Blog Posts

Posted in Monday Map

Monday Map

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, I’m trying something new. (AKA: something that may show up this one time and never appear again, so don’t get your hopes up.) Early last week, I posted about my writing plan–what I was going to achieve with my fiction.

Guess what?

It worked. Pretty much. I didn’t get started on the antagonist, but I did finish up the secondary characters. And, seriously, I did it because I’d said I would. Here. Publicly.

So, I’m going to play with this for a while. I’m going to put up a quick post each Monday, mapping out my fiction goal(s) for the week.

I’m just doing a fiction goal, because–as I’ve said before–the other stuff all gets done. At least, that’s how it seems to work for me.  And, no, I don’t expect any of you, or the Internet in general, to be my accountability, but there is something about stating a goal–a manageable goal–that reminds me of its importance, and its doability.

So, this week’s goal:

  • Work through Donald Maass’ worksheet on the antagonist, in Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. Yes, I’m giving myself the whole week on this one, because the big problem with my antagonist (who happens to be my MC’s mom) is that she is not a problem. Or not the right kind. She’s kind of bitchy and whiny, and hyper-reactive, but she doesn’t do anything. She doesn’t create obstacles, she doesn’t move along her own path to conflict with Caro’s, and she doesn’t have any depth. So I need this week. Boy, do I need this week.

Feel free to leave your writing goal for the week in a comment. Or if you’d rather do your own Monday Map post, why not share the link? Motivation is contagious, right?

Have a wonderful, productive writing week.

Posted in Friday Five

Friday Five: A Good Week

Posted on by beckylevine

Tallying up the nice things that happened this week:

1. We had one day of rain. February in Northern California is usually The Month of Rain. And wind. And power outages. And trees falling. This was slightly more than a light drizzle, and then it disappeared. I’m seriously torn between wishing we’d get a good storm–because we need it–and totally enjoying this weather that is so Not Winter.

Okay, not completely torn. I am wearing shorts today.

2. I made it to three yoga classes in a row. No, not all in one day, but on three consecutive days. Last night, I tell you, that didn’t seem like such a good thing. I definitely pushed myself into the Overdone-It category. (Who knew ALL THREE TEACHERS would have us do lunges!) This morning, though, after a great night’s sleep, I feel fantastic. And only partly because I have designated today a well-earned day of rest.

3. I got Son reading Chris Moriarty’s The Inquisitor’s Apprentice, which I knew he’d love, and which he IS loving. Now I just have to find somewhere around here that I can buy a knish for him to try.

4. For this week, anyway, I got the pile of to-do’s under what seems to be some kind of control and got time into work projects AND fiction. On schedule today to finish up my secondary characters. Then…How to Turn Your MC’s Mother into a Truly Awful, Yet Sympathetic, Bad Guy.

5. I signed a contract. A book contract.

It’s for one book in a new series from Capstone Press, and it’s my first step down a path I’ve been wanting to get on for a while–writing NF kids’ books for educational publishers. Almost better than signing the contract (okay, not really) has been getting started on the research and outlining–it’s a totally different kind of thinking and writing from the fiction. The best way I can describe it is that it’s  like pulling your own, personal jigsaw pieces out of a pile that someone randomly tossed onto the table. And making sure the pieces are both true and intriguing. And then, yes, creating the puzzle itself at the same time. This may be the place where right-brain and left-brain thinking come together, at least for me.

All in all, an excellent week. What’s been the star in your past seven-days?

Posted in Uncategorized

Tuesday: Plan of Attack

Posted on by beckylevine

This week’s fiction-time will be dedicated to wrestling with characters.

By the end of the week, I’ll have worked through Maass’ secondary-character worksheet for two Hull-House-related characters and moved on to…GULP! the antagonist.

The goal is set. Now to achieve it!

Posted in Uncategorized

It’s All Good

Posted on by beckylevine

I realized last night, when I took a breath to think about it, that I blogged only once last week. And didn’t realize it until the week was over.

When I named gave this blog its name, Moving Forward on the Writing Path, I may have naively assumed that forward always meant…well, forward. With no detours, no twists, no stalls. I say “naively,” because, realistically, we all know the writing path actually looks a lot like this:

Signs I know life is getting busy?

