Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel - Character

 I've been listening to the audio version of Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel - even though I don't write for young adults (yet).  I'm intrigued by the "beat" organization... very similar to what I learned in my beloved The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler, which itself is drawn from the works of mythologist Joseph Campbell.

I'm going to try to work on mapping out my story in this blog... just getting the skeleton of the story down.

WORKING TITLE:  I'm Not a Good Dog

Main Character: Lucky, a Cattle Dog/Corgi/who knows what mix.  He's a pup with issues.

PROBLEM:  Lucky's flaw is that he doesn't see the good things right in front of him... his adoptive owner, for example.  He's fixated on being a Bad Dog so they will send him back to Tales and Tails Rescue.  When that doesn't work, he runs away from his adoptive home.

WANT:  Lucky wants to live with his rescuers, not find a home for himself.  Susan and Tom rescued Lucky and his mom after they were abandoned by their previous owner; Lucky loves living at the rescue, and doesn't want to leave.  When he gets adopted, all he wants is to go back.

NEED:  Lucky needs to learn that home is where you are loved for being who you are... where you have a home, no matter how "good" or "bad" you are.

Lucky is physically based on my own pup, Loki... and no, the name is not a one-off.  Lucky gets his name because he was LUCKY to be rescued and wasn't in as bad of shape as his mom.

The Man Who Invented Christmas

 

I don't generally have much use for films made for adults.

Given my nature and my profession, both as a teacher and as a writer of children's books, my preference is almost always for films aimed at families or children.  Entertainment aimed at adults, I often find, is too grim or too disturbing, too vulgar or too focused on romance and relationships.  I just don't enjoy it, regardless of what the critics say.   Oh, sure, I'll go to almost any superhero movie - and fantasies are a safe bet for me, too, but realistic cinema?  Historical?  Biopics?  No thank you.

While visiting my parents for a few days, my son requested a movie night.  He's very congizant of what I like and I don't like, and humors me - at 15, he's got a much wider range of acceptable cinematic entertainment than his mother.  He suggested an old favorite of both of ours - The Princess Bride - but when that was unavailable, we started scrolling through other potential options.

Our wants, as mother and son, were fairly simple - something lighthearted, with a happy ending.  After watching about half a dozen trailers, with reactions ranging from a "meh" from my son to an "I don't think so" from me, we reached the trailer for The Man Who Invented Christmas.  I can't say we leapt with joy at seeing it... but we both agreed that it didn't look half bad, and my parents agreed.  

I loved it.

Now, granted, I know a bit about Charles Dickens from my teaching experience... I've read short biographies of the man, and while I did think the actor (cleanshaven - didn't Dickens have a moustache and beard?) looked rather young for the Dickens I pictured, I was pleased with the casting.  The acting was wonderful, the script had just the right combination of laughs and serious notes, and as an exploration of a writer's process of creation, I found it spot on.

In fact, I loved that aspect of the film above all others.  The notion of a character coming to life and interacting with its creator tickled me silly, since the best characters do just that with their readers.  But yes, they also do that with their creators... and I howled with laughter at the point in the film where Dickens wailed protest to a friend that his characters were refusing to do what he wanted them to.  I've been there myself!  I loved the idea that the characters were physically following their writer around... at one point, he peeked out a window and - hello, dearie! - the characters assembled on the street corner below waved cheerfully up at him.  Scrooge, the old reprobate, even had the temerity to inform Dickens that he felt the book was too one-sided, and had prepared notes to give his own perspective to the story!  I'm not sure my family understood why I was giggling so much, but in many ways, this is a writer's movie, and one that nobody but a writer could truly appreciate.

If you're a reader or a writer, and you're looking for a pleasant way to pass a couple of hours on a winter's night... I'd strongly recommend The Man Who Invented Christmas.  Even if it isn't the holidays anymore.  It's definitely worth a viewing.

50 Precious Words, Take 2

A New Pet

Mama says

NO PET DINOSAURS.

A dinosaur’s too big.

WAY too big!

Where would it sleep?

Not inside!

What would it eat?

Tons of food!

And how about cleaning up dinosaur mess?

You’d need a BULLDOZER, Mama says!

I guess she’s right.

But she didn’t say no

To a dragon!

I think I like this better than last night's attempt... it's more cheerful, for one. While most adults would get the subtle humor of "Writer's Block," I don't think a child would. And I don't like the idea of having a child see writing as work (even if many of them do). So this will probably be my submission for "50 Precious Words." Wish me luck!

50 Precious Words

I've decided that I'm going to try to enter the "50 Precious Words" writing contest... but so far, my entry ideas aren't turning out so well.  I have a very hard time limiting my word count!  After a few hours of work, only one has come out cohesive and within the fifty word limit...

Teacher says

I need to write a story

That’s fifty words long.

