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Wa-a-ay back in the late '90s, when I was in my third semester of the MFA in Writing for Children program at Vermont College (now Vermont College of Fine Arts), I'd been assigned the wonderful Graham "Sandy" Salisbury as my advisor and I needed a project. One of my favorite books was (and still is) Sandy's beautiful Blue Skin of The Sea--besides the stories themselves, and the gorgeous writing, I was intrigued by the way he wrote the book: a novel made up of short stories that could also stand alone.
"Do you think I could do something like that?" I asked Sandy.
"Sure," he replied.
And so the project was begun. The format I came up with was a bit different from what Sandy had done--rather than a story arc that would begin with the first story and end with the last, I decided on a sequence of stories with a common link. That link was a stone house, a kind found almost exclusively in western and central New York, called a cobblestone house. This one belongs to a friend of mine from high school and his wife.
I created a small town on the Erie Canal, inspired by the town of Lockport, where I grew up. It took many, many tries to come up with a name for this place that wasn't a real one, but I finally hit on one I liked: Port Rose. The first story takes place in 1833, eight years after the canal opened, and is about a widower and his two daughters coming out to what was then the western frontier, and about how they acquired the house. Each story after that comes forward about a generation, and the main character is a young person who lives in that house. Eight stories, 164 years.
This book's gestation period was long--almost nine years--because, up until the story set during the Great Depression, most of my research was done in the local history room of the Lockport Public Library, and I only got back to Lockport once or twice a year. But oh, the wonderful things I found there. The city's newspapers are all on microfilm, back to the late 1800s. I was able to read first-hand accounts of the Pan-American Exposition of 1901, where President McKinley was shot, and day by day reports of his condition and finally, his death. I read recountings by people who had come out here in the early days, of what it was like on the frontier, and about how the town grew. There were gazetteers showing the city's businesses from year to year, and maps showing how the city grew.
Much of the research for the later stories was done online--about the Great Depression, about the launch of Sputnik (do you know what television show debuted that same night?), and about the Blizzard of 1977. I emailed experts with questions, and they were all so generous with their time and information. I think I had more fun writing this book than any other I've written.
When it was finished, and revised, and revised again, it was sent out and, unfortunately, editors' responses were not as eager as I'd hoped. Two that I'd worked with said almost the exact same thing: "This is fascinating. It's beautifully written. And we wouldn't be able to sell enough copies to make it worth our while." According to publishers, nobody wants short stories for upper-elementary-aged kids--which is strange, since teachers and librarians tell me they not only want them, they need them. Go figure. After a while, my agent told me he wasn't going to be able to sell this book, and it got put into a drawer.
Several years later, I mentioned on Facebook that I had this book, and I knew there was at least a regional market for it. (I'd approached some regional presses about it, but they all said they didn't do children's books.) A wise, much-published friend said he had tried doing a couple of books on Amazon's Create Space, just as an experiment, and suggested I give that a try. I thought about this for a while and, despite the fact that I've railed against self-publishing for most of my career, I decided "what the heck." I did have it professionally edited, and I did have a lovely cover done (and that's a whole story in itself). I didn't like the templates Create Space provided, but it turns out you can find almost anything with Google--I was able to find out the margin settings for the size book I wanted to do, and then it was just a question of putting it all together. And proofreading. And proofreading again.
So, now it's a book--a book that will have its official launch this Thursday. Will I ever see the money I invested in its creation? Who knows? A few people who have already read it have liked it, and they're picky readers. I hope it will find an audience. Would I go the Create Space route again? I honestly don't know. But I'm glad I did it with this book.
Next time: the cover story.
Back in June, I received a Google alert. I figured it was a review of my latest book, but when I checked, I had a pleasant surprise. Somebody had made a video of a poem I had written a few years ago.
The poem is titled "Missing," and it appeared in Lee Bennett Hopkins' gorgeous book, America at War (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2008). It's in the voice of a young person whose older brother is a soldier, away fighting during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
I was curious about this video, so I went to Youtube and watched it. It was very well done, narrated by a young person, with vivid and emotional images. I wanted to know who had made this video, but the only attribution was "ICT@SSIS," with the names Celine, Adrian, and Tsing Lin.
I mentioned this on Facebook, and soon had an email from Lee, saying he'd found another video for the same poem, with the same attribution. I looked at it, and it seemed like one that had been made before the one I'd been alerted to. The names given for this one were An, Andy, Victoria, and Chaz. It appeared there was some sort of contest involved.
So now the search began.
