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   I do not loan my books. Ever.  Here is why.

   Before I was a full time writer, before I was a school librarian, I was an "extension" librarian in a fifteen branch library system in rural Mississippi. "Extension librarian" meant I was a bookmobile librarian, minus the bookmobile. I drove the library station wagon. I hit every branch once a month, running children's programs, and muling in new books for the collections.  Although I was not officially a children's librarian, working with kids was my favorite part of the job. My least favorite was the limited book collection. The description "rural Mississippi" says a lot about our book budget.

    Before the Internet, before cable TV, even before satellite dishes, a good many of my patrons had no electronic access to the outside world, unless you counted AM radio. AM radio consisted of farm prices, obituaries, and what was on special at the Piggly Wiggly.

    These kids read. A lot. The libraries were teeny-tiny, wedged into old gas stations, storefronts or the back room of the Farm Bureau or City Hall. My pint-sized patrons had read everything that wasn't nailed down. To supplement  local pickin's, they were allowed to request books from The State Library Commission in Jackson, five books at a time.  I came back from my branch visits with stacks and stacks of loan request cards.  Between visits, the librarians would mail me more requests.  It appeared that not even The Library Commission could satisfy their need for books. Their love of reading gladdened the heart of this newly-minted graduate librarian.  So I did the unthinkable.

    I loaned my own books. They were checked  out through the library system as "a special loan" so I always knew where the book was.  To their credit, those kids living out in Chalybeate and Blue Mountain and Hickory Flat appreciated the effort, and took care of my books better than I did.

    Word circulated that the "Library Lady" could get you whatever you wanted...which made me sound like a literary dope dealer. If you needed a good book report book, she could figure out what you wanted and get it for you.  My kids grew older and moved into high school, and still they were reading! How could I possibly let them down?

     The last year I worked for the public library, my favorite YA book was William Hogan's The Quartzite Trip.  YA literature was a whole 'nother animal in the early '80's. Mostly YA novels were "problem" novels. The main character was anorexic. Or an alcoholic. Or on drugs (we stopped replacing all the library copies of Go Ask Alice that mysteriously "disappeared") Or schizophrenic. (We stopped replacing I Never Promised You a Rose Garden as well.) The Quartzite Trip was so different.  In a sentence, the book is about a high school geology class field trip to the desert in1962.  The tension came from the interpersonal relationships of the class, and their mystical, quasi-hippie (for 1962) teacher. I thought it was great. I thought it was the bomb. I was first in line when the book came out as a paperback.

   Then I got careless with my loaning. I started loaning books to the teens in my town, not going through the library system but as one friend to another. (I was only four or five years older than some of these students.) M--I-S-T-A-K-E.

   One day I went to loan out Quartzite for the 100th time...and it wasn't there. I knew who had it. They'd had it for over a year. In fact, the student had graduated from high school and moved on to the state university. That was OK. His family lived down the street. I'd just go reclaim my book.

    His parents looked at me as if I had two heads. "Bob (not his real name) read a book? Are you sure? Well, you can look around his room..."  I did. I found any number of things that I am sure his parents did not know were lurking in there, but my book was not one of them.

     I hoped he had taken it to college with him (yeah, right!) When he toddled home for Thanksgiving, and I asked, I got a blank look. Finally "Bob" admitted that he "thought" he "lost" it at high school. But hey, he'll pay me the 2.95 (!!!) to replace it.  I took his 2.95, and discovered that the nearest bookstore (50 miles away) no longer had it. I was ticked. I was miffed. I was mad. For the next twenty years I searched in vain for a copy of The Quartzite Trip.   I met a lot of other people, also trying to find the same book, because it had been their favorite in high school.  ("Man, that book was trippin'.")

    Flash forward to the Era of Online Book Buying. I discovered that The Quartzite Trip was out-of-print. The "good news" was that it was available...for an unseemly amount of money...from an out-of-print bookpirate...I mean bookseller. "Bob's" two ninety-five wouldn't cover shipping and insurance, let along the actual price of the book.

    I caved. I paid. I re-read my new/old friend. While it doesn't have the timeless quality of say, Charlotte's Web, it holds up better than any number of books of the same vintage, some of which are required reading in the Atlanta public high schools.  The Quartzite Trip paperback is on the shelf I  reserve for my signed first editions (even though it is only a "good quality used copy" of unknown edition.)

   And that, dear fellow writers and readers, is why, if you ask to borrow one of my books, I will say no, if you ask to borrow a book. Politely, to be sure, but a definite no. I would sooner loan you a lung or a a kidney.  Those come in pairs.

     Don't forget to enter our current giveaway for a copy of Nancy Cavanaugh's debut middle grade novel This Journal Belongs to Ratchet (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky. See Esther's student success story
for details.

    Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

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     I first met Beverly Cleary's memorable character Ramona Quimby as a supporting character in Henry and the Clubhouse where she all but stole the book. I was in graduate school before I discovered that after Cleary finished the Henry and Beezus series, she had gone on to give Ramona her own literary stage, where Henry and big sister Beezus were the background characters. The notion of D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) was something I would've loved in my childhood. I had to fashion my own notion of D.E.A.R. It was called Stick a Book in Your Lap and Look Like Your Paying Attention in Class. (OK, it isn't much of an acronym.) It did not make me popular with my teachers.

    As a adult writers and teachers, we need to make time for our own D.E.A.R.  I'm not talking about reading the latest (adult) best seller, or flipping through whatever literary dregs are in the doctor's waiting room. I am talking about reading the newest children's books that interest you. You know....the kind of book you want to write?

     I assumed that writers, especially children's writers, are readers. However, I never gave much thought as to what they were reading until last month. I was teaching an adult Writing for Children's workshop and had brought in tons of books from my personal collection (not the books I wrote; the books I own) to use as examples of different styles of writing. I have a very expensive book buying habit, because for the last fifteen years I have either lived where there was no library, or very poor ones. Books have changed since we were kids, even if you are a lot younger than I am (which is probably almost everyone reading this.) Yes, there are classics, like Ramona and her friends who will never die.
The first Henry Huggins book was published in 1950, Charlotte's Web, 1952  A Wrinkle in Time 1962.   These are timeless books although I sometimes wonder, given today's publishing climate if any of these three would be considered "commercial" enough to be published today.

   But back to my workshop.  My students devoured my books, then asked. "Where did you get these books?  How did you even know about them?" These writers were mostly young mothers who read to their children....whatever happened to be on the display counter in the picture book section of the library.   "These books aren't at (fill in the name of your local chain bookstore).  How could I find them in the library, if I don't know they exist?"

    Valid points. Chain bookstores, the only ones available to a good chunk of us, feature "sure sellers"...movie tie-ins, "celebrity" picture books, books that have become TV series or movies. A few of the books I brought were Newbery/Caldecott winners. Those are always front and center in bookstores and libraries, but for the rest of us hardworking, writers, just finding our books is a real challenge, let alone reading them.  They are out there....it's  just knowing where to look.

    That's why I spend thirty minutes of my D.A.R.E. each week scouting out the newest books online. Where?  Goodreads is one of my favorite places to see what other readers (and not professional reviewers) think of a book. (I do not know what affect it's recent acquisition by Amazon will have on this site, if any, but there are already thousands or reviews that have been written before this happened.)
I also like Kirkus Reviews.   Kirkus is a subscription service with a pretty hefty price tag. Their selling point is that they preview books up to two months pre-publication, which is great if you are a book store and need to know two months in advance if you are going to order the book. If you are willing to wait a whole week after publication, you can read the review online, for free. Kirkus is issued biweekly, except for a week mid-summer and one the first of January.

     You can also sign up for Publisher's Weekly online. Another print publication with a steep subscription price, you can get daily digests of articles, news as to what editor has been promoted, demoted or moved to another publisher. Thursdays is there special children's edition.  All free.

    There are tons of bloggers (including us!) who interview authors when they have a new book coming out. However, I would be amiss if I did not mention my favorite source of quality reading recommendations.  That is Cooperative Children's Book Center located at the University of Wisconsin. In addition to interviews and news about programs and lectures (if you happen to live in Wisconsin), b they review a "Book of the Week." The BOW is always a recently published book the staff at CCBC think is outstanding. They don't waste their time on junk. You may not agree with all of their choices but you will read them knowing that their selection was carefully considered by a group of people whose only "agenda" is to expose the children's literature community to the widest and best range of the newest books.

