Author: beckylevine

Becky Levine is a children's book writer, working hard to strengthen her picture-books skills. She is the author of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, a book to help you get started with a critique group, learn to revise from a critique, and strengthen your own critiquing powers. She has also published two nonfiction children's books with Capstone Press. She is currently seeking representation. Becky lives in California's Santa Cruz mountains, where she spends a lot of time sitting on the couch, knitting needles in hand, thinking through the next revision. At her day job, she writes grants for a nonprofit healthcare organization.
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Waky, Wakies: Stirring Up the Little Gray Cells

Posted on by beckylevine

A few days ago, Joyce Moyer Hostetter, posted on Facebook that she was looking for something new to do, a skill that would stretch her brain. She got lots of ideas, and I can picture her now–with those little cartoon lightning bolts shooting around her head.

I think we forget how much we need this new stuff, some activity that’s different from our norm, even when the norm is what we absolutely love to do. Patterns get created, then grooved, then–too often–settled into concrete that hardens around them. It does take a new hobby or exercise to shake things  up.

I’ve got this new job, and a lot of little bits of it are doing that shake-up for me. Sharing an office, mixing up steady work with the putting out of small fires, meetings! and lots more. But the biggie–the one that’s turning out to be the most fun–has totally caught me by surprise.

You might want to cover your ears just a bit for this one. Or, you know, duck down behind the nearest bunker.

I’ll whisper it…budgets

I know! I can hear you now: Budgets?! But that’s…MATH!

The thing is, it’s “creative” math. 🙂

Actually, I think what’s going on is that right now, with this job, a budget has become a tool I need to understand and actively use. It’s also a thing that, when you have a specific purpose for working with it, becomes actually understandable and real. (Unlike, you know, geometry, since I have never once had to, as an adult, actually figure out the surface area of a cylinder. Just saying.) And I am perfectly capable of adding and subtracting, even–with a little refresher “google”–calculating percentages.

I’ll share another little secret. A huge percentage (see how I snuck that in?) of nonprofit people working in the arts are former English majors. Or artists. Or theater people. Or dancers. And guess how they talk about budgets and numbers. Like this:

“You need to use those numbers to tell a story.”

“Look at what your budget narrative is saying.”

“Think about who’s going to read that budget and what they’re looking for.”

I tell you…I’m home.

Still, I’m not saying it’s coming easily. I’m having to stay awake and listen. I have to stop taking notes for later and concentrate on what the teachers are telling me now. I have to do little scribbles of math in my notebook (yes, me!) to make sure I have things right. I raise my hand and describe my situation–you know, as an example to help everybody else in the class–to get confirmation that I’m on the right track.

And, yes, it’s waking up my brain. Instead of coming home from a days’ training workshop dull and lethargic, I come home tired, but amped up. I’ve talked to people who have been doing this kind of work for decades, and they say this is the stuff you keep learning–this is the stuff that keeps the job new and interesting. And I’m willing to bet a WHOLE lot that they didn’t start from as early a stage of financial understanding as yours truly.

What’s new for you? What have you recently added to your life that’s stretching your brain and catalyzing those neural chemicals? (And, no, I don’t care if there aren’t actually any neural chemicals to catalyze–I don’t have to know that to write a budget!) What are you thinking about trying out?

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The Story of a Symbol

Posted on by beckylevine

All-righty. This tale may take a few moments in the telling, and may also feel rather Becky-centered. BUT…I swear, there is a lesson in here for us writers. For this one, anyway.

In terms of my writing and my reading, I’m not usually a big fan of symbols. Or maybe I’m just not a big fan of when they’re, oh….let’s just say it: Not Used With Skill. I know, as we come up the literary-analysis ladder in school and on into college (and maybe book clubs?!), symbols are something we learn about and something we look for in books and weave into our essays. I always thought, though, that the emphasis that gets placed on them as a big deal can get a little heavy, and that symbols themselves often end up feeling something like that cartoon anvil landing on your head.

This morning, I got a little punch in the gut about how symbols can actually sneak up on us in life and–to extrapolate–that maybe I’ve been a little dismissive of their reality and the power they can carry in a story. You know, when they Are Used With Skill.

