Composition Book: Heather Hedin Singh's writing blog

Subject: How do your priorities align with your time?

2010-03-30T20:53:00.000-07:00

A Different Approach to Setting Goals

I’ve been all about goals and resolutions this year, inspired in part by reading The Happiness Project and in part by my desire to make progress with my writing. After reading a challenge from the folks at Teaching Authors, I even wrote up a six-word resolution for the year (Write. Create. Revise. Complete. Enjoy. Repeat.) So when the Vermont Novel Writing Workshop opened with a session on setting goals, I felt like I was in good shape.

YA Novelist and writing teacher Sarah Aronson, who organized the retreat and led the goal setting session, urged all of us in the audience to think realistically about how we use our time before setting our goals.

How much time do we have to write? How much time do we spend caring for families, working at jobs, driving kids around, volunteering, cooking, cleaning, watching TV, and even, um…, blogging? Write it down, all of it, she said.

Since I write while my kids are at school, I have about twenty hours a week to devote to writing—all of my writing. That includes my novel, blogging here, blogging at StorySleuths, and writing short stories. Twenty hours is a good chunk of time, and I’m grateful for it.

Then, Sarah asked us to consider how our schedules match up with our priorities.

Oh, I realize there’s nothing new to the idea of comparing time with priorities but I had never looked at it in the stark light of basic numbers. Twenty hours a week and maybe one or two hours spent on my novel? The rest spent on… what? Blogging? “Research”?

Holy crap.

New resolution: Spend two hours a day working on my novel before working on any other writing. Ten hours of focused novel writing a week should add up to real progress over time.

How do you allot your time? Do you set daily writing goals? If so, how does that work for you? I’d love to hear about challenges, tips, and ideas!

Subject: A Top Ten List from Vermont Writing Retreat

2010-03-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I traveled to Montpelier, Vermont to attend the Novel Writing Retreat at Vermont College of Fine Arts, a workshop for 25 middle grade and young adult novelists organized by Sarah Aronson and Cindy Faughnan. The faculty included Nancy Mercado, executive editor at Roaring Book Press, Emily Jenkins (E. Lockhart for YA fans), and Uma Krishnaswami.

Weekend Highlights

10. Visiting Montpelier. This was my first trip to Vermont, ever. It was unseasonably warm when I arrived (temperatures in the mid 60s!). I enjoyed walking from campus to town, which is home to the capitol, several bookstores, and the Capitol Grounds Coffee Shop.

9. Dorm Living. Nothing like cinderblock walls and the hum of a mini-fridge to take you back to college days!

8. Book Recommendations. My to-read pile grew after each participant shared a recent favorite MG or YA book. Several people recommended our current StorySleuths book (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly) as well as June’s book, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. One Crazy Summer has gotten starred reviews from Horn Book, Booklist, and Kirkus. Another recommendation: The Sky is Everywhere, by VCFA grad Jandy Nelson.

7. Prizes. I won a door-prize, the F&G of Feeding the Sheep by Leda Schubert, who is a member of the VCFA faculty. Schubert’s rhyming text along with beautiful illustrations by Andrea U’Ren tells the story of a mother and daughter who raise sheep and harvest wool.

6. Cafeteria Food. I have no complaints about the cafeteria food at Vermont College, all of which was prepared by students from the New England Culinary Institute. We had some great veggies… plus delicious cookies at every meal.

5. Workshop. The retreat’s critique track included a workshop with four other writers. I always love workshop time when at Hamline, and this was no different. I learn so much from reading other people’s work as well as from their feedback on my work. Critique Group One was awesome.

4. Making Things Worse. Emily Jenkins, author of The Boyfriend List and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks, shared her techniques for plotting and pacing. At every step, she asks, “What’s the worst that can happen?” She also showed us different versions of the same scene so we could see how she revised for pacing. (My comments on the structure of The Boyfriend List are here.)

3. Reading Birthmarked. For her talk on pacing, Nancy Mercado gave participants a sneak peek at Caragh O’Brien’s new book Birthmarked, a dystopian novel set in a post-climate change society next to Unlake Michigan. Although I probably wouldn’t have chosen the book on my own, I have to say that I loved Birthmarked. Action, suspense, moral choices, plus a romance… definitely read it. Birthmarked hits bookstores next week.

2. Brainstorming with Uma. I am so grateful for the opportunity to talk about my work-in-progress with Uma Krishnaswami, author of Monsoon and Naming Maya. She provided excellent feedback on my opening pages as well as good advice about the directions I plan to take in the rest of the book.

1. Making Connections. As always, it was so great to meet other writers who love MG and YA books as much as I do. Good luck, all, in your writing. Hope to see your novels soon!

Subject: Ten Favorite Short Story Collections

2010-03-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

Eager to read some middle grade and young adult short stories? Here’s a list of some of my favorite collections and anthologies.

13: Thirteen Stories That Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen, edited by James Howe (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing). Includes stories by Ron Koertge, Todd Strasser, and Bruce Coville.
Baseball Crazy: Ten Short Stories That Cover All the Bases, edited by Nancy Mercado, (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2008). Includes stories by Frank Portman, Sue Corbett, and Joseph Bruchac.
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castelluci (Little Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009). Includes stories by Tracy Lynn, John Green, and Sara Zarr.
No Easy Answers: Short Stories About Teenagers Making Tough Choices, edited by Donald R. Gallo (Laurel-Leaf Books, 1997). Includes stories by Walter Dean Myers, Virginia Euwer Wolff, and Rita Williams-Garcia.
No Such Thing as The Real World: Stories about Growing Up and Getting a Life (Laura Geringer Books, 2009). Includes stories by Beth Kephart, Chris Lynch, and K. L. Going.
Pretty Monsters: Stories, by Kelly Link (Viking, 2008)
Soul Searching: Thirteen Stories about Faith and Belief, edited by Lisa Rowe Fraustino, (Simon & Schuster, 2002). Includes stories by Uma Krishnaswami, Minfong Ho, and Linda Oatman High.
The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens, edited by Jane Yolen and Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor, 2005). Includes stories by Kelly Link, Lynette Aspey, and Delia Sherman.
Tripping Over the Lunch Lady and Other School Stories, edited by Nancy E. Mercado (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2004). Includes stories by David Lubar, Rachel Vail, and Sarah Weeks.
Up All Night: Seven Sunsets, Seven Stories (Laura Geringer Books, 2008). Includes stories by Peter Abrahams, David Levithan, and Patricia McCormick.

Would love to hear recommendations for other short story collections and anthologies!

Subject: A Book Review for St. Patrick's Day (Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd)

2010-03-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Are you wearing green today? As usual, I forgot about the holiday. Fortunately, my youngest did not. She appeared for breakfast in a Kelly green hoodie and matching leaf-green t-shirt. Her St. Patrick’s Day spirit inspired me to hold off my planned post so I could write about a book set in Ireland that I recently finished.

Title: Bog Child

Author: Siobhan Dowd

Genre: Young Adult

Publisher: David Fickling Books, 2008

Summary

It’s the early 1980s in a small Northern Ireland border town. Fergus McCann needs to focus on studying for the exams that will take him away from Ireland to university. He struggles to concentrate, though, his mind and emotions occupied with the political turmoil that affects all aspects of Fergus’s life.

His older brother, Joe, is in prison, where he joins a group of hunger strikers appealing for status as political prisoners. Fergus’s parents argue constantly about the Troubles. And Joe’s old friend pressures Fergus to join the fight by transporting contraband across the border.

The novel begins when Fergus discovers a young girl’s body buried and preserved in peat. The body is presumed to be centuries old, and Fergus welcomes the opportunity to help a mother-daughter archaeological team investigate where and how the child died. Soon, Fergus hears the child’s voice in his dreams. Her story of betrayal and sacrifice mirrors many of the same themes Fergus encounters in his own times.

