Last spring, Ted Orland mailed me a copy of Art & Fear, his insightful little book about art and artists and the fine and messy realities of both.
He sent it to me because I admitted in public that about 35 people had recommended the book to me and I had never read it.
I guess he was trying to save me from myself.
Well, suffice it to say that he kind of did.
Art & Fear names so many of the things that go bump in the night and stop us from doing our own good work. Honestly, it’s better than a flashlight.
I like it so much that I’ve read excerpts from it to my class this semester, and it’s going to be a required text in my two classes in the spring. Seems to me that we might as well meet the monsters head on. ‘Specially when the monster is, well… um… us. Y’know?
Here, just to give you the idea, are a few tidbits…
On perfectionism:
"To require perfection is to invite paralysis… you find reasons to procrastinate since to not work is to not make mistakes."
On jealousy of other artists:
"Whatever they have is something needed to do their work — it wouldn’t help you in your work even if you had it."
Her mediums include paper & ink, canvas & paint, and, for the past 8 years, fabric & thread.
When her daughter was born, Kathie started a children’s clothing business (Ramonster) that has since evolved into a custom clothing business — home of the most stunning shirts you evah laid your eyes on. I promise you. They shouldn’t even be called shirts. That’s too pedestrian for what she does. They should be renamed. Torso jewels. Something like that.
No wonder she’s featured in the upcoming documentary Handmade Nation. Right?
Watch the trailer and tell me you’re not dying to see this film.
It’ll debut sometime next year. In the meantime, there’s the book. This is a beautiful, beautiful book about creativity and passion and guts and love. Who can argue with that?
Here’s a quote to whet your whistle:
"I think that the role of ‘maker’ is very diffused and inclusive, that art-making is not only specific to drawing, painting, sewing, sculpting, etc. More people are artists or are artistic than are aware of the fact; everyone is making in some capacity. Making is something inherant to our species, it defines us as a group and as individuals…" — Sarah RaRa, Handmade Nation
An agent is one of those things you’re supposed to really want when you’re a writer.
Sort of like good ideas and chocolate.
An agent is supposed to turn pumpkins into stagecoaches and matchmake all sorts of happily ever afters.
Right?
I was never quite sure.
I worked with an agent briefly for my first book, but I’ve mostly been on my own these last number of years and it’s worked out okay. I’ve somehow wrangled myself into my chair (thanks to some good ideas and chocolate) and I have a pretty substantial little stack of manuscripts to show for it.
(Well, I mean, they’re picture books so I use the word "substantial" rather loosely. It’s not a tower or anything like that. More like a short, squat butte.)
Along the way, I pulled a few bits of the butte loose and, lucky for me, a delightful and insightful editor was there to receive them. I had to do my own dealmaking, which is about as appealing as a bad case of the flu, but I survived.
In the meantime, the rest of the pile on my desk had become rather, um, inert. And the thing about inert rock, er, paper formations is they tend to stay that way for millions of years. Which I more time than I’ve got.
Which is why I’m very, very happy and relieved and excited and ready to share the fact that I have signed with the amazingly warm, smart, productive and funny Erin Murphy.
Apparently, Erin does not get flu-like symptoms when she dealmakes!
Apparently, Erin does not get daunted by short, squat buttes of the inert variety!
Apparently, Erin is a fairy godmother! Well, okay, maybe she doesn’t turn pumpkins into stagecoaches.
I only sign someone new if it makes my stomach hurt to think of them working with someone else. Their work has to be so wonderful and so unlike anything else I’ve ever read that I just can’t pass it up. Which does make me feel a little like a princess. Thanks, Erin!
(And now I have to get back to the part of the work that is still, and always will be, mine…)
OK, friends. I hate to beat a dead horse here but it is time to register to vote if you haven’t.
In Texas, this Monday is the last possible date to register. If you have moved… if your name has changed… if you’ve never voted before… you have to register in order to vote!
There are number of ways to check your voting status online. Here’s one — via Google Maps — and here’s another — via Barack Obama’s web site. (I should note, though, that registering to vote is a purely nonpartisan activity!)
People all over the world fight and cry to win the vote, line up for days and compromise time, work and safety to vote. We are, um, slightly more complacent than that. But I don’t think we ought to be.
Voting is an honor, a privelege and a responsibility. Let’s exercise and fulfill it in record numbers on November 4th.
Hope is waiting for you in the voting booth. Really.
Hope is a Strange Invention — Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention — A Patent of the Heart — In unremitting action Yet never wearing out —
Of this electric Adjunct Not anything is known But its unique momentum Embellish all we own —
First, this week is Banned Books Week, and I recommend picking up a copy of The Chocoloate War or Olive’s Ocean or Huck Finn — preferably from your local library — and reading to your heart’s content. Censorship is driven by fear, and operating by fear is not the way to grow either smarts or spirit. Both of which we need an abundance of in these challenging times.