Fifty words!

How can I fill up a page

With FIFTY WORDS?

Can’t do it.

Not today, not tomorrow.

My ideas just aren’t that big.

I simply cannot strrrrreeeeeeeetch

My story that far.

Ain’t gonna happen.

Ever.

Phooey.

I don't think it's bad, for a start. I just want something a bit more... "wow." Something that leaves the readers with a smile or a chuckle.  But for now, at least I have a start!

Where Ideas Come From

Sometimes, ideas are slow in coming to me.  I used to tell my students to carry around a small notebook, because you can never tell what in life is going to trigger an idea - a sound, a sight, a whisp of scent.  To be perfectly truthful, it's been a long time since I've carried around a writer's notebook.  I tell myself it's because I have a smartphone now, and a note on my notetaking app will be faster and easier to read than a handwritten jot - but the truth is, that notebook was shaming me.  It didn't like not being written in, not one bit.

But sometimes ideas do still come from the most unlikely places - the everyday places that shouldn't, really, generate ideas.  After all, when was the last time an author came up with a novel concept while, say, washing her hands?  Or unloading the dishwasher?  And yet, there it was... sitting on the plate of arugula I was mincing for my Bearded Dragon, Figment.

All animals eat something... dogs and cats eat kibble, horses eat grain, cows graze on grass.  But dragons eat salad and bugs.

It was that last thought that stuck with me.  Dragons eat salad... and bugs.  It became a refrain of sorts.  Here's a list of familiar animals and what they have for dinner - but Dragon eats salad and bugs.  OR... and now my mind started whirring... suppose it's lunchtime in the animal schoolyard.  Suppose Dragon is looking forward to his lunch of salad and bugs, but every time he sits down next to another critter, they look at his lunch and go "EWWWW!"  What then?  Who would he eventually sit next to?  Lots of animals eat greens, but they'd turn up their noses at insects.  And the insect eaters, they don't like greens ("How can you EAT that stuff!" whined Leopard Gecko, chomping down a mealworm.)  It would take another omnivore to make Dragon feel comfortable.

So there you have it... that's where ideas come from.

Dragon salads.

Finding ____ to Write

It's not about finding time to write... at least, not for me.  Because my writing-supporting job is teaching, I have two months of free-and-clear writing time each summer where, if I chose to do so, I could write for full 8 hour days if I chose.

But I don't.

Why?  I don't really know.  Maybe it's the perfectionist in me.  Some people advise to write every day, even if what you're writing is horrible.  I can't stomach that.  Forcing myself to write because "it's time to write" is about as palatable as forcing myself to eat because "it's time to eat."  If I'm not hungry, I don't want to eat.  If the words aren't there, I don't want to write.

So how does one fill in that blank?  Finding that... something... to write?  Finding the spirit to write?  The story to write?  The words to write?  All of those seem reasonable to me.  Without them, writing is bland and colorless.  I wish I knew how other writers, prolific writers, do it - get their ideas, keep the words flowing.  I can't even keep my blog updated, for crying out loud!

So... does this make me less of a writer, knowing this?  I surely hope not.

What Goes Into a Picture Book Manuscript?

I've been working on drafting another picture book, and found myself contemplating all that goes into the piece even before it's ready to be polished and sent looking for a home. Like many others, I once thought - foolishly thought - that writing a picture book was easier than writing a novel.  It's certainly shorter, I'll admit to that freely, but easier?  Not really.

It starts with the matter of scope.  Novelists see things in terms of the Big Picture - sweeping settings, complex and developing characters, conflicts and plot twists and story arcs.  A good picture book can have all of those things, of course, but where a novelist has several thousand words or a few hundred pages to allow their story to take shape, a picture book is for the most part bound to the 32-page format, and an ever-dwindling number of words as the hypothetical attention span of young readers diminishes in bits and bytes.  So, easier?  Not really.  Just shorter, which can be its own obstacle to surmount.

But what goes into a picture book, really?  What thought processes are at work?  Well, for my current work in progress, working title Constellations on Vacation, my mental workings looked something like this.

1.  The Title.
The title came to me fairly easily for this manuscript.  Sometimes a whole slew of drafts goes by before I find a title good enough to pin on the piece, but in this case, the title came first.  I was looking up at the sky, thinking of the constellations I might be able to spot, and the rhyming phrase Constellations on Vacation popped into my head, and suddenly I was off and running.

