My Month of Wild Adventure and a Poem

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Konnichiwa, Campers! Happy Poetry Friday and Happy nearly National Poetry Month! PF link and my own poem are below.

And...you have 'til the end of today to enter our giveaway! Details below.

We TeachingAuthors are excited that National Poetry Month begins on April 1st! (And I'm busily stretching my neck, preparing to turn my head a gazillion times an hour for the next 30 days, thinking someone is calling my name.)

Lately, as those of you who follow this blog may remember, I've been in a questioning mode about my writing life. So I set out on an adventure--to take a step back--without much Wi-Fi, social media, voice mail, phone calls or text. To be honest, most of that wasn't on purpose--most of it was because Wi-Fi was spotty at best and I was so busy doing outside stuff I had no time at the end of the day except to write my poem and fall into bed, happily exhausted.

I spent two weeks hiking in New Zealand:

So much beauty...so many miles of trails ~

and then two weeks in Japan with my dear friends, author Bruce Balan and his wife, Alene. They live on their cherry red trimaran, Migration, which takes its name from Bruce's first picture book, The Cherry Migration. They've lived on her for 12 years, sailing around the world.

Bruce and I were invited to speak at two schools in Japan: Marist Brothers International School and Fukuoka International School.

In we go!

Fukuoka International School: Best. Library Door. Ever.

 

Lucky, lucky me!

My notes before meeting  Bruce and Alene's friends for dinner...
a new language and new names ~

Sugoi! (= wow!) I'm still glowing. I don't have any conclusions yet...but here's the poem I sent Bruce last night--and below it is the backstory. (We love the backstory of each other's poems).

CAN'T


"Can't," says Ant.

"Just try," says Fly.

"Why?" asked Trout.



"I'll cry," says Ant.

"Defy," says Fly.

"Won't die," says Trout.



"No," weeps Ant.

"Move slow," says Fly.

"Have a go," says Trout.



"Freak out!" screams Ant.

"Don't doubt," says Fly.

"Find out," says Trout.



"Find out?" asks Ant.

So Fly 

helped Ant

just try.



And Trout

helped Ant

find out. 

And Ant?

Didn't die.

poem © 2017 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

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Backstory: Today I heard an actor talk about roles that scare him. He says yes to them to find out if he can do them or not. He said, "What's the worst that can happen—I find out that I can't." Wow. I hope I can be less attached to the outcome when I write. For now, I am inspired by the words FIND OUT.

Maybe I can do it...to find out if I can do it. That feels light...like something easy, no big deal, as if I'm taking a little kid's hand and leading her to the playground so we can both try the slide, just to find out if it's scary.

Hmmmm.

Okay, Campers...what are you most afraid of doing? Write a poem about it (and share it with us if you're feeling brave) for National Poetry Month.

And if you're reading this on Friday, you still have time to enter our giveaway for a chance to win Matt Bird's The Secret of Story...it ends tonight, March 31, 2017.

Thank you, dear Amy LV of The Poem Farm, for hosting Poetry Friday!

posted guiltily (for including too many photos) by April Halprin Wayland, with help from her happy hiker's feet!

Ahhhhh....the half-way point of one of our longest hikes in New Zealand

Out and About with Carla Killough McClafferty

Out and About

I’ve been “out and about” lately.  How wonderful it is to get out of the office and into the fresh air.  A change in routine can sometimes get the creative juices flowing again.   

Are there places near you that you’ve been intending to visit?  I mean for years and years you’ve intended to visit?  I have several places like that in my mind.   One of them for me is Washington, Arkansas (Historic Washington State Park).  About a week ago I finally went there to attend the Jonquil Festival.  OK in full disclosure, I didn’t plan the trip.  My sister and her husband were going and invited me to join them.  And as an added bonus, my other sister went too. 

Washington is a wonderful little place about and hour and a half from where I live that is full of history relating to Arkansas in the 19^th century.  Have you ever hear of the Bowie Knife?  It was made famous by Jim Bowie-one of those who met their maker at the Alamo.  James Black, the blacksmith, forged his original Bowie Knife in Washington, Arkansas.   

 

Plaque on James Black's Blacksmith Shop where the first Bowie Knife was  forged.

Washington was also a place where many Native Americans walked through on the Trail of Tears as they made the journey to Oklahoma. 

Years later during the Civil War, Washington became Arkansas’s confederate capital after Little Rock was occupied by the Union Army.   

So much history has happened in such a tiny place.  It makes me think about all the powerful stories I could write about.   Yes, getting away from my keyboard is a good thing.   

The old courthouse in Washington, Arkansas

A massive magnolia tree planted just three years after Arkansas became a state.

Carla Killough McClafferty

Click here to find out how to enter to win 

THE SECRET OF STORY by Matt Bird.  