Going back in time a ways–a few years ago, my husband and I switched banks, opening up a new checking and savings account. As is pretty typical, the bank official asked us if we’d like credit cards to go with the account. We sort of did the Why Not thing, which–smart or not–is not the actual story. The story starts when the very nice official told me…ME…that I didn’t qualify for a credit card.

There were plenty of logical reasons, the most prominent being that I hadn’t had a work-for-an-actual-company job for ten years. I’d been freelancing, and–you know–the income wasn’t seriously high. (If it had been, I might very well still be doing it!) So, yeah, I got it–on paper, not such a great credit risk.

Still…

I felt like a stereotype. Like a woman who was living in the 1950s, not the 2010s. I felt like, as much as I love my husband, this was tying my identity just a bit too much to his. Honestly, I had to take a few breaths to take down the slight, but actual nausea I was feeling.

Anyway, guess what I did today. I had to get some cash from the bank ATM, and I had a few extra minutes, so I popped inside and talked to a teller about whether, having had a p/t time for a few months, I might actually qualify for a credit card. Of. My. Own.

According to the teller, yes, I do. Now I know I haven’t filled out the paperwork. I know I haven’t submitted it, received approval, or got the card yet. But I walked out of the bank with an application.

I walked out with a symbol.

That symbol carried a lot of thoughts and feelings with it. Independence. Security. Pride. A sense of starting over at a not-so-young age actually mixed in with a little bit of that much younger Wow! that I remember when I got my actual first card decades ago. Frustration and some anger that I had been in a place where the application wasn’t a possibility, even though I went into that place for reasons that I thought then and still think were good.

A whole mix of shades and layers.

And I thought, Oh. And I thought of the automobile in my WIP. It’s been playing its way through the plot and character development work I’ve been doing. It’s connected to my MC, but is it the right one for my MC? Does it carry enough weight in her personal story? Does it have the weight and resonance of, oh, say…a simple, little credit-card application?

Symbols. Yeah. They’re a part of life. And maybe I need to be a little more open about letting them be a part of my writing.

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Where I’ve Been

Posted on by beckylevine

Here, really.

Well, not here-on-the-blog here. You may have noticed that! But here, as in my usual area on the planet. Which just occupies a bit more physical space these days and a little less virtual space than before.

I knew things were going to shift when I took my job. Basically, it’s all shifting in a good way–the work is busy and interesting and challenging and being done in the midst of great people. I’m making slow, but steadier progress on my writing. I’m sticking with yoga and even adding back a little more other exercise than I’d been doing. And the sanity-management is going fairly well, I’d say.

Still reading plenty, of course!

But, yeah, the blog has suffered.

I’m not letting it get to me. I love all my blogging friends who show up every few weeks just as much as those who post multiple times a week. I check in plenty, even if I’m commenting less (another less-free-time hit for me). Also, I started blogging Way Back When I realized that my comments on other blogs were getting long enough to be considered…posts. I started for me, because I do love thrashing out ideas about writing and reactions to books I’ve read and, oh, yeah, just ho-humming about life stuff. And I do still enjoy putting up posts.

It’s just not, obviously, going to happen as often.

I am fairly sure that–at some point in the future–my posting will pick up the pace again. Something will come into my life, or I’ll see a sparkle that needs to be followed down a path–and all of a sudden, the ideas will be popping, the need to share and question and clarify will bubble up, and the posts will fly. Knowing this (as I never did when I was young) is one of the things that is making life so interesting these days. And it’s one of those things that keeps me from panicking at the lulls in any one specific activities or from pushing myself to get everything done. At once. Immediately.

Life changes. And then it changes again.  I’m not usually one for sports metaphors, but–better to ride the wave than get bonked in the head with your surfboard, right?

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Scene Goals: Getting Back to What My Hero Wants to Make Happen

Posted on by beckylevine

Many authors say the writing process is different for each book they write. I’ve certainly found that to be true, in many ways. Let’s not even talk about how much longer this novel has taken me to write–to draft–than anything else I’ve worked on. Let’s not talk about finding out your hero wasn’t who you thought she was, or that the historical event you thought you were writing around wasn’t actually part of this story.

