A reception will follow in the Clarke Historical Library. Admission to this event is free and open to the public.  Information is available here at the CMU site.

See you there!

Shutta

Sometimes we need a little imbalance in our lives to make us think about how to get centered again. Writing a picture book in verse is like that, too.

When writing in poetical stanzas (With all those good things that any picture book needs-characterization, setting and a plot, for goodness sake!) the writer has an additional concern. That is, a sense of balance. Oftentimes we can sense imbalance but we are not quite sure why something doesn’t work. For example, the magical number in most western literature is three. Tasks, bad luck, good luck, etc. come in threes. (Unless you come from a Native American background, then four is usually the special number.) If this is violated, somewhere down deep we readers feel a bit uneasy. Things are not quite what they should be.

Most picture books are thirty-two pages in length. (Some are forty, or twenty-four; all are a number of pages that can be divided by 8.) Working with thirty-two pages, a writer of picture books has to be able to envision action for approximately thirteen double spreads (26 pages), and two single pages (first right-hand page and final left-hand page). The remaining four pages are front and back matter. One of the jobs for the verse writer of picture books is realizing how the stanzas, with or without a chorus, play across these pages in a balanced way so the reader feels, yes! This is right.

Early in my writing career I wrote a book from which my editor wanted me to remove one stanza so we could get it into a twenty-four page format. But which one should I remove?

This manuscript also contained a repeated chorus at precise points in the story. In my mind it was designed like one might a beaded necklace. There was an opening, three strands (stanzas) of a certain rhyme pattern and rhythm, a chorus strand with a different rhyme and rhythm, three more of the basic strand, another chorus, three more of the basic, and then a closing. So the original pattern went: Opening, 3 stanzas, chorus, 3 stanzas, chorus, 3 stanzas, closing.

How could I remove just one and keep the whole thing working in a balanced way? Well . . . obviously, I had to remove the center stanza so the central strand of the basic pattern contained only two stanzas. Now my pattern was Open, 3, C., 2, C., 3, Close.

Now, you might think at this point that I am being just too fussy. But am I? Certainly a reader sometimes is not aware of all the work a writer does behind the scenes to make a story flow as though it were effortless. However, if we jarred the reader rudely at a point in the flow-he/she would certainly feel it, even though the reader might not be exactly sure why it didn’t work for him/her.

For example lets look closely at this title from a friend of mine’s manuscript (Hope Vestergaard) that will be out with Greenwillow in the next year or two: Digger, Dozer, Dumper. Obviously, this is a book of large machines for little readers. And the title is perfect. Why is that?

First, we have the very descriptive words that tell exactly what each machine does. Second, we have the wonderful alliteration so beloved in children’s books that helps the title just roll off our tongues. But there is more . . . a third thing. This is something an author would think about and deliberately design, something that just feels right.

Notice the vowels? Each one progresses down in tone and where they said in the mouth. The “i” is higher, said using the tongue up near the roof of the mouth. The “o” is said in the round chamber of the middle of one’s mouth, while the “u” is said more in the lower back of the mouth near the throat. It feels good in our mouths to say it. It’s memorable, it’s musical. It’s perfect!

Now you know a little about why I fume when someone comments, “Oh it must be so easy to write those books. They’re so short.” When this happens I grit my teeth and remark that often the things we love most in the world are short, but they are not easily written. Think of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods,” Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” or the 23rd Psalm. The best writing is precise and balanced perfectly.

Here’s to the beginning of a new writing year! Happy Holidays, all!

Shutta

I just got the word that THUNDER-BOOMER! was named a notable book by ALA! Wonderful news.

To see the whole list of children’s notables for this year go here. Enjoy.

Shutta

There are a lot of end of the year lists going around now. Some of these are best of the year, some are just good gift lists. (See below.) I’m proud to announce that THUNDER-BOOMER! is making some of those lists, including School Library Journal’s Best of the Year, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Guide to Gifts, 2009.

You’ll find a comprehensive list of national, and some international, end of the year lists at CHICKEN SPAGHETTI. 

