Archive for January, 2010

I am so pleased to learn that it’s good for the brain to learn new things. In order to keep up with technology, I have to learn new things all the time. Today, I am figuring out how to use tiny urls so I can put internet links into my tweets. I also linked my tweets to my facebook page. They will appear as status updates. I read a recent New York Times article, suggesting that twitter is here to stay and also very useful. I am still learning how to put it to good use. I’d appreciate any tips from my readers.

My blog traffic surged on the day I posted the interview with Irene Latham. When I mentioned this to her, she said she had tweeted about it. Perhaps that drove some of the traffic. I also have a hunch that video is a draw.

Even though I have a Google alert set up for Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator, I still miss things. The staff at Horn Book magazine printed a list of Mind the Gap Awards, a humorous awards list, in the July/August 2009 issue. Wolfsnail won in the category of Scariest mollusk. In this case, I missed it in two formats: online and in hardcover. I am a subscriber and I know I read that issue because it included the acceptance speeches for the major ALA awards.

In unrelated news, Richard, who designed my website and blog, just finished re-designing a website for zata3, a political consulting firm that specializes in phone services like polling, virtual town halls, and get-out-the-vote.

Leaving Gee’s Bend is a just-published middle grade novel by Irene Latham, a Birmingham author I met through SCBWI-Southern Breeze. Irene and I have a few things in common: a house full of sons, a fondness for seamstresses and quilters, and a love of words. While I haven’t yet read Leaving Gee’s Bend, I am looking forward to it. I decided to interview Irene during launch week. I asked her about things I am curious about, but if you post your questions, I’m sure she’ll pop in and answer them.

Tell me what Leaving Gee’s Bend is about.
Leaving Gee’s Bend is a heart-touching tale of unexpected adventure in the vein of such classics as Sounder, Little House on the Prairie and Stone Fox – stories rooted in history that families can read and enjoy together. It’s about a determined, ten-year-old girl in Depression-era Gee’s Bend, Alabama, who sets out to save her sick mother and records her adventures in quilt pieces. It includes the real-life 1932 raid on Gee’s Bend and subsequent Red Cross rescue.

How did you choose your topic?
It really chose me. I was inspired to write this book in 2003 when my husband and I traveled to New York City and viewed the Quilts of Gee’s Bend art exhibit at the Whitney Museum. Although I live only 120 miles from Gee’s Bend, it wasn’t until then that I became aware of the art and history of Gee’s Bend. Something happened to me as I walked through those rooms… I was moved by the quilts and by the voices of the quilt makers. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know.

I asked Irene about writing about such a different time, place, and culture. Here are some of her thoughts about that and an excerpt from the book.

The biggest challenge when writing across time and culture is fear:  what if I get it wrong?  What if it doesn’t resonate with the African American community in general or in particular, the quilters of Gee’s Bend?  Anytime one is writing a historical piece there is a strong responsibility to be as accurate as possible, which means research must be thorough, diligent, and intense.  Fortunately for me, the history of Gee’s Bend has been well documented.  In order to capture an authentic voice, I spent hours and hours listening to audio recordings of the quilters telling their stories.

And then I took a leap into imagination.  I asked myself questions like this: What if your community was so remote and isolated that it didn’t have a doctor, and your mother was seriously ill? What if you were black and you saw a white person for the very first time? What if you thought the whole world was just like what you saw from your front porch and found out it wasn’t? What if you wanted to make a quilt but didn’t have anything but scraps of cloth to work with?

Next, I spent a great deal of time doing exercises in empathy.  I used poetry to help me connect with my characters on the most basic level.  Even though I did not grow up without shoes in a place remote as Gee’s Bend, I found Ludelphia and I still had a great deal in common.  Male, female, black, white, 1930s or now, we’re all human.  What connects us all is our ability to FEEL things.  So I focused heavily on the emotional lives of my characters.  One exercise I found particularly useful was writing a poem in two voices, inspired by Paul Fleischman‘s Newbery Award winning book, Joyful Noise: Poems in Two Voices.

How important were images during your writing process?
I lived and breathed those quilt images in the beautiful coffee table books that accompanied the art exhibit.  Any product you’ve ever seen with a Gee’s Bend quilt on it?  I own it.    And I was able to see the quilts on exhibit several times while working on this project.  A theme in the book is “every quilt tells a story.”  And it’s really true!  The bold colors and geometrics of the quilts had a huge impact on everything from character development to plot lines.

Day 1

6-10:30 a.m. Rise, walk dog with Richard, prepare boys’ lunch, walk dog with friend, Pilates.

10:40 -11:05 a.m. Conversation with filmmaker (who happens also to be a friend) about script for book trailer. Glad to be working with a professional. Moving images and audio are way out of my area of expertise. Grateful for grant from state and local arts agencies that made it possible for me to hire professional filmmakers for my book trailer.

11:10-11:30 a.m. Shower.

11:35-11:55 a.m. Start blog post for later this week, featuring an interview with video.

12:00-1:00 p.m. Re-heat lunch and eat with Richard. Sneak downstairs to computer for a minute to email some links and a still photograph to filmmaker.

1:05-2:30 p.m. Rest. A little longer than usual because I was savoring the end of a fun novel, American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. (The cover art bothers me a tad; Alice Blackwell marries in a cotton two piece that her mother-in-law dismisses as a pioneer girl outfit; the dress on the cover is NOT that.)

2:35- 3:02 p.m. Put finishing touches on blog post.

3:02 p.m. Email from magazine editor. Needs phone conference on piece slated for August. Reply that I am free until 3:50 p.m. when I must collect two younger boys from school.

