Archive for the ‘writing’ Category

This month, I am the featured guest on WritingSnacks.com, a website with lots of useful information for writers. Dana Cleveland Konop and Melissa Thomas-Dubois, two of my colleagues in the Southern Breeze region of SCBWI, created the site.

As the title would suggest, one of the things you’ll find out in the interview is my favorite writing snack.

Our marketing package for Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature includes a  book trailer. This is a new venture for us — book trailers not being as much of a “thing” when Wolfsnail came out. Since we got grants from the Mississippi Arts Commission and the Greater Jackson Arts Council to support marketing efforts, we were able to hire Mosaic Media, a pr and video production company owned by Ron and Kathryn Rodenmeyer. After looking around at other book trailers and reading some reviews of trailers, I decided I wanted a trailer that would address two ideas: first, that despite the somewhat intimidating sounding name Fibonacci, the number sequence at the center of my picture book is pretty simple; and second, that examples of Fibonacci numbers are all around us in daily life. I set the desired length at 1 min. & 30 sec.

With these key parameters set, Kathryn told me the next step was for me to write a script. She told me I would need to write more informally than I was used to. The words would have to flow like conversation. I put something together. Ron and Kathryn liked the concept, though they suggested I needed an intro. We came up with an intro and then Kathryn developed a list of video and still shots, music, and voice/over and on-camera audio. Then, we started talking about talent. I asked my friend Julie to play herself (mom and librarian); I asked Ron and Kathryn’s kids Ben and Kate to play Julie’s kids; and I engaged Tanner the dog as himself.

We decided to shoot the indoor scenes at my house and the outdoor shots at my parents’ house. I bought flowers for the inside and the outside (we had the worst cold snap in the state’s history last week, which zapped all the pansy blossoms).

I can’t tell you how great it was to be working with people who knew the video medium. There are so many things to think about with video that us still photographers don’t have to think about. Most of these have to do with time and audio.

Besides bringing Ben and Kate to “star” in the book trailer, Ron and Kathryn also brought along their oldest, Eve, to engage the younger ones after their work time. When the Rodenmeyer kids were off camera, they played ping-pong with my boys and then we played bananagrams. Ron, who was working the entire time (directing, shooting, recording), had to shush us when we forgot we were on a set.

We had a few last-minute script changes. I woke up with the idea that Julie should record some of the lines that had been slated for me. She was a good sport. I wasn’t in on her recording session, but I know it went well.

Ron was good at coaching. He had me read a few lines to check the audio levels. Then, as soon as he said, “We’re good to go. Ready when you are,” I belted out the lines like I had to project to the bleachers. Woa! You never know what you’ll do in front of a microphone. I’m trying not to think much about appearing in my own book trailer. It goes with the territory and getting nervous just makes it harder. We left Ron and Kathryn with all the raw footage, some still images from our family archives, and some bags of pasta. I will be giddy with anticipation until I get to see the rough cut. This is fun!

(Richard documented the whole thing by taking the photographs in this post. He also helped with set-up, provided a back-up tripod, and offered critical opinions.)

Here are the F&Gs for Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature. F&G stands for folded and gathered. It is one of the steps in the process of book binding. In some cases, publishers ask printers to send F&Gs because they can be ready before the final books and publishers can use them for marketing. I asked Boyds Mills Press to send me some. In this case, the actual books arrived before the F&Gs, but I am still very glad to have them.

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.

Today my editor wrote to suggest I draft a press release. He and I are collaborating on the marketing plan for Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature. Such is the nature of publishing with a small publishing company. (Actually, I think it is the nature of publishing, period.) We all have to pitch in and help with everything that needs to be done. A few weeks ago, I sent in a list of names to add to Boyds Mills‘ master list of reviewers, librarians, teachers, science magazines, etc., who will get an advance copy of Growing Patterns. Among them were librarians and bloggers I have met or followed during my nearly two years as a published author. I looked at each blog carefully to determine the individual blogger’s policy for submitting books for review. In some cases, reviewers want to read about a book and request a copy if interested. So, I started the press release.

The last time I wrote a press release for a book, the target audience was local media outlets at the time of Wolfsnail’s launch at a local bookstore. I had to convince general interest publications to run a story or blurb about a local woman becoming a published author. My charge this time was different. In the first place, I was writing for specialists. Folks in the Kidlitosphere are discerning readers of children’s books. They stay abreast of what’s being published and they know what they’d like to have in their libraries, classrooms, and homes.

As I stared at the blank screen, I was temporarily stymied. How could I describe this 811-word book in a few sentences? Sometimes, when you’ve lived with something so intimately for so long, you believe you can’t find one more original thing to say. Then I remembered that I am the only person (with the possible exception of my husband and my editor) who has been living and breathing this book. To others, it will be new. This freed me to write about why I think this book will be a good addition to any (and every) library in homes and schools and cities and towns. I want kids (of all ages) to open this book, to count flower petals, to add numbers, to discover a pattern, to trace spiral shapes, and to search out examples of Fibonacci numbers in their own neighborhoods.