BEST LISTS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULT:

ALA YALSA
Teens’ Top Ten Best Books (2009)
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/teenreading/teenstopten/ttt09.cfm

American Book Sellers Association Kids’ Next (Winter, 2009)
http://news.bookweb.org/features/7162.html

Graphic Novel/Reporter 
Graphic Novels: A Survey of Comics Readers(2009)
http://www.graphicnovelreporter.com/content/best-2009-survey-comics-readers-seasonal-features

ALAN’s Picks: (October 2009)
http://www.alan-ya.org/2009/10/alans-picks-october-2009/

New York Times Best Illustrated Books (2009)
“Best Illustrated Books.”  (New York Times Book Review November 8, 2009: p. 28)
http://www.nytimes.com/gift-guide/holiday-2009/20091108_best-illustrated_gg/list.html?ref=artsspecial

Booklist Top 10 Arts Books for Youth (2009)
http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=382407

Booklist Top 10 Books in Religion & Spirituality for
Youth (2009)
http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=3856801

Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Books (2009)
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6704596.html
(Best Children’s Books of 2009.” Publishers Weekly November 2, 2009: pp. 30-31.)

Library Journal VOYA Best YA for Adults (2009)
http://www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6707666

School Library Journal, 2009, Best Books http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6708210.html

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, 2009, Guide to Gifts http://bccb.lis.illinois.edu/GBGB2009.pdf

Happy gift buying!

Shutta

However, once a librarian always a librarian! I still reap the benefits of all that. I maintain my ALA and Michigan Library Assoc. memberships, and friendships. And I get wonderful newsletters and journals that help to keep me up to date on the latest technology, research, and reading habits of kids. I want to share some goodies from recent library news that will be of help to writers.

Best websites for kids. You’ll find a listing of these on my sidebar and here from ALA’s Library Association for Services to Children.

Check out Writer’s Digest annual listing: 101 Best Websites for Writers.

Below are a list of research sites that were recently reported upon by the American Library Association, the Reference and User Services Div.

Title: BBC Country Profiles (free)
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/default.stm
This site supplies information on the history, economy, and politics of countries and territories.

Title: Blue Letter Bible (free)
URL: http://www.blueletterbible.org/
Containing 14 searchable versions of the Holy Bible. Passages can be compared between versions and there are lots of tools (an encyclopedia, a dictionary, 23 text commentaries, and 30 audio/video commentaries).

Title: BookFinder.com (free)
URL: http://www.bookfinder.com/
BookFinder.com indexes over 150 million books for sale from the catalogs of over 150 million sellers in 50 countries. Included are new, used, rare and out-of-print titles.

Title: Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (free)
URL: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
Part of the National Digital Newspaper Program, this site provides select digital access to American newspapers from 1880 to 1910. Also there is access to a directory of newspapers published in the United States from 1690 to the present.

Title: Lexicool (free)
URL: http://www.lexicool.com/
A directory to over 6000 freely available online bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and glossaries. Searches may be entered by language(s), subject, or title/keyword. Search results provide the number of entries and links to the online dictionaries.

Title: OnlineConversion.com (free)
URL: http://onlineconversion.com/
“Convert just about anything to anything else,” with 50,000 conversions and 5,000 units. Has popular conversions: length, temperature, speed, volume, weight, cooking, area, currency. Also contains measurements for women’s clothing sizes between countries, light-years, density, torque, horse height, meeting room size needed for attendees, even a “Fun Stuff” category where users can find their age in dog years, convert their names into Morse code, determine their weight on Mars, etc.

Title: Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) (free)
URL: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
The Writing Lab at Purdue houses 200 free writing resources and instructional materials for students, teachers, and trainers. Included are formatting and style guides, grammar and mechanics, internet literacy, ESL, job search and technical writing, and research.

And check this out . . . in case you are wondering what are the best adult fiction books published thus far in the millennium. (By a panel of experts.)  I wonder what we would say is the best children fiction thus far? Perhaps we should survey? I’ll put the word out soon! Watch for it.

Happy researching (and writing)!

Shutta

A wonderful NY Times article about Jan Brett and the chickens she raises at her summer home can be found here.

And, after getting to meet editor Harold Underdown this past weekend at the Michigan SCBWI fall conference, I just want to remind folks what a wealth of information is at his website: The Purple Crayon. This is a great spot for beginning writers of children’s books to start. He covers all the basics of publishing and writing for children.

