Have you had a chance to read SPILLING INK by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter? If you haven't, you must check it out. It's a great resource for the young writer, or a middle school teacher to use in a classroom setting. And I'll admit, there are helpful tips for an older person (ahem), like me. Note: Thank you, MacMillan Children's Publishing Group for sending me a copy.
But, have no fear. This is NOT a boring writing manual. No way. Kids are going to have fun learning how to write.
The book cover and illustrations pop (thanks to illustrator Matt Phelan). Add in Anne's and Ellen's catchy titles, entertaining chapters, and I DARE YOU writing exercises, and you've got a great book young writers will want to use, over and over again. Anne and Ellen encourage their readers, offering them easy to understand examples and helpful tips. First drafts, voice, characters, plot, dialogue, writer's block, and even revisions won't seem impossible to handle. And that is huge.
Without further ado, I'm so pleased to welcome Anne and Ellen as guest bloggers today.
What made you most nervous about collaborating at the beginning?
Anne: Creative collaborations are my idea of heaven on earth. What could be more fun than brainstorming, thinking up ideas, tossing concepts around with another person? (Well, that’s my idea of fun, anyway.) So I was really pleased about collaborating with Ellen, whose writing I admired. If I was nervous about anything, it was about whether this collaboration would work. I half-expected it to fall apart. Ellen and I barely knew each other. It was quite likely that we’d get on each other’s nerves, or one of us would feel committed and the other wouldn’t, or else we’d have a disagreement and the whole project would collapse. Then, every time I saw one of Ellen’s books in a bookstore, I’d get a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and would have to leave fast.
I had NO clue that I was embarking on a fabulous, life-changing writing partnership that was, by the way, one of the better experiences of my life.
Do you have any tips for potential collaborators on how to give each other feedback?
Anne: First of all, you need to be honest about what you like and dislike. If you can’t communicate openly, then your collaboration will fail.
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I am so happy to have Becky Levine here today as my guest hostess. Becky offers great insight on the writing process. Did you know she wrote a book about the critique process? Enter THE WRITING & CRITIQUE GROUP SURVIVAL GUIDE: How to Give and Receive Feedback, Self-Edit, and Make Revisions. If you're looking for a book to help you get your writing to the next level, this is a GREAT choice. (In the interest of self-disclosure, I won Becky's book on the fabulous Shrinking Violet Promotions blog. Thank you to The Shrinking Violets and Becky! I should also mention, Becky is a friend and valuable critiquer. I'm here to tell you, Becky talks the talk AND she walks the walk. She is good.)
Support.
Support in a critique group might seem obvious. Yes, it’s about listening to each other
It’s about a lot of other things, too, though. And sometimes, we all need a little reminder about what those things are.
You are supporting your critique partner when you:
- Take the time and energy to give detailed feedback about their project. Give them a clear explanation, point to examples in their manuscript, and make suggestions about specific changes they might want to make.
- Don’t ignore that bland dialog or inconsistent characterization that is bothering you. It’s bothering them, too, believe me. They just don’t know what to do about it yet.
- Help them brainstorm through a plot problem or two. Schedule time to bounce ideas back & forth about their hero’s character development.
- Read multiple revisions of their manuscript. Who’s going to get it all right the first time through? Or the second?
- Say “yes,” when they ask if you can read longer chunks of their book,
13 Comments on Shining the Light on THE WRITING & CRITIQUE GROUP SURVIVAL GUIDE by Becky Levine AND a Giveaway!!, last added: 4/28/2010Display Comments Add a Comment
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Hope all of you had a nice weekend! It's been busy in my neck of the woods with lots of decluttering, cleaning, and writing. The kids finally have spring vacation and there's little chance I'll be allowed to do anything productive this week. The girls are determined to have interesting adventures to talk about in school--especially since "all" of their friends are jet-setting to Mexico, Aruba, Bermuda and Disney. And, we're not. But, I think they'll be pleased with our activities. *crosses fingers* Spy Girl checks out my blog, so I can't divulge any information...yet.
The one thing I can share today is my guest bloggers! I'm pleased to welcome THE TEXAS SWEETHEARTS -- P.J. Hoover (one of my wonderful critique buddies), Jo Whittemore, and Jessica Lee Anderson -- as my guest bloggers today. I asked them for some writing tips and they delivered! Use these tips well, my friends.
Yay for The Texas Sweethearts! Here's a blurb from their website:
We're from the awesome state of Texas—Austin to be exact.
(For you non-Texans, that's the nice, shiny star in the center of the state.)
We're entertaining, engaging, and we want to make a difference.
We love talking to kids, teens, adults, librarians, teachers, and writers. Actually, we love talking to anyone who will listen. There's nothing like seeing the joy in the face of a child discovering a love of reading.
Our books target all ages, and our dreams go beyond the realm of imagination. We'd love to come share our experiences and creativity with your group!
