Yesterday was Martin Luther King’s birthday, Monday is the holiday — a national day of service — celebrated in his honor, and Tuesday we inaugurate our first African American president.
All is not right with the world, to be sure. We are at war in two nations, Sudan stands divided and Gaza is burning. There is an immense amount of work to be done, here and abroad.
But the effort today feels more worthwhile and well spent than it has in awhile. There is a sense of hope and energy in the air, a posture of determination and forward motion. In spite of daily news that could freeze a person, inert, in her tracks.
Those of us who work with children — as parents, teachers, authors or librarians — try to share that message with them all the time, don’t we? That we as people are built to carry on like little train engines, even when it’s an uphill slog. That hope and grit and optimism are as important as the shoes on our feet and food in our bellies in getting us where we want to be.
In my world, there’s hardly anything better than a good school visit.
I get such a charge out of spending a morning with a bunch of 4th graders.
The voices, both eager and shy, are still (mostly) unselfconsciously unique. Which is a beautiful thing.
Today, I facilitated writing workshops for two groups of kids and the gleaming moments were many…
The spontaneous hug from a girl named Jenna…
The line, "Fire outraged my head when I was born"…
The hands raised, over and over again, to read aloud…
We talked a bit about breaking rules, about joy and impulse, about the fact that some kids don’t like to write. Some think it’s boring. Others think it’s hard. Many find it scary.
And who am I to tell them differently? I mean, really. It IS scary.
That said, there’s fun to be had and under the guidance of William Carlos Williams who said, "Anything is fit material for poetry," we wrote ourselves a collaborative poem full of outrageous untruths. AKA, lies. I think you might like it.
The Lie Poem By the students of Baranoff Elementary
The ocean is home to the great possum. The world has ten sides and my dog is blue. Brussel sprouts were never meant to be eaten. Birds can’t fly.
There is an ice cube in the sun. The sun is so cold if you touch it, you will turn into an ice cube! There is a planet where the sun is nothing but a big ball of ice.
I grew up on Neptune; the plants there are wet and water is dry. I was king of Neptune. My teacher was born on Mars. I was born in a stuffed animal!
I can walk on space for the whole universe world. I danced into a volcano. I didn’t break it; he did it, he did it!
People are smaller than ants. I could actually pick up the world — I could walk on water!
Both of my girls, in the last week or so, have been asked to consider their goals or resolutions for the new year. No surprise there, right?
I remember tackling the same tasks as a kid and coming up with some pretty standard stuff — make an A in math, be nicer to my sister, that sort of thing.
The piece of this that is new, though, is that they were both asked a follow up question:
How are you going to achieve your goals?
How.
Isn’t that dynamite?
I mean, how many of us still put grandiose goals on our to-do lists, things like Publish six books by next August without ever really considering the steps we need to take to get there?
Y’know, steps like write, revise, revise, revise, share, absorb critique, revise, revise, revise, submit, write something new while waiting, revise, revise, revise…
Instead, there is an inordinate amount of time spent bemoaning the fact that nothing has happened! Well. Um… duh.
By the time my daughters have creative/professional/academic/familial lives of their own, this whole process will be old hat. Lucky them.
Well, suffice it to say that vacation did a mean little number on my marathon training. I am slower than I was before the holidays. And more afraid.
Still, letting bygones be bygones, I will look back just at this one single week. Back on track.
Mileage for the week: 36 miles Longest run: 18 miles High point: Finishing the 18 mile run Higher point: Going to bed that night at 8:45 Highest point: Not having to run 18 miles the next morning
Quote for the week:
It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop. — Confucius
And now, with proof that I do have a life (but still with a slow and slogging undercurrent), I am back deeeeeeep in a manuscript so I must run off.
Do ya’ll remember last year when a few of us bloggers with poetic leanings got together to write a crown sonnet? What an utterly terrifying endeavour that was! Except in the end when it wasn’t.
Nope.
In the end it was, dare I say, fun. And satisfying.
Well. The Princesses and I (we dubbed ourselves the Poetry Princesses during the sonnet process) have missed each other. So lately we’ve begun collaborating again.
I can’t really say anything about the project except that our driving force starts with an s-e-s and ends with a tina. If you get my drift.
It is entirely possibly we’ll break our vows of silence sometime soon, but in the meantime, this:
Sestina for the House By Ronald Wallace
October. They decide it is time to move. The family has grown too large, the house too small. The father smokes his pipe. He says, I know that you all love this house. He turns to his child who is crying. She doesn’t want to leave.
Outside in the large bright yard the leaves are turning. They know it is time to move down onto the ground where the child will rake them together and make a house for her dolls to play in. They love the child. A small bird starts to pipe
his song to the leaves while the pipe in the father’s hand sputters. The father leaves no doubt that he’s made up his mind. He loves his family; that’s why they must move. The child says, this is a wonderful house. But nobody listens. She’s only a child.
