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Reader Gut Reaction: I don't post about too many middle grade titles—to be perfectly honest, I don't read as many MG books as I do YA—so it's kind of ironic that I read this book a couple of weeks ago and then realized I should wait to post... Read the rest of this post

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Ok, break’s over! For the Classic Children’s Literature challenge in January, I read Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (totally original, I know, but this is as good a time as any to catch up on the major classics).  And then I decided to compare them with Catherynne Valente’s The Girl Who [...]

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The Man With Two Left Feet. P.G. Wodehouse. 1917. 200 pages.

I loved this collection of P.G. Wodehouse short stories. These thirteen short stories had originally appeared in various magazines in both the UK and US before being published in book form in 1917. The stories: "Bill The Bloodhound," "Extricating Young Gussie," Wilton's Holiday," "The Mixer: He Meets a Shy Gentleman," "The Mixer: He Moves In Society," "Crowned Heads," "At Geisenheimer's," "The Making of Mac's," "One Touch of Nature," "Black for Luck," "The Romance of an Ugly Policeman," "A Sea of Troubles," and "The Man With Two Left Feet."

Some of the stories are set in America, other stories are set in England. A few of these stories even have animal narrators: that's how diverse these stories are! (The two "Mixer" stories are narrated by a dog.) "Black for Luck" stars a traveling black cat that may or may bring luck with him.

I absolutely LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Wodehouse's writing style. "Extricating Young Gussie," introduces Bertie and Jeeves. Readers will be treated to plenty of stories starring these two in following books. "Bill the Bloodhound" was an interesting "detective" story of sorts. It starring a detective that isn't clever and brilliant, but just a likable guy who may not be good at his job but is fun to know anyway. "Wilton's Holiday" and "The Man With Two Left Feet" are short stories with a dancing theme. I really, really enjoyed both of those. In "Wilton's Holiday," readers meet a professional dancer who entertains some out of town visitors. The husband has been to New York before and is very proud of himself and confident that he knows everything there is to know. The dancer has pity on his poor wife who is sitting in the background watching her husband behave foolishly. He won't dance with her because she's never been to New York before and couldn't possibly dance well enough to be seen in public. She goes to speak with the wife and convinces her to dance with someone else, to even enter a dance competition....It is a story well worth reading! "The Man With Two Left Feet" is also a story about a newly married couple. The man who cannot dance falls in love with a beautiful woman; after a year of marriage he realizes that his wife may miss not being able to go out and go dancing. He begins to secretly take dance lessons. It does not go well. But he's persistent. The wife meanwhile wonders why her husband is acting so strange and has changed his habits... It's also a fun story, in a way, because the man is reading his way through the encyclopedia.

I enjoyed so many of these stories! I would definitely recommend this one!

Read The Man With Two Left Feet

• If you love short stories
• If you hate short stories
• If you enjoy humorous stories
• If you enjoy great writing, great storytelling

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Little known fact: The Easter Bunny moonlights the rest of the year for some extra scratch.

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Cupid's Arrow in South Beach by Nan Palmero

Cupid is a symbol of Valentine's Day that we all recognize. According to Roman mythology (and the version you happen to read), Cupid, the Roman god of Love, can shoot his arrow through your heart and cause you to fall hopelessly in love with another person. Sometimes, this can work out great--if the other person loves and adores you in return. If not, you're basically cursed and walking through your life like a zombie, looking for some relief from your broken heart.

And then there's this LOVE we all say we have for writing. . .

When you're with a group of writers or on a writing blog, you will often see statements such as, "I fell in love with writing at a young age and haven't been able to stop." or "Writing is my greatest passion." or "If I can't write, I don't want to live." or simply, "I love to write." But is this relationship that we have with writing love? Is it good--this overwhelming desire that we have to put words on a page? This desire that causes us to feed our children lunchmeat for dinner or tell our husbands to get the cereal box out of the pantry if he's hungry? How about our house--super dust bunnies, anyone? How long has it been since you took a shower? Come on, you can be honest with us. We understand.

I'm not sure if you can call this relationship that we have with writing LOVE. My theory is that each one of us was once an unsuspecting, innocent, normal, clean person with regular hobbies and passions; and then all of a sudden, this little winged creature, Cupid, shot us with his arrow. And the scholars have gotten it totally wrong all these years--Cupid's arrows do not make you fall hopelessly in love with another person. No, they make you fall desperately "in love" with writing.

