PURPLE MOUNTAIN’S MAJESTY

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I am going to be honest here…I have not been writing. I was on a roll for a while. Then the editor we were working with went up in a puff of smoke and the publishing house disappeared. I just lost momentum and desire. Since then, I have avoided writing like the plague. The only writing I have wanted to do…have done, is the poetry I share with my group, The Cottage Poets. And my poems have rarely been warm and fuzzy, they’ve been mostly venting. This last year and a half has been up-ending. I feel like I have been walking on my hands with my head in my underwear. I have not had a clear vision of how I see my life proceeding or if I expect an upward or downward progression facing me in the future. I suddenly don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

I can’t decide whether this came about because, after 74 years living in Southern California, I decided to move. A move I felt I had to make for financial reasons. A move that took me away from my family and some of my dearest friends. Or perhaps it is because some of my personal setbacks…like turning 75 this month, finding there was no more cartilage in my knees, learning to live (again) with a fifteen year old (my beautiful granddaughter, Sarah), or because my dog, Izzi, has decided she likes my daughter best and pretty much ignores me.

It is amazing to me, at my age, to live in a place where I don’t know where anything is or how to get there if I find out. Where I don’t know anyone I see, although every lady looks like someone I am sure I met at an SCBWI Summer Conference at one time or another. Where people are genuinely kind and courteous and young and old hold the door for me, waiting patiently while I limp through. Where traffic in my town goes 25 MPH and I am fine with that. AND the scenery is mind-boggling, stunning, peaceful, green-green-green. There are lakes everywhere. Quaint abounds. Vintage is the norm. And I have never yet met a tree I didn’t love. On our meanderings, my daughter Jackee driving, me looking right and left so quickly I get car sick, my favorite exclamation has become OMG! OMG! OMG!

The best OMG! My birthday. It was amazing. Laurie Knowlton came from Ohio, and Dawn Dixon came from Arizona, and Judy came from Bellingham (WA…lol). We partied and laughed and talked and talked and talked for 9 days straight. It was everything a birthday celebration should be. Thank you, Loveys.

My life in Mount Vernon, Washington is everything my life in LA environs wasn’t. I am older than I have ever been before. I am happier than I thought I’d be. I am gearing up for something. Judy, ever positive, hopes it’s writing. I miss my grandkids and my great kids. I miss my friends…you know who you are. I am up here waiting…when can you come by? I’m ready for another party (and it’s a great excuse for not writing.)

REDISCOVERED WRITING

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MAGIC can happen when you clean your office or your desk or your garage files, or when you go through your computer documents.

The magic is in rediscovered manuscripts that you abandoned or that were rejected. (Even happens to famous authors.)

You may be surprised at how good the manuscript was and still is. Perhaps it was rejected because the timing wasn’t right (YA wasn’t selling; yes, there was that time) or there were too many books about . . . or no one was interested in American History (and now there’s a children’s book award for this very thing). Whatever the reason, you abandoned the manuscript.

But another look, fresh eyes, more experience as a writer can make a difference. Old manuscripts can be revived, reborn, become new and better.

As you sort, start a possibility file. And, when you are ready, analyze one or more of these abandoned manuscripts. Ask yourself:

Would the title tempt me to take this off the shelf?
Does the story need to start in a different place or time?
Did I pick the right main character? Did I choose strong names?
What if I changed past tense to present tense or vice-versa? Same with first or third person.
How much do I read before my mind wanders? Why?
Is the pacing off with too much time getting started, a slow middle, an ending that happens too quickly?
Do all the characters sound alike?
Does the main character solve the problem? Is there a problem?
Do I even care about the main character? Why or why not? Is there a reason for every secondary character to be in this story?
Are there sensory details? Is the story grounded?
Will today’s kids want to read this story if I revise it?

