Books From Back in the Day

Apparently before I could truly read, my parents would allow me to fool my grandparents by “reading” some of my little books aloud to them. In actuality I had memorized every word and where each turn of the page occurred. I know I was read to as a child and eager to have that independence of doing it myself. The stories I remember from when I was very young are the Little Golden Books--I always felt bad for the Pokey Little Puppy. And, like Ellen, I had a book of fairytales for which I remember the colorful illustrations almost as well as the stories--Cinderella, The Shoemaker and the Elves, Sleeping Beauty, and Rumpelstiltskin. Rapunzel was in a different book, I think, and I was fascinated by that tale as well. It’s fun to re-visit some of these as an adult by reading something like Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. Dr. Seuss was always fun. (And fun in college when the first gift i gave my new boyfriend, now husband, was The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, since he was upset that I was going to a dance with someone else the night of his dorm’s Christmas party, to which he had forgotten to actually invite me.)

In elementary school, the poems of Shel Silverstein totally cracked me up. Then I read his book The Giving Tree as an adult and totally wept. I also read a lot of Beverly Cleary, The Beezus and Ramona books, and then many many Nancy Drew books--it takes about one second for my brain to pull up the images of titian hair, green sedans, “tomboy” George and “plump” Bess. I thought it was so cool when my older cousin gave me her ND books--they were old musty hardcovers with the black edging around the pages. The Secret in the Old Clock! The Hidden Staircase! And I remember everyone in my class loved the book Superfudge. Elementary school also had the book order forms every couple of months and trips to the local library’s book sales.

By junior high I wasn’t as much into following a whole series of books. I read some of the Anastasia books from Lois Lowry, maybe a couple of the scary Lois Duncans. I loved a book called The Girl with the Silver Eyes (a smart girl with super powers!) and I really liked What Katy Did. I remember some of the mandatory books for classes: My Side of the Mountain, Sounder, Where the Red Fern Grows, Bridge to Terabithia (how could the teacher make us cry like that?), even How to Eat Fried Worms.

In high school I was very affected by Elie Wiesel’s Night and adored The Count of Monte Cristo. Senior year brought the Canterbury Tales and Hamlet, and I chose The Catcher in the Rye for a term paper. (Salinger just passed away a couple weeks ago and there is still so much intrigue associated with him and that book.) By high school I was involved in so many activities and my classes were so demanding that I didn’t have much time to read for fun. I did work in a bookstore my senior year of high school, so I got the torture of browsing all the books I wished I had time to read. I do remember making time for the non-fiction book Friday Night Lights, however, and being obsessed with it, as my love of football in general was quite strong by then. (I liked the movie that was based on it, and I love the tv series that was inspired by it.)

Wow--it’s funny how much you can remember about the things you read as a kid, how they made you feel, and how you see that you have revisited some of them as an adult. It seems like the pure joy of reading was greatest in the early years, elementary, and junior high. Reading the Harry Potter books brought back that feeling. When they first started coming out, I was working as a school social worker, and my students from elementary through high school were reading the books, eagerly anticipating the next in the series. It was so much fun to share it with them and have an excuse to have HP items around my offices (it helps me better connect with the kids!). As a parent it is special to relive the classics with my son and discover all the new books out there. He absolutely loves “stories” and has memorized a couple short books that he reads to us. He is only a young four, and he expresses frustration that he can’t yet read by himself. I feel like his enjoyment of reading and eventual reading skills are more important than any academic area. Right now reading for him is associated with parent-child time, the joy of a book received as a gift, the independence of getting to choose his own books or use the computer for interactive books, and at preschool an opportunity to contribute answers or opinions since he loves to talk. Maybe someday he, too, will have the inspiration to write and will be much more successful than his mother at bringing ideas to fruition!

Correlations of Inspiration

I've always been a visual person, so I when I was very young hours would be spent looking through anything with beautiful illustrations or photos. Non-fiction animal books and National Geographic especially interested me; I went through a "I'm gonna be a Veterinarian when I grow up" phase.