Just before the holidays, I took my girls to a great big National Geographic warehouse sale. Maps… backpacks… gorgeous, lusty coffeetable books… all at a zillion percent off. It was sort of a globetrotter’s dream.
And it was their day to find something special, for their cousins and their grandparents and each other.
It was crowded, but not in an overwhelming or offensive way, and it was in a convention hall so the ceilings were like 80 feet high. There was breathing room.
Still. There’s always someone. Y’know?
So we’re at the last few tables, upon which there are very small things — compasses and such — so people are clustering around and squeezing in a bit. The prices are hanging on the table skirts — right where people are standing — which is ill-designed but it’s a warehouse sale so whaddya want?
My Small and Tall Ones are pressed up against the table discussing the differences between thermometers and barometers when a sort of huffing woman trying to look over and past them says, "Girls, I’d like you to please step back from the table about 2 feet so everyone can see."
I hear her say it. I absorb it. I look around to see if my kids are really doing anything different or less socially cooperative than other shoppers. And then I take a deep breath and I speak up.
"Please don’t scold them, ma’am," I say. "They’re actually just looking, happily and patiently, like everybody else here." (Well, like most everybody else here, if you know what I mean.)
And then Angry Woman says, "I didn’t scold them, I merely……."
It got all blurry in my brain at that point and I didn’t want to have a throw-down at the National Geographic sale. Plus, I’d already stuck up for my kids, which is all I’d wanted to do, so I was done.
I stepped away, with Tall One at my side. Unbeknownest to me, Small One hesitated. Just for a moment. Just long enough to hear Angry Woman say, "If she was a good mother, she’d have told them to step back herself!"
This was repeated to me by my aghast little seven-year-old a few minutes later. "She is very, very lucky I didn’t hear her," I said, pretty aghast myself.
And, really, I’m glad I didn’t. Because I would’ve felt compelled to respond and instead, the girls and I played with some What If scenarios and then spent the rest of the day joking about what I’d do if I were a Good Mother.
It has stuck in my craw though, and here’s why:
There is no one such thing as a Good Mother.
Some good mothers hover and some give space… some discuss everything and some make executive decisions… some insist on frequent baths and some have a high tolerance for dirt… some are solemn and some are silly… some cook and some order in… some help and some ask for help…
And that, as you know, ain’t the half of it.
And pretty much none of this is going to be apparent at the small gift table at a National Geographic warehouse sale. We don’t know the stories and inner lives of the people we pass on the streets and bump into at shops and airports. But it seems to me that we’d do well to give most of them the benefit of the doubt, you know?
‘Cause really, the thing that matters is that Good Mothers love their children. Right?
My more-than-a-decade-old, pre-kid bookclub recently dissolved. To our credit, we tried resuscitation more than once but it was terminal.
I’ve grieved, but done pretty much nothing to assuage the pain or fill the void. Until last week.
I arrived home from a really amazing vacation and all my books were:
1. sandy 2. read
The new year gaped. What’s a girl to do?
Well. I’ll tell you. I whipped off an email to a smattering of readerly friends and asked them what they’d loved recently. And here I am, less than a week later, with a handy-dandy list to take to the library, and a renewed sense of community around books.
It’s a funny, diverse little list and I thought I’d share it with you. Y’know, just in case…
Middle-grade or Young Adult
Twilight, Stephanie Meyer
Paper Towns, John Green
Need, Carrie Jones
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing I and II, MT Anderson
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
The Eragaon series, Christopher Paolini
The Inkheart series, Cornelia Funke
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Lament, Maggie Stiefvater
The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett
The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary E. Pearson
Novels or Short Stories
The Other, David Guterson
Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine
The Post-Birthday World, Lionel Shriver
Me and Kaminsky, Daniel Kehlmann
A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon
Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones
Slam, Nick Hornby
Nonfiction
The Most Famous Man in America, by Debbie Applegate
Well. It is 2009. Or, as my good friend Barbara likes to say, two-thousand fine.
Fine as in "very, very sweet." Which I, for one, am ready for.
I’ll admit I’ve been home from vacation for a few days but I have, thus far, avoided blogland for fear of being swallowed up by virtual intrigue when the concrete intrigue of my fridge-moldy tofu has been more than enough to keep me hopping.
Tomorrow, though, the kids go back to school, the fridge will meet health department standards, and it’ll be me and my blank page, duking it out again for another year.
Never is the page blanker than at the new year, I think. When we’re asked not just about this or that manuscript, but about the year ahead. What do we hope to write, revise, submit, sell, publish? How do we plan to write, revise, submit, sell and publish? When do we plan to start?
This year, though, I’m stepping into January thinking about my writing life rather than my writing. I’m choosing to believe that if I attend to the life, the writing will come.
