When I was in high school, one of my favorite teachers would give us "CB"s during our tests. He'd tell us the answer to an early question well into the exam, or sometimes give us glaringly obvious hints for problems we were likely to be on at that point. He called them CBs, confidence boosters, and I'm sure he knew exactly what he was doing since he also walked the room on test days.

Today, I am giving myself a CB. I find I need one because after the drama (trauma?) of last fall, I really haven't sat down and written anything in the past almost-year. Like, anything. I've thought a great deal about Gwen and Avi, some about Bama, and some about Mara, but no words-to-recorder, pen-to-paper, or fingers-to-keyboard writing has taken place, just the background-y stuff. (Which, yes, is necessary and all, and which does include re-reading and tweaking Not Like That! for the contest I mentioned, but which still doesn't feel as productive as parking my body in a place and w.r.i.t.i.n.g.) I'm committed to doing WMFAD (in my own way, natch), but I'm dragging my feet/fingers and feel --dare I say the words?-- scared to start.

Because what if the story's suddenly gone, or I suddenly can't hear the characters anymore? What if the places I think the story/ies go/es aren't true at all? What if, what if, what if??? (And yes, some of you will have probably read that somewhere abouts.)

Therefore, as a sort of what if, schmat if sort of move, I'm gonna do the first lines meme. I might even include some first lines of poems. We'll see ( behind the cut ).

Some don't stand alone as well as others, but I still like them all. I think Max's needs the most work, which makes sense, as his is the least developed story, but even among these, I feel some grab me in the way that good first lines/paragraphs/chapters often do. Some just make me smile, the way that my favorite scruffy sneakers, navy tee, and great jeans do. Some make me want to explore more, but posting all of them made me feel better (and surprisingly, not really cringe at all, which I felt was certain to happen).

At any rate, ta ta for now. I'm off to write for an hour (Sat, Sun, and Mon's 15 minutes plus a zone-out buffer). Still not sure which project I want to tackle, but that'll sort itself out, I'm sure.

Being someone who feels not exactly inclined toward the whole "WRITE EVERY DAY" golden rule of writing, I've decided to take part in Laurie Halse Anderson's annual Write Fifteen Minutes A Day challenge.

Erm, of sorts. Because, really, I have projects, several of them, all strangely frozen mid-air that I should probably get back to.

Erm, ish. Because technically, the WFMAD should have started Aug 1, and I am now already a half hour behind.

In my defense, I have several hours after I get in from work tomorrow to knock out the belated half hour and to get a good chunk going besides.

In other writerly news.....
~I submitted Not Like That! for the Cheerios Spoonful of Stories contest. Wish me luck!

~I recently realized a short story I wrote back in 2002-ish (maybe 2003) is probably actually a scene from Year of the Navel, a novel I only started really working on last year and whose title/main idea only came to me around 2007. It is now official: I most definitely compose in pieces.

~I have other scenes floating around for YOTN.

~I'm considering sending out Chubby Bunny to The Real World (aka agents and the like). However, I'm not sure it's ready. If you think you know picture books and would be willing to give me an objective critique, please let me know.

~We aren't discussing most of the other projects, including the probably future thesis, due to lack of progress. This is another thing I'm counting on WMFAD to help me with: learning to balance my two part-time jobs, my insomnia, and my lack of self-discipline.

That's about it for now. At some point, I'm going to be doing a version of The First Lines Meme, and if I like whatever I start churning out for WFMAD, I'll try to share some snippets. Otherwise, see you in another few weeks/months/etc!

It's been a while. Most of my projects are suspended in some sort of mid-air limbo. The scenes and things I have been working on/puzzling out have seen neither keyboard nor pen and paper and are all floating in silvery, nethery wisps somewhere in my brain (think Harry Potter).

HOWEVER...

I do have some exciting news. I did work a bit on one of the picture books tonight and submitted it to the Cheerios "Spoonfuls of Stories" contest, well before the mid-July deadline.

(We are not, however, discussing the fact that I started out to do so twice before tonight, full of good intentions and bravado, and never finished before now.)

I have to go to work, but I just wanted to remark on a dawning theory first. I went to lunch today at the irl version of the restaurant my MC works at inYear of the Navel, and I had like 5 ideas suddenly come up and smack me in the face. Some were "where to go next" type things. Some were possibly scenes to work on separately to get characterization down more solidly. Some were shiny new things I might add to beef up some structural stuff.

So, here's my theory, based on this experience and on conversations in which writerly friends working on YA pieces frequently say they feel like they're back in high school working on their pieces: maybe sometimes we literally NEED to go back to go forward with a story. Even if a work in progress is set in a complete fantasy world, maybe we need to take ourselves back to high school, or to first jobs, or to other areas of significance in order to capture and create what our MCs would/should/could be feeling, or where they might be (literally or figuratively).

(And sorry if that seems jumbled. I'm trying to knock this post out very quickly before getting ready for my paying work.)

( survey behind here )

Wow, going through my user pics to find the appropriate one for this post just made me realize how many projects I've left floating in mid-air. Must do something about that...

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you. - Leo Tolstoy

Well, I've stopped a moment.

to say the least...

I stopped for many moments.

months, even, one might say

Point being, after all that happened with the year-round program, after all the upheaval and hassle of moving back home, it's back.

ish

I still haven't come back to writing any adult stuff or poetry, but snippets of/for Year of the Navel have started floating back and popping up.

well, that's good

Yes, I think so. Yes, it is. No more worrying about not coming back to it.

:)

A friend of mine linked to this website on another site today, and I find myself very tempted to "repurpose" some of the postings.

Thoughts on whether or no this is wrong?

I don't know anything about the quality/validity of this link, but nonetheless, Amazon has a free downloadable PDF about writing query letters. It's from Noah Lukeman, who also wrote The First Five Pages.

aka, I'm torn.

On the one hand, one of my reviews has popped up on Barnes and Noble. Now, if I do a targeted ego search (aka enter my name and the phrase children's literature into Google), I come up. ME! On the first page! THE THIRD ENTRY EVEN!!!

*breathes*

However, I kind of feel like B&N should have contacted me about using the review. My understanding is that copyright for the review reverts to me after CLCD publishes the review. It'd be really nice if I got paid for it, but I would have let them use it anyway. It's freaking Barnes and Noble. :)

EDIT: They have my Star Quality review is up, too! (Which is actually mildly ironic considering how much I'm squeeing internally at the moment...)

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use. - Ernest Hemingway

This is something I've been struggling with in poetry classes (and which I've noticed other people struggling with). Myself? I'm a near-flarf-ist. I even did the whole found poem from spam mail thing before I knew it was a thing. I don't exactly know what school of poetry I belong to, or whether mine exists or has been named yet, but I do know I prefer simple language when it fits, grandiose when it fits. I do NOT prefer forced allusions (like I see in some classmates), emo/intellectual posturing, or esoteric allusions you can't decipher from context (*coff* Eliot *coff*).

I do, however, find it funny that I've been told (several years ago) my prose is a little Faulkner-esque (read: dense).

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. - Jack Kerouac

I must admit: I've never actually read any Kerouac. I don't think I've read *any* Beat poetry, really.

Nonetheless, I like the quote, especially since I heard/was told over and over this summer that "nonfiction doesn't sell," at least not non-adult nonfiction--into which category Re-Memberment would obviously fall. :)

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't write with commercial success as the carrot being dangled. I want to write a good story well, even it's my own, but I also want those good stories to reach people. Being told that presses/houses won't consider nonfiction then is a tad irritating, especially since I now have enough written (but not polished, alas) to send to the editor from March/April-ish of last year who expressed interest in Re-Memberment.

NOW, whenever that little "who's gonna read this? who gonna publish this?" doubt comes a-knocking, I'm gonna throw Kerouac in its face and run away gleefully, back to my computer.

Word/chapter count meters have officially been updated. Nice to know I wrote nearly 7,000 words in Year of the Navel this summer. I'll have to see what happens with trying to continue these projects while focusing on the adult poetry. Let's hope it's good things. :)

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it. - Fyodor Dostoevsky

My joys this week:
- lined up an interview next week for a job
- met some fellow students
- found a new Chinese place I like even better than my old standby
- arriving safely in Roanoke
- Roanoke/Hollins area in general
- attending a school that has links to Princeton, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Wellsley
- surprisingly yummy dinner at Golden Corral tonight :) [mmm, pot roast]
- vanilla soft serve with gummy bears and mini orange slices
- doing leg lift-y crunches (forget what they're really called) and not feeling sore after... just... better. Tighter. More aware of the muscle group.
- videos and pictures my friends have shared
- chatting with soniaamiller
- finding myself in the mood (several times) to write
- finding myself with the TIME to write tonight

:)

So... what about you guys? Any joys to count up and share?

Success consists in being successful, not in having potential for success. Any wide piece of ground is the potential site of a palace, but there's no palace till it's built. - Fernando Pessoa

Let me just say, I heart Pessoa. Aside from the famously fabulous writing, what a fabulous quote.

Well-timed, too, as I've been discussing aspects of success with friends on Facebook. It seems increasingly often to me that commercial and literary successes are becoming two ends of a long-stretched binary. From what I can tell, and granted I don't keep up with business/writerly news as much as I probably should, it seems that popular books are never received well, but possible future classics almost never sell well.