   So why are you still reading me Right now, drop everything and scout out your next lit of D.A.R.E. books.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

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     I don't want to give you guys the wrong idea. I am not anti-tech. My problem is that relying on technology for presentations has given me more grief over the years.  I didn't have the right kind of cord. My Powerpoint was compatible with the school's operating system.  Then there was that terrifying moment in a ballroom of librarians when my presentation appeared to have erased all my images (the captions were still there.) I literally screamed "Is there a media specialist in the house?"

     My teaching workshops are usually in no/low tech areas...church basements, field houses, a
restored carriage house...none of which have Internet access, screens, etc. So I have relied on good old hands-on materials for my workshops.  One of my favorites is  Build a Character.

     I am sure that some other author out there has used some version of this exercise, but this is my own drama major version.  I used some of these techniques to build a "character" when I acted.

    Over the years, I have amassed a library of what I brilliantly have labeled "Interesting Pictures." These are people pictures...no Grand Canyon shots, no funky Photoshopped stuff. Just plain old pictures of plain old people. Some of them are contemporary, some archival. I have found most of them online and printed them off. Since I am only making one copy for educational use, I am not violating anybody's copyright. Besides, if the copyright holder usually disables the ability to copy their work without paying a fee.

     Because I mostly teach children, ages eight to fourteen, the people in the pictures are of similar age.  There are a few "grown-ups" in some of them, but they are not the focus of the scene. I also try to keep the picture composition simple...no more than four or five people in the shot.  The pictures should also be no smaller than 5 x 7 so they can be easily seen. I glue the pictures to construction paper, and then laminate each picture.  That way they hold up for years.

     In the interest of not getting sued for copyright infringement in this blog, I am using one of my own family pictures for this exercise. Yes, the only person not wearing sunglasses, the girl on the left, is me, age fourteen.  Just for the record, the rest of these people are my parents (the couple in the middle) my aunt and uncle, and my cousins. This picture cracks me up, and is probably responsible for my present day addiction to sunglasses.

      But for the purposes of this exercise I am going to pretend I have never seen any of these people before.  I will pick two of them to build into characters. (Surprise surprise...I am picking the two girls.)

    Now it's time to play Twenty Questions. I actually have a list of fifty questions that I hand out with the pictures.  I tell my students that they do not have to answer all fifty.  They can add other questions they might think of as well.

     Here is an example exercise.

     1.  Look at the way the people are dressed.  Does this look present day, or as if it took place awhile ago? (Nailing down an exact date is not the purpose....it is a decision the writer makes to ground their story in a particular time.)

     2.  Name the girls. Let's call them Mary Ann and Melissa (which just happens to be the names of the actual subjects.)  Decide how old they are.

    3.   What is the relationship of the two girls?  Are they related? Friends? Total strangers who just happened to wind upon the same picture?

    4.  Look at the way the two girls stand.  What does their posture say about them?

    5.  It appears that they are on a boat dock with the adults. Why are they on a boat dock? What is about to happen?  Or has something already happened?  Who are the adults?  Are they important to the story of not?

   6.  What is Melissa's favorite game?

   7.  What is Mary Ann's least favorite subject?

   8.  Where are they?  Are they in their home town?  Are they on vacation?

   There are forty two more of these questions, plus whatever your student wants to add to the list.  Keep the "answering the questions" time to about twenty minutes.  Once that time is up, see if your students can construct a five paragraph beginning to a story with the information they have "found."
This is meant as a story "starter" for those students who stare into space, trying to "think of something"
to write about.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman


 
   

   



 
   



   
 
   

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     This is Teen Technology Week.  http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/calendar-activities/celebrate-teen-tech-week-20714.html  I am not a teen. When it comes to technology, I am the worst. Left to my own devices I would be writing this on my original Radio Shack desk top with a tractor feed/daisy wheel printer. If you know what I am talking about you are so not a teen either. I got those high grade pieces of hardware complete with lots of floppy disks in 1987.  I would still have them if they will worked.

     But of course the world of technology moves on and on. When the first laptops came out, I fantasized endlessly of the possibilities...why you could write anywhere. I also had to fantasize how to pay for such a fabulous indulgence.  Eventually the prices came down (they are still in the indulgence category) but for my never-home-butt-in-a-desk-chair, they are a necessary indulgence. Up until recently (when my daughter finally got her driver's license) I spent 70% of my day in some sort of waiting room (skating rink, orthodontist, tutor's) waiting for her. I flash back to my mother doing the same sorts of things when I was Lily's age. Mom always had a political biography and a copy of Newsweek to keep her occupied while I was at piano/guitar/choir. I have my laptop and Kindle, Apple cell phone with iTunes built in.

    Appreciating their value, however, is where my knowledge ends. Nobody at my house is a computer  geek. Whenever anything blinks, or bloops, or blacks out, I perform my three known cures. 1) Check the computer cord. Both of my animals like to gnaw on it. For every laptop I've owned, I've had to buy three additional cords. 2) Check the battery. 3) Unplug, replug, reboot.  When all else fails, pack everything up and down to my neighborhood mom-and-pop computer shop. Unfortunately, we are on a first name basis.

    I am sure my lack of tech savvy stems from my lack of a left brain. I was a terrible science student and even worse at math. My mind doesn't work in logical ways.

    This is not just a problem for my writing equipment. It's a problem when writing contemporary YA and MG. I notice there is a big boom of MG and YA books taking place in the 80's. I figured this might have something to do with the age of the author...this was their childhood.  However, it was also the age of no cell phones, big lunky computers (without screen graphics), Walkmen and all the other techie tech stuff we take for granted today. Sometimes you don't realize that the book is set in the 80's until you see that 1)no one has a backpack 2) no has a cell phone. Then someone mentions A Flock of Seagulls or Flashdance t-shirts and you think "Oh, this is the 80's." I am curious as to what young readers think about such a curiously primitive world. (Maybe some of you librarians or teachers who know, will tell me.)

    Technology is so fluid, it's impossible for me to catch up with what's happening right now. When you are a writer, the lightening speed of every-week-a-new-app-a-new-gadget smacks up against the ploddingly slow world of publishing. Even in the best of times, it's a minimum of two years from signing the contract to seeing your book in your hands. That is, however, after you've spent years writing the book and years trying to sell it.  Whatever specific technology you have in your story has probably gone the way of the Discman and transistor radio. The one and only time I thought I was safe was in a short story I wrote for the anthology Such a Pretty Face. Once I had the final draft done I knew the turn around time would be less than eighteen months. Who knew that in those 18 months the world would stop "instant messaging" (IM'ing) and start "texting."  Cringe, cringe. cringe.  Lesson learned.

    Now when I am forced to include technology in a story (and if you are writing contemporary fiction, you will) I am as generic as possible in naming them. No brand names (companies go out of business faster than we can write a book), no model names (there are new ones every year), no specific video games, music sources, etc etc. In writing classes we were told not to include specific TV show, actors, or bands, because of their transient nature. Being that specific will date the book. The same thing goes for technology.

    Somedays, writing about A Flock of Seagulls sounds pretty good.

    Don't forget to enter our latest giveaway for Tamera Wissinger's new book Gone Fishing.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

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     My good friend Carmela wrote such a lovely post on the subject of writing routine last Friday that there really isn't much left for me to say.

     Like Carmela, I am the caregiver for two family members. I know any number of writers who tote their laptops to bedsides and waiting rooms and are perfectly productive.  I am not one of those people. I am unable to isolate myself emotionally from the situation. I cannot write while I am worrying about finances and medication and contingency plans, should I not be available.

     In his autobiography, Rewrites, playwright Neil Simon writes for months and months with his wife dying of cancer in the next room. Simon describes his ability to enter another world peopled only with characters of his own invention, a world where no one was dying of cancer. I wish Mr. Simon could tell me how he so neatly compartmentalized his life.  It would be a valuable skill. But alas, he does not.I have been able to "write through" short term illnesses and crisis before. However, my situation for the past year has been one of ongoing issues and worries with no end in sight.

     Upshot...I am too emotionally wrung out to write with any depth. I can edit, teach, research, even write blogs (although not as well as I would like to.) Trying to create something new takes heart and soul that I do not have on hand at the moment.

    OK, back to the subject of routine/schedule, etc. Even when I am firing on all cylinders, the word "schedule" makes my skin crawl. I was raised in a home where every day of the week had a particular function (Wash Day, Baking Day, Shopping Day, Yard Work Day) and every hour was accounted for before the day began.  Whether I was wired differently from my parents or just a rebellious kid, I did not take well to all that regimentation. I grew up to be a person who wrote term papers in two days (hey, anybody can write a good paper if you have a whole semester!) and mailed my tax returns at 11:59 p.m. April 15th.

