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On Sunday night, Meryl Streep won her third Academy Award for IRON WOMAN.  I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie, but Streep is amazing as Margaret Thatcher.  It’s not only the makeup and hair that makes Streep look like the former prime minister, it’s the voice.  Streep nails it.  Just like she did with her roles of Julia Child, and Sophie, and Baroness Karen vo Blixen-Finecke. All are amazing performances. In fact, Streep is known as the actress than can do any accent like it’s her own.  How does she do it? And what does that mean for a writer creating voice in a character?

Once, during an interview right after the Golden Globes, Streep said she tries to really understand inside how the person speaks, then she goes to ethic neighborhoods and hangs out in cafes “to corroborate” what she’s thinking. Her process is pretty simple. She listens. People speak with a cadence, a pacing, a certain way of phrasing words, and Streep is a master at hearing that rhythm.

We’ve all heard how a voice comes to a writer and whispers in his or her ear.  For the rest of us, we can learn something from Streep’s technique. Listen. Find people who have similarities to the characters you’re writing, and corroborate if the voice in your head sounds like the voice on the page. Listen for voices in the coffee shop, in the grocery store, or in the mall. For most of us, one day in a middle school or high school would probably be an audible experience worth writing about!

Think about how your character’s voice should sound from the inside.  The slang.  The syntax.  The inside jokes.  Listen for the breaths, and the beats, and the pauses.  Listen for what’s said and isn’t said.  Listen.

Continue listening with your eyes.  Read John Green and Nancy Werlin and Franny Billingsley and Laura Halse Anderson.  Let yourself be influenced by great writers you admire. Pay attention to how they put voice on the page.  You don’t need to note every noun and comma, but notice the flow of the language.  The sound on the page.

I love the line from Michael Chabon’s The Wonder Boys, “Above all, a quirky human voice to hang a story on.”  Listen for that quirky human voice everywhere.  To write a really great voice, listen.  Just listen.

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

This was possibly the best advice I ever received.

Eat dessert first.

In other words: write the scenes you want to write. Then go back and write the other scenes. (The ones you don’t want to write.)

For me, these are usually the scenes with high dramatic tension or a lot of action. When I was writing BEYOND LUCKY, I loved working on the soccer scenes as well as the scene where Ari finds the card. I liked writing the humorous scenes, too. Now that I am working on something new, I find myself doing the same thing. I’m writing scenes where my main character confronts conflict and tension. I have a theme. A point. A destination. So now I’m putting my character in a situation, and I’m letting the characters talk. Writing is (almost) fun for me this way. If I had to write linearly, I’m not sure I could get to the point of worrying about all the other stuff: flow, sequence, critical information…..

So today, let’s eat dessert first. Then I challenge you: write the scene you WANT to write…the one that you can’t wait to get to.

Most Inspiring Molten Chocolate Cake

9 ounces bittersweet chocolate (splurge for the good kind)
2 sticks unsalted butter
4 large eggs PLUS 4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 T flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter your ramekins. (There’s never enough chocolate or butter in your life…like there aren’t enough great scenes.)

combine butter and chocolate. Melt together in a double boiler over barely simmering water. Stir and remove from heat.

Beat eggs and yolks. Add sugar. Beat until doubled in volume. Beat in chocolate mix, then flour. Divide batter into ramekins (I use six for this recipe) and cook 11 to 14 minutes. The sides should be set. The middle should be soft.

TO SERVE:

Although you will be tempted to eat this the second it comes out, give yourself enough time to create either a nice raspberry sauce…some whipped cream, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

It’s not bad cold the next day.

Now WRITE THAT SCENE!!!!!!

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

Yesterday, I wrote very briefly about my personal correlation: cooking and writing. For me, they go together. I get into “creation” mode and we eat better.

(Unfortunately writing and cleaning seem to have the opposite relationship.)

Cooking special dishes is also how I celebrate writing milestones.

When I’ve gotten through a tough section of a story, I tend to make something chocolate.

When I’ve finished a draft, I usually crave brisket.

My favorite milestone is getting to page 100. Why? Well, it always amazes me when I realize that I’ve written 100 pages. When I’ve gotten that far, I know I have a story…not just an interesting character. I can’t help being amazed that once again, the creative process has actually worked!!!!

So to celebrate page 100, I treat myself to Thai Seafood Soup. I like it because it’s spicy and full of citrus. (I began developing this recipe when I first moved to Hanover, NH. I love YAMA, but I really miss good Thai food.) If you have loved ones sensitive to spicy food, cut back on the peppers…or watch steam rise from their scalps. When my kids were small, and esp before I had any success at all, I wanted to include them in the process, in these milestones. This is a commitment (living the writing life) that we have all made…and I never forget that.

ENJOY!

Sarah’s super spicy Thai Seafood Soup

Seasoning Mix: (Taken from Paul Prudhomme’s Fiery Foods That I love):

1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp ground ancho chili
3/4 tsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp white pepper

Mix these seasonings together.

The rest:

2T unsalted butter
2 cups fresh white mushrooms
1 stalk lemongrass, sliced thinly
2tsp fresh garlic
2tsp fresh serrano chilis
4 T (or more) lemon juice
2T (or more) fresh lime juice
3 T fish sauce (a combo of prepared fish sauce, sugar, lemon juice and pepper…let it sit an hour.)
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 pound shrimp
1/2 pound scallops
1/2 pound salmon, skin removed
1 pound calamari, cut into rings (I like tentacles, too.)
silver noodles, prepared

For the end:
cilantro
chopped zuchini, red pepper, onion. peas bean sprouts

What to do:

melt butter in a saucepan. Add mushrooms, lemongrass, serranos and seasoning mix. When that begins to stick (about 2 min on high heat), add juice and fish sauce. Cook five minutes until thick. Then add stock. Bring to boil. Add fish and cilantro. Again, bring to boil. When fish is cooked, add vegees. Add extra lemon and lime to taste. Ladle into individual bowls with silver noodles, cilantro garnish, and some bean sprouts. Make sure you have a BIG pitcher of water.

Hints:

I halve the cayenne. For my husband. Because he is the one who has made it possible for me to stay home and write…..