And it doesn't even seem to matter if writing has loved us back or not--as a matter of fact when we have some success: a contest win, a published book, a contract for a newspaper column--we become more and more obsessed with our computers, journals, and notebooks. My husband actually calls my computer my fourth child--there's my stepson, my daughter, my dog, and my computer.

So on this day when we celebrate LOVE, try to find some time away from the keyboard and pen and hug a human (or animal!) you love today. Maybe even bake him or her a cookie or remember to call the Chinese place to order some dinner. Then tomorrow, go back to writing--our passion, our obsession. After all, it's not our fault--it's Cupid's. That's what I plan to tell my family the next time I throw a loaf of bread on the table and a package of deli ham.

Margo L. Dill is the author of Finding My Place: One Girl's Strength at Vicksburg and teaches classes on children's writing in the WOW! classroom.

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Squeaking an “Illustration Friday” in!

Two posts in one day! What the heck is going on?

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After the flurry of sketching in November and December, January saw a sharp decline. Need to get back in the sketching saddle. Hmmmm, sketching saddle, that might be something to sketch, hee hee!

Anywho, this is a detail of the line, from a page, for an e-reader (in the House that Jack built, no, sorry,) that I’m working on.

Hope you’re having a lovely 2013 so far!

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I am deep in a revision where the request is for more humor, funnier situations–specifically, more laugh-out-loud humor. I am working on this problem in multiple ways.

Looking for Bright Spots or Mentor Texts. I am reading other funny books, watching Men in Black, watching cartoons, trying to brush up on anything that is funny. This is a hit and miss thing for me, because I’ve never learned anything by mere exposure, osmosis doesn’t work for me. Instead, I have to analyze things and ask why they work.

In Men in Black, I noticed a running gag that interest me. Every time someone sees something alien, the MIB pull out a neuralizer thingy with a red light. When it goes off, the person’s memory is wiped clean and the MIB can suggest an alternate memory. Of course, K (Tommy Lee Jones) makes boring suggestions that J (Will Smith) has to jazz up. The neutralizing occurs several times and each time J escalates the replacement memory into something crazier than before. The running gag is a small example of humor in MIB, something that could easily be overlooked in the overall story. Yet, I think the attention to detail in MIB is one thing that makes it work.

Note to self: Attend the details of my story. Add a running gag that might seem quiet and not important. It will be important!

Humor Techniques. I’ve written before about three humor techniques: Setup/Setup/Payoff, Doorbell Effect, and Call Back. I am reviewing these techniques to see if they can point toward other funny moments for my novel revision.

Going back to the best book on writing humor, The Comic Toolbox, by John Vorhaus, I see there are other humor techniques that I may be able to mine.

1. Clash of Context. The key here is to put a character in a place where they don’t ususlly belong. It’s a square character in a round hole. Think Gulliver’s Travel in Lilliputia. Or think Tom Hank’s character BIG, where a young teen is thrust into a business world. It’s why we remark upon a wedding held at a rodeo. Or a water theme park. The potential for humor must be mined, of course, but half the work is done for you when you put a character where s/he doesn’t belong.
2. Wildly Inappropriate Response. Similar to a clash of context, the wildly inappropriate response asks you to create plausible reasons for why a character would do something–well, stupid, crazy, inappropriate. Use exaggeration to reach for the strangest response. In the middle of an aerial combat, the pilot is calling his bookie to find out a point spread on a game. At a funeral, everyone is given kazoos to play. This goes beyond just a crazy context discussed above and emphasizes an action in response to something.
3. Law of Comic Opposites. Here’s the classic odd couple. Again, we are putting together a strange combination but this time, the focus is on the contrast in characters. It’s Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen.
4. Telling the Truth to Comic Effect. Comedians use this technique when they tell a joke that falls flat, then remark, “Well, that didn’t work.” The admission of failure always gets a laugh. Where can your characters fail and then confess it for a laugh. Or perhaps, the character is bald. Can you use his baldness as the basis of a joke? “I’m so bald, I took a shower and got brain-washed.”
5. Telling a Lie to Comic Effect. On the other hand, let the character lie like crazy. For a woman who has gone bald because of chemotherapy, she could joke, “I’m so bald you can see what is on my mind.” It’s a lie and is funny only because she is trying to use humor in a difficult situation.

