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Not every piece of art is a picture book illustration. Here's one image that's part of a phonics program for kindergarten students. It's just one of dozens of different spots. A fun challenge - creating lots of individual images instead of dealing with the consistency of illustrating a 32 page picture book.

Wall Street Journal had a very interesting article about a new Internet phenomenon.  The explosion of online dating and networking sites has created a new form of plagiarism, and it’s not pretty.  People desperate to impress are apparently cut-n-pasting themselves an extreme personality makeover! According to the WSJ article:

“Among the 125 million people in the U.S. who visit online dating and social-networking sites are a growing number of dullards who steal personal profiles, life philosophies, even signature poems. “Dude u like copied my whole myspace,” posts one aggrieved victim.

Copycats use the real-life wit of others to create cut-and-paste personas, hoping to land dates or just look clever.”  

In my opinion what it boils down to is a lack of writing skills combined with laziness. We have become a “sound-bite society”.  Many people no longer have the patience to take a few minutes to be creative, witty and real. And while text messaging is quick and convenient, it makes for crummy dating profile. “SWM, n 2 tunes n vid games, seeks buTful girl n 2 same.”

Um, yea. But rather than write a compelling profile with subtle humor, deeper insight, and actual information about the writer’s personality, it’s much easier to seek the technological out, find somebody with a quirky, fascinating personality and steal it. I find myself wondering if their is multi-tier plagiarism going on.  Has somebody every copied a personality that was already plagiarized? Hmmmm….

But back to my point, this is exactly why we need to feed our children a steady diet of good literature from birth through 12th grade, and I mean real literature, not watered down pabulum! I once had a discussion with another author about how kids today are bored by the classics. The writer insisted that the because kids are bombarded with quick, easy entertainment (video games, TV, email, text messages) the writing in the classics wasn’t staccato enough, and had too much unnecessary detail. Novels mentioned  included Anne of Green Gables and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn!  The writer assured me that these novels would never be published in today’s publishing atmosphere. I agreed, but in my mind it was more a condemnation of today’s literature than the classics! (Note: there are a lot of wonderful books being written today, so this isn’t blanket condemnation.)

I know there are a lot of creative and wonderful young people out there and not everybody is ripping off a snazzy profile for their Myspace page. But it really concerns me that some young people are finding it too much trouble to come up with a couple of creative paragraphs about their own ideas and interests.

Whenever I’m asked what the secret to good writing is I have one main response: Good reading. This illustrates exactly what I mean.

K…

You know, of course, that E.B. White wrote classic children’s novels like Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan. As a child I enjoyed Charlotte’s Web quite a lot. In my favorites it ranked just above Are You There God it’s Me Margaret and below The Chronicles of Narnia (everything ranked below Narnia until I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn). But I’ve recently discovered E.B White’s glorious essays, and they rank very closely to C.S. Lewis essays in my opinion.

One of White’s essays is titled “Death of a Pig“, which was published in the January 1948 edition of the Atlantic Monthly. 

It’s a plain-speaking tale of a sick pig and how White tried, in vain, to help the pig recover over the course of many days.  The writing is funny and poignant at the same time.  The style is reminiscent of Lewis.  The two shared a droll sense of humor and an assumption that their readers shared their intelligence.  White and Lewis were contemporaries (born a year apart) and I found myself wondering if they ever met. I couldn’t find the information on Google so I assume not.  The essay itself is very touching, and it really conveys how something ordinary, like an ailing farm animal, can cause profound emotions and spur life evaluations.

I’ve read that White insists that Charlotte’s Web wasn’t inspired by the sick pig incident. Now, I’m not calling him a liar, but I find it hard to fathom that some little part of his subconscious didn’t have his old, sick pig in mind as he wrote about the porcine hero, Wilbur, who received a most remarkable pardon from an almost certain death sentence. One of the greatest benefits of being a writer is giving readers more satisfying endings than real life usually provides.

K…

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I took a walk with my camera and I was inspired to write a poem. I hope you will indulge me in allowing me to share it with you. Some of the pictures aren’t tack sharp. I took a cheap lens because it is light weight and has a long zoom, and I just wanted a general impression of the day.

Winter’s Retreat

I braved the chill and took a walk.

The cold served well to warm my mind.

With every crunching step I took

I left a troubled thought behind.

Worry fled this wintry world,

retreating from tranquility.

Through the wondrous white I waltzed

much enchanted to be free.

Nature held a gala ball,

all creation donned in grace.

Rosehips bent in lovely bow,

trees bedecked in winter’s lace.

Streams swirled free from icy grips

singing odes to far off spring.

Evergreens stood sentry watch

undisturbed by winter’s sting.

Leisurly I walked in bliss

thankful just to rove and roam.

But when I reached my own front door

the troubled thoughts had beat me home.

–KW 08

Let’s have a look at language.  Did you ever stop and pause at the phrase, “Never look a gift horse in the mouth?” No?  Must just be me. Anyway, here is one phrase that is definitely past its time. The phrase goes back at least as far as 1546, the first recorded form of it in print.