Bog Child brings to life a place and time in history that I know very little about. Dowd does not stop to explain the conflict, but much as Allyson describes in her recent posting about historical fiction at StorySleuths, the narrative alludes to factions and details in a way that lets the reader accumulate enough knowledge to understand the basics of the conflict. In the author’s note at the end, Dowd explains the hunger strikes of 1981. The book also inspired me to look up the Troubles online.

Writing Details

Dowd brings together a well-rounded group of characters in Bog Child. In addition to Fergus’s family, we meet Uncle Tally, who tends bar nearby, Owain, a young Welsh boy who stands guard at the border, and Cora, whose mother leads the archaeological studies. The characters reveal the complexity of the situation in Northern Ireland as well as the humanity of people who appear to be on opposite sides of the issue.

I really admire the way Dowd describes physical responses in a way that also reveals emotional reactions. Here are two examples from a chapter when Fergus visits Joe several weeks into the hunger strike. Joe asks to speak to Fergus alone and says, “You know. Love, That stuff.”

Fergus scrunched his fists to make the crying stop. “Yeah, I know.” He forced the crying feeling back down his throat. He sucked his lips between his teeth and bit the flesh, hard. He felt like a toddler crushing the jack-in-the-box back in (p. 177).

Dowd is unrelenting in her description of Joe’s state. His cause may be noble, but the experience of starving himself is anything but easy.

Another spasm came over Joe. His eyes dilated and he retched. Then he doubled over, grabbing his guts. Fergus got a whiff of something stale, like a breadbin that badly needed washing out, mixed with something chemical, like pear-drops (pp. 179-180).

Dowd writes with clarity and honesty about a place filled with conflict on many levels. She keeps the plot moving with a variety of storylines as well as a few unexpected twists.

I’m curious to know if anyone has read her other books. The London Eye Mystery has been in my pile of to-read books for a while.

Subject: The Power of the Adult World (or What's In Your Desk?)

2010-03-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, my daughter had the day off from school, and she spent a better part of the morning digging through shelves and files in my desk.

She found:

A package of Avery pre-perforated business card paper
A box of yellow, pink, green, and orange chalk pastels
Stacks of old, unfiled photos
A box of gouache paints
An empty plastic 8x12” envelope, and
A file box containing drafts and sketches from the first picture book I ever wrote

What she did next:

She took three sheets of the business card paper to make business cards of her own, advertising the “grocery store” she runs out of our pantry.
She commandeered the pastels for her art class on Saturday.
She requested the box of paints for someday.
She filled the envelope with money and receipts from the grocery store.
And she complimented me on my drawing skills.

(As an aside… oh, how strange to see that old picture book story. It’s a full thirty-two pages long. I started it in part thanks to a challenge from my husband. Madonna had just released another picture book, and he said something like ‘If Madonna can write, then surely you can, too.” Thanks, love, for the nudge!)

Back to my desk

The treasures my daughter discovered reminded me of something I read once about Inkheart author Cornelia Funke:

Like Philip Pullman, Funke understands that children are intrigued by the power of the adult world (“Harry Potter’s German Cousins,” Times, May 13, 2006)

The power of the adult world.

I love that notion. It makes me think not just of Meggie in Inkheart and Lyra in A Golden Compass, but also of Millicent Min, Junie B. Jones, Ramona, Roy in Hoot, and Dewey in The Green Glass Sea, all trying to make sense of what is happening in the world around them and how they not only fit in but contribute.

So many aspects of the adult world fascinate our kids. Look at the way even toddlers beg to play with their parents’ cell phones or laptops. Think about the way they play dress up and “grocery store.”

I remember playing with the cash register at my grandma’s Laundromat, tapping on the secretary’s typewriter at my dad’s office, and sorting through fabric samples that my mom got from the Design Center in San Francisco. I dreamed of being a zoologist, a marine biologist, a journalist, and a spy like Harriet in Harriet the Spy (another character fascinated by the adult world).

Although Friday’s school holiday limited my writing time, my daughter’s questions and discoveries made me think of some character questions to explore:

What about the adult world intrigues the protagonist in my India novel?
If she dug through her mother’s desk, what would she discover?
What about her mother’s life intrigues her? Confuses her? Appeals to her?
And how do the answers to those questions impact her dreams and beliefs?

What about the adult world intrigues your characters?

Subject: How to Read Short Stories

2010-03-12T11:09:00.000-08:00

One of the most common tips given to aspiring writers is read, an easy rule for me since I love reading. I read middle grade novels, YA, mysteries, magazines, recipe books, memoirs, the New York Times, writing books, articles about education reform, blogs, The Horn Book, and research materials for my novel.

But I don’t typically read short stories. Why? Probably for the same reason that many people don’t:

Limited time to read a large and constantly growing pile of books.
The disappointment that lingers after reading a dissatisfying story.
The sense that some short stories seem pretentious or contrived.
And most importantly, to me, the frustration of connecting with a character just before the story ends.

However, I feel compelled to read short stories given my goal to write two per month. The problem is that whenever I pick up a collection of stories, I invariably set it aside for something else.

I discovered that I am not the only person who doesn’t read a lot of short stories.

In a September, 2007, essay that appeared in the New York Times, Stephen King bemoaned the shrinking audience for short stories. He wrote,

In too many cases, that audience happens to consist of other writers and would-be writers who are reading the various literary magazines… not to be entertained but to get an idea of what sells there.

An audience of writers and would-be writers. That audience category would include me, only rather than conducting market research, I am more curious about what a short story looks like.

How long is a good story?
What makes it different from a chapter in a novel?
And the big question, when I find a short story I really like, what makes it work? Why do some stories hold my attention while others don’t?

In search of answers, I pulled a few short story collections from my shelf.

Then, after weeks of guilt when looking at the unopened stack of books, I decided on a new approach, one inspired by Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project. She says that

“By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished," and

“What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE.”

I decided to read one short story a day.

It’s an easy commitment to make, just fifteen to thirty minutes out of the day. A short story is perfect reading for a solo lunch or while waiting for my daughter’s gymnastics class to end.

Since taking the story-a-day tack, I’ve read—and enjoyed—more than thirty stories. Turns out that just like chocolates from a box of See’s Candy, short stories aren’t meant to be consumed one after the other. Instead, they’re individual treats, bon-bons to be savored in the moment.

In the coming weeks, I’ll share with you some of my favorite collections of short stories as well as some of the writing lessons I’ve learned from the stories.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you: Do you read short stories on a regular basis? Why or why not?

Subject: How many short stories can you write in a year?

2010-03-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

Every time I encounter the quantity vs. quality debate, I vow to write more. One of my resolutions this year was to write two short stories a month. Sadly, I have not made much progress on that front.

Turns out, it takes a long time to write a short story. The first draft of my Geektastic-inspired short story, which I began for the StorySleuths StoryChallenge in January, is about 95% complete. It just needs an ending.

Although I’m off to a slow start, I’m not going to give up. I assume that the more stories I attempt to write, the more I will improve. Some may not work out, such as the other story I began in January. But some will.

Anton Chekhov, a master at short stories, gave this advice to his brother, Alexander:

To have as few failures as possible in fiction writing, or in order not to be so sensitive to failures, you must write more, around one hundred or two hundred stories a year. That is the secret.

A hundred or two hundred stories a year!

Wow.

Better get typing.

(Note: The Anton Chekhov quote comes from Bob Blaisdell’s article “A Few Words of Advice from Anton Chekhov, The Writer, September, 2004).

In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting here about writing and reading short stories for middle grade and young adult readers. I would love to hear from you. What are your experiences writing short stories?