Next, CYBILS nominations opened yesterday! The Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards (Cybils) folks are accepting nominations for your favorite book of the year in numerous categories, including Fiction and Non-fiction Picture Books, Graphic Novels and Poetry. (I’m particularly inclined toward the latter since I’m a judge for that category this year!) Please scurry, tout de suite, to leave your nominations in the comments section of the appropriate category.
I was one of the many jealous bloggers last weekend, leaning longingly toward Portland, Oregon, where a big ol’ group of writers and readers gathered for the Second Annual Kidlit Blogging Conference. For a little vicarious living though, you can go read the posts! Pour yourself a hot cup of coffee first — there are a lot of them.
In the mornings, it feels fallish here now.
Almost chilly.
By afternoon it’s 90 degrees out, and any illusion of seasonal shift has burned off.
So when October arrived today, it felt a little … sudden.
We’re still swimming every weekend and school just started.
Didn’t it?
But apparently not, since the first round of parent-teacher conferences is in ten days.
And any sense of summer loll-around laziness is long gone.
The piles on my desk teeter.
But I’m taking time into my own hands this morning.
Heading off on a slow walk with my good old dog, who’s wearing one of those crazy-cone Elizabethan collars after a minor surgery yesterday. She needs a good, slow walk and so do I.
I’ve often heard novelists utter angst over their acknowledgement pages.
Who to name, and in what way?
What language to use, what details to include, who to thank?
And, god forbid, what if someone gets forgotten?
Usually, there’s no acknowledgement page in a picture book. But there is a dedication page and it can cause similar stress.
I dedicated my first book to my daughters. It was a no-brainer. It was being a mother that inspired me to try writing for children. They were my little muses, and the book, quite literally, was written for them. Ditto, actually, my others, even though the girls spend a lot less time with picture books than they used to.
My next dedication is due… um… yesterday or so. But instead of getting it down just right, I found all these fascinating bits online to entertain and distract me:
Think: Patty Griffin… The Swell Season… Foo Fighters. Think: Neko Case… Blues Traveler… Erykah Badu. Think: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
Think: right down the hill from our house. We could listen from here. But why, when the sun’s out and the lemonade is cold?
We’re picking up the kids afterschool and riding our bikes down to enjoy the fact that we live in the midst of all this music.
An uplift.
As is this:
To Music: A Song By Robert Herrick
Music, thou queen of heaven, care-charming spell, That strik’st a stillness into hell; Thou that tam’st tigers, and fierce storms, that rise, With thy soul-melting lullabies; Fall down, down, down, from those thy chiming spheres To charm our souls, as thou enchant’st our ears.
I’m five weeks into teaching this semester, which means next week’s the half-way point already.
That sort of makes me sad.
Time flies.
These first 6 weeks are always a little dry. We deconstruct and discuss the elements of fiction (conflict, characterization, point of view, setting, etc.). Sexy, hunh? So I try to humanize it a bit by reading from Art & Fear, sharing stacks of library books, and offering up writing prompts.
Here are the prompts so far this semester. Help yourselves…
When I sold the texts of my next two picture books– first Wind, then World — I presumed they’d come out in that order. But instead, it was decided that World would leapfrog Wind.
It was the right decision for a zillion and two reasons, but I have to admit to feeling just the teensiest bit worried about Wind. I didn’t want it to get lost or forgotten or shown up by its younger sibling.
Well. Never fear. I’m resting easy over here.
Now that All the World (its real, full, honest-to-goodness name) has been wrapped up and put to bed (for a long winter’s nap before springing to its feet next summer), my beloved illustrator has started work on Wind, and I suddenly have utter faith that it’ll become its own beautiful book.
But the only way that’s gonna happen is if I go back to work on it, too. We hadn’t finished revisions of this text when our focus shifted to All the World almost exactly a year ago. So, poor Wind was left sort of one-legged and limping in mid-draft limbo all these many months. Now that’s changed.
About a week ago I started re-reading old versions (and you’d be horrified to know how many were available to me to read). I highlighted old phrases I liked and I highlighted new phrases I didn’t like. I re-read again.
Then, yesterday, I went at it in earnest.
I replaced every article and preposition with other articles and prepositions… I hand-counted the words in two other picture books… I added a bunch of stuff… I cut a bunch of stuff — different stuff than I’d added… I read it aloud again and again…
In the middle of it all, I took a 1/2 hour nap out of either exhaustion or despair or exhilaration — it’s rather surreal how similarly those emotions play out in your body.
And in the end, what had been a picture book of 309 words was a picture book of 308 words.
You guys — seriously.
One freakin’ word.
Again with the exhaustion/despair/exhilaration.
I was almost afraid to look at it this morning, but now I have. And I think it really is a different beast in the same size sweater. I really do. The hours were not wasted, I’m pretty sure.
I won’t go so far as to call it "done", though. I revised the 194 words of All the World for three months. Can you believe that? I’m sure there are men in white coats who’d come to get me if that got out, so don’t repeat it.
But, in keeping true to myself, I think I’d better admit that Wind will be whipped around a bit more before it’s quite right. In the meantime, though, at least it’s moving. Which is, dare I say it, exhilarating.
