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SCBWI is alive and well in the Tampa Bay area. A call recently went out from our intrepid leader, Sue LeNeve, and on Monday evening a large group of us convened for an introductory "meet and greet" at Bahama Breeze restaurant in Tampa. I was surprised to learn there are presently ten critique groups in Tampa Bay.
When joining SCBWI four years ago, I was hard pressed to find any group in Pinellas County. Now a co-ordinated effort is being made to bring these groups together on a regular basis and have workshops and guest speakers.
This bodes well for those of us who often pause at the keyboard, wondering if we are the only writer in the world stuck on page sixteen with a plot going nowhere.
In 1954, 160 acres of orange groves in Anaheim, California were cleared to make way for the first Disneyland theme park. The park opened its gates to the public a year later.
One night several months after that, a group of displaced fruit rats went looking for their old home. After squeezing under Disneyland’s front gate, they scurried down Main Street past Tomorrowland and soon came to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Old Riley Rat peered all around and scratched his gray whiskers.
“I’m positive our grove of trees was right here.” he said and stamped the ground next to a concrete toadstool.
“No, no! chimed in Ronnie Rat, “I’m sure they’re over there on the other side of that river.”
By now dead tired, the rat clan trudged on, dodging shiny exotic cars in Autopia until finally arriving at the Jungle Cruise attraction. Standing at river’s edge, they gazed down into the dark water.
“What now?” squeaked Ruthie. “I certainly can’t swim across.”
Riley spied a Styrofoam tray floating in the reeds and using his cane pulled it over to them. The tray was big enough for four rats and an argument broke out on who should go. Riley, being the wisest, agreed to pick three companions to make the crossing with him. The old rat selected Rocco, the strongest of the group, Rico, the fastest among them and finally, Romeo, the best talker.
“If we get cornered by a cat,” he said, “we’ll need a politician to divert its attention.”
After a slow and soggy river crossing, the four rats scrambled ashore on mysterious Jungle Island. Before them rose a wall of thick mahogany trees. Strange sounds echoed from within. The rats glanced at each other and trembled. Wise Riley pushed Rocco out in front and off they went into the jungle. After an hour, the trees began to give way and the four came out into a sunny clearing.
At the center stood a bright striped tent with mouse-head balloons bobbing in the breeze. A flowing banner above the entrance proclaimed, “Welcome to Mickey’s Toontown!” All the rats scratched their heads. Who is this Mickey and what is a Toontown?
“I wonder if he’s friendly?” said Rico.
The rats approached the entrance and saw off to the side a trap door with stairs that descended down into darkness. Now more curious than afraid, they looked quickly around, saw no cats, and started down the steep steps. Holding onto each other’s tails, the group came at last to the bottom and found themselves in a narrow passageway. Further along, they made out the faint outline of a large head. Moving in for a closer look, Romeo came face to snout with a grinning clown face. And below the face was an ornately carved door.
Riley tip-toed to the door and pressed his ear against the clown’s wooden nose. He heard nothing except his beating heart.
“Clowns scare me,” he whispered, “but I’ve just got to see a Mickey.”
With that, Riley grabbed the door’s brass handle and pulled. The door groaned and moved a few inches. Then the others took hold and together heaved open the door. They stood on the threshold of another room, staring into inky blackness.
Riley plucked up his courage. “I will be brave! I will be brave!” he mumbled and forced his feet to inch forward. The other rats crept behind. About twenty feet into the room, Rico stepped on a raised bump in the floor. He instantly pulled back, but too late.
Flashing technicolor lights suddenly ricocheted around the room. The interior lit up until the rats saw the
In 1979 in an effort to revive my ailing illustration business, I started a greeting card company called Bullfrog Press. Why hustle trying to sell one drawing for $500.00 when I could sell 250 cards at $2.00 each.
After researching the market, designing six Christmas cards, and convincing a printer friend to let me pay on the cuff, I had several thousand cards printed. My company of one was up and running.