Happy eating…and don’t forget to celebrate the milestones with your loved ones!!!

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When I am drafting a new manuscript, I do a lot of cooking.

Actually, when I’m revising I cook even more.

When I’m cooking, I’m creating. I’m thinking. I’m playing music. All these things let my subconscious ramble (and gives me enough space to think about something besides politics!!) When I cook, I think. I smell. I imagine details. My family thinks I’ve done something with my day!

(Let’s face it…sometimes we need some product while we’re in the process!)

If you aren’t sold yet, eating well also serves my creative process. I also write a lot better and faster when I take care of myself!

When I’m writing, I NEVER diet.

So this week, I’m going to share some of my favorite recipes that help me write. An appetizer. A main course. A salad. and a special celebration dessert.

Here’s your appetizer:

Sarah’s AMAZIN’ humus!!!

2 cups canned chick peas, drained
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh garlic
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (This is the SECRET ingredient!!)
1 tsp cumin
1/3 cup tahini
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, plus lemon zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
parsley for garnish

Basically, put all this stuff in a food processor, season to taste, and eat. For years, my friends invite me to pot luck dinners JUST so I can bring the humus. It’s REALLY good with pita. Or tabouli. Or next to a piece of grilled tomato.

It’s also the kind of snack that can sit right next to the computer as I’m writing.

Bon Appetit, and happy writing!

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

Tollbooth friend Tim Martin joins us again this weekend to report on the recent SCBWI conference in New York–

The SCBWI winter conference in New York: thoughts from one tuckered out, dog-tired (but still-smiling) attendee.

The SCBWI winter conference came and went like an invigorating whirlwind of ideas, insights and connections. As usual, there were scores of diverse industry folks (including, this winter, people working in digital storytelling and marketing), and an inviting collection of breakout sessions of which we attendees could sample three. This seemed, at first, restrictive, but I think it pressed us to be specific and focused on our areas of passion and interest.

So, here are my picks of a few key moments, and the things that stayed with me as I jetted from the conference on my way home to Los Angeles:

Connections. SCBWI, along with all its regional and international tentacles, and associated writing groups, bloggers, and specialty discussion groups, has always been the nerve center for accessible networking between writers. The Society primarily functions as a community, and the twice-yearly conferences act as testament to this collective spirit. To that end, this winter get-together encouraged attendees to get to know their regional advisors, consider a submission to an editor, get involved in panel discussions, ask that burning question, and, of course, make that accidental connection over bagels and lox cream cheese. You know, the one that may just nudge a writer’s fortune in some unexpected direction.

Breakout sessions. A good assortment of topics were covered, from “Non- Fiction” (Ken Wright of Writer’s House) to “Diversity and Multiculturalism” (Stacy Whitman of Tu Books) to “Narrative Fiction” (Alvina Ling of Little Brown). For an attendee, it’s always hard to select from the list, and I found it worthwhile to check in on friends who had chosen alternative sessions, so as to get a gist of more themes, and more conference content. Many sessions were craft oriented (revision, dialogue, pacing and exposition), and some had an illustrative component. It was also interesting to see less conventional session topic selections, such as “Ebooks and Apps”.

The breakout sessions I chose were generally broad in scope, and tended to be genre related. Sarah Davies from The Greenhouse Literacy Agency took us through the subject of “thrillers” in an action-packed, spine-tingling, lightening-speed hour. She’s an inspiring speaker: passionate, articulate, and informative. She blended solid crafty talking points with the commerciality demanded from many agents such as herself.

In the second session, Arianne Lewin from G.P. Putnam put a spin on the topic of “fantasy” by focusing in on the first two pages of some well-known recent bestsellers. How did the authors manage to convey the fantasy world without too much exposition? What part did dialogue and action play?

In my final session, Tara Weikum of Harper Collins led us through the first sentences of evocative YA books, and gave her suggestions to what makes this early impression a key to each novel�

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As we continue our discussion about self-marketing, I want to talk a bit (well, more than a bit) about discussion, activity, and teaching guides. Should you have one? And how can a guide help you market your book? To give us a bit of insight, I welcome to the Tollbooth today Debbie Gonzales. Debbie is the author of eight “transitional” readers for New Zealand publisher, Giltedge. A Montessori teacher, former school administrator, and curriculum consultant specializing in academic standards annotation, Debbie now devotes her time to various freelance projects as well as serving the Austin SCBWI community as Regional Advisor. She earned her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

First, Debbie, welcome to the Tollbooth! Can you tell us a little about the business you run creating discussion and teachers’ guides for authors?

You’re familiar with the adage “Write what you know,” right? Well, that’s what I’m doing. I pull from my years and years of teaching and curriculum development experience and pour it all into these cross-curricular book guides. I make guides like the ones I wish I would’ve had when teaching. Science, math, crafts, creative writing, analysis, games – you name it, I put it in. They’re becoming so popular; I’m having a hard time keeping up with the demand. That’s a good problem, right?

When did you decide to start cross-curricular book guides?

I got started making these when a friend and YA author was told by a librarian that she needed a book guide made to compliment her latest book, one that met the Texas educational standards. She and I got to chatting about it and I told her I’d be glad to make one for her. Soon after, her book found its way to be listed by the International Reading Association. (I’m not saying that my guide got her on the list, but it sure didn’t hurt anything.) The rest is history.

What types of guides do you create?

Picture books, chapter, middle grade and YA, you name it. I’ll do it. I create three basic types of guides for any and all genres. One is an Activity Guide, which is packed with lots of manipulative learning games applicable to all areas of the curriculum. I just finished a really cool Research Activity Guide for two non-fiction books about dogs and horses that were such fun to make! The guide features activities focusing on anatomy, map skills, research skills, poetry writing and a bunch of other things.

Another type of guide is the basic Discussion Guide. This one works quite well for YA novels. I document quotes that, I think, resonate with meaning, and then imagine kids thumbing through the pages to find the selected phrases, reading them aloud over and over again. I like to not only create questions that are inspired by the text, but those that cause the reader to consider their own emotional response to the story.

Lastly, I make longer, more in-depth guides that are a combination activities and discussion that typically end with a special art project or a Reader’s Theatre script. These guides are designed to provide discussion and activities that will span over a 6 week period of time – a teacher’s gold mine!

