tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42288171734056401842024-03-19T08:35:05.575-04:00THE WRITE SISTERSWe are Andy Murphy, Barbara Turner, Janet Buell, Kathy Deady, Diane Mayr, Muriel Dubois, and Sally Wilkins. We are writers for children.Dianehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14973140969934922400noreply@blogger.comBlogger713125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-16412580972850296702013-02-11T05:42:00.000-05:002013-02-11T05:42:00.369-05:00I [We] Leave and Heave a Sigh...First, the good news! <a href="http://www.apprenticeshopbooks.com" target="_blank">Apprentice Shop Books</a> has released the latest book in the "America's Notable Women" series, this one written by The Write Sisters: <i><a href="http://www.apprenticeshopbooks.com/women-constitution-state-connecticut-women-should-p-458.html" target="_blank">Women of the Constitution State: 25 Connecticut Women You Should Know</a></i>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimusSIp1axqjZIOOpv233ljq2fAXwpc68_vbXaUnsgWAcN9jFxaTT_QdRS_EzqsOjG_49hYkMhLLXqCeJJ3NH9fBJOSXO1ejZfEXR5xa4fYinhOl6EkHJkWnVEZ5gIigZYZ46-eY2p5C4u/s1600/women_connecticut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimusSIp1axqjZIOOpv233ljq2fAXwpc68_vbXaUnsgWAcN9jFxaTT_QdRS_EzqsOjG_49hYkMhLLXqCeJJ3NH9fBJOSXO1ejZfEXR5xa4fYinhOl6EkHJkWnVEZ5gIigZYZ46-eY2p5C4u/s400/women_connecticut.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The variety of women found in this latest book of biographical profiles is amazing. There are nurses, dancers, astronomers, politicians, writers, judges, and more! You won't want to miss it!<br />
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Now, for the not-so-good news. After 712 posts, The Write Sisters have decided that we've reached the end of this great adventure known as blogging. We started fitfully back in 2007, hit our stride in 2008, and have had 5 strong years. Alas, life gets in the way. Interests and goals change. We get older. The continuation of our blog no longer fits for us. <br />
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We will keep the blog accessible, so that new writers can browse through our helpful "Mentor Monday" posts. If you're interested in strong women, there's our "Women of Wednesday" posts to mine. If you're a friend of poetry, "Poetry Friday" offerings will remain to delight you with words. <br />
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Looking for something particular? Simply use the search box at the top left of the screen, or the blog search box on the right-hand side.<br />
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It's been fun! We wish you all the best of luck in your writing, and lots of love in your life. But, for now...<br />
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xNs3nK31DKc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-17378562113728389792013-02-08T00:01:00.000-05:002013-02-08T00:01:01.492-05:00Poetry Friday--"Snowflake"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrVuupdUgzWtzp6F9frEMAP_sAKimr2xB5TCjzFGqILBZzvArJA0GNDetTSsTnwoEEjBiIdI56dzDKUrGd3qI4nCaLSfHbYPpSFyYTv0eY2u_YeOZc7424s8x660sePs4L0n_TrzL_ZnQr/s1600/snowflake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="264" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrVuupdUgzWtzp6F9frEMAP_sAKimr2xB5TCjzFGqILBZzvArJA0GNDetTSsTnwoEEjBiIdI56dzDKUrGd3qI4nCaLSfHbYPpSFyYTv0eY2u_YeOZc7424s8x660sePs4L0n_TrzL_ZnQr/s400/snowflake.jpg" /></a></div><br />
It's nearly Valentine's Day, a supersnowstorm is heading our way, and I've found the perfect poem!<blockquote><big>Snowflake</big><br />
by William Baer<br />
<br />
Timing's everything. The vapor rises<br />
high in the sky, tossing to and fro,<br />
then freezes, suddenly, and crystallizes<br />
into a perfect flake of miraculous snow.<br />
For countless miles, drifting east above<br />
the world, whirling about in a swirling free-<br />
for-all, appearing aimless, just like love,<br />
but sensing, seeking out, its destiny.<br />
Falling to where the two young skaters stand,<br />
hand in hand, then flips and dips and whips<br />
itself about to ever-so-gently land,<br />
a miracle, across her unkissed lips:<br />
as he blocks the wind raging from the south,<br />
leaning forward to kiss her lovely mouth. </blockquote>Didn't I tell you? It's a lesson in science, it's a lesson in love, it's a lesson in hope. It's happiness! How have I never read this before? If you've never come across it, I hope it delights you as much as it has me.<br />
<br />
You'll find the Poetry Friday Round-Up taking place at <a href="http://tmsteach.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">A Teaching Life</a>. Please stop by.<br />
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<small><small>Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachel_s/429074338/" target="_blank">nutmeg66</a>.</small></small>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-28131516491769593952013-02-04T01:26:00.000-05:002013-02-04T01:26:00.197-05:00Re-imagining Revision<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHDCyEVPUTYU8qnMZAZt9pPOc2Dtu-N6k3D7VaRlZGxx0fblzUWCoGWX-vL_D3eH2VYg82nL6GiMK1Sg_mnuylepEoNEinQwtguSQi0YYzIe7j0QCk5_WkroQXXGviK5OAqzBAC10iEgvi/s1600/revision-tips.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHDCyEVPUTYU8qnMZAZt9pPOc2Dtu-N6k3D7VaRlZGxx0fblzUWCoGWX-vL_D3eH2VYg82nL6GiMK1Sg_mnuylepEoNEinQwtguSQi0YYzIe7j0QCk5_WkroQXXGviK5OAqzBAC10iEgvi/s200/revision-tips.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Maybe you have hit a wall. "Revision" in your
writing has turned into a series of minor word changes and sentence
alterations. You don't feel as if you are <i>really</i>
revising. You’re simply marking time, waiting for some new thought, some new
way to express your ideas. How to break
out of this funk?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One my go-to solutions at this point is an old book. <i>Revision </i>by Kit Reed was published in
1991 but I still find it useful. It was written for the fiction writer. I'm usually
stuck in a mess of non-fiction or creative non-fiction. Will any of Reed's
techniques be able to help the non-fiction writer, you ask? I do feel somewhat like a trespasser, a
person visiting a church I don't attend. If I sit in a foreign pew and stare at
someone else’s' altar, will God still hear me?
If I read a book about revising <i>fiction</i>,
will it help me out of my non-fiction slump?
I can say that it does.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbHweawtwL8E7LEllSkL3WxUaE8RfVMdwOka9dZ4-0_qN2zs0iwkrXqqP6UtyU8A4eoq1qJlbRY_UjckqcNQoyuJvSsbgRwYE6ERGYUXeFI7URTzUUHjU2YbcqxvIcfMxyu7Co0px8XyrF/s1600/Revision+by+Kit+Reed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbHweawtwL8E7LEllSkL3WxUaE8RfVMdwOka9dZ4-0_qN2zs0iwkrXqqP6UtyU8A4eoq1qJlbRY_UjckqcNQoyuJvSsbgRwYE6ERGYUXeFI7URTzUUHjU2YbcqxvIcfMxyu7Co0px8XyrF/s200/Revision+by+Kit+Reed.jpg" width="200" /></a>Kit Reed is ready for doubters like me: "Even attitudes
need revision," she says almost immediately. (p. 4) I have been clinging to the idea that I lack
the ability to go any further with my stories. I read this sentence in Reed's
book and sheepishly recognize that part of my so-called slump concerning this
latest round of rewrites might be a result, not of <i>ability</i>, but the other "A" word: <i>attitude</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Revision, Reed points out, ". . . closes the distance
between you and your audience." (p.10)
So, revision is not about what the writer wants to say as much as what
the writer wants <i>the reader</i> to <i>know</i>. Have I been going about this all
wrong? I was writing a series of
chapters relating the historic development of forensic science. The first story
tells of Paul Revere who identified the war-torn body of a friend from the
false teeth Revere had made for him. As I was writing my Paul Revere story,
members of my critique group kept saying: "We just want to know about the
teeth." I got so caught up in Paul
Revere the silversmith, Paul Revere the father of eight children, Paul Revere the
Revolutionary, that I included all of those things when I should have been
focusing on Paul Revere the maker of false teeth. Kit Reed encourages the
revising writer to stop thinking about the <u>story</u> at a certain point and
focus on <u>the receiver of the story</u>.
My critique group was giving me the same advice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reed divides revision into two basic types: 1) draft
writing, draft revision; and 2) block construction (or revising as you go).
(pp. 29 - 32) Draft revisers write the
complete story before beginning revisions. They may make large organizational
changes between one draft and the next.
Block constructionists work on one sentence until it is perfect then
move to the next. They work on one paragraph until it is perfect and so on. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a draft writer. I need a beginning, middle, and end
before I can make any changes. I admire people who can work from an outline or
write the last chapter before they write the first, but I'm not one of those
people. I start each story with a vague idea of what I hope to accomplish, who
my characters are and, if I'm lucky, something of a plot. Even a work of non-fiction needs this basic
plan.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After several revisions, however, when the story seems
"cooked,” Reed reminds us that there is still more to do:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
“No matter which method
we choose, sooner or later we come up against that moment when we have written
"the end" and discover we still need to consider one more reading,
for that third major kind of revision: revision to strengthen structure and
story.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
This relates to an important
point. <i>There are things you have to do
even after you think you are finished."</i> (p.38)</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the great mysteries of my writing life is why, after
I've spent so much time researching, reading, thinking, and preparing to write
a story, I can't just skip all the junk and go immediately to a perfect
piece. Kit Reed tells me I'm not alone.
As frustrating as it sometimes becomes, revision is part of the package. She
suggests three ways to tell whether a piece is really done: 1) by reading the
works of others and comparing what you've written. 2) by putting the work aside
and giving yourself distance from it. 3) by allowing outside readers (critique
groups, friends, even editors) to judge whether the piece continues to need
work.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7civFi5zaJdhI6JlTVzyeExNHe7Qb6bJEMILLAV6qNAzPmoEQR2yPyUkVj797-uKpHmtzYjbUujbxG7Cs_d8t1lK46mIVzmgD-O3zhyG3jfgNKLXguHO4rij91aUc3jK4lIyi_uzs63Ff/s1600/revision+angst.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7civFi5zaJdhI6JlTVzyeExNHe7Qb6bJEMILLAV6qNAzPmoEQR2yPyUkVj797-uKpHmtzYjbUujbxG7Cs_d8t1lK46mIVzmgD-O3zhyG3jfgNKLXguHO4rij91aUc3jK4lIyi_uzs63Ff/s200/revision+angst.jpg" width="175" /></a>I have done all of these things with past work and the truth
is, they are all helpful. Unfortunately, the answer I really wish for (<i>Someday you'll get it down perfectly in one
try!</i>) doesn't exist.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reed does provide me with an alternative: a series of
step-by-step questions to ask myself as I rework my latest story. The author
means her book to guide fiction writers. Will her suggestions help me over the
wall I've hit with my non-fiction pieces?
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some do:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Am I saying what I mean?
Are my word choices working for or against me? What about sentence variety? Do I sound like me or the last writer I read?
Is my opening interesting? Does my story
really begin here? Have I added enough
(or too much) detail?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I rethink the beginning to my piece on Zachary Taylor. I had
started with the day he became ill. Does my story really start there? My book is about forensic science. Why is
Zachary Taylor even interesting to a forensic scientist? This story must begin with his death and the
reasons it was considered mysterious enough to warrant forensic research. I
want to grab my audience, too. So I start on the day Taylor died:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
"July 9, 1850. The news spread
quickly: the President of the United States was dead. Many, many people were
glad to hear it."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This opening feels better. I have set the time of the story,
the character, and a statement that just might make my reader want to know
more. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I begin to write a piece on Jesse James, I keep Reed's
question in mind: Am I saying what I mean?
