Sweetness between crusts,
Conversations with friends make
A slice of heaven.
1996. My belly was huge with the impending birth of my daughter. I moaned that I wouldn’t have any room for pie after Thanksgiving dinner. Hmmm…solution? Pie for breakfast. Thus began a tradition of inviting nears and dears over for pie, conversation and coffee, tea, cider or cocoa.
Right this minute, I am sitting outside. It is just before eight am. The pies are baked. My daughter is just waking. The first guest has not arrived. It is the moment before the first bite.
Have a wonderful day filled with love and blessings that making being alive so extraordinary.
There I was tap-tap-taping away at my computer and my character started to have a heart attack. Right at the tip of my fingers.
“Wait. Stop,” I said to the computer screen. “You can’t have a heart attack. You’re supposed to wait for your high school crush to show up. You can’t die.”
How did this happen?
I scanned back up the screen. My character had just recognized that he wanted his crush. He felt it. He knew it. With every fiber of his being. It seized him.
But a heart attack?
Well he’s 70. It could happen. But a heart attack would twist the story away from where I wanted it to go. So I rewrote the scene and I brought him back from the brink of death so he could wait for his crush to show up.
Now I just have to check with a doctor to see if it’s believable.
Teen 1: We have to annonate 32 pages of Fahrenheit 451 tonight. Groan.
Teen 2: Yeah. But I’m really liking the book.
Teen 1: Me, too.
Teen 2: There are so many story lines. I can’t believe that it’s all going to come together.
Teen 1: All books have different story lines.
Teen 2: I know but these are really different. It makes me feel smart when they all come together. Like somehow I’ve been the one weaving them together.
Teen 1: The writer weaves them together.
Teen 2: Yeah I know but it feels like I’m the one doing it.
Writers take note. Let your readers enter in and connect the dots. It makes them feel smarter.
I follow several blogs each week. They are like reading the newspaper. Better, though because I can skip the murders and politics and go straight to the kidlitosphere.
One I like very much is Nathan Bransford. It is a great mix of of writerly talk as well as big picture thinking about the publishing industry. On Friday his blog post is called This Week in Publishing. It is a wrap up of all newsworthy events in publishing from blogs to ipads to Harry Potter. At the end of the blog, Nathan always tips his hat to someone who made an especially funny or insightful comment during the week.
This week it was me.
Comment! Of! The! Week! goes to Lindsey, who put a great image together with the concept of J.K. Rowling, clutch writer:
Here’s my image of Rowling’s final clutch touchdown: My daughter and I are standing in the parking lot of BookPeople in Austin, Texas. It is the midnight release of the seventh book. Thousands of people up and waiting. The Austin Symphony is playing Hedwig’s Theme. Bookstore employees and fans are dressed as HP characters. All manner of games, mazes and foods related to the world of HP are tucked into different areas of the parking lot. My daughter looks around at some of the fans and says, “They’re so old.” (She was ten, ‘they’ were 20-somethings.) And that’s when I got Rowling’s amazing play: She reached generations of readers with this story. She created a world and we all entered in. Parents, grandparents, children, teens…we all know what a muggle is.
What a run, what a marathon.
Cool, huh?
Thanks, Nathan. It’s a pleasure to add a comment to your fine blog.
At one of my first yoga sessions, the teacher said, “A yoga practice has a very specific pathway. The first step is Unconscious Incompetence. Next comes Conscious Incompetence. The third step is Conscious Competence. Finally, after much work, you reach Unconscious Competence.
I love how simple, yet completely descriptive this pathway is of any journey we take.
You are a horse.
I have led you to water.
I will not make you drink.
L2-Writing Right Now
In a way, reading a writers’ blog is a bit like looking behind the wizard’s curtain. You get to see where my ideas come from, who inspires me, how I think and what I care about. If you want to know what I’m thinking about, please subscribe to my blog below.
A Tree grows in Sedona
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Writing Resources
Because we work by ourselves, writers and illustrators often feel alone. We aren’t but sometimes we need to be reminded of all the great resources around us. Here are a few that I rely on for classes, news and general good thinking:
