Of Princesses and Prose

We narrowly missed Princess Masako’s  (er, Prince Naruhito’s) motorcade on Friday.  There were policemen at every corner when I went to pick up Lilia at the deaf school, and also clusters of on-lookers, preparing to wave their little Japanese flags.

Princess Masako has made the front page of the newspaper two days in a row.  She looks well, in her beige pantsuits, with her Chanel handbag, but it’s hard to tell her state of mind.  This is her first public appearance in five months.

Speaking of princesses, I was both intrigued and dismayed to learn that John Burnham Schwartz has a new novel coming out.  The novel, entitled The Commoner, is inspired by the life of Empress Michiko, who has had many stress-related health problems of her own.  There is also a Masako-type princess in the story.  The book got a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.  It’ s going to be published in January, the same month as my novel, Losing Kei.  Of course I’m going to read it, but this book has obliterated any slim chance I had of having my own novel mentioned in Vogue, Vanity Fair, etc.  There’ s no way they would mention two novels about Japan in one issue, and Schwartz, who has already published three novels, one of which has been made into a major motion picture, and who writes features for Vogue and is obivously well-connected, will get all the ink. 

7 Favorite Children’s Books

Jennifer has tagged me for a meme:  “List your (and your kids’) current seven favorite children’s books, along with their authors. Then, if you’re so inclined, tag seven fellow bloggers to do the same.”

So here goes:

1.  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling – I’m reading this to Jio at bedtime.  We’re almost finished.

2.  Lucy Loud and Clear by Laila Lavan, illustrated by Beatriz Igleias – My daughter loves this picture book about a deaf girl who gets what she wants.  In many books featuring deaf characters, there is nothing visual to indicate the deafness.  In this story, Lucy has a purple hearing aid.  My daughter loves that.

3.  Miki Falls by Mark Crilley This is a manga about a Japanese girl written by an American from Michigan, my home state.  My daughter loves this, too.

4.  The Wakame Gatherers by Holly Thompson, illustrated by Kazumi Wilds.   I love this book because it features a bicultural (American/Japanese) girl living in Japan and it has nothing to do with WWII, or the internment of Japanese citizens during the war, as most kids’ books concerning Japan tend to do.  It’s about a girl who goes seaweed gathering with her two grandmothers.

5.  The Chef’s Hat by Naomi Kojima  Both of my children love this simple, sweet story about a chef who is awarded a very tall hat by the emperor, but then can’t do the work that he loves. 

6.  Tea with Milk by Allen Say  This is a beautifully illustrated story about a girl caught between cultures. 

7.  A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams  My son has always been very fond of this story about a girl who helps to save up for a new chair after her family’s furniture is destroyed in a fire.  My students like this story, too.

 I tag Scribbly Katia,  Expat Mama, Here and There Japan, Rehearsal Time’s Over, Musings of a Diva, Illahee, and Dreaming about Water.

The Princess is Coming

Front page news here in Tokushima:  Princess Masako is coming tomorrow to attend the National Culture Festival.  I don’t have the details (though I’m sure my mother-in-law does), but I do know that Masako-sama doesn’t get out much, so it’s a pretty big deal.  The last time she was here, before she became unwell, she visited the School for the Deaf and the place where my daughter goes for physical and occupational therapy.  The deaf school teachers still tell of how they had to make the toilets sparkling clean in case her majesty deigned to use them (she didn’t).  All of this happened before Lilia started her weekly physical therapy sessions, so she didn’t get to meet the princess.  It’d be nice if she’d drop by this time, but it’s not gonna happen.  What I can expect instead: police at every corner, and probably a traffic jam.

My long, strange road to becoming a published novelist (Part IV)

By Mark Terence Chapman

(This entry is a continuation of one on author Joyce A. Anthony’s blog. Click here to return to Part III.)

Most of my manuscript was gone, sent to the bit-bucket in the sky. I had a couple of weeks left until my deadline, but no book. I tried not to panic, but it was a frightening moment. Then I realized that some or all of the missing files were probably on my wife’s computer, from when she edited them. Not necessarily the latest versions, but at least something recent to work from.

I rushed down to her computer and backed up what she had and returned to my computer with the files. I was still missing two chapters. Crap. I hunted around and found a floppy with an older backup of the missing files. So now I had a book, but I was down several days worth of work on some of the chapters. I scrounged around through my trash can and found printouts with handwritten edits for most of the chapters. I worked from those and eventually managed to get myself back to the point just before I deleted all those files. I wasted the better part of a day on all those shenanigans, but at least I was back in business. (That day taught me the lesson of always having at least two backups of everything—preferably one of them offsite, in case of fire or flood.)

Crisis averted, I finished the book before the deadline, and sent it off to my editor and waited. And waited. And waited. After a month, I called the editor and he said he hadn’t received the manuscript! (So why hadn’t he called me when it was a week or two late in arriving?) He checked around and discovered that it was sitting on a desk in the old office. (They’d moved recently and hadn’t bothered to give me the new address….)

After that, it was a matter of reviewing his edits, sending back the manuscript and waiting for the next round of edits. But we got it done, and finally the 476-page OS/2 Power User’s Reference: From OS/2 2.0 Through Warp trade paperback was published in December 1995. (Just in time for Windows 95 to kill off the market for OS/2 and OS/2-related books. Oh well.)