While much of this applies to novels, take another look at picture books and nonfiction manuscripts and all of the writing you’ve tucked away in boxes, bins, drawers, and on your computer. Maybe you didn’t have enough for an illustrator to work with in those picture books, but they might be magazine stories. Maybe you need to update your research for that nonfiction project and find out how it fits in the school curriculum. Perhaps it can be made more reader friendly.

Whether you are moving to a new home or doing spring cleaning or just procrastinating about your current writing project, dig deep. You never know what magic might be waiting.

FRIENDLY ADVICE by Laurie Knowlton

Promotion Photo  Recently a friend posted on her face book an amazing statement that I so wish I was the author. It went like this:
“Sometimes when I am bored I go to the garden and cover myself with dirt and pretend I am a carrot.”
I called my friend the minute I saw her post and said, “Please take that statement off your page and let me have it.”
(We are really close friends)
She laughed, and said “I got it from a friend, but go for it.”
I told her, “I love it! That statement is a great beginning of a children’s book—actually it would be a great beginning of a middle grade, a mystery, or even a YA.”
Now you have to understand my enthusiasm. It has been a long time since I have had a smidgen of an idea. The past two years have been consumed with the illness and the death of both of my parents, my father-in-law, and then the death of my youngest daughter’s marriage. Grief, anger, sorrow, and numbness have been my constant companions.
That one wonderful sentence woke me up. It was magnificent! It was unique! It was fun! It was inspiring. It has also traveled all over the internet like wild fire.
Bummer.
I wanted that idea. I needed that idea. I clung to that one statement like a drowning person. But after a day or so I knew I had to give it up. I had to stop with the obsession of owning that one fantastic line.
It wasn’t mine. But it did get me thinking.
And then it happened… a smidge of an idea. My idea. My emotions. My writing. And I realized all I had to do was change my focus from all those sad consuming thoughts and look around me. Ideas surround us daily begging to be claimed.
Sorry, I have to go. I’ve got some writing to do.

BEGINNING AGAIN

OLD PICS ARE THE BEST PICS                                   How many times have I begun again? Somewhere between 96 and 1,811 times. It is what I do. I am not only talking about my writing, I am talking about my life.

It’s not so much because I’ve failed a lot, it has more to do with my expectations failing me. What else is new?

It wasn’t my daddy’s fault that he could finally buy a house so we moved one month before the end of grammar school, leaving behind my 6th grade teacher—the only one who ever liked me–far behind. It’s a long story about my other teachers and it has to do with my working in studios since I was 17 days old. My new teacher at my new school really hated me—I bit my nails—the whole class lost hearing Kon Tiki until my nails grew out—the kids hated me, too.  One month until Jr. Hi arrived.

Begin again.

It wasn’t my fault that at 74, having live around LA my whole life, I have moved To Mount Vernon, Washington. Yesterday, missing a slew of old friends, I was griping a “little,” and my granddaughter, Sarah, said, “Bubbe, go make lemonade with all those lemons.” She was right on. Upward and onward.

Begin again.

My oil painting teacher said I had talent—I painted and painted—my watercolor painting teacher said I had talent.  Really  Me?  My artistic soul dreamed, but it was not to be. My dream of a garret in Scotland and becoming famous—Poof! Three wonderful kids.

Begin again.

Then there was my stained glass window class of 10,000 cuts. Even if I was good at it (?), I felt I might need my fingers in later life. I took my 10 X14 masterpiece home, and covered my hands with Hello Kitty bandages. I found out I am blood type B negative.

Begin again.

Piano—zip. Violin—zip. Ballet—zip. My mother’s dreams for me—zip—zip—zip. My dreams—not so much. What was there out in the big world meant for me?

Begin again.

The UCLA Writing program? I liked children’s books, didn’t I? I liked essay exams, didn’t I? I loved writing stories for kids, wouldn’t I? Besides, if that didn’t work I could always…SIGH.

Begin again.