I started with Google. SSIS. All I got was more videos. Like the one for "Missing", they all seemed to be done by school students. As luck would have it, one of those videos included a teacher's name. Back to Google I went, and typed in SSIS+ the teacher's name. Voila! To my amazement, the students who had made this touching video were 8th graders at the Saigon South International School, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
I went to the school's website, and saw there was a contact email address, and the name of the "head of school," which I assume is the principal, was given. So I sent her an email, congratulating the kids and asking about the beginning, where the young voices are justifying why this poem should be going "to the next round." The next day, I had two emails--one from the head of school, Ellen Stern, and one from Danielle Richert, the kids' Humanities and Social Studies teacher. There had been an 8th grade Poetry Madness tournament, set up like the Poetry Madness tourney over on ThinkKidThink. In her email, Danielle said, "We started out with 32 poems in 16 different poetry matches. Students would read the poems, analyze them, and then vote for which poem in each match should advance to the next round. Once we reached the quarter-finals, students adopted one of the remaining eight poems. In groups, they created a digital presentation with their visual and auditory interpretation, as well as their justification for why the poem should advance to the finals. "Missing" made it to the final round!"
And for once, my timing was absolutely perfect. It turns out that my email had arrived on the day of the "Moving On" graduating ceremony for the 8th grade students. In her reply to me, Ms. Stern said "You won't believe how excited they were when I read your email to them! They couldn't believe they were hearing from a real poet and that their work had made an impact on someone outside of school and family!"
Little did these kids know that I was as excited as they were. I never imagined that a poem I wrote would be read more than halfway around the world. I don't know how Ms. Richert found the poem in the first place--perhaps (I hope) she has a copy of Lee's book. she found it, I'm delighted that she did. And it's so good to see that her kids are getting so involved with poetry. They are an inspiration to kids all over the world.
Incidentally, this is also a good example of how a poem can be interpreted in different ways by different readers. These young video makers saw the ending of the poem quite differently than I did. But that's okay. That's poetry.
Here are the two videos:
First, from An, Andy, Victoria, and Chaz:
And from Celine, Adrian, and Tsing Lin:
"You're on this earth to provide a service of some kind. That's what the good Lord made you for..."
Those words are from Paddy Moloney, founder and leader of the Irish musical group The Chieftains. If that's the case, then I guess my service is to share my stories and somehow touch people through them.
Some people find their service early on. Others take longer. For me, it was years, and I didn't find it on my own. I had a lot of help along the way, and much of that help came from public libraries.
The first library I ever knew was in my hometown of Lockport, NY. I come from a long line of voracious readers, and the love of the written word was passed along to me when I was very young. I don't remember the first time I went to the library with my mother--a weekly trip there was just part of life, as important as the weekly trip to the grocery store. The children's department was a single large room. It's been renovated since then, and that room is now a program and story-time room, just part of the much larger children's department. But even though it was just one room, to a girl with an active imagination, it held the world. I read everything--fiction, biographies, non-fiction, poetry. Every summer, I read far more than the number of books required to complete the summer reading program. The librarian got used to seeing me there, and often recommended books to me. I'll never forget the day I was allowed for the first time to go into the wood-paneled room that housed the books for junior and senior high school kids. And there has to be a special place in heaven for the librarian who realized that, even though I was only thirteen, the borders of my literary world were becoming too confining, and let me go upstairs to the adult department, where I quickly discovered books like T.H.White's The Once and Future King, and the wonderful Gothic novels of Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, and Phyllis Whitney.In 1975, I married and moved away from Lockport. In the ten years that followed, there were six moves. Within days upon arrival in each new place, I found the public library and got a card. In 1980, we landed in Clinton, NY. We had a daughter by then and, following the example my mother had set for me, I began taking her to the library when she was just a few months old. Even though it had been years since I'd abandoned children's books for adults', I quickly rediscovered and fell in love with them all over again.
In 1985, we moved to the south suburbs of PIttsburgh. A year later, author Patricia Harrison Easton began a children's writers' workshop at the Peters Township Library. I went to the first meeting, and was a member until I moved away 18 years later. In this group, I dared to share my very first attempts at writing.j I honed critical and writing skills. And I read--the "good stuff", books by the best children's writers, and the schlock, too. And I learned from all of it. I haunted the library, talking with the library staff in the children's department about books, asking questions, studying publishers' catalogs each season, and discovering The Horn Book, with its reviews and articles.In 1997, I began a two-year graduate program which earned me an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College (now Vermont College of Fine Arts), in Montpelier, VT. During those two years, I spent even more time at the library, taking out stacks of children's books and taking refuge when I needed quiet time to work--quiet time I couldn't always get at home.My eighth book has just been published. Its been a long journey, and one I hope still has miles to go. I have spent more hours in libraries than I could ever hope to count, and inside of me I carry a piece of every one I've ever known. They have helped me--in Paddy Moloney's words--to provide the service for which the good Lord made me. To all of them--thank you. I couldn't have done it without you.