BUT…this week, I’m coming back to a piece of the process that has been a true and necessary part of every story I’ve successfully told. I’m not talking about success in terms of publication, but in terms of writing The End as many times as needed and getting that story to the point where it feels submittable. Writing and “finishing” a book.

And that’s setting down for each scene (or for each “bit” in a picture book) what the hero is trying to make happen. Their goal, yes,  but specifically a goal that means they have to execute steps to reach that goal. The thing I always come back to, and the thing that I think actually helps me write the scenes, is that the goal doesn’t have to be a big one. Maybe it even shouldn’t be, although I’m very unfond of anything to do with “shoulds.” But I find that the smaller goals, the ones that are driven by everyday things like hunger or tiredness or anticipation or selfishness, are also more personal and, consequently, perhaps more engaging. Obviously, as you get further toward the crisis and climax (or climax and crisis–I always get the order mixed up!), the goals may get bigger. Still, I think a goal of say, Finding the Code (to disarm the bomb) is a more immediate, more relatable-to goal, than Disarming the Bomb and even more so than Saving the World (by disarming the bomb).

Today, after spending all these months working through Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook and developing a basic plot from Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat, I finally started opening up each scene card in Scrivener and writing down Caro’s goal. I don’t have any bombs in my story (okay…yet!), but I do have big, emotional problems that she’ll have to face. Even saving-the-world type problems. Today, though, in Act I, here (with some names/elements changed to protect the innocent) are the scene goals I wrote down for Caro.

  • To ride in an automobile (circle 1912)
  • To get her father on her side about the automobile ride
  • To persuade, argue, or negotiate her mother into letting them go in the automobile
  • To have fun on her first automobile drive
  • To call her brother on his bluff
  • To get her (injured) brother out of the automobile
  • To see her brother at the hospital

So, okay, yes, you can see that there are bigger problems at stake than just the action. But if you look at the part she can actually try to impact, the actions are things like taking a drive,  embarrassing her brother, and getting him out of a car. Underneath it, sure, are things like being in charge of her own life, rescuing a loved one, and taking a stand. Those, however, aren’t her scene goals. They’re themes or big story threads or needs that have to be resolved, somehow, by the end of the book.

They’re not specific, personal actions.

Along with each goal, I add a few notes about obstacles: Who does what and why to get in her way? Who does what and why to help her, but–perhaps–make problems for her later? What does she herself do to create the problem? And does she achieve or not achieve the goal by the end of the scene?

I’m sure these goals and–oh, yeah–those obstacles will change. The whole danged plot will change. But…

I think I’ll be able to write the scenes. This is the story for which I’ve started a first draft twice, gone pretty far along in the page count, and then realized I was struggling with a hairball-mess of a tangle I didn’t know how to clean up. That’s why I’ve backed up and replotted and why, this week, I’m retrying that step of the process that’s worked for me in the past. Maybe it’s the one part I need to follow for every book I write, or at least for every book I write until structure becomes more automatic and natural for me. (Some day?)

All I know is that it feels at once familiar and reassuring, that it’s helping me visualize Caro out there, doing her thing, fighting her battles, and living her story. And possibly, just possibly, helping me tell it.

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Thankful Thursday: A Little Bit Selfish

Posted on by beckylevine

I know most Thankful Thursday posts are about things that come to us from outside–from people we love, from life, from chance. Today, though, I’m turning the lens at a little bit different angle, and mentioning a few things I’m thankful for that I give to myself. Obviously, these all happen withe the support of my family and other people close to me, but I also realize how important it is that I gift them to myself, that I choose the things I need in my life and that I take steps to make them happen. I think, too often, we forget about those pieces of life and then–honestly–we’re not good to ourselves or anyone else.