    I am a militant night owl. Left to my won devices, I would happily work graveyard shift. I loved being a school librarian, except that I had to be at school by 7;30, after a 40 mile drive.  Add becoming a mother to my disorderly life, and one of two things happen. You either stop writing, or you write when you can.

    I write when I can. Until this past year, I was pretty proud of my ability to write in ten minute chunks, wherever I happened to be. In the carpool line at school.  On commuter trains. During boring sermons. Wherever. A good chunk of my day was spent at the skating rink, as my figure-skating daughter skated upwards of 20 hours a week.

    I know there are writers who manage to carve out consecutive BIC hours (Butt in Chair) to stare at a blank computer screen, waiting for the Muse to arrive. I envy you. Even when my life unknots itself  and I regain my full creative energy again (someday), I don't anticipate tidy "office hours" or outlines or schedules.

    That's just the way I roll.

    Don't forget to sign up for our latest giveaway, a copy of Brenda Ferber's The Yuckiest, Stinkiest, Best Valentine Ever. Check Esther's post from last Wednesday for details.

    Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

 

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  This post was supposed to be about holiday book giving....except that Hanukah ended Saturday night, and unless you live near the world's best stocked indie bookstore (or don't mind paying an arm and a leg for expedited online delivery), it's a little late for holiday book shopping. Not only that, but in my last post on the topic, I think I expressed my unease i in recommending  books for you to give. You know the reading ability and taste of your book recipient.  I don't.

   In fact, I would never give a book that I hadn't read myself.  So in the interest of informed book giving, here's a list of my favorite books published in 2012 that  you should read.  This way you'll be prepared for book giving the rest of this year.

    This is a real quirky list, guided only by my own reading tastes.  I hope there's at least one book here that will ring your holiday chimes.

    Here are my favorite books of the year.

      Young adult

      1.  Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. Two English girls find themselves in the middle of Nazi Occupied France with a mission to accomplish.  Mystery, intrigue, told from a double POV, this one was a real nail biter. This is available in every format you can imagine, including MP3 downloads and Audio Book.  256 pp. 

      2.  We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March. When I was researching Yankee Girl. I was surprised to find how little had been written about this chapter of Civil Rights history. The arrest of 4,000 elementary through high school students, peacefully protesting inequality in Birmingham , Alabama is a story that my I incorporate in my school visits...and that my audiences have a hard time believing.  This account focuses on four of the participants and their lives before, during and after the march. This is not available electronically, although it is on audio CD, and on Audible Audio. 176 pp.

      3.  Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick.  This is based on a true story of an 11-year old Cambodian boy who survived the Killing Fields by playing music for the Khmer Rouge. McCormick does not spare the harrowing details in what is ultimately an uplifting story.  Available one-book and Audible Audio.

     Middle grade

      1.  Drama by Raina Telgemeier. This hilarious graphic novel about backstage of a middle school musical (Moon Over Mississippi!) is by the author of last year's Smile (which was as dark as this book is lighthearted.) Available only in hard or soft cover. 240 pp.(Note this is for you who wonder where all the humorous books have gone.)

     2.  Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  Fifth grader Auggie Pullman has such a severe facial deformity that he has been home-schooled. . .until now. Beginning with Auggie's POV, the story then switches to that of his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend and others, culminating in a Big Picture of a community struggling with compassion and acceptance. Available in e-format, audio CD, Audible Audio. 320 pp.

     3.  Titantic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson.  Just when you think you have read everything there is to read on this subject, Hopkinson unearths first person accounts and archival pictures (taken by a passenger who got off at the last port before before the sinking). Guess what James Cameron got everything right! Although this is avail be in e-book, audio CD and Audible Audio, I would recommend the hardcover for the clarity of the pictures.  304 pp.

       Picture books

     1.  And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliano, ill. by Erin Stead.  Illustrated by last year's Caldecott winner, a boy and his dog, tired of winter, decide to plant a garden.  But first ....there must be spring.
Any kid who has lived through a winter that lasted just a little too long will identify with this one.
Hardcover only.

     2.  Olivia and the Fairy Princesses by Ian Falconer. Olivia, that precocious piglet, is up to her snout in princesses. In the sparkly-pink world of princessdom, how can a pig who prides herself on individuality, make her mark?  IMHO, this title is the best of the Olivia series (possibly because I too, am tired of sparkly=pink princesses.) Available in e-book.

     3.  Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger.  How many kinds of green are there?  More than you could ever imagine, as this concept book proves.  This is a title to sit and savor, over and over. Hardcover only.

      Here are some more titles I liked.

Young adult:  The Fault in Our Stars--John Green;  The Diviners--Libba Bray;  Ask the Passengers--A.S. King;  Grave Mercy--Robin LaFevers;  No Crystal Stair--Vaunda Michaux Nelson;  The Raven Boys--Maggie Stiefater;  Dodger--Terry Pratchett;  Beyond Courage:  The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust--Doreen Rappaport; Bomb:  The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon--Steve Sheinkin;  Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95--Phillip Hoose;  Cinder--Marissa Meyer

Middle grade:  Legends of Zita the Spacegirl--Ben Hatke;  Nathan Hale's Dangerous Tales:  Big, Bad Ironclad--Nathan Hale; Crow--Barbara Wright;  The Lions of Little Rock--Kristin Levine;  The White Zone--Carolyn Marsden;  Hereville:  How Mirka Got her Sword--Barry Deutsch;  Summer of the Gypsy Moths--Sara Pennypacker; Liar & Spy--Rebecca Stead;  One Times Square:  A Century of Change at the Crossroads of the World--Joe McKendry;  May B--Caroline Starr Rose; Starry River of the Sky--Grace Lin;  Son--Lois Lowry; Temple Grandin:  How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World--Sy Montgomery

Picture books:  Z is for Moose--Kelly Bingham; Unspoken:  A Story from the Underground Railroad--Henry Cole;  The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse--Helen Ward;  Barnum's Bones:  How Barnum Brown Discovered the Most Famous Dinosaur in the World--Tracey Fern;  Sky Color--Peter Reynolds;
Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington--Jabari Asim;  A Home for Bird--Philip Stead;
Electric Ben:  The Amazing Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin--Robert Byrd; Sleep Like a Tiger--Mary Logue

   In addition, two of my all-time favorites, Kevin Henkes and Rick Riordan have new titles this year.  I didn't include them because these two guys have yet to write a book I didn't love.  Everything by them is great!

    And if for some reason you haven't read Charlotte's Web (the movies do not come close to the book), now is the time.

  Don't forget to enter our Book Giveaway for JoAnn Macken's How to Write a Poem Step by Step.  See JoAnn's guest post for details.

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     The season of gift giving is here, and I know what all of you TA followers want...a book. Right?  And what is our go-to gift for the loved ones in our lives? A book.

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     I've been in critique groups over the years, but for various reasons, I'm not in one right now. That doesn't mean I'm not critiquing. I still teach my young adult writing classes and occasionally will critique adult writers for hire.  So I'm taking a slightly different path in this discussion, non-group critiquing.   Here are my suggestions in working with one person at a time (some of them also work in group situations, so I am not really getting off topic.

     Being critiqued can be a traumatic experience. I've had people (professionals who should know better) literally treat my work as if it were bird cage liner.  On the other hand, I've had critiques that said that my work was the best thing since Harry Potter. I suspect the critiquer gave my work a once-over-lightly if they read it at all. And, as my husband says, you don't learn anything by being told how great you are.

     This is not to say that critiques have to be all negative.  They do have to be specific.  Saying "I like your protagonist" is all well and good but really doesn't tell the author anything.  Why do you like that character? Is it their personality, the way they think or talk or their relationship with another character?. Be specific.  It's always good to know that something is good and why

     The same thing works in reverse. Saying "This scene just doesn't work for me" tells me nothing.  Often the author already knows that scene doesn't work.  They are looking to you for suggestions.  My rule of thumb is if I don't have any idea how to fix something, I don't mention it.  Or, if the author backs you in a corner and says "The scene by the old mill stream isn't working, what can I do?" I throw it back in their lap.  Why do they think it isn't working?  Talk about it a little back and forth.  You two will either come up with what is wrong with the scene (or character or whatever) or you will decide the old mill stream scene isn't moving the story along.  One of all time favorite movie scenes comes from Tootsie. Bill Murray is a playwright working on a piece called Return to Love Canal.  Throughout the movie he keeps spitballing ideas with his roommate Dustin Hoffman for one particular scene that comes to be known as "The necktie scene." (By the way, the movie audience never learns what the necktie scene is about.) At last, Bill tells Dustin, "I've solved the problem of the necktie scene.  This time I'm writing it without the necktie."  Great writing advice.  Sometimes if something is giving you that much trouble, it doesn't belong in your story (or play) to begin with.