The Next Big Thing is a global blog tour, started in Australia, to showcase authors and illustrators and their current work. I was tagged by the talented author/illustrator Jennifer O'Connell. I'll answer some questions about my newest book, then pass the Q&A along to two authors who'll pick up the tour next week.
What is your Next Big Thing? My Next Big Thing is my newest big thing:
The Book Boat's In
Where did the idea for the book come from? From a newspaper article written by Doug Farley, director of the Erie Canal Discovery Center, in Lockport, NY, about a floating library/bookstore that traveled the Erie Canal from the mid-1830s to the mid-1850s.What genre does your book fall under? Picture book.What actors would you choose to play the parts of your characters in a movie rendition? Hmm. That takes a bit of thought. Okay, here goes: Jesse: Jared Gilmore (Henry on Once Upon A Time) Mr. Edwards: Richard Thomas Pa: David Tennant (Yes, I know he's Scottish, but he could have immigrated. Besides, this is my fantasy casting.)
Ma: Drew Barrymore Mrs. Blake (at the general store): Patricia HeatonWhat is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? A boy finds a book he loves on a floating library/bookstore that travels the Erie Canal, and has just one week to earn the money to buy the book before the boat comes back on its last trip for the season.Who published your book? Holiday House.How long did it take to write the first draft of the manuscript? Probably about a month.What other books within the genre would you compare your book to? From the angle of a boy wanting something and how he gets it, perhaps Charlie Needs A Cloak (Tomie dePaola); from the historical angle, maybe Ox-Cart Man (Donald Hall).Who or what inspired you to write this book? I was fascinated by this early version of a bookmobile, and I remembered the first time I saved my money to buy a book I wanted. What else about the book might pique the reader's interest? The Erie Canal itself, and how it opened the way for westward expansion.Now it's my turn to tag a couple of authors to pick the tour up next week, 18 April. Be sure to check them out!
I think a two-year hiatus is long enough, don't you?
Let's try this again.
Just as a bit of a catch-up--since my last entry here, I've had poems included in several books, including:
Switching on the Moon: A Very First Book of Bedtime Poems, collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (2010)
Nasty Bugs: Poems Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by Will Terry (2012)
The Poetry Friday Anthology: Poems for the School Year with Connections to the Common Core, selected by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong (2012)
The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School: Poems for the School Year with Connections to the Common Core, selected by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong (2013)
And--ta-da!--two days ago was the official birthday of my new picture book, The Book Boat's In, illustrated by Frane Lessac, published by Holiday House. It was inspired by a floating library/bookstore that traveled the Erie Canal from the mid-1830s until the mid-1850s. It was so much fun to write, and the folks at Holiday House have been wonderful to work with. I'm hoping this will be just the first of many books with them.
So--that brings us up to speed. Onward from here.
North Country Books, located in Utica, NY, is a small regional publisher and distributor that focuses on New York State-centric books. They returned a manuscript to me a couple of weeks ago.
I've had manuscripts returned to me more times than I can (or want to) count, but this time it was different: they'd accepted the manuscript back in March. They'd even sent me the contract. I'd sent a letter of reponse to it back at the end of June, and had been waiting to hear from them on the changes I'd suggested. When the big manila envelope landed in my mailbox, my first thought was "first edits already?" Then I read the accompanying letter, which began, "Due to a variety of unforeseen, unavoidable circumstances and resultant delays in out publication schedule, we will not be signing any contracts in the foreseeable future. We are therefore returning your manuscript. . ."
This book is historical fiction--a sequence of short stories for upper elementary kids. The link among the stories is a house, and each story comes forward approximately a generation, with a different kid living in that house. Two editors with whom I've done several books told me the same thing: "This is fascinating, and beautifully written, and I'm afraid it won't sell well, so I can't take a chance." (There seems to be some sort of disconnect here. The publishers say they can't sell short stories for this age group, and teachers and librarians tell me they want/need short stories for this age group. Go figure...) My agent said he didn't think he could sell the book. So, with his blessing, I looked at regional presses. That's how I found North Country.
Now the search starts all over again. I believe in this book, and I believe it will find a home--a good home, with an editor who loves it as much as I do and is willing to take a chance on it.
I'm sorry North Country is having problems and I wish them well. The couple of times I talked with them, they seemed like nice people. Still, if anyone reading this might have been thinking of submitting anything to them, I'd say don't bother. After all, they won't be signing any contracts in the foreseeable future.
(Apologies to the Monty Python troupe for borrowing their line.)
