Endings

Wikimedia Commons: Photo by Roke.

The end of one thing is the beginning of another, even if you're not sure what the next thing is yet.  This blog is coming to a rest, and I seem to be searching for comfort lines.   I hate endings, fictional or real.

Read more!

The Salt Cellar: Object Inspiration

By Photo by Nick Michael (Private collection)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

On every visit, the salt cellar takes me back to our first meeting.   

When we flew from Washington, D.C. to London to meet my boyfriend’s parents, I was nervous and intimidated.  Their flat was in the upscale Mayfair area of central London.  Their neighbor was ‘Punch’ Sulzberger, former publisher of the NY Times.  They belonged to dining clubs.  

Their apartment overflowed with status, each museum-like piece reminding me of my modest experience in life. Persian rugs.  Original oil paintings.  When we sat down for dinner, there was so much sparkling crystal and silver, I felt the need to shade my eyes.

The intricately carved silver salt cellar (no, no, not just a bowl – a cellar) sat on the table mocking me.  The salt rested there, open-faced, fresh, clean white grains.  I LOVE salt.  I needed salt.  But…there was no spoon. 

Read more!

Common Core: Basics and Opportunities

Everyone is talking about the Common Core Standards: it's implementation means nonfiction is up and coming. Not being a librarian or teacher, I didn't know more than that, and thought I should.  I delved in, and discovered some useful resources and emerging opportunities.

Common Core Goal 

“To align instruction…so that many more students than at present can meet the requirements of college and career readiness.”   

Sounds like a worthy goal, but what does that mean for me as a writer?

Read more!

Liebster Award!

Thank you so much to Brianna Caplan Sayres of Brianna’s Book Stop for nominating The Paper Wait for a Liebster Award!  The Liebster Award is fun honor given to blogs that deserve more followers – thanks Brianna!  On behalf of the Paper Wait group, I accept. 

Now to answer all those questions Brianna asked…

1.     If you could be an animal what would it be?    An elephant – they have a great memory, have unique talents (their trunk can push over a tree, or pick up a single piece of straw - how cool is that?), they love their babies, and, the best thing, they never worry about their weight – they’re supposed to be that size. I‘d love that.

2.     What is your favorite part about blogging?
It forces me to think critically and more broadly about children’s writing; and it keeps me connected to a larger community in what can be a solitary task.

3.     What is your biggest writing challenge?
Keeping my bottom in the chair.  I am prone to distraction.

4.     What writing book/conference/website would you tell other children’s writers to read/attend/visit?

Book – Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Conference – our local NJ SCBWI conference does a great job of getting editors, agents and writers together

Website – Verla Kay’s Blue Board

5.     What advice do you wish someone would have given you when you started writing?
Write badly, write worse, and keep going.  Don't stop in the middle because you're worried about every word choice and sentence structure -- finish it.  You can fix it later. (that's what revision is for).  Great writers write awful stuff too.    

6.     What book (or books) do you wish you would have written?
Some Dogs Do by Jez Alborough (picture book); and probably Charlotte’s Web, for middle grade

7.     What are you most proud of? 
Besides my kids, hmmmm, ask me again after I publish my first book. 

8.     If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?  So many places… SouthAfrica (wildlife and wine); Petra, Jordan (city of stone); Israel (Holy Land)

9.     Book you most love to re-read?

Maybe not ‘read’ but I love delving into the Children’s Writers & Illustrator’s Market – despite many rejections, that list of publishers always fills me with optimism.  There's got to be somebody out there  who will love my manuscript.

10.  What question do you wish I would have asked you? Please answer it.
Something really easy, like... yes, I'd love another cup of tea! 

Thanks again, Brianna. 

Here are my nominations for the Liebster Award:

Leandra Wallace

Marcia Hoehne

Dew Drops of Ink

Jenswandowney

The Literary Lily Cate

Nominees, if you choose to accept, link back to the blogger who tagged you.  Nominate 5 to 10 other blogs with less than 200 members and answer the questions of the one who tagged you.  Then ask 10 questions for the bloggers you nominate; and let your nominee know of their award.

Here are my questions for those of you who choose to accept the award:

1. Where is your favorite place to write?

2. What’s the worst advice you’ve ever received?
3. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
4. What’s your favorite book(s)?
5. What’s in your TBR pile?

6. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

7. What distracts you most from writing?
8. What is your biggest source of inspiration?
9.  Why do you blog?  

10. Share one of your quirky writing habits…

Read more!

Modifying a Longstanding Tradition

Something really stuck in my mind about the novel I recently read (Tabloid City by Pete Hamill) - not the plot or the writing, but the… punctuation. 

Instead of quotes to indicate dialogue, the book uses a beginning dash.  See a few sentences here in which the tabloid’s editors, Briscoe and Logan, are talking about a murder being investigated by a young reporter called Fonseca:

Read more!

WWED?

Farewell, Elmore Leonard, father of five children and 45 novels.  Glimpses of your hugely successful writing process will continue to inspire those of us struggling to find a fraction of your writer's life.

• Elmore Leonard talked about his approach to Bob Greene (Wall Street Journal): "When I get into the writing, I have a pretty good idea of who the main characters will be. But I still don't know exactly how the story will work. And something happens to me in almost every book: A character that, in my mind, may have been fairly minor turns into a major character. I hear him talking, and I realize: This guy is interesting."
• Elmore Leonard always wrote a scene from a single character’s point of view, then often rewrote the same scene from another character’s POV to see if it was more effective.  
• His use of dialogue is legendary.
• Though he started writing in the 1950’s, he ‘found his style’ after reading George V. Higgins’ classic 1970 crime novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle, with its prolific profane dialogue: “I read it and I changed my style somewhat…I started to use expletives where they belonged. I started to open my scenes with dialogue. Higgins set me free.”

Read more!

A Writer's Workout

At the suggestion of a critique partner, I cut my latest manuscript into pieces.  I tell ya, critiques can be rough!

Seriously, they can.  But this was a new angle on revision.  I’m putting my ms back together like one of those magnetic poetry puzzles.  I mix and match the couplets that make up my PB, see what’s essential and what’s not.  In one exercise, I looked at only scenes with the main character.  A verse I thought was critical is actually redundant.  In another, I looked at only the bad guy.  Turns out he might be just as threatening without a verse or two.  Next, I’m going to rearrange the scenes with plot flow in mind. 

Something about the physicality– the touch and the visual of the paper pieces moving around, pushes my creativity button.  It’s also faster than doing it online. 

More physicality to come when I create a PB dummy for dummies by taping the paper verse over the text in an existing picture book.  You can see page turns and imagine the rising and falling action.  (Another helpful suggestion from a critique partner!)  All this physical hand waving and paper movement – maybe I'll lose some weight.

It’s impressive what new insights can be gained by viewing a puzzle from a different angle, like unexpectedly viewing a mirror or photograph of myself from the back (ooooh, that writer’s workout isn’t reaching much beyond my elbows...). 

Another great suggestion for a paper and glue workout comes from an interview with Jo Knowles (Lessons from a Dead Girl) on Inkygirl.  For her novels, she creates a storyboard.  Each chapter is represented by a simple picture (think stick figures a la Blues Clues), a quick plot summary below the picture, and the strongest emotion labeled at the top. The story arc is immediately apparent -- a one glance view of the ms.  It’s a great tool that should be just as (if not more) useful for PBs as well.

So writers, go get physical!  Let me know if you have any other suggestions for a writer’s workout, especially any that work off the weight that shows in those rear-view pictures.

Read more!

A Polished Pan, a Painful Illness and Writing

I roasted some chicken, then finished it off in the broiler.  The drippings burned and cemented themselves to my pan.  (Should have used tin foil…) I scrubbed hard, and a few of these lava-like rocks came off, but not enough for the pan to be used again.  I soaked it overnight.  Still, too much refused to budge.  I plopped more soap in and soaked it again.  More scouring only turned the Brillo pad’s pink soap into gray sludge, and gave me 'scrubber’s elbow.'  I wondered if it was time to trash it.

Something said ‘Try again – one more time.’  One more overnight soak, another hefty dose of aerobic elbow grease, and… it came clean.  Not only clean, but polished.  