     Asking someone their opinion of your work is a lot like asking "Does this outfit make me look fat?" I have tried to take as much fear and loathing out of the process as necessary.  At the start of a session I remind the writer that he is already a writer; working together, he will become a better writer.

   I always ask if there is something in particular the writer wants you to look for in their work.  Do they want to know if their characters are believable, the plot plausible, is it overwritten?  I learned to ask because I have a tendency to point out every little inconsistency or flaw when all the writer wants to know at that point is if the main character is likable/interesting enough that you want to read the whole story.

       If your author doesn't have any particular questions, I try to stick to the Big Picture items...inconsistencies, missing transitions, failure in logic, vague characters etc. As I said before, if you don't know how to "fix it," don't bring it up.

     Most importantly, respect your author's vision.  I read a lot of stuff that left me wondering "What were they thinking when they wrote this?" So I ask, "What made you decide to write  this particular story?  Hopefully the answer is not  "because pirates/werewolves/dystopian fantasy is hot right now."  If they really like and want to write about one of those topics, great. Just remind them that by the time their manuscript has wound it's way through the publishing labyrinth, that topic will probably not be quite so surefire.

    What I've often discovered is that the story the author has written (and isn't very good) wasn't the story they meant to write.  Don't get me wrong. I'm not playing Freud here.  I try to approach the subject as gently as possible.  I once asked someone why they had written a picture book about talking organic vegetables.  After a little conversation, it turned out that what the writer wanted to write about was the sense of community after 9/11.  She wanted to write about a community garden and the sense of healing that it gave the gardeners.   I don't know if she ever went back and wrote that book.  I hope she did.

     You know the best thing about critiquing?  It is so much easier to see the flaws in your own work by recognizing them in someone else's.  You are not only helping someone else improve their work, you are helping yourself as well.

    Don't forget to enter our latest book giveaway of the latest edition of Children's writer's and Illustrator's Marketplace.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

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     I might have mentioned this before, but in a former life, I was a drama major. Perhaps this is why I think of picture books as "performance pieces." After all, picture books are meant to be read aloud.
Jill started off this topic with her discussion of rhythm and rhyming picture books. Jill is a far braver soul than I. I have published six picture books (with another on the way) and none of them rhyme. My brain doesn't work that way.

    This is not to say that my stories don't have rhythm. They do. Jill covered this pretty well in her last post so I won't belabor the point here. I'll just say that if you aren't sure if your story has that "swing," read it out loud.  Better still, have a non-judgemental friend read it to you. If you find yourself stumbling over your own words, or if your friend's voice hits a word that sounds like an out-of-tune piano key, go back to Jill's post. 

     So if I don't rhyme, how do I (hopefully) hold my listener's interest?

     Repetition, for one thing.  There's nothing like a little group participation, whether you are reading to one child or seventy. If you want a good example of that, check out my First Grade Stinks. The title is also the main character's catch phrase whenever she is frustrated by yet another unfamiliar aspect of a new grade and teacher.  After awhile, the listener will chime in as well. (Loudly.)

    I love to play around with words. I'm a big believer in alliteration. In Camp K-9, Roxie goes to camp with a Pooch Pouch and makes friends with Pearl the Pug. A word of caution. Be spare with the mirroring consonants. When my daughter was small, there was one particular picture book (no titles mentioned here) that her father and I tried to hide at storytime.  Why?  Seemingly every word in this book began with the letter "p." It was not a short book either.  Two pages into it and my husband and I were sputtering and stuttering like Porky and Petunia Pig. Sometimes, we got so flusterated that certain expletives (not written by the author) slipped into the narrative. Not good.  Not good at all.

     My favorite writing technique (in novels as well as picture books), is the use of sounds.  (There is a polysyllabic word for this that I can't spell, and I am using a computer that doesn't have autocorrect.)  The stories I remember from my own childhood were actually songs, like "Old MacDonald Had. a Farm" and "The Wheels on the Bus."  When I began writing my own stories, without really thinking about it, a "moo moo" here and a "cluck cluck" there showed up on my pages.. Sounds are fun to write, fun to read and gives the listener another opportunity to "read along." (The only one who doesn't enjoy my "sound technique" is the copy editor who sends me notes questioning the correct spelling of "va-va-varoom.")

    If you want to see me go crazy with the sound effects, check out Surprise Soup.  In fact, when I was writing it, I began by listing all the kitchen sounds I could thing of.  Here is a partial list: chippity-chop (a knife), ka-rickety-ritch (a manual can opener), splishety-sploosh, slippety-slop,
shakety-shake (ingredients going into the soup pot.) Once I had a list of thirty-something sounds, the story wrote itself. 

    A successful picture book is one that a child wants to hear over and over (and that the reader can read over and over without wanting to rip out his/her hair.) I think playful language is the grace note that adds zip and zing to "Jill's swing," and a little fun for the adult reader as well.

   Don't forget that the deadline for our latest book giveaway Forget Me Not by Carolee Dean is this Thursday, Oct. 11.  Good luck!
 

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

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   It's Ask a Teaching Author time again.  This week's question is from Joanna Moore who wants to know our thoughts on MFA writing programs.

    I have an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College. Bottom line, my time in the Vermont MFA program was the best two years of my life.  At that point, I had been writing for thirty-something years, but I knew something was missing from my work. How did I know that? I knew because my rejection letters all said the same thing..."you write really well but..."  But what?  Nobody would tell me.  My MFA program did.

   I had been searching for that missing "something" a long time.  I went to every writer's conference I could find (although for some reason, the Society of Children's Book Writer's and Illustrators--SCBWI---never showed up on my radar.)  I read "how-to" books, lots of them.  I still stumbled around in the wilderness, looking for answers.  Through a series of incredible events, I found myself at Vermont College in the first MFA program dedicated exclusively to children's writing.

    Did I find my answers?  Yes.  Is an MFA like Willie Wonka's Golden Ticket?  No.  Having an MFA does not guarantee you a book contract, an agent (I still don't have one) or a Newbery medal.
What you are guaranteed is this;  if you keep an open mind and take advantage of every learning opportunity, you will be a better writer and teacher.

   I can only speak about my experience as a graduate of the Vermont College Summer Class of 2000.  I don't know if the Vermont program has changed, or anything at all about other programs. Taking that into consideration, the one-on-one intensive mentoring at VC was invaluable to me. As a low residency program, nearly all of my work was done through monthly mail packets. (At the time, e-mail was not as widespread as it is now, and most of my faculty mentors did not even have email accounts.)

     I turned in a set number of pages of "new work"-- a goal agreed on between my mentors and I during the on-campus sessions -- and a certain number of pages of revised work.  The packets were returned with copious notes and suggestions for revision.  I have worked with any number of editors over the years, and while my editors are all geniuses (really!), none of them has given me the attention and focus of my Vermont mentors.  There is a good reason for this.  As a student, I shared my mentor with no more than four or five other students.  An editor has any number of ongoing projects, even though you always hope that yours is the most important. My four Vermont mentors--all successful and renowned  children's authors--spoiled me with their extremely thorough critiques.

    MFA programs are not for everyone.  I am blessed that there was a time in my life when I had the time, money and energy necessary.  I went into the program with a specific goal; I had the idea for Yankee Girl, but not the slightest idea of how to write it.  I wanted to do justice to my idea, whether it was ever published or not. I knew almost nothing about plot, setting and characterization. Two years and four mentors later, I knew a lot more.

   I'm still learning.

   Don't forget that the deadline for entering the giveaway for the poetry anthology is 11 pm CST, Tuesday (as in tomorrow!)

    Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

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    As long as I have lived in Georgia, (eleven years now), the state has suffered from drought. I don't remember what a green lawn looks like.  My yard (and everyone else's) has turned cornflake brown, with lots of bald spots. Lake levels have dropped until people with "lakefront homes" now have "mud front homes." Fourth of July often includes a ban on fireworks.  Even sparklers feel hazardous when everything around you has turned to kindling.