It's been a while again since I've written anything here, due to some circumstances beyond my control and others that were certainly within that realm but I just didn't do it. So, to quote the old song, I'll just pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. And today's post isn't going to have anything to do with my life, or my writing--it's something written by somebody else, something I think is worth reading.
I didn't make it down to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear yesterday, but I did see it live on TV. I got a laugh from Sam Waterston's recitation of a Colbert poem, and from the "Peace Train"/"Crazy Train"/"Love Train" sing-off. But for me the best part was Stewart's closing speech. A transcript of it follows. Enjoy. Ponder.
Things here will get back to normal (whatever that is) next time.
Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear Closing Remarks:
“I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.
But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.
If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate--just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker--and perhaps eczema.
And yet, with that being said, I feel good—strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.
So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!
The only place we don’t is here (gestures to the Capitol building behind him) or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundations that sustains us while we get things done, not the b
Over the past ten or so years, I've been finding more and more inspiration in the area where I grew up, and where my family has been since the mid-19th Century--on the banks of the Erie Canal, in Western New York State. There's so much history there, so many stories just waiting to be discovered and told.
From Saturday, 7/24 through Friday 7/30, my hometown of Lockport will be celebrating Old Home Week. The last time this was done was in 1910. To quote the event's official website (http://www.lockportoldhomeweek.com/index.html -- there are some fascinating articles under the heading of "news"): "The first Old Home Week took place in Lockport, NY, in 1910. In celebration of the 100 year anniversary of that celebration, we are pleased to bring it back in 2010. During the week of July 24-30, there will be countless events and festivities to celebrate Old Home Week. This week will be a great opportunity to come together and show our pride in the City and Town we call home."
From the looks of things, it's going to be quite a party, and I'm proud to say that I'm going to be part of it. On Tuesday, 7/27, from 2-4 p.m., I'll be signing books at the Market Street Art Center.If any readers out there are in the area, I hope you'll stop by.
Do you know who Katie Davis is? You should. She's a funny, smart author/illustrator, and her books are terrific.
Katie made a little video while at BEA. To see it, click the TV link on the left side of her blog (http://katiedavisblog.com). She asked her favorite question of many editors, writers, book bloggers and booksellers: “If you could go to the yard sale of any character in the history of kidlit, whose would you go to, and…what would you buy?” She got some great answers from amazing people, so now she's trying to think up her next fabulously funny question for another movie to be shot next week at ALA, here in Washington, DC.
She's thought of some questions but (according to her) they're mostly pretty lame, so she's having a contest (her first!). Anyone who sends her a great, funny question that ends up being used in her next video, will win a personalized and signed book plus another secret special surprise!
So, what are you waiting for? Get your curiosity on and send her your questions via the comment section at katiedavisblog.com.
Every now and then, I'm asked if I publish my work under my own name. My response is always 'yes'--I've always figured that if I'm going to put in all that work, I want people to know it was me who wrote it. The only exception to that would be if I decided to write something I wouldn't want young readers Googling my name to find--alien erotica, or satanic dog training methods, for example. But since I have no intention of going down any such roads in the foreseeable future, any of my published work is going to show up under the name of Cynthia Cotten.
A few weeks ago, during the last big snow here in the DC metroplex, my son sent me a link to a column in the online version of the Washington Post. The author, Jo-Ann Armao, began by apologizing for her part in bringing on that snow. It seems that she'd remarked that the snowstorm before that (dubbed "Snowmageddon") didn't really qualify as a blizzard, so--either to prove her right or shame her into silence, as she put it, Mother Nature unleashed the fury that is blizzardness on the Washington region. I got more than a couple of chuckles out of the piece, since I--like Ms. Armao--am a transplanted Buffalonian and, even though I've been living in Northern Virginia for almost six years, I still shake my head sometimes over this area's reaction to the word "snow".
After reading Ms. Armao's column, I made the mistake of reading the comments posted afterwards. Chuckling did not ensue. Many of the commenters were mean--rude, even--calling her condescending and smug. One referred to Buffalo as a cowtown. While I told myself that people were probably so sick of snow that any humor about the white stuff was lost on them, these comments were an example of something that's been bothering me for some time, now.
When one wants to write a letter to be published in an ink-and-paper newspaper, one has to give one's name and (usually) address when submitting it. But when writing comments to something online, this isn't the case. Everyone gets a pen name--or, rather, a screen name. Under this blanket of anonymity, one can say anything--nice or not, complimentary or vitriolic--and nobody knows who's really doing the writing.
Sometimes I wonder if some of those things would be said if a commenter had to take true ownership of his or her words.
I've been neglecting this blog since my last entry in early November.