Subject: The Comic Toolbox, Chapter Two

2010-03-03T19:47:00.000-08:00

Want to read more about the Rule of Nine and other ways to increase creative thinking? The website for John Vorhaus, author of The Comic Toolbox, has an excerpt from Chapter Two, "The Will To Risk.

I personally need to read the last section of Chapter Two:Concentrate on the Task at Hand. Vorhaus writes,

When you're concentrating on the task at hand, the outside world truly does not exist. You get in a lick of good work, pat yourself on the back for that lick of good work, then, taking that win, press on to the next piece of work, better equipped than ever to win.

Lately, I've felt like one of those water skeeter bugs that skims the surface of the lake, zipping from one place to another as I tackle first one task and then another. Sure, I've checked off a lot of items on my to-do list, but none are of critical importance.

The worst part is the feeling that I'm avoiding real work, hard work. I'm staying on the surface, flitting about, when what I really need to do is dive in deep. I need to find an ending for my short story. And I really need to work on the synopsis for my novel.

Tomorrow's the day I strap on my snorkel and mask. Tomorrow's the day, I take a deep breath and break the surface. I'm diving in.

Book Review: The Comic Toolbox by John Vorhaus

2010-03-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

Confession of a bookaholic: I love books about writing as much as the next writer. I’m always searching for that nugget of information or secret trick that will help me improve my writing and power past my current writing struggles. This is the first in an occasional series of books on writing and craft.

Title: The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even If You’re Not

Author: John Vorhaus

I’ve always believed that humor is a gift and an art. While I love watching and reading funny movies and books, I’ve never thought about why a joke or a line of dialogue is funny. Either it is or it isn’t, right?

Wrong. In The Comic Toolbox, John Vorhaus, who taught at the UCLA Extension Writers Program and wrote for The Wonder Years and Married… with Children, explains the fundamentals of comedy and the elements involved in developing comedic stories using examples from classic movies and popular TV shows. (Note: The book was published in 1994, so some of the examples are dated. Anyone remember The Golden Girls?)

Besides talking about comedy in particular, Vorhaus also discusses the creative mindset writers need to overcome their fears and produce funny work. For those of you interested in the quantity vs. quality debate, Vorhaus comes out strong on quantity in “The Rule of Nine,” which says

For every ten jokes you tell, nine will be trash. For every ten ideas you have, nine won’t work. For every ten times you risk, nine times you fail.

Why should we continue taking risks if we’re liable to so much failure? Vorhaus explains,

…the rule of nine turns out to be highly liberating because once you embrace it, you instantly and permanently lose the toxic expectation of succeeding every time. (p. 12)

The nugget

Vorhaus provides a number of useful tools and exercises throughout the book, but the part that had the most impact on me was “The Comic Throughline” in Chapter 7, where Vorhaus describes the key elements in a successful comedic story.

Given his desire to experiment with many different story ideas (The Rule of Nine), Vorhause wanted

a way of writing the barest bones of my story in ten sentences or less, so that I could discover with a minimum of work whether I had an interesting, whole and solid story or not. (p. 76)

This Comic Throughline is an alternative to the classic Hero’s Journey as described by Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Rather than embark on a quest, in the Comic Throughline the protagonist attempts to reach a goal only to find that the goal shifts, compelling him or her to face a moment of truth before risking all.

One stage of the Comic Throughline, which occurs about halfway through the structure, is called “A Monkey Wrench is thrown.” During this stage, Vorhaus explains, the protagonist experiences a shift away from his initial, surface-level success. Often, the monkey wrench occurs because the protagonist falls in love, and his loyalty shifts from himself to someone else.

Vorhaus’ description of this stage made me think of Marcelo in the Real World, last month’s StorySleuths’ book. About halfway through the novel, having adjusted to a new job working at his father’s law firm, Marcelo discovers a photograph of a girl injured in a car crash. Suddenly, he feels compelled to uncover what happened to the girl, even if helping her means failing at his job and losing his chance to choose where he wants to go to school in the fall.

Vorhaus says, “When the loyalty gets displaced, suddenly the story is about a character wanting two things that are mutually exclusive” (p. 89). Not surprisingly, the conflict goes way up after the monkey wrench enters the picture.

Why The Comic Toolbox earns a space on my writing shelf:

Although The Comic Toolbox seems to target screenwriters, its lessons and techniques apply to children’s writers as well. Why? Well, unless you write dark YA, you probably write comedy—and that doesn’t necessarily mean funny, ha-ha, but comedy in the classic sense. That is to say, books that offer hope and promise. Don’t forget that the Greeks and Romans defined comedies as plays with happy endings. I particularly like Wikipedia’s description of comedy:

Much comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations.

All these elements are also elements of good novels.

What writing books do you keep on your shelf? I’d love to hear recommendations.

Subject: How do you balance vacation with writing?

2010-02-23T10:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long absence! I lugged my computer along with me for mid-winter break, confident that I would find time to work on my short story, write a few blog posts, and draft my novel synopsis. And as with most other vacations, I managed to do no work at all.

Of course, a vacation is a vacation, right? I’m always encouraging my husband (ok, nagging him) to set email aside when we head out of town, and yet I hold myself to a different standard. I want to continue my work. The dictum “Write every day” haunts me (ok, nags at me). I feel guilty for not working, even though I’m on vacation. (Definition: freedom from occupation.)

I believe that part of this expectation to work is a result of being a mother first and a writer second. I’ve learned to squeeze my work schedule into specific time periods. I adjust my schedule around calls to pick up a sick child or changes in carpool plans. So when a school holiday rolls around, in my mind, I plan to write whenever I have the chance.

It never works that way. The moment I head out of town, my mind turns blank. Sometimes, I never even open my computer. I rarely jot anything down in my notebook. Why can’t I be like those authors who spin their stories out in their minds when away from their writing instruments? Why can’t I be more disciplined, like Charles Darwin, and find inspiration in my surroundings?

It’s as if my mind puts up a little sign: “On vacation.” The premises, for a short time, are as empty as my house. Vacant. Did you know that vacation and vacant share the same root word? According to Wordnik, the Latin word vacare means “to be empty.”

Of course, if you’re empty, then you have plenty of room to fill the well, and while I didn’t write at all on vacation, I read plenty. And more importantly, I spent time with my family, which is truly fulfilling.

What are your feelings about vacation? One advantage of being a writer is the ability to work anywhere. Do you try to write while on vacation? Or do you truly get away? If you do work, how do you balance your time. I'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts.

Subject: Plot Maps

2010-02-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

Over on StorySleuths today, I wrote about the four plot lines in Marcelo in the Real World, our February book. To prepare for the posting, I made a map of all the scenes in the book using 3x5 cards. On each card, I wrote the chapter, setting, page numbers, scene number and a brief summary of the key action.

Once I had all of the scenes listed, I laid them out on my kitchen table and looked for patterns, logical groupings (scene sequences in film-speak), plot lines and structure.

This photo (sorry for the lack of detail) shows the entire novel, all 53 scenes. The two columns on the left represent the beginning and the column of six cards on the right represent the climax and resolution.

Why do I do this? Having a visual representation of a story’s plot helps me understand how the author composed the book on an abstract level. For instance, when I read Marcelo in the Real World, the pacing at the beginning seemed slow. It took a while for the story to really get going. The cards show why I felt that way: Stork uses the first quarter of the book (those two left-most columns) to set up Marcelo’s current world and his first day at work in the mail room.

Another interesting discovery I made was that Stork introduced the fourth plot line (the mystery about the girl in the photograph) exactly halfway through the book. That plot line carries the book forward and significantly impacts Marcelo’s attempt to do well at work. This is a good example of introducing a plot line to beef up the middle of the work.

Besides looking at how the scenes worked together, I also marked plot lines or layers, to use a Donald Maass term, in different colors. The card shown above is what Maass would call a “node of conjunction,” where several plot layers intersect (see my posting at StorySleuths for more detail on nodes of conjunction).