A collection of guides I’ve created are posted on my

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When the editor told me she wanted me to rewrite the novel and ramp up the romance, I quailed. “We love romance,” she wrote, “The drama, the uncertainty.”

Uncertainty. She’d really caught the shaky essence of new love, but I didn’t have a clue how to capture it. I know how to write action and adventure, how to keep the obstacles coming until the hero fights the final battle. But romantic uncertainty? How would I even plot that beyond Boy Meets Girl, etc.? Wasn’t it just a lot of angst and neurotic, teary, self-talk?

When in doubt, I read. And several YA romances later, I realized that romance is just the Hero’s Journey from inside the heart.

The hero/protagonist lives in her Ordinary World untouched by love, when one day, bam! She meets The Guy. She doesn’t expect to meet anyone, and she’s attracted to him, but this feeling is like entering a new world.

It’s her Call to Adventure, but she’s not sure about taking it, because she’s so surprised and he isn’t what she expected. She’s thrown off balance, because she thinks she knows the person she wants, but now she’s met someone who’s completely different.

So she pulls back and Refuses the Call. But he keeps talking to her and she’s tempted to let herself feel something. So she Crosses the Threshold into vulnerability and love.

It is a time of Tests, Allies and Enemies.

She doesn’t trust how she feels and she doesn’t know if he feels the way she does. There are circumstances and personal histories, exes and rivals she doesn’t know about. She’s afraid he might be involved with someone else, and she wants to protect herself, because she doesn’t want to be humiliated and can’t bear being hurt.

But at the same time, she senses he may understand her in a way that no one else has ever done before. And she lets herself fantasize about what things could be like, because love is Arthur’s sword, the Holy Grail, the kingdom’s crown.

She’s lost in this new land, trying hard to navigate, and looking for clues in every gesture, how close he leans in to her, if he pulls away. Her girlfriends weigh in on everything he does, and like courtiers to the heir apparent, not all of them have her best interests in mind.

Then a moment appears when something is definitely happening and she can sense it. The relationship is about to change and she’s ready to take a chance and lay her heart completely bare. LIke a deep symbolic Cave, she approaches, knowing the danger of getting her heart broken. She’s ready to kiss him, even if he doesn’t kiss her.

But when that kiss doesn’t come, because something incredibly horrible comes between them, she pulls back. Love has turned into an Ordeal.

She doesn’t want to get hurt like the last time. She can’t count on this other person, what he’ll do or won’t do. She’s not even sure that he’s the person she thought he was.

Fight or flight. She has to choose.

And when she does choose love, when she fights for it, she Seizes the Sword and claims his love. She is magically transformed and forever changed. She understands love in ways she never did before.

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

I found a really interesting web site today for teachers called novelinks.org whose aim is to put out “instructional routines and ideas for teaching the novel.”  I wanted to see what they did differently than the typical educators’ guide, so I looked at their resource list for Deborah Wiles’s book EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS.  Novelinks offers a full spectrum of materials, from a concept analysis to readability guide, but what struck me as a bit startling was that EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS was tagged at a seventh grade reading level. All of my fifth grade students read it in fourth grade, and frankly while I love this book a lot, the book seems a little young in terms of how much it might interest a seventh grade reader. I checked Scholastic’s Book Wizard, and it shows the book’s level at mid-year forth grade reading.  Comfort, the narrator of the story, is ten years old, so a fourth grader reading EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS makes much more of sense.  A seventh grader?  Not so much.

Kids want to read books that look age appropriate, even if they are reading far below grade level. Many of the students in my class who are struggling readers clamor to read the whole Percy Jackson series. The books are entertaining and easy reading, and you won’t look dumb if you are reading one of them. Every book in the series is hefty (from 300-400 pages), with cool covers.  They are fantasy stories with lots of action.  Not babyish at all.

Peer influence is huge for middle school readers, and I see it all the time in class.  Kids tell other kids about the good books they’re reading.  They share copies from home and the library.  They love being the “first” to discover a book that their peers will want to read. But the books they recommend to one another are books that are shoo-ins:  Funny, interesting, mysterious, quirky.  And from what I see, kids really do want to read about kids their own ages (or older…that’s even better almost).

I don’t see kids recommending literary novels to each other.  It’s a generalization, but literary novels don’t seem to interest the kids I teach.  They don’t pick them up to read on their own in reading workshop.  I book talk, do read alouds, and show book trailers (when I can) of the literary novels I love, but for the fifth grade kids in my class, those novels are the books teachers teach.

What’s the take away from this week?  For me it means killing a lot of darlings in my writing and getting to the story.  It means honing characters that are readable because they are really interesting, even for struggling readers.  And it means writing with vocabulary and sentence structure and chapter lengths that appeal to kids.  I need to stop trying to be so literary. (Which I think I do because I want to show adults that children’s writers are good writers too…but that’s another story).

I need to focus on telling a good tale for kids.  It’s simple, but those 5^th graders can be pretty demanding. �

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So why do kids love books like the Percy Jackson series or Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven books?  Maybe the answer is in the reading level.  In the last few years, best practice for teaching reading has incorporated something called the reading workshop.  Instead of reading one book (usually selected by the teacher) as a whole class, students can read whatever interests them.  For my class of sixty-one students, I have about forty different books being read on any given day.

The Percy Jackson books and Fablehaven series are written for students reading at a late fourth grade to beginning fifth grade level.  The books have relatively easy vocabulary and are structured for the upper elementary reader.  Characters are not quite as complex and story lines not quite as complicated as some other books for middle school readers.  That doesn’t mean the stories are wildly fun and entertaining!

Many of the Newbery books offer up more difficult reading.  The latest Newbery winner, Moon Over Manifest is geared to a mid-year fifth grade reading level.  To give you a perspective, Newbery winners When You Reach Me and The Graveyard Book are geared to late-year fifth grade readers. While Moon Over Manifest is a dear story and one I liked very much, it’s hard for my students to care about Abilene until they have read the first fifty pages or so.  Few of them have been able to stick with the book that long. It moves too slow. And that’s a common theme I hear with Newbery books.  My students think of them, generally, as the books that teachers want them to read, not books they want to read.  Why is that?