No. I'm going to put a positive spin on that. "Writing It Down" has been on hiatus. Now it's back for its second season.
During much of 2009, I was in kind of a funk. The new year has gotten off to a good start. I'm working on two projects concurrently: a novel (target age range probably 9-13) and what I envision as an illustrated collection of poems for elementary-aged kids. Both are in early stages, but look good. At least to me.
Right now, I'm in New York City, at the annual mid-winter conference of the Society of Children's Bookwriters and Illustrators. Things get fully underway tomorrow, but I came in a couple of days early to meet with my agent and an editor. Yesterday, I saw a friend I haven't seen in a while. It was good to catch up. Towards the end of our time together, I joked that if I could write a series about a bitchy clique of vampires at a school for wizards, my husband could retire (and I could have that house on the shore of Canadaigua Lake I've been pining for). His response was, well, why don't you write it? I said that's really not my kind of writing. "You know," I said. "I write about ponies. Things like that." He got a gleam in his eye and with a devilish grin uttered two words: "Vampire ponies."
Brilliant.
While I think I'll leave the story of the vampire ponies to someone else, those two words are going to go someplace prominent on my desk when I get home, as a reminder not to be afraid to look at an idea from a different angle. The novel I'm working on started out quite differently in its first incarnation, but as I progressed I could see I was headed for some real problems. So I put it aside. Then I started thinking about the characters in a different light, and that story--the new one--has just taken off.
So, here's to fresh starts, new ideas, and vampire ponies. We may only be a month in, but 2010's looking promising. Stay tuned and see what develops...
As I write this, my son--the younger of my two kids, who works in the International Services Department of the American Red Cross, in DC--is embarking on his first job-related trip. A week in Kathmandu, a couple of days in Bangkok, a week in Hanoi, then home. Over the weekend, I joked with him that I was alternating between being excited for him and wondering if I'd have any fingernails left by the time he gets home. We laughed. But there was a little part of me that meant it about the fingernails.
When I first started sending out manuscripts in the late 1980s, I used to think it was kind of like sending a child off into the world. Each time, I did my Children's Writers and Illustrators Market homework, so I'd be sending my baby to a publisher that looked like a good match. I proofread carefully. I made sure that manuscript was as ready to go as possible. Still, when I handed over the envelope and my money to the post office clerk, there was always the wondering in the back of my mind: Would it be loved? Would it be treated well? Appreciated? Abused? Would anyone even notice it was there?
Even though my son has been living on his own for just about a year now, tonight I have that old feeling. I'm sending one of my most precious creations off into the wide, wide world. I've done my homework--I've printed out his flight itinerary (and written on it the time zone differences). My two-time-zone watch has new batteries. I've located Qatar, where he'll have a 12-hr layover on his way to Kathmandu. I've read a little about each of the places he's going to. He's done his homework, too, and is as ready to go as possible. I know that, because in the past couple of days I've been enough of a loving mom to ask if he had this or that, reminded him to unfold his lanky 6'6" self out of his economy-class seat and walk around now and then, and probably seemed a bit of a noodge. And he's been enough of a loving son not to say so.
When he was just a toddler, we sat together looking at National Geographic magazine and books about far-away places and watching the adventures of television travelers--Rick Steves, and the travelers on Lonely Planet, now called Globe Trekker. He'll be having his own adventures now, and blogging about his trip on the Red Cross' website. If his posts are anything like the blog he kept during the semester he spent in Switzerland his junior year in college, they should be really good reading.
As for me, I'll be having my own, smaller, adventures--finishing up a picture book, and seeing what kind of trouble the main character of my novel-in-progress can get into. And quietly counting the days until what I'm sending out tonight comes back.
Almost two weeks ago, I was up in my hometown of Lockport, NY, for my (gulp!) forty-year high school reunion. The Class of 1969 of Lockport Senior High generally has a good time at these things, and this time around was no exception. Over the course of two evenings there was a lot of talking, laughing, hugging and reminiscing. I saw a few people I’ve stayed in touch with, and others whom I hadn’t seen in at least ten years (and probably more). My husband took a great photo of five of us who all lived in the same neighborhood until my family moved just before fifth grade (and four of the five of us had started together in nursery school!). And for the first time in twenty years, my best-friend-from 7th-grade-through-senior-year, Ginny Cook McEldowney, and I were in the same place at the same time. That alone made the ten-hour drive from Northern VA to Lockport worth it.