I <i>mean</i> to tell a story about
forensic science so how do I turn an outlaw's story into a story of
science? I must start this story not at
Jesse's death, but at the point his death becomes a forensic mystery. I begin
the story sixty-six years after Jesse's death, when an elderly man claims that
he really is Jesse James. I feel as if I'm beginning to get to the
"teeth" of all my stories.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There are many fine books on revision out there. If you’re stuck on your writing, go to your
local book store and look for one. It
may help you look at your work in a different way.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-14451914818251737352013-02-01T00:01:00.000-05:002013-02-01T07:57:20.572-05:00Poetry Friday--SolitudeThere's a short opening stanza of a poem by Galway Kinnell titled "There Are Things I Tell to No One," it goes:<blockquote>1<br />
There are things I tell to no one.<br />
Those close to me might think<br />
I was sad, and try to comfort me, or become sad themselves.<br />
At such times I go off alone, in silence, as if listening for God.<br />
<br />
<small>In <i>Galway Kinnell: Selected Poems<i></i></i> (Houghton Mifflin, 1982)</small></blockquote>I find that stanza touching, and I can relate well. We all need solitude every once in a while.<br />
<br />
Here are some other snippets from poets on the subject of solitude:<br />
<br />
Patricia Neubauer:<blockquote>down the hillpath<br />
fallen leaves follow me<br />
into the shadows <br />
<br />
<small> In <i>Dreams Wander On</i>, ed. by Robert Epstein (Modern English Tanka Press, 2011)</small></blockquote><br />
Jack Myers:<blockquote>from "100%"<br />
<br />
I'm great, 100%, when I'm left alone<br />
and I don't have anything to do<br />
or have to be anything for anyone,<br />
and no one is measuring just how little<br />
or maladjusted I've become.<br />
<br />
<small>In <i>Blindsided</i> (David R. Godine, 1993)</small></blockquote><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgku45q5zyJVDFLwS0U6rYA-nkCRaQa0wZlVwyiQkcURurfaqRrzDNoCvQYviUX5ZBCKuecZUZES2aipY2WMTqmZefb55CGXd1aNpXA5n_q6bm6umiwdJKkcJVGi17L8p8WvHT5Ddv5a0Zd/s1600/grass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="214" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgku45q5zyJVDFLwS0U6rYA-nkCRaQa0wZlVwyiQkcURurfaqRrzDNoCvQYviUX5ZBCKuecZUZES2aipY2WMTqmZefb55CGXd1aNpXA5n_q6bm6umiwdJKkcJVGi17L8p8WvHT5Ddv5a0Zd/s320/grass.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
Mary Oliver:<blockquote>from "One or Two Things"<br />
<br />
3<br />
The god of dirt<br />
came up to me many times and said<br />
so many wise and delectable things, I lay<br />
on the grass listening<br />
to his dog voice,<br />
crow voice,<br />
frog voice; <i>now</i>,<br />
he said, and <i>now</i>,<br />
and never once mentioned <i>forever</i>,<br />
<br />
<small>In <i>Dream Work</i> (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986)</small></blockquote><br />
Walt Whitman:<blockquote>"A Clear Midnight"<br />
<br />
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the<br />
wordless,<br />
Away from books, away from art, the day <br />
erased, the<br />
lesson done,<br />
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing,<br />
pondering the<br />
themes thou lovest best,<br />
Night, sleep, death and the stars.<br />
<br />
<small>In <i>Leaves of Grass</i></small></blockquote>Please visit <a href="http://www.teachingauthors.com/" target="_blank">Teaching Authors</a> for today's Poetry Friday Round-Up.<br />
<br />
--Diane<br />
<br />
<small><small>Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bendus/2511516996/in/photostream/" target="_blank">bendus</a>.</small></small>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-91201592293356965782013-01-28T07:00:00.000-05:002013-01-28T07:00:09.119-05:00It's All About The Story
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Have
you ever put down a book after reading it and asked yourself, “How did this
ever get published?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And where was the
editor?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have you ever said, “I write so
much better than this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My dog writes
better than this.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have you ever
wondered how these books, and these authors get published, while you’re sitting
there with a technical masterpiece that no one shows the slightest interest in?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If that’s the case, you may want to look over
your masterpiece one more time with an eye <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i>
on the writing, but on the story.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Most readers,
adult or children, do not read books because they can’t get enough of wonderful
metaphors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who do are probably
picking up literary novels, not commercial best-sellers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Most
people read for story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want to be
able to fall into the life of someone doing something exciting, or different,
something they would probably love to do themselves, but never will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People who read romance are in it for the
romance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People who read historicals
want to be brought to another place and time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People who read horror want to be scared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And people who read adventures want the
adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your job as a writer is to give
them what they want, in whatever genre you choose to write in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So what
is your story about?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it something new
and exciting, or is it the same old stuff writers have been writing about for
ages?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> the same old stuff, have you given it an original and exciting
twist, something that makes it stand out from the rest?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does it contain tension and suspense?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there conflict, a reason to keep turning
the pages?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you make your reader feel
what the main character feels?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Look at
the success of the <em>Eragon </em>and <em>Twilight </em>series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Neither is particularly well written, but each</span> </span>writer told a story that
worked for millions of readers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Millions, not thousands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQZdlL3cYBxiB2Q_3yiTxKfDldTX6-0UYPegd1T4zf4EuuD7geMD7H4OsO__bpRgTFCPqETQvfrR7v0TnUoobdQ9Jbyvf4Ppw4kTtL69WOFJcNfR16MZSPuF8wLB-eS6HceqMeg9Iooyg/s1600/eragon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQZdlL3cYBxiB2Q_3yiTxKfDldTX6-0UYPegd1T4zf4EuuD7geMD7H4OsO__bpRgTFCPqETQvfrR7v0TnUoobdQ9Jbyvf4Ppw4kTtL69WOFJcNfR16MZSPuF8wLB-eS6HceqMeg9Iooyg/s320/eragon.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Eragon
was a hero’s story, a boy goes on a quest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s been done a million times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Why was Paolini’s such a big success?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because everybody dreams of being a hero, everyone wants to win, and he
gave them that opportunity in the pages of his books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there is something about dragons that
appeals to so many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the biggie, I
think, is because he followed a formula that so many best sellers seem to have
- the chase, the escape, then rest, think, regroup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The chase, the escape, more rest, rethinking,
and regrouping.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Paolini’s
characters do this continuously throughout the story until the climax.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s Tolkien’s formula in Lord of the Rings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the formula used in so many suspense
thrillers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tension and suspense
never let up, and the conflict continually grows bigger and bigger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Was it
a conscious decision of Paolini’s, or had he simply learned it through osmosis
while reading others?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s there, and it works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For millions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Constant action, constant movement, and always a new problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reader has to turn the page because
they’re involved in the story, and they don’t care if Paolini used lay instead
of lie, or if his infinitives are split.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpbcBHOA5k-z8_WHKNCheE0DO85XONDPMfZm9tkOC1Pw0I1mQ1IfYYLe_4NJSqmRvUO0OI8hToNhwVhp9wYlSI9sytYRBGek6zM9Cg5SJmQzzJu_Ab85Lk8lHNsZeaAoI6t5-1JbqKSi0/s1600/twilightcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpbcBHOA5k-z8_WHKNCheE0DO85XONDPMfZm9tkOC1Pw0I1mQ1IfYYLe_4NJSqmRvUO0OI8hToNhwVhp9wYlSI9sytYRBGek6zM9Cg5SJmQzzJu_Ab85Lk8lHNsZeaAoI6t5-1JbqKSi0/s1600/twilightcover.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Meyer
also used an old story that’s been done a million times – boy meets girl – a
typical romance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But she gave it a great
twist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The boy her heroine falls in love
with is a vampire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And she didn’t stop
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She didn’t make her vampire a
typical vampire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She reinvented the
vampire to suit her story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So, how
many teenage girls are there who don’t love a romance?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how many romance readers, teen and adult,
are there in this great big world of ours?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Enough to keep Harlequin in business for years and years and years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how many of them are going – A romance
with a vampire?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s different. I
gotta check that out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Then
there are the horror readers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A vampire
falling in love with a human?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a love
triangle between a human, vampire and werewolf?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I gotta see what that’s all about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And let’s
not forget the paranormal readers, who like to delve into the lives or vampires
and werewolves and anything else unexplainable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meyer gave readers something they hadn’t seen before, something that
appealed to a broad range of people - people who bought the book on just the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">promise </i>of a story, and once they
started reading, they didn’t care about her overuse of adverbs and bad dialogue
tags.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Now
this isn’t to say you should just write your story and forget about the quality
of the writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe Paolini and
Meyers were writing to the best of their abilities at the time they wrote their
books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems evident when reading the
sequels, where the writing gets progressively better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The point is it really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> all about the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
no one is interested in what you have to say, the fact that you say it in a
lovely way doesn’t matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Put a very
well-written, okay story on an editor’s desk, along with a badly written but
fantastic story, and I think an editor will choose the better story every time,
regardless of the writing, because the writing can always be made better, and
it can be done easily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes far more
work to make a dull story exciting. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So
what’s the lesson here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, there are
several.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Even if
you’re a beginning writer, if you have a great story to tell, you can get
published.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If
you’ve been writing for a number of years, and your writing skills are pretty
good, but you still can’t seem to sell anything, perhaps you should reconsider
what you’re writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">about.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And when
you do write that great story that everyone wants to read, take the time to
rewrite it as well as you can because, if a great story, badly written, can
sell a million copies, imagine how many copies a great story, wonderfully
written, will sell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769803733067838372noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-82752923107587260682013-01-25T00:01:00.000-05:002013-01-25T00:01:01.164-05:00Poetry Friday--"Days"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm_5moWUZEsR8mjeefuth7Y53EjpjD-A0YfjiGJxftmzfmdfp94s9P4WeWzD4NyrFIgYizHfrWer1ykxf8g7HDP7prGpK3gKryyf9KHZpVe03LIr99vPA7aBVczW96upg7THTM6dQc4pSI/s1600/dishes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm_5moWUZEsR8mjeefuth7Y53EjpjD-A0YfjiGJxftmzfmdfp94s9P4WeWzD4NyrFIgYizHfrWer1ykxf8g7HDP7prGpK3gKryyf9KHZpVe03LIr99vPA7aBVczW96upg7THTM6dQc4pSI/s320/dishes.jpg" /></a></div><br />
On a January Friday, I thought "Days" would be particularly appropriate.<blockquote><big>Days</big><br />
by Billy Collins<br />
<br />
Each one <i>is</i> a gift, no doubt,<br />
mysteriously placed in your waking hand<br />
or set upon your forehead<br />
moments before you open your eyes.<br />