2.  Which Constellations?
When I decided to google it, I was amazed at the wide variety of constellation characters I'd have to choose from.  There are the classical groupings, of which the twelve zodiac constellations are a part - Leo, Aquarius, Pisces, Cancer, and their ilk.  A good many of these are also human in form - Perseus, Orion, Andromeda, Cassiopeia.  Then there are the more modern shapes, which didn't seem all that useful, for the most part, as they're rather obscure.  The Air Pump and the Microscope might be interesting as a possible Jeopardy question, but I really couldn't see them vacationing much of anywhere.  I opted to go with the classical constellations, and focus on realistic-looking animals and people... Cancer the Crab and Leo the Lion were in, Capricorn the Sea Goat and Sagittarius the Archer centaur were out.

3.  Where Would Constellations Go On Vacation?
At first, the story unfolded in a series of mental "screenshots" - constellations lounging on a beach, exploring the plains of Africa, taking a sight-seeing tour of New York City.  But it needed to go further than that... and it needed refining.  Should I go with a general series of locations - beach, forest, city?  Or should I think specific - the Great Barrier Reef, Muir Woods, New York City?  Should I attempt a mixture of the two?  And should I focus on American locations, or try for a more global view of things?  That last question is still bugging me, though my first draft opted for specific American locations.

4.  Who is the Main Character?
This stymied me for a bit.  A book needs a protagonist, or at least a character to focus on.  In the book The Day the Crayons Quit, the story is told via letters written from the crayons to their erstwhile owner.  I'd already decided that the story would be told through a series of post cards from the constellations on vacation... but who would the post cards be sent to?  And why would that "someone" be interested in those post cards?

5.  What's the Problem Here?
And this question, my bete noir, kept hounding me on the heels of the main character question.  I tend towards sleepy, calm, sweet picture books - "going to sleep" books that progress softly from one scene to the next without much, or any, conflict.  Unfortunately for me, that's not what agents and publishers are looking for.  They WANT conflict.  They want the main character, your protagonist, to struggle with something and eventually achieve that goal.  Gone are the sleepy-time books I once dreamed of writing; it's all about the conflict. 

So... what could be the problem here?  I'd tentatively decided that the protagonist of the book would be the constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog.  I wasn't so keen on the name, but dogs are almost universally appealing (pardon the pun), and I thought he would make a decent protagonist.  As for the conflict... what if Canis wants to go on vacation, but can't decide where?  What if he's afraid to leave his spot in the sky?  What if he wants to go EVERYwhere, and just can't decide where to go first?  One of those, I thought, would surely fit.

6.  Formatting the Story
As I already mentioned, I'd decided early on that the story would be a correspondence story... a series of post cards to Canis Major from his starry friends as they vacation on Earth.  I still needed to play with that format, however... Canis would need to respond to the reading of each post card, introducing the conflict (that this wasn't the place he would choose to vacation) and move the action along.  I decided that each post card would be followed by a single sentence, showing Canis Major's thoughts on the location.

7.  Time to Draft!
And this is where I am right now... with my prewriting done, I'm free to draft and revise, draft and revise, draft and revise.  This is also where the 32-page rule and the limited word count come into play; I may need to make a dummy copy of the text on the pages to see how this is going to fit together, page-wise, though strictly speaking, that's the job of the editor and art director.  I've also got to keep that word count in mind.  Right now, two drafts in, I'm running at just over a thousand words, a shade long for the modern picture book.  Some trimming will certainly be in order. 

But drafting, editing, and revising is a topic for another blog post!

Social Media Platform vs. Writing Time

It's been about two months since I started trying to build my social media platform, as advised by an article in the 2019 Children's Writer's & Illustrators Market.  My feelings are definitely mixed.

On Facebook, I have an "official author's page" which isn't all that different from my personal page, except that all posts go public.  I try to post two or three times a week.  On average, the only people who interact with those posts are my family and friends who "liked" the page to begin with.  Some people might wonder why I bothered with an author's page at all, as I was already active on Facebook before I created it.  The answer is that I prefer to keep my writing/ author posts separate from my personal life posts; I don't particularly need the world to hear my every thought or insecurity that I share with people I actually know.

On Twitter, I've been working to build up the number of followers I have, but doing it in a very methodical and cautious way.  I don't want just ANY followers; I want people who, ideally, have read my books and like me.  Barring that, I'd prefer they be fellow writers or agents in the children's book field - people I can network with.  I'm on Twitter pretty much every day, just as I am with Facebook, and I try to retweet or tweet at least one thing each day.  On the whole, I don't care for Twitter as much as I do Facebook; it feels very much like a zillion voices shouting into a void, and while I have been making an effort to become part of the #WritingCommunity there, my own posts don't get much notice at this point.

The thing with social media, though, is this: it's addictive.  I come home from work, shed my work clothes, and flop down into my favorite chair with my iPad to check the platform and see what's new.  On many days, it's a bit of a chore to think of something to post - as I said, I don't want to post just anything, and there's only so much I can say about my writing.  And yet, I find myself glued to the screen for hours at a go, reading other people's words, and telling myself that I'm doing all this to better my own writing self.