We did other “going home” things while in Lockport. Doug Farley, director of the Erie Canal Discovery Center, had arranged a signing for me at the Center, of my picture book Abbie In Stitches. For my birthday, my mother took us up the the gorgeous Shea’s Theater in Buffalo to see the touring company of Chicago. I spent some time antiquing with my aunt. And we had some lovely quiet, “just there” time, first in Lockport, then for a couple of days with my mother-in-law on the farm in Savannah, NY (halfway between Rochester and Syracuse). As usual, I was not ready to come back to the hecticness of Northern Virginia.
Just as it was so good to spend time with friends of my childhood, it’s also been good recently to spend some time with the books of my childhood. All summer, in among trying to keep up with all the recent books on my to-read list, I re-read many of the books I loved as a kid. Many of these had been my mother’s before they were mine, and so are even more old-fashioned today then they were never mind how many years ago. Still, they were some of the books that instilled in me the passion for reading, the love of story—books whose characters became as alive for me this summer the minute I started reading as they did the first time I encountered them. Here are some of the titles—do you know any of them?
The Oz books. We had all of them—most had been my mother’s, two had been her mother’s. Frank Baum, Ruth Plumley Thompson, John R. Neill and a couple of others (forgive my memory, please, and forgive me, too, for not running down to the bookshelves to check those last names) created a world I’ll gladly fall into anytime.
The Secret Garden
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
The Secret Garden
The Little Bookroom (wonderful stories by Eleanor Farjean)
Little House on Wheels (Marjorie Hayes)
Mary Poppins
Understood Betsy (Dorothy Canfield)
Jack and Jill (my favorite Louisa May Alcott book)
Thornton Burgess’ animal stories
The Five Children trilogy (E. Nesbit)
The Cammie books by Jane McIlvaine. (The books I thought of when I learned, five years ago, that we were moving to Virginia. Alas, I fear that most of Cammie’s Virginia has now been paved over…)
National Velvet (rivaling The Black Stallion and Black Beauty as the ultimate horse book)
I re-read all of these this summer. And it was good to go home.
Those who know me well know that, for a long time, two of my primary vices have been really good dark chocolate and the daytime drama, Guiding Light.
As an all-knowing teenager and an oh-so-wise twenty-something, I looked wa-a-ay down my nose at soaps, and swore I would never get involved with one. Then, in 1978, on route to another program, I stumbled upon the last five minutes of GL. Hmm, thought I--intriguing. I stopped by the next day--and the next, and the next. Gradually, the tv got turned on a little earlier and a little earlier. By the end of two weeks, I had to admit that I was hooked. And so began my 31-year through-the-tube relationship with the citizens of Springfield--a relationship that came to an end today, as the longest-running drama in broadcasting history (72 years, between radio and television) finished today's episode with "The End" written across the screen.
Why am I discussing a soap opera in this blog which is supposed to be about writing? Because I learned a lot about writing from Guiding Light. I learned about story, about pacing, character development, and how to end a chapter with a good hook. Unfortunately, in the past couple of years, much of the show's writing gave some lessons in how not to write, as long-time characters acted out of character, history and backstory were often ignored, and plot threads--sometimes complete story lines--did U-turns or were dropped altogether, leaving characters (and viewers) hanging. This past week, though, the writing redeemed itself. Characters were true, emotion was real, nods to show history were made, and--at least for me--the ending was satisfying, especially since the final shot was of Reva and Josh, the show's longtime on-again-off-again couple, together. (Yeah, I'm a sentimental softie...)
So. Thank you to Guiding Light writers from whom I learned. And thank you, too, to the actors who brought those words, those stories, alive--Kim Zimmer, Robert Newman, Grant Aleksander, Tina Sloan, Ron Raines,and all the others, past and present, who made Springfield the place to be for so many years. I'll miss you.
I knew this would happen. I got going great guns with this blog. Then came a week's vacation, followed by a week-long virus, followed by doing a lot of groundwork for a new novel. Then the dog ate my homework. And I had to visit my relatives. And I fell asleep--couldn'tr find my pen--left my blog in the back of the cab. You get the picture.
So. As the lyrics to the old song say, I'm going to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.
For tonight, here are a few of the books I've read recently:
Shiver (Maggie Stiefvater) I don't usually gravitate towards werewolf stories, but this tale of Grace and yellow-eyed Sam grabbed me and didn't let go. YA
The Boy On The Lion Throne: The Childhood of the 14th Dalai Lama (Elizabeth Cody Kimmel) I've always admired this man--even more now that I know what his young years were like. Fascinating, dramatic, couldn't put it down. YA
Jumping Off Swings (Jo Knowles) One incident, one girl's decision, five points of view. These characters stayed with me long after I finished reading. YA
Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap Of Faith (Deborah Heiligman) He was a scientist, she was deeply religious. A well-researched, engaging portrait of Darwin's work and the effect his marriage and family life had on it. YA
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (Katherine Howe) Two stories going on in this historical thriller: that of Deliverance Dane, accused of being a witch in 17th century Salem, and that of Connie Goodwin, a grad student in 1991, solving the mystery of a book written by Deliverance. I've read reviews that point out flaws in this book, but--quite honestly--I got too caught up in the story to notice them. Adult
Revision has crept out of my writing and into my kitchen.