Aaah, my writing lesson of the week – that’s how I should approach the manuscript I was thinking of abandoning.  Give it a little more brain-soak time, and a serious revision scour, again and then again.   That's how my process works.   For my current picture book project, that means considering a new creative non-fiction element.  Sometimes the process feels like I'm floating in gray sludge and those bits that don't work won't come out of my manuscript.  Then a piece of it comes up polished and ooh, that feels good!   

Two famous writers who, per Ariel's wish, did 'complain' about the writing process: 

"Easy reading is damn hard writing."  Nathaniel Hawthorne  

George Orwell's perspective is my favorite:

Read more!

Sound Resources

In the process of revising a manuscript AGAIN, I’ve been digging in to some familiar and newly-found websites to ignite my creative flame. (And, darn it, yes, I am able to make the manuscript better, even though I swore the *#@$ thing was finished.)  I thought others might find some of these resources useful. 

One of my revision goals has been to use more powerful and descriptive words, especially since this story uses a lot of onomatopoeia—sound words.  If words like sizzle, snarl, twang, whallop, belch, boosh, flump get you thinking and describing more vividly, then check some of these sites out. 

Read more!

In Favor of Editors

My book club chose our latest novel because: (1) the author is an acquaintance of one of our members and (2) the Amazon rating is 4.5 stars, based on about 150 reviews.

While the book was fast-paced and the character development was wonderful, the plot had a few gaping holes, which really bothered us.  Several unanswered questions and less-than-believable twists in the plot left me wondering, “Who published this?”

Read more!

Research, Cheese, and More Recipe Thoughts for Writers...

Photo Credit:  Magnus Manske

We dined at one of the most respected French restaurants in New York City last week. After the main course, a woman pushing a two-tiered cart laden with cheeses arrived.  “I am the commis de trancheur. Which cheeses would you care for?”  

The ‘commis de what?’ We decided not to ask.

“A Brie, a Cheddar and a Blue, thank you.”  My mother-in-law pointed as she spoke.

Read more!

Giraffe Stuck in the Drawer

Editorial rejection has infected me like a demotivating virus.   I have let it drive me from my office, until I rummaged in cupboards for Tylenol, tea bags and re-organization projects.

My ‘giraffe’ manuscript has languished for a few months.  I know I should send out the manuscript to several new and different editors. Yet, I have had trouble pulling it out of the file drawer.  It’s like my giraffe has entwined itself among the hanging files and is holding the drawer shut.  I know if I coax him out, we may be able to find him a home.  If he stays in the drawer, well...

Read more!

Drive Past the Predictable

Here's some good advice:  keep your plot unpredictable.  While that's easy to say, it's not so easy to do. 

I picked up a great tip on this challenge recently:  use your critique partners, not just for review, but for breaking through those tough plot bottlenecks.  

Try this exercise:  set the stage (your MC had a huge fight with her best friend), and ask your critique partners what might happen. 

Wait for the first answer (she storms off and refuses to talk?) and avoid this at all costs: the predictable plot. 

Read more!

Conference Tidbits

Thought I’d share a few nuggets of wisdom about ‘the business’ from the SCBWI NJ Fall Retreat a few weeks ago. In my next post, I’ll share some craft tips.

Editors, Agents and Consolidation
Selling a manuscript is increasingly "more difficult." There are fewer editors, and each editor is responsible for a growing number of books.

• Each editor has less time available to spend on each manuscript. 
• The Penguin/Random House merger will only add to this trend. 
• New authors: try a new and not-yet-established agent or editor, especially at reputable agencies. New authors need more personal attention. These young and hungry professionals can devote more time to you than a more senior editor may have available.

Author Responsibility
Several editors and agents agreed that authors are expected to do even more these days once they are published. Editors are looking for extra content: 

• short stories, 
• character notes, 
• side stories for minor characters. 

You must help, sometimes for free, to build the audience and bridge the time between major publications. Don’t throw away your character sketches or alternative plot notes!

Still, each and every editor professes to be looking for new talent -- but mostly through agents or conferences. As always, put forth only your best work.

Finally, kudos to Leeza Hernandez for keeping the conference on-track after Sandy.  Through our first day, the hotel was running on generator power.  NJ Transit was not in operation. Still we had a full panel of agents and editors, and a full schedule.   Thanks Leeza. 