So I went back to college. I took classes from the best, Sue Alexander, Eve Bunting, Sid Fleischman, and met Judy Enderle. Authors, editors, agents, publishers. A new friend who was already published! Good start, right?

Miracle! Someone wanted to buy my first YA. All 140 pages of it. Problem was; it was 250 pages long. What did I do? Of course. Nothing new here.

Begin again.

Second book—perfect! Almost. Begin again!

Third book—exceptional! Nearly. Begin Again!

Sometimes the editor can be wrong. You have begun again so many times you’re not sure what you were writing in the first place. It happened to Judy and me, and the editor had the book for six years. Changes after changes.Beginning again and again and again. The editor was fired. The book was returned. We sold it to another editor. The last time when we began again, we put it back in its original form. Sometimes you are right—your book is perfect.

BUT, if you want to sell it you smile and…Begin again.

 

THE VALUE OF WAITING

Editing1     By Judith Ross Enderle

I’ve been waiting. My writing partner Stephanie has been waiting, too. We are both waiting for the same thing: for life to settle down so we can get back to revising our middle-grade manuscript.
(An editor is patiently waiting, too—we hope.)

So why all this waiting?

This has been one of those unexpected-events-in-life summers. MOVING! And I mean more than getting out of my desk chair and taking a walk. I mean choosing a different house, selling the house I thought I’d never sell, packing billions of boxes, piling those boxes in a new house, unpacking those boxes, trying to decide what goes where. (I swear I rearranged things on the living room mantle at least a dozen times, and I’m still not sure it’s right.) Decisions!

Yup! I moved. I moved about six streets from where I lived before. BUT—I wasn’t the only one.

Stephanie moved, too. She can tell you all about her move (much farther than six streets) in her blog post coming up.

So what does all this have to do with waiting? When I’m moving I find it hard to focus (and I’m too tired to focus) on anything but getting from point A to point B. The writing I do during this time consists of lists: who to contact to turn off utilities, who to contact to turn on utilities, change of address lists, to-do lists, must-have and want-to-have lists.

Writing during this time is brief: what’s in each box, all packed and taped, and what room does it belong in.

Writing during this time fills Post-It notes galore: things to do, arrange, give away, buy, calls to make etc.

And then there’s getting the office disassembled and reassembled, with fingers crossed that everything will work. And when it doesn’t,trying to figure out why.

Moving is not for sissies!

During all this moving, the revision has been waiting. But the time hasn’t been wasted. Time away from any work always seems to help to see the story in a clearer light. There’s that voice problem with the one character. I think there’s a solution now. The motivations of the characters can be shown in a clearer way, perhaps. Got to check to be sure we’ve shown what’s at stake, physically and emotionally.

Yeah! Waiting. Maybe not such a bad thing after all. Could mean a much better story. Now it’s time to stop waiting and get busy revising. Ready, Stephanie?

WHEN THE MUSE VACATIONS by Judith Ross Enderle

shutterstock_132452552Every once in awhile my muse, that creative cheer leader that whispers encouragement and shares fabulous ideas, takes a vacation. I don’t know where she goes or how she chooses a time to leave, but sometimes she’s not anywhere around. This missing muse used to panic me. What if I never had a good story idea again? What if I couldn’t finish my current project? What if there were no what-ifs ever again? (Writers are so good at imagining the worst.) But then I realized that a muse needs time off in the same way a writer sometimes needs time off. And perhaps for the same reasons. So—

Here’s what I try when my muse takes time off:

I might take a break, too. Shift into a different mode, another interest. Gardening helps to calm my brain and I find it often helps me solve plot problems (no pun intended).

Read. Read. Read. I try to pay attention to what keeps me turning pages, how the author solves a knotty problem for the main character, word choices, the voice of the author and the voices of the characters, emotions made visible through showing, the setting details, the sensory images. I’ve learned a lot about writing from reading.

