Author: Peg Kehret

Today is the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. The newspapers and TV stations in my area are running feature stories to remember the eruption and to update us on the regrowth of the region around the mountain.

Although I lived in Washington State at the time, I missed the big event because Carl and I were in Hawaii, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. Volcanoes erupt there all the time, so few people got excited over the news.

Anne and Bob were in college, at two different schools, and both were in the path of the ash. We worried about them, and about our pets who were being cared for by a neighbor. We had no cell phones then, so communication was difficult. Bob was able to drive home; Anne was evacuated on a Red Cross train. The ash missed our home, so the dogs were able to go outside as usual, but for a few days we had great fear of the unknown.

Many years later, I vicariously lived through all the excitement – and remembered my fear – when I researched and wrote The Volcano Disaster.

It’s been a week of good news. First I learned that Runaway Twin is on the Children’s Choices list compiled by the International Reading Association and the Children’s Book Council. This is the only national list of books selected by kids.

The Bank Street College of Education released their Best Books of 2010 list and Runaway Twin is on that, too. Each year approximately 6000 books are reviewed, and then 100 are selected for the list.

This morning came the exciting news that Stolen Children has won the New York State Reading Association’s Charlotte Award. This is New York’s student-voted book award, and I have never won it before – a new charm for my necklace.

I stayed home today, but I certainly wasn’t bored. Here’s what I saw: one dog (Lucy), two cats (Molly and Mr. Stray), five deer, seven elk, two raccoons and one garter snake.  I love living in the woods! 

My long, paved driveway has a lot of moss on it this year. I decided to get rid of the moss in a way that’s as environmentally safe as possible.

Anne used the leaf blower to clean the driveway, a huge job since pine needles and leaves were stuck because they’d been rained on. She was sore the next day, and I’m grateful for her help. Yes, a broom is better for the environment than a leaf blower, but it would have been an impossible task. Sweeping my driveway is like painting the Golden Gate bridge; by the time you finish, you need to start over.

Once Eric did a science experiment on my driveway’s moss, where we diluted bleach in varying amounts, vinegar in varying amounts, and tried a chemical moss killer. The vinegar did the job, so yesterday I bought eight large jugs of vinegar. This morning I used a watering can with a “shower” head to apply the vinegar to the moss. I ran out of vinegar before I was half done, but I’ll wait to buy more until I need to drive to town for another reason. After I’d loaded my shopping cart yesterday, a woman said to me, “You must be going to make A LOT of pickles!”

While I was sprinkling vinegar on the moss, Lucy ran around biting pine cones and looking for squirrels. Once she ran across an area where I had just applied the vinegar. If I’d been using a chemical spray, I would have had to wash her paws. No, if I’d been using a chemical spray I wouldn’t have let Lucy be out with me. With vinegar, I don’t worry about Lucy or the small forest critters.

Right now my driveway smells a bit like pickles, but the formerly green moss is turning brown, and I’m glad I tried a natural solution to my problem. Happy Earth Day!

Most of the letters that I get from kids contain questions. I’ve had some questions (Do you have kids? What is your dog’s name? Did you ever find out what happened to Tommy?) hundreds of times. One question has changed in the last year or so, and I don’t know why. They used to ask, “Where did you get your idea for (title of book)?” Now they ask, “Where did you get the inspiration for (title of book)?”  Those are not the same question. I got the idea for Escaping the Giant Wave when I was walking on a beach in Orgon and saw a Tsunami Warning sign. But that was hardly an inspiration.

 Some questions don’t have anything to do with me or my books. One kid asked if I like bunnies. Another asked, “How old were you when Star Wars came out?” Then there’s the girl who wants to know if she should tell Kyle that she likes him and ask if he likes her, too, or if she should wait a year, until they’re both in seventh grade. I’m trying to think of an inspired answer.

Except for a lovely Easter brunch with Anne, Kevin, and Eric, and a routine checkup at the eye doctor, I’ve done little but write for two weeks. I always have difficulty starting a new book but once I get into it I become completely absorbed and don’t want to do anything else. Right now I’m at the point where I work all day and then lie in bed thinking about what else I want to say and how to say it. In the mornings, I make coffee, let Lucy out, and go straight to my office in my bathrobe, often putting in a couple of hours before I realize I’m hungry and have not yet had breakfast.