<br />
Today begins cold and bright,<br />
the ground heavy with snow<br />
and the thick masonry of ice,<br />
the sun glinting off the turrets of clouds.<br />
<br />
Through the calm eye of the window<br />
everything is in its place<br />
but so precariously<br />
this day might be resting somehow<br />
<br />
on the one before it,<br />
all the days of the past stacked high<br />
like the impossible tower of dishes<br />
entertainers used to build on stage.<br />
<br />
No wonder you find yourself<br />
perched on the top of a tall ladder<br />
hoping to add one more.<br />
Just another Wednesday<br />
<br />
you whisper,<br />
then holding your breath,<br />
place this cup on yesterday's saucer<br />
without the slightest clink.<br />
<br />
<small>From <i>The Art of Drowning</i>.</small></blockquote><br />
It's always good, when you're balancing on a ladder, to have someone standing below to catch you!<blockquote><big>Rung Out</big><br />
<br />
Teetering<br />
on <br />
tippy-toe<br />
holding <br />
on <br />
with<br />
one hand<br />
s t r e t c h i n g<br />
I <br />
reach <br />
the<br />
fixture.<br />
<br />
<i>Got it!</i><br />
<br />
I come down<br />
gingerly placing<br />
a spent bulb<br />
in your open palm<br />
while your other <br />
hand, at last,<br />
lets go.<br />
<br />
<small><small>© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.</small></small></blockquote><a href="http://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference</a> is where you'll find the Poetry Friday Round-Up for this week.<br />
<br />
--Diane<br />
<br />
<small><small>Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elycefeliz/6340091824/" target="_blank">elycefeliz</a>.</small></small>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-88153306510741219132013-01-24T09:18:00.000-05:002013-01-24T09:18:30.262-05:00Technology dependenceConfession and excuse time, and a recommendation.<br />
<br />
It was my turn to blog this week, and I dropped the ball. And I'm not even going to try to pick it up now. But I am going to make of myself a cautionary tale for writers in the modern age.<br />
<br />
Don't disrespect your computer.<br />
<br />
I love my laptop. It's red and shiny and not too heavy and we've been through a lot together. But in computer years, it's old. It's official date of being placed in service is only March 31, 2009, but I'm hard on my electronics, stuffing them in bags and hauling them everywhere.<br />
<br />
And it has been dying a slow, painful death for several months now, a cascading failure that was exacerbated when I spilled a glass of delicious hard cider in its vicinity, a fair amount of which apparently found its way in through the side ports. Now it runs painfully slowly (it has taken me 12 minutes to type this much of this post). A significant number of its keys don't work, so I keep the character map open for copy and pasting things like the dash, the underscore, and a few numbers. Every once in a while I'll discover another dead key. Sometimes the battery will charge, often it won't. You get the picture.<br />
<br />
But I didn't want a new computer. I love my computer. I hated Vista when it came out, but I really don't want to be forced to go to Windows 8. I didn't want the hassle of transferring files. I didn't want to spend the money. And so I put it off. And when I did finally give in, I ordered a computer running Ubuntu. Thus condemning myself to a longer, slower learning curve. And then, the first day of the weekend that was to have been "move to the new computer time," its hard drive failed.<br />
<br />
Grrr.<br />
<br />
I do have Carbonite, of which I am very glad. (That's the recommendation. It doesn't need to be Carbonite, but have an automatic backup.) I will, eventually, get my new computer in service, and be able to work at a more normal pace. The nice young technogeek came Monday and reseated the hard drive. Maybe this weekend I'll try it again.<br />
<br />
The moral of the story is, in this time, in this profession, your computer is not a luxury or a toy, it's an essential tool, like a truck is for a driver. Keep it tuned up, and know when it's time to retire it. This is no place for sentiment. It's not a child, or even a pet. It's a machine. . . even if we do name them!<br />
<br />
Did Louisa May Alcott or Jane Austin mourn the wearing out of a pen, I wonder?Sallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03596195411105707978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-51888638402909061672013-01-18T00:01:00.000-05:002013-01-18T00:01:00.455-05:00Poetry Friday--"Soap Bubble"If you're not familiar with the poems of Valerie Worth, then rush right down to your local public library and pick up one her volumes of poetry for kids. Worth has the power to give even the tiniest of things significance. Take for example, "Soap Bubble."<blockquote>The soap bubble's<br />
Great soft sphere<br />
Bends out of shape<br />
On the air,<br />
Leans, rounds again,<br />
Rises, shivering, heavy,<br />
A planet revolving<br />
Hollow and clear,<br />
Mapped with <br />
Rainbows, streaming,<br />
Curled: seeming<br />
A world too splendid<br />
To snap, dribble,<br />
And disappear.<br />
<br />
<small>from <i>More Small Poems</i>.</small></blockquote>Here's a talented bubble performer to show us all that art can be made from almost anything!<br />
<br />
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OPPZn2zdrwg?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
Drift on over to <a href="http://vnesdolypoems.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Violet Nesdoly/poems</a> for this week's Round-Up.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-8738488170985285162013-01-14T02:51:00.000-05:002013-01-14T02:51:00.804-05:00Mentor Monday: Strengths and Weaknesses of the First Person Narrative<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjURmXdcW-u0-d1ah2qNROggOQBXIhJ-C5SIFBgL59nqjsLuzFDoKF-RtfszpsXd1FKml3-8MULxUkeC_dWRYe8eF5Zctwv0MUUn94Ejbppk0e96moPorVPsVEpUYCB9LrxCBGYV5nh0_SD/s1600/Writing+for+Young+Adults.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjURmXdcW-u0-d1ah2qNROggOQBXIhJ-C5SIFBgL59nqjsLuzFDoKF-RtfszpsXd1FKml3-8MULxUkeC_dWRYe8eF5Zctwv0MUUn94Ejbppk0e96moPorVPsVEpUYCB9LrxCBGYV5nh0_SD/s200/Writing+for+Young+Adults.jpg" width="200" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the years, it has become common
for YA authors to use the first person when writing young adult novels. Using
first person brings readers into the story in a “You are there” way. First
person can be limiting, however, and if you’re thinking of writing your story
in first person, read some novels that use this technique before you start. I’d
also like to recommend finding a copy of Sherry Garland's <i>Writing for Young Adults</i>. It’s a very good introduction to the YA
genre. Garland is well-read and uses many examples of fine YA literature to
illustrate points in each chapter:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
"Some examples of
excellent first person YA novels are <i>Jacob
Have I Loved</i> by Katherine Paterson, <i>Fallen
Angels</i> by Walter Dean Myers and S.E. Hinton's books, <i>The Outsiders</i> and <i>That Was
Then, This is Now</i>."(p. 106)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ObkHvHF3-1dQ5zeR4y1AyfVZiOzwwqPkm5nu2y7cNzk-i16hjajD8HXLc3aoXs2763_I9AdvaGTMwHlj690vD1yxdVOIsGohqEX6af8lgnA7EZ2DPNYl6FCJFsDLeZPMlcp_7sSL2bDd/s1600/The+outsiders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ObkHvHF3-1dQ5zeR4y1AyfVZiOzwwqPkm5nu2y7cNzk-i16hjajD8HXLc3aoXs2763_I9AdvaGTMwHlj690vD1yxdVOIsGohqEX6af8lgnA7EZ2DPNYl6FCJFsDLeZPMlcp_7sSL2bDd/s200/The+outsiders.jpg" width="118" /></a>Hinton sold <i>The Outsiders,</i> her first novel, when she was around sixteen years
of age. The book, Garland says, ushered in a new type of YA:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
"Many authorities
believe that the YA literature revolution erupted in the late 1960's. In a
turbulent social and political climate young adults adopted the war cry
"tell it like it is," and authors like S. E. Hinton (a teenager
herself) emerged, creating fiction with realistic adolescent characters in
realistic situations." (p. 8)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i>The
Outsiders</i> is the story of fourteen-year-old Ponyboy Curtis, his brothers
(Sodapop and Darry) and their gang. The Curtis brothers have been on their own
since the death of their parents.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
"Since Mom and
Dad were killed in an auto wreck, the three of us get to stay together only as
long as we behave. So Soda and I stay out of trouble as much as we can, and
we're careful not to get caught when we can't." (p.11)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Garland suggests "part of the
process of developing characters is giving them appropriate names. . ."
(p.124) In an on-line interview S.E. Hinton said she felt the teen years are
". . .an age when you would like to have an unusual name. It helps
establish identity." (Barnes and
Noble Chat Transcripts, December 3, 1997) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I didn't feel Hinton's characters'
odd names added anything to our ability to understand who or what the
characters were. "Ponyboy" and "Sodapop" would have been
more believable as nicknames. But the author says these are the boys’ legal
names, given to them by their father: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
"My dad was an
original person," I said. "I got a brother named Sodapop, and it says
so on his birth certificate." (p.30) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I found the idea, that an adult
would saddle children with such names, distracting when I first read the book.
Then Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple. But I digress…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Sometimes I got lost in Hinton's
novel and other times I was thrown so far out of it I wondered why she bothered
to use first person at all. Author intrusion is prevalent. I am amazed Hinton's
editor let so much of it pass:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
"Soda is
handsomer than anyone else I know. . .He's not as tall as Darry, and he's a
little slimmer, but he has <i>a finely
drawn, sensitive face that somehow manages to be reckless and thoughtful at the
same time." </i>(p. 16, italics mine)
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I could not imagine any
fourteen-year-old describing a sibling in that way. S. E. Hinton may have been
a well-read teen, but Hinton was not being true to Ponyboy's character with
such flowery language. I will even risk being politically incorrect when I say
that I was also not convinced this was language a <u>boy</u> would use—at least
not the boy she was trying to create. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnczxpE-9s2DrS3R3eDXQdHiNqeHe3_sM7cQCw3kFCknXhB2Pt2dqeFSHhhWO1Cao-h7E9j2m2omtC92NWmFRhartcQ2YP7bQfYerB_gVuNaHod5PKO9K_2q1xRqPHrlOqfTT32H0CoFkR/s1600/Fallen+Angels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnczxpE-9s2DrS3R3eDXQdHiNqeHe3_sM7cQCw3kFCknXhB2Pt2dqeFSHhhWO1Cao-h7E9j2m2omtC92NWmFRhartcQ2YP7bQfYerB_gVuNaHod5PKO9K_2q1xRqPHrlOqfTT32H0CoFkR/s200/Fallen+Angels.jpg" width="121" /></a>Walter Dean Myers' <i>Fallen Angels</i> makes a useful
counterpoint. Compare Myers' protagonist, Richard Perry, describing a soldier
just arriving in Viet Nam:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
"One of the
new guys who came in was from Fort Dix. He looked like one of the characters in
an Archie Andrews comic, but he was so scared it wasn't funny. He told us his
name was Jenkins." (p. 20 <i>Fallen
Angels</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In <i>Fallen Angels</i>, Myers' character, Richard
Perry, tells about his tour of duty in Vietnam. Perry <i>is</i> educated, and, like Ponyboy Curtis, well-read, yet his
description of the new guy in the platoon, while sparse, accomplishes a great
deal. Reference to the Archie comic books not only brings readers into the 60's
with Perry but allows us to participate in the description of the character. We
add our own details to Jenkins with our own mental references to Archie, Reggie
and Jughead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Sherry Garland suggests that
dialogue can be used to convey the setting of a novel: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
". . .dialogue is a shortcut that eliminates the need
for long passages of description." (p. 133) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Both Hinton and Myers present their
novels' settings through the use of dialogue. Myers sets his novel's scene in
the first two pages, preparing the reader in a matter of three sentences:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Somebody
must have told them suckers I was coming."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Told
who?" I asked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"The
Congs, man. Who you think I'm talking about?" (p.3)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I read <i>thirty-one pages</i> of <i>The
Outsiders</i> before I realized that the setting was <u>not</u> New York City:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Didn't
he use to ride in rodeos? Saddle
bronc?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
"Yeah.
Dad made him quit after he tore a ligament, though. We still hang around rodeos
a lot. I've seen you two barrel race. You're good." (p.31)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now I can't
say that Hinton misleads her audience with suggestions that the setting is
specifically New York, but neither does she indicate until the sentences above
where the story is set. Bits of description spread throughout the book hint at
least at a Big Apple-type setting until suddenly, rodeos are part of the
conversation. Once again, I'm catapulted right out of the story while I let my
brain process this new information. The knowledge essentially becomes a red
herring. Rodeos, horses, and riding are barely mentioned again and have no
place in the plot. In an interview, Hinton mentions that she is from Tulsa,
Oklahoma. "Write what you know?"
Maybe, but the section reads like an afterthought ("Oh! Maybe I ought to put something about the
setting here.")</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Myers
writes what he knows, too. Richard Perry, like the young Walter Dean Myers, is
from Harlem and is in the Army. The difference is Myers doesn't ever pull me
out of Viet Nam when he is providing this background information.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hinton's
novel was published in 1967 and is supposed to deal with contemporary themes.