Walk. I enjoy walking. On a long walk I can let my mind wander and explore the outdoors.
Sometimes I call a fellow author. I’m not the only one whose muse goes off to a muse convention or on a Hawaiian vacation.

An afternoon out can help. Over lunch with a friend, we can catch up on life. We might talk about old times and new times to come. Sometimes we talk about everything except writing. Perhaps a muse notices when you aren’t missing her as much as she expected and she comes back sooner than planned.

Still, every once in a while, unexpected life happens outside of writing. Sometimes we need to abandon our muse to take care of family, ourselves, all kinds of life happenings. That’s important. The muse understands. How else will we know how to create the tough times and the emotions that go with them when we get back to our story characters, when life settles down, when the muse is there to whisper to us again?

Have you found other ways to get past the missing muse times? Or the tough life times? If so, please share in the comments.

BEWARE THE FEAST

thanksgivingturkey     by Judith Ross Enderle

No, this isn’t a warning about eating too much of those Thanksgiving fixings. Nor is it a cautionary tale about overindulgence during the December holidays. Everyone knows the repercussions from eating too (burp) much.

This is about the repercussions from feeding your characters too much. Yup, it’s possible. Too much TLC at the table can create havoc and ruin a good plot.

How? Stop to eat and you can kill the tension in your story. And it happens more than you realize, especially in early drafts. It’s fun to write those scenes when family comes together at the table to share food and news. How about the sensory description you can create, when your plot drifts toward an opportunity to gather information at a roadside inn over victuals served before a warm fire? Or maybe your main character chooses to spread a blanket beneath a tree at the park and dive into that picnic basket lush with all manner of wonderful nibbles. Food scenes are sooooo tempting, so yummy.

Avoid temptation! For, while all the yummy noshing is going on, your story conflict has stopped. Sure you can introduce a food fight, but how long can that last. And what about that grand build up to this point, the villain hot on your main character’s trail, the jeopardy lurking around the next corner? All forgotten over a hearty meal and mundane conversation, with the major action now the lifting of a fork or hand from plate to mouth.

Those of us who are mothers are the worst offenders. Don’t let your main character get hurt! Plus it’s tradition to comfort with food. We want to nurture our characters, too.

But in a story that needs to keep the pages turning as conflict builds and the main character heads toward facing his/her nemesis, skip the meals. Let your characters go hungry. They can eat after the story is over. Because, if they stop to eat, there may be no story.

Now take a writing break, enjoy your holiday meals with friends and family. Then, when celebrating is over, get back to writing. And remember, DON’T FEED YOUR CHARACTERS!

From all the Mavens, we wish you much merry, huge happy, and many joyous holidays, followed by superb inspiration and well-earned success in the coming year.

AN OLIO

file000910989872 This summer has been one in which “life” takes over from the usual routine of writing. Some of the events have been tough: Laurie’s dad passed away; Judy’s dad passed away. Others involved relocation: Cheryl moved. Steph’s house is for sale. And then there are family stages: Dawne has been hither and yon organizing kids. So rather than the usual individual maven post, this month we offer an olio (it’s a great crossword puzzle word) of thoughts, favorite quotes, and writing advice.

From Stephanie: You have got to love the book you are writing. If the plot doesn’t drive you and make you want to know what happens next, your reader can, and possibly will, put your book down and walk away. If you don’t love your characters, the good–the bad–the ugly, your reader won’t care what happens to them, either. If you are writing because you think it’s what will sell, what young readers need to know, or perhaps someone just made big bucks by writing the same kind of story, forget it!  Stories that come from inside you, that only you can write, are the stories that will get inside your reader and change them forever.

Cheryl shares some of her favorite advice:  “Never, never, never give up.” (Winston Churchill)  And paraphrasing beloved author Sid Fleischman: “A good villain is your story’s best friend.” i.e. You’ll have to have a strong hero to defeat a strong villain. Plus, it makes the story more interesting!

