Here it is - my last post of 2008. And no doubt, like me, you’re running around doing all those last-minute jobs that have to be done before the holidays can properly begin.  Picking the final gifts, grappling with many square feet of wrapping paper, rolling out the dough for the Christmas cookies or the pastry for the mincepies (depending where on the globe you call home). But perhaps also like me you feel that the main event of Christmas is being with your family and best friends - the people who really make this time of year special for you, and for whom, like me, you gladly travel long distances.

The photo should give you a clue about where I am. Yes, it is London’s Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, and it’s great to be here at this special time of year - though I also miss our Virginia home too (especially our street’s annual sleigh ride - well actually, more of a hay-wagon ride, minus the hay but plus a few wine bottles!). My family can all be together this year and that already makes it a very special Christmas for me.  The trip will include lots of fun things - a couple of shows up in Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and of course a trip to Oxford Street to see the fabulous Christmas lights. 

If you’re thinking of sending me a submission you might want to wait until the first week of January when I’ll be planted at my desk once again, all refreshed and raring to see what the new year will bring.  The ubiquitous Blackberry (aka the Crackberry) has been put to sleep in the depths of a suitcase, only to be pulled out for disasters of a rare and dreadful nature.  Silent night, holy night, and all is peaceful at the Greenhouse.

So I wish you all the happiest of holidays and New Year celebrations and many good things in 2009.  Who knows what the new year will bring - almost certainly many challenges for us all, given the global economic climate.  But also, I hope and believe, many great and exciting events and achievements on a personal and professional level.  I wish you all happy and satisfying writing, a sense that you are making progress in your literary craft and, above all, enjoying what you do.

Thank you, so many of you, for sharing the adventure of 2008 with me.  I’ve loved getting to know many of you in small and large ways.  Have yourselves a merry little Christmas - and I’ll leave you with the great words from John’s Gospel that I was so privileged to read at our church’s service of Lessons and Carols last week.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD.

The first thing I should say is . . .  Look!  Sarah’s blog has finally moved into the twentieth-first century; my web-meister, Rowan, has tinkered with the mechanics in the engine-room to allow photos to be inserted.  It’s taken a while and cost thousands of lives, but I’m very excited to be able to reveal our very first image from the Greenhouse.

You see, I felt we all needed some fun in our lives. Because basically the news is Not Terribly Good.  It feels like every time I log on another troubling announcement emanates from the transatlantic book industry. Pay freezes, acquisition prohibitions, staff laid off, retail sales sliding in the final months of 2008, rumours of sales (companies, not book rights), articles telling me that it’s going to be tough to sell debut or literary fiction. And now the most brilliant get-out has emerged - the recession rejection: We’re sorry, but the recession means we don’t feel we can offer to acquire this great manuscript. Well, it’s a lot easier and less painful than admitting that you don’t find the concept or voice or characterization quite outstanding enough.

So am I downcast and miserable as I sit here with the rain sliding down my windowpane?  No I’m not.  Or perhaps (thinking towards the January 20 inauguration, where I shall be flocking together with about 4 million others) I should say: YES WE CAN!

Yes, I believe we can sell books in 2009. And yes, I fully intend to do so.  The children’s area of this industry has always been a little more resilient in bad times than adult books, which should give us hope. And I still believe absolutely that a great manuscript/a great book will be in demand and find its home. But what we do have to recognize is a trickle-down kind of caution. Publishers are under a lot of pressure to make the best commercial decisions, and I can imagine that all houses will be putting their editors through an acquisition process that will make the Inquisition look gentle.  Dollars, pounds - and potentially an awful lot of them - are at stake every time an editor buys a book; not just the acquisition money that buys the rights, but all the other money that goes into production, overheads, publicity and marketing, warehousing. The cost of having an editor sitting at a desk in a room in New York or London is jaw-dropping (I saw the figures for my own seat, my own desk, a few years ago and had a new reverence for my little plot of publishing ground); the cost of an hour of a publisher’s time is very significant when you cost it all in.  And as for agents?  Well, their business doesn’t make any money at all unless they seal a deal (you ask Jerry McGuire). We are, it must be said, quite brave people.

So where does all this leave us?  It leaves us under pressure to make very, very good decisions - which, of course, one only knows fully with the wonderful gift of hindsight. Publishers will be under pressure to acquire the work that will be easy and rewarding to market.  Agents will be under even more pressure to represent the manuscripts that have the best chance of selling. The work that will be squeezed hardest will be the new literary voice, the gentle or not-quite-standout storyline, the experimental, the work that lacks an evident commercial angle, the voice that’s nice but maybe, possibly, not quite interesting enough or that needs to develop a little more. Breathe in, because our belts just tightened a notch.

But having looked down from the tightrope and seen the market, I now intend to look up - to the wonderful world of this industry which I love so much.  It has weathered a lot of storms in the past, and I say again, the best writing, the best ideas, will sell - and deals will be done.  I look at Publishers Marketplace daily and see them - rows and rows of books sold, new writers getting launched, gripping plot lines seeing the light of day, even as bad news trickles in.  Because the fact is, no publisher will survive or retain/grow market share without product - and the product is books.  No one will want to miss out on acquiring strong work for the future, not least because who knows what the market will be doing in 2010 or 2011 when many of these new books will appear on the shelves.  If you don’t speculate now, you can’t accumulate later.  Every sentient agent or publisher is scared of missing a big one!

So what does this mean for you writers out there?  Be informed, read what’s going on in the industry - but then clear your head to write the book that only you can write.  It’s what I’ve said throughout this blog - carve out the absolutely strongest plot you can find, know where its commercial hook and focus lie, and learn the craft of writing with all the means at your disposal. We need a standout story, an original and effective voice, characters that leap off the page and into our hearts.  Achieve all that and you too will be saying, YES WE CAN!

But as this damp and grey day drips relentlessly on, I suggest you forget your plotting and revisions and anxieties.  Because here to amuse you is a piccy of the hotseat of the Greenhouse USA. You will notice that it is an unusual agency:  its senior staff member has completely disappeared, leaving behind only a pair of green shoes. Has she evaporated? Or fled the country? Then, of course, there’s her assistant - the ever-faithful and ever-snoring Hound (NB: My thanks to blog-reader Emily Cooper who wrote expressing her virtual affection for this critter).  How can one feel even remotely dismal when looking at that malodorous mound of fur?

So, all together now.  We’re going to shout in unison and very loudly: YES WE CAN!

Yes, it’s Monday - and I can finally reveal my exciting news.  The Greenhouse is growing! 

A press release went out today to both US and UK trade press, announcing that I’ve appointed Julia Churchill as a new Greenhouse agent, responsible for helping to grow our British stable of authors. Oh, and I’m leaving for the airport in half an hour to collect Julia, who’s spent Thanksgiving in Boston and is flying on to Washington to spend a day or two with me here in the hothouse. Much plotting, planning and bonding will ensue, as we talk about the future - and of course as she takes the final test:  Does the Greenhouse Hound approve of her? Will she give him his requisite number of milkbones?

Julia is British and will be based in London. She’ll be out and about a good deal attending writers’ conferences and events, and generally sniffing out both new and established writers who would like to come and join us in the Greenhouse.  I know you’ll want to know all about her, so I can tell you that she’s very nice (and funny), she is younger than me (not difficult), she loves working with authors, and she’s highly thought of within the British children’s books industry.  Before joining Greenhouse she spent several years agenting for the Darley Anderson Agency in London where she developed quite a track record for finding new talent.  Like me, she’ll be looking for that spark of potential and working with writers in an editorial way prior to submission.  Julia has that small streak of craziness that I love (and with which I identify!); I knew she was the one for the job when it became clear she was prepared to leap on a plane from London and fly out to see me at twenty-four hours’ notice. Now that’s the kind of agent I like!

While I’ll continue to represent my existing American and British authors to both markets - and no doubt take on more British authors myself in the future - Julia’s appointment will enable me to focus even more on the US market, knowing that all bases are being covered in the UK.  I’m out and about such a lot in the States myself now, and have so many opportunities coming my way, that this will make me even more sure that I’m not missing anything.

