Q of the Week: What Have You Learned?

I guess because I'm going back to school I'm sorta focused on learning right now. Anyway, our group has been on this journey together now for at least six or seven years, a few of us more. In that time four of us have successfully published--and published well.

We've written poems, picture books and novels. Letters, proposals and queries. Math games and silly song lyrics. Fiction and non-fiction. We've gone on retreats and met monthly for writing exercises. We've submitted. We've been rejected. We've made lifelong friendships, of course.

But here's what I'd like to know: What have you learned? About writing mainly, although you can feel free to digress (like we need permission to do this!)

What have you learned about this process? About yourself? Those who are published, what has that process taught you?

It doesn't need to be deep and philosophical, although you can do that if you want to. One thing I've learned from this group is that I no longer have to put two spaces after a period (though my thumb disagrees).

I've also learned that I have a bit of a persistence disorder. This requires me to step back and gain new perspective a lot and often.

More later from me. What about you??

Debbie's Childhood Reading

Our question of the week has to do with books we read during childhood that have really stuck with us.

If I put my mind to it, I could probably come up with a list about a mile long. But just rattling off the ones that pop to mind immediately, here are a few that have stuck with me through the years:

From early on:

• Any and all Dr. Seuss books. I especially loved Fox In Socks and The Sleep Book.
• John Ciardi's You Read To Me, I'll Read To You poems, illustrated by Edward Gorrey
• The poetry volume of the Junior Classics series (favorite poem at the time: "Jabberwocky")
• That's Good, That's Bad by Joan M. Lexau, illustrated by Aliki
• "Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going To Sneeze!" by Patricia Thomas, illustrated by Wallace Tripp

Then of course there were the years dominated by...

• The Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Count me amongst those who read each of the books dozens of times.
• Around this time, I also loved the All-Of-A-Kind-Family books by Sydney Taylor.
• And I really liked a book the title and author of which I can't recall, but involved a boy who left the house one morning for a walk and came back to find his house burned down and his family presumed dead. He went off on his own, perhaps with his dog (I'm fuzzy on that part) and managed to survive in the woods by the highway by rigging up a little something so that trucks going by wobbled and lost a bit of their loads - these bits of lost cargo served as his provisions. At the end, the family turned out not to be dead. Plot details hazy, but I read and re-read this book many times. I think the author's last name was in the first half of the alphabet, because I still remember the shelf area of the library where the book was.
• Oh, and let's not forget Freckle Juice, Nate the Great books, James and the Giant Peach, From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and dozens more I'll think of later.

Later, during my teen years, my reading was all over the map (though frequently in the area of the map covering frequently challenged books):

• A series of books, something maybe having to do with someone's attic - all I remember is the cutaways on the mass market paperbacks
• Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber. Yikes! I don't think I could read that book now, but back then I was fascinated by it.
• A romance book written by someone named Skye something. The book itself didn't impact me, but the notion that someone would have the name Skye was mind-bending. Then someone clued me in that it was a pen name. Oh! That was mind-bending, too. I immediately decided I should have a pen name, something as glamorous sounding as Skye. I settled on... Denise O'Dharbe, which is an anagram of my name. (But no, I haven't written any romances.)
• The Best Little Girl In The World by Steven Levenkron. I think the book was meant to be illuminating as to eating disorders, but unfortunately I think the book served to heighten many a girl's interest in anorexia.
• The Velvet Room by . Actually, I'm not sure I found the book itself that absorbing (I don't remember any of it), but that room has stuck with me!
• A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck. I don't remember much about this book now, but I think it was a definite early influence on my eventual vegetarianism.
• I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan.
• Deenie by Judy Blume

I read many other books during my childhood, but those are some that pop into my head as having left their mark. I'll probably add to this list as more influences percolate up.

Question of the Week: Favorite Books, Blast From the Past Edition

We've been a little quiet on Write Brainers lately, so I thought I'd toss out a new question:

What are some of the books that you read during your K-12 years that have (for good or even not so good reason) really stuck with you?

Shift Your Reading Habits…

            To Include This Book

Amy Huntley reviews The Shifter by Janice Hardy

“Stitch together enough wrongs and it makes a blanket that almost keeps out the chill.” So says Nya, the main character in this fantastic new Balzer and Bray book, due to be released in October 2009.

Fifteen-year-old Nya is able to remove pain from other people through a simple touch. This isn’t so uncommon in her world. But what is uncommon is the way she can transfer that pain into another person. With unusual abilities comes unusual responsibility. Nya knows that she is in danger of being kidnapped because of her potential as a weapon. She knows she can be forced to inflict pain on others. Her efforts to avoid this outcome place her in complex situations where she finds herself having to bargain with her own moral code.

But don’t be misled by all this talk of morality. This is a book about tough choices, but the mid-grade reader won’t be able to put it down because of its hair raising action and suspense scenes. Set in a vividly imagined world,  and filled with interesting characters, this book is sure to please both male and female readers of all ages. We all have something to learn from it.

I can’t wait for the sequel.

 

How to Create an Enigmatic and Aloof Internet Presence in Ten Easy Steps

Once upon a time, in the good old days, authors were known to be enigmatic and aloof. Then along came the Internet, and ruined all that.