Marcelo in the Real World is not the first book I’ve mapped in this way. I made several maps when working on critical essays for the Hamline MFA program. A map for The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt revealed how Schmidt wove together a variety of plot layers and subplots in a narrative that spanned an entire school year.

I made another plot map for That Girl Lucy Moon by Amy Timberlake. For that book, I looked at plot layers and nodes of conjunction, just as I did with Marcelo. Chapters in Timberlake's book featured multiple scenes related to different plot layers, all of which I tracked on several pieces of paper taped together.

Again, I used color to track plot layers. This image shows how many chapters incorporated several different plot layers at once.

I put teal squares around the nodes of conjunction, and I also looked for specific places such as the mid-point and turning points. In addition to looking at plot layers, I marked Lucy’s emotional feelings in red.

So how does this help me as a writer? I should note that I don’t make maps like this when I am drafting my story. I don’t always have a clear idea where I’m going, so a detailed map would be impossible for me to draw. It would be useful after a decent draft to identify holes or imbalances in story threads.

And I don’t make a map of every book I read, of course. It takes a few hours to complete. However, making a map is worthwhile when I want to understand how a particular book works. That Girl Lucy Moon teaches me to keep plot layers moving throughout the book and to refer to my character’s emotional state frequently. Marcelo in the Real World shows one way to build up a sagging middle through a new plot line.

Do any of you writers out there map favorite books or dig into their structure? I’m curious to know about other ways to develop a bird’s-eye-view of either a published work or work-in-progress.

Subject: Writing Retreats

2010-01-28T09:27:00.000-08:00

When the dog barks every five minutes to go outside, come back in, go out, come back in…

When children burst into your office bickering about who gets to choose the next program on TV…

When the garbage truck outside beep-beep-beeps endlessly…

Isn’t it tempting to dream of escaping to a cabin in the woods or near the beach?

Uninterrupted blocks of writing time… perhaps a chance to talk books and writing with kindred spirits. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

The writing retreat doesn’t have to be a dream. Three Hamline MFA faculty members—Jane Resh Thomas, Phyllis Root, and Marsha Chall—are hosting a weeklong writing retreat in the woods this spring.

Here are the details:

Writing in the Woods Retreat

May 17-23, 2010

Spring Valley, Minnesota

The retreat features group workshops, individual critiques, craft discussions, time to write, plus opportunities to walk in the woods. The application deadline is March 19, 2010.

Jane, Phyllis, and Marsha are excellent writers and generous teachers. During my last residency, I was fortunate enough to be in a workshop with Jane and Phyllis. I learned so much from their focus on craft as well as their attention to the challenges and joys of the writing life. While I haven’t been in a workshop with Marsha yet, I enjoy her lectures at Hamline. She is funny, energetic, and enthusiastic.

Find more details as well as the application here: Writing in the Woods workshop blog and application.

A few of my favorite books by Jane Resh Thomas, Phyllis Root, and Marsha Chall:

Have you been to a writing retreat? Where? What did you like most about the retreat?

Subject: Describing Physical Reactions

2010-01-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

I ran into this paragraph while I was reading "The Truth About Dino Girl," Barry Lyga's story in Geektastic:

I never knew that being in love was a physical thing. I never knew your body reacted. Like when I saw Jamie and my stomach felt like someone had tied lines to it and pulled it in ten directions at once. Or the way I suddenly became aware of myself, of my body, when I sat across the aisle from him in bio--the way I felt my hair and my eyelashes and my lips and my nose and every motion of my body as I breathed, hyper-conscious in every way (p. 302).

Describing physical reactions is hard to do. So often, when I'm describing physical reactions in my writing, I tend to fall on standard phrases, like "my stomach knotted" or "she realized she was holding her breath." Lyga helps us understand Katie's sensations by using a fresh comparison (stomach pulled in ten directions) and by narrowing in on her hyper-consciousness.

Finding a precise way to describe physical reactions requires attention. This week, as a challenge, I will pay more attention to my own physical reactions--when I'm stressed, when I'm happy, when I'm tired, when I'm hungry--and try to describe them in precise, fresh ways.

Reading

I recently started A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. It's been on my to-read pile for a while now. After Lips Touch: Three Times, I've been craving books with rich writing. In A Northern Light, I love Mattie, the narrator, as well as the way Donnelly creates mystery by alternating between Mattie's current experience working in the Glenmore hotel and her recent past.

Although many more books lie waiting on my to-read pile, I'm on the look-out for other YA books that combine great plot with fantastic writing. Any recommendations?

Subject: On Spew, Snowflakes, and Jane Austen

2010-01-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

I have been accused of being too analytical in my writing. Several writing teachers have urged me to write more freely in my early drafts while leaving issues of structure, for example, to later drafts. This recommendation makes sense to me on a logical level, but sometimes writing “to see where the story takes me” frustrates me.

This month, I’m working two short stories. Without intending to, I’ve taken two different approaches to drafting: one is Let-the-Story-Flow and the other is Look-Before-You-Leap.

The first story, which I'll refer to as "Emily Babysits," began with an actual incident, a little kid throwing a full meltdown tantrum at the grocery store. How would a teenager handle such a situation? And so I began writing. I write a long, long story about Emily, who hates babysitting, and the little girl she watches. When I finished, I was surprised by how much I learned about Emily, her family, and her outlook on life.

This method, of course, is the philosophy behind Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month): Don’t worry too much about what to write—just show up at the page and type. Let inspiration take you where it wants to go. I’ve participated in Nanowrimo twice, and each time, I’m pleased to see where thirty days and 50,000 words take me.

But the tough part, for me, is then coming back to this amorphous blob of a novel, or in the case of “Emily Babysits,” story and structuring it into a clear plot. I looked for a clear story focus. It is a short story, after all. Then I drafted up an outline of scenes and started over.

I did not follow the outline. I wrote three new scenes—perfectly fine scenes, only by the time I got to the third one, I realized I was way off track. Where did that cat come from? Why hadn’t the kid Emily babysits shown up? And what was I doing? How could I have spent so much time on these scenes before realizing I was going in the wrong direction?

Spew. That’s what I had written. I had spewed scenes onto the page, and they were going nowhere. Grr. I closed the file and haven’t opened it since.

So my second story, which is my geek story for the StorySleuths StoryChallenge, started with an “assignment.” I began playing around with possible geeky situations. When I found one that excited me, I brainstormed characters. It would be a rivalry story. But that didn’t go anywhere, so I kept at it, focusing on the one character that I connected with most. What made her a geek? At last, after pacing around my office, I realized it wouldn’t be a rivalry… it would be a romance!

But by the time I figured that out late on Friday afternoon, I couldn’t imagine sitting down to start with the first scene. I was tired, mentally and physically (my hands hurt when I spend too much time on the computer). However, I did manage to hand-write a summary of the story.

This week, I’ve taken the summary and turned it into what I called a skeleton draft. The scenes aren’t scenes yet—no real dialogue or action. But they do tell me enough to give me a sense of whether this idea might actually turn into a story. And that’s encouraging.

This method, if I can call it that while I’m in the midst of drafting, corresponds to something I found online years ago, Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method. Ingermanson recommends you build up your story bit by bit, starting with a one-line summary, moving into a paragraph summary, which you turn into a page and so on. Of course, the idea of not wasting time on rambling appeals to the part of me that likes to see progress.

I still don’t know whether it’s better to start with an outline and write in a more orderly fashion or to ramble along following a story where inspiration takes you. My guess is it takes a little of both to create art. I would bet that when Laini Taylor comes up with those fantastic images in Lips Touch: Three Times (see my comments on Lips Touch here), it’s when she lets her fingers fly and her imagination run wild.