Having three horses I know that proof of age and health can be found in their mouths.  It’s not uncommon when buying a horse to pry the poor creature’s jaws open and gaze at the wear on his teeth and the general “pinkness” of his gums and tongue.  (Unfortunate. I imagine the horses aren’t getting the best first impression of a possible new owner.) 

Throughout history horses have been popular gifts.  Healthy horses apparently weren’t.  But it was considered bad manners to prop open the jaws of your “gift horse” and estimate its worth or lack thereof.  A Miss Manners of 1546 might caution her readers to accept their gift horse gratefully and curtsy.  She might quip, “If life (or a cheap aquaintance)  gives you an old horse, make glue!” (Readers, I do not advocate equine adhesive.)

Photo I took of our horse Rocky.

I mentioned that we own three horses.  I should say the horses own us.  I love them, but horses are very expensive. Hay, oats, trailers, vet bills, saddles, blankets, shoeing, barns, wormer, shots, tack and the list goes on….  Back in the day when horses were the primary source of transportation, these expenses weren’t so bad.  And let’s face it, a lot of them weren’t even a reality. Horse trailers? Horses carried you to your destination, not vice-versa.  Now horses are a luxury. When my CPA did my taxes he browsed our expenses. “I could save you a lot of money if you used your horses for income. Do you?” Um, sadly no. 

Our horses are precious to me. They are very entertaining and very beautiful.  But if somebody were to give me a gift horse I would assuredly look it in the mouth.  Then I might proclaim, “Looks healthy. You keep him.”

You may be wondering what all of this has to do with children’s writing?  Nothing, but never look a gift post in the mouth.

K….

When I do school visits, something I like to tell the kids is that they need to keep their mind open so ideas are free to fall inside.  As a writer, especially as a writer for children, it’s very important to be open to suggestion. And a suggestion might show up anywhere. Keeping an open mind isn’t something that just happens, it is something we achieve by stimulating the mind.  When doing so we pry our heads open so they are ready to receive and formulate ideas. 

A few months back I learned this lesson all over again. I watched the movie Ms. Potter with my daughter (love that unintentional rhyme). Renee Zellweger is one of my favorite actresses, and in my opinion she really did shine in this movie. Being a compulsive researcher, as soon as the movie ended I googled Beatrix Potter to see what I might discover.  I came across an online auction for some original letters penned by Beatrix herself. 

Beatrix is rumored to have answered all fan mail diligently.  One of these auctioned letters was in response to a young fan. In the letter she mentioned that another fan had asked her to write a book about a crocodile named Amelia. Beatrix quipped, “….a crocodile named Amelia, that I cannot stand!”  The line literally jumped off the page at me!  It would be the perfect basis for verse–and had natural rhythm and flow.  And so the poem “When Naming Crocodiles” was born.  It is one in a collection of poems for children I’m currently writing. 

A scanned copy of the letter by Beatrix Potter.

When I think about it, I’m not at all surprised that my mind was primed for discovery.  Learning about Beatrix Potter had me excited about my craft. I was delving into a previously undiscovered world–the world of Beatrix Potter.  The language in her letters was so refreshingly proper without being at all stuffy.  She possessed a very understated, droll sense of humor. Almost every sentence had me smiling in admiration. Here I had someone to live up to!  (Not that I’m comparing myself to Ms. Potter. I would never. But in any endeavor we must have role models we aspire to.)

So remember, work to keep your mind open. When I say this, I picture the top of my head as a hinged lid–the lid is open, and ideas are pouring in.  One of the best ways I’ve found to force open the mind is to get excited about your craft.  Study something, anything, that interests you.  Who are the writers or artists you admire?  Look them up. Read letters by them, biographies about them, or articles and essays they have written.  If they are an artist, study their paintings and sketches.  If it’s on record, try to find what the inspiration for the art was.  I’ve found that my very best ideas are often not entirely my own. In searching out inspiration you may well find a gift you did not expect–like crocodiles named anything but Amelia.

K…

Have you ever noticed that the word resolution broken down is simply a solution redone?  Re-solution.  There is a reason for that–at the beginning of every year we think of solutions to our life’s problems, and promise ourselves we’re going to set the solutions into motion.  Then many times our solutions fail, or more likely are never given a chance to succeed.  As the days of the year march on, our solutions (or resolutions) fade into the past, undone.  Then when enough days speed past we find ourselves at the end of another year, no closer to our goals then we were a year ago. Why? Boy, this post sounds like a downer, huh?

Not at all.  Keep resolving, keep making resolutions.  It often takes many tries to get something right. Most ex-smokers have quit dozens of times.  Most ex-overweight people have lost thousands of lbs and regained them. Then one day something quicks, and the resolve sticks.  Success follows. 

I will write my novel this year.  What will you do.  Let’s not meet here next year, okay?  Let’s make this a solution, not a re-solution.  But if we do meet here again next year, let’s not give up. 

Karma