For one, action. When I read the opening of Fablehaven, things are already moving.  Here are the first two chapters of the book:

Kendra stared out the side window of the SUV, watching foliage blur past.  When the flurry of motion became too much, she looked up ahead and fixed her gaze on a particular tree, following it as it slowly approached, streaked past, and then gradually receded behind her.

Was life like that? You could look ahead to the future or back to the past, but the present moved too quickly to absorb. Maybe sometimes. Not today. Today they were driving along an endless two-lane highway through the forested hills of Connecticut.

Kendra is going somewhere. Everything is a blur.  Life is moving fast.  The children in my class totally get this idea.  It’s their reality.  I know what you are probably thinking…The Graveyard Book is totally action at the beginning of the story.  But my students don’t like it.  It’s weird they say. Maybe it reminds them of the news, but they don’t want to read it.  It ends up in the return bin a lot.

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Last summer at Chautauqua I gave a lecture on middle school readers.  The presentation was based on research and interviews of middle school students, so it had some solid information, but it didn’t have the benefit of my experience this fall.  Since late August, I’ve been teaching reading and writing full time to a class of sixty-one fifth graders here in Nashville.  So, this week I thought it might be helpful to share my insights into fifth grade readers, the books they love, and how to write for that particular audience.

Let’s begin with the history of ten and eleven year-olds. As they were born, Y2K changed how we thought about history, and September 11 changed the world into a dangerous place. As these children were learning to read, a little company called FACEBOOK was starting up, and the word google became a verb. Download, digital, wireless and virtual became our new vocabulary. Blogs, wikis, social networks, and Twitter became our new communities. And did I mention? We’ve got an app for that. You fill in what “that” might be.

As these kids moved into elementary school, TV became reality, videogame profits soared beyond box office revenue, and Harry Potter took his place in the canon of children’s literature. We went to war twice. We witnessed a near collapse of the US financial market. We elected an African American as 44^th President of the United States.

Today’s middle school readers are tech savvy and news weary, living in the golden age of knowledge, with the steepest growth of information in history, doubling in size every 12-18 months.

Any wonder why these kids crave action and adventure in the books they read? To them, life is much bigger than their schoolyards or neighborhoods. They witness the world in action everywhere, and they want to be part of it.

When students asked me to help them find a good book, it’s not the Newbery award winners they want. (Even The Graveyard Book finds its way quickly into the classroom return bin quickly. The exception to this is Louis Sacher’s Holes.  Most students devour Holes.)  Fantasy, mystery, adventure or funny books are the stories these children love. A few read historical fiction.  Very few want nonfiction (unless its science related). Children want escape. Ask any of the readers in my classroom, and they’ve read Percy Jackson. Rick Riordan’s stories are plot driven adventures that are easy to read—mostly written at 4^th grade reading levels.  It’s a winning combination.

So what does all this mean to a writer?  I think it means getting really good at the plot driven novel.  Be willing to take readers on a wild ride.  Pushing the boundaries on possibility. Telling a really good story. Sounds like everything you know already, but the assignment is to do that with a character that’s immediately engaging. And could you make it funny while you are at it?

Next time, we’ll take a look at some of the most popular books in my class—the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull.  I’ll do an analysis of the first book in the series and share with you the

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Kimberley Griffiths Little joins us in the Tollbooth today. She is the author of many middle grade novels, including the recently released Circle of Secrets.

She wrote Circle of Secrets in a breathtaking pace of approximately 6 weeks (2 1/2 weeks for the draft and 4 weeks more for the revision) so she could make her “Armegeddon Book Deadline.”

Sarah: How do you approach writing when you first get an idea for a story?

Kimberley: When I first get the initial inklings of an “Idea”, it just attacks me. For instance I’m sitting at my desk travelling the many wonders of the inter-webs when *SMACK*! An “Idea” for a new project hits me right in the face and plum near knocks me off my chair. After I recover (and get an ice pack for my resulting black eye), I find my “Notebook” or a piece of paper and start writing down my Idea. Now because I have a life, (and kids and a husband and a house to clean and cats… :/ ) I usually just write down the Idea and then let it simmer on the back burner of my brain stove while I go about my daily activities. When I get my next “Idea” (I managed to dodge this idea from hitting me in the face but it did clip my shoulder), I go and I write it in that same notebook and let it simmer for a while. My next idea (which gut punched me) I write it down and I just continue to do this until I think I have it all down (which usually results in me needing to get a massage to work out all the inevitable kinks).

Note: these head-smacking Ideas are all for the same Big New Fancy-Schmancy Novel, but I will get hit with little pieces of the characters, the twists and turns of the plot as well as the climax or the emotional core of the story over a period of many weeks or months.

Once I have a Notebook – or my head – filled up with Ideas, I transfer all these notes onto 3×5 cards which I then lay out on a table of the floor and rearrange in various orders. Once I’m ready to write, I dive in and start fattening the Ideas with words to make them all nice and fluffy (like sheep) and I put it all in a Word document called a Manuscript.

Sarah: You talked about your 3×5 card plotting method a few months ago on your blog. You used this method for most of your books, including The Healing Spell.
(Kimberley’s detailed explanations–and great photos–can be found at her blog post about her 3×5 card plotting method.)

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

Perfect balance is important to a tightrope walker. Without it he’d plunge to his death. Do writers need perfect balance too?

I’m a Libran so my zodiac symbol is the scales. I’m not entirely clear if that means I should be good at achieving perfect balance and harmony, or if those things are just  important to me, or if it’s a bunch of hooey.

I do know this–like all of you I’m exceptionally busy with lots of conflicting priorities tugging at me. And like most writers I’m always looking for ways to live a rewarding writing life along with a family and business/marketing life.

For years I’ve sought the holy grail of perfect balance. I’ve dreamed of mornings when I wake up ready to leap out of bed, slip into freshly pressed and color coordinated outfit, kiss my darling children goodbye as they skip off to school, dance into my office where I catch up on a few emails (while avoiding the internet time-suck entirely), dash off a chapter or two, chat with my publicist or editor, pin down details on a smashing bookstore signing, whip up something scrumptious yet nutritious for dinner, dress for a night out at a museum or play or something cultural… okay you more than get the idea.