Today, I’m thankful for:

  • Yoga. I know one of the ultimate goals of yoga and meditation is that they will help us open up to the world around us, to others in that world. Right now, though, this is for me. I started it a year ago, when the creaks and groans coming from my body joints got a little too loud for me to ignore. What a surprise when I found that, not only did my body feel better with regular practice, but–oh, boy: my mind is so much more relaxed and happy.
  • Doing the work I choose. Yes, I know I’m lucky. I know life and chance and my husband have a whole lot to do with the fact that I get to choose what job I’m doing right now, that I got to choose the path I wanted to head down when I went back to work. Still…I made an effort to find out what I might like. I decided not to go backward, to a job that I’d been more than done with when I exited it years ago. And I decided not to just grab the first thing that came along–although, believe me, it was tempting. I looked for and found something that fits into my schedule and location as much as anything can, and I went for it. Yes, luck. But also, taking on the challenge.
  • The fact that I share my writing with others. I think sometimes I talk glibly about critique groups, about how necessary and helpful they are (and I totally believe that), but you know what? Taking that first step- is hard–either the very first step of joining a group  or that “first time” we go through every time we send out a new piece. I do get why some writers don’t take the step. For me, though, it’s an absolute must. I cannot write in a vacuum. And–when I feel it’s ready–I submit my work to agents and editors. Again, hard. I write because I need to (see below), but I also want to see my writing on bookshelves and e-readers. And I want children and teens to get a chance to read it. So…I share.
  • Saying no. This is a big one for me. Oh, sure, growing up, I said no in plenty of ways. By not showing up in the first place. By pleading some made-up excuse. By managing things so I didn’t get asked. This is very possibly the biggest way I’ve grown over the decades. It’s kind of like what I say about revision: knowing you’re going to revise gives you the freedom to let the first-draft writing flow. Knowing I can say no gives me the freedom (and power) to step myself out into the big, wide world and see what comes along.
  • My writing. Of course I want to be published. Of course I want someone out there to read my work and say, “Hey! This is good. We want it!” All those authors I love so much, the ones I rave about in reviews, the ones whose books I read as a child and collect for my shelves today–that is so much the tribe to which I want to belong. BUT…I write for me. I write because I have a plot I want to see on paper, I have a character who–no matter how much she tries to fight me–I am going to figure out. I write because the electricity that flows from my brain to my typing fingers when a story is going well—there is just nothing like it. But you know what? Those words don’t write themselves. I’ve had ebbs and flows of writing my whole life–who doesn’t? But I started making up stories almost forty years ago, and I’m still at it. I’ve even gotten better. And, honestly, I just love that fact.

What about you? What are you grateful for in your life that you’ve given yourself? We all get from everybody around us, but we give, too. And it’s so important, I think, that we remember ourselves in that caring. So leave me a comment and let me know: what is your gift to yourself?

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Surprise Books: Toby Forward’s DRAGONBORN

Posted on by beckylevine

I’ve been reading a lot of surprise books lately. Mostly, it’s been tied to my new Kindle and my browsing through the rather randomly organized Kindle “shelves” at my library. But every now and then, I take a book off a physical, you-can-actually-touch-this shelf and end up thinking, Wow–I didn’t see this story coming.

Today’s surprise read is Dragonborn by Toby Forward.

I picked this up because it’s a dragon book. Sort of out of habit, from all the years when I brought home anything about dragons for my son to read, or at least decide if he wanted to read. A bit out of interest, because after reading most of the dragon books I brought home for my son, I’ve become a bit of a dragon addict, too. And, oh, just because, you know–you never can have too many possible reads on your nightstand and/or Kindle.

So where was the surprise? Well, from the cover, I thought Dragonborn would be a relatively “young” middle-grade read, with a fairly simply storyline, not too complicated characters, and some cute stuff with dragons. A quick, light read–maybe for the end of a longish, tiredish day. I’m not really criticizing the cover at all–the dragons themselves are beautiful, I love the image of Sam up in the hills, with the lights of the city or village down below in the distant. But…I think the cover, especially the picture of Sam, did create the impression I had about what the story inside would be like. It has a kind of Disneyesque feel to it. Again, not a criticism, but definitely a certain feel.

And the story is just not Disneyesque at all. Okay, yes, someone important dies in the first pages (and that’s not a spoiler, it’s the opening!), but the death is told without high drama, without any of those intentionally overt yanks at the heartstrings that were such a part of oh, say, The Lion King. It’s told with a quiet sadness, almost an inevitability, and with a lovely thread of where-does-this-take-us-now for Sam, the hero, and for the reader.