    The writing life has it's dry spells, too.  We all have them, even though we don't like to admit it.  After all, we are writers. This is what we do.We are supposed to be endless founts of creativity. We are "supposed" to write every day. When we don't, we feel guilty. OK, I feel guilty.  For me, not writing is in the same league with not working out and eating junk food.  A few days of not writing and I come down with a bad case of brain fog.

    My first experience with a dry writing well came at the end of my MFA program at Vermont College. After two years and four drafts,  I thought I had finished Yankee Girl. (Wrong. I had another two years and three drafts to go.) Feeling very pleased with myself I jumped right into a new novel.  I had a setting and some characters so I thought I was good to go.  I wrote the first couple of chapters and sent them off to my faculty mentor, Randy Powell for critique.

   Randy made his usual cogent comments on the writing, but ended his last letter with a comment I thought odd at the time. Sometimes, after a big project like Yankee Girl, he wrote, it's good to let the creative well refill. What was he talking about?

   A year and another "finished" novel later, I figured out what he meant.  I had three hundred pages of writing; I didn't have three hundred pages of a novel.  I'd pushed myself to write a novel, when I really didn't have a novel in me at the time.  Sigh. Fortunately, by then I was working with an editor on yet another revision of Yankee Girl. From those three hundred pages (which are still lurking in  my hard drive) I learned to let a story simmer on a back burner awhile. Writing Yankee Girl drained me, emotionally and creatively. I should have given myself some time off. I should have let my well refill, as Randy had suggested.

    However, time off can turn into goofing off.  You can't just sit around waiting for rain to refill your well.  The trick is to keep writing, keep priming the pump until you get your mojo back.

    I should know. I am halfway through my current work-in-progress.  For a variety of reasons, I am too creatively pooped out to do the story justice, right now.  So what am I doing?

   Writing this blog, for one thing. Knowing that I will be talking to you all every other Monday has kept me going.  I am also lucky enough to have a series of Young Writer's Workshops lined up for this school year.  Working with students always energizes me.

   But what if you don't write a blog or have a continuous supply of workshops and school visits to keep you sharp?   What if you don't have the time or energy to journal for even fifteen minutes?

   Writer's Workout I try to find at least three things every day that I want to write in my journal. Three things that make me stop and

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      In case you haven't been parked in front of a computer since the crack of dawn, hoping for leaking news from the Newbery-Caldecott committees, here they are--the 2012 American Library Association award winners:
     Newbery--Jack Gantos for Dead End in Norvelt

     Honors--Eugene Yelchin--Breaking Stalin's Nose
                   Thanhha Lai--Inside Out and Back Again

     Caldecott--Chris Raschka for A Ball for Daisy

     Honors--Patrick McDonnell--Me...Jane
                   Lane Smith--Grandpa Green
                   John Rocco--Blackout

     Coretta Scott King Award Author:  Kadir Nelson for Heart and Soul
                                           
     Honors--Patricia McKissack--Never Forgotten
                   Eloise Greenfield--The Great Migration

     Illustrator--Shane W. Evans for Underground:  Finding the Light to Freedom

     Honors--Kadir Nelson--Heart and Soul


     Printz--John Corey Whaley for Where Things Come Back

     Honors--Maggie Stievater--Scorpio Races
                    Craig Silvey--Jasper Jones
                    Christine Hinwood--The Returning
                    Daniel Handler (aka "Lemony Snicket")--Why We Broke Up

     Congratulations, one and all. And now let the speculations fly! All over the country book lovers are cheering or gnashing their teeth or wondering why it will take "one to three weeks" for Amazon to get the book in stock. (Answer...the publisher was caught without sufficient inventory for a huge sudden sale rush.)

     I shall keep my own observations to myself, except for the fact that I have never been right about the big awards. The closest I have gotten to predicting correctly is for the honors books (this year I had Inside Out and Back Again on my list). Mysterious are the ways of The Committees.

     Other observations--this is the first time in a long time that there was not one single dystopian novel on the list! Can life be getting better??  There were a lot of historical novels (yippee, since I write historical novels). Only one truly contemporary book (Why We Broke Up).  All the award winning illustrators were also the authors of their books.  What does this mean? I have not the slightest idea.
 
    All I know is that I have a lot of good reading ahead of me (I did read all the Newbery honors and winner in advance, but none of the Printz books).

Mary Ann Rodman
P.S. You can still enter our drawing for an autogra

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     Conventional wisdom says that the friends you make in college are the ones you make for life, whether you are twenty, or firmly in middle-age.  I never expected to make twelve new BFF's in my forties, but I did.  My ThankU goes out to my Vermont College  MFA in Writing for Children classmates, Summer '00, aka "The Hive." These incredible writers have become a part of my life, both personally and professionally.  Who would have thought when we met in the luggage claim at the Burlington Airport, July 1998, that we still be the close-knit group we are today?
       I belong to a terrific critique group here in Georgia, all.  I am a member of  the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and through that organization I have writing friends all over the country. (If there is one thing we need in this solitary life we've chosen, it's friends who also write!) Yet none of these wonderful people have become part of my family, and I, theirs. Within the Hive, we know the status of each other's manuscripts.  We share our collective knowledge of editors, agents, publishers, and other writers. We have seen each other through the death of spouses and parents, pregnancy and illness.  Together we have shepherded our children from "the terrible twos" to the troublesome teens to college and marriage and another generation.

    At first meeting, we were as diverse a group as you could find, aged twenty-something to seventy-something, with most of us somewhere smack in the middle.  We came from all over the country, and just for something completely different, Thailand (that was me). In fact, had I not had my fellow "Bees" as close as my computer screen, I never would have survived my year and a half on the other side of the world.  I remember the Thanksgiving my husband was on assignment in China, and the Bees kept emailing me to keep me from being too homesick, alone in my Bangkok high rise with a four-year-old.

    When we came to Vermont College, differences in age, geography and previous publishing experience were forgotten.  What mattered is that we had the same desire…to become the best possible writer we could. So intense were we, hanging on our instructors' every word, that our class loomed large on the faculty radar.  We believe it was one of those instructors, Brock Cole, who inadvertently dubbed as "bees" because we fairly buzzed with questions and enthusiasm.  So, if individually we were Bees, together we were "The Hive."

     Not everyone in our class wished to maintain contact after graduation. Some members of the considerably smaller Winter '00 class wanted to be part of the Hive. We were honored that someone wanted to cast their lot with our busy bunch. It is hard to remember now when those two members were one of our number.

     When I tell other writers about The Hive, they always ask how often we hear from each other. They are amazed that the answer is "couple of times a day."  On the rare occasions that The Hive falls silent, someone (usually JoAnn) will send out an email on the order of "Where is everybody?" If one of us doesn't log in for a period of time, someone is sure to email (or even call) to make sure all is well.

    Because we are scattered across the country, we have never physically all been together in the same place, not even at graduation. (The two "Bee adoptees" graduated before us.) We have managed to get a good number of them together in one place for various reunions, but never all of us.  Still, we see each other more than most families do.  If one of us is speaking in a Bee's hometown, you can be sure that any Bee within a fifty mile radius will be there too.

    So...for all the manuscripts you've critiqued, rejection letters you've suffered through

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     Boo to you, fellow authors, on this day that salutes the scary, weird and (if you have kids) the post trick-or-treat-candy-sugar-rush.  I am probably the least qualified person to write this post, because I am not a fan of the weird, scary and (and I really don't need the candy.)

    However, there is one Halloween-associated icon that I enjoy. In fact, I find them inspirational (hence the awful punned post title, which I hope you will not take literally.)

    I love cemetaries.  Graveyards.  Tombstone towns.

    When I was a seven or eight, my teenage cousin, was told to "entertain" me.  She didn't want to entertain me; she wanted to see her boyfriend.  So she decided to use a little revulsion therapy.  She told me she was taking me to one of her favorite places.  I adored my cousin, and would have followed her anywhere. Her "favorite place" turned out to be the town cemetary, two blocks away.  If her plan had been to scare me into going home, she failed miserably.

    I fell in love with cemetaries.  That day is still one of my favorite memories of my cousin and me. (And yes, she really did, and still does, love cemetaries)

    Why would a seven-year-old like a cemetary?

     This was an old-fashioned cemetary, with a mix of tombstones, funeral statuary and mausoleums. Thanks to a mother who was phobic about funerals, I had never attended one, or been any closer to a cemetary than the back seat of the car as we passed one on the road.  So this was what happened to people's bodies after they were dead! (My Sunday School teacher had told us what happened to their souls, but was not inclined to dwell on what happened to their physical bodies.)

     What drew me was not so much the ghoulish aspect ("I am standing on dead people") but the memorial markers themselves. In the older sections, the polished granite, worn marble, moss-covered
crosses, tablets, angels, and lambs each told the story of a life, if you took the time to think about it.  Even back then I was fascinated by real stories about real people. Just reading the old- fashioned names--Narcissa, Hiram, Magda, Josiah---brought these people to life in my seven-year-old imagination.  Sunbonnets, long beards, mothers, farmers. Some of this didn't take a great deal of imagination since often the many children the mother had born were buried along side her, their names simply added to the list on her obelisk.

     I peeked in the grated doors of the mausoleums and wondered about people who were so rich and important they could rest in their own tiny marble house after they were dead. I especially wondered about the ones that had windows (who was looking at what?) But mostly I wondered about their stories.


   That first cemetary was in a tiny farming town in southern Illinois, a town in which my teenage cousin had lived most of her life. She could tell me the stories of most of these people, or at least of their present day ancestors.  To me, the child of a father who was transferred seemingly every other year, the idea that you not only were acquainted with you neighbors, but that they had stories. . . this was simply beyond comprehension. I remember going home from that graveyard (which I remember as being at the edge of the town, surrounded by corn fields) and scribbling down everything my cousin had told me, plus a few things she hadn't....my mind had taken that first plunge from fact to fiction.

   I was hooked.

     I have visited a lot of graveyards since then.  On a high school trip to Paris, a bunch of us traipsed around Pere Lachaise, looking not for Oscar Wilde or Moliere, but the then recently-deceased Jim Morrison's grafitti-and-beer-bottle-covered resting

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     One of my big "Ah ha" moments in my never-ending quest of "learning to write," was reading Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird.  I know I have invoked Bird by Bird many times in this blog, but I can't help it.  When I am discouraged, bogged-down, or, as I mentioned in my last post, just plain "done" (as opposed to "finished") I call on Anne to get me out of whatever funk I am in.  Whatever it is, she's been there and done that a zillion times. Anne is a right-to-the-point kind of writer who isn't afraid to use four letter words and a little political rhetoric to get her ideas across. I know this bothers some people, so I mention it in recommending her book. If you skip past those occasional references, Anne is my right-hand-in-print-writing-guru.
    Anne was the one who gave me "permission" to write lousy first drafts (Anne uses a somewhat different word than lousy.) First drafts are for getting down the story, getting to know your characters and setting. When I sit down to a first draft, I don't agonize over word choices, character names or other details that don't come to mind immediately. Whatever doesn't come to mind immediately, I leave out by typing in XXXX. When I am revising, it alerts me that I know something is missing here, and hopefully, I now know what it is. If I still don't know, I leave it in until I do know. If that XXX is still around in the
final draft it's usually a sign that I didn't need whatever it was in the first place.
    Unlike Jo Ann, I hate writing first drafts. Sometimes I feel like Moses wandering in the wilderness. Very often there are huge holes in my plot (like Jeanne Marie, plotting is my weakness). Right now I am going to break Esther's very sensible rule about not talking about what you are writing (the more time you spend time talking about it, the less energy you have to write it.) However, I am pushing my fiction envelope and writing a verse novel. For the record, I am not writing a verse novel because I am a poet ( I most definitely am not) or because verse novels are hot stuff right now. I just think it is the best and possibly the only way I can write this particular story, which is in three voices and so intense and occasionally gruesome, that it is too heavy to write as straight prose.
     The best thing about writing this first draft is that the verse format works really well with my particular way of writing. I don't write in sequence. I don't start with chapter one and then proceed to chapters two, three, etc. When I sit down to write, I write whatever is clearest in my mind that day. When I go back to write again, maybe I will continue with that scene, character, episode (pick one) or it sparks a chapter that I know will come before or after what I have already written. I don't worry where it will come. I just write. Backward, forwards, occasionally upside down (kidding). The only consistent thing is that whatever I think is going to be the last chapter, never is.
      When I go back for revision (the part of writing I love) I put my work into a preliminary order, sometimes shuffling chapter positions, but always discovering where there is a hole, or where I need a transition. Sometimes I find characters hanging around the edges of the story, not pulling their load. (They are fired.)
      This might not work for anyone but me. (I am ADD, and not the most organized person...at least not by organized person standards.) The point is to do what it takes to get out that first draft. This morning I've been writing a poem that I have no idea where it is going to fit in the book's trajectory. Maybe it will get the old heave ho in the final draft. But for right now, I feel pretty good about it. (I actually got the idea sitting in the skating rink parking lot last week, and wrote the notes for it on the deposit slips of my checkbook..I didn't have any paper.) I have also written on McDonald's napkins, air

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      Wow.  There is nothing like batting clean up on a subject that my fellow TA's have covered so thoroughly. What better way to finish this series on revision than to answer the question "How do you know when you are finished with this manuscript?"
     Notice I didn't ask "How do I know if I am done with this story?" To me, finished and done are two different things. "Finished" is when you have taken the advice offered by my fellow TA's on revision.  When you have written the best possible story....wait two weeks and see if you still feel the same way. If so, it's time to send your baby out into the publishing world.
    "Done" is when you are so sick of writing this story (for the third or fifteenth or 115th time) that you want to pile all your characters into a car, and send them off a cliff, Thelma and Louise-style. ("And then they all died. The end.")  This is not sign that you are finished. ...it means you need a break.  Work on something else. When I am feeling "done" on a long project, I research another book (I am always researching the next book, while writing the current one), or mess around with a picture book I have on the back burner. (There's always a picture book on my back burners....several actually; it's a big stove!)
    Writing a book is sort of like building a house. (It's not exactly like building a house;  I never outline or make a blueprint.)  I know the style of house I want, how many rooms and the general floor plan. When I first began writing, I never revised. I figured the accomplishment of completing 300 pages deserved to be shared immediately with the writing world.
    Wrong, wrong, wrong!  You know that feeling of wanting to stick your hand in the mailbox to grab back your envelope (or wishing there were a "never mind" command on your computer to retrieve an email before it is delivered?) That's a hint that maybe your house isn't finished. OK, you know your house isn't finished. As soon as you can't unsend your work, you will realize the literary equivalent of a house with no back door. Or a second floor, but no stairs to reach it. You were so happy to be done (with a first, or maybe even a second or third draft) you didn't see those "tiny" flaws. When you are tempted to fire off your done manuscript, wait a week. Read it again. Does it still feel finished?                        
     Probably not. (How did you manage to not notice that you left a disconnected toilet in the kitchen? Or that you have three extra rooms that you don't remember why they are there?)
     On the other hand, sometimes you really are finished, but you are still twiddling around with your story. You are nitpicking over unimportant details that really don't matter.  Is it super super important that your character's best friend is named Megan or Morgan? (Sometimes it is important...but deep down you know if it is or not.) It's like changing the position of pictures on a wall. If it looks good over the fireplace and behind the couch...you are twiddling.  You are scared. You are afraid to let go.
      Let go.  If you really are down to switching minor details around, then changing them back,  you are finished.  Send it off.
     Then one of two things will happen. Rejection or acceptance.
     We all deal with it differently with rejection. I find that Ben & Jerry's current flavor is my coping mechanism (I didn't say it was a good one.) Hopefully, you all have in place a rejection plan that doesn't involve calories, money or something illegal.
     And then there is the acceptance letter/phone call/email. (Out of ten book sales, seven of them have been sent

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Greetings and welcome to the kick off to our VCFA blog initiative. Today's guest blogger is Jodi Paloni,
followed by a Writer's Workout by me. Enjoy!


Congregations of characters followed me around to high levels of distraction until I hollered at them: all right already! You all know how it works. But I didnít. In my first semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts, I generated a pile of papers with various characters all telling the same story at the same time. POV were the three most frequently scrawled letters in the marginalia of my pages.

Huh?

It's a simple thing; if you're a beginner, choose a point of view and stick with it. If not, then have a clear intention for shifting it and teach your audience how to read your story.

Of course, it's not really that simple. In fact, just about everything in a story is affected by point of view and point of view affects just about everything in your story.

In the remaining space I have, I will use it to plead.