On the other hand, I can’t help but think of Jane Austen (ok, of Anne Hathaway playing Jane Austen in "Becoming Jane") handwriting those beautiful novels in days when ink and paper were not as abundantly available as they are now. She, like so many other writers, must have spent an incredible amount of time thinking about her stories before actually writing a single word.

Is it possible that today, in our world of pixels and word processing, we write too much? Should we think more before we type? Do any of you ever feel like you write too long? Or do you like what you find when you let your fingers fly?

Subject: When You Reach Me

2010-01-18T09:53:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Rebecca Stead and When You Reach Me, as well as all the Newbery honorees!

When You Reach Me was fascinating to read, with its themes of friendship and coming of age and its intriguing mystery, and its clever ending invites readers to circle back to the beginning and start reading again.

Anyone interested in learning more about the elements of writing in this book should click over to StorySleuths. Allyson Valentine Schrier and Meg Lippert reviewed When You Reach Me in November. All of their postings are found here: Congratulations to WHEN YOU REACH ME: StorySleuths' Consolidated Postings.

I'm looking forward to reading the Newbery honorees. I'm so happy to see Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon on the list as well as The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly, both in my To-Read pile.

By the way, the teen winner of the Schneider Family Book Award, Marcelo in the Real World, is the StorySleuths book for February. I hope you'll join us then and share your thoughts on Francisco X. Stork's fantastic writing.

Subject: Quantity vs. Quality

2010-01-16T13:45:00.000-08:00

Over at StorySleuths this month, we’re reading a fun collection of short stories, Geektastic, as well as hosting a short story writing challenge. Somewhat coincidentally, writing short stories dovetails nicely with one of my own personal writing goals for 2010, writing short.

Let me explain the motivation for this goal. Novels are my form of choice, both for reading and writing. Opening the pages of a novel, I dive into a new world. And when I close the covers for good, I often miss my favorite characters for days.

While reading a novel requires a time commitment of a few hours or days or even a week, writing a novel requires far, far more. In the past five years, I’ve worked on drafts of three novels. Where reading a novel is like flying from New York to San Francisco, complete with in-flight snacks and entertainment, writing a novel is like walking the same distance, without a map.

Sometimes, it’s easy to get lost.

And really, to make the metaphor more apt, to write a novel, you need to make the trip multiple times, with each revision layering in more emotion, more characterization, more detail. The good news is that by the third or fourth time around, hopefully, you’re traveling a more direct route from start to finish.

In other words, it takes a long time to write a novel.

And I’ve been one of those “I can only do one thing at a time” kinds of people. I made the decision to focus my writing time on my novels only, rather than jump from chapter book to picture book to non-fiction and back. I don’t regret that decision, but sometimes, I hit roadblocks and I don’t make any progress on my drafts or revisions.

I don't just get lost. I stall.

This is where the quantity vs. quality argument comes to play. How many of you have heard the anecdote from the book Art & Fear, where the pottery instructor tells half of the class to focus on quantity alone—he’ll grade them on the number of pots produced, with no concern about quality—while the other half must focus on quality alone—they must only produce one perfect pot. To his surprise, when he compares the work produced by both halves, the quantity group ends up with better quality work as well.

More work produces better work in the long run.

So this year, while continuing working on my novel revision, I also plan to write two short stories a month. I’m hoping short stories will let me work on shaping plot, experimenting with character, and revising. And since I also want to have more fun with my writing, short stories give me an opportunity to write about a variety of subjects—when my novel gets serious, for example, my stories can be light.

What kinds of writers are you? Do you work on one project at a time? Or do you have several projects going at once? What’s your take on the quantity vs. quality story? Have you ever conducted such an experiment?

By the way, if you like the idea of playing with quantity, please sign up for the StorySleuths StoryChallenge. We’re encouraging writers to take a stab at writing a Geektastic-inspired short story. It doesn’t have to be perfect—we won’t be judging stories. Just suggesting a general story topic (something geekish), and asking writers to check back in with us on January 31^st. We’re even offering a prize!

Subject: StorySleuths StoryChallenge

2010-01-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

Inspired by our Geektastic reading this month, we're hosting a short-story writing challenge over at StorySleuths. It's a chance to put the tips we've gleaned in our sleuthing to work. I hope you will join us.

Just click over to StorySleuths StoryChallenge, add your name to the comments, write your own version of a geek-inspired story, and then check back with us at the end of the month. One writer will win a StorySleuths magnifying glass!

Subject: Completion Resolution plus Lips Touch by Laini Taylor

2010-01-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

Complete was one of the six verbs in my six-word resolution for 2010. My goal is to complete the work I begin. And that means more than just complete a scene or a chapter or a draft. Complete has to mean, for me, take a writing project as far as I possibly can.

To the point where I feel comfortable sharing my work with others.

Can you tell I’m beating around the bush? I can’t even say what I really mean…

Complete work means ready to submit to editors and agents.

Geez, was that so hard? Actually, it was. Here’s the thing—oh, and this is a big confession—I haven’t submitted anything actively for a long, long time.

When I first started writing, I wanted to get published so badly. Anyone who’s been writing for more than a year knows what I mean. You’ve seen newbies at writing conferences or in classes, and they’re the first ones to raise their hands and ask all kinds of marketing and publishing questions, and everyone else knows that they only advice they really need is “Focus on the writing.” Ok, so that was me. I sent out a query letter after my first conference and, a few months later, got a very lovely rejection note to my first submission.

My first and ONLY submission.

Since then, I’ve worked on craft, trying to focus on improving my writing without worry about publication. I've written a couple of picture book drafts, a couple of short stories, and three middle grade novels. All in draft form. Now, it’s not like I’ve never shown these things to anyone. But I’ve never considered them finished.

Now it's time to finish something. To take a story or one of my novels as far as I possibly can. That is my task.

So, now that I’ve made my confession, let me move on to the word complete. In December 2008, YA author Laini Taylor spoke at our local SCBWI meeting. She told the crowd that one of the ways she combats perfectionism is to “cultivate the habit of completion.” I love the way that sounds.

"Cultivate the habit of completion.”

Last year, I said I would do that. I did not. This year, though, I resolve to complete my work. I will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I will be more like my friend Debbie, who sets target goals for herself and meets them.

How will I do this? Good question. Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, a great new book, has a list of tips for sticking with resolutions on her blog. Here are several tips I plan to follow:

Write it down (check)
Hold yourself accountable
Set a deadline

My first deadline is to revise a short story I drafted last month into decent shape to share with my friend Susan in two weeks. More details on this resolution to come.

Lips Touch: Three Times

I mentioned Laini Taylor above. Last month, I read her new book, Lips Touch: Three Times, a National Book Award nominee. Lips Touch features three stories, each introduced with artwork by Laini’s husband Jim Di Bartolo. Can I just say how much I admire Laini’s lush writing? Her work is filled with metaphors and vibrant imagery. Here is a line from the first story, "Goblin Fruit":

Kizzy wanted it all so bad her soul leaned half out of her body hungering after it, and that was what drove the goblins wild, her soul hanging out there like an untucked shirt (p. 21)

Like an untucked shirt.

"Goblin Fruit" is probably my favorite of the three stories. I love the juxtaposition of Kizzy’s life in a small Oregon town with the superstitious traditions of her eastern European family. Let me highlight just one more passage. Here, Kizzy sees herself in a new light, thanks to the attention of the handsome new student, Jack Husk:

Kizzy wanted to be a woman who would dive off the prow of a sailboat into the sea, who would fall back in a tangle of sheets, laughing, and who could dance a tango, lazily stroke a leopard with her bare foot, freeze an enemy’s blood with her eyes, make promises she couldn’t possibly keep, and then shift the world to keep them (p. 41)

The paragraph continues in the same vein, spinning out a fabulous array of dreams and images. It’s poetic and unusual and adventurous.

