TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG?

I feel a bit as if I should come up with a host of “dog-ate-my-homework” excuses around not blogging for four months. Though all I’m going to offer is that I’d rather be writing and blogging, and time being what it has been with my teaching job at the university this semester, it’s been all I can do to keep working on my fiction.

Still, I’d love to hear from others on what you get out of blogging. I’ve been advised that it’s one of those necessary activities authors need to do to fulfill the requirements of that nasty “M” word—Marketing. I’m married to someone who does marketing for a living. He likes to blog. It gives him a forum to share his political views and promote his thinking about business and ethics and how it relates to his vision for a better world.

I think that as a fiction writer, my vision is more metaphorical, or, at least, I’m more comfortable expressing it that way. I am one of those writers who don’t keep a journal—oh, occasionally I scribble some words to work out a feeling, or explore an issue through poetry, but I have no great need to create a chronicle of my mundane thoughts and activities. And not surprisingly, when we travel, it is my husband who takes all the pictures. I’m happy to have them, but don’t feel the need for something that tangible, preferring instead to remember the fragments as they reappear in my brain from time to time, often transformed into something I can use in my fiction.

However, one of the things I have liked about blogging is the community—the people I’ve met through LJ and Facebook, MyNESCBWI and other sites. And I’ve missed that, so rather than kvetching, I’m going to try blogging one more time. And I’d like to intersperse my own musings with interviews of other YA and middle grade authors, particularly if you have a book coming out—so please do contact me.

Kids Heart Authors Day–Thanks, Raf

So many lovely things about the KidsHeartAuthors day:

First, there was the warm welcome from Rebecca, the children’s book manager at the Odyssey Bookshop. Second, I got to hang out with a wealth of friendly, talented and interesting authors. I met author/illustrator Diane de Groat for the first time. I’ve admired her work for years, since first reading Lois Lowry’s Anastasia and Sam books to my kids when they were little. I also enjoyed meeting and chatting with Crissa-Jean Chappell, who made the trip all the way from Miami, combining an author event with the opportunity to visit her extended family in New England. Then there was Rich Michelson, whose warmth, generosity, and wit have always impressed me, and who connects me back to my New York Jewish roots whenever I hear him speak. And finally, I got to spend time with my dear friend, Jeannine Atkins, member of my writing group extraordinaire, without whose eighteen years of gentle but on-the-mark criticism, I would have never found myself at this place at this time.

At ten o’clock, as we were happily ensconced at the signing table—in alphabetical order, nonetheless, the children began to come in. Not a mob, but a good handful. But they were young. Really young. Pre-schoolers, mostly. Maybe a few in the K-2 range. Great for Diane deGroat, whose Valentine’s Day book, Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink was the perfect match for the day and the audience. Jeannine read next from her award-winning picture book, Aani and the Tree Huggers about a community in India who saves the trees in their village from developers. It’s a wonderful book to inspire budding environmentalists—get them while they’re young. Much as I loved the event and loved the Odyssey, at this point, I did begin to wonder what I could offer these children who had trekked out in the cold. Playing Dad’s Song the “younger” of my two books, is really for ages eight and up, ten being about right. But serendipitously, my 16-year old, Raf, just happened to be home that Saturday—he’s usually taking music classes at New England Conservatory, and even more miraculously, happened to be awake. A quick call on my cell phone, and he was there, pulling off a short performance scene in my book, where my protagonist, Gus, plays the oboe with a blanket over his head because he’s too scared to speak in front of the class. By this time, the crowd had dwindled to just a few kids, but quality made up for quantity, as I (really Raf) had them entranced as he played the oboe, Jeannine’s sari, substituting as a blanket.

We wrapped up the event with Rich entertaining us with a delightful set of poems from Animals Anonymous, set to music composed and performed by his daughter, Marissa. Rich recently won the Sidney Taylor Gold Medal for As Good As Anybody: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom. Wow! Crissa, whose book Total Constant Order was aimed at even older kids, chose not to read, but I bought a copy of her book for Raf who’s already reading it and says it’s awesome. He’s supposed to be reading The Dispossessed for school this week, but oh well.