This week, my obsession coincided with the opening of baseball season, which presented a dilemma. I ended up watching most of the first two Mariners games, but with a notebook in hand so that I could scrawl thoughts during the muted commercials – and often during the Athletics’ turns at bat. When the games ended, I logged these new additions into the book, staying up too late in the process.

You may have noticed that I didn’t mention what it is that I’m working so hard on. Sorry. I can never talk about a book while I’m writing it. It always feels fragile at this point, as if it will fall apart if I display the idea in public too soon.

My agent of many years, Emilie Jacobson, has retired. I thank her for the many years of representation, the thirty-five books she sold for me, and her staunch advocacy of my work. She has a great sense of humor, and I will miss the wry comments in her correspondence. Shelter Dogs is dedicated to her.

Yesterday I read Split Image by Robert B. Parker. I enjoyed the book but I also felt sad as I read because there will be no more novels from this talented writer. Robert B. Parker died recently. I have read all the Spencer books and the Jesse Stone books. I eagerly awaited each new Sunny Randall story. I was delighted when Parker began putting characters from one series into a different series; I felt as if I’d unexpectedly run into an old friend.

Reading a book by Parker is the equivalent of taking a college course in how to write great dialogue. I have long admired his craft, as well as his art. I also like that most (all?) of his books were dedicated to his wife, Joan. Having had a long and loving marriage myself, I appreciate it when I see a similar union.  As if all this weren’t enough to make me a fan, Robert Parker clearly loved dogs. Only a dog lover could write dog scenes the way he did. I never met the man, but I will surely miss his work.

Larry Karp sent me an email in which he used the word oleaginous. I was not familiar with oleaginous, so I looked it up. In case you are as uninformed as I was, Google’s source defines oleaginous as, “Buttery: unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech.” What a great word! Larry had used it to describe a telemarketer, and I now have an instant mental image of this person. I also like the connection between ole and buttery. Who but a writer would casually drop oleaginous into a sentence? And who but another writer would get excited by that?

Two good friends have new books out this week. Congratulations to the above-mentioned Larry Karp, who is not an oleaginous person, on the April 1 release of The Ragtime Fool, the third in his fine ragtime trilogy. And congratulations to David Patenaude on the publication of his YA novel, Epitaph Road. 

Kids sometimes ask me what inspires me to write. Usually I say it’s them. I’m inspired by readers who enjoy my books, and they make me want to keep writing. But there is another motivation, too. There are my Snoopy moments.

It’s a favorite Charlie Brown cartoon. In the first scene, Snoopy is sitting on the roof of his dog house, typing away. Then he’s flat on his back, kicking his feet in the air, clearly ecstatic. In the final scene, Snoopy says, “I love it when I write something that I know is good.”

I’ve had that feeling. For each book, I write and revise and write some more. Trying to draw out the ideas and the best words from my head onto the page is a slow and often difficult process. Every so often, I write a scene or some dialogue or a brief description that I know is exactly right. When this happens, I feel the same way Snoopy does. I don’t flop on the floor and kick my feet in the air, but I do nod my head and smile at the computer screen and sometimes even feel goosebumps on my arms.

Snoopy moments are the best part of writing, but they only happen when I’m seated at the keyboard working on a manuscript. Like most good things in life, Snoopy moments must be earned.

My friend and fellow writer, Joni Sensel, posted a Facebook comment one day that said, “Airport. Too early. Missing the dogs.” Oh, boy, did I ever relate to that! The hardest part of travel for me (even worse than going through security) is leaving my animals. I have a wonderful pet-sitter who moves into my house and keeps the animals on their usual routine. She brings them toys, gives them treats, and tells them how beautiful they are. I am certain that when I’m away I miss the animals lots more than they miss me.

Tomorrow I’ll be at the airport, heading for a Children’s Literature Festival in Warrensburg, Missouri. I am excited about going. I’ll see old friends, including Roland and Marie Smith, Vicki Grove, Mary Downing Hahn, and many others. I’ll talk to over 2,000 students and teachers, and sign hundreds of books. It will be a busy, happy, productive time and I am grateful to Central Missouri University for inviting me. Even so, I still look forward to coming home again – to being welcomed by a dog who is so overjoyed to see me that she races in circles around the dining room table, and to hearing the happy purrs as Molly hops on the bed beside me. Mr. Stray knows my car and hurries to sit by his bowl on my front porch when I return. Whether they missed me much or not, the animals are always glad to see me, and I am glad to see them.