Sometimes, when I write, I’m in such a rush to get the story down that I forget to spend time developing the language. This sentence from “Goblin Fruit” is an example of the richness that comes with staying in the moment and developing the emotion. Don’t you connect to Kizzy’s longing? And furthermore, don’t you suddenly wish you, too, had such dreams?

I recommend "Goblin Fruit" and Lips Touch: Three Times to anyone who loves great stories with beautiful, lyrical language.

(By the way, you can read more about Laini's method work working at Not for Robots)

Subject: Six word resolution contest

2010-01-08T09:27:00.001-08:00

The team over at Teaching Authors is sponsoring a six-word resolution contest. Here's mine:

Write. Create. Revise. Complete. Enjoy.
Repeat.

What a fun way to keep the resolutions simple. Let me know you if enter the contest--I'd love to hear your six-word resolutions! (P.S., for those of you doing the Comment Challenge 2010, entering the contest at Teaching Authors and then posting your resolution here counts as TWO comments. Don't be shy!)

Subject: New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

Back to work. So nice to spend a few weeks with kids and family, and oh-so-nice to get back to the routine of work.

Wondering where I’ve been and where I am now? To answer the second question, I’m at home, and I will not be heading to Minneapolis for the Hamline MFAC residency that begins tomorrow. I decided to take a semester off. I was feeling burnt out (think I mighta mentioned that in an earlier post or two) heading into my critical thesis semester. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to spend my time on creative writing, testing out all of the great skills I learned while working with last semester's faculty advisor, the wonderful and generous Jane Resh Thomas. Jane’s comment when I told her of my decision was supportive: “The muse hates to be abused.” I therefore resolve to nurture my muse by finding more joy in my writing.

As for my absence from Composition Book, it’s not just due to the holiday crazies. I’ve been blogging over at StorySleuths. Last month we dug into A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck. This month, we’ll be reading short stories from a collection called Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd. Please click on over. In addition to posts from StorySleuths Allyson Valentine Schrier and Meg Lippert, we'll feature posts from Alvina Ling, the book's editor at Little, Brown, and Greg Leitich-Smith, who wrote one of the fifteen stories. Even if you haven’t read the book, leave us a comment to let us know what you think.

Speaking of comments, I’ll be joining the Comment Challenge 2010, sponsored by Mother Reader and Lee Wind. The idea is to leave five comments a day on kidlitosphere blogs for the next 21 days. I always feel a little shy about leaving comments, especially for bloggers I don’t know personally, but I LOVE getting feedback on my posts, so I’m going to be brave and reach out. Be encouraging and enthusiastic. That’s another resolution for the year.

Happy New Year to all! I wish you joy, happiness, good health, and success in your endeavors.

Subject: Going forward, looking back

2009-12-09T16:23:00.000-08:00

I might have mentioned feeling, oh, weary last week. This week is better. I feel really good about my decision to set my novel aside for a while. It’s been a relief, and I’m actually excited about what I might work on next.

How did I shift from weary despair about the present to excitement about the future? By looking back, to the past, of course.

You know how sometimes different things happen at the same time—a series of coincidences? Well, in the midst of wondering why I ever started writing this novel, I flipped through my old notebooks, trying to find when the story sparked and what enchanted me about it. What had I been trying to achieve in the story?

Then, I saw a link to Linda Urban’s blog post about spine. She talks about your Big Why: “your reason for doing what you do.” I had seen the post several months ago, and it inspired me to read Twyla Tharp’s book on creativity. Why was I writing in general?

I also received my weekly email from Author, the online magazine from the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association. It had an article by Bob Mayer that encouraged writers to set up strategic writing and career goals. Where, he asked, do you want to be in five years?

I needed a personal mission statement. Fortunately, I had already written one of those, a year ago when I was applying to Hamline’s MFA program. Here’s what I said I wanted to achieve:

I want to write entertaining and suspenseful middle grade and young adult novels about coming of age, finding inner strength, and the excitement of discovery and knowledge. I want to write about vivid characters who show readers the sense of possibility, the essence of hope and the truth of being human. I want to write novels that feature a strong connection to place, with beautiful language, striking details, and multiple layers. In other words, I want to write the kind of book that you can’t put down on a first read, but that you’d enjoy reading a second or third time for new details and deeper meaning.

It’s a little long for a mission statement. I’ll have to sharpen it. Still, it gives me a clearer picture of what I’m working to achieve.

Subject: A Season of (writing with) Joy

2009-12-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

You know how the turkey carcass looks after Thanksgiving dinner? Empty and picked-over? That’s how I felt last weekend. And it was more than normal post-holiday blues. I felt weary, weighed down, blank. I suddenly realized that my work-in-progress is at a dead end. I’ve worked on it so long that the joy has disappeared.

My usual recourse in times of stress is to dig into a good book or visit a bookstore. I love to lose myself within a story, following great characters on adventure. And I find solace in bookstores, among the shelves. But somehow during the last few weeks of November, my desire to read also dwindled away.

No reading? No trip to the bookstore? Anyone who knows me can attest to the seriousness of my situation.

In fact, as the weekend progressed, I fantasized about scenarios that involved some kind of sabbatical from all writing and printed material. It would be like those monastery retreats, where you agree not to speak for two weeks, only I wouldn’t read or write. Maybe even for more than two weeks. Maybe for two months.

Of course, as soon as I thought about going cold turkey, I panicked. What would I do if I didn’t write? What would I do with that stack of books to read? How would I survive the holidays without visiting a bookstore?

Julia Cameron says that artists have an “inner well” or “artistic reservoir” that she likens to a “well-stocked trout pond.”

Any extended period or piece of work draws heavily on our artistic well. Overtapping the well, like overfishing the pond, leaves us with diminished resources…. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them—to restock the trout pond, so to speak (The Artist’s Way).

My pond, to use Julia’s terminology, was empty.

First order of business (that is, after a wonderful talk with my husband), I reconnected with friends. Writing is so solitary. Sometimes I feel completely isolated in my office, tapping away at my computer. My friend Susan reminded me that we all struggle with writing at times. She told me she planned to follow Anne Lamott’s advice to “put the squeaking mouse in the jar and close the lid shut so I don't hear it anymore.” My friend Allyson supported my desire to spend more time on fun creative projects. And Liz reminded me to do what brings me joy.

I felt so much better. I am grateful for the support of my family and friends.

My goal for the coming year is to write with a sense of fun and joy. I will set my India novel aside so I can explore new characters, short stories and chapter books. I want to write books that are fun to read, and the only way I can do that, I think, is by writing with joy.

Subject: Join Story Sleuths for A Season of Gifts

2009-12-01T16:18:00.000-08:00

This month I'll be guest blogging at Story Sleuths with Allyson Valentine Schrier. Starting next week, we'll be posting about writing tips gleaned from Richard Peck's new book, A Season of Gifts.

If you're unfamiliar with Story Sleuths, please click on over. Allyson and her blogging partner Meg Lippert, who teaches Writing for Children at the University of Washington, read and analyze respected new children's books as writers, searching for tips and ideas about how to improve their own writing. I think of their blog as a combination book club for writers (comments are welcome) and master workshop on writing. In the last two months, they featured Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Rebecca Stead's novel When You Reach Me.

During the first week of December, Meg and Allyson will look at two picture books, Snow Day by Komako Sakai and A Penguin's Story by Antoinette Portis. Then Allyson and I will finish out the month with A Season of Gifts. Next month, they'll be taking a look at a new anthology of YA short stories, Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castelluci, and featuring John Green, Libba Bray and M.T. Anderson.

Subject: Book Fair Confessions

2009-11-23T13:47:00.000-08:00

While many people in the Children's Literature community spent last week at the National Council of Teachers of English conference in Philadelphia, I attended a different sort of literary event, working as a cashier at the Book Fair for my daughter’s elementary school.