Photography, Another Way of Seeing

   I like to see things from a different perspective--hanging upside down from monkey bars, peering at the undersides of school desks (gross!!) or even sideways, balancing on a bed.

   While it's been decades since I've been near monkey bars (although I do occasionally still hang off the side of my bed and imagine living on the ceiling---a la Mrs. Piggle Wiggle) I still have one way of "seeing differently" from those kindergarten days: photography.

    My dad has been a lifelong shutterbug. I have an ancient "selfie" of him at about 12,  box camera shooting into a bedroom dresser mirror. I have gorgeous early Kodachrome slides he took when he was stationed in Oahu during WWII, as well as room by room pictures of my parents' first apartment, with my mother pointing to various wedding presents, Carol Merrill-style.

      This is the first picture I ever took. These are my parents in front of their fence (yes, we actually had a white picket fence.)  Dad allowed me to use his camera, showing me where to look and what to click. I was 6.

That Christmas I got my very own Kodak Brownie flash. I went nuts taking pictures of everything that didn't move. My parents waited until Memorial Day to tell me that my camera needed film. (Just as well...remember the days of film developing?)

I used my camera for the usual things a kid would; relatives, friends, holiday gatherings. I longed to use color film, Brownies used only black and white. The only thing I wanted for my 13th birthday was a Kodak Instamatic...and some color film! Here is the first picture I took with that camera, my Grandmother Rodman (aka Meemaw).  This picture taught me that often the camera catches things that the human eye does not. I never saw Meemaw's hands still. She quilted, crocheted, embroidered, made doll dresses. This is the only time I ever saw her stop to enjoy the spring flowers. I later
learned that she had a hard childhood.  When her mother passed away when Meemaw was 11 she raised her half sibling, taking over all the tasks a mother would perform. She once told me (when she was 95) "Inside, I'm still 15." I can see it here.


 I kept on talking pictures throughout high school and college with a temperamental Yaschica box camera that required a light meter, a gadget I never quite got the hang of. And then another Yaschica without the light meter. As a teacher, I took pictures of my students, especially of our Drama Club productions.

I acquired my husband and a Canon Rebel,the same year. (Truth be told, it was the Andre Agassi commercials that sucked me in.) I had found photographic Nirvana. No light meter, no bulky box balancing. And terrific pictures most of the time. It was about then I read Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. I liked the book, but so many exercises and so little time. More things to feel guilty about. (Morning pages? Nope. Meditation? Not without falling asleep.) However, I did latch on to the idea of the "artist's date" where once a week you spent time going something artistic, but NOT connected to your main field. We lived in Wisconsin at the time, so I spent endless "artist's dates" photographing frozen fountains, scary-looking icicles and ice boulders pushed up on the shores of Lake Winnebago.

After I had my daughter, Lily Nell, she became the most-photographed baby (at least until Beyonce and Jay-Z had one.) I took so many pictures that my in-laws thought it would be hilarious to give Lily Kodak stock as a christening present.

Totally unstaged

Craig's first Father's Day, with his two girls, Lily and out dog,Vanilla Ice.

Last day of elementary school. Yay!

As you can tell I'm no Ansel Adams. I just enjoy the different view through a camera lens.It sneaks into my writing, the same way music does. (I'm also not a great pianist either.) But appreciation informs anything else you do.  Like, say, writing.

. And the legacy goes on.  Lily was one of 10 AP Photography Students for 2012. Last Christmas she visited a friend in Alaska. She flew over the mountains (no she is not a pilot!) but she took her camera. Always another way of seeing.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

My One Thing is Spring

Jo Ann reminded us that “Writing is our work and our passion, but let’s face it: most of us can’t write all day long.”   But I have to admit,  at this moment,  after all the snow and all the politics, the one thing I need now is spring. I need a break from the cold, and the shoveling, and the wind shrilling through my chimney. I need time off from raking snow off my roof, and scraping ice off my windshield. I need some flowers and color and hope for better days.

So, here is some spring, as we wait for our own spring:


The sun just touched the morning;

The morning, happy thing,

Supposed that he had come to dwell,

And life would be all spring. -Emily Dickinson 

 Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.

-- John Muir (Wilderness World of John Muir) 

 

 
 That is one good thing about this world...there are always sure to be more springs. - L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Avonlea)

A Robin said: The Spring will never come,

And I shall never care to build again.

A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,

My sap will never stir for sun or rain.

The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,

I neither care to wax nor care to wane.

The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,

Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main. —

When Springtime came, red Robin built a nest,

And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight.

Grey hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might

Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.

The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,

Dimpled his blue, yet thirsted evermore.

--Christina Rossetti

When the groundhog casts his shadow,

And the small birds sing,

And the pussywillows happen

And the sun shines warm,

And when the peepers peep,

Then it is Spring.