Myers' <i>Fallen Angels</i> was published in
1988 but deals with the Vietnam War during 1967-1968. I would have been within
the same age-group as the protagonists in both novels, yet I could not relate
to the characters in <i>The Outsiders</i>.
It was not because I had never been a member of a "greaser" gang. I
never fought in Vietnam either. It shouldn't matter. Myers’ book does a better
job of "You are there." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> That’s
what you want to accomplish, too. You
want your first person story to take the reader intimately along for the
protagonist’s ride. Without throwing the
reader out of the story.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-16532722550764624762013-01-10T06:58:00.000-05:002013-01-10T06:58:01.008-05:00Women of Wednesday - Gerda Lerner
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Gerda
Lerner died this past week on January 2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was 92 years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re
asking yourself ‘Who is Gerda Lerner?’ she was the person who brought Women’s
Studies (the history of women) to the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Gerda
was born Gerda Hedwig Kronstein in Vienna, Austria, on April 30, 1920.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She grew up in a wealthy family and noticed
the inequities of life even as a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a house full of servants, she watched her mother drop her books, newspapers,
and clothing where she pleased while the servants picked them up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She didn’t think it was very fair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there was the bat mitzvah
incident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As she prepared herself for
the ceremony, she realized Judaism did not allow girls and women to achieve the
same positions as men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She announced she
did not believe in God and refused to take part in the ceremony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As
she grew into her teens, Adolph Hitler was growing his Nazi party and, by the
time she was 17, he had annexed her homeland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her father, a pharmacist with several drug stores, heard he was to be
arrested, and fled to Lichtenstein.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Nazis arrested Gerda and her mother instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For six weeks she languished in jail while the Nazi’s hoped her father
would return and sign over all he owned to get them back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Jail
wasn’t easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gerda believed she would
either be killed or sent to a concentration camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along with the mental stress, there was also
little to eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Food for prisoners was
minimal, and Jews received even less than others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Gerda was lucky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two other prisoners - gentile women, arrested
for their underground work with the resistance - shared their food with her and
her mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Gerda asked them why,
they replied, “We’re Socialists.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Eventually,
Gerda was released and joined the resistance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In 1939, she and her boyfriend escaped Austria and immigrated to
America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They married but the
relationship didn’t last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gerda was
alone in a New York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She took odd jobs
while she learned the language, and wrote stories about the Nazi takeover and
occupation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1940, she had met Carl
Lerner, a communist and theater director.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They married and moved to California.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Gerda
began working with CAW, the Congress of American Women, and by 1946, had helped
found the Los Angeles chapter<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“In Vienna, all the people I worked with
were women: the people in the jail, the people in the underground . . . I saw
women being active in every levelexcept the executive level.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
continued to write, producing a novel and a musical, and co-authored the
screenplay, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Like Me,</i> with her
husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was active in the causes of
trade unions, c</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ivil rights,
anti-militarism, and McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was also a founding member of NOW, the
National Organization of Women.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the late
1950’s, she decided to go back to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She attended the New School for Social Research and went on to get an
M.A. and Ph.D from Columbia University.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When she told her professors she wanted to study women’s history, they
laughed at her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“They made me a laughingstock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They thought I was crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Graduate school was not a happy experience
for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was presented with a narrative
of the past in which women did not exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I kept saying, ‘Where are the women?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was told they were having babies.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gerda studied
women’s history anyway and wrote her dissertation, <i>The Grimke Sisters from
South Carolina: Rebels Against Slavery</i> (1967.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She found their story to be so fascinating
she decided to teach a course on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Once again, the men she had to deal with made that difficult.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 1968, she
became a professor at Sarah Lawrence College and started the first program ever
to offer a Masters degree in women's history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She also worked in the civil rights movement, which led her to write <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Women in America:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Documentary History.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“ . . . when I worked with black women, I was overwhelmed
by the talent and persistence of their effort—and their total
invisibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was told they left no record.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew that to be a lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My experience told me that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the first collection of primary
sources by black women at a time when everybody told me that it was impossible
to do that.”</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 1980, she
created the nation's first Ph.D. program in women's history at the University
of Wisconsin at Madison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From 1981 to
1982, she served as president of the Organization of American Historians and
helped make women's history accessible to leaders of women's organizations and
high school teachers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1993, she wrote
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, </i>which
deals with how exclusion from the historical record affects women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1997, she published two more books – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why History Matters:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life and Thought, </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Feminist Thought of Sarah Grimke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>In 2002, she published<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Fireweed:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A Political Autobiography.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gerda stayed
active and involved until the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
said she ‘even agitated at the Oakwood retirement center in Madison Wisconsin’
where she lived her last few years.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“It’s such a total
absurdity that one half of the human population had accrued to itself the
pretense that what it did was significant and what the other half did was
insignificant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The emancipation of women
is irreversible. You can’t wipe women out.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
</span></i>Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769803733067838372noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-36332662887093911512013-01-08T17:20:00.000-05:002013-01-08T17:20:19.829-05:00Mentor Monday on Tuesday - Conquering Writer's Block
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Most
of us have probably experienced writer’s block at one time or another, that
frustrating inability to make the words come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As a beginning writer, I faced it often, but as I learned more and more,
the problem arose less and less, and eventually disappeared altogether.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that has led me to the belief that
writer’s block is, perhaps, simply a state of unpreparedness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As
a beginner, I was a panster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I made it
up as I went along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got an idea,
played it out in my mind a bit, and started writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no plotting for me, no outlines,
and while I finished several novels, they were long, hard hauls because, sooner
or later, I always hit the point where I didn’t know what came next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would go for months unable to write a word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time, I didn’t know why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew where I wanted the story to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why couldn’t I make it go there?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Well,
now I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t prepare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t make the map that would take me from
the beginning of my novel to the end, so I had to sit there for days, weeks,
months, until I figured out the next part of my story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once I did that, the writing came easy again
until I got to the next part of my story that I hadn’t figured out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote five novels that way, and they’re
decent, but they’re not good enough to sell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I call them my learning novels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
then I wrote novel number six, which I still didn’t plot or outline on paper,
but I did have it all in my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
wrote 50,000 words in four days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
writer’s block.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it was a much better
novel than any I had previously written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Now,
I still don’t do outlines because it’s my nature to add way more than I really
need, and my outlines turn out almost as long as the novel, but I do plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s not one event after another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s the opening, the inciting incident that gets the ball rolling, and
then the major events along the way, until I reach the climax and ending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I flip the paper over and do the same
thing for the internal plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
generally only 7-10 lines each, and when I’m done, I throw it away because it
stays in my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes me from
beginning to end, and I have never had writer’s block since I started doing
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It
seems a no-brainer now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plan ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when you’re just starting out and you
think you’re doing the right thing, you’re not looking for a different way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I did worked for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, I had those bouts of writer’s block to
deal with, but I was completing novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Why would I do anything differently?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I thought that was just a normal part of writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What
I’ve since learned is that it doesn’t have to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like driving from Boston to L.A.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you have a map, whether on paper or in
your head, and you’re aware of all the detours and construction along the way,
you’re going to get to your destination quicker and easier than someone who
doesn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ll eventually get there,
too, but it won’t be as easily or as fast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So
take the time to make the map.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
doesn’t have to be my way or someone else’s way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe a synopsis will work for you, or a
chapter by chapter outline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever it
is that works best for you, do it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes,
it’s tedious, especially when you want to just dive into the writing, but in the
end, it pays off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ll always know
where you’re going, and you’ll eliminate all the logic problems and dead ends before
you start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’ll be a much smoother
ride.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769803733067838372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-12411544843352425412013-01-04T09:17:00.000-05:002013-01-04T09:17:52.231-05:00Poetry Friday: Dark Birds<br />
All the dark birds,<br />
but one,<br />
rush from the river<br />
leaving only the stillness<br />
of their language.<br />
<br />
-- Anita Endrezze, Yaqui <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
You can check out more great poems at Matt Forrest's blog, <a href="http://mattforrest.wordpress.com/">Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme</a>. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-49630143326084414102013-01-02T11:21:00.002-05:002013-01-02T11:21:47.788-05:00Women of Wednesday: Lucretia Mott<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_qhOoABm8Xb3gHEsE7p6LYUoIzaYvF0bfujfjKBw-k0Wv3ypqX6OHKogZZOjtUcus3GVF0pcVeZZy6qFsvi2aQE14o2gZcGDpVvC7FthzbK3EZ23sMjOAknQl4anxXbofrwj4o9unCTA/s1600/lucretia+mott.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_qhOoABm8Xb3gHEsE7p6LYUoIzaYvF0bfujfjKBw-k0Wv3ypqX6OHKogZZOjtUcus3GVF0pcVeZZy6qFsvi2aQE14o2gZcGDpVvC7FthzbK3EZ23sMjOAknQl4anxXbofrwj4o9unCTA/s320/lucretia+mott.gif" width="262" /></a></div>
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Tomorrow (Jan. 3) is the birthday of Lucretia Mott, one of
the better-known heroes of the woman’s suffrage movement. Write Sister Janet
Buell profiled Lucretia in the Massachusetts volume of the America’s Notable
Women Series, <a href="http://www.apprenticeshopbooks.com/women-state-massachusetts-women-should-know-p-453.html" target="_blank">Women of the Bay State</a>. She was in many ways similar to many of
the other women suffragists, and yet, of course, unique. Two hundred and twenty
years after her birth, she continues to inspire those who seeing wrong, try to
correct it. We can best honor her, and the many others who worked with her, by
identifying the injustices in our own world, and working to eliminate them.</div>
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Born to Quaker parents in Philadelphia at the end of the
eighteenth century, Lucretia Coffin grew up on the island of Nantucket. At 13 she was
sent to boarding school off-island, to a Quaker school in the Hudson valley
region of New York. The school had been coeducational from its founding in
1797, and it was there that Lucretia met her future husband, James Mott. Her
family moved to Philadelphia while she was at Nine Partners, and when Lucretia
and James married, they settled in that city as well. Lucretia was very active
in the thriving Quaker community there, especially in the rapidly-developing
abolitionist movement. Even while her children were small she held leadership
positions in Philadelphia, as they became independent she traveled across the
northeast, organizing and speaking at anti-slavery events.</div>
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Many of the women who worked to outlaw slavery in the
mid-nineteenth century developed a parallel interest in woman’s rights. Their
experience in leadership among the abolitionists gave them the confidence to
turn their considerable expertise and passion to the cause of their sisters. Lucretia
met Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in
1840, when the women attendees were forced to sit behind a screen! Eight years
later, of course, the seminal Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls marked
the beginning of the struggle for suffrage for women in the United States
(although voting rights resolution was the only one of the original eleven that
the convention did not pass unanimously). Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture/declaration-of-sentiments.htm" target="_blank"><i>Declaration of Sentiments</i></a> and Lucretia Mott was the first to sign it. Until the Civil
War, most of the women continued to divide their efforts between abolition and
women’s rights. In 1866, Lucretia was elected to be the first president of the
Equal Rights Association. For the remainder of her long and active life, she
campaigned for the rights of women, not only to vote but be educated, to own
and inherit property, to have custody of their children, and other basic rights
so fundamental that we sometimes forget they were once denied to us.</div>
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Only one of the signers of the 1848 Declaration (<a href="http://www.nps.gov/wori/historyculture/charlotte-woodward.htm" target="_blank">Charlotte Woodward</a>) lived long
enough to vote in the federal election in 1920. The example of Lucretia Mott
and her sisters reminds us that “justice for all” is worth the struggle, even
if we personally will not reap the benefits.</div>
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Happy Birthday, Lucretia.</div>
Sallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03596195411105707978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-50629672370246732762012-12-31T22:36:00.002-05:002012-12-31T22:36:32.111-05:00Writer’s Resolutions<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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As the New Year begins, will you be making resolutions? Most
of us will. Perhaps this will be the year you’ll keep up with your filing, or take
that walk every morning, or quit chewing your nails.