But what does any of this have to do with fiction writing, you ask? This was the steppingstone that got me thinking about novels next. That odyssey begins here in the next segment of the story, on author Karina Fabian’s blog.

And now for something completely different

I’m turning my blog over to science fiction writer Mark Chapman today.  I’m hosting one of ten parts of an essay that he wrote on becoming a published writer.  Enjoy.

Driving and Signing

I’m always getting honked at while driving with Lilia.  This morning, I got honked at twice, by the same guy. 

See, Lilia sits in the back seat and she can be very chatty.  But the only way we can converse is if I look at her.  And it always takes her a few seconds to gather her thoughts and put them into signs.  She doesn’t quite understand that I can’t look back and drive at the same time.  So whenever the car is stopped at a light or when we’re stuck in the morning traffic jam, I turn around and look at what she’s saying.

You might think it would be easier to have her in the front seat. Although the back seat is safer, it’s not illegal to put an eight-year-old in the front seat here in Japan.  Rules concerning seating arrangements in cars and kids – even babies – are pretty lax.  But when my daughter is in the front, she sometimes kicks out with her spastic leg and hits the gear shift.  Sometimes it’s accidental, sometimes it’s because she’s mad at me.  Also, she invariably starts messing around with my cassette tapes (I know, I’m very retro), the important papers in the glove box, and the temperature controls.  (Heat in the summer!  A/C in the winter!) So I’d rather have her in the back, in her booster seat.

 If anyone has invented any sort of communication device for this situation, I’d like to know about it.

The Reincarnationist – MotherTalk blog tour

Reincarnation seems like a fairly obvious topic for a story, and yet, I can’t think of a single mainstream novel that takes past lives and their repercussions as its theme.  That is, except for M.J. Rose’s brand new thriller, The Reincarnationist.  Rose, who has brushed against some past lives herself, has crafted a taut mystery featuring Josh Ryder, a photojournalist who starts having “memory lurches” after he is nearly killed by a bomb blast in Rome.  Rose deftly introduces details of life in ancient Rome – including fascinating passages on the Vestal virgins – while Josh does his best to sort memory from delusion, and figure out who killed a professor during an archeological dig.

Earlier reviews have compared this book to The Time Traveler’s Wife and  The Da Vinci Code.  Although certain themes, such as that of love across dimensions, are superficially similar, The Reincarnationist is a thing unto itself.

M.J. Rose has made a name for herself as a master of  guerilla marketing, and the best-selling author of erotic thrillers.  With The Reincarnationist, she breaks new ground.  She may have even invented a new genre – the reincarnation novel. 

Another Cool Contest

This is from the e-newsletter Shelf Awareness:

Kelly Anderson, who has a blog called Where There’s a Will, is a long-time champion of people with Down’s Syndrome, which her young son has. She has created a contest both to familiarize entrants with their local independent bookstores and “show people that an extra chromosome is not a barrier to reading.” She is asking for e-mail photo submissions of a reader or readers with Down’s Syndrome as well as favorite book titles. The drawing is November 19; the prize is a $25 Book Sense gift card.

 

Drama Queen

Could it be that I have found a way to get Lilia to do her homework???

Next month, the culture festival will be held at my daughter’s school.  As in years past, Lilia will be acting in a play.  I’m not sure what the play is this year, but I know that my daughter got one of two coveted rabbit parts.  Yesterday, she brought home her script with instructions to go over her lines.

At the best of times, homework can be a huge struggle, with Lilia throwing pencils and prints across the room.  She is wont to grab a comic book or commence drawing whenever I leave her side.  And she is not keen to “read.”  So I figured we’d go over the lines after she finished everything else.

Well, lo and behold, Lilia voluntarily grabbed her script and indicated that she wanted to practice.  When she didn’t understand something, she looked to me for interpretation.  And then, this morning, on the 60-minute ride to school, she took the script out of her satchel and went over the lines again on her own.   Normally, when I try to make the most of our commute by handing her a set of flashcards or something, she throws the cards back at me.

Before I thought Lilia’s future might be with animals, or clothes.  But now I’m thinking, lights, camera, action!

Japan Writers Conference Report

About a year ago, a poet friend in my online writing group proposed organizing a writer’s conference here in Japan.  I had long wished for such an event, and I immediately volunteered to participate.  I had no idea who would turn up.  At worst, I imagined the 20 or so presenters would be attending each others’ workshops.  That wouldn’t have been so bad.

Last weekend, the conference was held at Ocha no Mizu Daigaku (Tea Water College) in Tokyo.   Although there were only a handful at the first couple of sessions, and only about ten at my reading of Losing Kei, a crowd had gathered by late afternoon.

I was inspired by the talk on playwriting.  (I’m going to write a play, just as soon as I finish the pile o’ work I’ve got to do!)   And I was happy to meet up with friends and acquaintances that I mostly communicate with via email.

On Sunday, I conducted a fiction writing workshop.  Forty people were present.  I had only expected about twenty, so I was pleasantly surprised.  Participants wrote for ten minutes each on the followng topics:

 - a wedding 

-at the beach

-”Are you the bastard who keeps telling me I’m drunk?”

Some amazing writing came out of those prompts. 

I had to dash off to the airport before the final sessions, which included a planning meeting for next year.  Happily, several participants stepped up to volunteer to organize next year’s event.  I’m hoping this will be an institution.