In a way, I was writing a review of my own book. It felt strange. I am curious about how other writers handle the marketing responsibilities that come their way.

Our two copies of Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature arrived today. The books are beautiful! The colors are bright, the pages are shiny, and the shape is a golden rectangle. After getting some positive feedback on using video on the blog, I decided that this would be a good day to use it again. You can watch the brief video below and then read on for more information.

From my early days of writing for children, I have always read what I was working on to kids. At first, it was my own. Then, I moved on to sharing with kids at my kids’ school. In addition to reading my stories and poems, I read all kinds of books to small groups and entire classrooms. I could tell from the kids’ reactions what was working and what was not. I learned, too, that kids are not willing to sit still for version after version of the same story. I learned to get my stories into pretty good shape before I shared and to read once and move on.

One of the spreads in Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator is in the book because of questions I got from kids when I went to schools with my Highlights article about wolfsnails. Kids always asked if wolfsnails eat worms. I created a scene in which a wolfsnail encounters a worm (and does not eat it) so that I could answer the question in the text.

With Growing Patterns I pushed my luck with a few of the young readers, asking them to read it aloud to me. I know they felt a little nervous, but I kept my mouth shut and tried not to be too obvious about the notes I was taking. I was watching for places where they stumbled over my awkward constructions or where they needed more clarification. Two second graders wrote out a page of questions for me. Many of the questions were about how I took the photographs or got interested in the pattern. But they also pointed out their favorite photographs and patterns. I am very excited about going back to their school this week and showing these now third graders the final product.

Thank you, everybody!

Hester Bass did a fabulous job at Power APAC today introducing visual arts students from grades 6 through 12 to the creative process of writing picture books. In the above photograph, she is reading from The Secret World of Walter Anderson, which was recently named one of Kirkus’ Best Children’s Books of 2009. Because she worked so closely with her fantastic illustrator, E.B. Lewis, she also shared much about the process of illustrating a picture book with watercolor paintings. Power APAC students had studied Walter Anderson’s work prior to Hester’s visit and had also done some historical research, but her tale sparked a renewed interest in his work and life.

Hester’s publicist at Candlewick worked with Mississippi Public Broadcasting to set up an interview for an online program titled Don’t Lecture Me. The show will go online in about two weeks.

Students provided a back drop for a mini-set on the Power APAC stage. It was a pleasure for me to see Hester in action. I always learn from my colleagues in this business. Hester’s stage presence was obvious from the moment she stepped in front of the students. She sang and she read. She encouraged the students to read, to write (and sketch) in journals, and to set goals. She got questions about publishing and about Walter Anderson. One student wanted to know about the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs.

I spent an interesting day and a half at the fall conference of the Mississippi Environmental Education Alliance (MEEA). I brought a wolfsnail (thanks to my friend Julie’s kids) to my presentation. Terri Jacobson is looking at the snail with a private eye loupe. I attended Jacobson’s private eye workshop and I learned a lot that I’ll use in my work with kids. Using a private eye is the next best thing to having a camera kitted out with a macro lens. I had a fun time coming up with “it looks like … ” lists for a gum ball from a sweet gum tree (scarab beetle, pecan shell innards, baby bird’s beak, etc.) and a sprig of flowers.

Nicole Smith and Andrea Schumann, who work in education and naturalist outreach at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, and I worked together to come up with a list of things our sprigs of queen anne’s lace reminded us of and then we wrote a poem using words from our list. We wrote a fib poem. (The lines have syllables in this pattern: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8, like the Fibonacci sequence.)
Star
Burst
Spider
Crawling ‘cross
Dandelion puff
Hunting for a cotton lollipop

Another great part of the MEEA conference for me was an introduction to Robin Whitfield and her work. Robin introduced herself as an explorer, which she says is a hard job description for people to understand.

They are more accepting of the title “artist,” but Robin doesn’t believe “artist” fully captures what she does. She spends much of her time outside — exploring, creating, and teaching. Using methods such as observational drawing, printing, stenciling, dipping, and pigment sampling, Robin interacts with swamps and other natural settings. A member of the Mississippi Arts Commission’s artist roster, Robin has worked with boys and girls clubs, alternative schools, middle school science students, and adults. My friend, Julie, attended Robin’s hands-on workshop and put up a blog post, including a photo gallery here.

The MEEA conference was sponsored by the Mississippi Urban Forestry Council and Donna Yowell, the executive director, shared some interesting projects the council sponsors for kids and schools. Older students, in particular, can get involved in inventorying green spaces in their communities and presenting landscaping improvement plans to local governing bodies. Schools can apply for grants to add trees to their campuses to provide shade, buffers, or edible fruit. Yowell said students get excited about a computer tool that allows them to do a virtual makeover.