Every Kid Needs a Dog

Okay.  So the guinea pig died.  And we replaced it, with...you guessed it...a dog.  We tried to get another piggie, but we were informed that our boy piggie would not like another boy in his house (evidently they live alone with a harem in the wild) and that a girl piggie would, well, you know what would be the problem there.  And we didn't want to get the piggie fixed.  My son downright refused to entertain the idea, and Mommy and Daddy thought it would be too much trouble.  So we got a dog.  Hmmmmm.  Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

If you are, (and you probably are), you are right.  A dog is a lot more hassle than fixing a piggie!  We got a shelter dog who is about a year old.  Old enough to have learned a few things, but young enough to have some "issues" to work through.  Despite reassurances to the contrary, Charlie has some housebreaking to work on, seems to possess some major separation anxiety (and who wouldn't after being abandoned, then losing your foster family), and has latched on to me in a serious way as his alpha dog.  A lot of work indeed.

But at least one thing makes it worth it.  I asked my son Elijah the other day if he liked having a dog around.  "Yes," he replied.  "Our family feels complete."  Wow.  I knew he had wanted a dog, but his comment surprised me.  But I thought back to my own childhood.  I had outdoor dogs (my dad hated indoor pets), and I remember the names of each one still.  I remember lying in the grass with one dog in particular, Brownie (my favorite).  I told him things that I told no one else.  We were pals.  Watching my son and daughter play with Charlie, I'm reminded of those days when I needed someone to cuddle, who didn't care if I broke the kitchen plate or made a mess in my room.  Someone you can call Charlie-Boy and not be worried about whether it's cool or not to show love.  Maybe every kid needs a dog.

The Good Ole Days

I'm ashamed how long it's been since I've blogged.  I could give a lot of excuses (such as the kids' end-of-year parties, Christmas shopping and partying, travelling, tending to an ill then dead guinea pig), but there's not an excuse from being gone from writing so long.  So, to jog my blog and my writing again, I'll devote this blog to one of my favorite themes: things that come from my daughter's mouth.

This morning, we were all listening to some new music on the way to Maggie's preschool.  Daddy had picked it out with the family in mind, a new band called FanFarlo, or something like that.  Nice stuff.  Maggie especially liked it (her tastes seem to run akin often to Daddy's), and she declared that the music made her think of "the good days."  Of course, in adult speak, the music made her feel happy, but I love her description of the experience.

What's even funnier, is thinking that a five-year old has enough life experience to be able to compare a stretch of "good days" to a stretch of "bad days."   For a little girl who lost her pet guinea pig the past week, maybe she does have the wisdom to discriminate.  At the least, she knew a good, happy tune when she heard it and appreciated its ability to help her think of happier times.  And hopefully, she has many more good days ahead than behind.  

Character v. Plot

I had a great discussion with my critique group this week. We started talking about writing styles, mainly writing with character in mind versus writing with plot in mind.

In some of my previous blogs, I discussed how I was trying to focus more on character in my picture books. I took it a step further to develop some character worksheets and to create a couple of kids I thought would make great picture book material. It wasn't until I actually tried to write some stories around them that I discovered something about myself. I don't write that way...at least not naturally.

So I'm a plot kind of gal. Who knew? And is that okay? I read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird a few years ago and remembered her description of her own writing style. She says she creates a character she likes and follows them around for a day to see what they will do (I paraphrase wildly, of course).

I mentioned this to the group, and one of the ladies said she heard the exact opposite from Barbara Kingsolver, another one of my favorites. When asked if she would keep a character that "would not let her write" in a certain way (i.e., would not follow the plot line), Kingsolver replied, "then I would fire that character and find a new one!"

I take from this discussion the fact that you can be either type of writer and be successful. The most reassuring thing I've read in awhile comes from a book called Writing Picture Books by Ann Whitford Paul. She says yes, you must do a character study for each character in your book, but you don't need to do it right away. Go ahead and write that first draft, but do it at some point.

That's good news for plot people like me, who have a good idea for a story and need to get it down. Character then comes into the story like an audition. We find someone who can play the role rather than writing the role specifically for them. There's probably different schools of thought on this, but for now, it works for me.

Letting Go

I've gone through an unusual phase of writing recently (although probably not too unusual for beginning writers). I have become stuck. And it's not just writer's block. It's more like writer's panic. I have read in numerous places that you have to "let go" and just write. Don't worry about how it sounds, how it reads, whether it's good or not...just write, just write, just write.

Ironically, though, the more I learn about writing, and what makes something good, the more I panic and freeze when I try to put a story down. That's happened just this week on my Meg story. I started, got halfway through and said to myself, "Yuck, self. What are you doing? This is so not where you wanted this to go, self. Go sit in a corner and think about what you have done. Shame!"