-- Margaret Wise Brown

It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in 'em," said Captain Jim. "When I ponder on them seeds I don't find it nowise hard to believe that we've got souls that'll live in other worlds. You couldn't hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone colour and scent, if you hadn't seen the miracle, could you?

-- L.M. Montgomery (Anne’s House of Dreams)

Wishing you a happy Spring!

 Bobbi Miller

(All photos by Pixabay)

Creativity: One Little Thing

Writing is our work and our passion, but let’s face it: most of us can’t write all day long. Besides the necessary family, household, and job responsibilities, many authors I know have other creative outlets that feed their writing, benefit from it, and even provide inspiration. Some creative pursuits allow us to occupy our hands while our brains unravel other mysteries. Some are welcome distractions when we’ve reached a limit of time or attention.

For years, my sisters and I have made hats and donated them to homeless shelters and other charities. With a Knifty Knitter loom, I can crank out a small hat during an evening of TV watching—and not feel so guilty about watching TV. The process is so simple I can do it almost without looking.

Now I’ve found a new passion. Writing a nonfiction work-for-hire book about plastic (Take a Closer Look at Plastic) gave me a reason and an opportunity to explore how and why plastic is so harmful to our environment. A newspaper article about a group in a nearby suburb trying to do something about the problems of plastic led me to investigate what could be done in our progressive village.

Attending our local Conservation Committee meetings, I met other like-minded people who wanted to do something. We formed a group, Bring Your Bag Shorewood, with a focus on education and a Facebook page. We posted signs in local stores to remind people to bring their own shopping bags. We gave away reusable bags donated by the Conservation Committee and a grocery store. We handed out “I brought my bag!” stickers to people who remembered. With people from that nearby suburb, we started a web site to try to connect with similar groups across the state.

Now we’re embarking on our most ambitious project yet: sewing reusable shopping bags to leave in stores. People who forget theirs can borrow one and bring it back for someone else to use. We’ve joined with Boomerang Bags, which started in Australia and is rapidly spreading around the world. We’re collecting fabric donations, fundraising, and planning our first Sewing Bee.

I’m so excited about this project, which helps the planet by reducing the use of single-use shopping bags while keeping leftover and unwanted fabric (and gently used tablecloths, sheets, and clothing) out of landfills. I just made my first Boomerang Bag from hand-painted fabric donated by my neighbor. Next, we’ll add a pocket with our silk screened logo.

I love being part of a worldwide movement with women from all over the globe. I love the idea that one little thing we can all do can make a big difference in the world. And it’s giving me new ideas to write about. Hooray!

all over the world
many little things add up:
one big difference

What’s your One Little Thing?

Book Giveaways!

Peggy F. won the 2017 Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market. Congratulations, Peggy!

Be sure to enter our new giveaway for a chance to win a copy of Matt Bird’s The Secrets of Story.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Happy Poetry Friday! Robyn Hood Black has the roundup. Enjoy!

JoAnn Early Macken

WEDNESDAY WRITING WORKOUT: Never Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Good Story

Today's Wednesday Writing Workout  - intended to get you THINKING about Fiction vs. Fact - comes to you courtesy of my Chicago writer LisaMaggiore.  I knew pronto her “Ava” picture book manuscript was a Winner when I first read it. Sky Pony Press obviously agreed because they published AVA THE MONSTER SLAYER: A WARRIOR WHO WEARS GLASSES, illustrated by Ross Felten, in 2015.  

I’m happy to report: Lisa’s currently working on an AVA sequel as well as a YA novel. She lives with her husband and four children in the city.  For the past 20 years, she was a dedicated social worker – a profession she proudly admits helped her write about tragedy and love. 

Like her Heroine Ava, Lisa excels at both conquering Scary Moments – and – telling stories.  If you don’t believe me, click HERE to listen to and watch her perform her Live Lit LOUDER THAN A MOM performance last February in which she shares her TRUE story of giving both to her daughter at a Chicago gas station! 

Fortunately, when it comes to fiction, Lisa makes sure she never lets the Truth get in the way of a good story. 😊

Thank you, Lisa, for jump-starting our TeachingAuthors readers' brains, showing and sharing how they can do the same.  

And, Readers: don’t forget to click HERE to enter our TeachingAuthors Book Giveaway of Matt Bird’s THE SECRETS OF STORY (Writer’s Digest, 2016)!

Enjoy and learn!

Esther Hershenhorn

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

TRUTH VS. AUTHENTICITY

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

Some believe the words belong to Mark Twain; others believe the words appear in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs.  Either way, its meaning can be confusing when writing

a story.  Should the truth be omitted or entwined in a story?  And how does being authentic come into play?

As a writer who has taken on a YA historical fiction project, writing in the realm of truth

and authenticity requires a fine balance.  My protagonist, Tin, is male an Amerasian, both of which I am not.  He has lived in an orphanage, survived war, and been a refugee in America - all of which I have never experienced.  Some literary critics have argued that if you’re not writing from your own direct experience, what’s being written cannot be true.  I can begin to question myself as a writer – how can I tell a story that I have never experienced in a truthful and authentic way?