Given the Greenhouse only launched in late January 2008, I am really proud that we have a platform to grow in this way - and given the tough economic times in both countries.  But with seven debut authors already with deals (and the beginnings of foreign sales too), it would have been silly not to have looked to grow at this stage. Do I have plans for world domination?  Well, let’s just say that it’s my ambition for Greenhouse to be the agency of choice for children’s/teen authors on both sides of the Atlantic.

Lots of things to think about, lots of things to do.  But first I’ll welcome Julia to the heart of the Greenhouse this afternoon and offer her a nice cup of tea. After all, she is a Brit!

Cheers, everyone - and here’s to the future.

I was meant to write you a nice long and meaty piece today - but have run out of time, caught between ‘the rock’ of a contract’s minute detail and ‘the hard place’ of a Thanksgiving dessert waiting to be created, its constituent parts sitting neglected in bags out in the garage. 

So I shall simply say a big HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my American readers.  And don’t worry, you Brits reading this - I promise to explain Thanksgiving when I see you next. As well as Being Thankful, it also involves doing strange things with marshmallows, the ‘Butterball Hotline’, and many images in the news of car headlights inching up the freeway.  For me, it also involves struggling to work out how (and perhaps why) on earth I must now weigh butter in ‘cups’. Can butter really fit into cups? Yes, when it comes to cuisine, America and Britain are definitely two countries divided by a common recipe.

The planned witty and penetrating blog post is therefore not going to happen.  But I can tell you this - I have some very exciting news for you, which has been keeping me extraordinarily busy. And I can promise that all will be revealed NEXT WEEK!

Oh, and I also have a Very Special Guest arriving with me on Monday!

All of which is, of course, designed to keep you on Thanksgiving tenterhooks - and make you tune in next week.

And now, having been irritatingly and quite smugly cryptic, I shall sign off and head to the garage to retrieve my ‘sweet butter’ and golden raisins. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, wherever you are!

There are many great things about living around Washington DC.  There are the majestic views up the Mall from the Washington Monument to the Capitol.  There are the inspiring words engraved on the walls of the Jefferson Monument, and the spring-time cherry blossoms. There’s the excellent kayaking on the Potomac – and the moment when you hear excessive tooting and know you’re about to spot a motorcade (you can tell I’m not a native DCer because I still get really excited at that).  Yes, I am a living, breathing tourist brochure for this beautiful city and its environs.

But today I want to tell you about two particularly fabulous DC features – linked by what you might call ‘the writing life’.

Fabulous DC Feature #1

THE SMITHSONIAN!
This great collection of museums ensures you’ll never run out of interesting things to see and do, and it also puts on an impressive list of courses and lectures. Last night I went to one of them – a brilliant interview with that goddess of contemporary women’s fiction, Anita Shreve.  Yes, I was quite close to ANITA SHREVE! You may touch the hem of my garment.

It’s hard to think of a mega-selling author like Ms Shreve just starting out, but like all writers she has a fascinating story to tell about how it all started and what it’s like now. How she was a teacher and experienced such an intense and sudden ‘calling’ to become a writer that she left school in the middle of a semester (incurring considerable opprobrium in the process). How she still keeps her box of rejection letters, ‘enough to wallpaper my bathroom’. How she does three or four complete revisions of each manuscript before submitting it to her publisher, always changing at least one major component of her story, whether the narrator or the tense, or something equally fundamental.  How every novel is agonizing to write, and how she is never free of the mental tyranny of her work-in-progress apart from a blessed couple of weeks after sending it off when she’s still waiting to hear back from her editor.  The picture she painted of her particular writing life was one of strenuousness nicely leavened with anxiety.

The one piece of advice she gives new writers?  Never give up.  She didn’t, she got published – and one day her phone rang and it was Oprah! 

