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Brave or Not Brave? AKA There’s No Light in the Story

Posted on by beckylevine

Last week, I had a bit of insomnia. I get it periodically, nothing horrible, but where I just lay in bed not sleeping. I may have been exhausted two minutes before, but once my head hits the pillow, the sleepiness disappears (not the tiredness, drat!), and the thoughts & worries come in. Like I said, this bout wasn’t bad. I wasn’t all stressed, or tossing and turning, but just…awake. And thinking.

And I ended up thinking about my WIP.

I wasn’t sure if/when I would post about this. But as usual, I got the nudge I needed from “out there,” or in this case, from Jeannine Atkins, who blogged earlier today about her very special kind of bravery–speaking out. Read the whole beautiful post for yourself, but here’s what got me today:

I was scared to post my new year’s theme of loudness, to risk stating that I want something that I might not be able to achieve. I don’t want to jinx even luck I don’t entirely believe in, don’t want to annoy any listening spirits, who might mock me for sounding greedy. It’s embarrassing to display hopes and make them look big and fabulous and like we mean it.

Yeah. I know. This hit me right over the head, because–yes, I know what I want to do this year. I knew that night, with the insomnia, and it’s only been confirmed in the past few days by the emotions I’ve been feeling about the decision and the pull I’ve been experiencing back toward my writing, a pull that’s been gone for a while. But I wasn’t going to blog about it. Because, what if I’m wrong. What if I look foolish? What if I sound like a rank amateur? What if I’m actually not being brave, but am giving up? Quitting? Wimping out? I’m not afraid of the choice or the change–okay, yes, I am afraid of it, but I’m also excited and relieved and dancing just a little bit. What I was/am really afraid of is stating the new step out loud. Here. In public.

But I’m gonna.

I’m putting the YA Historical  novel (YAH) in a drawer. I have been working on this book for over two years now. I have written a full draft and a half and plotted the thing pretty fully twice. I have changed stories and tried to change characters and tried to play with voice. I have done GOBS of research about people and events I find fascinating and admirable and awe-inspiring. But what I’ve been denying to myself for quite a long time, and what I finally faced up to last night, is in the title of this blog. There is no light in this story for me.

I’m not really talking about the light of hope for the character or the lightness of a humor thread, although both of those are missing, too. I’m talking about the spark of light that, for me, creates the pleasure in the writing, creates the reason for opening the file and doing all that struggling to get things down and get things right. It’s really a spark of love for something that I’m putting on the page. And I can’t find that anywhere in the YAH. When I think about working on this book, I see the story that I thought to tell, and I know it’s a good one. I see the character I imagined, and she is powerful and strong and active. Both the story and that character disappear when I sit down to write about them.

I lay there that night and asked, am I just not trying hard enough. Let me quote Charlie Brown for a minute: AAAAARGH! Yeah, sure, very possibly, I’m not trying hard enough. I’m not sure how I would try harder, though, and the thought of it just makes me feel even more trapped by this book than I already do. Is it just that I’ve taken on more things this year, and a book of this size seems insurmountable? Sure, that’s part of it. Am I not good enough yet to write a historical novel? I sure as heck wouldn’t take odds against that thought. Is YA the wrong age-genre for me? I’m starting to wonder if…yeah? But, honestly, it comes down to the light. Because I believe that, if the light were there, none of those things would matter.

That night, I compared how I’ve been feeling about this book with how I feel about other ones I’ve written or am writing. The books I’ve finished: The middle-grade mystery, my first picture book, and the new Hounds book from Capstone? Oh, yeah, they have the light. Okay, sure, but they’re finished. So of course I love them, right? Well, two are finished but not published, and while they’re getting nice responses, they haven’t been snatched up. I still love them, though, with that feeling that is completely heart-based and absolutely non-cerebral. And how about the other books that aren’t finished, that still need a lot of work before they’re even close to done. Three picture books from last year’s PiBoIdMo that need plenty of revision, and one idea from this year that I still need to draft. Light? Oh, yeah. But every time I pick one up, I feel guilty about spending time with it instead of the YA Historical. Guilt?! SO not an emotion I need to mix in with my writing!