Get your hands on David Jauss's craft book, Alone With All That Can Happen  [http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781582975382] and study the essay, "From Long Shots to X-Rays: Distance and Point of View in Fiction." In 33 pages of definitions, descriptions, and examples that cite the best work in the business, youíll receive a semester's worth on the topic. And ironically, just like your characters, the wisdom of Jauss's discourse will not leave you alone.

The take-away is this: point of view is not only a matter of person. It's a matter of the degree of distance created between writers and readers.


Jodi Paloni will complete her MFA in Fiction Writing at Vermont College of the Fine Arts in July 2011. She is currently working on a collection of linked stories. Her book reviews on linked story collections may be read at Contrary Magazine. She blogs at Rigmarole... http://jpaloni.wordpress.com/   If you have questions about this post or the Vermont College MFA program, you may contact Jodi at [email protected].

Writer's Workout

     I can identify with Jodi's POV problems. Sometimes I have a story or scene...and I don't really know
whose story it is.  I will re-write the scene (and sometimes, gulp, the entire book) from three different points of view.  I limit myself to three possibilities...the scene as viewed by two different characters (I find first person easier, but it can be done in limited third person as well), and then what I call the "Dragnet POV"("just the facts, ma'am.").  There are other possibilities--other characters observing, for instance, but I limit myself to three.  I always learn something new about at least one of my characters and who the real main character is.  This is also a fun exercise to use in the classroom.

To use in a classroom:
1. Have the students write down an actual conversation/argument they have had. (The "your-room-is-a-pigsty" argument is a frequent favorite in my classes.) Write it from the student's point of view.

2. Write the same scene again, this time from the parent's POV.

3. Write the incident as if you were presenting this as court testimony...no opinions or emotions allowed.
Just the facts.

Which was easier to write? Which makes the most sense within your story?

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      When I get a writing idea, I usually live with it awhile before I start working.  ("Awhile" could be two weeks or two years.)  I never sit down right then and plough into it.
      Except sometimes. Especially if it has been awhile between good ideas. This was one of those times.  I had a character I already knew very well (Nilla) and more than enough scenes for a 32 page book. I banged away at the computer far into the night. What's more I finished it! In one sitting!  I went to bed, wondering which of my editors I would "grace" with my genius.
     I wait a couple of days before re-reading a picture book manuscript. You know, long enough to catch a bug here and there. I figured Camp K-9 needed so little "de-bugging," I would mail it that day.
    Hmm. This manuscript seemed unusually long for something that was supposed to be under 800 words. (I know editors like them shorter than that, but I have never which managed less than 775.)  I read on and on, then hit the word count command.
     2500 words. Gulp.
     I wasted three pages (usually the length of the entire manuscript) with a story "frame":  Nilla belonged to a little girl and this would be the first time they had ever been apart, and there was a wizard who turned the kennel into Camp K-9 every night and blah, blah, blah. What was I thinking?  I never use story frames, not even in novels.
    Things went from bad to worse when I realized that I had written a YA picture book for seven-year-olds.  For thirty seconds, I considered turning it into a graphic novel...until I remembered that I
can't draw.  And what editor would buy a graphic novel about a Valley Girl dog and her friends?  Who would read it?
   My hand hovered over the delete key.  I didn't want to give up on Nilla. I liked the title Camp K-9.  I would simply write about Nilla as a puppy.
    The trick to writing a picture book (if you are not your own illustrator) is to include a lot of action scenes to give the artist something to work with.  After three hours I had only two Nilla puppy memories.  She would fall asleep across your shoes, thus trapping you in place until she woke up. And whenever you came home, she would be so excited she would pee at your feet (not on them, thank goodness.) Not great visuals. And worse, no story.
    Sigh. I deleted Camp K-9, except for the title.  There would be a book called Camp K-9 some day.  Just not this day.
     Months went by with Camp K-9 in my mental "creative crockpot."  I had a critique group meeting coming up, and no manuscript to contribute. I re-opened the empty Camp K-9 file.
    Maybe the real Nilla was getting in the way of a fictional one.  I changed her name to Roxie, the name of the boxer who lived down the street. I suddenly realized that almost everyone I knew had a dog.
A dog with a human name;  apparently people don't name dogs Spot and Skippy any more. I quickly had a roster of dog campers with names like Bea and Hannah. I didn't specify breeds for any of the dogs, save two;  Lacy, who was a standard poodle who lived across the street. Since I planned for her to be "the mean girl," I thought the combination of a breed known for being "a chick dog" along with her sweet name, would be hilarious. The other "real dog" was Pearl the Pug, who incidentally belongs to Emmy of A Tree for Emmy fame.
     Once, I had those dog names, I could see them, doing all sorts of things that canine campers would do;  hiking, swimming, making paw-print crafts. Yeah, I gave my future illustrator a lot to work with.
I counted the days unt

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Mary Ann is off enjoying Spring Break. She'll be back to post again in her usual slot in two weeks.

Meanwhile, if you haven't read April Halprin Wayland's post commemorating the start of Poetry Month, I hope you'll do so now. In addition to her inspiring Writing Workout on writing book spine poems, April shares links to all sorts of wonderful poetry-related events in the Kidlitosphere that you'll want to check out. And if you're looking for more poetic inspiration, download your own copy of PoetryTagTime, compiled by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell (and featuring a poem by our own April) for only 99 cents! 
Happy Poetry Month, and Happy Writing!
Carmela

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     For the second year, the TA's have been invited to present at the Illinois Reading Council.  There were three of us this time; April, Esther and myself, excited about getting the return gig. ("They liked us. THey really liked us!")

     Then we got our schedules and realized we were vying with some pretty big names to get an audience.  Just off the top of my head; M.T. Anderson (Ironically, the Award Winning Writer from my previous blog!), last year's Newbery winner Rebecca Stead, Jane Yolen, T.A. Barron, Marc Brown, Sara Pennypacker, Robert Burleigh, Mordecai Gerstein and Vaunda Nelson. Yikes! What a line up!  I had a flashback to my very first book conference (at a location I will not disclose) where I discovered I was on at the same time as Garrison Keillor!

     Given all the literary superstars, the TA's were delighted to have a full house (in a small room!) for our talk on modeling creative writing with your students in a school day that is jam packed with everything but creative writing. Or as one of my daughter's teachers told me,"Creative writing is not on the state tests."

    For those of you who were not there, I will be brief in saying that our writing exercise was to write  a thank you letter to someone who had influenced your life in some way. (When I heard the phrase "thank you note" I immediately thought of the ones I wrote as a child ---Dear Meemaw, Thanks for the pajamas. They fit. XXXOOO Mary Ann.)  And that little gem was an actual example in my third grade grammar book!

   Our group did not disappoint. There were letters to parents, former teachers, President Carter, and even one to the Teaching Authors for our program!  We asked only for volunteer readers, and it was a rare reader who did not let their emotions overcome them at some point. Now that is good writing, if you can make yourself cry. However, I would not stress having students share with the class. Fourth grade teachers sharing is a lot different from fourth graders sharing (giggling) with the class.

   I had to leave before all the Superstars spoke, although I was delighted to be seated next to my former
mentor, M. T. Anderson, during the book signing session. Perhaps one of the other TA's will fill you in on the Big Dinner Speeches.

      Here we are, the TA's hard at work!  We were having a planning session...and supper at Augie's.
Esther, Mary Ann and Marie (our mentor/advisor) with April in back.
Same old gang, plus one of our intrepid volunteers in our workshop.

Notice that even though it was St. Patrick's Day, none of us are wearing green!

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

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    Today is the 300th post in the TA blog.  It's also President's Day, so some of you will be reading this tomorrow.

      For the TA's, this is National Toot Your Own Horn Day. At three blogs a week (with an occasional vacation) we have lasted longer than a lot of TV shows. (Anybody remember Supertrain?) This is no small feat.

     Back in the Paleolithic Age of the Internet (1996), when Alta Vista was my search engine of choice, and a site with graphics was  a rare treat, I first ran across this thing called a "blog." After  determining that "blog" was a combination of "web" and "log", and had nothing to do with Star Trek--my original thought--I checked out a few of these early blogs. After two weeks I was blogged out because so many of these early entries had a lot in common. Not good things.