Only I'm not writing.

Writing and holding down a full-time job like teaching is difficult to begin with; on many afternoons, I'm just not at a good place in my head to try to write.  I'm tired, both physically and emotionally, and doing the social media thing is a lot less exerting than actually sitting down and trying to think of something to write about.  That's a dangerous place for a writer to be, though.  Social media is a time-consumer, something that FEELS like you're being productive... only you aren't, because every minute spent on social media is a minute you're not spending actually writing.  Too much of that, and you wind up becoming one of those people who's a writer only in their own mind - talking the talk, but producing little to nothing in the way of proof.

I'm really going to need to assess my use of social media.  It may get my name out there, yes... but it won't, at least as far as I can tell, help get me published.  Neither will this blog, of course, but at least when I'm updating this blog, I'm forcing myself to do some real writing.  Social media can be a wonderful thing, I think, when used correctly... but it's also a La Brea Tar Pit of self indulgence.  Put more than an exploratory toe in, and you risk getting mired and sucked down.

Turtle Writer

I've been introduced to a new term, courtesy of Twitter: turtle writer.  Or, as it trends on Twitter, #turtlewriter.

The hashtag was coined about two years ago by author Meka James for the Twitter group she and two friends, fellow writers Rosetta Yorke and M "Ladybug" Moos, co-host. It means precisely what you'd think it means: a writer who writes verrrrrrry sllllllowwwwwly.

I am a turtle writer.

When my last book got published, I was seized with almost manic energy: this time, things would be different.  This time, I would keep up the flow of writing.  This time, I would stop being a turtle writer and be a Productive Writer.

Alas, it was not to be.  I did produce a few manuscripts in the flush following the acceptance and publication of The Stable Cat's Christmas, but as of yet,  I haven't found a home for any of them.  I've sent two manuscripts to the editor I worked with on Stable Cat, but have heard volumes of... nothing.  Sigh.  And now, I'm in a writing slump, feeling like I'll never have another original, draftable thought ever again.

I'm back to being a turtle writer.

But there is, I think, more to being a turtle writer than simply having a slow turnover rate.  Turtles are more than just their lack of speed (which, to anyone who has known a turtle or tortoise personally, is highly exaggerated... they can be speedy little guys when the need arises!)  Turtles are... methodical.  Thoughtful.  They don't wander aimlessly at their "turtle's pace" - they have a clear destination in mind, and are simply taking their time in getting there.  Turtles don't "go" just anywhere.  If they don't have a place to get to, they simply stay where they are.  I like to think that turtle writers are like that, too..
. we don't spend our time on a hundred different projects or writing exercises that aren't going to go anywhere; we plod slowly along with that one good idea, that one spark that will carry us through to our end destination.

What's more, turtles are designed to be protected from the sharp and pointy bits of the wide world out there.  That lovely shell, so easy to pull back into, is one of nature's greatest architectural designs.  We turtle writers are just as susceptible to depression at rejection letters and non-responses (the new alternative to the rejection letter) as anyone else, and we pull back into our shells from time to time... but we don't stay there.  Like our reptilian namesakes, we know that if we're going to get on with this business of living, we have to come out sometime.  Oh, it's tempting to huddle back in one's safe and cozy shell, perhaps filling the time by building a social media platform on Twitter, but if we're ever going to be the writers we dream of being, we're going to have to get back out into the world.

And that's the turtle writer's credo, I think... Imitate the turtle: to make progress, you have to stick your neck out.  In a vocation where getting ahead means long months or even years of querying and rejection for every eventual publication, it's very easy to want to curl up into your shell, protected from the sting of hearing, "Sorry, but your manuscript doesn't meet our current needs" - or having to face the well-meaning family and friends who want to know how your latest project is going.

Inside a shell, however, you aren't getting anywhere.  A turtle who pulls into her shell may be protected, yes, but she also isn't getting to where she wants to be.  The only way to get through the rejection form letters and "don't call us, we'll call you" non-replies is to push past them, eyes firmly focused on the ultimate goal.

With all that in mind, I think I am proud to be a turtle writer.  I may be slow, but I'm moving towards my ultimate goal.

The UnQuiet Mind

It's another snow day, and I'd hoped to make it as productive as the last.  I brought home grading from school and set to it, planning to get it over with and on with the more enjoyable part of the day: writing.  The problem is, writing requires a certain mindset.  A certain quietness of the mind to let the words and worlds flow.  And my mind, as it so often becomes these days, is far from quiet.

You hear a lot about mindfulness lately, about the importance of thinking and feeling in the moment.  I'd love to live a more mindful life, to shed the buzzing whir of my thoughts that don't seem to want to slow down, to be rid of my desire to be anywhere other than where I am.  I feel a bit like T.S. Eliot's cat the Rum Tum Tugger - when I'm in, then I want to be out, always on the wrong side of any door, when I'm at home then I want to get about.  I have a great deal of difficulty being in the "now."  When my presence at home is mandated by bad weather, as it is today, the feeling only intensifies... I need to get out, to be somewhere other than stuck in the house.  Cabin fever is something that sets in all too quickly for me.

This feeling is not conducive to writing, to say the very least.

So what to do?  I tried stretching... an uncomfortable interlude, to say the least.  I threw in a load of wash.  I did my social media duties, trying to build my "platform."  I'm here right now, updating my blog.  And still my thoughts are all a whir and a whirl, and I want, of all things, to go to the GYM.  This is not like me at all, and only goes to show what an odd place my head is in.  It's as if it's consciously trying to keep me from writing.

I think I may just go haul the space heater into the room, make myself a cup of something warm to drink, and try to muscle my way through it.  Try to get some of the buzzing in my head out onto a page.  Quieting my mind may never work, but perhaps I can find a way to make my unquiet mind work for me.

It's worth a shot.

Super Bowl Sunday: Pondering the Question, Is Writing Hard?

My husband and son, who couldn't really care less about football any other day of the year, are in the living room flipping between the Big Game and Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl.  I'm pretty sure they're more interested in the Super Bowl commercials than they are in the game itself.  As for me, I'm at the computer, typing out this blog, and trying to get some thoughts together to write with.

Someone on Twitter just posted a poll... Is writing hard?  I selected yes, but not because I actually find writing hard.  Writing, once I get started doing it, comes as naturally to me as breathing does.  It's the "getting started doing it" part that is hard.  Today, for example, my writing needed to wait for a visit to the in-laws' to be finished, a study guide for an upcoming science test to be written, and Twitter to be perused (because, for some reason I'm still not entirely certain of, I'm trying to build my Platform.  Please don't ask me what that means.  I'm honestly not sure.)  

And now I'm writing.  But wait, Chris, aren't you updating your blog right now?  Well, yes, but writing this blog counts as writing time for me, because a) it IS writing, and b) if I wasn't updating my blog, I wouldn't be getting any writing done at all, because my muse has taken time off to watch the Super Bowl.

THAT is the hard part about writing.  When the ideas come, I can grab them and jot them down in my handy-dandy notebook, but when I settle in for some actual writing time, the words may or may not be there.  Some writers say to just glue your butt to the chair and stare at the screen or page until you can write something.  Others advocate writing exercises, prompts and the like.  Still others say, snarkily, that if you can't commit to writing when you make time for it, you're not a writer.  And there's some truth to what all of these writers say or suggest.  

But for me, if I'm not in the proper zone, with words moving through me like waves through water, just sitting and trying to muscle my way through it is about as helpful as trying to give my son Algebra advice.  (Note: I failed Algebra in high school.)  I'm bound to write something, but it's almost certainly going to be something that I hate.  Something I'll never use.  So... yes, writing is hard, in a way.  Writing itself is easy.  GETTING to the writing... now, that's hard.

Snow Day, Writing Day

It's been a good day for writing.  A surprise snow day off from work can do that - a chance to sleep in, then get up and attend to Things That Need Doing (in my case, correcting papers that were building up), then... WRITING TIME!

It's not often that my muse cooperates with my schedule... in fact, I've gotten rather used to her abandoning me whenever I actually have a moment to sit down at the computer.  Today, however, she stayed with me as I chugged through a first draft of a picture book and revisions of two others.  Huzzah!  For the first time in too long, I actually feel like a writer!

Now, to just find a way to replicate this miracle more often...

Building a Social Media Platform

My resolution for the new year was to get with the program, technology-wise, and start acting like a writer of the twenty first century.  Specifically, I resolved to build my social media platform.  That means Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, all that lovely stuff I have already joined but haven't spent a ton of time on, writer-wise.  And frankly, shoring up my wobbly platform is just a bit intimidating.

The fact is, I've neglected my blog, ignored Twitter, and used my Facebook page for strictly personal use.  It's not that I don't have much to say as a writer - sometimes, I've got too MUCH to say.  It's just that in my head, there's this little voice warning me, "Don't say that.  Don't put that down in words.  For God's sake, don't WRITE that where other people can see it!"

You see, every year or so, the teaching staff at my school has to sit through a teeth-grittingly tedious and blood-pressure raisingly irritating staff meeting about the public face of teachers.  Namely, that we are all teachers 24/7, that we are bound to our professional personas with chains of lead, and that anything that we say or do in our personal lives can and will be used against us if we're not careful.  I get it, in a way... teachers who go out partying every weekend and post pictures all over Instagram of themselves getting wasted or teachers who loudly advocate on Facebook for the legalization of recreational marijuana are not really the role models we want teaching our children.  But I get the heeby-jeebies at the thought that people might be watching ME, analyzing anything I post or tweet, just looking for an excuse to complain to my principal or superintendent about my unprofessional behavior.

This leads, of course, to the necessity of cultivating a professional face for the public... and that opens up an entirely new doorway leading down a hall I don't particularly want to walk.  While I don't consider myself half the icon the fictional Atticus Finch was, I've always loved To Kill a Mockingbird and yearned to be, as Miss Maudie says of Atticus, the same person in my house as I am on the public streets.  I don't want to cultivate a public face.  I just want to be myself, and be enough in that self that I don't need to worry about what anyone says or thinks about me.

All of this makes shoring up my social media platform a challenge, to say the least.  I can grit my teeth and post blandly on my Facebook author's page account, looking for inspirational quotes and pictures of kittens to fill that space; I can join Twitter, though I'm not sure I have the time right now to make it a worthwhile effort.  And I can dust off this blog, and try to make an entry a week - or can this blog entirely and start afresh, maybe, since anyone looking at the frequency of my past posts will see that I'm not exactly a regular updater.  But will I be able to be myself, as a writer?  Is that desirable?  Is it wise?

I guess I'll just have to try it and find out.

Words, Come Back!

My words have gone away.

Some people would call it writer's block, but that's not really what it is.  My brain is buzzing with story ideas.  I've got old ideas that are begging me to write them down, new ideas waiting to be born, stories that I drafted ages ago hoping that I'll dust them off and breath some new life into them.

But the words aren't there.

I spent an hour in my drafts file, tweaking a phrase here, a sentence there.  Nothing struck me as ready to be sent out into the world, but I couldn't manage to work up any enthusiasm for improving them.

I spent another thirty minutes staring at a blank document, typing out a few lines and then deleting them, starting and aborting new stories before they could ever make it to revision phase.  Nothing I wrote sounded right, felt right.  Nothing was up to what I consider my usual caliber. 

Of course, at this rate, my usual caliber is getting to be... nothing.  I haven't written anything new in ages.  Even this blog is gathering a pathetic layer of cyber-dust.

I don't know where my words go, in these long spaces between productive writing periods.  I don't know how to get them back.  I've read the advice, most of which boils down to "muscle through it."  Write something, even if it's garbage.  Write anything, just to keep the inner gears cranking.  Write from a prompt, keep a journal, compose reams of bad poetry.  Just write. 

There was a time when I was an avid writer of fan fiction, which served nicely to get me over the dry spells. but lately even that has deserted me; my fandoms are dead, and I haven't found the passion for any new ones.

I don't even have a writer's circle to call upon, to help me through these desolation periods.  No other members of the SCBWI live near me, and the one group I tried to join up with met at a most inconvenient time for someone who needs to hold down a day job.  I didn't stay long enough to form any lasting friendships, and so far I haven't mustered the courage to form a group of my own... that would put me in a position of quasi-authority, and I don't want to be the leader.

And so I sit, and I stew, and I send out a plea into the ether... Words, come back!  Come home!  So much of my self-image, my idea of who I am, is tied up in my identity as a writer that I don't really know who I am without my words.

Sigh.

Words, come back!  I miss you!

Time to Write

My husband, bless his heart, exemplifies what people seem to think when they hear that I'm a writer and a teacher.

"You have the whole summer off!" he extols. "Think of all the writing you can get done!"

Yes, just think of it.  A whole summer, like one ginormous blank page, just waiting to be written on.

I find it absolutely terrifying.

So far, I've revisited my folder of works-in-progress... tweaked one here, adjusted another there, added a bit to a third, and reread most of my WIP collection, both the cringe-worthy and those full of potential.

But so far, I haven't written anything new.

I want to write.  I want to be prolific, a beloved author of children's books like my idol Jane Yolen, who could fill an entire bookshelf with her published work.  I want to crank those manuscripts out, so that the downtime between publication and my next book is short and sweet.

But first, I need to figure out what to write about.

Yay! It Happened Again!

I'm thrilled to report that my second picture book, THE STABLE CAT, has been accepted by Worthy Kids/ Ideals and will be released in November 2017.  It's a Christmas fable that I wrote for my church some ten years ago, after becoming tired of never seeing cats included in any Nativity scenes.  (I rarely see dogs, either - a gross oversight, in my most humble opinion!)  I've been sitting on the manuscript, waiting for "the right time" to send it out - in my mind, when I was established enough to have a say in the choice of illustrator or illustrative style - until I realized that "the right time" wasn't ever going to get here, at the rate I've been going.  I haven't been getting any nibbles on my other work, and I knew that THE STABLE CAT was well-received by pretty much everyone who had read or heard the original draft.  So... why wait?

Worthy Kids/ Ideals is a firmly established and respectable house.  They've published Berenstain Bears titles and Eileen Spinelli, as well as Veggie Tales books and a pair of children's devotionals that I'm particularly fond of.  Honestly, I couldn't be happier with WorthyKids/ Ideals as a home for my book - and I can't wait to see the finished product!

Character Creation: Twitch

Once, in a writing workshop, the topic of character creation came up - specifically, how similar or dissimilar our characters are from ourselves.  It was a fascinating conversation, and one that really draws a line between the beginning writer and the professional.  Writers beginning on their journeys, or so the conversation went, have a tendency to try to create - or to create unintentionally - characters that are very similar to themselves.  Fanfiction writers, it seems, are particularly guilty of the sin of fictionalizing themselves and placing those characters into tales as the saviors or love interests of the established characters they have chosen to write about.

Writing a character so close to yourself, it seems to me, is dangerous for the writer.  Not in any real-world peril - but more in terms of making it hard to distance yourself from rejection.  If you're writing a novel and the protagonist is a thinly-veiled you, or a you-that-you-wish-you-were, how easy is it to take even constructive criticism?  How much will it sting when the novel is rejected?  Our written works are our babies anyway - but to have them be an extension of ourselves is risky to our creative hearts, thick skins be darned.

So I set about to create a character who was the virtual opposite of myself... just to see if I could.  To see how difficult it would be to get into the head of someone intentionally Other.  I created Twitch, who I saw as a sort of Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH protagonist.  Her story hasn't gone far, though I keep thinking I'd like to play around with it... it's mired in the planning stage right now... but I found that I truly liked Twitch, the sassy, anti-human, who-needs-romance leading lady.

Well, a lady of a sort...

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TWITCH

Let me start off by saying this:  I do NOT like you.  No, really.  I really don’t give two whiskers what you think of me, or if you think I’m out of line for saying it.  It’s true.   I really, truly, can’t stand you people.  But it’s nothing personal.

Okay, it’s REALLY personal.  

I am a rat.  Yes, a rat.  Not a mouse.  Not a hamster.  Nothing that you human types would consider remotely cute and fuzzy.  A rat.  R - A - T.  Rat.

I do not wear clothes.  When I was a little squeak, I read some human book where the mice and moles and badgers and all were dressed up as monks from the Dark Ages - robes, sandals, the whole shebang - and lived in a castle of some sort, just their size.  Unbelievable.  Besides the walking on two legs, which is insane if you want to get anywhere fast, ROBES?  SANDALS?  Seriously?  

And don’t get me started on Beatrix Potter.  Puh-leaze.  

For the record, NO animal wears clothes, except you humans and those humiliated little dogs some of you insist on dressing up like dolls which is, really, incredibly disturbing.  So - no clothes.  Real animals don’t need ‘em.  Fur is more than fine, thank-you-very-much.

But back to the point.  I am a rat, and if you have issues with that, I don’t want to hear about them.  No “eww, that tail” or “gross, a rat” or any of that turd-drop stuff.  You don’t like rats?  Fine.  There’s the door.  Don’t catch your tail in it on the way out.  I couldn’t care less, because - as I said before - I hate you people.

You can’t blame me here.  Rats - decent animals going about minding their own business, trying to find food, shelter, water, and raise the next generation.  Humans - not so decent animals who can’t seem to pass a rat on the street without screeching, stomping, throwing something, or trying to kill it in any one of a thousand barbaric ways.  Humans have been waging genocide on rodents for centuries… poisons, traps, tortures, you name it.  And then, if that’s not enough, you’ve bred an entire population of rats purely for your own scientific tortures.

If you were me, would you like you very much?  Didn’t think so.  And don’t give me “but not all humans are evil.”  Not all rats are filthy disease carriers, but that doesn’t stop YOU people, does it?

Anyway.

Working Alone, Together

Writers have a reputation for being solitary creatures.  It's part of the great nature tome of archetypes - the lone writer, like a lone wolf, majestic and proud.  Writers, it is said, need a still, silent, private place in which to get the work of writing done - time carved out late at night or in the predawn hours, supplemented with long walks alone through the fields and woodlands.  It's certainly a romantic notion.  Charles Dickens subscribed to it, as did William Wordsworth and Jane Austen, and many other great names. But even without long, solitary rambles, writers need, at the very least, a Virginia Woolfian room of their own in which to sequester themselves and get on with writing.

I've never bought into it for myself, honestly.  I hate like poison to be alone.  Being by myself is different - I can do that in a populated place - but being alone, being surrounded by the absence of other human beings, is deeply unsettling for me.