I thought of Debbi Michiko Florence’s YOW (Year of Writing), and I thought, what if I were to give myself a YOWF (Year of Writing Freedom)? What would that be like? And a picture of four brightly colored file folders popped into my mind, laying invitingly on  my desk, ready for me to pick up whichever one I wanted to, on any given day. I pictured my filing cabinet, too, with some ideas that I’ve stashed there over the past two years. One title joined the colored folders on my desk. The boy in it had a name and some problem that was rushing toward him, some problem for which he’d developed a coping mechanism that was causing…problems. An irritating sidekick joined him, and she told me her name. At that point, I got out of bed and dug out a new notebook, because her name was too perfect to risk forgetting. And suddenly I realized that YOWF, for me, was not just about being free to explore these projects, but it was even more the idea of being free from the YA Historical.

Am I actually being brave to make this change, to start going for what I really want? Or am I just being distracted by the sparkle of something bright & shiny? Is this the right choice? Well, if you’re asking me about the future, I have no idea. It’s very possible I’ll get to the end of this year and feel just as miserably unproductive and wrong-pathed as I’ve been feeling up ’til now. But the idea of working on the YAH for another twelve months, on the assumption/hope that it’s the right future decision just feels so completely wrong for my now. I know I haven’t been hating it this whole time I’ve been working on it, but I think if I try to work on it now–tomorrow or next week–I will hate it. So I’m tucking it away

So what WILL I be writing this year? Well, maybe this new idea. Maybe the pb revisions. Maybe something from another file. Maybe something that I haven’t thought of yet. But I am going back to freedom, to writing for the love of what I’m working on. This year, I’m writing for the light.

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Friday Five + One: HOUNDS: LOYAL HUNTING COMPANIONS

Posted on by beckylevine

When I came home from work the other day, there was a box on the table. That’s not unusual–I do plenty of online shopping, and there’s often a box on the table. It took me a minute, though, to realize where this one had come from. Then I pretty much ripped it open.

Ta Da!

houndsbookbox

I really loved writing this book, and not just because it was my first chance to put my name on the cover of some children’s nonfiction. Okay, on the cover of a CHILDREN’S BOOK (!!!!!), period. The research and the writing was lots of fun. So much fun, I can probably come up with, oh….FIVE reasons.

1. Talking to dog people. They’re different from cat people, you know. And, as much as I love my cat and all the cats I’ve had over the years, there’s a piece of me that is…doggy. I really do love meeting a dog on the street and stopping to say hello and chat for a minute. And I am talking about chatting with the dog, not just the dog’s owner. You know, if you try to have an active conversation with a cat, yeah, well…they’re not all that excited by the concept. Have you fed me? Are you offering a lap? I’ll be with you as soon as I finish staring into the corner to weird you out. Yes, they’re always good for a snuggle or a rub-against-the-leg on passing. But the level of greeting a dog will give you is just on another plane. Especially if they’re a smart dog and a nice dog and they know you’re a smart and nice person who’s not threatening their owner in any way. For research, I got to talk to several breed specialists and breeders. Very cool people who love their dogs, who get their dogs, and who were incredibly generous with their time and knowledge.

2. Figuring out the cool facts about dogs in general, hounds specifically, and different breeds of hound even more specifically–the cool facts that the kids reading the book would love. Things like the difference between how a scent hound and a sight hound will go after a rabbit. Like how high you really do have to build your fence to keep your hound from jumping it. Like how to pick your puppy out of a litter.

3. Sorting and sifting. Honestly, this is the best part, for me, about writing nonfiction for kids. You research and read and interview, and you gather simply oodles of information. For a 32-page book. Oodles. 32 pages. Then you pick the big concepts, the important topics, to share. Then you filtering out all the stuff you can’t write about and write tightly about the stuff you can. In an engaging voice. Engaging to the kids and engaging to you, as the author. It’s a persona, I think, different from the one in me who speaks out loud, different from the one who writes novels and picture books, different from the one who sits in my office at work. I think it’s probably the closest to a teacher persona I will ever have, and–happy days–it comes without lesson-planning  or classroom structure or essay grading (all of which I am in AWE of teachers for; none of which I’m any good at).