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What you should not do is resolve to get published. “Getting
published” involves far too many things beyond your control. Far better to
resolve to submit two manuscripts. Or write two pages a day (not ten). Or send
a query letter every week.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I will finish my novel” is within your control. “I will
sell my novel” is not.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Make your resolutions realistic and manageable, and you’re
far more likely to keep them. And, in the end, to get published.</div>
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Happy New Year!</div>
Sallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03596195411105707978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-81364391701527318322012-12-28T00:01:00.000-05:002012-12-28T00:01:00.261-05:00Poetry Friday--Poetry SwapThe great poetry blogger, <a href="http://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Tabatha Yeatts</a>, set up a poetry swap last summer. I was a participant and jumped at the chance to partake in a special holiday exchange this December. My swap partner was Mary Lee Hahn. Last week, Mary Lee wrote about the <a href="http://www.readingyear.blogspot.com/2012/12/poetry-friday-sensing-solstice.html" target="_blank">solstice poem</a> she sent to me. Here's the poem I sent to Mary Lee.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjznN8hTAfsE4ulcHgugm4Rd8X5BohD_9JyrQXmu4tbmYWi_Kh5sYRAGrd3c-57Hs3SvaUBpiFjt8X1fznEV7M90qokikYqsma3fEC8Ab4rbZEimzDJVVGmJi9GQwqrYw6QwAQEcgEafexU/s1600/On+Not+Working+Today+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjznN8hTAfsE4ulcHgugm4Rd8X5BohD_9JyrQXmu4tbmYWi_Kh5sYRAGrd3c-57Hs3SvaUBpiFjt8X1fznEV7M90qokikYqsma3fEC8Ab4rbZEimzDJVVGmJi9GQwqrYw6QwAQEcgEafexU/s400/On+Not+Working+Today+.jpg" /></a></div><small><small>© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Painting courtesy <a href="http://www.kunsthalle-bremen.de/home-en/collection/research/" target="_blank">Kunsthalle Bremen</a></small></small><br />
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Mary Lee wrote that she used a prompt supplied by Tabatha. I didn't use the prompt, rather, I was inspired by the French painter, Eva Gonzales, and her painting "Morning Awakening." The woman in the painting looks so cozy and warm and I imagined her thinking, "Ah, no work today!"<br />
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The final 2012 Poetry Friday Round-Up is being hosted at <a href="http://carolwscorner.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Carol's Corner</a>. See you there!<br />
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--DianeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-57409634231136977322012-12-26T02:34:00.000-05:002012-12-26T02:34:00.201-05:00 Women of Wednesday: On the Coming Year <br />
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<b><i>Sometimes, other
people just say it better</i>. Muriel L.
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<span style="background: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10.5pt;"><i>“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We
are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and
its first chapter is New Year's Day.” </i> </span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10.5pt; text-decoration: initial;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5224722.Edith_Lovejoy_Pierce" style="text-decoration: initial;">Edith Lovejoy Pierce</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10.5pt;">“Make New Year's
goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life
this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're
interested in fully living life in the year to come.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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Goals give us direction. They put a powerful force into play on a universal,
conscious, and subconscious level. Goals give our life direction.<br />
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What would you like to have happen in your life this year? What would you like
to do, to accomplish? What good would you like to attract into your life? What
particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks,
or character defects, would you like to have removed?<br />
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What would you like to attain? Little things and big things? Where would you
like to go? What would you like to have happen in friendship and love? What
would you like to have happen in your family life?<br />
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What problems would you like to see solved? What decisions would you like to
make? What would you like to happen in your career?<br />
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Write it down. Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it
all down - as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose.
Then let it go.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written.
We can help write that story by setting goals.”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
</span><b><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10.5pt;">―<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4482.Melody_Beattie" style="text-decoration: initial;"><span style="color: black;">Melody Beattie</span></a>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/513960" style="text-decoration: initial;"><span style="color: black;">The Language of Letting Go: Hazelden Meditation Series</span></a></i></span></b><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-28301747206865327952012-12-24T02:24:00.000-05:002012-12-24T02:24:00.042-05:00Mentor Monday: We Wish You a Merry…<br />
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<b><span style="color: green;">Fourth of July</span></b>, <b><span style="color: red;">Labor Day</span></b>, <b><span style="color: green;">Columbus Day</span>…</b></div>
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am I thinking of July, September, and October during Christmas week? Many of us are cooking, wrapping, preparing
for guests, etc. As one old TV show robot used to say: “This does not compute.”</div>
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The sounds, smells, and traditions of the holiday season
tend to inspire writers for children. We imagine stories about dreidels,
candles, sleighs, elves, snow, and magic. What we should be doing, however, is
thinking about the beach.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnTrjAas3fklG-ZdQdLAWsR2U7vD8n0iu-Ti4F8IbnzL77_wqYN9aWbWGcWjKlOYU8kKdv5keSVjMaShkAADho9b7Dwsy-GkigsVgxhTfOo2i7p2cVlUcGf5HVgF9Iiz95mM5C2KbmSO04/s1600/labor+day+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnTrjAas3fklG-ZdQdLAWsR2U7vD8n0iu-Ti4F8IbnzL77_wqYN9aWbWGcWjKlOYU8kKdv5keSVjMaShkAADho9b7Dwsy-GkigsVgxhTfOo2i7p2cVlUcGf5HVgF9Iiz95mM5C2KbmSO04/s200/labor+day+book.jpg" width="200" /></a>There are fewer magazines for children but the ones that
exist are already planning their summer and fall issues. The holiday issue was
put to bed long before you started shopping for gifts.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQW-p-o4lok-UZW6VNSOLmfFpsYLQXZ8wXuUFrWbf2UGQ3IPMlNA-ZTR_ls0N1L-rH1mICpOM05C9-76YQeEqiBGrj8esTeuEtiWkVY67RCZJQ0QFc5syifFQgpp9RM9wrlxGOmzkPnQi9/s1600/columbus+day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQW-p-o4lok-UZW6VNSOLmfFpsYLQXZ8wXuUFrWbf2UGQ3IPMlNA-ZTR_ls0N1L-rH1mICpOM05C9-76YQeEqiBGrj8esTeuEtiWkVY67RCZJQ0QFc5syifFQgpp9RM9wrlxGOmzkPnQi9/s200/columbus+day.jpg" width="200" /></a>Even if you are thinking about a holiday-related book, you
must plan to complete it way ahead of the time that holiday rolls around
again. A picture book illustrator needs
weeks and months to work with your manuscript and the designer needs time, too. It’s already too late to submit that December
picture book idea you have (and haven’t quite written yet) in time to see it on
store shelves next year.</div>
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Many new writers think that picking a topic for a particular
upcoming event will almost guarantee a sale.
It might, but only if you plan ahead.
Any articles written about last Friday’s Mayan calendar “predictions” for
example, were most likely finished months and months ago.</div>
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So here’s my holiday wish for you: May your 2013 writing be
infused with planning, prophecy, and production. </div>
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In the meantime, have a cookie while you’re thinking.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-72504168976524515122012-12-21T00:01:00.000-05:002012-12-21T00:01:00.234-05:00Poetry Friday--Winter SolsticeToday marks the winter solstice--the longest night of the year. From this point on it's a long, slow ascent to summer. We long for the light of the sun, but we have to make due with artificial light. Fortunately, this time of year is also marked by St. Lucy's Day, <a href="http://www.diwalifestival.org/" target="_blank">Diwali</a>, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa--all holidays celebrating light--both literally and metaphorically. <br />
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And so, for this Poetry Friday, we look to colored lights, candles, lamps (diyas or menorrahs), and bonfires. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96zvfEDuUuZfI96ahH-vlFLDxckSpiFCM-N9OCEy9HjVyDFhCCRRS7diXAOkevWteDY8lVoQ3dFViHMusemoZ-nYDSBYZUwBpCrHfXx6ktfHvlKNImuqBe2sCxc_gG3JB9QNKB4bWSdqY/s1600/winter+solstice+%2528tanka%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96zvfEDuUuZfI96ahH-vlFLDxckSpiFCM-N9OCEy9HjVyDFhCCRRS7diXAOkevWteDY8lVoQ3dFViHMusemoZ-nYDSBYZUwBpCrHfXx6ktfHvlKNImuqBe2sCxc_gG3JB9QNKB4bWSdqY/s400/winter+solstice+%2528tanka%2529.jpg" /></a></div><small><small>© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.</small></small> <br />
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Join the winter solstice celebration taking place right now at <a href="http://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">My Juicy Little Universe</a>. <br />
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Happy Holidays to everyone!<br />
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--Diane<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-20697825444857865902012-12-19T13:21:00.001-05:002012-12-19T13:40:56.814-05:00Women of Wednesday - Carolyn Keene<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If
you’ve ever read a Nancy Drew novel, then you probably know who Carolyn Keene
was.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But then again, you may not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Those who upset easily should read no further.) Because Carolyn Keene was not real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, Carolyn was many people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, they were her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And two of them were men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a fascinating story told by Melanie Rehak in her book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Girl Sleuth:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her.</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Now,
this may be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Women</i> of Wednesday, but
we have to give credit where credit is due, and it was a man who came up with
Nancy Drew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His name was Edward
Stratemeyer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Stratemeyer
was born in 1862, the son of German immigrants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He began writing as a child and, by the time he was 15, he was printing
his stories on a toy printing press and selling them for a penny. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the start of a long and prolific
career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wrote continuously and under
many names.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time he was in his
30’s, he not only fell into children’s series fiction, he became the king of
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He created one series after another
- the Rover Boys, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, and a whole lot more you
probably never heard of - and wrote all of them himself until, finally, it
became too much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He needed help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Genius
that he was, he didn’t sell away his rights to Grosset and Dunlap, the publisher
of many of his series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of
allowing them to hire other writers to help write all those series, Stratemeyer
hired them himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He plotted all his
stories and passed them on to his writers, who then wrote a story based on his
outline, which he would edit afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In 1925, he had 24 series running at the same time and sold over 5
million books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time he was 40, he
was a millionaire heading his own publishing company, the Stratemeyer
Syndicate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In
1929, he created Nancy Drew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had several
other girls’ series running, but they were more reflective of girls of that
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nancy would be different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She would be smart, adventurous, daring and
fun, and would be called Stella Strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He sold the idea to Grosset and Dunlap, who preferred one of his other
suggested names <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">-</b> Nan Drew <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">-</b> and they stretched it to Nancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stratemeyer gave his newest creation to a
writer he had hired three years earlier to write another series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her name was Mildred Augustine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg70Nt6-KipkRHh2ySY5_AXCTdi4gETK3ohZJuU1Pbbg69GKmiO3OqPiMjqF_mpDUf1r_rXBy7iURo_59cjjPglwoHnG2ewTGkkhotl3c4PTj_aC-fJ8Jh3Y_v0ZhS2rhElsQNbiHcOxOQ/s1600/thmildred.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg70Nt6-KipkRHh2ySY5_AXCTdi4gETK3ohZJuU1Pbbg69GKmiO3OqPiMjqF_mpDUf1r_rXBy7iURo_59cjjPglwoHnG2ewTGkkhotl3c4PTj_aC-fJ8Jh3Y_v0ZhS2rhElsQNbiHcOxOQ/s1600/thmildred.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mildred
Augustine was born in rural Iowa in 1905.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She played baseball, ice skated, and became a champion diver at the
University of Iowa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She loved books, but
there were none at home, so she often borrowed them from her male friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the books she read were the series
books created by Edward Stratemeyer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As
she grew, she began writing and submitting her own stories to children’s
magazines which were just finding their place on the American landscape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She published her first story just before her
14<sup>th</sup> birthday and made her first sale at 16, with a story about a
girl named Midget, for which she earned $3.50.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">After
high school, she went to the University of Iowa, where she studied Journalism
and excelled at sports, particularly swimming and diving, and while she didn’t
fall into the role of a typical woman of her times, she was not caught up in
the suffrage movement either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I was
just born wanting to be myself,” she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She graduated in only three years, in 1925, and went to work at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clinton Herald</i> in Iowa.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mildred