Step Two of my Success Plan transformed me into what I considered a savvy sales rep. Samples in hand and chafing in coat and tie, I cold called gift shops in Atlanta's trendiest neighborhoods - Buckhead, Virginia-Highland, Midtown, and Little Five Points.
Step Three was supposed to be me writing up huge orders but my pen never left my pocket. Most shop owners would not even bother to talk. Others allowed they bought all their cards at the big spring wholesale show. One buyer suggested I add a dozen cards to my line and come back. So much for Step Three and the savvy sales rep.
Realizing my research was faulty, I visited the Atlanta Merchandise Mart and discovered several companies that offered greeting cards. The owners of the second showroom loved the drawings and irreverent humor. They agreed to handle my cards, but warned they would be up against major companies with lines for every occasion.
Their commissioned salesmen fanned out to all major Southeastern markets, but after four months, my cards always ended up on the bottom of their sample cases.
My excellent greeting card business folded after selling a dozen cards to one shop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was, I assured myself, a great idea whose time had not yet come. Not wanting to dwell on "what ifs," and "maybes," I sought gainful employment and found it - designing brochures and trademarks in a corporate art department. Bullfrog Press still simmers on the back burner.
In 1973 my parents bought a small wood frame house built sometime after World War II. The fixer upper had all original appliances some of which my dad swore came over on the Mayflower. The ancient ice box was soon replaced by a new refrigerator from Frigidaire, the same company that invented the self-contained refrigerator in 1916.
Made before “planned obsolescence” trickled down to appliances, the Frigidaire ran and ran and kept on running. Over the years, its housemates, toasters, televisions and telephones came and went; their stamped circuits no match for over use, power surges or Florida humidity.
But for thirty years the “Frige” did its job quietly and efficiently, never once calling in sick or taking a day off. It was only during hurricane driven power outages that we realized the importance of “old faithful.”
About five years ago the Frigidaire began leaking from somewhere deep in its mechanical innards. Its dry rubber seals began peeling off like shedding snake skins. Finally, the compressor started making large clunking sounds, causing visitors to exclaim, “What in the world was that?”
We knew it was time for “Frige” to go. As often happens, a few days after we decided to pull the plug, I was given a practically new refrigerator. Lightweight and energy efficient, the Hotpoint looks sleek compared to the squat coils-in-the-back Frigidaire.
Yesterday we made the switch and with much effort pushed and pulled the old Frigidaire out to the curbside. In a final act of indecency, we removed the doors, until “Frige” stood naked to the world and people using the laundromat across the street.
Taken from its familiar kitchen environment, the dismembered Frigidaire looked unrecognizable; a derelict chunk on the urban roadside. After thirty-five years of loyal service, it deserved better.
Postscript: I wanted to take a photograph of the Frigidaire and drove over early the next morning. It was already gone and I am hoping an industrious family resurrected old faithful for another ten years of chilling service.
One of my children’s stories, "Jimmy Roy, King of the World," was recently published by Stories For Children Magazine. Featured on page 38 in the September issue of the popular e-zine, "Jimmy Roy" expands on the reoccuring wish of children to rule the world.
The story recounts what happens when a mischievous and creative boy is grounded for the weekend with a computer. His outlandish wishes become real, but with some unforeseen and funny consequences.
The essence of Jimmy is autobiographical and becomes a vehicle for my own childhood shenanigans. Now that I think of it, this could lead to a series, "The Further Adventures of Jimmy Roy."
My writing buddy Augusta Scattergood recently sent a link to writer Sue Monk Kidd’s Top 10 list of writing advice . Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees, and The Mermaid Chair, is an engaging and wise woman. I printed out her list for future reference – wisdom words for when my mind wanders or I find myself re-reading the same sentence over, over and over. These are sure indicators of an imagination in need of kick-starting.
Advice Number 4 held my attention. It’s about going with the third idea generated by an initial flash of inspiration. Kidd believes that one’s gut instinct is often a jumping off spot for completely new creations.
This insight comes as I’ve just completed an excellent book, The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. New ideas are not linear, Gladwell writes, and the most successful ones spread like epidemics - exponentially doubling and re-doubling. People who have these sudden inspirations are called Innovators and, more often than not, their groundbreaking ideas are unorganized and misunderstood by the public.
It is up to another group of people, the Translators, to take these new ideas, shape and refine them, so they become acceptable to large audiences. Innovators and Translators are necessary for a product or movement to reach the tipping point – mass market success.
I wonder if this same process holds true for writers. Our initial inspiration could be called the Innovator – an exciting but un-polished idea. Fortunately, the Second or Third Thing arrives to function as the Translator, whose job is to repackage the idea or come up with a new creation. The evolution of our idea proceeds to a point where it tips and the message of our writing becomes a clear and potent force.
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Aquarian peace and love-in known as Woodstock. Americans even then knew they were in the midst of a defining cultural moment. Years later, people I met would look back wistfully on those days and say, “I was there.”
I, however, was not there. I wanted to go, but several months before, I moved to Atlanta and got a job in the Merchandise Mart display department. As Woodstock made history, I was gathering Fall gift items for the Mart’s display cases.
Atlanta had become a mecca for hippie life and the epicenter was a midtown area known as “Tight Squeeze.” Attracted to the freedom and camaraderie of communal life on Peachtree Street, part of me longed to join them. Rent, car payments and job security pushed aside those thoughts.
Around the same time, the rising Southern rockers The Allman Brothers played several free concerts in nearby Piedmont Park. Friends who went talked about the magical experience for years. I somehow managed to miss them.
In college three years earlier, I often observed fine art majors throwing Frisbees or lounging on the grass, seemingly without a care in the world. They were the closest the University of Florida came to having hippies, and I envied their unconcern with grades, classes or graduation. I wanted to be like them, but an inner voice urged diligence, study and the promise of a career.
Most of what I know about Woodstock came from the excellent 1970 documentary. Listening to Allman Brothers records, I still play a mean air guitar, and freedom can be sitting with friends under the Golden Rain tree at twilight. These are enough.
Iconic Woodstock photo thanks to Burke Uzzle
The End Of The Road
A mother and her young son drove to town for an afternoon of shopping. On the way, they passed an ice-cream shop decorated with bright balloons. The boy began sobbing.
“What’s wrong honey,” asked his mother, “don’t you feel well?”
“I want ice-cream!” he wailed.
“Maybe later," she added, "if you’re especially good.”
He whimpered once and grew quiet. Presently they drove by another ice-cream store with a laughing clown waving out front. Again the boy’s tears flowed.
“Now what is it Billy?” His mother turned to look at him. “We’ll be at the super market in a few minutes.”
“Ice-cream!” he cried.
Billy continued crying all the way to the market. He cried in the can-goods aisle. He wept as they passed the produce section.
Exasperated, his mother gave in and bought him a scoop of Raspberry Road.
Billy’s eyes lit up and with great gusto he slurped the frozen treat. Soon his face and hands and even his little sailor’s suit were magenta colored. He resembled a grinning raspberry.
It took a while, but finally Billy ate down to the sticky sugar cone. Suddenly he stopped. He stared hard at the last bites of cone. He looked up at his mother. Slowly, his smile turned upside down. Billy burst into tears.
“What in the world is wrong?” said his mother. “Raspberry Road is your favorite.”
With the last of the ice-cream dripping down his hand, Billy stood weeping on the sidewalk.
Then, as if the weight of the world pressed down on him, he whispered.
“In two more bites there won’t be any ice-cream left.”
In my extended gig as a health food store "vitamologist," word got out that I also dabbled in the Arts. Before long, I was asked to exhibit work in the store cafe, next to the "all you can eat" salad bar and across from the "grab 'n go" deli. It occurred to me one day, while noshing on an organic radish, that in a restaurant setting a different kind of art exhibit would be better appreciated.
Thus was born the Grab 'n Go Art Show, featuring scores of original 3"x 5" drawings covering the deli walls. Customers simply pulled off the drawing they liked and left $5.00. I made enough money from that exhibition to buy more art supplies.
The Grab 'n Go Art Show will make a reappearance at the July Cool Art Show in The Cloiseum in St. Petersburg. Above are samples of many new works that will be available. Just grab 'n go....after paying for them.
