Sorry if I tricked you.
This is not a post about breaking picture-book-writing rules. (Although I will DEFINITELY get on that idea lickety-split!)
This post’s about the book BREAK THESE RULES!
Due from Chicago Review Press in September, yours truly plus 34 kidlit authors YOU’VE ACTUALLY HEARD OF (unlike me), take on typical life rules adults love to preach (like “Grow Up and Be Serious!”) and offer our experience of why it’s probably a BETTER idea to BREAK those rules.
The subtitle says it all: “35 YA Authors on Speaking Up, Standing Out, and Being Yourself”—and so do the yellow canvas sneakers clashing with the argyle socks.
Behold the brand-spanking-new cover!
My husband asked why my name wasn’t on the cover. Isn’t he adorable? (Seriously, I just wanna pinch his cheeks like a plump polyester-pant-suit-wearing Auntie.) Um, there’s no way anyone’s gonna pick up this book because it says “Tara Lazar”. But look—it says Matthew Quick and “The Silver Linings Playbook”. HOLY OSCAR-WORTHY GUACAMOLE, PEOPLE!
So be on the lookout for this extraordinary compilation come September because all proceeds benefit The Children’s Defense Fund. And it’s sure to be a POWERFUL read for adolescents and teens (and the occasional pusillanimous adult).
Happy New Year, Everyone!
I hope you're all rested and refreshed and ready to plunge ahead into 2013.
While on our winter blogging break, we TeachingAuthors were busy working behind-the-scenes, planning a new weekly feature. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know we often include Writing Workouts with our posts. As it says in our sidebar: "We invite classroom teachers to use these writing exercises with their students, and adult writers to try them on their own." Many of you have told us that you especially appreciate and look forward to our Writing Workouts. So we've decided to pull them out of our regular posts and create a separate feature: the Wednesday Writing Workout!
As you can see, we've added some text but kept our former
Writing Workout image--a set of barbells and a ribbon with a medal. The logo represents how
everyone who works out with us is a winner!
While continuing with our regular posts on Mondays and Fridays, we'll devote Wednesdays to
Wednesday Writing Workouts. Each
WWW will be written by one of the
TeachingAuthors or, as is the case today, by a
Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor.
To introduce the new feature and celebrate a new year,
we're also having a Book Giveaway! Every writer and writing teacher will want a copy of our giveaway book on his/her reference/inspiration shelf:
Keep Calm and Query On: Notes on Writing (and Living) with Hope (Divertir Publishing). And the book happens to be written by today's
Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor.
I'll share our
Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor's bio before giving you his
Writing Workout. See if you can guess the author's identity before I reveal it below. (No fair looking up the
MGTA's books online before that!)
Today's
MGTA has the kind of resume our readers love: A former teacher of grades 7 through 12 and a writer of children’s fiction, he’s the editor of the forthcoming book for teens and tweens
, Break These Rules (Chicago Press). He co-edited
Burned In: Fueling the Fire to Teach (Teachers College Press) and
Dedicated to the People of Darfur: Writings on Fear, Risk, and Hope (Rutgers University Press). Teachers College Press also published his latest book for teachers,
A Call to Creativity: Writing, Reading, and Inspiring Students in an Age of Standardization.
Does this bio sound familiar? That's because Esther
reviewed Keep Calm and Query On back in October. She gave the book a big
Thumbs Up!
Before I reveal the identity of our
Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor, here's his TERRIFIC
Wednesday Writing Workout:
Give Logic a Lollipop:
I am one of those people who believes that we’re all still children, really. Whether we’re 32 or 64 or 96, there’s something innate in us that stubbornly refuses to grow up no matter how much coffee we drink (in my case, a lot), how much we worry about paying bills, or how professional we look in our formal attire. The kid-like parts of us are often covered by layer after layer of logic. While the growth of logic is hugely beneficial to things like paying our bills, walking out of the house with matching socks and a straight tie or proper dress, and generally being responsible, an area that is bleached of vitality by our intense focus on forcing everything to make sense is our writing life.