It's not a very inspiring trend. I can understand the disregard for Gossip Girls and Miss Educated and the like, but they still get people reading (if perhaps utterly confused regarding moral codes and further indoctrinated to American classism). And what of series like the Twilight saga, which, yes, seems a bit rushed and unpolished, but which nonetheless still hooks all those readers who should know "better"? What about Harry Potter, which I think has definite and measurable literary value in addition to its commercial success?

What does it mean to be a writer today, and what does it mean for a book to fall one way or the other?

An unrelated sidenote: I spent 2 hours typing out directions tonight to everywhere I could remember driving/encountering in the Hollins area from this summer for a soon to be classmate/peer who's already arrived in Roanoke. I then went over to Facebook and spent another large chunk of time there, nearly 1.5 hours, typing out descriptions of Hollins's programs, other MFA/creative PhD program descriptions, and dispensing advice about the application process to a former schoolmate at River Ridge (HS) who now wants to apply to MFA programs for Fall 2009. If only I'd spend this much time each night with my characters/story ideas/poetry notebook/array of flash drives. (And also maybe updating my word count o meters...)

If only...

Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction. - Pablo Picasso

Initially, I disagreed with this statement. Absolutes generally bug me like that.

But then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that something is destroyed. An old formula for quest narrative. Audience expectations. Even the writer's own assumptions.

Which brings me to the yummy meat and potatoes portion of this post. I'm sitting here, wearing my comfy Hollins cotton tee and updating my curriculum vitae to reflect the new reviews, readings, and committee positions.

Naturally, of course, this led to updating my program audits. (And yes, I actually type out what needs to be taken, in what order, and what has been taken, also in which order.) At the bottom of the children's literature audit is also a list of projects so that I can keep track of what critical and creative courses will best suit my immediate and long-term goals.

Keep in mind that I applied the Children's Literature program as a last resort. I'm not one of the typical Ch Lit students: the ones who've had the chance to study children's literature at the undergraduate or graduate level, or who've been exposed to various conferences and/or professors. I came to the program because of the reputation of the year-round creative writing program, armed only with three poems which had been deemed "sing-songy" or "child-like" in my undergraduate and graduate poetry classes.

I came into the program knowing NOTHING about children's literature, other than (a) Harry Potter had done exceedingly well and was not likely to be repeated, and (b) I loved reading growing up and thought it would be cool to add my own characters to the likes of Ramona and Matilda. Actually, that pretty much was my personal statement: I taught myself to read using books on tape and growing into loveable characters, and while I'm probably not the next J.K. Rowling, I could create more loveable characters.

So, that was it. I was frustrated with my critical graduate courses and too late to apply to most creative programs, except Hollins's Children's Literature. I sent them those three poems, that personal statement (with a little more detail), and included a critical paper to meet the 10-page minimum for consideration.

Needless to say, I got in. I took two critical courses my first summer, fully expecting to hate both, and loved both. I fell in love with the communal feel of the program and the Edenesque setting of the campus. I was IN.

My second year, I took another critical course and my first creative course at Hollins. I walked away that summer with no less than 6 projects (including an expansion of those 3 poems) started somehow and ideas for several more.

This year, I took another two critical courses and expanded the numbers even more. I now have 16 projects in some level of development or other, almost all of which have seen either pen to paper or fingers to keys.

I cannot express how very great an investment this program has been to my future and would be for anyone considering it. Apply. Apply now. (Or, erm, in late December to early February.)

You'll thank me later, as I'm sure others will attest. And all because I was willing to destroy my assumptions about what I write...

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way. - Ernest Hemingway

And he really is one of my favorites, for all that I hate his women, and he really does give excellent advice. He even sets some good examples (though I'd avoid those precedents related to alcoholism, misogyny, or suicide... just me).

I don't really have much else to post about, as I am taking a bit of a breather at the moment.

Though...

maybe...

Yeah, I'd go ahead and add "what I hear" somewhere in there to the list.

I write whenever it suits me. During a creative period, I write every day; a novel should not be interrupted. - François Mauriac

Right now? In week 6 of Hollins? I'm writing constantly, every free moment, precisely because do better with prolific purging than with forcing myself every day.

And I know. That's what you're supposed to do, according to The Authorities.

(Authority and me ain't so tight anyway.)

And I know. It's borderline blasphemy to say not only that this works for me at all, but that it *gasp* works better, but there you are. I said it.

I just wish some professors would respect it more instead of insisting on a page a day or 2 hours a day for journaling. Not. my. style.

And with all due respect to Monsieur Mauriac, I love the first part and hate the second. I'm more Hemingway in A Moveable Feast, I think, writing nearly until the well is dry, but saving that little drop and letting the whole shebang refill until the next go-round.

....

the pH levels of various fruit juices

(and the validity of the rumored use of said juices as traditional contraceptives)