Enjoy!

Shutta

It’s the time of year to be sure your larders are stocked. I’ve made my jellies and juices. And now, I have to collect as many bright and shiny words as I can and store them up against the day deep winter decides to accost us. To do this, I read and write (especially poetry). Sometimes it’s enough just to find a line I like. I keep those jotted down in my journal.

I keep my eyes and ears open. And, oddly enough, my sense of smell is truly alive at this time of year. Yesterday, in addition to the sand hill cranes and the soy fields I was particularly attuned to that tang–that smell–that is always in Michigan’s air in October. You know the one; overripe grapes small, dark, and pungently grapey smelling, and apples that have fallen on the dirt road to be smashed by cars and eaten by deer producing that sweet, sharp “appley” smell.

Well . . . you can see that I’m having a problem here. Just how does an author describe a smell? How do you get that into a poem or story? In fact, my book MY MOUNTAIN SONG (Clarion) deals, in part, with this issue when the main character wants to get the smell of the green dampness of the mountain holler into her song. I initially wrote that book more than twenty years ago . . . and I still wonder how it’s done. I do my best . . . but it never seems quite enough.

It’s easy to describe things you see, touch, hear, and to some degree taste (salty, bitter, etc.). But smell? And the funny thing is, I’ve read that the sense of smell can trigger our strongest and most emotional responses. And we humans have powerful reactions to pheromones.

Perhaps it’s just that smell is so personal. Does the smell of ripe grapes smell the same to me as to you? Juicy apples? Hot chocolate and cinnamon? Wet dog? And what about that other smell for people of my generation? The one that said, yep, school is back in for the season. It was a combined smell of wet galoshes lined up along the walls, and that red rubbery stuff that the custodians used to sprinkle down before they swept the hallways. (What is that stuff called?). That smell has had such a hold on me for all these years that it is easy to bring a sense of it back to the foreground of my memory–but how, as a writer do I write about it?

In the Torrey Pines park in California there is a path for blind walkers. It stops at spots along the way where the smells are particularly strong. I LOVED it! I loved the sage smells, the salt from the ocean, the pine smells. What a wonderful idea for sighted walkers, as well.

I don’t have any answers here for you. (If you have one for me, please let me know!) But I do have a thought for you: while you are squirreling away all those golden summer words and stories for the deep winter, store away some of those smells that have been important to you. Perhaps, one day, you can find a way to share them with others in your writing.

Happy autumn!

Happy writing (and smelling)!           Shutta

Deb Diesen is a wonderful writer, good friend, and perhaps(?) an alien abductee. You may not know that her first book, THE POUT POUT FISH, was named by Time Magazine as one of the top ten children’s books of 2008. Check it out–you can’t help but smile.  Enjoy this lighthearted interview with Deb, and check out her website at Jumping the Candlestick.   Shutta

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1. Let’s start out with something kids often wonder. How old were you when you first started seriously writing?

My first period of “serious” writing came in elementary school.  When I was in third or fourth grade, I decided to try writing a poem about a butterfly.  I put a lot of work into the poem, then typed it up on my Mom’s typewriter (this was WAY before computers).  I went downstairs with my carefully typed poem, and showed it to my Mom.  She told me it was great.  Then she said, “But put a date on it.  Writers always date their work.”

My mom had no idea the significance of those words to me.  Not only did she instill in me an excellent habit (I still always date my drafts and revisions), but more importantly she gave me belief in myself as a Real Writer.  I took that belief and immediately poured it into a very productive writing period, penning poem after poem, and even a “novel” (a thinly veiled rip-off of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, but I was earnest about it).  All through elementary school, I knew with certainty that I was a writer, and write I did.

Unfortunately, my belief in my writing slowly faded over the years.  By the time I reached the age of thirty, I’d pretty much set aside my writerly dreams.  But then I became a parent; and the experience of reading and re-reading and re-re-reading wonderful children’s books to my kids reawakened my own desire to write.  About a decade ago, I once again picked up my pen. I haven’t set it down since.