3:05 – 3:35 p.m. Tie three split chicken breasts around two onions and two sprigs of fresh rosemary. Rub with olive oil, more rosemary, and some thyme. Editor calls. Use cordless phones and headset to discuss magazine piece. Concerns must be answered. A potential re-write angle is discussed. Editor promises to email the potential new angle. I promise to think — and figure out a direction by noon next day.

3:45 p.m. Start oven preheating. Bundle up for unseasonably cold weather. Gloves, hat, scarf, fleece. Go to door to let my oldest son in. “Is it that cold inside?” he asks. G’s always a bright spot in my day.

3:50 p.m. Pick up younger boys at school. Conference with teacher about blazers that need to be purchased with booster club monies. I am the keeper of the booster club monies, but I forgot to bring the total. Her computer is down and the Blazer company’s phone line is busy. We agree to talk next day. I promise her we have enough money for 5 blazers — even though I don’t know how much money we have, nor the exact cost.

4:30 p.m. Home. Put chicken in oven. Peel white and sweet potatoes. Add to roasting pan.

4:50 p.m. Print potential re-write angle.  Call critique partner to see if she can brainstorm later. Make 6:30 p.m. appointment. Sit in living room chair to consider rewrite.

5 p.m. Place call to editor — even though it is an hour after close on the East Coast. Editor at desk. (They work long hours.) Convey my belief that rewrite angle is bad idea, but promise to try something later.

5:10 p.m Wash and trim asparagus for steaming. Cut the chicken while Richard makes gravy.

5:30 p.m Sit down to roast chicken, potatoes, steamed asparagus, and gravy.

5:55 p.m. Walk dog with Richard. One boy does dishes, one boy feeds dog and takes out trash, and one waters the plants.

6:30 p.m. Home just in time for call with critique partner. Not really much brainstorming. I’ve decided I can’t rewrite from proposed angle. Back and forth. Discuss a small bit of school business.

6:45 p.m. Sit at computer. Bring up final, edited version of magazine piece. Pull out a few research sources, search internet for more information. Become more firm in my position that proposed angle won’t work. Write email to editor. At a loss for how to proceed. Suggest scrapping article or pulling byline. Am out of ideas. Give morning schedule so editor can reach me.

7:45 p.m. Read to D from Shadow’s Edge.

8:30 p.m. Seek to connect with N about science fair project that is causing problems. He’s in no mood for it.

8:30 – 9:30 p.m. A little kitchen tidying, a little web browsing. Eat popcorn with nice, warm cup of tea. 10 p.m. Asleep.

Day 2 (Today)

Early routine same. (substitute recumbent bike and treadmill for water aerobics because pool heater is not working and water is COLD.)

6:54 a.m. Editor replies via email. Editor ready to throw in towel, too, but only temporarily. Will sub another article for August. Will work through issues somehow.

9:30 a.m.  Take model airplane to school so youngest son will have it for Science Olympiad after school.

9:45 a.m. Re-heat black-eyed peas prepared two days ago for today’s church lunch for the food pantry customers.

10 a.m. Shower.

10:50 a.m. Hand off black-eyed peas to friend who is attending lunch.

11 a.m. Prepare lesson on transferring digital photographs for 5th graders. Review script and time line from filmmakers. Field email query about macro lens. 12 noon. Eat reheated soup for lunch.

12:10 -3:45 p.m. Teach 5th graders. Computer glitch makes it impossible to transfer photos so we take more photographs. Meet with teacher after school.

3:50-4:10 p.m. Transfer students’ digital photographs to my computer.

4:15 p.m. Head to Post Office to send check for Blazers via Priority Mail.

4:50 – 5:20 p.m. Home. Brief chat with Richard about the day.

5:20 p.m. Take G to piano lesson. While he’s having lesson, run to library to get book.

6:10 p.m. Home to Richard’s tasty pasta salad (quinoa salad for me because I eat gluten-free).

Walk dog. Kids do chores. Blog. Review script with Richard. Read to Douglas. Sleep.

Well, I’ve decided to stop being a chicken and post some writing goals for 2010.

1. Launch Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature, putting to use all the things I’ve learned since Wolfsnail debuted nearly two years ago. This time we’ll have a book trailer, a blog tour, sunflower seeds, and a presentation at a national conference.

2. Meet twice a month with my critique partner to make progress on items 3 and 4 below.

3. Write and photograph nonfiction picture book number 3. Subject is chosen and living (happily, I think) in a container on my living room bookshelf. It’s lots of fun to watch and to photograph.

4. Write first picture book that I won’t be illustrating with photographs. This story is near and dear to me. I think I am ready to commit it to the page.

5. Write regularly on my memoir. I started writing this for an online course through Gotham Writers’ Workshop. It was an excellent introduction to memoir and I am very happy I took the class. Now, I’m going to write, write, write.

Of course, I’ll also be mothering, teaching (2nd graders and 5th graders in separate photography and writing projects), gardening, exercising, cooking, fellowshipping, blogging, and (hope springs eternal) de-cluttering.

What are your writing goals? Does it help to make them public? I’d love to know.

Update: How’s this for coincidence? Within the hour of posting, I received an email rejection of a piece I had submitted to the online magazine Brevity. I had been encouraged to submit by Kyle Minor, who taught my memoir writing class in the fall. I gave the memoir snippet (about 450 words) to my Dad for Christmas; I asked Richard to typeset it and paired it with a black and white photograph of Richard’s. I am glad Kyle encouraged me to submit the piece. I learned about an interesting online magazine and I gained the confidence to keep writing. Eventually, this snippet will take its place in a larger work.