The rest of the book lives up to the opening. And, to me, counters that first impression of the cover. The writing is clean and clear, so–yes–a strong reader of 8 or 9 could totally read this book. And, I think, enjoy it, but they would need to be a relatively sophisticated reader for that age, which is different than being a strong reader. The vocabulary wouldn’t be over their heads, and the sentences are tight and not overly long. But…the whole story leads you along, in a good way, with unanswered questions. Sam is the hero, and you are given access to some of his thoughts, but not all–so some things come at you as an Oh! moment.

One of my favorite of these moments is when Sam ends up at the wizard college and is asked to prove he can do magic. We know that Sam has been taught that magic is not for games, that it’s not to be wasted, and we know that the wizard college teaches just the opposite–that wizards should use magic for anything they need, or anything needed by a client who’s willing to pay the wizard. What we don’t really know is whether Sam has much, if any magic. And then, after Sam confirms that the head wizard, Frastfil, is ordering him to do magic:

Sam clapped his hands. The door slammed shut, wrenching itself away from Frastfil’s hand. Frastfil found himself swept back into the room and forced around the silly desk that his whatever had owned and into the armchair. The chair spun around  and around and around, and lifted into the air, with Frosty holding on in terror of falling out. All the books jumped off the shelves and formed a cloud of paper and boards around Frosty’s head, spinning in the opposite direction from him, like a dust whirl in hot summer.

Whee! In an instant, we not only know that Sam has magic, we know that he has a lot, and that–even more importantly–he is smart about that magic.

Other elements take this story up a notch for me and, I think, for older readers (older than 8 or 9, AND older than me!) who might not be attracted by the cover. Sam is the hero, but he’s not the only point-of-view narrator. The story is broken up between Sam’s story (told in not-so-close third-person), entries in his apprentice’s notebook, and the relatively closer third-person point of view of several other characters, including some good guys, some bad guys, and a dragon. At times, that dragon narrative is further complicated by being the mixed-up pov of a dragon that has been taken over by something evil. At other times, we’re in a kind of dream-state where Sam is seeing and feeling through the dragon’s vision, and vice-versa. And we get into the pretty nasty pov of the antagonist–close up to her ickiness without getting to share exactly who or what she is. The truly nice thing is that all this is done without confusion, in a way that left Me-the-Reader happy with what I did get to know and just the right amount of intrigued with what the author wasn’t yet sharing. Really beautifully done, but….again, I feel like the cover is presenting a story without all those layers.

What am I saying here? I guess a bit of reminder that you really can’t judge a book by its cover, a bit of frustration that–on another day, in a different mood–I would have passed on this book because of the cover, and a big chunk of recommendation that you check out this book for yourself. Mixed into all that is the usual curiosity about what goes into a cover decision and how many different ways there are of viewing a story and its market.

Interesting little addition: As I was writing this blog, I went over to Toby Forward’s website to get the link and to see if there were any more books coming in this series (yes, there are!). And I saw that the book was first published in Great Britain and that–whoa!–the British cover is totally different. Do I think it’s better? Well, artistically, I like it more, but I’m not actually sure it does a truer job of showing what’s coming once you turn to page 1, since there’s no sight of Sam anywhere to be seen.

And Dragonborn is very much Sam’s story.

What am I leaving you with? I guess: Read the book yourself and make your own decision about the covers! Luckily, I think you’ll enjoy the work.

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Compressed Time

Posted on by beckylevine

Sometimes, I think getting older is really all about remembering, or re-learning, things I’ve already known.

Years ago, I played tennis on my high-school team. The first year I did it, life became a bit crazy. I’d always been (and still am, in many ways) someone who prefers lots of open time in her days, time to relax in between tasks and even take the doing of those tasks at a leisurely pace. Suddenly, I had practice after school every day, THEN chores, homework, and the rest of life. I loved the tennis, but when I look back I see that year as a whirlwind of racing from one place to another, of doing things–even breathing–much more quickly than I was used to. And in much more concentrated blips of time. If I remember correctly, I was pretty darned effective in those blips. Okay, not in my math classes, sure, but you could have given me 20 more hours a week of math time, and it wouldn’t have helped.