2. How many book rejections did you get before you got your first acceptance?

Spread across the various manuscripts I was submitting, I had had exactly 99 rejections before I got the wonderful phone call telling me that Farrar, Straus & Giroux would publish my story The Pout-Pout Fish.

I now have two other books on the way, and though I stopped counting rejections after the first acceptance, and I don’t think I had a full 99 more before either of the other contracts, I do continue to receive plenty of rejections.  They go with the territory!

3. How do you make up names for your characters?

I must have used up all my naming energy in picking names for my two kids, because my characters have some pretty unimaginative names!  The main character in The Pout-Pout Fish is, um, “Mr.. Fish,” and his pals are, er, Ms. Clam (a clam); Mr.. Jelly (a jellyfish); Mrs.. Squid (a squid); and Mr.. Eight (an octopus).  I guess you could say I use the Captain Obvious technique for character names.

(Either that, or no technique at all…  None of the babies in The Barefooted, Bad-Tempered Baby Brigade (Tricycle Press, 2010) have names!)

4. When you write do you like quiet, music, or lots of activity around you?

I definitely need quiet to do my writing.  Most of my writing is done either late at night or very early in the morning, when no one else in the household is stirring.

Fortunately, ideas for my writing show up in all sorts of circumstances.  Good thing, because it’s usually pretty chaotic around my house!

5. What’s the earliest childhood memory you can think back to? Does it appear in any of your writing?

That’s a great question which I unfortunately don’t have a very good answer for!  For whatever reason, I don’t have a lot of strong memories of my childhood.  Those things that I do recall tend to be snap shot sensations that come back to me here and there, mostly out of the blue.  They feel almost like poems, rather than like memories, if that makes any sense at all.

6. What age child do you have in your head? Is there more than one child up there?

It’s standing room only up in my head!  I’ve got kids of every age and disposition.  Luckily, most of them are fairly well-behaved, with a tendency to be sweet and silly.  But there are a few pranksters amongst the bunch, and they’re all of them rather LOUD!

7. Why do you like to write for young readers?

Books and reading played a hugely significant role in my own childhood.  Writing for kids is a way for me to circle back to that — to acknowledge and celebrate the lifelong impact of books on kids, and to hopefully touch the life of a child or two in the process.

8. What do you have hidden in a dresser drawer? (We won’t tell, will we everyone?)

A shorter answer might be to list what I don’t have in my dresser drawer (I’m a bit of a clutter prone packrat, I must admit).  But I went just now to look, and found a set of three tiny pinecones on a small twig.  Wow! I’d forgotten they were in there. Perhaps they’re magical!  At the very least, they’re beautiful.  Maybe I should liberate them from the drawer and set them on my desk.  In fact, I think I will!  Ah. Much better.  (And more room for my socks that way…)

9. What do your favorite pair of socks look like?

Oddly enough, they look just like pine cones!  Just kidding.  No, my favorite socks are bright red and patterned with yellow and blue diamonds and sunbursts and other designs.  They’re completely different than the other 99.99% of my sock collection, which is based entirely on the traditional concept of Solid Colors.

10. If you woke up in the morning and found someone else’s shoes in your refrigerator, what would you think?

Initially, I’d simply move them aside to get to the creamer for my coffee.

But once the caffeine kicked in, I’d immediately figure my kids were up to something…

11. Have you ever been abducted by aliens? If so, did they wear socks? What did they have hidden in their zormorpholaters? And were they missing any shoes?

If I were to tell you that the shoeless aliens wore ankle socks with little puff balls (as were popular in the 1980s) and hid dark chocolate in their zormorpholaters, this should not be construed as an admission of a brief but enlightening alien abduction that occurred exactly three years and twenty-two days ago.

12. Will you name a character in your next book after me?

Shutta, every book should have a character named after you!

A friend informed me of the non-profit organization, The National Society of Arts and Letters. It seems they are hosting a contest for 2010 for young (18-33 yrs) unpublished writers. Maybe that is you! Head on over to their site for specifics. http://arts-nsal.org .  

Happy Writing!

Shutta

In the meantime, enjoy the children in your life and these final days of summer. I can smell autumn in the air already!

(Sam and Abby)

Ciao!

Shutta