Traditions

We have a tradition on Chanukah to put menorahs in windows on all sides of the house, and then get out and walk around the house, singing and looking at the lights from outside. Since we started doing this, around eight years ago, we have gone out in all types of weather–knee-deep snow, sheets of ice (a bit of a challenge since there’s a hill involved), mud, rain, sleet, blizzards, and clear starry nights. But it is never disappointing, especially with my kids’ exuberant energy; their enthusiasm rears at the bit, even though they’ve reached the attitude-driven teen and post-teen years. And at least that means they’re old enough to make the latkes, and I don’t have to, any more.

It’s been fun having both kids home for the five nights of Chanukah so far, though today they took off for New York. So it will be just my husband me trouncing around the house in a little while. I wonder if it will feel silly, as I don’t think we’ve ever done it without at least our son being there. Our daughter has missed a bunch of Chanukahs, since the holiday’s been earlier the last two years and she was in college, though last year we Skyped her so she could participate virtually. Amazing–the power of technology.

A Chanukah tradition we started this year each night as we opened our presents, was Tzedakah, which means giving to charity. Each night we pick an organization to give money to, and we all contribute. So far, we’ve picked refugee relief in Darfur, Heifer International, a local shelter, an organization where Veterans go into schools to talk about the horrors of war, and Neve Shalom, an organization that brings Jewish and Arab kids and teenagers together for peace programs. We’ll pick the other three when the kids get back on Monday. It will be the end of Chanukah, but there will probably also be a stray present or two to open. I’m delighted with my lined mittens and silk underwear and warm socks–as well as opportunities to connect back with my own teenage years with a DVD of Get Smart and a CD of Cat Stevens–now Yusuf. I wonder if they’ll pack the same umph. I wonder what tradition-laden things my kids will want to remember when they’re my age. I’m hoping that at least one night per year, they’ll circle the house with us, so we can all look at the light.

Happy holidays, everyone!

On Gloss and Loafer Snowflakes

Like most people, I have a love/hate relationship with the snow, yet I am grateful for the reflected light, especially in these dark pre-solstice dates. I am loving the view from my window, the remnants of the storm, the snowflakes that now look like harmless loafers without purpose, falling on my neighbor’s white New England farmhouse. It continues to snow without accumulation, and I feel like these loafer snowflakes–continuing to write without really producing much to talk about or be proud of.

With snow, however, comes ice. Glossy, crisp, and flat. I like to think of ice as the stuff bad writing is made of, though who am I to decide what writing is good and what is bad? I will therefore revise that statement. I like to think of ice as the stuff my bad writing is made of, a substance intensely beautiful but with no permanence. A substance that depends on surfaces. I have been struggling with this surface idea of writing, struggling with plummeting depths, worried that the constant call of my life’s other surfaces, the teacher, mom, house caretaker surfaces will make it impossible to get through that ice.

So, I am going to go back to journaling, to sitting quietly, to worrying less about projects and more about process. I am going to be a loafer snowflake for a while, and I am going to relegate my “ice-life” to afternoons and evenings, claiming the mornings to take that brave plunge into the depths of white out. I am hoping that something will germinate out of this process, though the scariest thing is that it may not. Still, if I learn a tiny bit of patience, it will be well worth it.

Amazing

I don’t think I will get any writing done today. I am absolutely giddy. All day yesterday, I felt so nervous, even though for the last week, I’ve checked the yahoo map compulsively, counting up the blue states, trying to convince myself that there couldn’t be cheating in Ohio and Florida and Pennsylvania, and where ever else that would need to happen to keep Obama from reaching 270, and  that as bad as those allegations were in 2000 and 2004, there was still an element of doubt. The country was polarized enough that it was practically split down the middle, and neither the Democrats or Republicans were offering a candidate that truly inspired people to get out and give their all.

If there are cheating allegations this time, I kept telling myself and anyone who happen to cross my path, there should be people in the streets–massive protests. Because this time cheating would really go against the will of a clear majority of the people. Everytime I heard about the latest dirty trick–the flyer in Virginia that said Democrats vote on November 5, the robocalls in Pennsylvania saying Obama would cause a second Holocaust, I felt sick, angry. This stuff should be illegal, and campaigns that engage in it should be fined heavily, or even disqualified. This is beyond negative campaigning; it’s cheating, and it’s slander. It wouldn’t be tolerated in sports, which has a far less  important outcome than the leadership of the country.

But I am so thrilled that democracy has prevailed. That people’s votes can actually count.