  • Yep, fewer blogs.
  • More to-do lists on my computer. (Luckily, I use StickyPad, which means the notes are virtual, not physical–they “stick” better, don’t look as sloppy, and are editable! Not to mention that, when I decide it’s time to STOP working, I shut off my computer, and I can’t “hear” the notes nagging at me anymore!)
  • I read and reread lighter books, comfort stories that I can dip in and out of without worrying about the characters or trying to dissect the plots. Latest choices: Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series and Sydney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family stories.

What’s the busyness about? Taking first steps into a new writing area I’ve wanted to break into for a long time, hoping to add more non-writing work hours to my week, listening to all the stories in my head that want to be told. Yes, all good things. And you will hear more about them here, if/when they all get finalized and definite!

Still, if Jeeves showed up at my front door today, looking for a job, I wouldn’t say no. And I bet more blogs would magically get written, too!

Life and writing is about organization and management. And just when you think you’ve achieved that, change happens. Sorry…Change happens. Yes, with a capital C. Which is better than boredom and stagnation, but…it does put a few little hills and sharp curves into that path.

What do you do when new things come along? How do you weave them into a pattern that lets you settle into a rhythm and keep that forward movement.

A couple of links for you:

Gail Gauthier has started a series on time management for writers at her blog, Original Content. Check the posts out here.

And Debbi Michiko Florence has made this year her Year of Writing. You can find her series of YOW posts here.

And here’s to having it all…including sanity!

Posted in Character

(Good) Reasons for Combining Characters

Posted on by beckylevine

And, no, combining characters so you can finish up sooner with the Secondary Characters exercise in Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, does not count as a good reason.

Still…that’s when I ended up doing it.

I’ve been working for a while now on the Secondary Characters exercise in the workbook. Maass only requires that you do the exercise for a couple of characters, but I’ve been pushing myself to do it for all of them–all the ones I know at this point, anyway. And I was down to what I thought was the last one–a resident of Hull-House that, up till now, has been only that–a resident. Not anyone with a distinct personality or goal, just someone who linked my MC to the settlement house and popped up whenever I needed someone to do a Hull-House function. In fact, this character has been sort of multiple-personality up till now, because I hadn’t focused in on her yet as one person. Coherence? Continuity? Not so much.

As I started working on her exercise, I realized I was possibly getting her mixed up with another character–a visiting nurse. Who, no, I hadn’t done the exercise for yet, because I forgot about her. Or was thinking about her as a very minor character. As I started to think about the primary trait for the resident, I said to myself, “Self, you can’t use that trait. That’s the trait of the nurse.”

Unless…

What if the visiting nurse is the resident. Of course, this took me off on some all-too fascinating research about connections between the Visiting Nurse program in Chicago, started–yes–by Hull-House and Jane Addams (seriously, what wasn’t started by those people?!), and about the nurse who did live there for a while, and the visiting nurse who didn’t live there but had a station at Hull-House from which she managed operations, and Dr. Harriet Rice, one of the first black women doctors, who lived at Hull-House for a while…and on and on and on.  Good times.

Did I find a concrete, absolutely 100% certain answer. No. Did I find enough to tell me that I can take the idea of a visiting nurse as a resident as a possibility, a likelihood, that I can write into the story. Which means, yes, I can combine the two characters?

But should I?

I’m thinking yes. Why? What are the good reasons?

  • One less storyline/arc to develop and, more importantly, to weave through the story. Which means one less path to weave into my MC’s story, and one less path for my readers to have to keep track of.
  • Giving this one character the qualities I was going to distribute among two means, I think, more layers and depth for one person, rather than two characters who would be uninteresting, flat.
  • Crowding up a character’s life makes things more busy, more complicated. For this story in particular, that’s a good thing–because everyone involved in Hull-House did have a busy, complicated life. If she’s got so much to do that she’s running around like the proverbial headless chicken, well…that’s realism. And, hopefully, engaging.

What about you? Have you got a couple of characters who are thin on the page? W ho don’t have enough to do, who only show up once and haven’t told you when they want to show up again? Is it possible for you to combine then? What will it add to your story, even as it takes away one of the bodies on the stage, one of those names you sweated over? Good idea or bad?

Here’s to writing progress, however it comes!

