The Best Engineers Play with Toys

Electric hugs to Patricia Wiles and the participants at the MidSouth SCBWI conference who contributed hundreds of books for schools in need. The responses were celebrations of reading.
     "I delivered 147 board and picture books, donated by the conference attendees, to the special ed classes at West Broadway Elementary on Friday Oct. 1," wrote Patricia to the MidSouth group. "The teachers were so excited! One wrote this to me in an e-mail: It's Christmas on Broadway!! "
     "It gets better ... after receiving two more boxes of books in the mail, on Wednesday, Oct. 6, I delivered 400 books from our conference attendees and other SCBWI friends to Alternate Day Treatment, AKA the school without a library. Well, it has one now -- thanks to you!!!!! The kids SWARMED the boxes! They picked up books and asked me about them. Some asked me if there were books by specific authors, which authors signed their books, or if there were books in particular genres. One saw books by a certain author in the stack and spoke of how he'd read several in the series, and did we have any more of his books? This was all so sweet ... especially as I thought of the people (none of you, of course) who had said to me, "Those kids probably don't know how to read anyway," and "Those kids have computers. They don't need books."
        Nashville readers will learn about the donations from MidSouth and friends in the newspaper this weekend. Could there be any more delightful celebration for us who love reading to hear?

But sometimes the connecting of child to book hits a snag. Also within the blogging of writers came this week a note concerning parents who push their children to read only at a challenging or "age appropriate" level and are anxious about children who want to go back to picture books. Teachers also fall in this category of reading coach, pushing reading to learn as the goal of class time reading. Many writers sent in tales of their own reading habits as well as those of the children who now occupy the households. Words are words, characters are warm-blooded role models, no matter how they are drawn, and situations that thrill or delight, that invoke giggles or trembles are just life in a teaspoon.

It's like jokes about space travel: objects may be farther away than they seem to be.

Don't we all remember "Don't judge a book by its cover."

As readers and writers, I suspect we all agree, "What you see isn't necessarily what the child is getting."

I fear those parents and teachers who restrict reading to "appropriate age" only have forgotten the delight in conquering. When a hummer has conquered the lyrics, she sings. When a reader has conquered a story, he makes up his own dialogue with the characters. When an older reader returns to picture books, or from "real age appropriate" books to chapter books, it's like re-tasting the icing on the cupcake; all comfortable, reassuring, familiar, and yes, a sweet memory of the other many times the book has shared its magic.

Knowing the outcome means rewriting it in the imagination, perhaps dreaming of different illustrations, even adding or deleting characters. Heaven knows, we see picture books, myths, and fairy tales retold over and over in movies. Of course that goes on in the colorful minds of children "reading down." Where would we be without artists like Disney and all his cartooning loonies who went back to picture books and made us the dreamers we are?

Perhaps parents and others who would restrict book choices don't realize that the best engineers play with toys. Simple things make clear to us the structure, the flow of energy, the dependency of parts, and the grace of design versus function. Reading is just another way to engineer our minds, to be creative, to be emotionally safe or challenged by choice, to control our universe for awhile--before all the rest comes crashing in. How curious I am to see if anyone has ever asked the child to rewrite the ending, to tell what the story means to him, or to pick up crayons or brushes and paint a scene in the story that the illustrator left out. Now wouldn't these activities 'tell a story.'

I hope children whose parents are worried about 'age appropriate' reading keep right on exploring the old and the new. The fact that they are making choices and building their own mental libraries tells me they're growing at a phenomenal rate. For teachers and parents, it's time to reassess the restrictions and remember reading is an adventure that takes us all far far away.

You've got blood on your hands once you kill somebody!

The moment was tense; my peace of mind in a dangerous condition. A Seer would have to be present to detect the evidence. But I knew. I knew I was guilty--a character I really really really wanted to keep was killed off with one tap of my index finger. The highlighted area of the page blinked out, into the ethernet forever. Never to be seen again.