4. Working with Capstone. This part of the job was a joy from start to finish–from the first call from the acquisitions editor asking if I’d like the job (Hello?! Why, yes, I think SO!) to the submission and revision passes, to the emails back & forth about logistics and “tricky spots.” I am so lucky to have made this connection and have this opportunity.

5. Getting to say things like, “My book’s coming out in February.” ” Aren’t the dogs in my book adorable?” “Did you know that a hound can…? Oh, sure. I wrote about it in my book.” Honestly, I do try not to say these things too often or too loud, but you can bet I mutter them quietly around the house when I need a pick-up. It is just an awesome feeling. Like a little extra jolt of caffeine, or perhaps some other more illicit but absolutely risk-free drug. Especially when, as with this book, the work felt so much like not-work.

Now you’re asking, what’s the Plus One? Oh, you know, just that last thing that would have made the experience perfect…

+1. If I’d gotten to actually meet and greet with this guy–whose photo is, I believe, my favorite from the whole book.

nose

Irresistable!

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Maurice Sendak and Jo Knowles: Thoughts

Posted on by beckylevine

Probably a lot of you have already seen and listened to this “illustrated interview” clip from Terry Gross’ Fresh Air interview with Maurice Sendak. If not, go watch it now. Bring tissues.

And probably as many of you have also read Jo Knowles’ lovely post about Sendak’s “Live your life” quote from the interview. If not,,,you got it. Go read it now. More tissues.

Jo says so many things in this post that struck me when I listened to Sendak talking. I, too, thought how different he sounded in this interview than when I’d listened to him years ago. I felt immense happiness for him, for the love and happiness he seemed to have finally settled into, and I felt huge sadness for it, seemingly, having come so late. Overall, the happiness seemed to take the fore, but still I wept at the loss I was hearing–all the people who had gone from his life.  He told Terri, “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.”

In her post, Jo talks thoughtfully and beautifully about what this means and how we are supposed to do it. She says, with all the honesty & truth she always shares with us, “And yet…What about the days when you aren’t sure you can do it anymore? The days when everything you read or hear feels like it is shoving you deeper into the darkness.”

What about those days?

Or what about the days that aren’t so bad, but we’re just that littlest bit tired of carpeing each diem? The days when what we really want is to retreat from the world, to curl deep into a fleece sleeping bag, with only our nose out to breathe and our eyes out to scan the pages of the book we’ve brought into our retreat? The days when life is right out there, but getting to it means yet another day climbing in and out of a car, driving down yet another series of streets, meeting people’s eyes and nodding as you pass? What about the days when your goals are standing in front of you, waving penants, shouting, “You said you wanted to achieve us! You said we were important to you! You said you were making us a priority.”?

What about those days?

Obviously, it’s a balance. We can only output so much before we have to take some deep, restful breaths to recharge. Push, push, push, and you’ll push yourself right over the edge and crash at the bottom of the cliff. We know this logically. And, yet…when we do stop for the recharge, isn’t there often that little voice whispering at us to…live our life?

I think part of what Mr. Sendak was talking about that day was love. Love. Making sure you do seize the parts of the day that you can share with those you love, making sure you don’t waste them in bickering or sniping or silent anger. Making sure you look at the light in the sky that particular morning as you make your way to work; making sure you, as Jo says, “Pick up your cat and blow a raspberry on his belly.”

And, I’m guessing, this means extending the same love to ourselves on “those days.” Knowing that they are part of living life, even if most of us would pick a different gift from the Lucky Dip if we had our choice.  Spending time in that bickering or sniping or silent anger with ourselves about it…well, yeah, that just doesn’t help.

Here’s to all the wisdom Mr. Sendak left us with–his beautiful books; his words to Terri; and, yes, his intelligent, incisive, sarcastic crankiness. And here’s to Jo, for once again opening her heart to us, letting us all in, and giving us a way to talk about it.

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The Devil’s Not in the Details. The Delight’s in the Details.

Posted on by beckylevine

I dare you: Try saying that blog-post title ten times fast.

Anyhoo…

I just finished reading Elissa Brent Weissman’s Nerd Camp. If I hadn’t seen that the book was a finalist in the Middle-Grade category of the Cybils awards, I might not have picked it up. The premise of (another) kid feeling guilty and embarrassed about his geeky/nerdy pleasures didn’t pull at me. But I SO trust the Cybils judges. I put in on my Please-Give-Me-Some-of-These-Ebooks-for-Xmas list and, voila, it was waiting for me my inbox Xmas morning.

The premise still isn’t what makes the book, for me, anyway. Gabe is getting a new step-brother, and the boys get along great at their first meeting, except that Zack is pretty much a downer on school, reading, math teams–all the things that make Gabe’s life happy. And this meeting is just before Gabe takes off for six weeks of sleep-away camp–Gifted Camp. Or Geek Camp. Depending on your perspective. Gabe’s debate about keeping his geekdom secret or potentially risking his friendship with this new step-bro isn’t, as I said, all that new. What makes the book so fun, in my opinion, is all the details Weissman chooses to show us the humor, fun, excitement, and sheer happiness of geekitude. Little things, like, just before Gabe’s big lake adventure (that’s as much as you’re getting–no spoilers!), his timid bunkmate gives him “an article from National Geographic Kids about what causes rapids, which was informative.” Because, you know, there are so many rapids in a lake. But the detail fits perfectly with the “Just in Case” personality of this bunkmate. And note that Gabe sees it as “informative,” not necessarily helpful. That’s not a negative, for Gabe and his friends; they’re just assigning the article a different value. Happily.

Gabe starts a chart of things he can tell Zack in a letter–the things that make the camp seem cool–with another column of the things he can’t tell Zack without revealing the true nerdosity of the events/activities. Again, this could have been a chart that didn’t get me–it could have been trite, cliché, already done. Why was it so very much not that? Because Weissman does such a beautiful job of summarizing, precis-ing, nailing the details of the chapters we’ve just read and putting them into Gabe’s chart notes. Every time, in every column, she picks the perfect detail to make the event sound exciting, adventurous and so rockingly awesome that Zack will be seething with jealousy. And then in the next column she details the geek factor that, if Gabe were to share it with Zack, would yank the coolness mask right off.

I had a fun time reading the book, with lots of laughs and lots of “Oh, yeahs.” I also really loved Gabe and his friends, all the campers, because the stuff they were doing was so cool, but mostly because of the sheer fun and laughter they got out of doing it. I wanted to be involved in pretty much everything. Okay, maybe not  memorizing all those digits of Pi. But the Breaking of Color Wars?! You bet! (No, I’m not telling you about that? Go read the book!)

After I finish this post, I’ll be sitting down to shuffle through the sections of my Capstone history book, look at my notes, think about the info I’ve gleaned, and…yeah. Pick the details. The details that will show what was going on way back when, that will highlight events in an action in a way that will catch both my young readers and me. (If I don’t engage, believe me–the kids reading the book won’t either.) And I have to share those details in a way that, like Weissman’s writing, gets some kind of emotional reaction out of my readers. That reaction may not be laughter, but it better be something–interest, intrigue, curiosity, an eye-opening Really?!

Delight.

How about a little Share-and-Tell in the comments. What book can you think of, that you’ve read in the past few years, that had serious power in the details. A book in which the author picked and chose beautifully. A book you still remember, because of those details. The list will be more fodder for our 2013 reading lists!

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The New Year’s Post

Posted on by beckylevine

I’ve probably mentioned here before that I don’t like New Year’s Resolutions. They reek of deadlines and pressure and a life that is actually controllable(which implies one that I should be controlling!). They make me feel like this:

headinclamp

So, those resolutions, I usually avoid them. And I’m not making any this year.

Except…

Well, except that this year there is something I want to accomplish. It’s one of those goals that I keep coming back to, reminding myself about, and that I often manage for a while. This year, I’d like to manage it for longer than a while. I’m thinking of something like Debbi Michiko Florence’s Year of Writing (YOW) or Gail Gauthier’s Time Management Tuesdays. It’s not that I want to blog about this all year, but I would like to be able to make and stick to the commitment. The commitment of showing up.

