideas for LAWKI and d&g.
I also wrote a blog entry about the science of LAWKI and d&g.
If you're interested in my writing process, here are my preliminary notes for d&g and TWWLI as well as scraps of dialogue both used and unused.
Just in case you talk about me, here's how to pronounce Pfeffer correctly.
With 76 books published, and #77 (Blood Wounds) due in the fall of 2011, I need a list of my books. This is the one I go to. It's not completely accurate, but what in life is.
Have some doubts about the originality of those essays on The Dead And The Gone? Maybe your students did a little shopping here.
Scooter and I hope this helps!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Let Kids Read Whatever They Want (As Long As It's Written By Me)
I read a couple of interesting articles this morning.
The first comes from Publishers Weekly,by the ever wonderful Elizabeth Bluemle about how to convince people in as few words as possible to read certain books. Life As We Knew It took a few extra words.
The New York Times has an article about the importance of getting kids to read in the summertime, regardless of what they read. It seems it's a whole lot better for a kid to read a book about Hannah Montana than not to read anything at all, especially if what's read is the kid's choice.
This particularly resonates with me because when I was a kid, my mother did volunteer work on the bookmobile, and I remember her saying the exact same thing. If kids read what they want to read, they're going to be a lot more likely to keep reading than if they're made to read things that are of no interest to them.
I guess what I want to read now are articles about getting kids to want to read (although I admit to a particular fondness for articles about getting kids to want to read me)!
ETA: Speaking of articles about kids reading whatever they want, just as long as what they want to read is by me, here's an article about a summer/schoolyear reading program in New Bedford, MA, where the 9th graders read Life As We Knew It.
The first comes from Publishers Weekly,by the ever wonderful Elizabeth Bluemle about how to convince people in as few words as possible to read certain books. Life As We Knew It took a few extra words.
The New York Times has an article about the importance of getting kids to read in the summertime, regardless of what they read. It seems it's a whole lot better for a kid to read a book about Hannah Montana than not to read anything at all, especially if what's read is the kid's choice.
This particularly resonates with me because when I was a kid, my mother did volunteer work on the bookmobile, and I remember her saying the exact same thing. If kids read what they want to read, they're going to be a lot more likely to keep reading than if they're made to read things that are of no interest to them.
I guess what I want to read now are articles about getting kids to want to read (although I admit to a particular fondness for articles about getting kids to want to read me)!
ETA: Speaking of articles about kids reading whatever they want, just as long as what they want to read is by me, here's an article about a summer/schoolyear reading program in New Bedford, MA, where the 9th graders read Life As We Knew It.
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