Do you remember getting those newsprint flyers for Scholastic Book Orders when you were a kid? Helping out at book fair always reminds me of the joy I felt when my teacher handed out those order forms. I would spend the entire bus ride home circling my choices, and then I would eagerly wait for the books to arrive.

(Confession #1: Even now, I can’t wait for my daughter’s order forms to come home once a month.)

The Scholastic Book Fair brings those flyers to life. Our school library was transformed into a veritable bookstore. We sold everything from Jerry Pinkney’s beautiful new picture book, The Lion and the Mouse, to posters of cute puppies.

(Confession #2: I’ve always fantasized about owning a bookstore. This was my chance, for a couple of days, to shelve books, talk books, sell books.)

And what fun Book Fair was! Mad rushes at lunch recess to purchase bookmarks and pencils before the bell. Baggies filled with pennies, nickels, and dimes, oh my! Children buying Christmas presents for their teachers and siblings. Happy faces over stacks of crisp, new paperback books.

(Confession #3: Of course, I added to my stack of reading while I was there…)

That should hold me over for a while… Happy Reading!

By the way, you can click over to Jane Yolen's journal entry for a complete report on NCTE fun in Philadelphia.

Subject: Doubts, despair and stubborn persistence

2009-10-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

Short story: A vacation + homework deadline for Hamline + life = too much time away from novel revision

Longer version: I feel like I lost the thread of my story sometime during the month of October. What is this novel about? Is it about anything? Should I keep going? Trust that something will emerge?

I hate the way doubt creeps up and takes over. Sometimes doubt sends me into a spiral, stealing precious time away from writing and paralyzing me. When that happens, I tell myself I have to keep plugging along. What else can I do? I knew that writing required persistence, skill, and discipline. I had no idea that writing required so much faith. Faith that a story will emerge. Faith that time and effort will yield results someday.

Did anyone see the Junot Diaz article in November’s Oprah Magazine? Diaz is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. He describes the process of writing his novel. He wrote every day, eight hours a day, and never got past page 75.

“Want to talk about stubborn? I kept at it for five straight years. Five damn years. Every day failing for five years? I’m a pretty stubborn, pretty hard-hearted character, but those five years of fail did a number on my psyche. On me.”

Every day failing for five years—that kills me. Sometimes I wonder if I can keep going. Can I keep trusting that if I show up every day that eventually, I will finish a book, produce a work that matches the vision in my head? Do I have faith?

Diaz says that his struggle taught him what a writer really is.

“In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.”

I hope he’s right.

Subject: Story Structure in The Boyfriend List

2009-10-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

How does structure affect story, and vice versa? The basic structure of a story is simple--beginning, middle and end--but is that always the most effective way to tell a story?

E. Lockhart's The Boyfriend List uses an unusual narrative structure, a list, to weave together a story that jumps between the recent past, the current time and childhood. Rather than revealing the story in chronological "real time," Lockhart mimics her protagonist's soul-searching thought process through the list.

If you're unfamiliar with the book, here’s a synopsis:

A series of social debacles have taken 15-year-old Ruby from “reasonably popular” to leper in a matter of weeks. Her boyfriend dumped her. Her friends won’t speak to her. Everyone at her private Seattle prep school gossips about her. Even her carpool pal refuses to drive her to school. But she doesn’t want to talk about any of that, so her new therapist, hired when Ruby suffers panic attacks, asks her to make a list of boyfriends, past and present. The list gives Ruby the opportunity to reflect on her past, her friendships, her parents and herself, all the while coming to terms with her current situation. The first-person narrative, which includes footnotes, reveals Ruby’s insights on romance, boys, growing up and high school life.

(So awesome, by the way, to read a book set in Seattle.)

Each boyfriend on Ruby's list becomes the subject and title of a chapter in the book. For example, in an early therapy session, Ruby jumps back ten years, remembering her preschool friend Adam. She thinks he's irrelevant, but then she recalls meeting Adam again as an eighth grader when at a dance with her friend Kim. And then she realizes, "the story about Adam at the mixer was a story about Kim. And how we used to be." The chapters are structured to integrate the backstory elements that are critical to Ruby’s self-understanding, while building suspense by pushing off the answers to readers’ questions about what went wrong with the boyfriend and why Ruby’s friends won’t speak to her.

It’s interesting to note the similarities between The Boyfriend List and John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines. Like Ruby, Colin, the protagonist of An Abundance of Katherines, was recently dumped. Rather than go to therapy, he takes a road trip, during which he too reflects on his past girlfriend experiences. I think Lockhart came up with a more elegant solution for integrating the backstory with the list structure. (Both books also feature footnotes, another similarity…).

The narrative structure makes The Boyfriend List an interesting read by increasing suspense and incorporating relevant backstory in an organic way. By revealing information in non-chronological order, Lockhart creates suspense, builds character and hooks readers.

Now the question for me is how can I play with narrative structure to improve my own writing?

Subject: Cooking and Writing

2009-09-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

When you're cooking a meal, do you clean up as you go or leave all the dishes for later?

When you write a novel, do you edit what came before or plow ahead?

I thought about the similarities between cooking and writing last night. I was making dinner, feeling smug that I had time to wash the bowls and knives from my vegetable dish before cooking my main course. It's nice not to have to scrabble through a pile of cutting boards and measuring cups to find the good knife, and it makes dinner more enjoyable knowing I won't have to spend hours cleaning up later.

It occurred to me, as I washed the bowls, that cleaning up as I go sums up the revision work I did earlier in the day. I was stuck, having taken a few days to finish up my Hamline homework packet, followed by a weekend off. I wanted to move ahead--I believe in the notion that forward progress is imperative--and yet I couldn't. Not until I fixed what was really bothering me in the previous two scenes. I started with some nitpicking. I embellished a few lines. Then I discovered the problem. It was a matter of attitude. My character was acting way too whiny and paranoid. I had to fix it before I could move on.

Of course, to carry the analogy along, I will have to clean up more when I finish the entire revision. Just like I still have to face dishes at the end of dinner. Hopefully, making little adjustments along the way will help avoid a huge mess later.

What about you? What works best when you're writing?

Subject: Blogs to Read

2009-09-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

Check out these two blogs:

Darcy Pattison, author of Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise, blogs about writing and revision. She often features interviews with authors who share their revision stories, such as this one with Lauren Bjorkman.

This week, Through the Tollbooth is interviewing Laura Resau, author of Red Glass and The Indigo Notebook (coming out this month). Her novel What the Moon Saw is one my stack of favorite books. It features Clara Luna, an American teen who travels to Mexico to spend the summer with her grandparents in rural Oaxaca.

Subject: Banned Book Week

2009-09-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

It's Banned Book Week, both a celebration of free speech and a reminder that censors continue to challenge books deemed inappropriate due to language or content.

I would like to thank the many authors, librarians, journalists, teachers and readers who work so hard to fight censorship and promote the freedom to read.

What gets challenged and censored most? Click here for a list of the top ten books challenged in 2008. You can also find a more detailed listing here.

Laurie Halse Anderson's novels Twisted and Speak recently faced challenges in three different school districts. You can read her blog for insight on the process and updates on the efforts to keep those books available to young readers. Thank you, Laurie, for writing books that reveal emotional truths about difficult experiences.

Thank you, too, to Judy Blume, Chris Crutcher and the many other children's and young adult writers who battle censorship. Judy Blume, the author of many of my favorite books as a child, edited Places I Never Meant to Be, a great collection of short stories by censored writers.

For record, some of my favorite reads from this year's list of challenged and banned books:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Looking for Alaska by John Green
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Me, Penelope by Lisa Jahn-Clough
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

What are your favorite banned or challenged books?