Posted in History

Sad News: Hull-House Closes

Posted on by beckylevine

One more social service bites the dust. I could let this post become a rant about the economy and the state of the nation and the government, but I’m not going to go there. Mostly because the sadness I feel is less practical. It’s not like I don’t know what cuts are doing to people who really need help, all over the place–not just in Chicago. It’s not like, if you listen to the news, see what’s going on, that this would even come as a surprise.

Still…gut punch.

I’ve spent the last few years doing research, reading, about Jane Addams and Hull-House. I visited the museum (and the museum is not closing) a couple of years ago, and was delighted to find myself not in a stuffy, dark old building, but a light, airy place that I could easily imagine still reflected Addams’ taste and personality, where I could pretend Addams herself might come down the stairs at any minute.

So my response to the news is kind of self-centered, or at least Addams-centered. I’m thinking about how she would have felt to see this end, to see all she worked for–against all odds–go away. As wonderful and well-deserved a memorial as the museum is, I really don’t think it was Addams’ end goal–to have a museum. Her goal was to get to know all these people, the neighbors she “settled” near when she started Hull-House, and to help them. And today, the thing she built, the thing that–if I were talking about someone with less vision than Addams–I would say grew beyond anything she could have imagined, that thing is gone.

Except I can hear her scolding me as I type this, shaking her head, maybe even smiling and laughing at me just a little. Because it’s not gone. You know that everybody involved in Hull-House is miserable about this; you know that they and all the services in Chicago are going to be working to connect up with all the people who still need help.  Yes, Jane Addams was a phenomenon, an inspiration, but caring and action didn’t start with her, and they didn’t end when she died. I know this.

Still…such a loss.

This article in the Chicago Tribune talks about the closure, and you can listen to a brief piece on NPR about it, as well. If you want to know more about Hull-House and Jane Addams, of course, you should read her book Twenty Years at Hull-House, if only to hear Jane’s own voice talk about her venture. Another wonderful book is Hilda Polacheck’s memoir I Came a Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl. I also highly recommend Louise W. Knight’s Jane Addams: Spirit in Action, which is one of the most interesting biographies I’ve ever read, talking as it does about the people Addams met and the works she read, then dissecting and analyzing how they played into her ideas and idealogy.

Finally, of course, if you’re in Chicago, do stop in at the Hull-House museum. Touch base with Jane Addams, and all that she meant, if only for a few minutes.

Posted in Uncategorized

Me and E-Readers

Posted on by beckylevine

Ask anyone: they’ll tell you I love paper books. This is just one wall of my office.

And I’ve never been known as an early-adopter. I drive a twenty-year-old car; our house was built in the 1920s, and I still have one of those huge CRT  monitors taking up a big part of my desk. Heck, I’d probably have bemoaned the arrival of the pan-flute onto the music scene, just because it pushed the lute out of dominance. (Jayme Carter: SCORE!!)

And I don’t have an e-reader yet. The biggest reason for me is that I do 90% of my reading with library books. (I’ve just started counting up the books I read this year, and the number is going to be well into the multiple hundreds–which, realistically, would break any budget I might make, if I bought them all. Plus look back at that picture of my office: not so much empty space for new books. I am a big re-reader. But…checking out books on e-readers is now possible, and my librarian assures me that their e-book selection will be growing substantially.

Guess what I’ll be getting for my birthday this summer?

Here’s one of the big reasons I’m going over to the e-reader side soon.

My son bought himself a Kindle Fire in December. He loves it. I love it.  And I realized, when I bought him Neal Stephenson’s REAMDE last month, that my husband is going to need a Fire at some point, because if I’m buying 1,000 page sci-fi books that they’re both going to want to read, I’m buying ONE copy, and they’re going to loan it, cross-platform, back and forth.

Kids and E-readers. Remember, I’m always late to the game, so if you’re expecting some fresh, new revelations here, keep moving. All you’re getting are my thoughts.

I am a big fan of kids and e-readers. Emotionally, I’m right there with all of you who want kids to love the feel of a physical book in their hand, who want kids to be happiest surrounded by the smell of paper and ink (and dust, if you’re in a used bookstore!), who want them to know what it feels like to turn a real page and find out what happens to Anne and Diana after they drink the cordial.