Judy says, Never assume that because a book is classified as an easy-reader that it was easy to write. There is nothing easy about them when it comes to finding the right blend of character, plot, theme, pacing, vocabulary, sentence length, page turns, and all the many details that go into these all-important first readers. (Guess what I’m working on right now?)

We hope your summer has been a bit more cheerful, a lot less hectic, and very productive writing-wise. See you next month!

The Kids Book Mavens

 

AND THE ANSWER IS–

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Side A.
Can you guess what and where the question was? I’ll tell you. This was 70 across in a crossword puzzle, (Bellingham Herald, Thursday, July 4, 2013.) The clue was: Better song, usually.

Yeah, I know. How many people know what side A means anymore?

Is your childhood “history?” There are a lot of details that change with time. It’s important for writers to be aware of what is and what is no longer as well as what was and when.

Just at technology rapidly changes, so does language. Rad, cool, excel, neato, hot, fab, square, dweeb, etc. go in and out of vogue almost before you can learn the latest word to describe what’s great and what isn’t. This is why it’s sometimes wise to avoid current slang or invent your own for your characters.

It’s not just slang that you have to check out. When did “okay” come into use? How about “green light?” And while “greenhouse” has been around since 1664, “greenhouse effect” dates to 1937. What? Did you think it was more current than that? Me, too. Check your Webster’s Ninth for dates.

Whether your story is set now, when you were a kid, or before you were born, you can’t avoid details that belong in the time period. What surrounds your character at home and away? What is the place like?

Dial phone or cel phone? Pay phone, yes or no?

What about the school year? How long? What months? In school: rulers, pencil cases, what kind of desks, black boards, green boards, chalk boards, slates, computers? Does the school in your story have a computer center or a library? What about pointers and maps and AV equipment?

Microwave? Frozen food? TV dinners? What’s for breakfast? What kind of snacks? Is a PB and J sandwich allowed at school? (That lunch favorite isn’t welcome these days in many schools because of allergies.)

Think about the television, the radio, the record player, cassette, CD or MP3. Do “ear buds” exist?

The lists could go on and on, like a time-line—which, by the way, is handy to have available. Do a Google Search for history timelines. You can be specific.: American History or Language History or . . . . I mentioned Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary for word usage dates. And it doesn’t hurt to have a Slang dictionary handy.

Putting your characters and your readers in place—it’s all in the details.  So, before you send off that final draft, if you mention Side A, be sure it fits the time and place of your story.
Happy Writing!
Judy

MAKING YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE–ONE DAY AT A TIME

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I’ m just coming out of a period when life overwhelmed me and the writing spark withdrew and hid behind the dark places inside, and boy, was it scary. So I’m so madly happy that the spark has once again ignited, that for the moment I need little help returning each day to the current WIP. I usually start by rereading a few pages that I wrote the day before, which warms up the writing muscles, and then I let my characters loose and see where they go!

And on the note of my happiness as I write–I don’t watch much tv (there are exceptions, but that’s a story for another time) but I have seen promos for a new reality show where adults are given a chance to try for the ‘big dream’ they always longed for but never got to pursue. One man wanted to be a professional chef and cook for the President in the White House; one man wanted to drive race cars; one woman wanted to be a professional photographer, so she was getting to do a shoot for Sports Illustrated, and so forth. The excitement and poignancy felt by the people who got this second chance was so moving to watch.

And I marveled and thought how amazingly blessed I have been, despite the low points, despite recent years when I couldn’t write and the early years when I wrote and couldn’t sell, to have still managed to break through the tough nut of publishing, to sell over 50 books to major publishers, get good reviews, occasional awards, the respect of my peers. I have had this dream from childhood, and even though I never became a Stephen King or a J.K. Rowling, I’ve done so much that I hoped for–I need to appreciate how good it has been. And I do, truly. And I hope to carry the writing spark with me for the rest of my journey, and to entertain, move, and illuminate the readers who share the journey with me.
Cheryl Zach