There are whispers of Frost throughout the novel, but right now, my MC needs a place where she can understand her mom and grandmother a little better. I’m trying out a scene where my MC comes here with her mother and grandmother collecting leaves for a school project. And not too far away, there’s a short trail through a forest and blueberry fields – the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail. There’s Robert Frost’s summer cottage, which was in the news recently when kids broke in and trashed it during a party.
What’s in Ripton? There’s a country store that still sells penny candy. It’s currently titled MAPLE GIRL but needs a new title (but that’s a whole ‘nother story). I went to Ripton, VT yesterday for research in the latest revision of my MG novel. I traveled home high on sugar and book talk and arrived back on Lake Champlain well after midnight a very tired but very happy writer. That’s homemade chocolate malt ice cream on the side. It was a graham cracker with a brownie on top and a torched marshmallow on top of that. We agreed on all the most important issues - character development, plot elements, and dessert.
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She is as marvelous in person as I knew she’d be, and she has great ideas for how to make Marty a stronger, funnier story. I recognized my new editor as soon as she came into the lobby (Google Image Search is a many splendored thing).
I’m sure the sales people thought I was a little crazy because I couldn’t stop smiling, looking at so many of my favorite books and imagining Marty among them in 2010.
I didn’t, though, which left me some time to explore the neighborhood and the Scholastic Store. I was an hour early because I fully expected to get lost and end up wandering around Brooklyn when I changed trains on the subway. I had a noon lunch date and editorial meeting with my editor for Marty McGuire, Frog Princess. Whatever would possess me to leave the lake on such a day? I left home just after 4:30 yesterday morning to catch a train into Manhattan on one of the muggiest, steamiest days of the year.