I have not yet begun to fight the battle of funny! That’s because when I think of myself as being funny, I am ROTFL. (For those of you who don’t know this lingo: Rolling on the Floor Laughing.) I just hope I get the last laugh, when this revision is done.

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What happens when the great minds of Tumblr and Chronicle Books unite? A unicorn is born! Wait, no. Awesome Tumblrs like F*ck! I’m in My Twenties and Dads Are the Original Hipsters become hilarious books.

And now, it could be your turn.

We’re looking for the next big humor book idea. This is your chance to get your idea in front of our editors.

Here’s how it works. Pitch us your laugh-out-loud funny book idea using Tumblr. You can use text, photos, animated gifs, artwork, videos—just get our attention. Then our editors will judge the entries and choose a grand-prize winner whose idea will be considered for publication. You may use an existing Tumblr or create a new Tumblr to illustrate your book idea. Just remember: we’re looking for humor.

To enter, tag a post “Tumblr Book Search” and include:

1)      The title of your humor book

2)      A written synopsis of  your idea (200 words or less)

3)      Examples of the book’s concept (can be photos, animated gifs, artwork, video, text, or any media supported by Tumblr)

Then, hop over here to give us your basic contact information and the link to your post.

Hurry, the contest ends 2/28/2013. Read the official rules and submit your Tumblr entry now!

1 Grand Prize:

• Book idea considered for publication
• $300 of Chronicle books
• Your Tumblr featured on Tumblr Tuesday
• Feedback session with a Chronicle Books editor
• Feedback session with Rachel Fershleiser, Tumblr’s Director of Literary Outreach and co-creator of the New York Times Bestselling Six-Word Memoir Book Series
• And more!

3 Runners-Up:

• $100 of Chronicle books
• Written critique from Chronicle Books editors
• Feedback session with Rachel Fershleiser

Questions? Email contests@chroniclebooks.com

Talk soon,

Kathy

Filed under: Competition, Contest, opportunity, Places to sumit, publishers, submissions Tagged: Chronicle Books, Get Published, Humor, Submit Book idea, Tumblr

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Well, my blog has been a little quiet so far this year.

Lots of things going on behind the scenes. Exciting things coming up for 2013!

Authors in the Park is growing fast. We are planning an event for March 30th. If you have not already, please give our page a "like" to stay informed.

Besides event planning and booking my calendar for the whole year, I got to spend a week visiting classes at a local elementary school. We celebrated National Literacy Week by reading from some great books (including mine) and talking about how a young avid reader became an author (me).

Oh, and I've done some writing too.



I am having fun with this series and I think it is starting to take on a life of its own. Maybe I'm not an Amish author, but I am learning fast. My approach to this is taking the POV of the G-Man, a non-Amish, who befriends and Amish blacksmith. It is an outside look at the Amish and their special way of life. I like that the reader can travel along with the main character as he walks the line between a worldly path and a spiritual path.

T’was the night before…wait, that’s not right. But you know Dash…no, you probably don’t know him.
Put it this way, a repentant fixer, an Amish blacksmith with a mysterious past and a Christmas party. That is a recipe for fun on any holiday!

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A slight re-working of an old illustration. I dropped the temperature on the thermometer and added his breath-cloud. Or whatever that’s called.

Don’t go out, little squirrel!

 

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CHRISTMAS AFTERMATH

Let’s see if there are any HoHoDooDa Doodlers still going as we toddle on over here.

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…………………… Victricia Malicia: Book-Loving Buccaneer Carrie Clickard, author Mark Meyers, illustrator 4 Stars ………….. Inside Front Jacket:  Victricia Malicia Barrett may have been born on a pirate ship and raised in all the best pirate ways, but she sure is a wreck on deck. Her knots slip, she falls from the rigging, and rats abandon [...]

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Happiest of Holiday to y’all!

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My contribution to this week’s Illustration Friday prompt, “Glow”. The coloring is messy and ugly, but the idea was fun to try and pull off quickly.

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PLEASE CLICK ON ABOVE IMAGE.

The Illustration Friday word of the week is crunchy. So I squeaked out another quick 2 sketches to try to make up for my lagging the past couple of days.

…………………………………..

UPDATE:

Ok, I’m not sure where I got the idea the Illustration Friday word of the week was “crunchy.” Must have dreamt it. It’s actually “snow.” So, there’s snow in my image, so it still fits, hee hee!

I hope you’ll drop by here and see what my fellow HoHoDooDa Doodlers are up to.