I've got to work on subverting the perfectionist within and just letting my mind wander. I know it can be wrangled back together in revisions, so why is it so hard to let go?

I think part of my problem is patience. I'm at the point where I want to see some concrete reward for all my work up to this point. My rational side tells me I will probably have to wait longer. "But if I come up with that one humdinger, you may just get noticed!" my irrational side shouts. So I freeze. I sit at the computer and freeze...hoping the humdinger will ooze from my veins through the keyboard.

And it's even harder for picture books, I think. There's a tightness to picture books that sometimes stifles my shifts at the computer. In my mind, I'm wanting this story to be narrow of focus, filled with images, easy to read. Instead, I get this long narrative that meanders. How do I get this to 32 pages????

I think I'll go back to my corner and think it over.

With Kids Like Mine, How Come I Don't Have a Book a Day?

I try not to pull all of my story ideas from my children's lives. I was a child once, too (in the dark ages). And I was a pretty funny kid if I say so myself. But my kids take the cake. I realized after a conversation with a fellow writer recently, just how marketable my children are. Evidently in Amato's Riot Brothers books, the two boys have an underwear scene (what mg boy book doesn't?) in which they put multiple layers of underwear on their head. If only I had been paying attention to my own son, who in the not-too-distant past, came waltzing into our dining room with at least 10 undershirts and as many pairs of underwear pulled tautly over his body. To top it off, he had on elbow and knee pads. It was a sort of fruit-of-the-loom armor, if you will.

But my daughter, at the tender age of 5 (going on 16), has been my most recent inspiration. At the doctor's office a few weeks ago to get her influenza vaccination, she was offered the mist or the shot. Mind you, I and her bigger brother had already received the shot form. Not to be outdone, my daughter insisted on getting the shot, too, and even rolled up her sleeves to get ready. Yikes! As you can imagine, she is one tough lady. So a character was born. Mighty Meg Galooley. It's my latest story, and hopefully will be done before Maggie turns 16, which should be any day now.

More Thoughts on Character

Can you tell I'm in the mood to blog today? One more note on character. I took the character advice to heart from the conference and rewrote my Grandpa Bill story. While Grandpa Bill was awesome (if you read the story you would agree, of course!), he was an adult and stealing all the thunder away from Abe, my kiddo. (Good advice, Mr. Greg Ferguson of Egmont USA). So I decided to rework the story, focusing on Abe. I did my character web/sketch. I figured out all sorts of things about him, but still the story was akin to birthing my children. Painful. Suddenly, I realized Abe could not be Abe anymore. The name just did not fit once he was the focus. So I hit a couple of baby name sites (there are others of you out there who do this, right?) to see if the right name would hit me. A couple of searches on names that mean clever brought up 'Wylie.' Boom. Once I renamed the boy, the story came out. Wylie was perfect. Clever, sneaky, but sincere at heart. What a revelation that a simple name change can open up a character for you.

MO-SCBWI Conference

I did not get as much out of the conference this year as last, but after a year of writing, I know a little more. So stuff was more repetitive. I guess that's a good sign that I'm learning my ropes. There were a few overarching themes, however, and a piece of good news that had me leaving thoughtful and even a little uplifted:

1. Get an agent. This is a new idea for me. I'd heard over and over again it is as hard (if not harder) to find an agent than a publisher, so you might as well send to publishers. This time, the editor, agent, and a few other presenters were pushing for agents. Okay, this makes sense to me, but it's an education in selling yourself. My impression is that it is easier to get an agent if you have at least been writing for awhile, because they want to see someone who has more than one work to sell. So that's my goal. Get 5 good stories together (I have at least three now), send the best out to some great agents, turn three times, kiss my left toe, and hope for the best.

2. Focus on character. Okay. This is hard for me. I'm not an English major, so talk of character, plot, sub-character, narration, pov, and so on, scare me. I can't help it. But I can understand the appeal of a great character. Looking back on my own childhood, my fondest books all revolve around a really great character: Curious George, Amelia Bedelia (my absolute fav), and Raggedy Ann. And the books my children love now have strong characters: Olivia, Duck, Franklin, Percy Jackson. I get the message. Character-driven books are a slam dunk. (It shouldn't be too hard to pull one of those out of my hat, right???)

3. Picture books are coming back. Hallelujah. After years of hearing the picture book is dead, Jennifer Mattson predicts a comeback. Thank you and thank you. I love the picture book. I'm almost embarrassed to raise my hand at conferences when asked, "Who writes picture books?" Because I know there are a lot of people out there writing a lot of mediocre picture books about puppies and frogs and jumping over logs, etc., etc. But I think picture books can be one of the most beautiful forms of literature around. A perfect blend of text of pictures is an awe-inspiring thing (insert my audible yearning for being someone who can pull this off). So Ms. Mattson has inspired me to stand up among the proud and admit I write picture books.