Kelly R. Fineman got me thinking about all this (again) in her series on Writing Avoidance (start with the entry on December 21st). She talked about a lot of things that resonate with me–writing less when life is happily busy, writing less when you’re questioning the long-term success or value of the words you’re putting on paper, writing less when there are so many distractions that are easy to turn to and relatively easy to accomplish. I’m not sure if she mentioned this, but it’s a new one for me, so I’ll include it: writing less when you have multiple projects you could be sitting down with but feel split over them. In other words, there are days when the minutes I put into a project feel as though all they’re doing is pushing the completion of another project further down the timeline.

The other thing that’s going on for me, right now, that I need to do something about, is that–in going back to work–I’ve developed a different relationship with my computer(s). I know, silly, but true. In the pretty-much-just-writing days, I had a desktop and laptop, and the primary work I did on both of them was my writing. That was even more true of my laptop, because I kept all my bill-paying and other life-stuff on the desktop. These days, my laptop has become my work computer–it goes back and forth with me to the museums, all my work emails are on it, and it’s kind of an auto-pilot reaction for me to open it up and go right to the Museums folder of work. So, you say, why haven’t I reclaimed the Desktop as my writing machine? Yes, why? Is it because at the end of a working day, I don’t feel like turning on the computer again? Probably. Is it because I’m tending to clean up the rest of the house to my office desk, so it’s cluttered and disorganized and doesn’t feel like creative space? Yes.

But, bottom-line, whatever is making me avoid the writing is–go figure–adding up to less time writing. Wow, who knew I could be so good at something?

Does that make me happy? No. Do I want to do something about it, this year? Yes.

So, this is NOT a resolution, but hopefully it’s a commitment. In two parts.

Part 1. Show up for my writing. As much as life has changed in the past year, with going back to work, I do still have writing time. It’s there. It’s available. I want to start using it much, much more than I have. This will probably mean figuring out some way to deal with the computer/writing space issue, some way that I don’t leave till the last-minute. All that does is give me more obstacles when the writing time shows up–now I have to clean up my desk first. Now I have to put things in folders so I can grab the project. Now I have to get in the mood to go with the writing time. Meh. I’m honestly not sure what that fix will be, although–from writing things out here–I’m suspecting it has to do with switching computers for tasks. It may be time to take ALL the museum stuff OFF the desktop and reclaim it for its own gig.

Part 2. The blog. I have been gone. I miss it, and I miss reading & commenting on other people’s blogs. But mostly I miss the freedom of the writing that I get here. My blog started out being for me, with a little extra layer of “Nice!” when someone else out there likes & comments on what I’ve written. For some reason, over the past year or two, it’s turned more into a have to, more into a for-an-audience kind of thing. I have enough of that kind of writing in my life. I can’t do what Kelly’s shooting for–daily blogging, this I know. But the commitment I want to make is to at least once-a-week blogging. I’m saying it here, hoping it sticks: If I haven’t blogged by Friday, I will put up a Friday post. And while there are days when a Friday Five feels just right, I’m going to work very hard not to fall back on it every week. Will my posts be about writing? Will they be rambly? Will they be about these commitments? Don’t know. Can’t tell for sure. Just staying that, yes, they’ll be here.

So, yeah, sort of a couple of resolutions. Can we just not call them that, though? Cause, you know, this:

hourglass

What are you resolving or not-resolving this year? Whatever it is, I wish you all the best with it!

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Getting Back to Sane Eating…REALLY?

Posted on by beckylevine

I’ve been inspired by Kelly Fineman’s writing-avoidance series (start here) to get back to my blog in some form or another. I’ll think more clearly about it in a New Years’ post, but for now, here’s a quick post on the treasure trove that is my kitchen today. My parents visited for four days during which we all relaxed, talked, read, knitted and, oh, yeah…ate. I think I cooked more in the past few days than I did the whole month before. Possibly ate more, too. Luckily, everything worked, with lots of help from my Mom.  And everybody seemed to enjoy the food. Seconds were served. Sometimes, thirds. Still, we have leftovers. Oh, do we have leftovers. Here’s what you would find if you stopped by my house and took a look around the counters, peeked into my fridge.

