snippets (1-3 sentences) of your favorite evocative literature.

What comes to mind is:

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

I can still remember when I first heard that. I was eight, sick in bed, and Dad started reading this book to me.... It was the first time I can remember that a story unfolded in my mind like a movie. The second-growth North Carolina jungle in back of our house was my playground, and I knew exactly what "a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell" was like, and also "a dry, bare, sandy hole" (except he left out the stringy roots).

For sarameg's request in Natter-- snippet of something I've been playing around with.

• *

Once upon a time, I was an overweight, unhappy housewife with barely a high school education. Your basic cliché, right? But these days, I'm being hailed as one of the brightest literary voices of my generation. How'd that happen, you're no doubt wondering. There are days I sit and wonder the same thing, I swear. One day, I was trucking along, married to my grade school sweetheart (more of that cliché material) buying groceries, cooking big Cuban meals, cleaning the grout around the toilets with old discarded toothbrushes because I was that freakin' bored, the next, I was coming home from the Laundromat because the washer was broken again and Nardo, my husband, didn't have time to fix it. And wouldn't let me call anyone to fix it, because he could do it, so why should we waste the money? When I pointed out that I was paying that same money to wash clothes outside the house while I waited (and waited) for him to find time, he just laughed and waved me off, like "Silly Madalenita. You just don't understand."

Hey, you know, I do understand. I get that it's kind of hard to find time, not to mention the right position, to fix something as mundane as a washing machine when you're flat on your back with Gloria "I Was Homely in High School But I'm Hot Now" Fernandez perched on your little homeboy. Now, I'll admit, it could've been easy for me to deal, to settle for the scraps. After all, Nardo made all the noises about how he was a man, a Virile Man, (I swear, he said it just like that, capitals and all) and a man like that needs some variety after so much time… variety that apparently comes in the form of a firm liposuctioned ass and silicone boobs. And we both knew too many women who settled for that nonsense—Nardo's problem was he forgot how smart I am. Can't say as I blame him. I'd almost forgotten how smart I was.

So all things considered, I think I handled it fairly well. I mean, I did leave him with a clean house. Never told him I used his toothbrush to clean the toilets and his boxers to mop the floor.

It's all in the details.

Holy crap. I managed to get only 500 words of the first chapter on the page last night, went to bed at 11:30, and was too brain-tired to get up on time for the gym (which makes me feel awful, I hate missing a day).

I keep getting stuck on age-group, vocabulary, and oh-my-god is this hackish?

What do I do? Do I just write and write and let it hit the page as is and let my beta readers give me the whammy on the first chapter to set me on the right path regarding tone?

I keep thinking, "I could have understood this when i was 10." And then going with that. If I could get it when I was 10, it has to be okay. I was a readie mcreaderson when I was a kid, and would read whatever I could get my hands on. That's the kid I want to write for.

Ugh. Hard. I knew it would be, and it's not like pushing a boulder up hill, it's like taking my brain out, putting it back in backwards, and hoping for the best.

Do I just write and write and let it hit the page as is and let my beta readers give me the whammy on the first chapter to set me on the right path regarding tone?

Yes. Then, send it to Suzi and see if CJ likes it and Hec to see if Emmett likes it. They're both 12 and you're writing for middle school, so it should reach them, too.

I agree. I think you just write the story you want to tell, and afterwards you can check it for age appropriateness.

Allyson, coming from writing for the YA camp, the worst thing you can do is overthink the age group you're writing for. Whatever you do, don't write down or try to write what you THINK they might like. Just write the story as it's coming to you-- the rest of it, like the dialogue, is all tweakable.

And if you need other betas, I have voracious readers of the 10 and 12 year old variety. And of course, if you'd like, I'll beta for you as well. Anything you need.

Oh, and keep in mind, kids always like reading up-- so a middle grader will want to read about thirteen/fourteen and up.

Thirding. Just let it onto the page, and tweak it later. If you're writing for your inner 10 year old, your tone should be pretty much dead on. But CJ and Emmett would be a good control group.

And if you need other betas, I have voracious readers of the 10 and 12 year old variety.

And I have a 10-year old niece who is also a great reader and animal lover (although she has recently decided that she wants to be an architect instead of a vet).

That's a great idea. I posed the question to JZ in natter. I hope it isn't an inappropriate request. The most I can offer is a bat named Emmett and his name in the acknowledgements.

I booked my ticket to Houston to stay with a friend and visit the Waugh bridge to see the bats (which are my species) fly out to hunt at dusk and am going to call the conservation folks today to see if I can make a bat appointment. An old Bronzer friend is married to a bat biologist, (she's a professor at A&M) and is checking to see if he'll be available to show me the lab.

I really do want to get behavioral/biological details right, even though the elements are in the realm of the fantastic.

Thank you, Allyson, from the bottom of my heart. I think that's of great importance. I know storytellers have anthropomorphized animals since the dawn of time, and I understand the reasons. But trying to re-teach a five-year-old that actual lions don't have the family dynamic of The Lion King is hard.

Not--that your story is in any way comparable to Disney travesties.