Now authors are commonly understood to be friendly, outgoing, and accessible “normal” people. Chances are, your favorite author is now on FaceBook and MySpace; has a web site; and maintains a blog. (Incidentally, these opportunities are not limited to living authors; rumor has it, Shakespeare now tweets.)

Oh, how we all miss those glory days, when authors were inaccessible and eccentric. Is it too late to turn the tide?

No. No it is not. There’s still time for writers to reclaim their collective and rightful aura of mystery! This impossible-sounding task can actually be accomplished in ten easy steps:

1. Write your blog entirely in the third person. Or better yet, the second person.

2. Resist the temptation to blog on topics popular on other writing blogs, such as: writer’s block; your writing “journey”; writing conferences; and Michelle Obama’s arms. Instead, blog about your writing “process,” and Barack Obama’s arms.

3. Include only obscure authors in your blog roll list. If any of them link back to you, delete them from your list immediately.

4. Alongside your web site or blog “Words Written” gadget, add a “Words Scratched Out”gadget. Specify both counts to two decimal places.

5. Tantalize your readers by offering only limited personal information. For instance, when composing a blog entry about your Ideal Weekend Breakfast, do not specify your preferred cereal brand.

6. All of your web site photos should depict you in silhouette, hunched over a writing surface, surrounded by crumpled paper wads. Use stock photos from a free photo site and/or PhotoShop if necessary. Alternately, use hand-drawn stick figure illustrations. Credit these drawings to your dog.

7. Wear sunglasses to all of your public appearances. When asked about them, state that Sunshine Impedes The Flow Of Ideas. When asked the inevitable follow-up question (“Where do you get your ideas?”), fling the glasses off, sneer dramatically, and shout “Next question!” Be sure that a bookseller films the outburst, and post the video to YouTube immediately.

8. For your Twitter tweets, use the Cyrillic alphabet.

9. Alter your contact link so that instead of bringing up your email address, it launches an audio feed of Philip Glass music.

10. When you use friend as a verb, put it in "quotes."

By following these easy steps, you too can have an Enigmatic Internet Presence ™.

Fellow Write Brainers, any additional suggestions?

A Review of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

 Amy Huntley

Guilty.

I've long been a person who romanticizes Native Americans. Idealized versions of Native American life have been woven deeply into the fabric of our culture. What REAL experiences have I had with Native Americans and their reservation life? Only a few: met a Navajo while passing through the reservation in Arizona when I was 16. He took me into a teepee (that's right, even though Navajos were not teepee dwellers, he had one set up at a roadside area where he was selling jewelry) and told me the story of his experiences fighting in the Vietnam War. He shot a monkey in the jungle and got into trouble for going back to bury it because he considered the monkey his brother. It was a cool story. I've been to Soaring Eagle. I've visited ancient pueblo sites in New Mexico and gone to Pipestone to see where the sacred stone for peace pipes was mined. But what all these experiences have in common is that they have reinforced rather than challenged my romanticized ideals of Native Americans.

What I love about Sherman Alexie's book is that it adds a strong dose of good old Realism (yes, I mean the literary movement that followed Romanticism) to the stew of impressions I have of Native American history and modern culture. Not that there's a single Native American culture. There are many. I learned that long ago in my travels to Native American exhibits, museums and reservations. But with Part-time Indian, for one kid (the narrator, Junior), at one reservation, during the all too vulnerable teen years, I truly got to see another side of Native American culture. Junior's complex feelings about the people of his reservation remind me (in some ways) of how I felt growing up in a small, insular farming town. His frustrations with money troubles, girls, alcoholism within the family, and the high mortality rate for the people of his reservation all ring so true.  His narrative voice is poignant and real. Something any one who remembers the teen years--no matter what their background--can relate to. I walked away understanding the difficulties Junior faced without being overwhelmed by them. Junior himself faces them with grace, dignity and the best humor he can muster. I truly appreciated his story--and the way Alexie shared it.

Stalker

by Amy Huntley

The Advanced Reader Copy of my upcoming book arrived recently. I got an email on a Wednesday from my assistant editor, Ruta Rimas, telling me it was coming. She also gave me the tracking number of its package. This tracking number became the catalyst for a major personality change on my part.

I became a package stalker.

While talking to some of the younger teachers at school, I discovered that package tracking was not uncommon among the younger--and I need not say more technologically savvy--set. I have used package tracking on rare occasions before--but only when a package whose delivery date had already expired hadn't yet reached my door. But stalking a package--that was all new for me. Apparently there are people in the world who have such a difficult time waiting for deliveries that they begin tracking the package before it's delivery date.

I became one of them.

I was so looking forward to getting that package that within two minutes of the arrival of that fateful email from HarperCollins, I was at the UPS site tracking the package. For the next two days, I kept track of every city the package went through. I knew what it's arrival scan time was. What it's departure scan time was. Friday morning, I announced to my husband, "The package went out for delivery from Lansing at 6:50 this morning."  By eleven o'clock, I knew that the package had been placed on a delivery truck at 7:50. And when the package arrived at 2:45, I ran out to the delivery truck to meet the UPS man.  (Who, by the way, seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was delivering a package to me that would change my life. He did smile nicely at me, though.)

It's official. I've entered into a new technological state of personality. I may just become a regular package stalker. 

But I hope not. There should be something special that sets apart the arrival of your very first ARC from all other packages delivered in your lifetime.