I also loved fairy tales and had a beautifully illustrated compilation of them. I wish I still had it, but I did keep a Cinderella pop-up book that I loved to pieces, literally. I remember signing my name in cursive, so everyone would know it was mine. I was so proud, because I hadn't learned cursive yet. Looking at the signature now cracks me up; it certainly doesn't look as neat as I remembered it.



"Where the Wild Things Are" was one of my early favorites. I'm not sure if it was the illustrations that hooked me, or if I was dreaming of being as mischievous as Max and wanted to take an adventure. Now that I think about it, I'm sure it was the latter because I also loved "James and the Giant Peach". The image of a boy who was mistreated by his caregivers I guess was a real draw. Not unlike Harry Potter who became so popular. Dr. Seuss' "To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street", "Pippi Longstocking" and "Peter Pan" were more of my early favorites, all of which were also strongly character driven. These kids got to do things I never would have dreamed. They went against authority and had wonderful experiences. My parents were probably happy I didn't live by that theme. I was a very boring child who lived vicariously only through the books I read. That's okay because I made up for it when I became a teen.



As a pre-teen and teenager, edgy books were my thing. I went to a Catholic school, still stuck in my shell when my friends and I found "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret". A group of us passed that book around like a hot tamale, hiding it in our school folders because we knew our parents wouldn't approve. We thought we were being so naughty reading about puberty. After junior high, I went to a public school and found "The Outsiders" and "Go Ask Alice". I didn't use the characters as role models, but these were the kinds of books I enjoyed reading as I learned to break free and become my own person. Then I got away from reading all together as I thought I had more important things to do.



I hope to write books that will inspire teens to keep reading. I'd like to write about things they can relate to while trying to break free from their own shell. I also think it would be fun to write a middle grade novel. I'd like to create an adventurous character like the ones who inspired me as a child. I guess I'm still living fantastic adventures through books. Is that wrong?

Read to Write, Right?

Anyone else a (water) closet reader? Books and magazines, of course, but I admit to soap labels, shampoo bottles, the DANGER tag on my blower dryer, those teeny papers that come with OTC medication. My eyes never stop searching for some letters to put together!

So as writers hoping to inspire a new generation, what did we read growing up?

Our house was full of books. Every noontime my mother accompanied the soup-and-sandwich-for-picky-eaters with a book: Little Golden Books, A.A. Milne, Ogden Nash, Robert Louis Stevenson. "Now eat one more bite and I'll read the next page..."

Once I could read on my own I was a fan of those turquoise bound biographies no one else ever checked out: Juliette Lowe, Clara Barton, Louisa May Alcott. Vacations were the only time we were allowed comic books, my mother figuring the quiet in the back seat was worth whatever dip in intellectual stimulation we were sure to experience! As peer pressure for Noticing the Opposite Sex increased, I read my way through the Romances of the Month, living vicariously through Sheri and Bobby as on the third date their "hands touched and his lips grazed her cheek." Swoon!

The only book I was inspired by in high school was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

I keep meaning to write big heavy books about theological issues or Parish Life matters, but the lure of a creating a rhyming text about Bush Dancers in the Australian outback is calling me. What rhymes with wombat?

Stuck Again!

Getting stuck is an internal and extremely frustrating struggle for me, as I'm sure with all writers who find themselves in this sticky situation. Sometimes, the answers to my problems are simple, but in my dedication to produce something "brilliant" the first time around, I over analyze, second guess, and often lose direction in my writing.

I'm never totally satisfied with my writing, which often contributes to me getting stuck in the first place. Sometimes, I have to except that this is the best that I can do at the moment, move on, and then come back later to revise. This is my method of "walking away" (Ellen's words). Sometimes I don't walk far, just to another part of the story. Even if I do decide to put the story down in order to return with a fresh perspective, my difficulties are never far from my thoughts and I find myself working them out internally even as I work on a different story.

I think the worse part of being stuck is being unclear on which direction to take a particular piece. When I lose my direction, it helps to read other books. I've noticed that when I'm reading, I often get the itch to write. Sometimes, reading a book in the same genre that I'm writing helps me to refocus on my goal. Also, I have to come to terms with the fact that writing is reversible. Anything I write I can be unwritten. Sometimes I have to just choose a direction, and know that I'm not stuck with the outcome. If it doesn't work, I can erase and try a different path.