Corn season comes much earlier in Virginia than in upstate New York, the place I still think of as ‘home’. Up there, corn comes on sometime in July; here in Virginia we started seeing corn at the local farmers’ market in late June.
I’ve always cooked corn the way my mother did, in boiling water, and it’s always been good. This year, after reading about grilled corn someplace (probably in the summer edition of Menu, the wonderful magazine put out by the Wegmans’ grocery chain), we’ve been cooking it out on the grill. It’s easy—pull back the husks and remove the silk, replace the husks, soak the ears in cold water for about 20 minutes, then put them on the grill for about 20 minutes (ten on one side, ten on the other). And it tastes so much better—fresher, sweeter. Impossible to resist.
When I talk to kids about writing, I always ask, “How many of you like to rewrite?” And always, hardly a hand goes up. When I ask why, they tell me that rewriting’s boring, not fun, too much work. I tell them that I used to feel that way, too, but that I discovered a secret: I stopped calling it “rewriting” and started calling it “revision.” That usually gets a few raised eyebrows, and at least one ‘huh?” So I ask, “Who knows what ‘re-‘ means?” They all know it means ‘do it again.’ Then, “Who knows what vision is?” That gets more than raised eyebrows—it gets a “what kind of idiot are you?’ look, and someone says “Seeing.” “Great,” I say. “Now put them together. Re-vision: seeing again.”
Re-vision. Seeing again. Looking at my writing again, from a different angle. It’s kind of like grilling corn: pull back the layers, remove what’s not needed, let it soak for a while, then put some heat under it. It’s not always easy. But it always results in finding a way to make the work fresher, sweeter. And—with any luck—impossible to resist.
More often than not, my husband is the one who sees things first. A hawk in a tree, deer in a field—he’s just faster to see them.
Last night, we went out to a nearby spot where there was a good view of the sky, watching for a swiftly-moving bright light--the Interational Space Station, with the shuttle Endeavour docked to it. A tiny article in the paper had said it was due to pass overhead both Saturday and Sunday, and it had rained Saturday night. So there we stood, with fingers crossed.
We knew it would be a long shot. First of all, we weren’t quite sure where to look The paper had said it would rise in the north-northwest, travel the southwestern sky near the new moon, and head south. The window of opportunity would be brief—approximately five minutes, from 9:26 to 9:31. And the sky was clouding up.
My amazingly resourceful husband had brought his compass, so after he got us oriented, we had a pretty good idea of where to look. There were still large areas of clear sky,since the clouds were patchy, and while there were moments when the moon was obscured, we knew where it was, and I—equally resourceful—had brought my binoculars and focused them on it. So we waited and, however childish it might seem, deep inside, I wanted to see it first.
9:26 came. Nothing but a few stars. 9:27. A few more stars, nothing else. Wait—is that it, I asked, pointing to a bright light moving beneath the moon. No—it was going in the wrong direction, and it was blinking. Just an airplane. We watched the plane disappear. Wait—look. I pointed up. Husband wasn’t sure. I looked through my binoculars. That had to be it, I said, handing them to him: it was big, at least as bright as Venus, non- blinking, and moving fast. After a moment, he agreed (and the little kid inside me shot her fist in the air, yelling “yes!!!”). We watched it pass the stationary stars, until it disappeared in the clouds.
Sometimes I think my mind is like that sky, studded with ideas rather than stars, each shining with its own level of brightness. Every now and then, though, something special streaks by, brighter than the rest. Its window of opportunity is brief, and it can vanish before I even see it. But if I’m alert and look carefully for it, I just might see it—and it will be worth remembering.
When I went into Target this afternoon, the sun was shining. When I came out, fifteen minutes later, the skies had opened and rain was pouring down. It was one of those sharp, sudden showers with huge drops that bounce up off the pavement. I had parked some distance from the store, thinking I’d get a few more steps into my day’s total, and it was obvious that, whether I walked or ran back to the car, I was in for a good soaking.
Usually, I would have taken a deep breath and sprinted. Today, though, something in me shifted, and I decided to walk—and I didn’t hurry. I took my time, and let those big ol’ drops land all over me. When I slid in behind the wheel, I was indeed soaked. And it felt good.