Writing for Kids from the Heart of Texas...P. J. Hoover:
First off, Vivian, thank you so much for letting The Texas Sweethearts guest post on your blog. Ever since I started blogging a few years back, I was in awe of the amazing HipWriterMama. She (you) was like this famous blogger [HWM: *snort* too kind], yet you made me feel so welcome to the kidlitosphere. And for that I will always be grateful!
So, my name is P. J. Hoover, and I write middle grade and YA fantasy. I have two books of a MG trilogy out so far. The first book, THE EMERALD TABLET, came out in 2008, and the second, THE NAVEL OF THE WORLD, came out
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Many of you know Mitali Perkins for her wonderful books or her wise advice on how to utilize social media to develop community and promote books. Perhaps you're one of the authors Mitali cheers on with her successful Twitter Book Parties, a virtual "celebration of new books for kids, tweens and teens." Or maybe you've seen Mitali act as an incredible advocate for many who feel voiceless, making us more aware of the need for children's/YA books showing race/ethnicity and sharing her knowledge of multi-cultural books.
Charlesbridge Publishing gave me an ARC of BAMBOO PEOPLE, Mitali's new book, due to be released in July 2010. As with all her books, Mitali writes with heart. BAMBOO PEOPLE is a special book, one I'd like to see children read to learn about other cultures, to understand the devastation of power and conflict, to believe in courage and friendship. Because Mitali does so much to help children's writers, I wanted to do something to help her spread the word about BAMBOO PEOPLE. Inspired by Mary E. Pearson's The Miles Between Road Trip, I give you the BAMBOO PEOPLE ARC Road Trip. You'll find details about the Road Trip at the end of this post.
Interested in learning more about BAMBOO PEOPLE? Please welcome Mitali Perkins!
MITALI: Good novels serve as windows into other worlds as well as mirrors for our own lives. While I wrote BAMBOO PEOPLE to depict the lives of Karenni and Burmese young people, I also want readers to see themselves mirrored in the story by connecting deeply with the characters.
How can the book be a window?
For three years my husband, children, and I lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand and visited the Karenni refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. I was astounded at how the Karenni kept their hopes up despite incredible loss, still dreaming and talking of the day when they would once again become a free people. I was impressed, too, by how creatively they used bamboo. Homes, bridges, transportation, weapons, food, storage, irrigation—all these and more depended on the resilient, lavish, and ecologically efficient bamboo plant. I began to think about that plant as an excellent symbol for the peoples of that region.
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I've been swamped with revisions and thought I'd ask my talented friend, Beth Kephart, to host today's post. Beth kindly agreed and it made me all sorts of happy. I mean, have you visited Beth's blog? Her blog is beautiful prose and color.
And she's here!
Please welcome Beth...
----------------
Dear hipwritermama (who is indeed a very hip, very fine writer, not to mention a very great mother and dear soul) invited me here for a guest post, and I said yes, of course. It’s really great, for one thing, to hang out in her well-decorated, thoroughly well-organized space. (I’m already feeling calmer.) But it’s also really wonderful to have a chance to talk here about my new book, THE HEART IS NOT A SIZE.HEART was a long time coming. Written shortly after I journeyed to Juarez with my husband, son, and about two dozen others, it stayed put for awhile—bought by HarperTeen but put onto a back shelf while work on NOTHING BUT GHOSTS proceeded. Sometimes books need to stew, and HEART certainly did, for while I had the landscape down, and while I had captured my love for the gorgeous children that we’d met in a squatters’ village known as Anapra, I did not yet have a sufficiently firm grip on my two protagonists, Georgia and Riley. I knew Georgia, my protagonist, to be a middle child, as I am a middle child. I knew her to be sturdy, responsible, strong-seeming. I knew that she was wrestling with something deep within, but I had not named it yet. Georgia sees a flier, in the story, announcing a goodwill trip to Juarez. She decides that she must go. Something is drawing her to the raw and the unknown, but in my first drafts of the book, it wasn’t entirely clear to me what that was.
Riley, Georgia’s best friend, is a character I discovered one night at a restaurant as I watched a beautiful slip of a girl tell stories to a friend. She was familiar to me; I sensed I knew her inner story. She was Riley; I have no idea where that name came from. I put her down on paper and then I waited to move more knowingly within her world.
I need time away from books to make them right, and I took about a year away from HEART. When I returned to it, I was aching for it. I wanted to be with it, and with nothing else. Jill Santopolo, then at HarperTeen, was asking some interesting and on-point questions. I wanted to answer her, but more than anything: I wanted answers for myself.
HEART matters to me because it is about a real place suffering very real turmoil. It is about that question: What can we really do to make a difference in the world? I have always sought to write books that somehow make a difference, and if I c31 Comments on Shining the Light on THE HEART IS NOT A SIZE by Beth Kephart, last added: 3/27/2010Display Comments Add a Comment
This book sounds great! Thanks for a great post. My kids love the Olivia Kidney books. Now we'll have to read the Abby Hayes books. AND Spilling Ink.<br /><br />I like their approach to writing together.
My kids and I love doing the writing exercises in Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine. This sounds like another one we could enjoy together. Thanks for the heads up!
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