Good luck and keep at it writers. 

Read more!

Giraffe Limbo

I tossed my ‘giraffe’ in the air…the rhyming manuscript about which I was so excited went off, exclusively, to two carefully chosen editors.

A month or two later, I had heard nothing; I assumed nothing.

As happens in this industry, it turns out that editor number one, for whom I had high hopes, left the publisher two weeks after I emailed her.  Editor number two has sent no reply.  Nearly three months have passed since I submitted.

I need to follow up so that I can forward the manuscript to other editors. How should this be handled? While I am out of luck with editor number one, is it as if the manuscript dissolved in cyberspace? Or do I have a responsibility to follow up with that publisher?  Editors move frequently.  What is the standard practice with manuscripts left unresolved upon that editor's departure?

With editor number two, I have a picayune protocol question: since I submitted by snail mail (as required) must I also follow-up by snail mail? Or can I shoot an email?

Rejection protocol. I know many of you have been through this before. Thanks in advance for your advice.

Read more!

Fineena's Final Choice

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=498079276887576&set=a.149988051696702.25673.121397914555716&type=1&theater

In our village in Ireland this summer, a 58 foot fin whale swam into our harbor, settled in to a corner where shore meets pier and rested in shallow water. The chest-high cement wall along the pier overflowed with villagers craning their necks to see over and down towards the water below.

With her nose into the apex of cement walls, able to submerge just inches beneath the surface, she rose and blew, spraying seawater from her blowhole and puffing every few minutes. It was a fascinating spectacle. How often can you watch a whale, and see its face, with protruding gray balls for eyes, and a white horseshoe mouth bigger than my kitchen, up close, for hours on end?

Sadly, it was soon apparent that our whale friend was not well. 
Muddy red water let everyone know that Fineena, (Irish for ‘beautiful child’, the name dubbed her by locals) was bleeding internally. No one, not the veterinarian, the whale specialist, nor the fishermen could help. This was real life, not a children’s story. Fineena lay ill for three days before dying, enduring tidal shifts which left her slick black skin half exposed above the water, scratched ragged from a gale-force storm which tossed her helplessly against the cement pier and rocky bottom. 

Simultaneously macabre and inspirational, from a writer’s point of view, I wonder where I should take this story. Children’s reactions were as varied as their accents. One teenage boy broke into tears. Others watched wide-eyed with obvious questions. Some just accepted it, with “That’s nature.” 

Can I use this emotive experience to write a happy picture book ending for Fineena? Can I use the powerful death scene I witnessed in a middle grade novel and how? Her behavior brings up so many questions and infinite story possibilities. Why did she choose our village as her final resting place? Why not the shallow creek where the seal colony lives, or another of the limitless, uninhabited coves nearby? Fineena swam past hundreds of boats with low keels, their thick-roped moorings stretching from the water’s surface to the bay floor, creating an underwater maze. How did she manage to cause no damage? Why was she so determined – was it something about the echo of human voices across the water? 

I wrote my initial impressions as the story unfolded. When I look back at that draft, I am struck by the richness of detail and emotion, and authenticity. The voice, using the point of view of the whale, is much more powerful than my remote efforts. So writers, you’ve heard it before: write it down, right away! Take copious notes. It matters. Readers will feel it. 

I don’t yet know what my final choice will be for the story, but it feels like a story worth sharing.

Read more!

Story Power

To follow up Judy’s previous post, Fiction Matters, some experts argue that stories shape our cultural and moral conscience. In a Wall Street Journal blog, Jonathan Gottschall asserted that fiction can help ‘bring on war (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”) or rapid social change’ (“Will and Grace” and the liberalization of attitudes towards homosexuality).

Stories help the brain learn and identify emotional truths that can be elusive in our own lives. Repeated fictional images render sights and situations more familiar, less frightening, even routine. Fiction is powerful.

 Images of the Aurora shooter, mimicking the famous Batman character the Joker are disturbing. While his incomprehensible actions probably have more to do with seeking glory through publicity than fictional ‘inspiration’ (see this thought provoking segment with noted forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz) the link to a fictional story is tragically, orange-ly obvious.

