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.
Whatever would possess me to leave the lake on such a day?
I had a noon lunch date and editorial meeting with my editor for Marty McGuire, Frog Princess. 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 didn’t, though, which left me some time to explore the neighborhood and the Scholastic Store. 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 recognized my new editor as soon as she came into the lobby (Google Image Search is a many splendored thing). 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. We agreed on all the most important issues — character development, plot elements, and dessert.
They called this gooey wonder S’mores. It was a graham cracker with a brownie on top and a torched marshmallow on top of that. That’s homemade chocolate malt ice cream on the side. 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.