Unemotionally, though, I have to say…why? My son was an early reader, starting with the choking noises and the frustrated “Mom!!!!!!” in the Calvin and Hobbes books and moving quickly onto chapter books and longer stories. He was born in 1996, so of course he started with paper books (It’s actually hard for me to even buy a board book!), and, yes, he loves them. But take a look at that photo of him with his Kindle–is it really any less wonderful to see  him (and the cat!) curling up with an e-reader than it would be with that incredibly thick paper copy of REAMDE? No, it isn’t.

I know there are kids who don’t fall in love with books as early as my son did. I spent several years volunteering in his elementary school, on the reading side of things whenever I could, and I watched kids struggling with their reading, not to mention struggling with the humiliation and anger they felt for not reading as fast as the other kids, for not yet being out of those numbered, beginning-reader books. Guess what: humiliation and anger do not foster a love of reading. Do you know how much happier some of these kids would have been if they could have sat at their desk with one of these books on an e-reader, where the other kids couldn’t see what they were reading? Where their “level” wasn’t on public display, to add to their frustration?  If these kids discover reading on an electronic device–and, yes, many do–why would we ever tell them NOT TO. Side note: why would we EVER cut library funding when, for some kids, this is the only place they’re going to have the opportunity to read electronically?!

What matters is that kids read. Frankly, I pretty much don’t care what they read, and I don’t care whether that reading is done in a paper book or an e-reader. Yes, we have some adjustments to make. Yes, I wonder about whether we really need to add more bookshelves to our house (10 years ago, I would have said they were mandatory!). Yes, I worry that I’ll have to somehow manage splitting my time between an e-reader (at the couch or kitchen table) and a different, paper book (in the bath). Yes, emotionally, I want to be able to curl up with a paper book with little kids, and to be able to keep giving physical picture books as baby gifts. (And you know I will!)

But e-books for kids are here. And more are coming.

I may not have my own e-book reader yet. But I am so, already, on the bandwagon.

Posted in Uncategorized

Friday Five: Yoga at Home

Posted on by beckylevine

So I’ve been taking yoga classes now for about 5 months, if you don’t count the MONTH I missed during Family-Plague season in the fall. (And I’m pretty sure going right back to the classes as soon as I was healthy enough to do so means I don‘t have to count it.)

I love my studio, and I love the classes, but today I’m going to do my own yoga in my own office. Why? Well, for Friday, I’ll give you 5 reasons.

  1. What else am I supposed to do with the beautiful pink bolster, lavender block, and sea-green therapy balls I’ve purchased. (Yes, I also have a lovely purple mat, but I do take that to classes with me!)
  2. Doing yoga at home this morning meant I could lay in bed for 15 more minutes, which is TWO hits of the snooze button, and you know you just can’t underestimate the value of the snooze button.
  3. I have some pretty cool yoga-type music I downloaded for just this purpose, that I’ve only played twice. Three times?
  4. My arms are VERY much still sore from Wednesday morning’s class, and you can just bet that in this morning’s practice, the instructor (that would be me) will not be doing the bridge pose. (Although I’ll do it again next Wednesday, if it’s in the line-up!)
  5. It’s just barely raining outside, the skies are a beautiful gray, I have a space heater, and a little by-myself yoga in my space sounds pretty darned good.

Just so you know, this will not be me:

What are you doing to enjoy your Friday?

Posted in PiBoIdMo, Picture Books

In Which I Look Into the PiBoIdMo List and Find it…Not ALL Heffalumps and Woozles

Posted on by beckylevine

It’s mid-January, which means 2012 is well on its way. Which means, yes, that I should be doing something with that list of ideas I came up with last November, in Tara Lazar’s PiBoIdMo. How easy would it be for me to let this all go? Oh, too, too easy.

So…

This weekend, I went back to step 1 on my post-PiBoIdMo to-do list: prioritize my ideas. Honestly, when I thought about putting my entire list of 50+ ideas in order, it was a bit overwhelming. I mean, I knew without looking that some of those ideas were pretty awful, and I just didn’t feel like spending much any time debating which of them most deserved pride-of-last-place. You know?

I came up with a compromise. I would build the list, and then I would prioritize my top 10. Seems rational, right? Realistically, how many of these ideas am I really going to have time to develop into a full story before next November, and PiBoIdMo 2012, rolls around?