It doesn’t take a life coach to know this isn’t realistic. If I’m honest with myself I admit it doesn’t even sound like fun. “Having everything” all at once isn’t just outside a normal person’s grasp. It’s manic.

Over time I’ve come up with five tips for achieving…  not perfect balance but something that more or less works for me.

1 Forget perfect.

What does “perfect” mean, anyway? I don’t have a clue. I’ve banished the word from my vocabulary. It may sound simplistic but deleting perfect gives me an instant “peace of mind” boost. Maybe it’s evidence that I’m some kind of slacker, but  consciously deciding to push perfectionism aside makes sense to me. Of course I have to be vigilant to keep the quest for perfect at bay, but lower anxiety and greater happiness are worth the effort.

2 Keep your eyes open.

Justice is blind (I had jury duty last week so cut me some slack and bear with me a minute.) Because she’s supposed to be impartial, Lady Justice is almost always portrayed wearing a blindfold as she weighs right and wrong.

Blindfolds may be fine for legal decisions but they’re all wrong for balancing writing with the rest of your life. Take that blindfold off! Look! As Sarah Aronson says write with intention. More than that, live with intention. Make active rather than passive decisions. Some things are outside our control (yea that serenity prayer does make a point) but just as you are the master of the story you write you should be the master of your fate.

I believe active living is a matter of perspective more than anything else. When I feel like I’m consistently acting rather than reacting I’m happier. I seem to have mor

Illustration Age, the ultimate source for what’s happening in Illustration, was just named one of HOW Magazine’s Top 10 Sites for Designers! This marks the EFII Network’s second award in this category, with a previous nod to Escape from Illustration Island.

Thanks very much to HOW Magazine for recognizing our commitment to keeping you up to date with what’s happening in Illustration.

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Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

Happy Halloween!

This week in the Tollbooth we’re talking about what scares us.

As a middle-grade writer I try to remember what it felt like to be nine or ten years old and translate that to the page. I find it pretty easy to remember things that made me sad or mad or even really happy, but at first I thought scared was tougher.

I’m a grown up now. Hard to scare.

Then I remembered… when I was in the third grade I thought this was the scariest book in the world.

What was so scary? Mannequins. Being lost. The dark.

To tell the truth I’m still afraid of dark places and the unknown in general. And yes mannequins do still scare me. A lot. I’m lost so often I’ve sort of gotten over that… plus now I have a GPS.

But remembering the universal elements– things that scare all of us, but more specifically what scares me– and translating it to a middle-grade level dose seems to work for me.

What scared you when you were a kid… and does it still scare you now?

~tami lewis brown

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman explains that we all have different ways that we like to receive and give love. It’s important to know what kind of love language your writer responds to and love them appropriately.

We’ve already talked about:

1. Words of Affirmation – Tell them they are awesome.

2. Quality Time – Give them time to write. Take time to hang out with them and/or their books.

3. Gifts – Yeah. Gifts.

So now we are on to the final two ways to love a writer:

1. Acts of Service

2. Physical Touch

Acts of Service

If your writer would like for you to  rub her shoulders while she ponders the emotional arc in her picture book classic THE MICROWAVE LOVES YOU, then please do that.

If your writer would like you to wash dishes while she tightens up the language in ALL-IN-ONE-ORANGE OXY: THE STORY OF A WOMAN AND HER CLEANER, please do so.

If your writer wants you to rob a bank while he finishes the masterpiece TELEPHONES AND THE MEN WHO EAT THEM, you might want to think about it.

Some people like you to do things for them. They NEED you to do things for them in order for them to feel loved. Please, just make sure whatever your writer wants is legal and does not physical harm you, your writer, or your microwave.

Physical Touch

This one sounds sooooo naughty, doesn’t it? Oh, yes… Yes, it does…

But it isn’t.

Are you disappointed?

Would you admit it if you were disappointed?

Anyway, some people communicate via touch. These are the hand holders, the cheek kissers, the huggers. A lot of writers are like this. I swear, writers are always hugging other writers. At every conference I’ve ever gone to, I’ve thought, “Holy canoli, these writer people are huggy. Will any of them hug me? Oh gosh… What if they don’t? What if they treat me like I’m an insurance executive? What if I stand here for 30 seconds and nobody tries to hug me?”

Then someone will hug me and I will stop hyperventilating. Usually it is someone I don’t actually know, and somehow this isn’t creepy. I should probably go think about that.

Okay. Back on topic….

Touching and hugging and kissing (as long as the writer knows you and is okay with that) is how some writers feel loved.

I think that if you touch and hug and kiss their book, they will also feel loved.

I am going to go kiss Rick Riordan’s SON OF NEPTUNE and see if he responds. :)

Thank you all for putting up with me this week. My life’s been a bit of hell lately (I know! I know! TMI!) and I just couldn’t post anything serious about crafts. Thank you for bearing with me. Feel free to comment. Those are WORDS OF AFFIRMATION and make me feel loved. Unless, your comment is evil…. Yeah….

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

Today we continue with our  attempt to help you understand how to love your writer.

We began with telling you that WORDS OF AFFIRMATION are always a good way to love your writer. But many writers have different love languages, and your writer may  not respond well to WORDS OF AFFIRMATION. It may not be their primary love language.  The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman explains that we all have different ways that we like to receive and give love. It’s important to know what kind of love language your writer responds to and love them appropriately.

So here are two more options if the WORDS OF AFFIRMATION aren’t working for you.

OPTION #2 – QUALITY TIME

For some writers, they feel loved if you spend quality time with them. That means this:

1. You read their books.

2. When you read their books you don’t multi-task unless it’s riding on the stationary bike at the gym or something, because writers appreciate good quads.

3. When you read their books, you focus on their books.

How can you do this?

1. Spend a weekend with their book.

2. Make a lunch date with their book.

3. Take the book walking. Go on a vacation. Take it on a nice long car ride. But um… don’t read it while you are driving. Cars are not stationary bikes.