had continued writing and publishing all through college, and the year after
she graduated, she replied to an ad in the newspaper placed by Edward
Stratemeyer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was hired to write for
his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ruth Fielding</i> series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he came up with Nancy Drew in 1929, he
knew he wanted her to write it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mildred
became the first Carolyn Keene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Strayemeyer
gave her the outlines for the first three books in October, and she had four
weeks to write each one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She would
receive $125 per book and sign away all her rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there was one other stipulation—she could
mention she worked for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, but she could never tell
anyone what series she was writing for, or that she was Carolyn Keene. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mildred
got to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was she who gave Nancy
her titian hair and all those qualities so many girls loved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mildred modeled Nancy after other girls she
had known, giving her qualities she admired in herself and others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She made Nancy bright and adventurous, kind
and curious, strong and resourceful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
churned out the books, and in the spring of 1930, the first three were
presented to America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">From
the start, they sold like hotcakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Girls fell in love with Nancy Drew, and not even the Depression dampened
sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both Mildred and Nancy were a
success, and Grossett and Dunlap knew they had a winner in Nancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then twelve days after the launch, Edward
Stratemeyer died.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Everyone
panicked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grosset and Dunlap just knew
it would be the end of Nancy Drew and all those other moneymaking series of
Stratemeyer’s, and the writers knew they would all lose their jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, Stratemeyer had run the Syndicate
by himself and had no sons to carry on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There were just those two daughters, Harriet—wife of a stockbroker and
mother of four small children—and Edna—a sickly spinster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Stratemeyer Syndicate, and everyone
attached to it, were doomed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span> </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihXamI057DsChZJd964zsCLEW7MoBXHw4TSY5E6SaMZKoTYhcYBHDvey7dNmPv0ZK_AqpIrEyO7MpWN6g7pnXj-9_JYPmQf1RhJAzoEZi875l28CzOe528NsMMTOUAlbA204gFgTiRPwY/s1600/Harriet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihXamI057DsChZJd964zsCLEW7MoBXHw4TSY5E6SaMZKoTYhcYBHDvey7dNmPv0ZK_AqpIrEyO7MpWN6g7pnXj-9_JYPmQf1RhJAzoEZi875l28CzOe528NsMMTOUAlbA204gFgTiRPwY/s1600/Harriet.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harriet</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
this is where I will leave you, because the story is much too big for a blog,
and all I would be doing is repeating what you could read in Melanie Rehak’s
book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re a Nancy Drew fan, you’ll
love <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Girl Sleuth, </i>and even if you’re
not, it’s well worth the read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book
has it all – romance, jealousy, paranoia, two court cases, duplicity, a
corporate buyout, deals gone bad, several strong and amazing women and, of
course, Nancy Drew, who manages to outlast everyone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4pBZvXZSEK_2cD75vYgxNHyB8s3sKG48oRxefrkqcohyphenhyphenLaOwr0zfgj01mo7JPVLDMW52ntROscyB5nLSIlTb-3QWGEQ2nV6Nywz_rFTHtdwkATnYJh_d6SzrS-R3ut1qb91eetYU0Bk/s1600/nancy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4pBZvXZSEK_2cD75vYgxNHyB8s3sKG48oRxefrkqcohyphenhyphenLaOwr0zfgj01mo7JPVLDMW52ntROscyB5nLSIlTb-3QWGEQ2nV6Nywz_rFTHtdwkATnYJh_d6SzrS-R3ut1qb91eetYU0Bk/s1600/nancy.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769803733067838372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-86286666931118469422012-12-17T07:00:00.000-05:002012-12-17T07:00:07.641-05:00Endless Ideas, Brought To You By The Internet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVoPEG6ZNNixNL4YzjvYjT9GU7Gcic68Udy8jtshP7EcZ955yIA9-tJ9_NwQ-Jg-giGgrcVuHP7Ln77RdbPCZuhmQ0M-KSEOalt2AsWEx0j_ucr6vlgRt-wqNAgRoaogNnwbbPJdVY6U/s1600/eureka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVoPEG6ZNNixNL4YzjvYjT9GU7Gcic68Udy8jtshP7EcZ955yIA9-tJ9_NwQ-Jg-giGgrcVuHP7Ln77RdbPCZuhmQ0M-KSEOalt2AsWEx0j_ucr6vlgRt-wqNAgRoaogNnwbbPJdVY6U/s1600/eureka.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For more than a year
now, people have been predicting the world will end this Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was curious as to why, so I googled ‘end of
the world.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I learned was that the
Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012, which some people assume, means the
world will end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m betting the calendar
ends on this date because a bored cleric gave up all that tedious calculating
for something more interesting to do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another reason for the
end is that the planet Nibiru is making its several thousand-year orbit past
the Earth and will collide with us on that date.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although, if it orbits the Earth every few
thousand years, wouldn’t it have collided with us already?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there are the Annunaki, the aliens
who created us, who will be returning to take us all away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the end comes, my money’s on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But what does any of
this have to do with writing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Well, assuming we all
wake up on Saturday morning, you now have several ideas you can turn into
plots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can write an end of the world
story, you can write about a character’s last days on Earth as we all wait for
an oncoming planet to collide with us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You can write a story about aliens coming to take us away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can write a story about what happens to a
believer when he wakes up Saturday morning and realizes everything he’s
believed in was a lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The internet has ensured
that you will never be without an idea again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you are the least bit curious, you can come up with dozens of ideas a
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you write Historical
Fiction?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you know we almost went to
war with Canada because of a pig?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
other countries have gone to war over what was portrayed on a postage
stamp?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the Boston Massacre occurred
because some people hanging out on the corner made comments about a passerby’s
wig?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How did I learn about
these things?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I googled pig war, stamp
war, wig war, and several other wars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
fact, if you google any noun followed by the word war, you’ll probably get
several hits that will generate ideas, and with a little imagination (you are a
writer, after all) you can turn many of them into story plots.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Interested in more
contemporary stuff?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have access to
thousands of newspapers worldwide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely,
something going on in the world will be fodder for a story idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adventure - a child surviving a tropical
storm, an earthquake, or tsunami.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sports
- a teen in a foreign country competing in the Olympics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Romance – make your characters age
appropriate and stick them in any scenario – living in a foreign country while
competing in the Olympics, just as an earthquake hits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Maybe the paranormal is
your cup of tea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Google ghosts, haunted
houses, ghost ships, voodoo dolls, ESP, telekinesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The generalized articles will lead to others
that are more specific.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read those that most
appeal to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least one is bound to
generate some ideas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All these things will
work for you no matter what genre you write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You can also read random Wikipedia articles, watch You Tube videos, read
online magazines, seek out the weird and obscure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are billions of idea starters out
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grab a few, add your own unique
twist to them, and start writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Well, maybe wait until
Saturday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just in case.</span></div>
<br />
<br />Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769803733067838372noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-39854447833452938262012-12-10T11:26:00.001-05:002012-12-10T11:26:36.683-05:00Mentor Monday: Creative nonfiction/Biography of historical figures<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Following up on Muriel’s wonderful look at creative
nonfiction last week, I want to highlight an ongoing discussion over on the Nonfiction for Kids <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NFforKids/" target="_blank">email list</a> and on Donna Bowman Bratton’s <a href="http://www.donnabowmanbratton.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">blog</a>. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmRJWjs0uMN13F1nWhBW9Zw3FGIdboVJf11XvWbd1uj75-xZ7uW0V-GsLHvZx5AvasJpLcw-Qs-GHg9W5f4dYeJjGjN5CcronSBr8VWHfIGOkYbS8jQZ_LaSfIkd-6AjFzdNvzhN8kEuI/s1600/Remember+Patience+Whipple+old.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmRJWjs0uMN13F1nWhBW9Zw3FGIdboVJf11XvWbd1uj75-xZ7uW0V-GsLHvZx5AvasJpLcw-Qs-GHg9W5f4dYeJjGjN5CcronSBr8VWHfIGOkYbS8jQZ_LaSfIkd-6AjFzdNvzhN8kEuI/s200/Remember+Patience+Whipple+old.jpg" width="139" /></a>Donna's
observation is that there are lots and lots of first–person POV books of
historical figures that are categorized as biography by the Library of Congress and so
generally shelved as biography in school and children’s libraries. This goes
directly to that argument about invented dialogue, so common in the biographies
of our childhoods but taboo today. It also harkens back to the controversy over
the Dear America series and other books of historical fiction that were
packaged and presented so effectively that many elementary school teachers
believed they were primary source material. This <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Dear-America-Diaries-Give-Kids-a-Feel-for-2898759.php" target="_blank">1999 article from the San Francisco Chronicle</a> notes both the books’ success and the controversy.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyU158CPLGfrGljoNQdhDQyQxX7Fz-UgJqZOU1ZJB9ZEOVyFUbTUtMdbcXIc04mG9jWX4NO_JUVofddpCHg7FZlMh6KhWQ17u6PN7Gu6-xkXQvJ30lSPVrbQZdY6P1U09coFlLUxBCeWY/s1600/Remember+Patience+Whipple+new+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyU158CPLGfrGljoNQdhDQyQxX7Fz-UgJqZOU1ZJB9ZEOVyFUbTUtMdbcXIc04mG9jWX4NO_JUVofddpCHg7FZlMh6KhWQ17u6PN7Gu6-xkXQvJ30lSPVrbQZdY6P1U09coFlLUxBCeWY/s200/Remember+Patience+Whipple+new+.jpg" width="141" /></a>(Note
that in the <a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/42531-fresh-start-for-dear-america.html" target="_blank">2010 relaunch</a> of the Dear America series Scholastic has put the
author’s names on the front covers of the books, addressing one of the features
of the original series that contributed to the confusion over the nature of the
books.)</div>
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In
the course of the discussion (thus far) on the listserv, one person has stated
that as part of the Common Core Curriculum standards, students are being taught
to identify both factual information in a fictional work and fictionalized
material within nonfiction. This may be true but so far I have not found it
explicitly called out in the standards as a skill to be mastered. (The Common
Core standards are available <a href="http://www.corestandards.org/" target="_blank">here</a>.) </div>
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The
outstanding nonfiction writers over at <a href="http://inkrethink.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">I.N.K. </a>have discussed this question more than once:
scroll down the subject list or use the search feature to follow some of their passionate
conversations.</div>
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It
seems this is becoming a perennial topic, one not likely to be resolved to
everyone’s satisfaction any time soon. Teacher and parents are hunting for
books kids will find interesting as well as educational. Writers and publishers
are trying to find ways to present important and fascinating information in
packages people will buy. Librarians are often stuck trying to figure out how
books should be categorized. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZAoAauB9M8nC1rzA8YkluINJRjhH9wAPDKQ7CaSYeCOPleKVkX0lmvdp060OAKyLNAlLZS0klXjG79Wc5HOX8Q0jPrjzCjRLcCpaYhRuooDX4dDKwj9YV55fkt4_Dsh-76MLxP6rzITw/s1600/hatshepsut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZAoAauB9M8nC1rzA8YkluINJRjhH9wAPDKQ7CaSYeCOPleKVkX0lmvdp060OAKyLNAlLZS0klXjG79Wc5HOX8Q0jPrjzCjRLcCpaYhRuooDX4dDKwj9YV55fkt4_Dsh-76MLxP6rzITw/s320/hatshepsut.jpg" width="212" /></a>As
writers we may find ourselves of multiple minds about this issue. Some are
passionate defenders of the “never, ever make anything up” position. Others
fear that important topics and people may never be brought into children’s
educations if the “never, ever” standard is applied, and that the need for
written language from the subject is unintentionally discriminatory against
people who for reasons of culture or standing were non<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-language: HE;">-</span>literate, perpetuating the white<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-language: HE;">/</span>western/male imbalance that we have
worked so hard to overcome. Historical fiction is an option for the writer, but
does it serve to reset the balance?</div>
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Writers
must of course be aware of and conform to the standards and guidelines of
individual publishers, as well: even a writer who thinks invented dialogue
ought to be acceptable will eliminate it from her work if the publisher
disagrees, if she wants to be published. And publishers must be attuned to the
changing winds of the marketplace as well as true to their own standards. The editorial
decisions of a behemoth like Scholastic can shape the market for years to come.