Fabulous DC Feature #2

TAMI LEWIS BROWN!
Now, if you don’t know Tami, you must be one of the few people in the US children’s writing community who doesn’t – because it always seems to me that Tami has more names in her Roledex than I’ve met in my entire life. Going to a conference? Tami will be an organizer.  Need a ride to an event?  Tami will turn up at the wheel. As well as being a genuine DC resident, Tami is also a Greenhouse author and this week I sold her first novel, ONE SHINY SILVER KEY, to editorial doyenne Melanie Kroupa of Farrar Straus. Huzzah!

I first met Tami some months ago in a roundabout kind of way, and we bonded even more at the Vermont alumni conference in July (Tami received her MFA in children’s writing there). Recently she interviewed me for the Through the Tollbooth blog that she runs with various other Vermont friends (check it out – it’s a great writers’ resource). So it’s been a great thrill to see ONE SHINY SILVER KEY finally come to fruition for Tami, after what I know has been an arduous creative journey – just as it is each time for Anita Shreve and for any writer who strives to produce work of originality and power.

You might say, reductively, that ONE SHINY SILVER KEY is about two girls (Margie and Peep), a car, and a whole lot of chickens. 
You could also say that it’s a perceptive and moving novel about Margie’s quest to find not only her lost mother, but also her lost self. It embraces coming of age, a major rite of passage – and a particularly fine and hair-raising road trip.

So well done, Tami – I’m delighted that your very first novel will now be joining your very first picturebook (SOAR ELINOR – publishing 2010) on the prestigious FSG list. Not many writers can claim THAT double first in the same year.

Washington DC - a great capital city. Iconic monuments, cherry blossom, The Smithsonian, Anita Shreve (temporarily) – and best of all, my clever, clever Greenhouse author, Tami Lewis Brown!

What can I say about this week? That it was busy?  That I read a lot of manuscripts? That I’m in the middle of making a deal?  That I didn’t get as much done as I should have got done?  That squirrels have eaten so much of our carved Mr Pumpkin on the front step that his grin has got bigger and bigger and more and more insane?

It would all be true.  And yet one thing really happened this week:  there was an election.  Or perhaps I should say AN ELECTION.  Because this was an election worthy of capitalization.

The two campaigns have made me think a lot about WORDS.  These word-gems we handle every day of our lives, so casually, so carelessly most of the time - so weightily, so crucially at others.  I’ve talked before about the gleaming jewels of our language; the diamonds, sapphires, and rubies of inestimable power, capable of arrangement and rearrangement into a myriad of patterns. This pattern can make me laugh; this pattern can break my heart.  This pattern can bring down a Wall; this pattern can create a President. Words can corrupt and betray - and they can inspire and change the world.  Words - the tools of our trade, the love of our lives as writers. The pen is mightier than the sword; the speech can defeat the gun; the wordsmith holds the keys.

Today I went to Washington DC’s incredible new museum - the Newseum.  A glass and steel homage to the power of words, and our history told by journalists, many of whom have lost their lives around the world so that the story WOULD be told. There you can see the original front pages of newspapers from 1485 to the present day, and it is an extraordinary and breathtaking archive:  the Spanish Armada, the Great Fire of London, the Declaration of Independence, the outbreak of two world wars, the deaths of JFK and Princess Diana - right up to this week’s election. But also the origins of some of the world’s biggest ideas - the original writings of Thomas Locke (whose work had such an influence on Jefferson) and Thomas Paine; a fifteenth-century translation from Latin of the Magna Carta.  The Areopagita. Here is the long, long span of history and the development of the media that reflects that history back to us.  Yes, there is wonderful journalistic photography; but accompanying it all are words - and some poignant momentoes of brave people who wouldn’t be silenced:  Veronica Guerin’s Montblanc pen; Daniel Pearl’s passport (cancelled); more than one bullet-riddled car.

So I’m still thinking about this election.  And remembering how I stood on the spot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King said, ‘I have a dream.’ And how we now have a President-Elect who has said, ‘Don’t tell me that words don’t matter.’

He is right.  Don’t tell me that words don’t matter. Yes, most words need actions to accompany them. But those little gems of language still rule. And they can change a life - and the world.