                                   

I stand by my decision...with luck the mystery will be stronger and the plot tighter, but the character was driving the story. My MC was struggling to keep up; his sweet nature, his old-fashioned manners falling to the side of the road whenever this guy came into a scene. He HAD to go. And he was so wicked, so evil, that most of my readers refused to go farther than the first full scene. He frightened adults.........how could I send him out to middle graders? So I done it. He's gone. finis.

Now comes the weird part.  .  .

I went hunting, like a good blogger, for a picture, an image of a typist with bloody fingers. All in good fun.

And Lordy, Lordy! There is a whole genre of sick minds posting bloody hands and fingers on the Images files. They even have t-shirts! There's a dozen re-tellings of the Bloody Fingers camping out in a tent story. There's also an APP for the Iphone with spinning knives and your fingers dodging them in tighter and tighter circles. And amazing enough, a recipe for Bloody Fingers to eat. Who knew?

Bloody Fingers for Kids

1 pack blanched white whole almonds

red food coloring

egg - beaten with a fork

As many as you need: Frozen fully cooked breaded chicken strips

Pre-heat the oven.

Dye the almonds. Glue them to the chicken strips with egg.

Arrange them on a cooking sheet and toast until ready.

Serve with drizzles of very red (Prego) basic pizza sauce, it's thicker than spaghetti sauce.

And last, but not least (as they say)...........you can send your friends and loved ones a Bloody Finger email. Like that's something they'll cherish for a long long time to come?

I'm closing the door on this revelation and getting back to work.

Dorrie and the Magic Elixir

What would I do without Chuck Sambuchino and Nathan Bransford and their digests? Or Deborah Halverson and Darcy Pattison for a tidbit a day? Or wonderful challenges from writers like Ms. Snark whom I adore. They are my writing buddies in absentia. My back-up crew unpaid save by admiration. They cheer us on and redirect us when we ramble,
just like Dorrie kept an eye on her Mother as the battle continued against the machinations of Wink, the rotten lizardly Wizard.

We all begin as little witches with an adoloescent knowledge of writing skills garnered from the books we've read and oh Lordy, we do read. We read everything from memoirs of people we've never heard of to junk mail to dreams of worlds beyound the Van Allen belts to steamy close encounters to blogs. And we leap, schemes and plots in hand, into the writing world like daughters and sons of Calliope, aware of all the baby spells we've learned and intrigued by the adult spells we hunger to perfect.

I look upon the advice so freely offered online from writers, editors, and agents as secrets to the Power. And I am studying the Big Book of Magic Spells as hard as I can.

A Bird's Eye View of your WIP, just what your editor ordered!

One of the latest hints we've heard about analyzing your WIP involves copying your whole book on tiny pages so you could color code where the plot turns occur, the character shifts begin and end, the surprise of complications, and how far along in the manuscript certain facts are revealed, etc.

Check out Tim Koch's personal discovery.
A bit of trivia for you: a 90000-word story fits on 15 11x17 pages at 6 point and 6 columns. LOL

He's using LEGER size paper. It's worth having around if you have kids because it's 'poster' size to a 4-5 year old. One ream lasts forever. Tim Koch is the author of two fierce YA novels about young adults running from mind/body control in a futuristic inner/outer space in the universe and the voodoo that teens hoodoo so well. This is a great way to see the energy flow of a whole book.....and it takes only 15 pages. And a place to hang it on the wall or a bulletin board so you can really see it with a bird's eye view.

Don't try to read the fine print, SEE the transitions and hum the rhythm.
Kate

Catching Up with writers caught in action

I sat tonight for quite awhile and read. Read the blogs I want to follow more closely. Read the 'next' and 'previous' blogs. Read about new contests. Read about personal successes and woes. I took the time to enter lives of other writers to do the pick-me-up injection of perseverance I've been needing.