There have been other times in my life when this happened again–when I became suddenly busier, or hit a stage in which my days felt scattered and crazy, when I hadn’t yet fallen into a more organized pattern. My first year of college, my first full-time job, when I first joined a critique group. Most of these times were also accompanied by an increase in productivity, or focus, even with the fewer available hours.

And here I am again.

When I knew I was going back to work, one of my concerns was how I’d keep my writing going. “If” was not an option. I had been volunteering at the museums for about a year, and I’d been doing that work from home. I had expected that they’d want me to keep doing that–the museum office space is not what you’d call “huge.” But, no, they wanted me on-site, and it’s turned out to make a lot of sense–for the organization and for me. I’m much more productive there, without the distractions I have here. And when I do work an occasional day at home, the change helps me focus and get everything done. I can be on-hand for meetings or for those let-me-just-grab-you-for-a-quick-question moments. There’s a lot of work, so I have to stay open to bringing some of it home, but…

I have days off. Typically without much, if any, museum work to do.

Which means…writing time.

Obviously, no, not all day. Life stuff that isn’t getting done on work days waits for me. Yoga must be fit in. So, yes, off-days are more relaxed than work days, but…they’re still relatively compressed when you compare them to the days I used to have. With hours I could have just filled with writing. Day after day. After day.

I so wasn’t.

Not recently. Part of this was that my YA historical was haunting me in the bad ways–it would pop out of corners just to remind me that it was actually pretty scary, that I had no clue how to make it happy. Part of it was feeling a bit divided about whether I should be working on the YA, or the picture book, or even looking back at another project for revision. (With, I remind you, probably enough free time that I could have been working on them all!) And a big part of it, I now realize–all over again–was that my time was not compressed.

Since I started work, I have taken a hotel day to plot out almost all of the YA historical. I have finished revising a picture book and started it on its rounds. I have started revisions on two other picture books, submitting drafts to my critique group. I am grabbing at chunks of time so small I would have scoffed at them before, as “not enough,” and I have opened up a file and thought, or played, or written a few more words. I have made more progress in the past month than I had in the three months before I started the job.

Once again, life is showing me that change is good, busy is good. As long as you’re willing to make it so.

And, because I couldn’t resist, and in honor of Jerry Nelson, who passed away last week:

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Kate DiCamillo’s THE MAGICIAN’S ELEPHANT: Beauty and Wonder

Posted on by beckylevine

I’ve been thinking about this post for four or five days. Ever since I got a few pages into The Magician’s Elephant. Because I could tell right away that this was going to be one of those books. One of those books that is so brilliant, so lovely, and so…magical, that I can’t figure out what or how the author–in this case, Kate DiCamillo— has done to get all this beauty on the page.

If you’ve read many of my other reviews, where I pretty much talk about the pieces of a story, the elements of writing in which the author just rocks, you might guess that this–this not knowing–can drive me crazy. Just a little bit. You know, at the same time as I’m falling in love with the book.

Which I did with The Magician’s Elephant. On every page. (Or as my Kindle calls them, every “location.” I know. I’m so not used to that yet.)

I’m going to give you the basic premise/intro of the book (without spoilers), but be warned–no plot retelling , or character description, can convey what is so special about this book. A young boy named Peter hears from a fortune teller that his sister, Adele, is alive. He also hears that to find her, he has to follow the elephant. Peter lives in a European city in which–guess. There are no elephants. Until…

That’s it. That’s all the storyline you’re going to get. The arrival of the elephant is just one of those things you need to read in DiCamillo’s writing, not mine.

So what am I going to talk about?

The world. The voice. The magic.

The Magician’s Elephant is, I think, maybe an example of what some people call magical realism. The city Peter lives in could be any European city–for all I know, it’s a real one I haven’t heard of. The story could take place any time before cars. At least there are no cars in the book. There are social classes–super rich down to Peter, who lives in a small room at the top of a house with a retired, and slightly not-sane, soldier, who could have fought in any past European war. Before cars.  And then something magical happens.