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JUNGLE BELLS

Super quick sketch today! Off to make merriment!

Speaking of merry, jingle on over here to see what my fellow HoHoDooDa Doodlers are doing!

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HIGH ELF ESTEEM

A redraw from last year.

Trying to get back to some sort of normal after the great loss suffered last week.

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Peter S. Beagle.  The Last Unicorn.  New York:  ROC – Penguin, 1991.  212 pgs. . . . . . . . . The unicorn lived in a lilac wood… Tell me that doesn’t make you go all glittery-eyed with childlike wonder.  So far, this is my favorite Classic Juv/YA Fantasy.  It certainly helps that it’s [...]

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Reader Gut Reaction: OK, bear in mind that I am a big Terry Pratchett fan. I think he's an amazing fantasy writer, and I say this as someone who is not really huge on the Discworld series. So I was extra happy to run across another stand-alone of... Read the rest of this post

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Santa doesn’t have an iPhone yet, so he’s taking photos old-school.

For more holiday tom-foolery and frivolity, check out what my fellow HoHoDooDa Doodlers are doing here.

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Nook Kindle PDF iTunes on the iPad, look for it in the iBook Store

I recently had the privilege of listening to Sara Pennypacker, author of the Clementine series of early-chapter books. Her books are widely recognized as a forte in capturing the reader and drawing them in. The opening scene of Book 1 has Clementine, a third grade dynamo, sitting in the principal’s office and a frequent comment is that the scene is hilarious (I’ve written about how well this scene orients the reader, too.)

But Pennypacker says she didn’t write it humorous. Rather, the reader wrote it funny. What does she mean?

Consider this line:
“Someone should tell you not to answer the phone in the principal’s office, if that’s a rule.”

It’s funny. You know from this line that Clementine has answered the principal’s phone line and it resulted in disaster. Even without details or without the usual “Tell-Don’t-Show,” it’s funny. But the humor is created in the reader’s mind, by your imagination.

The technique of leaving out the most dramatic part in favor of letting the reader create meaning is useful, especially in opening lines. The danger is when it’s used too often or if it is used as a lazy crutch or excuse for not Show-Don’t-Telling. In other words, most of the time, the important details should be shown, not told. But sometimes, leaving out details and letting the reader fill them in is OK. It’s effective in Clementine’s opening page because it fits Clementine’s voice as a naive character and because Pennypacker already gave the reader specific details: Hamburger Surprise at lunch, Margaret’s mother coming to get her and so on.

Also, while what is left out is not specific, it is absolutely clear. The reader is not confused by having something left out. Clarity rules.

Notice, though, that this introduction is swiftly followed by a conventional scene with a stricter adherence to the Show-Don’t-Tell maxim. Used too often, leaving out the most dramatic part would just confuse the reader.

Another place to leave out the most dramatic information is when you set up a new scene. The tendency is to provide a summary–that holdover from having to write a thesis statement, probably.

Consider:

Emily knocked on Bruce’s door. She just had to make it through his Christmas party.

Here, we’re told in a summary statement what the upcoming scene will entail, “making it through his Christmas party.” Instead, you could use a scene cut and let the reader experience the party for themselves.

Emily knocked on the door.
* * *
Emily wanted to plug her ears against the jazzed up Christmas carols that blasted above the crowd noise. She edged around the edge of the room toward the punch table, avoiding an elbow here and barely keeping a cowboy boot from stomping on her foot, hoping to find someone familiar.

Here, we are experiencing the party with Emily. Leaving out the summary statement about making it through the party strengthens the reader’s curiosity about what happens next. That’s the only thing we leave in question: what happens next? Don’t undercut this natural curiosity by summarizing the action before you present it. Time enough later for Emily to gripe to Joe about the lousy party.

Pennypacker had a hard task, to introduce a specific scene, to set up a voice, a character, a situation, and eventually a series of books about this endearing third grader. She succeeded by letting the reader participate in creating humor.

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You know, the small town in Amish Country, Lancaster PA?

What did you think I meant?

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Reader Gut Reaction: I adore Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books, so I was excited to read that he was making a foray into YA—although from the pacing and content, I'd consider this one suitable (and perhaps more appealing) to MG readers. Like his... Read the rest of this post

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OH TANNEN-PALM, OH TANNEN-PALM!

Why not hula on over here and visit my fellow HoHoDooDa Doodlers!

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