Try it yourself. When you're down and lonely and it's too hot to go out and there's not enough inspiration to stay in.....try reading 50 blogs of other writers. Blogs of poetry. Blogs of rhyme. Blogs meant to let off steam. Blogs begging for followers and someone to relate to. Blogs of youngsters who write. Blogs of seasoned writers who have had so much success they seem to be untouchables. Just read.

From webpage to webpage, I found desire and desparation. Joy and anticipation. Urgency and patience. All possible antagonists among emotions common to writers, to those who keep trying even when the strokes are few.

Give yourself a pat on the back. Read for an hour uninterrupted. Don't stop to answer, make a note now and then for later. Absorb the fire. Be the fire. Be the change in your own tomorrow.

"In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for contructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone." ~Rollo May

POETS ROUNDTABLE of ARKANSAS Annual Contests

http://www.poetsroundtable.com/brochure_new.html

Thirty some-odd contests for poets from far and wide.
Take the plunge, win some cash, and enjoy writing
in another style.  It's a summer challenge!!

All poems due September 1st and they take the deadline seriously.

KL

REBLOGGING is alive and well

Now, as any ordinary person might admit if pressed, I find TWITTER a pain in the neck! All those urgent announcements, all that egocentric hoopla, is hard to make sense of. BUT retweeting is a fine way to pass on great successes, good contests, congratulations and so forth. I am in favoring of spreading the best of the best whenever possible. Go forth all ye writers and REBLOG! It's bound to create a whole new audience.

REBLOGGING Kristin Gray's "Another Gray Day"
TOP 10 Topics of novels for children
Note the last line MAKE YOURS REALLY DIFFERENT!!!
http://kristinlgray.blogspot.com/2010/06/top-10-topics-for-novels.html

Always yours,

Kate Lacy
Editor for Hire
Reading and critiquing for writers of MG and YA
contact: voicedancer2002 at yahoo dot com.

If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance. ~Bern Williams

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Editing as a Way of Life.

Elie Wiesel once said, "There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them."
          When I was looking for something to recommend my style of editing for writers in my critique groups and those I meet at conferences, I wandered through quips and wisecracks until this popped up. The "only you don't see them" is the gemstone. When all that is unsaid is apparent in the here and now of the novel, it has not been lost. It has not been forgotten or swept away under a thick black line. The life of the character and the enchantment of the setting are richer for things experienced by the bye.

If you are in need of editing, I am now, as of this very moment, a "professional" in that I have secured my first for-payment client, a talented writer named Beverly. Five books and going strong. If I've made her life a little more exciting by handing her a list of challenges after reading one of the books, then I'm happy.

And while I love the slow pace and great Ozark weather, summer is a huge chunk of wasted time for me. I need deadlines. I need to have someone else's welfare resting on my keeping promises.

So I am launching a CALL for MANUSCRIPTS.  I am willing to edit for writers under these conditions:
$20/ hour for general structural comments on plot, character, and writing technicalities.
$35/hour for specific line by line, scene by scene critique.

Contact me with a comment to this message or at VOICEDANCER2002@yahoo.com
Or call me at 479-442-8028.

Who said summers can't be just as busy as the school year? Go out in the sunshine and WRITE!

Kate Lacy

What Price Freedom?

School is almost out. Four wonderful and cruel weeks. Friendships forged and melted as students begin clearing lockers and backpacks and neglecting to study for Finals that loom ahead. Lab plans and good intentions thrown out with the recycling cardboard of old copy paper boxes. Every plan for vacation fun bumped lower in the To Do list by niggling tasks that should have been completed in the dark days of February or during the enforced stay home during the ice storms of March.

It's Summer around the corner calling, calling. Answer to 1-800-GetBusy.

And I'm ready and willing--but not able to dial that number. I am, sigh, a concrete random list maker.

Every i must be dotted and every t crossed, so I can go outside and play.  Unless I think of something else that needs to be done first. This is the curse (and blessing) of too many fiction writers. Right?