4. Relax together.

Love Option #3 – Receiving Gifts

Some writers don’t feel loved unless you give them things. For some writers this might be um…. awards from committees of librarians or bloggers. For some writers this might be a blog post focused on them. For some, the gift might be a really hot review or a nice blurb from someone awesome.

Do not be afraid to show your love for your author by giving her a good five-star review on some website somewhere.

A gift inspired by a writer’s book is always awesome. My second book was called LOVE AND OTHER USES FOR DUCT TAPE and I got some totally cool hand-made duct tape flowers. I felt super loved. I still have them in my kitchen. And sometimes when I am sad, I look at them. See? Totally works.

*Chapman, Gary. The 5 love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts. Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 1992.

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

I used to think series books were kind of low brow and mass market. “Nancy Drew” or the “Hardy Boys” came to mind, both of which I loved as a child while I also knew they weren’t in the same league as, say, “James and the Giant Peach” or “Charlotte’s Web.” This impression wasn’t helped a couple of years back when my daughter insisted on my reading every “Rainbow Magic” book at least twice. I didn’t realize until then that some series are written by more than one person. Here’s what the Daisy Meadows page on amazon.com has to say about the so-called author of the “Rainbow Magic” series:

Daisy Meadows is a pseudonym used by the writers of Rainbow Magic, who are all hugely talented and successful authors in their own right.

Actually, after reading several books in the series, I hypothesized that a clue to the true author is contained in each book’s dedication. Most of my favorites were dedicated to Narinder Dhami. Later I saw that my library carried several non-Rainbow Magic books by her. They’re too old for my daughter, but they look promising.

About a year ago, my daughter graduated to less formulaic plots and characters, though we still read almost nothing but series books, including:



I tried reading Harry Potter to my daughter, and she didn’t like it, nor did she like the first Percy Jackson book by Rick Riordan.

I decided that my daughter would eventually love 19th-century British literature (as I do): character-driven novels that often portray a narrow slice of practical life but nevertheless address larger human truths. That kind of thing – which also applies to all of the books in the list above. And books in which the writing is important, not just plot.

(By the way, I developed a real regard for Ann M. Martin of “Baby-sitters Club” fame when reading her books to my daughter. Before that, all I knew about “The Baby-sitters Club” was a vague impression based on the movie of the same name (but different spelling), which I never watched but spurned anyway. Who knows? I might like it, too.)

The Penderwicks books were fun because they are allusive. For example, we had read the Melendy Quartet (“The Saturdays” et al.) before the Penderwicks series, and at one point during the latter, my daughter said, “The daddies in the Penderwicks AND the Saturdays are both named Martin. Isn’t that funny?” “Well, sweetie,” I replied, “I’m pretty sure Birdsall is alluding to Enright’s books.” Of course, I didn’t use those exact words.

Birdsall also makes an explicit connection to 19th-century British literature in “The Penderwicks on Gardam Street,” in which she uses Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” in a hilarious way and also quotes the book.

Given my daughter’s (and my) taste in literature, imagine how thrilled I was to pick up “The Mysterious Howling,” the first book in the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series by Maryrose Wood. It’s loaded with playful allusions to Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, and probably others I don’t know enough to catch. But an exciting new-to-me connection to 19th-century British literature is that these books –

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

Congratulations to Debby Dahl Edwardson whose new YA novel My Name is Not Easy (Marshall Cavendish) is a National Book Award Finalist!

Debby is a graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts and talked about the story behind the story in her moving new novel on Monday’s Tollbooth.

photo by Janet Minchiello

And congratulations to Tollbooth’s own Tami Lewis Brown who celebrated the launch of her tender and true new middle grade novel The Map of Me at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington D.C. this Sunday!  

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

The right to write your story….

Chimamanda Adichie’s talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” referred to earlier this week, calls for each of us to see beyond stereotypes and instead to remember the individuality of all peoples. It’s a frank, honest discussion that takes into account the ways in which we as authors may both be victims, as well perpetrators, of stereotyping.

Yet Adichie’s point, that every story is unique, can be a springboard to another side of the story coin. And that’s the right to tell the unique story that belongs to you.

In talking about her new novel My Name is Not Easy, Debby Dahl Edwardson speaks eloquently to the idea of writing what you could call an adopted story. That is, a story from the outside in, from the perspective of an author who may be immersed in, but is not originally from, the culture she’s writing about. The point being that authors who tackle this challenge need to feel authentic, to give themselves permission to tell their adopted story without censor.

But what about giving ourselves permission to tell our own stories? How many of us do that? How many of us let our stories, however fictionalized, emerge from a place so close to the bone that every word feels like exposure? Not just exposure of our own soul, but of the lives of those around us? It’s a place that can feel so painful and true we fear it won’t look like fiction at all, but like unearthed fact.

And those unearthed facts are often our family skeletons. With every poke of the pen the closet door opens and light shines in, illuminating the secrets of those closest to us. They’ll know, you think. They’ll recognize themselves. They’ll be horrified. I’ll be condemned.

It’s an honest dilemma, arising both out of love and self preservation. Yet isn’t it also true that writing itself is an act of love and self-preservation? Whose story is it anyway? Should you, like Anais Nin, wait until your loved one dies to publish what you fear as too recognizable? Or should you, as Wallace Stegner said, simply accept the fact that, “every story is rooted in the lives of those who write them,” and get on with it?

Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, a memoir about growing up in poverty and neglect, recalls with humor the fear that her mother, whom she paints in a pretty uncomplimentary light, would be offended by the portrait. But it wasn’t the damming character traits Walls’ mother objected to. She was instead offended by a single scene that sketched her as a bad driver!  

You never know. You might think you’ve too thinly disguised your sister but she doesn’t recognize herself at all. You may write a dad into your novel obviously not based on your dad, but he’ll swear you’ve created his likeness.

And you may second guess yourself forever.

Or you may find the courage to get on with it. It is, after all, your story. The one you’re obligated to tell. Just as Adichie strives to open our eyes to the idea of individual stories, writers must stand up and write them.

                                                �

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

“Some stories grab you with such force you have no choice but to write them, wondering from start to finish if your paltry human efforts can ever really do them justice.”