  • Ham
  • Chicken
  • French-Canadian meat pie, with your choice of gluten-free and regular crust)
  • Cold cuts
  • Praline sweet potatoes
  • Bacon
  • Sausage
  • Lemon Bread, Hobo Bread, Gluten-free scones
  • Gingerbread cake
  • Cheesecake (homemade, courtesy of my son)
  • Spekulatius cookies (homemade, courtesy of my mom)
  • Peppermint Joe-Joes
  • Chips
  • Smoked salmon (homemade, courtesy of my brother-in-law)
  • Hersheys kisses
  • Peanut butter cups
  • Licorice
  • Root beer, Ginger beer, Pomegranate Izzies, Raspberry Juice Squeezes, Italian Grapefruit soda
  • Green beans and peas (I suppose SOMEBODY might eat those)
  • Salad (Oh, yeah, at the top of MY list for snacks!)

And all I can think is, I’m supposed to start eating LESS today?

What’s calling to you from your fridge, that you didn’t get enough of in the past few days?

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Review: My Librarian Is a Camel

Posted on by beckylevine

I have a bookmobile. It brings my books up my small mountain every two weeks, and the librarians that drive the hills and curves are wonderful. I love all librarians, but I do think there’s something special about the ones who choose to come to me. To us.

My bookmobile looks like this.

Branch Photo

Apparently, it’s going to look different very soon, since a new bookmobile is currently being displayed at all the county libraries and will start delivering books next year. I’m not sure what this one looks like. I’d be willing to bet, though, that it doesn’t look like this.

According to Margriet Ruurs, that’s because I live in the Santa Cruz mountains, not in Bulla Iftin, Kenya.

Have you checked out Joyce Moyer Hostetter and Carol Baldwin’s newsletter, Talking Story? If not, you should. They have great topics, and every month they give away some wonderful books. Including Margriet Ruurs’ My Librarian is a Camel, which I was lucky enough to win last month.

I love this book. Okay, sure, it was practically a given that I would love a book about different ways to get books to kids, but still…Ruurs did a great job. The book is broken into chapters on different communities around the world, none of which have their own brick-and-mortar libraries–communities that include beach towns in England, an archipelago in Finland, and a refugee settlement in Azerbaijan. In each chapter, you learn a bit about the geography, language, lifestyle, and “feel. of each community, and “meet” specific kids and adults who live there. The photographs, both of the people and the mobile libraries, really give a sense of how different these worlds are from the one I, at least, live in.

What I love most, though, are the stories about and the quotes from the actual librarians. AKA the Heroes. These are the people who care enough to load up the camels (and elephants), to carry boxes of books on their shoulders, for hours, in Papua New Guinea. The librarian working, through Relief International, to get books to those kids in the refugee camp, who said, “For us…the mobile library is as important as air or water.”  The gentleman in the suit jacket and rolled-up trousers, pushing the wheelbarrow of books through the surf at Blackpool Beach in England. The drivers of Dastangou (Storyteller), the bus operated by Alif Laila Bookbus Society that takes books to schoolchildren in Pakistan. The peddlers of the bicycle libraries in Surabaya, Indonesia.

I could go on. But I’m not going to. You need to read the book yourself to see all the other committed, passionate librarians and fundraisers and organizers, that believe in the dreams books can create and sustain, and who back up that belief by making these libraries happen. Go ahead, get a copy. It’ll make you remember how much and why you love books, and it’ll make you think about how important it is to share that love.

Thanks to Margriet Ruurs for writing the book, Boyds Mills Press for publishing it, and Joyce & Carol for getting a copy into my hands.

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30 Days of Gratitude: The Women of IT’S PERSONAL!

Posted on by beckylevine

Over on Facebook, I’ve been doing the 30 Days of Gratitude meme (I think it’s a meme!) all through November. It’s been fun and interesting–yes, all those things we do take for granted, and we’re taking a minute each day to “speak” them out loud and share them widely, at least throughout our Facebook worlds.

For those of you who stop by my blog regularly, you know that this summer, I want back to work part-time, writing grants and doing other development work for our local art & history museums–officially The Museums of Los Gatos. I like the work, I love the people, and my desk is in the corner of the old fire-building that has housed the art museum since 1965. So every morning, as I get in early and unlock the doors, I get to turn on the lights and walk through…art. Lucky? Well, yeah.

