The thing I like about kid's books is the condensing of big ideas into little chapters. Kids don't have patience for long-winded descriptions and deep world-building when they're poking around in a new book - ideas should be up-front, obvious without shoving it down a reader's throat, and get the point across that yes, this is something I want to keep reading. "In Bocca al Lupo" has relatively short chapters, about three to five pages each - if it broaches past 150 pages, I'll be pretty surprised. Here's a sample of the rough draft for chapter one, which is also likely the shortest chapter in the entire novel.

For some odd reason, the indentations in the orignal document make big ol' spaces between paragraphs on the blog. What a pain in the neck to lose  proper formatting!


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The first day of September was looking a lot like the first day of August as I stared wistfully out the classroom window. I was trapped like a rat, and the world outside seemed to be mocking me with a sunny, warm attitude.

         I sighed, chewing on my pencil eraser. I gagged as the cheap rubber crumbled between my teeth and stuck to my tongue, and I tried to ignore the scattered laughter around me as I tried to spit it out in a frantic raspberry. A couple other kids were looking at me, probably hoping if I choked class would be dismissed.

         “Good morning, class!”

         Mister Ross breezed in with an armful of books, a truck stop-size Mega Chug coffee, and the kind smile of an eternally patient teacher. Mister Ross was always in a good mood, and he was famous in the school for being really nice. During the summer I hadn’t believed my luck in getting into his class; now, all I could do was try to disguise how much I hated him. Every kid hates their teacher the first day back.

         The antagonism was heavy with my fellow prisoners today – there was a mumbling of resentful “good mornings” and very little eye contact. Mister Ross didn’t let the fact that twenty-three kids wanted to kill him damper his enthusiasm. He took a long drink of coffee, stepped up in front of the whiteboard, and clapped his hands together.

         “We have a good year ahead of us. Sixth grade at last! Just think, only two more years in middle school, then you get four years of high school!”

         The class – me included, and probably one of the loudest – all groaned. Mister Ross just laughed.

         “Try to hold in your excitement, guys. I won’t make it excess in torture while you’re with me. Okay!” he said, clapping his hands again as he went to his desk, picking up a clipboard. “Time for attendance. Abigail?”

         Abigail, a girl with a hundred cinnamon-colored freckles and a big puff of curly blond hair, raised her hand.

         “Adam?”

         Adam was on my softball team, and probably the only pitcher in the world that was afraid of the ball. Every time he thought he saw a pitch coming back at him, he’d tuck and roll right off the mound. He raised his hand high, wiggling his fingers in a wave at Mr. Ross.

         “Alison?”

         There was a moment of quiet, and Mr. Ross shrugged.

         “Looks like someone faked sick today. You guys should take notes from her when she shows up.”

         There was some scattered laughter, and the murderous tension in the air finally started to ease up. Mr. Ross could always be counted on for a joke. Attendance went on for a minute or two, with only Alison missing.

         Despite all of his reassurances not to torture us, Mr. Ross started the day with geography. The groan from our classroom could probably be heard all the way to the football field.

         Lunch was pizza that day. The school may have been keeping us captive, but they seemed to be making it clear that they were really, really sorry about it. The pizza may have tasted like cardboard soaked in grease, but the sentiment was nice.

After lunch we had a twenty-five minute period for recess, and the whole sixth grade stampeded out the doors the minute we were allowed out. The late summer light hit me in the face, and I breathed in the smell of hot tarmac and wood from the old playground set. The school had been talking about replacing Fort Splinter for years and replacing it with some mess of shiny metal, but it never went further than talk.  

  Privately, I was glad. Fort Splinter was sort of a landmark, a special place of wood shiny with years of play, decades-old graffiti in the crooked castle parapets and the ghosts of green paint still clinging to the weathered, dragon’s head-shaped gateway. I’ve always liked old stuff like that; it has history, and history gives it character.

     I was running towards the swings, the first time I ever saw her. 

  There were a couple old wooden picnic tables sitting under the shade of a huge oak tree near the playground, and she was sitting with a khaki-colored backpack at her feet, and a pair of clunky old headphones over her ears. 

  We weren’t allowed to listen to music players during school and our backpacks were supposed to be left in our lockers until the end of the school day. The girl was flaunting two detention-worthy rules with reckless abandon, just sitting in the shade and watching the kids running around in Fort Splinter. She caught me looking at her, and turned her face away.
  I felt kind of insulted at the instant rejection, and went on towards the playground without a second thought.

I've been working off-and-on with stories for this particular universe for years. I first came up with the idea of  the "Eric and Alison" series in sixth grade, and the first iteration of "In Bocca al Lupo" was a 70+ page scattered mess involving werewolves, the Illuminati, and inexplicable haunted televisions. 

(I never claimed I was a good writer when I was younger.)

I revisited the idea about a year ago when I found an old print-out of that first manuscript, and worked to refine the story until it completely reworked into something readable. I always imagined "In Bocca al Lupo" as the first of a series of books for young adult readers, a fantasy story arching across many chapters and visiting on folklore, mythology and urban legends both obscure and well-known. While sketching out a skeleton summary for this first book, I found ideas popping up for second and third volumes that I find myself extremely excited to refine into stories all their own. 

I'll be posting rough drafts of chapters, as well as bits of mythology behind the ideas in the story. For this entry, here's a little trivia behind the book's title:

"In Bocca al Lupo" is Italian for "in the mouth of the wolf", a wish for good luck. The traditional answer is "il crepe lupo!" - "I wish it would die!". The phrase is a negative-positive wish for luck, just like the English "break a leg!".