So can those of political- appointees to state boards of education. Adult
publishing often operates according to different standards, further muddying
the waters. What lies ahead in the fog? Only time will tell.</div>
Sallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03596195411105707978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-69366169835297769682012-12-07T16:12:00.000-05:002012-12-07T18:36:08.906-05:00Poetry Friday: Wilderness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Spotted a bald eagle on my way into town. It was being harrassed by crows. We don't see too many eagles here in my little slice of New Hampshire, although they are known to winter nearby -- along the Merrimack River. </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Today, I spent a lot of time looking for an eagle poem that wasn't too, um, over-the-top (at least for my 20th century tastes). Ode to the Eagle. Craggy cliffs. Flowery magnificence. All so centuries ago!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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I like what I found in this poem by Carl Sandburg. Eagle gets a mention, and so do a wholelotta other animals. It is so much fun to hear him read it.<b> <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238490">Please please please, click here to listen at the Poetry Foundation website.</a></b> This is good for you! It certainly made <i><b>my </b></i>day . . .<br />
<br />
<span class="author"> </span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u><b>Wilderness</b></u></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<span class="author"> </span>
</div>
<div class="audioplayer">
</div>
<div class="poem">
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
There is a wolf
in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw
meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the
wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go. </div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
There is a fox in me .
. . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out
of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and
eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and
double-cross.</div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
There is a hog in me .
. . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . .
a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the
wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.</div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
There is a fish in me
. . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with
shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before
land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before
the first chapter of Genesis.</div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
There is a baboon in
me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot’s
hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed
hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here
they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . .
ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the
wilderness says so.</div>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
There is an eagle in
me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains
of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and
the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone,
warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the
blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the
mockingbird from the wilderness.</div>
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O, I got a zoo, I got
a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve
heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child
heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from
God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of
the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the
world: I came from the wilderness.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL_Y9vDwmX5C7YCdNN_4Xd1YTdlkZKFHh7PQXPzwDASzspm5WbaHXv96q-U_mzOXQ3l5atuKWMCzemArrYR6YVglkCD41juJL2bAs6cnizPbZT3kT2HrYZcWS2SRXphYHr_64U-OQzduw/s1600/goffstowneagle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL_Y9vDwmX5C7YCdNN_4Xd1YTdlkZKFHh7PQXPzwDASzspm5WbaHXv96q-U_mzOXQ3l5atuKWMCzemArrYR6YVglkCD41juJL2bAs6cnizPbZT3kT2HrYZcWS2SRXphYHr_64U-OQzduw/s400/goffstowneagle.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Photo by me . . . JB.</div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Robyn Hood Black is graciously hosting <a href="http://www.robynhoodblack.com/blog.htm">over at her place</a>.</div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Wilderness is from <i id="source_151009961">The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg</i> (Harcourt Brace Iovanovich Inc., 1970)
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-17559540148746987032012-12-03T09:59:00.000-05:002012-12-03T09:59:21.014-05:00Mentor Monday: Creative Non-Fiction<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
Norm Sims, of the journalism department at Umass-Amherst is credited with defining the four principles of creative nonfiction (also called literary journalism): immersion, accuracy, symbolism, and voice. Both Truman Capote (<em>In Cold Blood)</em> and John Berendt (<em>Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil</em>) confess to using one other technique in their creative non-fiction: taking the liberty to rearrange the timing of true events to create a smoother story. Capote did not admit to this until long after his novel was published. Berendt sees nothing wrong with moving events around to improve the flow of a story - provided the reader is told this was done.</div>
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This is not a technique a writer for children can use without long and serious thought. My opinion is that if a story is not working in its real sequence it would be better (and less confusing) to give the child reader a fictional account based on true events. Is it possible, then, to use creative non-fiction successfully when writing for children? Other writers show us how it can be done.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizZb3OUnkGpGkumETl9cu1XdAdlnA_dgWK8DoKCoCST06nCCLVgpqaS2Ea4rcJTa4bn7Wp5KBZNl-l95ohz6qtlW1-Za7SwVZn2oP7El3cGSTW8g2lL4aV9ILD52XSOQZUvl5joAiJ8skb/s1600/220px-J_S_Copley_-_Paul_Revere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBBdBNC-scnwDdvK0uAEX7zvRBnFhjhXdEEoXRQ1FSWVC9XDIeRzg-sIrHYQ0ivqDNbGiUlmNrXUKJQTkORfmksDGOxsxnXu5LKgcbQKc9GGL_I7BmoXw0GFkHlX5ImJyHbJVL_kAF8S-p/s1600/Esther+Forbes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBBdBNC-scnwDdvK0uAEX7zvRBnFhjhXdEEoXRQ1FSWVC9XDIeRzg-sIrHYQ0ivqDNbGiUlmNrXUKJQTkORfmksDGOxsxnXu5LKgcbQKc9GGL_I7BmoXw0GFkHlX5ImJyHbJVL_kAF8S-p/s200/Esther+Forbes.jpg" tea="true" width="150" /></a>Esther Forbes has the distinction of winning both the Pulitzer Prize (<em>Paul Revere and the World He Lived In</em>) and the Newbery Award (<em>Johnny Tremain</em>) within a year's time. The Revere book was written some 20 years before Capote's <em>In Cold Blood</em> and while it is a biography, the book reads as pleasantly and easily as a romance novel chosen for an afternoon at the beach. Forbes accomplishes this without altering the facts or rearranging the order of events. Instead, she uses them to accomplish the four principles outlined by Norman Sims.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSaDetwkQFvd0ekSYZfUVgAsr1M7TZoFxByGxCyyGuDkK0AQIgkF3E295iB9d3zRV4BTO1ChmAPBsTtpm4cBjbdGw-bAyPu6VyupaEpGBNlLL6leAY7oKTVn5MZlhmPHG6AG-3LdbdvvLs/s1600/Johnny+Tremain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSaDetwkQFvd0ekSYZfUVgAsr1M7TZoFxByGxCyyGuDkK0AQIgkF3E295iB9d3zRV4BTO1ChmAPBsTtpm4cBjbdGw-bAyPu6VyupaEpGBNlLL6leAY7oKTVn5MZlhmPHG6AG-3LdbdvvLs/s200/Johnny+Tremain.jpg" tea="true" width="123" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvqHOK9iXtLMP5PfexGROHnbsyRIgc2IQ6rhcO5rCzs347pA8hyCZRy84xEOHeaS935sSUg0m24f08kzvjw5t_wtG0pgsv58WIB8-U2lM-qswEZN9mgGWNv6cYZbncSnXhDToO7Hl2WfU/s1600/Paul+Revere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>Forbes has so obviously immersed herself into 18th century Boston that she can't help but bring her reader along. She has studied maps, diaries, letters, portraits, newspapers and every other imaginable kind of primary source. I picture Forbes so full of mental images and information that Revere and his cohorts no longer feel like subjects of research but rather part of her own memories. (I often think she <u>needed </u>to write the fictional <em>Johnny Tremain</em> in order to use up all that information floating around in her head!) . We, her readers, feel a part of pre-Revolutionary War Boston because Forbes so thoroughly put herself there first.</div>
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Forbes uses a second technique, accuracy, not merely to tell us about Revere, his town and the times, but to show us Boston and her people:</div>
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"In 1770 North Square was but a block inland from the wharves, tides and bustle of the waterfront. Instead of being a 'square' it is literally a long, narrow triangle. . .On the apex of the triangle stood venerable 'Old North Meeting.' This was the 'church of the Mathers.' . . .Hannah Mather walks about her square. . . She meets Benjamin Burt, the silversmith . . .And across the street, almost next to the house the Reveres have just bought, she looks at Francis Shaw, 'a respectable tailor whose family were large. . .'" (pp. 164 -165)</div>
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Forbes does not let the need for accurate detail deter her from using metaphor, irony and even humor in her writing. When describing the British Army in the spring of 1775, she says: <br />
<br />
"Armies have always tended to be inert in winter and to move in spring. And now it was April. No one could expect the sluggish scarlet dragon not to wake from hibernation in its Boston den, uncoil and meander a little through the spring-drenched countryside." (p. 232)<br />
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Of the first battles of the Revolution, Forbes says: "When only eight men have been killed, each one is a tragedy, and ten wounded men are heroes - although ten thousand may be primarily a sanitation problem." (p. 258)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizZb3OUnkGpGkumETl9cu1XdAdlnA_dgWK8DoKCoCST06nCCLVgpqaS2Ea4rcJTa4bn7Wp5KBZNl-l95ohz6qtlW1-Za7SwVZn2oP7El3cGSTW8g2lL4aV9ILD52XSOQZUvl5joAiJ8skb/s1600/220px-J_S_Copley_-_Paul_Revere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizZb3OUnkGpGkumETl9cu1XdAdlnA_dgWK8DoKCoCST06nCCLVgpqaS2Ea4rcJTa4bn7Wp5KBZNl-l95ohz6qtlW1-Za7SwVZn2oP7El3cGSTW8g2lL4aV9ILD52XSOQZUvl5joAiJ8skb/s200/220px-J_S_Copley_-_Paul_Revere.jpg" tea="true" width="165" /></a>Forbes' voice is joyful, witty. She<em> likes</em> Paul Revere, the people he knows, and the period she is describing. Here is Forbes recounting John Hancock's departure from Boston just before the British rally. Hancock is not alone, for his Aunt Lydia is determined that he not forget about Dolly Quincy, the girl she has chosen as his perfect match:</div>
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"Aunt Lydia. . .always kept a protuberant eye on John's love life. . .She was going to make this match if it killed her - as it seems to have done. John Hancock was harassed enough with his public life without Aunt Lydia bringing out Miss Dolly to torment him in private, but there they both were." (p.237)</div>
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And later, describing Paul Revere's ride:</div>
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". . . that he rode the Larkin horse with more care than he does on sugar boxes, American Legion posters, copper advertisements and all known pictures and statues is proved by the excellent condition the animal was in five hours later.</div>
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"So away, down the moonlit road, goes Paul Rever and the Larkin horse, galloping into history, art, editorials, folklore, poetry; the beat of those hooves never to be forgotten." (p.247) </div>
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Forbes skillfully turns fact into symbolism, as well. The every day details of the events leading to Concord and Lexington represent the larger relationship between mother country and colony. As refugees flee from Boston and the occupying British forces, carts are inspected by the Redcoats. Women and children are allowed to leave but may not take food with them. </div>
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"She tried to keep her children quiet during the inspection of their cart by the sentry at the gate and gave each child a piece of gingerbread. The sentry - a truly horrifying British ogre - took it all away from them. He said, 'gingerbread was too good for rebels,' and ate it himself." (p. 274)<br />
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The scene could represent any number of larger transgressions by the British Government upon the colonies. Colonials considered themselves equal to the British subjects in England. They were not treated that way. The actions of one soldier, one "British ogre" are symbolic of the actions of an entire government upon its subjects.<br />
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The writer of creative non-fiction for children can follow Esther Forbes's lead. One can immerse oneself in a subject by thorough research and use the details of that research not merely as exposition, but to develop a unique voice - even while maintaining complete accuracy.<br />
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We can compare Jean Fritz's treatment of the same genre and the same topic in her book, <em>And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?</em> She manages, in 64 pages, to successfully accomplish the same four goals: immersion, accuracy, voice and symbolism.</div>
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There is no bibliography attached to Paul Revere but as I compare it to Forbes' work, Fritz's research is obvious. She describes Boston Harbor differently than Esther Forbes: </div>
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"Ships were constantly coming and going, unloading everything from turtles to chandeliers. Street vendors were constantly crying their wares - everything from fever pills to hair oil to oysters. From time to time there were traveling acrobats, performing monkey, parades, firework displays and fistfights." (p.7) </div>
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This example is not just a watered-down version of someone else's Pulitzer Prize winner. Fritz has done her homework, too.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvqHOK9iXtLMP5PfexGROHnbsyRIgc2IQ6rhcO5rCzs347pA8hyCZRy84xEOHeaS935sSUg0m24f08kzvjw5t_wtG0pgsv58WIB8-U2lM-qswEZN9mgGWNv6cYZbncSnXhDToO7Hl2WfU/s1600/Paul+Revere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvqHOK9iXtLMP5PfexGROHnbsyRIgc2IQ6rhcO5rCzs347pA8hyCZRy84xEOHeaS935sSUg0m24f08kzvjw5t_wtG0pgsv58WIB8-U2lM-qswEZN9mgGWNv6cYZbncSnXhDToO7Hl2WfU/s200/Paul+Revere.jpg" tea="true" width="147" /></a>Fritz's sentences are not always short, but they read as if they were. She, too, uses humor in her style and the combination gives children an enjoyable way to read what could be a very dry story. On Paul Revere's military contribution to the end of the French and Indian Wars Fritz says: </div>
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"Paul spent the summer sitting around, cleaning his rifle and polishing his sword. And swatting flies. There were thousands of flies at Lake George that summer. But there were no French or Indians." (p. 12)<br />
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Fritz uses repetitive phrasing to bring her young readers symbolically into the quick changes happening during pre-Revolutionary Boston. Revere is shown running or galloping, "hat clapped to his head, his coattails flying." That phrase most likely has no primary source as its basis, yet, it is thoroughly accurate even in its creativity. </div>