As I drove home, there were moments where the drops came down so hard and fast that I could hardly see. But by the time I pulled into the garage, the splattering had changed to plipping and the sun was breaking through the clouds.
I remarked to someone a while back that, for the first time since I started writing 23 years ago, I‘ve been feeling discouraged. I’d gone from a six-year period where I’d sold a book a year—a couple of times, two—to no new book contracts in the last five years. I’d completed a project I’d worked on (off and on) over the course of ten years, and learned that I’d essentially shot myself in not one, but both feet—not only was the book historical fiction, but a sequence of short stories for middle graders. Editors told me short stories won’t sell. Even my agent told me he couldn’t sell them. I've kept writing, but I've felt lost, as if I’ve been working in a void. It’s been harder and harder to put my butt in the chair, let alone keep it there. I’ve felt my creativity drying up, and my internal editor—what I’ve always seen as a big black bird perched on my shoulder, croaking insulting remarks about my writing—has taken up a more insidious method, whispering , “perhaps you’ve peaked—perhaps you’re finished.”
I was starting to believe him. Then something changed. Earlier this week, I went through an experience that caused a definite emotional and mental shift. It was as sudden and sharp as this afternoon’s shower. And in the past few days, I’ve had a downpour of ideas, more than I’ve had in the past year or two. The sun’s breaking through. It feels good. And I’m nowhere near finished.
Just a year ago, as a participant in the annual Southampton Writers Conference, I was at sitting in a classroom with thirteen other people, waiting for our teacher to join us. When he did, he took a few moments to organize himself, then looked at us and asked, “Who do you think you are?”
That teacher was Frank McCourt,
Frank’s pre-conference assignment gave an inkling of what was in store. He gave us a list of four names--Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, and Jesus—and asked us to write a short commentary on some aspect of contemporary society (it didn’t have to be negative) from the point of view of the person we chose. I chose Moses, commenting on today’s ease of travel. (Imagine if he’d had a GPS…) And when I got my paper back and saw that he’d written on it that he’d enjoyed it, that I had “an intriguing way of looking at things”, I practically danced across the campus.
In our morning sessions with him over the ten days of the conference he challenged us, pushed and prodded us. He didn’t stand there and give step-by-step instructions on how to write a memoir. Instead, he told us his stories, and asked for ours. He asked us questions, and had us ask questions of each other and of ourselves. When one of us read an assignment aloud, he listened intently, sometimes pouncing on a detail he liked, saying, “There’s your story.” He had the ability to draw from you more than you thought you’d tell—sometimes more than you wanted to tell—and it was all right.
The writing community has lost one of its own—our Teacher Man with the quizzical blue eyes, wry wit and perceptive observations on life and the world around him, who led so many people to discover that they have a story worth telling. We mourn our loss, and say a prayer for him and his family. And when the tears have dried, we can raise a glass in celebration of the time he was with us, saying, “Slainte, Frank—and thanks.”
Two days ago, I received a lovely e-mail, informing me that my picture book, Rain Play (Henry Holt, 2008; illustrated by Javaka Steptoe) is a finalist for the Library of Virginia's Whitney and Scott Cardozo Award for Children's Literature. The e-mail went on to say that the Cardozo Award recognizes excellence in Children's Literature for ages 3-8, and will be given out at the 12th annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards Celebration on October 17th, 2009 in Richmond.
I love this book. (I know, I say that about all my books.) It was fun to write, bringing to mind all the different kinds of things a kid can do in the rain, and it's the shortest book I've ever written--I think the word count comes in somewhere around 125. Javaka Steptoe's illustrations are amazing. Every time I look at them, I smile.
The voting for the Cardozo award is going on now, through August 7. I would appreciate it so very much if anyone reading this would go to the voting site: www.lva.virginia.gov/vote and cast a vote for Rain Play.
Sometimes it seems as if I spend an inordinate amount of time writing things down. Stories, poems, lists, reminders to myself, a gratitude journal, a "bitch" notebook. So why would I want to take on another writing chore?
I guess because it's not a chore.
For a long time, I've had piece of paper taped over my computer. On it is a quote from one of my early writer friends/supporters, Robert Cormier. It says, "...what would I do if I couldn't write? Where would my thoughts go?" I think if I didn't write, my head would fill to the point of exploding, and then the question would be, "Who's going to clean up this mess?"
Most of my writing here will be about writing--both in general, and my own. I know other things will creep in, too. But sooner or later, it will come back to the words. One after another.
When it comes to inspiration, there really isn't anything like home. I of course am down here doing my own Old Home research (buffalo soldiers at the Institute of Texan Cultures this week!), but if I were anywhere near I'd come get a book. Hope you have long lines of friends and neighbors discovering how cool the place they live is.