You probably guessed that, with the title and all. Except the magic I’m talking about is not the magic of the magician. Yes, he does something, and that something is big and has big consequences, but the magic is more. The magic is the feeling DiCamillo conveys that anything–anything–can happen in this world, this little world of Peter and Adele and the policeman Leo Matienne and his wife Gloria. And the elephant. And the feeling that the anything is always going to be something good and something right.

Wait, you’re saying. What about conflict? What about problems? What about the tension created in the reader when they can’t tell if things will turn out all right. Come on, Becky, you’re always arguing in favor of making things worse, amping up that conflict, keeping the reader wondering.

Yeah, well, guess what. In this book, in these pages of DiCamillo’s writing, it doesn’t matter that you aren’t worried about Peter. What matters is that–somehow, magically–she makes you turn every page, wanting more, even as she creates this incredibly strong faith in you, this absolute belief that Peter will find Adele. And that they’ll be happily together again.

DiCamillo does keep you wondering about the how: what exactly will Peter do, who exactly will help him, what actual steps will lead Peter back to his sister and make the elephant happy as well. So, yes, I’m sure that, technically, some of the page-turning need comes from the curiosity she evokes in the reader.

But what really keeps you reading, I believe, is that sense of magic. That sense of absolute possibility and hope.

I am not a sappy person. I don’t like sappy books. I like a happy ending, but I’m very dissatisfied when I hit one of those that feels forced or at odds with where the story needed to go. So it’s not just that everything comes together at the end that made me love this book. That never works for me, by itself.

It’s the language. If I had hours and hours available to me, I could probably take a page of this book and pick it apart for the words and phrasing that DiCamillo crafts that create what is for me, a thing of beauty. Of course, the characters matter–Peter’s longing for his sister, his grief over the promises he made his mother that he hasn’t been able to fulfill; Adele’s dreams about the elephant, Sister Marie’s flying dreams, Madame LaVaughn’s need for understanding and attention. Every character in this story has a problem, a goal, and–most importantly–a connection to the others. Of course, the plot is strong–one thing causes the next, which connects to something earlier, which leads to another action. Perfect. DiCamillo doesn’t miss a story beat. Of course, it’s the surprise events, the twists, even the coincidences, that add to this feeling of wonder–magic does happen here, and magic leads to people coming together, people questioning assumptions, people doing things that count.

But…yeah. The words.

Nathan Bransford put up a post the other day about whether the publishing industry cares too much about good writing. Then, here, he includes a full comment from one of his readers to that post. In terms of the publishing business, no, I’m guessing the industry doesn’t need to stick to publishing books written as beautifully as The Magician’s Elephant. I’m not naming any other titles, but I would take any bet that several we can all think of made gazillions of dollars more for their authors (and publishers) than The Magician’s Elephant did. I agree with Nathan when he says, “I’m unconvinced the majority of the reading public cares about “good” writing. They care about stories and settings and characters. Prose? I’m not sure I buy it.”

But. Yeah, you knew there was a “but.” Or a BUT!

I care. Oh, I so care. Prose like DiCamillo’s makes me feel like I’ve been wrapped in the most beautifully woven piece of tapestry ever created, one that is as soft as flannel and as shimmery as silk and in which gold and silver embroidery traces every detail. It makes me feel like I’m sitting on a sun-warmed rock above treeline, looking into a valley of greens and grays and who-knows-what animal life moving around in it. It makes me feel, at once, as though I never want this book to end and as though I need to put it down right that instant and turn to my own writing, in an impossible but timeless attempt to create something of my own that even comes close. 

Do I read those other books? Of course. Do I enjoy them. Definitely.

Still. There is in me, and I think in many others, a wish for more. For the beauty.

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Revision: Making a Mess

Posted on by beckylevine

We’ve all been there. Standing in front of the closet door, seeing how it really does close, how nothing’s pouring out–it’s all tidy and contained. Or you look around your office space, and everything is on a shelf, the floor is clean and swept, the books are on their shelves. Even your kitchen–you’ve done the dishes, put them away, wiped off the countertops, and mopped. It’s all pretty and shiny. But you know.