The truth is, I’m constantly making specific goals and then subverting them when a new idea grabs me by the tail and drags me off. So this year I’m not setting myself up for that sort of trickery. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to be working on in mid-January or early September, but I do know that I’d like it to look and feel like this:
In 2009, I plan to love writing more than I hate it. I know this isn’t exactly a glowingly optimistic goal, but a tough day at the desk can suck the lifeblood out of a gal. I’m going for more moments of groove and exhilaration this year.
In 2009, I plan to enjoy a balance between discipline and openness. And, as counter-intuitive as this may seem, I’m going to schedule some time for the openness. Taking the dog to the greenbelt in the middle of the dang day sometimes. That sorta thing.
In 2009, I plan to be more confident and less needy. I, um, haven’t worked out the details of this one yet.
In 2009, I plan to read as much as I write and learn as much as I teach.
In 2009, I plan to spend more time with my audience of children.
In 2009, I plan to celebrate little things, like losing myself in a day’s work or sending work to my agent. And I plan to celebrate big things, like the release of my next book.
In 2009, I plan to stay connected with my community, for support and edification and fun.
In 2009, I plan to go with my gut.
In 2009, I plan to breathe regularly and smile often.
Just a note to wish you happy holidays and a bright new year. I am taking a break from all things computer-y until then and, in the meantime, plan to enjoy lots of…
Picture Books in Winter — Robert Louis Stevenson
Summer fading, winter comes– Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books.
Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture story-books.
All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children’s eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, In the picture story-books.
We may see how all things are Seas and cities, near and far, And the flying fairies’ looks, In the picture story-books.
How am I to sing your praise, Happy chimney-corner days, Sitting safe in nursery nooks, Reading picture story-books?
So, don’t you think it’s kinda funny that I started this little series about two weeks ago — with an explicit promise to discuss how I manage my own process — but since then my process has been so unmanageable that I’ve never been able to make that post?
I’m hoping that most of you are thinking, "Yep. I feel your pain, sister."
But those of you who aren’t? Who have tidy little tick marks all over your to-do lists and bedtimes that are within the realm of reason? Could you do me a favor and not mention it?
‘Cause part of how I manage my process is to reassure myself that I am not alone, that I have many companions on the bumpy, root-ridden, overgrown trails I’m trying to negotiate. A stubbed toe’s not so bad if a friend is there to laugh when I kick the tree that caused it. And if I can recognize that the utter sense of order and consistent clarity I think I see in other people’s work and lives is illusory — that we all step, step, step and sometimes misstep — it becomes evermore feasible for me to move forward myself, without crazy expectations but with a sense of hope.
So. Number one on my list of "things I do to survive manage my process" is to sustain a sense of community. Writing’s a lonely affair — solitary and mostly quiet, though some days I can listen to some kinds of music while I work. It’s exceedingly comforting to know that I have my best gals, my husband and my sis, my writer chums and the voices in the blogosphere, to serve as soundingboards and stepping stones along the way.
Number two, I diversify. While I understand the call to "write full time," I’ve always needed to sprawl and range a little bit.
So first-off, I had kids. Well, okay, that had a little something to do with love, optimism and body clocks — I didn’t really give birth just to broaden my daily portfolio. But I do relish the work at their school and the planning of slumber parties and the reading aloud at bedtime. Partly because it’s all such luscious pleasure, for and with these amazing little people who happen to be my daughters, but also because of the perspective it offers me.
I cannot lose myself in the one tight room of my work. Even if I sometimes want to.
And when I am in that room, I have my teaching and my blogging and my poetry and, always, more than one children’s book project going at all times. I do not want to know what would happen to my sanity or social standing if I woke up one day with nothing to do.
Next, I ensure a little immediate gratification. No need to recount here the glacial pace that is publishing, particularly picture book publishing. The amount of time that one might wait for a submission to be responded to or a contract to arrive or a manuscript to become a book. Suffice it to say, longer than you might think.
I need, sometimes, to put stuff out there immediately, to declare something finished and even, on a good day, to realize connection that way. To be received.
There are lots of ways to do this. Writing letters to my grandparents used to do the trick. Blogging is pretty darn satisfying, too…
Fourth, I continue to develop, explore and expand. Honestly, if my process grew stagnant I would never sell a thing and, plus, I’d pull all my hair out. Which would hurt, since it’s already so curly and tangly anyway.
In order to grow my craft I read. A lot. And I go to conferences and retreats when I get the chance. I absorb all that I can from other writers. I practice new things. I dare to suck. And I teach. Which, ironically or not, is what keeps me on my tippy-toes more than anything else. Trying to answer questions honestly and with depth is a very good way to begin to embody those answers myself.
And finally, I have faith. Bearing in mind that that word makes some folks a little nervous.
But honestly, it is my faith that there are more ideas where that one came from… that I will find the right words in this deep, dark forest of choices… that there are editors and librarians and teachers and parents and children waiting for those words…
It is my faith in all of those things that keeps me coming back to my desk again and again and again.
To write. Which is really, if you shave all this other stuff away, the heart of the process.