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Try the same experiment. Contrast/compare the writings of two authors on the same subject. Look for Sims’ four principals in your samples. Doing so may help you tell a better story.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-69497998195453195992012-11-30T00:01:00.000-05:002012-11-30T00:01:01.790-05:00Poetry Friday--"To the Terrestrial Globe"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuww0qXWdkM4iWfY2gtKWAM1gr-qlzzlFjIDB3r7yWjTSznqzZSVcXmFWd_pZhetlsGT5SEdSLxjwBLDmfFjYw7jvqgG-f0ZEoTj3haqDLMlaXqtjH1weekceSYb9Jg-O_XmZJa-DA86bX/s1600/earth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuww0qXWdkM4iWfY2gtKWAM1gr-qlzzlFjIDB3r7yWjTSznqzZSVcXmFWd_pZhetlsGT5SEdSLxjwBLDmfFjYw7jvqgG-f0ZEoTj3haqDLMlaXqtjH1weekceSYb9Jg-O_XmZJa-DA86bX/s400/earth.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<blockquote><big>To the Terrestrial Globe</big><br />
by a Miserable Wretch <br />
<br />
Roll on, thou ball, roll on!<br />
Through pathless realms of Space<br />
Roll on!<br />
What though I'm in a sorry case?<br />
What though I cannot meet my bills?<br />
What though I suffer toothache's ills?<br />
What though I swallow countless pills?<br />
Never <i>you</i> mind!<br />
Roll on!<br />
<br />
Roll on, thou ball, roll on!<br />
Through seas of inky air<br />
Roll on!<br />
It's true I've got no shirts to wear;<br />
It's true my butcher's bill is due;<br />
It's true my prospects all look blue--<br />
But don't let that unsettle you!<br />
Never <i>you</i> mind!<br />
Roll on!<br />
<br />
[It rolls on.]<br />
<br />
W. S. Gilbert a.k.a. the Miserable Wretch</blockquote>There's something comforting about knowing the Earth will continue to "roll on" despite us, because sometimes it seems we're doing our damnedest to destroy her. I only hope that while continuing to roll, she'll also heal.<br />
<br />
This week's Round-Up is taking place at <a href="http://www.poemfarm.amylv.com/" target="_blank">The Poem Farm</a>!<br />
<br />
--Diane<br />
<br />
<small><small>Image showing the Arctic and high latitudes by Norman Kuring, courtesy <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78349&src=ve" target="_blank">NASA</a>.</small></small>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4228817173405640184.post-91248178879894603942012-11-26T07:00:00.000-05:002012-11-26T07:00:13.094-05:00The Right Verb<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUSrKAUq2OaMKIHg_9j5qS_qfSK7aZu8vPsSumC_tndIggwPPvRmeMyMIMCRiqQtmHj8f2yFde7i5AdoniHzcKRrFU6el5cdaTNIkwrDWCz7khT3BLSBFCm0U28kh47iKKX-kKXW-KBhk/s1600/verbs2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUSrKAUq2OaMKIHg_9j5qS_qfSK7aZu8vPsSumC_tndIggwPPvRmeMyMIMCRiqQtmHj8f2yFde7i5AdoniHzcKRrFU6el5cdaTNIkwrDWCz7khT3BLSBFCm0U28kh47iKKX-kKXW-KBhk/s1600/verbs2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In my mind, verbs are the words that make stories
exciting and real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking the time to
find the right ones can be the difference between a good story and a great one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Verbs are action words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you can do it<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> -</b> walk, run, sing, dance <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">- </b>it’s
a verb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there are those other
verbs <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">–</b> am, is, are, was, were, be,
being, been, have, has, had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my day,
we called them irregular verbs or helping verbs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are states of being, as opposed to
actions, and will do almost nothing for you. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Avoid them if you can.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So let’s look at what choosing the right verb can do
for you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">John
Smith <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">went </b>to the store on a lovely
Saturday afternoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sun <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">was shining,</b> the birds <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">were singing</b>, and John suddenly <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">had</b> the feeling that he <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">was going to be</b> lucky today.<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This example is filled with those ‘other’ verbs, the
irregular kind you don’t want to use.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">John
Smith <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">went </b>to the store on a lovely
Saturday afternoon.<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The verb here is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">went</b>, which tells us – John went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But that’s all it tells us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s vague
and uninteresting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So how did John
really go?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did he skip, run, jog, stroll?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Using any of those verbs will not only tell
you how John went, they also say something about his state of mind, the kind of
mood he’s in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Changing one word has just
added more to this scenario.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
sun <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">was shining</b> and the birds <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">were singing</b>, and John suddenly <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">had</b> the feeling that he <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">was going to be</b> lucky today.<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Here are all those irregular verbs that don’t do
anything but make the sentence passive and excessively long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Simply cut the irregular verbs and change the
‘ing’ verbs to ‘ed’ verbs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
sun shone, the birds sang, and John suddenly felt lucky.<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The sentence has been shortened by half, the writing
is cleaner and smoother to read, it’s active instead of passive, and because
John is no longer ‘going to be,’ lucky, (which doesn’t tell us when, which is
why we need ‘today’) we can even cut ‘today,’ because today is now implied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Which leaves us with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">–</b> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">John
Smith strolled to the store on a lovely Saturday afternoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sun shone, the birds sang, and John
suddenly felt lucky.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Now let’s suppose we’re in the middle of an action
scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John, it seems, was not as lucky
as he thought he’d be.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">John
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">gave </b>his money to the clerk and the
door <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">opened </b>behind him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two men <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">entered,</b>
guns in hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">wore</b> ski masks that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">covered</b>
their faces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">pointed</b> their guns at John and the clerk.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The above example is informative, but that’s about
it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">John
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">gave </b>his money to the clerk and the
door <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">opened </b>behind him.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The verb <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">gave</b>
is fine here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John is just handing over
some money that isn’t at all important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But if you wanted to show us a bit of John’s personality, he might <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">slap</b> it on the counter, or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">count </b>it coin by coin into the clerk’s
hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The verb <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">opened,</b> however, is too tame for the situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Opened</b>
says anybody might be coming in, and there is no hint of danger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if we change <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">opened </b>to an adverb and choose a better verb—the door <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">burst</b>, or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">crashed,</b> or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">banged</b> open—it
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>makes the moment a bit bigger, it
creates suspense, and the reader knows <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i>
is about to happen.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He
turned.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If the door only <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">opens,</b> then <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">turning </b>is
fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It fits the situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if we change <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">opened</b> to something stronger, then John’s reaction should be
stronger, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He might <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">spin </b>around.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Two
men <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">entered,</b> guns in hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Entered,</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
like the verb <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">open,</b> isn’t strong
enough to suit the situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These guys
are robbers and the door just <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">burst</b>
open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They might <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">charge</b>, or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">rush,</b> or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">barge</b> in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they are clumsy and stupid, they might <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">stumble </b>in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they are reluctant robbers, they might <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">inch</b> in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, choosing the right verb will not only
tell the reader <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what</i> someone did, it
can also tell us something <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">about</i> that
individual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while ‘guns’ is not a
verb, the same holds true for nouns, so we night change ‘guns’ to a specific
type of gun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An AK47 says one thing
about your robbers, a Derringer says another. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We might also replace ‘in hand.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps their guns are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">leveled</b>, or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">threatening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>Either verb makes the scene feel more
dangerous. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">wore</b>
ski masks that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">covered</b> their faces.<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Here we have two verbs that basically say the same
thing and neither is all that interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We could say, ‘Ski masks <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">hid </b>their
faces,’ which lends a bit of mystery to the scene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">They
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">pointed</b> their guns at John and the
clerk.<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Pointed
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">isn’t
bad, but a gun <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">pointed </b>at your face
doesn’t seem as dangerous as a gun <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">aimed
</b>at your face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nuance comes into play
here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pointed</b> is threatening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
gun may, or may not, be fired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Aimed, </b>however, is one step
closer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It gives the sense that the gun <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> about to be fired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, instead of just <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">pointing </b>their guns, the robbers might <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">nudge </b>or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">shove</b> John with
them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So now, we might have a paragraph that reads like
this – <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">John
gave his money to the clerk and the door burst open behind him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He spun around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two men charged in, AK47’s threatening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ski masks hid their faces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They aimed their guns at John and the clerk.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">instead of like this -<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">John
gave his money to the clerk and the door opened behind him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He turned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Two men entered, guns in hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They wore ski masks that covered their faces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They pointed their guns at John and the
clerk.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Now imagine both versions sitting in a slush
pile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An editor has to decide which one
to purchase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two scenarios are the
same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only difference is the few
words we changed. Which do you think the editor would choose?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the difference between a perfectly
good manuscript and a better one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The example used could be improved even more, but
the point today is the verbs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take out
some of your own work and look at the verbs you’ve chosen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can they be improved?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can a different word make your sentence more
exciting, or scary, or funny?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can it add
something to characterization or setting?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The competition in this field is fierce, so it makes
sense to give yourself every advantage you can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Take the time to choose stronger verbs and make your manuscript the
better one.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769803733067838372noreply@blogger.com2