This
Wednesday Writing Workout, then, asks us to momentarily allow logic to sit by himself on the far bench, way over on the other side of the room. Give Logic a lollipop and the latest Time magazine, and then sneak off to your writing desk and try something illogical to fuel those writing muscles.
1. Visualize your favorite film actor or actress.
2. Close your eyes, and continue visualizing that person, and then reach out—literally!—your hand and shake their hand, up and down. Then smile knowingly (eyes still closed) like you and your favorite film star are sharing some inside joke even though you haven’t spoken any words yet. You’re that tight.
3. Open your mouth (literally!) and speak the very first words that come to mind.
4. Now open your eyes, pick up your pen or open up a Word document on your computer and write your name, then a colon, then the words you’ve just said.
5. Then write the actor’s / actress’s name, a colon, and his / her response.
6. Continue writing your ‘scene’ with dialogue that emerges organically and no matter how seemingly ridiculous it is, just follow the exercise through.
7. Every once in a while, try to insert a small note on the setting—the weather outside, what you’re eating (lollipops?), what noises occur in the background, and anything else that creates the mood of your conversation.
8. Try to continue this scene for at least two pages. This is a perfect opportunity to work our writing muscles by putting ourselves into a situation that allows the kid-like part of us to trump the adult part of us.
So often, as writers, we can think in terms of productivity and progress. And these are both great things in the life of a writer. Hey, who doesn’t want to add a few more pages to that novel, or bang out a few more notes for that picture book? But sometimes, persistent focus on productivity and progress have the side effect of hiding us from the kid-like parts of our writer selves, that are concerned—almost entirely—with joy, engagement, emotion, quirks, and creativity.
My seven-year-old nephew loves writing stories. When I talk with him about what he’s writing, he doesn’t give me the latest page count or the stats on which publishers have checked out his work yet. Even while I sometimes focus too much on those things, I try to shake my head and heart to return to what matters: the creation itself. The sheer beauty, hilarity, pain, joy, and love of it. And this process must, by definition, involve flights of fancy and the decision to leave logic a little lonely at times.
Today, for your
Wednesday Writing Workout, craft this scene and let the kid in you lead the way. I promise you’ll discover pearls that—if nothing else—will make you laugh, and possibly even provide a kernel for a louder pop later.
* * *
What a wonderful
Wednesday Writing Workout to inaugurate our new feature! And now, finally, it's time for the big reveal. Today's Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor is (drum roll please):
 |
| Luke Reynolds! |
Special thanks to Luke for helping to launch our new feature! Readers, if you'd like to know more about Luke, see
his website. I also encourage you to check out his blog
, Intersections: One Writer's Journey Through Parenting, Living Abroad, Faith, Publishing, and Social Justice.
As I mentioned above, Luke is the author of
Keep Calm and Query On: Notes on Writing (and Living) with Hope (Divertir Publishing). If you read Esther's
review, you're going to want to enter our drawing for a chance to win your very own copy.
To enter our drawing, you must follow the
TeachingAuthors blog. (If you’re not already a follower, you can sign up now in
our sidebar to subscribe to our posts via email, Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Network blogs.)
You may enter the contest one of two ways:
1) by posting a comment below OR
2) by sending an email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.
Whichever way you enter, you
MUST:
1) Just for fun, tell us whether you guessed Luke's identity before the big reveal. We'd also love your feedback on his
Writing Workout and/or what you think of our new
Wednesday Writing Workout feature.
2) give us your first and last name,
AND
3) tell us how you follow us (via email, Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Network blogs) .
4) If you enter via a comment, you
MUST include a valid email address (formatted this way: youremail [at] gmail [dot] com) in your comment.
This contest is open only to followers who can provide a mailing address in the United States. Incomplete entries will be discarded. The
entry deadline is 11 p.m. (CST) next Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. We'll announce the winner on Friday, Jan. 11. Good luck!
Happy writing, and happy 2013!
Carmela
Yes, I’m from Jersey where “lotsa” is a word.
But enough formalities, let’s get on with the prizes!
The new blog subscriber winner of the three-picture-book prize pack is: ORTHODOXMOM3!
Congratulations! I’ll be sending you an email shortly!
