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July 30, 2008
Morning Musings
I have learned one important lesson here at Shangri Lar: if there is a low tide, go for a beach walk! The tide flats called to me like sirens so I wobbled my way across the barnacled rocks to the sandy bars. It was quiet, quiet, quiet except for the "thwacks" of cockle shells being dropped on the rocks by hungry seagulls. A handful of blue herons stood, belly deep, in water, looking like English umbrellas, their heads the handles. They were not at all interested in me; breakfast was on the agenda. I stood and watched while one heron-umbrella snaked its head into the water, pulling up a banana-sized fish. I could see the fish's outline in the heron's throat! Much more interesting than watching the Today show.
There is a drawback to walking at low tide, here: seagrass. It really creeps me out because I can't see what's underneath. Am I about to step on a shell? A crab? In a clam hole? The whole process is disconcerting. As I slogged and stepped and hoped for the best, it struck me how much writing was like walking on these tide flats. There is no guarantee that we are standing on anything solid as we move forward and yet, if we don't move forward, we'll never get to the place where we commune with herons or admire seastars or get squirted by the horseclams hiding beneath the sand.
Yes, there will be times we step in holes up to our knees but there will also be times when we find solid footing. And there is no way to get across the flats, or to the end of our story, without dealing with seagrass, in some form or another.
I've got to get back to work, but let me just say, "Come on in! The water's fine."
Posted by kirby at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2008
Sink or CWIM
The latest edition of Alice Pope's Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market is out; check out Mac McCool's assessment of it. This is an incredibly useful tool, even when it doesn't have articles by yours truly between the covers. With CWIM and an SCBWI membership, you will have no more excuses for sending out manuscripts improperly formatted or featuring Chrissy Chrysalis or Sammy Stick. You'll have it made.
The challenge now, however, is for me to take my own advice about anchoring dialogue as I slog my way through this current rewrite.
I always have been a slow learner.
Posted by kirby at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2008
Shangri Lar
What did Virginia Woolf say about a "room of one's own?" When I started writing, it was at the kitchen table and whatever I was working on was set aside each time a meal was served. I graduated from kitchen table to corner of sewing room (in the olden days when I actually sewed, making curtains for our home and clothes for kids) and then, when Tyler had been off to college -- and graduated! -- I took over his bedroom. No matter the space, big or small, I was glad for it.
Now I am spoiled beyond words. Not only do I have a room, I have heaven on earth: Shangri Lar (photo to come). We have finished building a vacation home near the Canadian border and my sweetie made sure the top floor was mine. So now my away from home writing space includes five windows that take in the Strait of Georgia, White Rock, B.C. and sunsets to take one's breath away.
I am holed up here, now, at Shangri-Lar, finishing a novel revision. In the old days, my work would be disrupted for skinned knees or permission slips that needed signing or space to serve the Sloppy Joes. Now, my work is disrupted by herons etching the twilight sky like hieroglyphs or owls hooting good-nights or sailboats cutting a fine figure against the waves or neighbors eager to check out the new place in the neighborhood.
So, yes, I joined my sisters-in-law tonight around the campfire, telling family stories and toasting marshmallows. But that was only after several hours of pounding the keyboard, corralling the words I've been herding for weeks. Months. Years. Getting closer and farther away from the story each minute.
My digs have gotten more luxurious but the work is still the same: write three words, delete two.
So, wherever you are: write. You can do it at the kitchen table, in a fancy suite or on the back of a motorcycle (okay, maybe not on the back of a motorcycle). It's not about the place.
It's about you. And the story.
Note to self: one hour of writing in your loft office today equals one s'more at the campfire tonight on the bluff.
Fair enough.
Posted by kirby at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2008
Beginnings
There is nothing like a revision to get me to thinking about . . . .anything else but revising. So I'm allowing myself a few short moments to blog and then I have to get back to work.
What I'm mulling over today is the beginning of the book and finding that balance between hooking the readers' attention while at the same time giving the story space to unfold. I'd been one of those who thought every book needed to begin with a huge bang, but while I worked on the revisions of Hattie Big Sky, I gained some new insights, thanks to my brilliant editor. She pointed out that the reader needed a chance to get to know Hattie, to understand what her "ordinary" world was like to be able to connect with her more fully. That is why the first chapter ended up starting with Hattie at Uncle Holt's and Aunt Ivy's rather than on the homestead.
I was thinking about beginnings, too, as I read two very different books lately. First, was Patricia McCormick's powerful and gut-wrenching Sold. Young Lakshmi's being sold into prostitution is made all the more horrible because we spend the first fifty pages with this sweet young Nepalese girl as she tends her goat and helps her mother. We care so much about this individual girl because we have been given the opportunity to get to know her, which is what makes this a fabulous novel rather than an issue book.
Written hundred of years earlier, The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, spent a goodly amount of time allowing the reader to get acquainted with the very unlikeable Mary before she is introduced to Dickon and the magic of an untended garden. The garden would have been a mere sentimental gimmick without the chance to know how much Mary needed its power of healing and redemption.
So yesterday, I gave myself permission to start ten steps back in my story, to build a solid front porch for my reader (I am ever the optimist -- let's hope there will be readers!) to step up onto before reaching the front door that leads him or her into my character's story home.
My time is up! Back to work.
You, too.
Posted by kirby at 08:56 AM | Comments (1)
July 02, 2008
The Curtain Closes on All For Kids
On June 30, the Seattle book community shed a few tears and shared a lot of laughs to mark the closing of All For Kids Books and Music. It was nothing short of miraculous that no one blabbed about the surprise send-off party for Chauni Haslett (on the left in this photo, taken when she and I did a joint radio interview for KWJZ) and her charming husband Bill (not in the photo. . .as usual!). The room was filled to capacity with well-wishers.
I would be writing this blog until mid-next week were I to try to set down all of the ways these two have nurtured, supported and enriched the lives of kids, parents, teachers, librarians and book creators. China has its Great Wall, but All for Kids had its "Greats Wall." Started years ago when Brian Jacques couldn't resist signing his name to a blank white wall in the bookstore's event room, the wall had over 500 signatures and illustrations -- every author or illustrator who visited -- at the store's closing.
Of course, we all wish Chauni and Bill well -- and much deserved rest. But, I can't help feeling the world is a bit smaller and duller without this gem of a bookstore.
If you know Chauni and Bill, why not honor their 25 years of service to children's literature and music by reading aloud to a kid today, donating to a literacy campaign in your community or buying a book at your own local independent bookstore.
To paraphrase my favorite talking spider, "It's not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and extraordinary bookseller." Chauni and Bill are such someones.
Posted by kirby at 08:49 AM | Comments (0)