I opened up each file and took a look at the idea, reminding myself what the file name I’d assigned it actually meant. And I have to tell you, as I worked my way through each and stuck them on a list, I was fighting back the slightly nauseating feeling that I wasn’t going to find ten story ideas I could even tolerate. You know, once that PiBoIdMo glow had worn off.

But guess what? Ten is just not that big a number!

I have my list. And that short-list is actually not horrible.  When I looked into the pit and dug around a lot, instead of heffalumps and woozles, I think I found a little honey. Most, if not all the ideas spark at least an image or a bit of character in my imagination, and the couple that don’t–well, they make me at least want that spark. Which is more than I can say for some of those ideas that would have ended up at the bottom of the list.

And the idea that landed at the top? That took the #1 post. Yeah. There’s a story in there I want to write.

How are you doing on your post-PiBoIdMo work? Found any honey yet?

Posted in Book Review

Friday Five: What I Love about Linda Urban’s HOUND DOG TRUE

Posted on by beckylevine

Quick note: If you’re interested in guest-blogging here about your critiquing experience, or your thoughts on critique groups, check out my earlier post here. It’s kind of like Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me…: You win for yourself AND another person. Okay, it’s not Carl Kasell’s voice on your answering machine, but it is a copy of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide!

And, now, on to the Friday Five!

Last week, I read Hound Dog True by Linda Urban.

And I’m telling you right now, if you want to read a book that is middle-grade fiction, go pick this one up. It hits all the marks–a wonderful, young hero who does not have the control/impact over her own life that a young-adult her would, but who still struggles to make the changes she needs to see happen. For today’s Friday Five, I’m doing a numbered “review” of all the things that really hit home for me about this story.

1. I love Uncle Potluck. First of all, how can you not be intrigued by someone called that, and Uncle Potluck lives up to all the humor you’d expect from hjis name. But, because Urban knows what she’s doing, he’s so much more than comic relief. He becomes Mattie’s shelter and safe place, one with just the right kind of support from which a person can push themselves out into the world to deal with things.

2. I love Mattie ‘s notebooks. So many of us writers use the convention of a journal or diary, and so many times it falls flat. Not here.  Along with, again, the humor of watching how Mattie records her janitorial notes, Urban gives us a full sense of the need and hope that Mattie gives those notes, that she gives the notebook itself. She writes these things down, because she believes they will give her a way out of a situation she dreads. From Mattie ‘s point of view, she has to get everything just right. And Urban makes us feel that desperation.

3. I love Quincy Sweet ‘s Aunt Crystal. Okay, I love Crystal, too, but it’s a Friday Five. Crystal isn’t very likeable as a person–she makes Quincy’s life too difficult for that, but, as a character? Oh, yes, I love her. Because she is exactly right. She is so absolutely different from her Quincey, and she is trying so hard to change that niece into something closer to herself. Yes,  she has good intentions; yes, it’s the only way she can see to be a good aunt, we still cringe and wince every single time she talks about the girl Quincy could be. Ouch.

4. I love the tin-can telephone through the ceiling. (If you want details, go read the book!). It is such a great carry-over from Mattie’s mom’s own childhood, something so perfect for her to try and bring into the “now” with her daughter. This telephone doesn’t work any better, technically, than the ones we all tried as kids, but the clunkiness and the continued attempts to make the connection more clear are just wonderful metaphors for the better place that Mattie and her mom are headed together. And it takes a lot for me to like a metaphor.

5. I love–and this is the big one–the way Urban so “gets” Mattie’s shyness. She absolutely understands the push-pull for the child who really, really wants to be part of “it,” whatever that it is that the other kids all belong to. It’s not a club, it’s not a social group–it’s just an ability to walk into a new situation, any situation, and have the right words, the right attitude. Oh, heck, the right anything. Mattie’s attempts to figure out words ahead of time, to picture what she might do when the time comes to do something, so resonated with me. As did the pain of all those plans, all that imagination, turning on Mattie, showing her instead all the things that she could possibly do wrong.

I was that kid. I recognized my child-self in Mattie, and I so wanted to reach out to both the character and to myself and distribute huge hugs. Hound Dog True is a wonderful story, but the real happiness I’m taking away with it is the thought of other kids, finding this book today, and not only seeing themselves in it, but also–more importantly–seeing the possibilities for hope and friendship that Mattie offers them.

Thank you, Linda.