• The Rosicrucian Order has just asked me to be their friend on FaceBook. Can a wayward Presbyterian refuse a religious invitation? Will it hurt my chances at impressing an agent?
• An old sweetheart sent a picture of himself at the top of a tree cutting away wind damaged limbs---complete with belt, hard hat and boots. Can you love a man who calls himself an 'old coot' and teeters in the tops of trees?
• My daughter sent me a lovely pink house rose for Mother's Day. Lovely. Simple. But now I'm worried it won't survive June's rainy season in the Ozarks.
• I've started inviting carpenters to bid on finishing the bathroom remodel fiasco from 2006. It's got to be done; I might want to sell the house and move in the next decade. Stop laughing, I'm serious.
• I've glanced up and realized I listed "belt, hard hat and books" above. Went back and righted it.
  It wasn't sexy/sexual, but can't that count as a Freudian slip anyway? After all, don't I live and breathe writing and books more days than not? Aren't Freudian slips an interesting literary device? Wouldn't it be fun to write a short scanky romance about a woman who says them all the time and isn't aware of it? I'd name her, oh, something formal like Cecily or something suggestive like Chastity or Patience or Obedience.

Can you see the stress I'm under? Even in an effort of putting order into my life, I am besieged by wayward dangers, fears for the future, a streaming consciousness of stories that need to be told and the inability to type without producing a foreign language on the screen.

Maybe I'll win a Pulitzer for Creativity under Fire. aftenl;all whein youre manuspd'[tjpt looks alike tthis....at least before you've spent an equal amount of time fixing it all, need I say more?

If I'm ever to enjoy summer, the list must be cleared. Starting now. Today. Before Lunch. Right after I put the clothers into the dryer and hang the sheets on the line. Just as soon as I scan Poets and Writers list of upcoming writing contest deadlines again and mark them on the calendar. OMG, I've forgotten to check my bid placing on the items I want to win at Do the Write Thing for Nashville at http://dothewritethingfornashville.blogspot.com/
.....and that's been on my mind all morning!

This is really important. Writers, never fear the creative and impulsive muse. When she works on you long enough, you always know where you're going. I am going to win one of those critiques on DWRTN!!

List making is essential so you have a trail of breadcrumbs to follow back--when the time is right, when the BID is made, when the clothes are forgotten, and when you're no longer afraid of failure.

Fear is the mind-killer. Right? I'm off to take care of the business of embracing my fears.

Write ON!

Resolve for a New Day

A weekend in SCBWI land with Heather Alexander from Dial Books for Young Readers and Elana Roth of the Caren Johnson Literary Agency has left me with a notepad of reminders, comments and do-lists for myself. Bottom line right up front: If I'm going to be a better writer, I have to take the advice given by those who know the business. The Arkansas SCBWI shows signs of declining. Numbers were low, enthusiam and questionning were muted and hesitant, but Heather and Elana pulled no punches. Getting published means giving lots of time and attention to the written product before you query or submit.

They both handed us paperwork that mimicked various stages of reviewing queries, making choices, categorizing, describing, and selling the manuscript to an editorial board. Good Grief! What an eye-opening experience. Twenty query letter in 15 minutes? You'd better believe it! Find one sentence pitches for stories and novels that run thousands of words? Oh, yeah. I loved this set of challenges. Thank you  to both ladies for never letting up, for making us think outside the keyboard and our own rose-colored assumptions.

Making resolutions, they say in January, is meaningless. I say making resolutions is essential for charging the little grey cells. And so do others with more grace than I.

Mary Anne Radmacher, writer, artist. Woman with a 'fascination with words' and a 'commitment to intentional living.' She has a knack for touching my core of determination.

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.”

Begin each day as if it were on purpose. (Oh dear, all those days I've wasted living on auto-pilot!)

Discover the tools to build your own vision.

The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I want to be...because of all I may become, I will close my eyes and leap!

My resolutions are always the same: Keep revising until each sentence is sharp. Until each thought is clear. Until the child who reads my story will save it for another read later in life.

Thanks again to Heather and Elana for giving me new tools.