—Debby Dahl Edwardson

Debby Dahl Edwardson’s brand new YA novel My Name is Not Easy (Marshall Cavendish) is a fictional tale based on little known, real life events. In 1960, Luke was sent away to the Sacred Heart boarding school for Alaskan natives, run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Like its real life counterpart, Sacred Heart was a harrowing, heart wrenching place. One Luke would never call home. This is the story behind Luke’s story…

By Debby Dahl Edwardson

Some stories grab you with such force you have no choice but to write them, wondering from start to finish if your paltry human efforts can ever really do them justice.

My Name is Not Easy was one of those stories. My husband spent eight years at a parochial boarding school in Alaska that served a population of largely Alaskan Native students between the years of 1956-1971. Although the school burnt to the ground in 1976, the alumni of this school still gather at the site every year, with campers and tents, to hold a reunion.

I’d listened to my husband’s boarding school stories for years, but the need to write this book didn’t hit me until I attended one of those reunions and shared mass with the former students at a tiny graveyard in the woods near the school.

At the back of this graveyard stood a crude wall, built from bits of brick, which had been salvaged from the wreckage of the school. Each bit of brick had a name painted on it—the name of one of the former students who had since passed on. The wall had been growing, year-by-year. Scrawled on a brick on the bottom level of that memorial wall, I saw my brother-in-law Bunna’s name.

I never knew Bunna, but I knew his story. Standing there in the Alaskan woods with a group of aging adults from a wide range of Alaskan tribes and villages, I was overwhelmed by a powerful sense of family and shared history so palpable it took my breath away. This is a story I have to write, I thought—no, that’s not quite right. I didn’t think this in words. It would be more accurate to say that at that moment the story was given to me. Something, somewhere in the universe said: Here. Do it.

My Name is Not Easy, however, is not the story of that school. It’s fiction—fiction built on the bones of truth and peppered with the true stories of actual events, but fiction none-the-less. I’m a novelist, after all, which means I take grist of life—everything I have known, experienced, heard and felt—and through some kind of blessed alchemy, I turn it into story, story which in every way, is my story.

In truth, I’ve lived within Native Alaska for the majority of my life. My husband is Inupiaq and, as happens in marriages, my stories and his stories have become melded together within my soul. But that did not make the writing of this book any easier. I struggled. Did I have the right to write it? If I was going to write it, why fictionalize it?

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

This week in the Tollbooth, we have been talking about sharing your writing with kids during school visits. Earlier in the week we discussed tips for a dynamic reading and heard some good insights on presenting to kids from teachers and librarians.

Today, I have interviewed three administrators about school/library visits. In most instances, administrators are the gatekeepers; when it comes to booking a large-group assembly, they will need to approve the expenditure of both time and money for the presentation. They need to consider not only the needs of students when inviting a speaker, but also those of the community at large.

Jeff Vaughn is a high school principal, Jeannie Hayden is a middle school principal, and Bethany Hoglund is the head Children’s Librarian for the Bellingham (WA) library system. I have worked closely with all three of these fine administrators and I’m so glad they agreed to share their thoughts with us in the Booth!

TOOLBOOTH: When you schedule a guest speaker for your school/library, what types of benefits do you hope kids will receive? (In other words, what is the value of pulling kids out of valuable class time for an assembly with a guest speaker.)

HOGLUND: For every program, I am hoping that children and families will walk away jazzed about the library and reading.  I want the library to be more than just checking out books.  I want it to be a place of fun, learning, engagement and excitement.  Programs and speakers are a sure-fire way to do this, and a great way for children to have new experiences free of charge.   . . .  Regarding author visits, I want kids to realize that the author is a real person.  Meeting the author also makes the book come alive – the author is no longer just a name on a cover and that name the tool to locating the book on the shelf.  The book becomes more personal, real and three-dimensional after an author visit.  Also, that adult is an example of someone who is still curious, questions, daydreams and explores, and encourages others to do the same!  Author visits spark increased reading as well.  Without fail, if an author has done a presentation, the book will immediately be checked out (if not already) and a hold list will form.  Authors are also a little bit like rock stars – it’s fun for kids to meet “real authors!”

VAUGHN: The goal is to bring somebody in with experience and credibility that really captures the students’ (and even staff’s) attention. We hope it’s an educational opportunity and a part of their learning experience. Ideally, it carries on into the classroom for a more personal discussion.

HAYDEN: Talented speakers supplement our students’ educational experiences – perhaps by providing real examples of issues that are being learned or by exposing students to age-appropriate experiences that they have yet to face.

TOLLBOOTH: What is an example of one of the best guest speakers you have seen at your school/library? What made that speaker so impressive?

HOGLUND: The best presenters create immediate interest and rapport with the audience.  They are comfortable in front of an audience and catch the children’s attention right at the beginning.  They are then careful to keep the attention throughout the presentation and vary the information/how they deliver the information enough to keep their audience’s interest.  Often time their presentation is interesting, lively, appropriately paced (i.e. not slow or boring) and involves humor (appropriate to the topic

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

It can be easy to forget, sometimes, that we are writing for young people.

Our first reader tends to be a spouse or parent or close friend: all adults. Same with the people in our critique groups, book clubs, workshops, writing classes. Our editors and agents and publishers are grown-ups.

That’s why it’s so important—and fun!—to get out there and read your work to kids. And the best place to find kids (especially large groups of them that are legally obligated to sit still in a room and listen to an adult) is at a school. And I’m willing to bet that if you emailed teachers in your area, introduced yourself as a local writer and offered to come in and read some of your work to the class, you are going to hear a lot of enthusiastic Yes’s.

I taught high school English, Speech and Drama for over a dozen years, so I was able to read to kids on a daily basis. If you are nervous about going into a school to share your work, trust me on this: kids of all ages LOVE being read to. I dealt with teenagers, who have the reputation of being a little jaded and too-cool-for-it-all. But on the first day of school, I told every class the same thing: “Reading is important, and I’m going to treat the first five or ten minutes of every class period like kindergarten and we’re going to have story time.” I never once received a single complaint. The only question I got (and I heard it often) was: “Does that mean we can sit in a circle on the floor like in kindergarten?”

Here are a few tips that I’ve learned over the years about reading to kids:

Movement is Important

Don’t just stand in one place, or hide behind a lectern. Walk back in forth in front of the class. The movement is not just interesting for the kids, but it will help you to be more dynamic in your reading; something about the motion will find its way to your voice. Plus, a moving target is harder for the spitball-tossers. (Just kidding! Kids don’t throw spitballs anymore.) (They throw inkballs.) (Again, kidding. Don’t be nervous. Kids are way nicer than people give them credit for.)

For more advanced movement, step right into your audience. Walk up and down the aisles. Don’t worry if not everyone can see your face at all times. This type of movement gives lots of different kids a “front row” seat at some point during your reading. It will definitely get their attention.

Reading a Story is a Performance

Do the character voices. Make hand gestures that the character might be making. Pause dramatically. Raise your voice during the exciting parts. Lower your voice during the tense parts so the kids have to lean forward to hear you.

How much you do this will depend on the age of your audience. Elementary kids like it when your performance is broad. Teenagers expect things to be a little more subtle and nuanced. But they all like a show.

(And remember–good performances require rehearsal. Make sure to practice in front of a mirror. Or your dog.)

Interrupt Yourself

The

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

Today we’re finishing the artists’ toolbox series with a paw through a sculptor’s kit. And I’m inviting you to a party… but that comes at the end of this post, after all the explosions.

The finished product is so lifelike… only better. So delicate, yet strong.

Whether it’s Michelangelo’s David or Dale Chihuly’s glass work the finished art doesn’t look “made.” It seems conjured by some intricate magic spell.

That’s the effect you’re going for in your writing, too. Natural. Effortless. Seamless. Magical.

But creating art isn’t delicate, not in the early stages anyway.

Sculptors create elegant works of art with rough, tough tools.

Jackhammers (this man is sculpting Mt. Rushmore)

blow torches (this woman is patinating a bronze sculpture)

and even dynamite

This is just a humongous explosion but you get my drift.

Shimmering prose isn’t a matter of proof reading and word shifting. Sometimes you need to bring out the power tools. Gorgeous writing requires our own version of dynamite. In our case that’s a delete button.

I almost wrote “sometimes gorgeous prose requires dynamite” but that wouldn’t be honest, at least not in my case. When I write getting from rough draft to less rough draft to almost time to polish draft ALWAYS requires liberal use of the delete button.

Cynthia Leitich Smith famously deletes her ENTIRE first draft. When Cynthia first told me this I was skeptical. Okay not just skeptical. I was scornful. How could a good writer delete months of work? What possible benefit could that serve? Isn’t that just some kind o

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

“You’re writing is almost there… but… I couldn’t connect with the story…characters… (fill in the blank)…”

Have you ever received feedback like this? What does it mean? Even more important– how on earth can you fix it?

When I read a manuscript that’s almost there but not quite, when I can’t quite connect with the story or the characters, nine times out of ten the problem is focus. Descriptions jump. There’s no “flow.” But the fix is fairly simple. I believe these writers would benefit from a trip to the movies… or more specifically a dig through a film director’s toolbox.

Today I’m suggesting you borrow a director’s viewfinder… and learn to select the shots you “film” on your page, focusing with care of an Orson Wells or Alfred Hitchcock.

A viewfinder frames a shot just as a camera would. It can also scroll in and out, capturing both close up shots and panoramas. The camera (and your writing) connects only when the shot is well framed.

Still confused about how you’d use this tool to write a novel?

Tollboother Sarah Aronson is an expert at writing from the director’s chair. Her Vermont College thesis was on writing as a film director and recently she published an article on the topic in the literary journal Hunger Mountain.

Sarah says “The basic unit of both fiction and film is the shot. (Rober Olen) Butler defines the shot as ‘an uninterrupted flow of imagery.’ A shot can be a glimpse or a moment; it can encompass dialogue and even a complete scene.”

So what shot are you trying to capture? How close in do you want to be? Close enough to see the beads of sweat on your protagonist’s forehead? Pulled back far enough to watch thunderclouds building on the horizon? You can’t have it both ways in a single camera shot or moment on the page. You have to make a choice.

“(W)e see the images as dictated by the viewpoint character,” Sarah says. “The narrative voice modulates our image of the fictive world. We can jump in time. We can speed up; we can slow down. In fiction, we have the ability to place the reader at an intentional distance from the scene. Creating “long shots” and “close ups” are the job of the narrative voice.”

Sarah recommends reading both John Gardiner’s classic The Art Of Fiction and Robert Olen Butler’s

Originally published at Through the Tollbooth. Please leave any comments there.

We writers talk a lot about our “toolbox”– all the tips and techniques we’ve collected to lift a story up. Some of my favorite tools are psychic distance, descriptive details, and internal monologue (okay I know Sarah Aronson’s teeth are grinding now! She HATES internal monologue!) But are there other tools we rarely think about? What tools do musicians, sculptures, or film makers use? Can we snatch some of theirs and make those tools our own?

I’m loving a new television series playing on my public tv channel. It’s called The Artists Toolbox and it features interviews with artists in every imaginable discipline, from painters to comedians to chefs. The interviews are just plain interesting, but more important they offer hints about how people in other disciplines pursue their art and give me clues about tools I may want to steal for my own bag of tricks.

Check it out! But until then lets think about other artists here at the Tollbooth. This week we’ll explore painting, film making and –to kick off the series, today we’ll talk about music.

Playing music, practicing an instrument, and composing all have great things to teach us as writers. I attended a small bit of the first ever Music Composition residency last summer at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and I was thrilled at the overlap I saw between what I’m trying to do with my writing and what these composers are doing with sound, rhythm, and emotion.

As I listened to the composers talk and the musicians play I began to think…

Second- Read aloud. Musicians play their pieces and just like a piece of music reading your own work out loud is essential. But sometimes it’s hard to really listen when you’re reading. Tape record yourself reading your manuscript and listen, not just for meaning, but for rhythm, as if it is a piece of music. Or get a friend to read your work to you. Pay them in tollhouse cookies or return the favor.

I’m excited to think of my prose as a sort of musical score on the page.

What has music taugh