Lately, when I've lost direction I find myself thinking about what Carmela said in her class. She was quoting someone when she said "Don't be afraid to write a bad book." I try to keep this in mind when I'm writing. This advice has helped me a lot when I find that I don't know how to move forward.

Right now, my ideas for Camp Lagoon are percolating and I am stuck again on a PB manuscript. In regards to the PB, I'm grappling with the question, how should I bring it to a close? Endings are always sticky. As I work on my YA novel, my PB question is brewing in the corners of my mind. I find if I don't think too hard on things, the answer will eventually come.

Write with the spirit of an Olympian...

In honor of the 2010 Winter Olympic Game, which my family and I are greatly enjoying watching, please indulge me as I compare my fellow bloggers to Olympic athletes in their efforts to combat writer's block. (It's been a long week.)

Robin has all the grace and elegance of an ice dancer. Her writing flows with lyricism and musicality. When she's stuck she plays something called bedazzled and chuzzles. (I don't know what that is, but it sounds like something a skater would do.)

J.B. in his binge writing rushes down an icy course like a luger or whatever you call an athlete that does that skeleton event. If he falls, he picks himself up quickly and barrels onward.

Trager's methodology is like ski jumping. She heads down a linear ramp until it stops and then shoots herself off, executing a number of fancy tricks before landing somewhere far down the mountain.

Urania hasn't posted her blog, but it is my understanding that sometimes she is like a biathlete whose event is actually ten combined into one. If she is having trouble hitting the target in a story, she switches to another.

Ellen is a little harder. Maybe ice hockey, where the object is to get the puck into the goal while avoiding being sidetracked by defenders. Or, don't laugh, curling, where the players attempt to direct large stones across the rink by sweeping in front of them to clean the ice. (Perhaps I just wanted an excuse to mention curling?)

As for Me, I'm going to go with the snowboard event called the halfpipe, even though I'm sure I have next to nothing in common with the red-headed flying tomato.

In the halfpipe, the snowboarders move from one side of a cylindrical snow tube, gaining momentum to fly above it and perform tricks. When I'm stuck, I find that it helps me to go back to the beginning and work through all of the plot/character issues that have become jumbled in my head. This gives me the drive to then push through to the other side and hopefully go further and faster, with niftier acrobatics.

This is how I've worked as a journalist too. The lead is very important as it directs the flow of the entire article. If I get into the body and find that the building blocks are not falling into place, it helps to redirect by reworking the beginning.

With my current manuscript, I was struggling with some plot choices in Chapter Seven. I knew I wanted to make some changes to the previous six chapters based on critiques/suggestions, and needed to go back and get them on paper to achieve clarity.

I don't have much hope of winning a medal in the Olympics, but maybe this strategy will help me achieve publishing gold. (Wow! And you thought this piece couldn't get any cheesier.)

Stuck-ness and Un-sticking

For me, getting un-stuck for picture books is different than for longer stories. When starting a PB story, sometimes I have the idea of what I want to write about. I might do a quick outline--especially if my story is following the rule of threes--think ahead what the obstacles will be and how the character will move from one to the next, what the resolution will ultimately be. These can easily change as I do the actual writing, morph into things different from what I originally envisioned, or maybe I will decide to take the story in another direction entirely and rewrite what I had so far. Sometimes I don’t know what I want to write about, so I pull up my list of very many ideas. These could include verses of rhyme, characters’ names, or 2-3 paragraphs of a story. I might choose a couple ideas and start writing for each of them, see which one seems to flow better at that time. There have been times I started writing and decided it just wasn’t working, scrapped it, and started a whole new book. This happens more when writing for a class deadline. I also really like Eve Heidi Bine-Stock's three volumes of How to Write a Children's Picture Book, using specific examples from well-known children's books. Sometimes just reading a little about structure or being very deliberate in word choice and sentence construction can give some new spark to your words just lying on there on the page, making your eyes cross!

If I get stuck in a novel, I might take a break from the narrative and delve more into a character’s backstory--flesh out a bio or “CV” on that person: favorite foods, songs, movies, color, who was his first kiss, who was her hero, when is his birthday. Where have they lived in the past? What jobs have they held? What are their strengths, weaknesses, talents, goals, any special powers? Who are their best friends, enemies, co-workers, family members, past loves? Can they drive a stick shift? How do they normally dress? Do they wear braces, glasses, wigs, prosthetic devices? Religious affiliations? Political leanings? When is the last time they laughed or cried? Write a few pages of a journal the character might have kept. Many of those details wouldn’t make into the narrative, but this kind of exercise might spur some ideas about where to go or how a character would behave, what choices he would make, that in turn drive the story. It’s kind of like spending time with the character outside the constraints of the plot and emerging with a better understanding of her and, thus, the story.

One “trick” with which I have never had a problem but noticed some people do in regard to novel-writing--I don’t write in chronological order. When I am inspired to tell a certain part of the story or write a certain scene, I do it, even if it doesn’t come till much later, even if it wouldn’t be till the next book of a series. I am always surprised when another writer starts at the beginning and writes all the way through and never has considered writing out of sequence. One of my friends was doing a memoir-type work--he wasn’t looking forward to the part that would come next chronologically in his life. Ummm, so why write it right now? Move ahead to the part that you WANT to tell. Plus, let’s be honest, if there’s a part in your own memoir that you find boring or tedious to get through, why would you expect a reader to slug through it? Another big help: skip ahead and write the ending. I learned this in junior high when we had to choose a children’s author and write a letter to that person. How exciting when I received not just the usual form letter response but an actual personal note from Lois Lowry! Her advice when getting stuck was to skip ahead and write the ending. Know where you’re going and it will help guide you in how to get there. Sometimes it is tricky to then go back and put scenes in correct order and transition them appropriately.

One technique I have not yet tried but am keeping in mind is one of Carmela Martino’s suggestions: go back and write part of your story using a different point of view. For example, if your book is in first-person, try writing some of it in third-person limited. I’m not a huge fan of the writing in the Twilight series, but I was really intrigued by something the author did. The books are mostly told from the point of view of the female protagonist (except for part of a book from the werewolf friend’s point of view), but the author did write a draft of some of the first book from the point of view of the male vampire who becomes the protagonist’s boyfriend. She posted this draft online so that readers could have access to it. I read that the actor who portrayed this vampire in the movie actually used this draft to better get into his character’s motivations, which weren’t as apparent in reading just the published first book. I think this would be a very interesting exercise in getting unstuck--write from a different point of view of your main character or write the same events from the perspective of a different character entirely.

My main point of stuck-ness is in revision. I don’t know if it’s just not as exciting as writing something new, if I am worried the revised version will end up worse than the original, or the anxiety of making choices. I know I make choices in writing an original draft of a story, but it seems like the choices in revising are more deliberate, like you’re more accountable for WHY you made certain decisions. I should just approach it as a fun to chance to play around with stuff I have already created.

Striving to Make it Stick

This is where I admit I'm a procrastinator. Every time I get stuck on something my answer is avoidance. I hate to admit it but this sometimes actually works. I will walk away from something that I've been frustrated over, and come back later when my mind is clearer. This gets me back to work with a renewed sense of accomplishment. I wouldn't recommend this course of action though, it's just something I do if all else fails. I'll have to come up with something better if I have the opportunity to work under a deadline.

The issues that I get stuck on may be due to my lack of experience; for example, which tense to use and how to structure the storyline. I stop during writing to check the characters voice, or the plot line, then find out I'm not happy with how things are going. I hope in time this won't be such a problem, until then I have reference books on writing to turn to, and of course my critique buddies.

I could wish for a magic wand when I'm stuck. What's the purpose of struggling anyway? Then I noticed in the thesaurus that a synonym for struggle is strive, and realized that I'm constantly striving to make my story better, which is a good thing. I guess getting stuck is part of the natural process of writing, this struggle makes the end product that much better. I'll have to remember that next time I'm walking away from the keyboard and throwing my hands up in frustration.