Granted, I am probably the most socially dependent introvert you're likely to meet.  I need people around me, and always have, to feel secure enough to go about my own business.  As a child, I needed to hear my family moving through the house, listening to television or radio, talking softly, in order to fall asleep.  Even now, I often resort to listening to podcasts to help me bridge the divide between wakefulness and slumber.  When  I'm working, that trend remains very much the same... I need to have people nearby in order to achieve the state of peace  I need in which to write.  That doesn't mean I need to be interacting with people, mind you.  That's entirely different; I can't be chatting away and writing at the same time.  I also can't get a darned thing done if the surroundings are too loud or chaotic.  I've tried many times working in Starbucks, for example, and depending on the background music and the clientele, I may or may not be able to focus.  But when it comes to my work, whether it's writing or doing the grunt paperwork of teaching, I generally find that I'm at my best when I have a steady "white noise" of people to ignore.

At the moment, I have fled my too-quiet home for the comparative bustle of our local library.  Even with the radio on and my dogs and cats to keep me company, home was too empty without the bodies of my husband and son filling their usual spaces.  Here, in the library atrium set aside for laptop use, I can hear the chatter of the librarians and the passing of patrons, the clatter and thump of books being returned, the steady tic-a-tic-tic of other laptop users in close proximity.  It's comforting, these lives surrounding me.  I have not said a word to the patrons nearest at hand - the girl playing video games on her laptop, the gentleman with a stack of career books perusing job sites.  I don't need to, and, in fact, feel any greeting would be an intrusion.  We have not come to this place to socialize.  We are aware of one another, alert to the presence or absence of someone close by, but have gathered here to be alone.

Alone, but together.

It's my favorite place to write.

Out of the Cold

I'm a firm believer in the power of a kind word.  Words, after all, are in my bloodstream, in my soul.  It's how I hope, one day, to make a living.  Still, this classic Peanuts strip kind of hits me where I live.  I can definitely relate to Snoopy, fellow writer that he is.

Shivering in the cold, Snoopy needs something... warmth, shelter.  One could, of course, wonder why he's sitting out there in the snow to begin with - he has a dog house - but for whatever reason, he is not availing himself of it.  Schroeder and Charlie Brown, seeing this, feel moved to offer comfort and warmth of a spiritual nature.  In their warm clothing, hats and mittens and jackets insulating them from the bite of the wind and snow, they speak their hearts - then go, leaving Snoopy to, essentially, wonder, "WTF?"

Snoopy doesn't need to be told, "Be of good cheer."  He needs a JACKET.  He needs to be brought inside.  He needs to find physical warmth, not spiritual consolation.  It would be easy to point fingers at the humans in the equation and say, "You should be taking care of him!  You see he's cold - do something, don't just SAY something!"

But that's not the way this works, this being out in the cold.

Really, what Snoopy needs is to get his furry butt off the ground and into some place more congenial for sitting.  As do we all.

It's easy and tempting to daydream about being published.  To envision the agent or the editor who will sweep in, like some knight out of a fairy tale, and scoop up our words, bestowing the boon of publication on us.  We may imagine ourselves as that fairy tale protagonist, a Goose Girl or Cinderella, a Little Match Girl, toiling away at work we'd rather not be doing - teaching, office managing, waiting tables - and waiting for someone to see past the dusty reality to find our true writer selves within.  We, like Snoopy, are sitting out in the cold, gazing wistfully at the published authors and rows of chosen manuscripts transformed into books, waiting for someone to invite us in to the warmth and shelter of our dreams.

But that's not the way this works.

Like Snoopy, we need to get off our furry butts and get moving, if writing is our heart's work.  We know all too well that it's not just a matter of writing and waiting.  There is work there, market research and searching and questing for the editor or agent who has space in their roster for us.  It may be more work than we feel we can handle  -most of us are, after all, already working one or more full time jobs to support our lives and families- but what's the alternative?  To sit, like Snoopy, out in the cold?

To wait for someone to come and tell us, "Be of good cheer" or "You're an awesome writer - just keep at it"?

No.  If we're going to get published, we have to do the hard work of it ourselves.  We need to get ourselves into that warm, sheltered place - even if we need to build it ourselves.  But don't fret too much.  Once we're moving, working, writing our hearts out, there will be people who see that and offer their words of support and encouragement.  And those words will actually mean something, paired with our own efforts.

Be of good cheer.  It's hard, but we can do it.  

Be of good cheer.





The Gift of Time

My husband gave me a lovely Valentine's Day gift yesterday.  He removed our son from the computer, gave him something else to do, and turned to me.

"Go write," he said. "You're always looking for time to write.  Here- go write."

It was better than roses.

Of course, muses being what they are, mine promptly deserted me, leaving me to pick a bit at pieces I'd already written and set aside for revision - but as with so many things, it's the thought that counts.

Hope your Valentine's Day was happy, too.