And now onto the KEEP CALM AND QUERY ON goodies from Ryan Gosling (aka Luke Reynolds)!
First, the winner of the signed book is: MARY ZISK!
Next, the winner of the query critique from Luke is: REBECCA COLBY!
Finally, the lucky person who gets a phone call pep publishing talk with Luke is: SUSAN G. CLARK!
Okay, ladies, try to KEEP CALM!
I’ll send you an email later today!
Congratulations to all! And remember…there’s more giveaways coming in April!
It’s Picture Book Palooza month!
(And obviously exclamation mark month, too.)
If you haven’t already read the February 2011 issue of The Writer Magazine, I highly recommending grabbing a copy of it and absorbing it from front to back. Not only does the reader learn about the latest contest winner and get to read a super-interesting new story, but there are also several lessons in writing that will hold their footing anywhere.
A profile that will grab your attention and hold it for as long as you have memory is one written by Bob Blaisdell. He writes about a little recognized writer by the name of Jorge Luis Borges.
This man who had almost no vision is described as “a thoroughly literary being” and from the examples given of his talent, I’d have to agree. He did things with words and concepts that I’ve never seen before. And now that I’ve seen those examples, I’ll never look at my writing the same way again. His one piece of advice for writers was “Let your imagination out to play.”
Though he’s gone now his writings and his examples will live on to inspire and instruct those who’ve come after. Be sure to study Borges’s technique as revealed in Blaisdell’s profile of this little-known author.
Mark Wagstaff’s prize-winning story is showcased along with a great little biography of the writer. The magazine also chose to annotate with the contest judge’s evaluation and reasons for choosing this story as the winner. This read shows much of what a current editor might be looking for in submissions in the way of style, tautness of structure, etc. There’s a lot packed into less than 2000 words here.
Literary fiction author, Charles Baxter does an interview with Luke Reynolds. Baxter talks about how writers need to remain true to their stories and the characters who live within them. Reynolds calls Baxter one of the contemporary masters of literary fiction. That’s a title hard to come by today. If you want to see how a modern literary author, with stories made into movies, thinks and works, this should be a can’t-miss interview for you.
Stephen Delaney takes the reader into the mind of the character by showing how to use the character’s thoughts to help tell important parts of the story as well as unveil character backstory, personality traits, physicality, etc. without having to use narrative in the usual way. His point is to show how to create the drama of a piece by using those thoughts. This was a great instruction piece and well worth holding on to, regardless of the genre involved in one’s writing.
There are more interviews, more instruction pieces, and oodles of extras that The Writer is so good at laying at the feet of writers. And if you can’t get your hands on the physical magazine, drop onto the website at: www.WriterMag.com/
Peruse the website and enjoy all the goodies available there. Sign up to get updates, if you wish. They come in handy.
And in case anyone wonders if this is advertising for the mag, I can tell you that they don’t need me to spread the word about their offerings. I just wanted to clue in those who don’t already subscribe or visit the site as to what they’re missing. This month’s issue is an especially good one. At least, for me it was.
Next time I’ll deal with another subject. Have a magnificent week, all. Until you drop in again, a bientot.
Claudsy
Your husband’s right. There must be a mistake. I wonder if they could pencil it in next to Gary Schmidt, whose writings I adore.
Oooh, you get a cheek pinch too!
When I showed my husband the cover and told him my name wasn’t on it, he said: “Yes, it it” and point to “And Many Others.” Our men are such optimists!
It should read “And Many Amazing Others”! LOL
Can’t wait. Congratulations on being part of what sounds like an amazing book.
Ooh, that sounds awesome! I’ll definitely be watching for it! Thanks, Tara. (And I would totally pick up any book that has your name on the cover!)
Sorry your name isn’t on the cover, but aren’t those your feet in flip-flops?
Seriously though, congratulations in a big way. One out of 35 ain’t bad.
You’ve got good taste! LOL
Ha ha, that’s a great idea. I’ll just say those are MY FEET! (Maybe I’ll claim to be all 6 of them. I’ve got range.)
Congratulations, Tara!! Sounds like a terrific book. And I’m right there rooting for your name on the cover, too.