    Lots of the blogs were intensely personal, like reading someone's diary.   Someone's really boring diary. I could not imagine that anyone could possibly be interested in every soy latte I consumed, or how many pounds I had lost that week.  The bloggers seem to have the same problems;  many of the bogs I read were "one-hit-wonders---especially the weight loss ones. The blogger would eloquently describe
the woes of obesity (which in itself varied by definition), describe their new diet, vow to post every week and lose X number of pounds by (Christmas, Hannukah, 10th class reunion). There might be a post or two more...then silence, leaving me to imagine that the writer had returned to the Land of Many Calories.

   There were the ranters (usually something involving governments and/or conspiracy theories). Movie review blogs that I enjoyed, but like everything else, fizzled out after  few weeks or months.  Later on I discovered personal author blogs, which to me, the unpublished author, was a glimpse of the Promised Land with descriptions of book signings and school visits. I was so envious that I would have to read a weight-loss blog to calm down.

     When our Fearless Leader, Carmela, suggested doing a group blog of authors who also teach, I thought it was a great idea. I  was also skeptical, remembering all those one-entry-self-indulgent blogs I'd read. Learning I would have five other partners in crime helped me decide to join in. I knew I couldn't carve out time for a weekly blog, but every two weeks was something I thought I could manage. I think this is where some of my fellow bloggers fell by the wayside...underestimating the amount of time it takes to write a blog, overestimating what you have to say that someone would want to read or find helpful.

    Hopefully, in these 300 posts, we have provided some of you with something interesting or useful some of the time. We all hope we have been of some use to you in both the classroom and personal
writing.

   So here's to another 300 posts (helpful, hopeful, useful ones)...and now I'm going to Starbucks for a soy latte to celebrate.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

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     If you looked in my office, you might start dialing the number for the show Hoarders.  Disorganized as it may appear, everything in there relates directly to a writing project.

     A quick inventory would include: Gibson Girl prints, three nun dolls, turn-of-the-century textbooks, s 16 Magazines 1963-68,  The Searchlight Cookbook, copyright 1931 ("Spring Beauty Salad, anyone?), a 1940 edition of Hymnal for Christian Worship, a WWII vintage volume, Song and Service Book for Ship and Field; Army Navy (did the Marines and Coast Guard have their own editions? reproductions of old Sears & Roebuck catalogs, an actual mostly intact copy of the Sears Fall 1941 catalog, a Sherwin-Williams store display book, Colors and Rooms for Your Jet Age Home (very Mad Men!), floor plans for 1920's homes...and that's just the top layer. BTW, the source for 99% of this stuff was the online Goodwill auction site (www.shopgoodwill.com) I got most of this for under five dollars.

    In case you couldn't guess, I was once a librarian. I am now an ex-librarian who writes historical fiction.  I also live in an area where library funds are nil, the collections meager, and interlibrary loan fees astronomical. So I maintain my own research library.  I always have three books in my head; the one I am writing, and the next two I have planned. The WWII stuff was for Jimmy's Stars, the nun dolls and hymnals for my current project, and the 60's items for a possible sequel to Yankee Girl. (I said possible!)

    I am something of a chicken in writing historical fiction. So far, I haven't written anything that takes place before the 1880's because I can't find primary sources that old on Shop Goodwill, and previous to that, my family was an illiterate crew so there are no family letters or documents to rely on. (Hence, Karen Cushman will have no competition from me...chuckle, chuckle.)

     It takes me a year minimum to research my books.  Step one is to find a calendar for the year(s) of the story. (You can find these on line using the search term "perpetual calendar"  That calendar is taped to the lid of my laptop, so I can instantly see which day of the week was Christmas, or any other holiday or historical event.

      So once I have my calendar, I start researching and writing in the dates that are important to my story.  My calendar for Jimmy's Stars, in addition to marking off the usual holidays as the dates for certain battles and the day in which they became news in the United States. There was usually quite a gap, due to time zones and wartime censorship. What day did the movie The Sullivans open? (For anything you need to know about every movie ever made, www.imdb.com is a life saver. It's also good for settling movie arguments!)  What days did certain items become rationed?  Filling out my calendar is always step one.


     I also need maps. I usually fictionalize a real neighborhood, in a real town. The Macken Street Hill neighborhood of Jimmy's Stars

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Amanda Hoving said, on 1/24/2011 6:26:00 PM

This was really helpful! I normally write contemporary fiction (and I do my homework) but the 2 books I'm planning to write are currently screaming "historical!" Thanks for sharing your process.

mary ann rodman said, on 1/24/2011 10:54:00 PM

Amanda, I'm glad to be of help. I can go on for hours on this topic (don't worry, I won't right here...but I forgot Newspapers (back in the day) wereTHE best for radio schedules, local prices,etc.
At your ervice,
Mary Ann

BJ Schneider said, on 1/25/2011 3:03:00 PM

Thanks for describing your process and for all the information. I've found websites such as the Yiddish Dictionary Online, which is great because I don't speak Yiddish, but my characters do. It helped me write in context rather than using long phrases and/or sentences. And I found websites for Cheyenne with pictures from the early 1900s, the Pendelton Rodeo, weather records and lots more. You're right about getting wrapped up in research and enjoying the process, but at some pointt you have to start writing. I have plastic acordian file holders to organize information for each story..I never did like 3x5 cards! Alan Gratz suggested using a spiral notebook to outline each chapter and listing the facts that would go in each chapter. I love legal pads.

Barker said, on 1/25/2011 3:41:00 PM

Excellent information Mary Ann! I can't believe I never thought to have a physical calendar before!Thanks for a tip I KNOW I will use along with other great ideas.

Anonymous said, on 1/25/2011 7:34:00 PM

Barker--The calendar also serves as a sort of an outline
for me. I never outline per se, but I do know the time frame of my book before I start. So it keeps me balanced. My current book is weird since the majority of the action takes place over one week....and the last third over six weeks. It's a visual juggling act that reminds me if I am spending too much time in places I didn't intend.
Thanks for weighing in...MA

mary ann rodman said, on 1/25/2011 7:53:00 PM

BJ---Thanks for the shout out. I forgot to mention that I am not that organized person who always keeps a little notebook in her person or pocket to quickly scribble ideas. I have, however, written on napkins, church bulletins (I do some of my best work there), ice skating schedules. and once even (an unused) air sickness bag, I have a nifty container from the Container Store (cloth, has handles, zips, and is just the right size to take a project on vacation) that I dump all of my "ideas" into it as soon as I get home. I switched to carrying a much smaller persons (I could have carried a toddler in some of my old ones) I then transfer all the thoughts from the Walgreen's receipts, etc. to my favorite form of organization...the spiral bound notebook (I lose 3 by 5 cards).
As for the physical research (pictures, Xerox copies of documents, and those rare primary sources, such as a collection of WWII letters, I put those in archive sleeves, and keep THEM in a three ring binder.
My current project (I'm embarrassed to tell you how long I've researched this one) has SO many primary
sources, and so many "lightbulb at the stoplight moments" I have forced myself to "keep it together."
We all have to find what works for us..my husband assumes that any legal pad, no matter what is already on it (like a chapter) is free for him to write over, saying (later) "That wasn't important was it?"
Nice talking to you and all the other followers.

mary ann rodman said, on 1/25/2011 8:11:00 PM

OK BJ and Barbara I got your replies mixed up (some organizing hunh?)
BJ (again) What did we do before the Internet? There is so much out there...when I was writing Jimmy's Stars, in which Pittsburgh streetcars plays a big part) I found there was actually a Pittsburgh Streetcar Museum, with pictures of every model ever used AND all of the routes.
My mother had a nearly photographic memory, but asking her to remember the order of streetcar stops in1943 was a little much even for her. Also, the Pittsburgh Carnegie Library (where I all but lived for an entire summer) have the world's best local history reference desk that you can call--I found the number online.
Before I dig into a website, I always check the last time the site was updated (says the woman who hasnt updated her own website in four years!) and the authority of the group running it. (There are a lot of fruitcakes out there) I also stopped using WIkipedia the day I discovered I had a Wikipedia entry (75% in accurate!)
But I so addicted to my primary sources (one of my favorites, a pamphlet titled :"Win the War with Vegetables". Also, wherever I go, I check the local history section of the indie bookstore. I've found some wonderful self-published full of details I wouldn't find anywhere else. Also, the publisher Arcadia Books specializes in local histories that are essentially historical picture albums. I think every sort of historical society in this country has published with them (believe it or not, the volume for Matteson, Illinois had a picture of my kindergarden room, just the way I remember it.
The writer Ellen Gilchrist says that researching is always her favorite part of historical fiction because it forestalls that "writing part." I know what she means

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