The last few weeks, we’ve had an amazing exhibit on display: It’s Personal: Tales Visualized by Asian American Women. Honestly, you cannot believe the painting, sculpture, 3-D collage, video stories, and other installations created by these women–some specifically for this exhibit. The diversity of subject, the range of media, the incredible places their different imaginations took them. Beautiful, funny, meditative, thought-provoking. I know, I know, I’m blogging after the exhibit is gone…what was I thinking? But I did tell you about it on Facebook!

I’m thanking these women today on Facebook, for Day 28 of the meme. But I can only put up one link there, and that just didn’t seem like enough. I want to link you to each of the artists, to get you to their online presences, to show you their work. Hence the blog post. And you can see some of the specific pieces we had on display over at The Museums of Los Gatos Facebook page.

Today, I would like to thank these women for sharing their art with our museums and, yes, with me–every morning as I come into the art museum, every day as I walk through the galleries on my way to talk to someone, to get out chairs for a meeting, to get my lunch out of the kitchen. You have beautified my days and stimulated my own imagination and creativity.

Thank you:

And thank you to Linda Inson Choy for being our guest-curator for It’s Personal and to Emily Welch, our Exhibitions Manager, for–as always–bringing it all together!

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Oh, yeah. THAT’S Why I Love Plot

Posted on by beckylevine

When my son was young, I heard a child-development professional talk about kids who are “slow to warm up.” I can’t even come close to remembering her exact words, but the gist of what she was saying was that, basically, some kids have to master a skill or task before they can attempt it.

Yeah. Not exactly an easy thing to do. But as both my son and I got older, I think I reached a different understanding of what “mastering” means. It doesn’t, for a child, mean they have to somehow be perfect at a very specific task before they can take it on. It means, I think, that they have to build up to that task, by taking on smaller bits and pieces of it. Or by doing something similar, but, somehow, easier. They need to have some experience they can refer back to, a path they can follow to move forward–at least a partial path. Something that helps them believe they can take on what’s coming.

I think this is what plot does for me. Okay, I know, plot as a path: obvious. Bit it’s more of that master-before-you-do thing. I have talked here before about my inability to write without an idea of what I need to be writing about. I’ve gotten impatient with how long it takes to plot, and I’ve given up and just “had at it.” I’ve watched friends, of whom I’m terribly jealous, write random scenes as those scenes occur to them, or just start writing at “Once Upon a Time,” and speed through to the Living Happily After, all without putting a single point of an outline onto paper. And I’ve though, “Surely I can do this, too.”  Nope. Every time I’ve tried, I’ve ended up flailing around like someone who doesn’t even know how to tread water, let alone swim.

I think I need to know my story before I write it. Yeah, Duh! moment. Do I stick to the plot I write. Well, in the past couple of weeks, I have turned seven plotted scenes into three written ones. I have opened the binder in which I keep my scene notes, but half the time I’ve forgotten to even read those notes before opening up the new file and writing dialogue, action, setting. Just today, I wrote a scene, realized I’d pretty much left one character out of it, came up with her goal, and wove her and her problem into the already-drafted pages. All without looking back at my notes to see if the new goal matched the one I gave her while plotting. (Just took a peek: I didn’t even HAVE a goal for this character in my notes. Got one now!)

So, no, I don’t follow the plot, not step-by-step for sure, and sometimes, not at all. BUT…I apparently need it.

For me, when I plot and then sit down to write, the story is already part of me, the same way–I think–that a child who has gone to a birthday party and spent the whole time on its mother’s lap has still, in some way, incorporated birthday party into their being. The next time, they may get through the party by simply holding Mom’s hand, and the time after that, they will let go and clap while the other kids play Pin the Tail on the Donkey. The next time, they’ll close their eyes and pin on their own tail and then, finally, they’ll wear the blindfold and do the whole thing. They’ll even laugh when their tail lands on top of the donkey’s ear.

Was I a slow-to-warm-up kid? Let me take a few minutes to laugh hysterically at the question, and then I’ll give you my mom’s telephone number so you can call and hear her sigh. Oh, yeah. Beyond slow.