As a society we are increasingly inured to violence in fiction and reality, even weary on occasion. Are writers (fiction, non-fiction, journalist, content provider, etc.) responsible in part for this societal degeneration?

Read more!

Manly Writing Rooms

When I came across this article about writing rooms of famous men in the Art of Manliness, I couldn’t resist a peek.

The article includes movie-worthy libraries and studies of authors as famous as Rudyard Kipling, William F. Buckley, Norman Mailer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a few other notable names.  Roald Dahl’s space is such a welcome surprise, I have to share it with you. You can even explore his hut here, through the Roald Dahl museum.
 
I envy book-walled studies-cum-libraries, finding them soothing and intriguing.  Such a collection of classic novels, well-bound references, historical essays and philosophical tomes must confer greatness to a writer in their midst.  Right?


I can't help comparing my own space to these (or to the beautiful layouts in the Pottery Barn catalogue for that matter).  My shelves are not picturesque. My desk is less so, with works-in-progress competing for desk space with bills, magazines, school forms, etc.  

Roald Dahl’s unique space is an inspiration, and a reminder that less can be more. Rows and rows of books – not necessary. Sparse solitude worked wonders for him.  I wouldn't call it 'manly', but then again, his hut certainly isn’t feminine, not that it matters. 

Mostly, his space was well-defined, and well-used. He was so focused on his work that he often kept the curtain closed.  No distractions.  Oh that my space was so conducive to productivity.  Of all those wonderful writing rooms,  I aspire to his. 

Which room do you aspire to? What about your office -- how do you see your writing space?

Read more!

Words Are Not Enough

This year I have made progress on several projects, although I haven’t written as much as I intended. As the summer looms, and the inevitability of children rushing through my house all day approaches, I realize I will get even less done each day than I do now.  How can I write more, and write it faster?

Many authors measure their progress in words per day.  This doesn’t seem to work for me.  I need to be a more ‘effective writer.’   

Here’s what I need to work towards:

1.     Plan.  Outline.  Draw a mind map.  Looking ahead can save a lot of looking back and rewriting. 

2.     Separate writing from editing.  Effective writers WRITE, without looking back.  Just get through the first draft, not the first chapter.  Edit through the dross and the good stuff in a second stage.  (This is a biggie for me.)

3.     Write every day, even just a little.   Just one more page keeps the story moving forward.  Over a year, a page a day is a novel’s first draft.  (Reportedly, Stephen King writes even on Christmas Day.  Wow. What discipline.)

4.     Finish what was started.  Don’t let good ideas rest in peace in the file cabinet.  Resurrect them! Complete what was once a passionate and inspirational project.

5.     Set deadlines.  Deadlines demand a finished piece.  (This is one of the many things a critique group is good for.)

6.     Write first. Volunteer last. Instead of structuring free time around, say, school library volunteer work, and squeezing in writing, structure time around writing.  Give up other activities and give in to the dream of writing.  Then a book I write might appear in the library.

Summer, with frequent interruptions (whether children, visitors, or vacations) can be a tough time to be productive.  But if I try, maybe I will make more progress than I expect. 

How do you keep productive?  Any tips?

 

Read more!

A Giraffe in my Grasp

In my last post I suggested that it might be “easier to juggle giraffes than to sell a rhyming picture book manuscript” (see “Giraffe Juggling”). That’s still true, but at the moment, I feel like I’ve caught a giraffe and am bracing myself for the toss.

The latest critique of my rhyming PB manuscript left me stymied by a new question: “Have you thought about where you might submit this?” Submit? Really?

Immersed in meter, plot and my thesaurus, I had resolved not to consider next steps. I consulted the wonderful resources you readers suggested (thank you!), and revised, revised, revised. And, surprise -- the manuscript earned a thumbs up from my critique partners.  


I am thrilled to see light at the end of the revision tunnel. Admittedly, the manuscript needs tweaks, but they feel manageable. Today, my efforts to hone this craft made a difference and lifted me to a new level of confidence.

I’m not juggling yet, but at least the giraffe is within my grasp. I know this is just the beginning of a confidence-deflating process (ah, rejections) but still, I'm looking forward to launching that giraffe skyward.

So this is my way of encouraging all you frustrated writers out there: Keep at it! You can catch a giraffe too.

Read more!