Standing in a dim theatre lobby,
the woman looks at her husband.
“I see two of you,” she says.
“There’s a blue glow behind your head
that travels all around your body.”
“Just forget it,” he answers.
“Let’s go back inside.”
“I never noticed it before,” she says.
“You live with someone twenty years,
you realize you don't know them at all.”
Following him into the darkened theatre,
the woman stares as his once familiar figure
dissolves into blackness.
"Who are you?" she whispers.
Barbie, with a waist that remains impossibly slender, turns 50 this year. For a gal who doesn't say much, she still has the ability to turn heads. Perhaps that's part of her mystique -the beautiful and silent type. And wealthy! At 1.2 billion dollars a year, Barbie earns more than any of those Hollywood blabbermouth beauties.
The curvaceous cutie also outlived her steady beau Ken by two years. While attempting to light a panatella, the poor chap incinerated himself.
Life goes on however and Barbie is again playing the field. Our sources report seeing her exit a Toys 'r Us, with a certain Russian hockey player. Careful Boris, it will take more than a few rubles and a hockey puck to corral this high maintenance beauty. We say, hats off to you doll - still hot after all these years.
Today I finished an alphabet book project that has kept me occupied for two years. A,B,C
books are examples of children's concept books -well-told stories intended to teach basic knowledge. Creating this book re-taught some valuable lessons - patience, deliberation, and research.
I've sometimes balked at illustrating narrative picture-books, because I found the job of drawing the same figures over and over unappealing. An alphabet book gives me the opportunity to tell twenty-six different stories in words and pictures. Humor also became a way to keep the writing from becoming didactic. Laughter can be a great learning tool.
A is for Anteater has been through many edits and drawing revisions, and my goal is to make it look as simple as A-B-C.
Words produce mental pictures and for the visually gifted there is an abundant crop of mental word pictures waiting to be plucked. I've bypassed the process here and present the images without stories. It's been said viewers bring their own stories when looking at art, so I can imagine lots of interpretations for these drawings.
Over the years, I've tried and tried to write a fuzzy puppy story, a feel good tale to be read near a warm fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate. I have been unsuccessful, due in large part to hot and cold wars, melt-down economics and my own fuzzy headedness.
Winter may be approaching, but I feel a refreshing gust of warm air coming from our nation's capital. I get the sense now that anything is possible, even a fuzzy puppy story. This time I've started with the illustration.
In 2005, my colleagues and I at the Institute of Humongous Natural Critters (IHNC) began hearing reports coming out of Indonesia of the discovery of previously unknown plant and animal species in the far east of that nation. A team of entomologists from the University of Dusseldorf had been searching for new bog-bug phyla in the humid jungles of Irian Jaya, the Indonesian part of New Guinea.
After their guides mysteriously disappeared, the group wandered for days in a vain attempt to reach camp. Finally and quite unexpectantly, they staggered from the jungle onto a large plateau surrounded by a ring of mountains. The Germans stared in disbelief, for it was if they had arrived at some terrestrial Atlantis.
All around, covering the lush plateau, were giant fern-like plants, unlike any they had ever seen. Here and there grew groves of giant evergreen trees normally found only in high Alpine areas. The unspoiled plateau was also home to a diverse population of never before seen animals, including giant arboreal wombats and laughing shrews.
For two days, the university team recorded twelve new plant and eight new animal species. The night before being rescued from the highland Shangri-la, they heard a commotion outside the tents. Rolf Jensch, expedition photographer, crawled outside just in time to get a picture of surely the oddest inhabitant of that alien land – an eight foot long goliath bog-bug, pictured below.
Growing up quickly in the small town South, I missed an opportunity to read the wildly popular books of Dr. Seuss. When Horton Hears A Who came out in 1954, I was nine years old and more interested in the Brooklyn Dodgers and earning Cub Scout merit badges. I read reluctantly and only for homework assignments.
Thirty years and some forty books later, when Seuss’ controversial The Butter Battle Book was published, I struggled with the twin efforts of relocation and career change. Reading then, started and ended with a morning newspaper.
Only now, in the reflective period of life, have The Lorax, The Grinch and Yertle The Turtle made their presence known and ended up on my reading list. Perhaps only now does The Lorax’ charming call for environmental conservation hit home. The Better Butter Book’s less subtle stand against nuclear proliferation has as much meaning today as it did in 1984.
And just now a Dr. Seuss art exhibition provides a look at two other sides of the amazing writer and illustrator. Syd Entel Galleries in nearby Safety Harbor has mounted a month long show, and on a recent afternoon I had the entire gallery to myself.
Wandering the chronological exhibit, I was struck by Dr. Seuss’ editorial cartoons and educational films made in the army during World War II. His stands against fascism and ethnic and racial discrimination reveal a strong humanitarian side that would resurface in his children’s books.
The gallery also presented personal works that the public never saw – colorful surreal paintings and sculptures of fantasy creatures – all created late at night. In his long career, Dr. Seuss won three Academy Awards, an Emmy Award, and in 1984, the Pulitzer Prize. He impresses me as that rare artistic genius who cannot help but create masterworks in everything he touches.
For several years I belonged to a writers group that met every Friday at the local library. I learned how to critique from this diverse collection of writers, a seasoned bunch who could tell a newbie in the most diplomatic way his flash fiction stunk.
For three hours we gave and took with the best, and if not exactly rescuing Western literature, we did become better writers. Afterwards, some of the longer-winded convened at a Greek restaurant to continue the dialogue with dolmas and black coffee.
I returned home late in the afternoon, full, perhaps a bit brighter, but useless for the rest of the day. Being a reluctant member of the working class, I knew my literary Fridays could not last.
Later an opportunity I couldn’t refuse landed in my e-mail box – an invitation to join an on-line critique group. This group gave me all the advantages of the one at the library, plus an added bonus – I could critique at home.
Working from home lets me enjoy my natural slothfulness, and, while the old nine to five forced me to wear a management approved shirt, I can now sport my favorite Muppets tee-shirt, or, if I choose, no shirt at all. I just hope the critique group doesn’t decide to add video conferencing.
I just realized I’ve spent three quarters of my life here in the humid flatlands of Florida; the state of hanging chads and sticking sand-spurs. A place where catfish walk and people cringe at the approach of monster hurricanes with girlie names. Here comes Hannah!
In Florida we are never far away from terra primeval. Alligators hunt in urban lakes not far from my home. Sharks patrol off both coasts, and when I turn off the lights, la cucaracha comes out to play.
These are all grist for the writing mill, and animals have figured prominently in much of my writing for children. I have written three funny field guides of wild critters and recently completed a wild animal alphabet book. As long as I continue to live in this state that sticks into the Gulf of Mexico like a dog’s wagging tail, I will have great writing material.
It seems to me that writing starts out being more like painting and ends up being like sculpture. Painting is mainly concerned with putting media on canvas, adding and adding, building up the surface until the desired results are achieved.
Sculpture, in contrast, begins with something already complete, like a block of fine marble. The marble is slowly, delicately chipped away until much later a work of art emerges.
Writing, at the beginning, flows like an abstract painting; complimentary ideas blend together and stand in stark contrast to earlier passages. Swirling word pictures lie thickly on the page. These layered, unconnected thoughts and loopy sentence structures resemble a Jackson Pollock painting.
Writing enters its sculptural phase when the writer takes his editing chisel and chips away at the dense verbosity. This paring down and discarding bits of unneeded words goes on until an underlying form appears. Like a sculptor, the writer strives to get at the nub of the piece, that point where most everything has been taken away and there is nothing more to say. And like a sculptor, the constant companion of writers is the question, “Have I gone too far?”
SCBWI is alive and well in the Tampa Bay area. A call recently went out from our intrepid leader, Sue LeNeve, and on Monday evening a large group of us convened for an introductory "meet and greet" at Bahama Breeze restaurant in Tampa. I was surprised to learn there are presently ten critique groups in Tampa Bay.