I like to think I’ve gotten a little more speedy. Yes, the plot took me For.Ever. to get onto paper. But I worked on it steadily and with determination. Why? Because I’ve plotted before, and it’s worked. These scenes I’ve written in the past couple of weeks? They’re flowing out of me like seriously watered-down ketchup. Are they good? Who knows? Will I revise them? More hysterical laughter. Oh, yeah. But I can write them, I can write each one and know that when I’ve finished it, I’ll be able to write the next one. Because, even if I haven’t mastered either plotting or writing, I’ve succeeded at both.  And I can do it again.

So much better than flailing.

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Friday Five: Why I ALMOST Quit PiBoIdMo

Posted on by beckylevine

It was close. Yesterday, I almost tucked the notebook away and just let it go. I was telling myself that this wasn’t the year for me, that it wasn’t a big deal, that I could just choose to stop. Why was I considering backing out of the month’s goal?

1. I haven’t really been “there” this year. Last year, my writing time WAS PiBoIdMo. I carried that notebook everywhere with me, and I scribbled ideas right and left. This year, the notebook has spent more time away from me than with me, at the very least in my briefcase, rather than on my desk. For whatever reason, I haven’t been focused on picture book ideas this November.

2. I started (FINALLY!) writing scenes for my YA. That old question/debate has raised its head: What exactly are you writing? Can you even handle multiple projects, or are you just doing all of them a disservice by trying to multi-task? If you spend time on more than one manuscript, will you actually FINISH any of them?

3. I’ve been working. I know–this is so NOT an excuse, but totally a “princess problem.” I love my job, I WANT my job, it’s totally not cool to BLAME it. Still, it does take my brain to different places during several hours of a day–I’m actually supposed to be focusing on job stuff. I mean, yeah, you know–they’re PAYING me! Like I said in number 1, I do drop the PiBoIdMo notebook into the briefcase during the morning, but it’s often still there when I drive home, and then…yeah, it doesn’t levitate itself up into my hands by itself.

4. The ideas I have been throwing into the notebook are, let’s face it…BLAH. Flat. Boring. Stupid. I know, get rid of the evil editor, but I also try to be honest with myself sometimes. I’ve been dipping into the shallowest part of my imaginative brain the last couple of weeks. I’ve been grabbing at those ideas that float there on the top, that I don’t even need a net or fishing line to catch hold of. And I’ve been saying. Good. Cool. Done for the day. I’ve been…LAZY.

5. I’m at a kind of stuck point with my current picture book drafts, the ones I did develop from ideas last year. Stuck as in, yeah, so, what do I do now. Stuck as in, Geez! I have to get SO MANY OF THESE “ready,” before they’ll take me anywhere in terms of publication–nobody wants just one or two. Stuck as in, you know…THIS IS HARD. Whine, whine, whine.

I was “this close.” I had the notebook in my hand–I can’t even tell you whether I’d gotten as far as concretely formulating the choice: 1) Put it away or 2) Sit down with it one more time. All I know is that I was standing there with it, not moving, not heading in one specific direction or another, and (here’s the kicker) NOT DOING ANYTHING ELSE.

And here came the idea.

I love this idea. I can see the character, I can see her problem, I CAN SEE THE PICTURES. (Don’t shoot me, all you illustrator-types, I know better than to actually tell you about them–they just float happily around in my brain helping along the happy-dance factor.) I want to write this picture book.

I’m remembering how big a haystack can be, and how teensy-weensy that needle can be inside it. I’m remember Anne Lamott’s shitty first draft and remembering how that applies to a whole pile of shitty picture-book ideas. And I’m remembering my overall philosophy about NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo: No matter how little you actually GET DONE in November, you can pretty much bet it’ll be more than it would have been if you hadn’t signed up.

And I’m remembering: it’s all about time and space. Just a little bit. Just that tiny moment of taking hold of your attention and pointing it in that direction. Yes, I’m busy. Good god, we’re ALL busy, and my level of it is so NOT the top of the crazy-schedule-meter. So, no, I’m not going to get 30 good ideas. I think I’ll get 30 ideas, but who knows. It’s okay.

Because in that blip of quiet time, that bubble of emptying out my brain of all the other goop, I did it. I opened the door, just a crack, and my imagination did step up to the light and offer up the silver platter. With lacy doily.

I have one story possibility. So, no, I’m not quitting. Not today. And probably not this month.