Subject: Exterior and Interior Emotions

2009-09-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

Last night, I heard Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out, talk about her newest book, The Curse of the Good Girl, which is about helping girls live more confident lives free of the the "good girl" social confines. Simmons is a great speaker, and she did an awesome job reaching out to the middle school girls in the audience. One of the many things I learned was that "ehh" and "whatever" are not actual emotions.

Books like Odd Girl Out and The Curse of the Good Girl help me as a writer by reminding me of the issues that face my middle school and high school characters and readers. Sometimes through memories that I can mine for emotional responses. Sometimes through recalling experiences that seem trivial now but were a big deal as a teen.

They also help me with developing my characters' emotional responses. Simmons talked about exterior vs. interior emotions and using this distinction to get to the root cause of your feelings. Outward expressions like anger or frustration are exterior emotions that often hide other, deeper emotions such as embarrassment, fear, jealousy or regret. As a writer, this makes me think about combining surface level conflict with opportunities for the character to think about inner conflicts, needs and desires. Interior emotions seem to be the fodder for character thought, choices and growth.

Anyway, it was a great lecture at Town Hall that included some technical wizardry. Simmons encouraged audience members to get out their phones and text responses to questions like "What do you think of when you hear the term 'good girl'?" She showed the responses in real time on the screen behind her. (Can you imagine asking a group of middle schoolers to use their cell phones during a presentation? They loved it!) Go see Rachel if she comes to town on her book tour. And if not, check out her latest book. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Subject: Favorite Quotations from Donald Maass

2009-09-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

I often refer to Donald Maass's book Writing The Breakout Novel Workbook when I need ideas about where to focus in revision. I picked up his newest book, The Fire in Fiction, a few months ago. In the back, he talks about originality and theme. How, when so many books come out every year, do you write something unique?

The following quotations helped me when I learned about a book that had a similar storyline to my work-in-progress and panicked, wondering whether I should continue writing:

Originality can come only from what you bring of yourself to your story. In other words, originality is not a function of your novel; it is a quality in you.

He follows that with:

Finding the power buried in your novel is not about finding its theme. I would say, rather, that it is about finding you: your eyes, experience, understanding and compassion. Ignore yourself and your story will be weak.

This resonates with me because it reminds me that I have to put myself into my writing. I'm not just telling a story--I'm telling a story that means something to me. That is what makes it unique.

Subject: Writing Down the Page

2009-09-18T16:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have a hard time starting a scene. I write the opening sentence once, twice. Delete those. Start over. Struggle to find the right words. Come to realize that I cannot structure a decent sentence. Wait, hands poised on keys. Wait. Wait.

Many writers recommend freewriting. For me, one of the best ways to get unblocked is to use a technique called Writing Down the Page from The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray and Bret Norris.

Basically, you focus on action and imagery, keeping sentences or phrases short, line after line. The result looks like a page or more of free verse. The authors claim that writing this way, fast and without regard for punctuation or exposition, frees your inner critic.

This really works for me. I focus on the action of the scene, and as I do so, I end up surprising myself with imagery and ideas.

Here’s an example:

[Note: Izzy and Mom are driving through Delhi in a taxi. A beggar startled Izzy.]

Izzy turns her face and hides in the duffle bag

She feels Mom’s hand rubbing her back

The car accelerates

A few more minutes, the driver says

Mom: Good. Thanks. We don’t have much time.

Her voice sounds thick.

Izzy keeps her eyes shut

Likes the darkness

Smells the faint plastic smell of the fabric

I had forgotten about the duffle bag, but it’s a perfect place for Izzy to hide. What’s more, that notion that she “likes the darkness” feels like something that could take on more meaning.

Now, I can write.

Subject: Revising and Rewriting

2009-09-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

This fall, I’m revising my India novel. I finished the first draft of this novel back in April. I spent about six weeks agonizing over what to do next with it. My Hamline faculty advisor, Claire Rudolf Murphy, advised dropping a storyline or changing the timeframe. I couldn’t. I knew something had to change, but what?

I decided to take a break from the story and work on something else. I picked up the draft of another novel. Same problem. It needed big changes, but where to start?

Now it’s September, and I’m back to the India story. My new faculty advisor, Jane Resh Thomas, suggested switching from first person to third as a way to gain some distance from my 14-year-old protagonist. Furthermore, she said I must put the old draft away. I’m rewriting. “Don’t peek,” she said.

Scary? Yes. But also incredibly freeing.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve brainstormed scene ideas and plot layers. I made mindmaps of different storylines. I wrote a one-line description of each possible scene on a 3x5 card. The stack of cards grew. Then, using my big dining table, I arranged the scenes, added cards, removed others and rearranged them. My story is taking shape and growing.

That storyline I couldn’t remove in April? Gone.

The hardest part, for me, is taking the leap from analyzing to writing. I could live in analysis mode (plotting, researching, character building) forever. Why? It’s safe there. It’s a world of possibility. A world free of mistakes.

But it’s also dangerous there. It’s limbo. So long as you stay there, you never move forward. You’re stuck.

I don't want to be stuck forever.

So today, I leaped out of story analysis and I rewrote the novel’s first scene. Or rather wrote it for the first time. It resembles the first draft but it’s different.

My character started her journey today, and so did I.

Subject: Definitions

2009-09-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

Composition Book

A composition book is one of a type of stock-bound notebook commonly used by writers and students. Although available in several colors, the original marbled black-and-white cover, with its generic label on the front, is the overwhelming favorite. Wikipe dia.

My journal of choice is the composition book. It lies flat when open, with no spiral binding, a key feature for a lefty like me. It’s small enough to fit in a decent-sized purse yet large enough for serious notes. And it’s unassuming—there’s nothing pretentious or fancy about it, which means I never have to worry about whether my observations are journal-worthy.

But there’s something more about Composition Book. It’s not just a journal or the title of this blog. It’s also the subject of the journal. Composition: Book.

The Composition of a Book

As a novelist, I’m interested in the craft of writing, what makes good books work, and how an author brings together elements such as place, history, character and time to create an engaging story. I’m on a quest to develop my skills as a writer.

While I’m actively writing my own novels, I’m reading, reading, reading. Mostly I read other middle grade and YA novels, but I also read books about writing. (For pure fun, I read adult mysteries—my favorites are the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear and the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King.)

I go one step beyond reading for pleasure, especially now that I’m attending Hamline University’s MFA program. I also look at how a book works. I love to uncover the structure of a novel or to discover the components that make a book unique.

Here are the first nine meanings for the word composition from an online dictionary:

com⋅po⋅si⋅tion [kom-puh-zish-uhn]

–noun

1. the act of combining parts or elements to form a whole.

2. the resulting state or product.

3. manner of being composed; structure: This painting has an orderly composition.

4. makeup; constitution: His moral composition was impeccable.

5. an aggregate material formed from two or more substances: a composition of silver and tin.

6. a short essay written as a school exercise.

7. the act or process of producing a literary work.

8. an academic course for teaching the techniques of clear, expository writing.

9. the art of putting words and sentences together in accordance with the rules of grammar and rhetoric.

In this blog, I’ll be looking at the components of novels, analyzing structure and considering the overall effect of a book using examples from my reading. Since I am also working on the second draft of a novel, I’ll also share my experiences with the writing process.

Subject: Why "Composition Book"?

2009-09-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

When it came to titling my blog, I brainstormed ideas about my goals as a writer, my inspirations, my challenges, etc. in my notebook… a Composition Book.

This quote from E. M. Forster illustrates my reliance on my trusty Composition Books:

“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” E. M. Forster

My notebook is more than just a repository of information. It’s where I work through my thoughts and experiment with ideas. I hope this blog will be a similar forum, with the added benefit of being able to communicate and collaborate with others.