My students at the university where I teach were all excited yesterday, so many of them voting in their first presidential election. Several were absent, but with good cause, needing to drive two hours or more to their polling places in their home towns. I’ve been teaching there for eight years and I’ve never seen this before–the intensity of their interest was stunning and inspiring.

And I’m proud of daughter for getting up early on a Saturday morning to cast her vote a few weeks ago in Ohio, where she re-registered once she started college in order to vote in a swing state. She called right after they announced the winner. “Is it really true?” she asked, and I realized how much she’d been imbued with her parents’ cynicism about stolen elections and power interests dictating American politics rather than the people’s will. And I’m proud of my son’s friends in high school, who spent their study hall time calling voters in Pennyslvania on their cell phones. After all the rhetoric about “The Me Generation” our hope rests with these young voters and soon -to-be voters who are actively participating in building a better world.

While I may have political differences with Obama, (I often vote for Green Party candidates or independents) I was proud to cast my vote for him, because over and over during the course of the campaign, he impressed me with his leadership, pragmatism, and most importantly his message of unity.  I believe his willingness to listen, collaborate and engage in meaningful dialogue with those who agree with his positions and those who don’t will make him a profound leader who has the ability to change the face of the country and the face of the world. And I was also impressed with McCain’s concession speech as reflective of the “real maverick” McCain we knew in 2000. I may disagree with his approach, but I believe that before his campaign spun out of control, the policies he offered were sincerely based on his beliefs and values.

Obama’s got a hard job ahead of him, perhaps an impossible job, but I hope that now that the election is over we can put differences aside and work together toward our common goals. Viva America!

Work Addiction

Today is the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Yesterday, I went with my family on our ritual New Year’s hike along one of the less-used trails on the Mt. Holyoke Range in western Massachusetts. The mosquitoes were out full-force, but we managed to find a quiet few minutes to sit by our favorite stream and meditate on the year that passed, and the year to come.

Even for a day, it’s hard to break with routine, and the pressing feeling of all the goals I should be accomplishing: writing, marketing my work, preparing my classes, grading my papers, dealing with the messy house. It’s hard not to turn on the computer and let myself be lulled by the distractions of e-mail, and blogs, and spider solitaire. But I didn’t turn on the computer yesterday, and my goal was to make myself not work, not even think about work.

It was hard. I am addicted to work. In any 15-minute block that looms before me, I think, “what can I accomplish?” Can I make headway with the junk mail on this messy table? Start another batch of pesto from the forest of basil that sits on the counter? Dice up more of the tomato harvest for salsa or sauce? Check my e-mail one more time, in hopes that there might be a message that isn’t a joke, a you-tube link, or political junk mail? Sweep dog hair off the floor?

What is it with Americans and our addiction to productivity?

Today, even though I’d intended another computer-free day, since it is the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I succumbed when my husband said he was going to try to whittle down his e-mail box. But I tried to do it mindfully. I read blogs from my live-journal children’s lit friends, and thought about how so many of us are in similar positions: super-mom writers with outside jobs, always beating ourselves up for not writing, always setting the next set of goals.

But I’m going to turn off the computer now, and walk in the woods with my dog. And later, I’m going to go bicycling with friends. Because personally, I am never going to get out of this current phase of writers’ block if I keep thinking of my next book as one more piece of work to accomplish. I’ve got to get to the point where it’s as appealing as the fall light.

Fans

The Curse of Too Much Writing Time

This summer I’ve learned some hard things about myself: Even when I have open time I *can’t* write all day. Moreover, I find a million stupid things to do to distract myself from writing at all. I will not admit the number of games of computer solitaire I have played–the most insipid and useless way of wasting time. It’s all about avoiding that terror of emptiness–whether it’s the blank page or the blankness of too much time. This week has been a little bit easier, because I’ve spent the mornings taking my son to driver’s ed. Having a schedule again has provided the benefits of getting me up and moving, as well as three hours of enforced time in coffee shops, after which I give myself total permission to quit writing for the day. I’m glad I’m sliding into this routine at the end of summer, because it’s helping me feel better about the transition back to teaching. Strange as it sounds, I need not only structure to function, but also distraction–not the immediate distraction of loud music or phone calls, but the long-term distraction of having other things to do and think about, so that writing becomes precious, rather than an obligation.