You know that underneath the shininess, it’s not all so good. You’ve got toddler dishes stuck away in the back, even though all your kids are in high school. You’ve got clothes that haven’t fit in five years and jeans that–yeah, you love how they feel, but–the hems are shredded and you lose your keys every time you put them in the pocket with the hole. The office shelves look neat, but the filing cabinet drawers barely close on the old papers you don’t need anymore, and the books…okay, you can leave the books. 🙂

Although, maybe not. In every revision, you will probably have to kill a darling. Or three. Which, yes, can hurt as much as donating those books to the library sale.

Revision is so much like cleaning shelves, or that office, or those kitchen drawers. You’ve written a story that has a cute voice and great humor, that creates images in the readers’ mind. It has a beginning and an end and at least some kind of middle. It looks good. Okay, pretty good. But, just like staring at the closed closet door, you know it’s not good enough. You know you’ve got stuff to throw away, things to replace, and–hoo, boy–this space needs some serious organization.

So you open the door. Or the drawers. Or the filing cabinet. And you start cleaning.

What you start with is a mess. An absolute, no-space-to-maneuver-around-the-piles, where-the-heck-did-THAT-come-from mess. And it’s hideous. You have no idea what to throw away, no idea where to store it until you’re sure it has to go, no idea what piles to sort everything into, and you really can’t believe any of this will fit back into the space it came from.

Revision.

I’m so there right now. I realized over the weekend that I was at that stage on one of my picture books where I don’t know enough about it to start revising. Oh, sure, yeah, I could play with some words, I could move a few things around, shift character roles, but that’s not good enough. That’s right on a par with taking out the two blouses that have never fit and handing them down to your teenage daughter, who’s been borrowing them for the past year anyway. That’s up there with moving the tupperware with the not-seen-in-years lid to the bottom of the pile and telling yourself you’ll use foil to cover the food. You’re cleaning the surface of things, but leaving the real depths untouched.

Revision.

I’ve said this many times, but it always seems to come back to me as a surprise. Not the fact that I have to do this tearing apart, not the fact that I have to spread all the pieces out and throw a bunch away. But how painful it is. How horribly and overwhelmingly messy that mess actually is. H.A.R.D. That’s what revision, true revision, is.

What keeps me going? Thinking about that truly cleaned closet–the one that has room for me to do a little supplemental, hanger-filling shopping. The kitchen cupboard that now not only has room for new glasses, but isn’t making me feel silly for hanging onto plastic cups that nobody in the house wants to drink from. The chance to rearrange the books I have left so they’re actually visible or to discover an awesome manuscript I’d shoved into a file and forgotten about. Space, freedom, and hope.

No pain, no gain. Trite, but true. When the alternative is hanging onto something that you aren’t completely happy with, there really is no other route. Standing still is not an option. Moving forward–even with all the chaos and discombobulation–is.

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Friday Five: Randomocity

Posted on by beckylevine

1. I ❤ my critique group. They tell me when they love my writing, they tell me what my picture book is actually about (and they’re right!), and they hand me ideas for MORE picture books. Plus, they SO, SO keep me motivated.

2. I got to B&N early today for my critique group meeting, so I brought my Kindle to read. I think I heard the Nooks hissing at us as we walked by. Maybe the printed books, too. Logically, in terms of pure love-of-reading, I know it’s all one world. Emotionally, my stomach felt a little queasy.

3. This is the first summer in a long time when, by the end, I’m not saying, O.M.G., School has to start NOW! Probably because the new job has me out of the house 3 days/week. Possibly because there are only two more years of high school in our future. Eep.

4. Every now and then, as August winds down, I feel myself looking forward to some gray skies and gusty winds. You can all remind me of this when I start whining about the rain and cold.

5. I got the page proofs of my Hounds book for Capstone this week. It really is an amazing feeling to see your words put into a nice font and flowed into a layout complete with photos. I guess the question of the day is: If they decided to send me my author samples on Kindle, would those make me as happy as print copies? Oy. The loop goes ever and ever on, doesn’t it?

Happy Friday, all!