So the trick now, as it always is in fall, will be how to balance my right brain life (writing) and my left brain life (teaching), not to mention the schedule dance of shlepping my son to music lessons across the state (it will be a while before he gets his license) and the countless other requirements of family life. And I’ve also learned that my brain (or my soul, or both) needs something new from time to time to jazz it. I’ve been a compulsive dabbler all my life, and at 51, most of the things I’ve dabbled in over the years seem old hat. But life without a passion creates passionless writing, so I’ll have to squeeze in a Spanish class, to keep up what I learned in Guatemala, or a community chorus or something to feed the muse.

I guarantee this: in two weeks I will not be complaining about too much empty time. I’ll read back on this entry and think I was nuts to even think this way.

Musings on Revision

I was intrigued by a post on LiveJournal (http://beckylevine.livejournal.com/55417.html) on the sticky note/large pad revision process, as I’ve been involved in one type of revision or another all summer. I have always told my writing group that I greatly prefer revision to initial writing, as I know what I’m working with, but lately revision has felt harder, perhaps because I’m not so easily filling in “the gaps” I see, which Becky referred to in a previous post. But persevere we must. I think of writing, especially in the revision process, as giving birth, final stage. You are pushing, pushing, pushing for that extra revealing detail, the character description or dialogue that will bring the person in your mind to life, the plot point that will push your theme where you want it to be, and at the same time add suspense and motivation to the reader. Sometimes, as I struggle over a section of my work that is flat, underwritten, or just plain bad, I mutter, “Push, push, push” to myself and write anything–just anything, to try to get the process flowing. It’s like an improv game I’ve learned. Two people start a scene with a prompt. They’re at the gas station, or a bowling alley. They start to talk, and if a third person, the moderator, doesn’t like what one of them says, they ring a little better, and the person has to come up with a different line, each time, taking the scene in a new direction.

Another revision model that has been helpful in keeping me going is the music metaphor. My children are both musicians. They’re always excited when they learn a piece well enough to “perform” it, which means getting the notes, the tempo, the dynamics and the technique with some fluidity. But that’s when the real learning begins, the nuances and the shading. That’s when they’ll start practicing the same passage over and over again to refine the technique and get just the right expression. And then, when they perform the same piece, viva la difference! Not that it was bad, the first time. But now there’s depth. And sometimes, just like in writing, their teachers will tell them to put a piece away to “season” it. And when they come back to it a few months or years later, it might take a while to relearn some of the notes, but ultimately the final performance is deeper, stronger, better, because they’ve learned a few things along the way that they can bring to the piece.

So, when I’m struggling, I like to think of writing like that. I like to think about the first time I heard my daughter play Debussy’s Clair de Lune, and how she plays it now, months later. I keep the vision that all this work will ultimately make the final product better, deeper, even if I have to rewrite the same chapter twenty, or thirty, or even one hundred times.

Vacations 3

After being home for three weeks, you wonder, were you ever really on vacation, which is one of the reasons I am stretching this blog post into three sections. Our final destination in Guatemala was Guatemala City, where we stayed with a family as part of our international host/traveler exchange, Servas. My family has been traveling this way for twenty-five years, and it has consistently provided us with the most awesome and memorable moments of our travels, as well as many new friends. Servas is not couch-surfing, nor is it a hotel or bed and breakfast. The goal of the organization is to facilitate peace by breaking down barriers between cultures. People visit for two nights, and the emphasis is on getting to know each other. Through Servas over the years, I have done things I had never planned to do while traveling, including attending a Welsh poetry recital at a local school, viewing a private collection of museum quality Native American art, riding a horse bareback (my daughter did this–I was chicken), and spending two days in a remote cabin in Ontario, accessible only by canoe.

And it was not in our travel plans to attend a reception at the National Palace with the President of Guatemala, but that it was what we did.

Our Servas host turned out to be the Director of the National Park System there, so after spending the evening before chatting with his friendly and hospitable family, and the day touring Guatemala City with his lovely twenty-year-old daughter, we stopped back at his office where he told us he wanted to bring us along to a presentation on sustainable tourism and preserving Mayan culture. And, oh yes, the President would be there.

In addition to the President’s short speech, we were treated to a performance of Mayan music and dance, and a video and presentation on the past, present, and future of the National Parks. Good thing our Spanish was in good shape by then. I didn’t get all of it, but I got about 80%.

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