I fell in love with my idea for my YA historical and as writers know, you must love your story, or why would anyone else?  To give myself permission to write this story, I decided to strip away ideas that I had about truth and authenticity and look up the definitions.

This is what I found in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.

Truth: the body of real things, events and facts; a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true.

Authentic: true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.

These definitions really helped to guide my writing and here’s how.  When I teased away the truth, what I found is that my story’s mission is about drawing out a minority voice and combating oppression, two ideas in storytelling that I’m

deeply passionate about.  My protagonist, Tin, is a fictional character, based on

years of research and interviews with Vietnamese refugees.  But I’m mindful of

giving him an authentic voice because I have worked on being an empathic

interviewer and observer.  I did those things by taking careful notes while conducting interviews, attending Vietnamese events, and easting at Vietnamese

restaurants.  It also helped that my oldest daughter is half Vietnamese; her father and his family escaped Saigon as it was falling to the Communists in 1975.

When I discovered Tin’s authentic voice, I added “truth” but flavored it with

fiction.  Since this is a historical novel, I had real events, facts, and ideas that were accepted as true but how much of that truth I placed in the story was up to me to decide.  Truth is measurable, since it is based in a recorded fact, but truth

is also how someone felt emotionally.  That is not something that can be

measured since it’s linked to an emotion through a personal experience.  

And this is where I think writers can get the two mixed up.  Authentic voice is not

necessarily hinged on truth, rather on what your character would/do if you

were not looking. It involves being vulnerable and sharing emotions, exposing

fears, uncovering anxieties.  The authentic voice pulls the reader into a place of

understanding, if done right, on why your protagonist took a certain action, even

if the reader may not agree with the protagonist’s decision.  The truth does not

mean giving the reader what he wants to hear, but as Ernest Hemingway described as the authenticity found in novels, “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards, it all belongs to you.”

As a writer working with truth and authenticity, you must enter the reader’s brain and heart.  Truth can do the brain work and engage the reader in the

journey in a curious and excited, even scary way.  Authenticity works the heart,

by helping the reader belive that the journey will be worthwhile and fulfilling.

And at the end of the day, I’m hoping that the reader is engaged in my mission: telling a truthful and authentic story that is bigger than any of us.

* * * * * * * 

A Must-have Book (PLUS Book Giveaway) for Storytellers!

I’ve been writing for children since 1977 and teaching writers since 1996!

My writing room’s shelves, desk and window sills boast enough books on writing-related topics to rival the stock of any Writer’s Bookshop.

Craft. Process. Story. The writer’s life. Writing for children. The ins and outs of publishing.

From Aristotle to Zinsser, with Lamott and McKee in the middle, each title stands ready to help me do my job.

I’m happy to report, and with total confidence, there’s not one book on my shelves like Matt Bird’s THE SECRETS OF STORY (Writer’s Digest, 2016).  It’s a must-have book on craft both smart and practical, Thumbs-up deserving - not only because of its eye-opening approach to storytelling, its thoughtfully-focused content, its sensible organization and the author’s personal writing style, but especially because the book delivers its subtitle’s promise - “Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers.”

The Good News is: those innovative tools can be yours simply by entering our Book Giveaway.  Be sure to read the details at the end of this post.

Matt Bird’s bona fides includes an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University, years of screenwriting and a long-running successful blog on storytelling, COCKEYED CARAVAN, recently renamed THE SECRET OF STORIES. 

He offers the heart of this comprehensive book up front and early, on page 2, in fact: “Tell the story that would win you over, even if you didn’t want to hear it.”

And then in three Parts laden with common sense and cathartic Aha’s (Writing for Strangers, The Ultimate Story Checklist and Getting from Good to “Good Lord, This Is Amazing!”), he shares the means to the end - a good story told well.

Bird believes audience satisfaction is the name of the game.  “You have to embrace your audience,” he writes. “They are the only reason to write anything.”  Listening to our audiences is key, he tells writers; it’s what allows us to build identification between our hero and our audience. Fortunately, his Thirteen Essential Laws of Writing for Strangers show us how to listen.

By the time I reached Law #4 - AUDIENCES DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT STORIES; THEY CARE ABOUT CHARACTERS, I’d put aside my yellow highlighter,

read to #13, then typed up all thirteen and emailed them to several of my writers and students.

And so it went as I – eagerly! - read through Parts II and III, cornering pages, underlining previously-recognized Truths, bracketing paragraphs, starring key words, writing in the margins and the top and bottom of pages to restate in my words what Matt Bird presented.  And all the while I kept thinking of my stories as well as my students’ and writers’ stories and how we now could perfect them, and thinking of how I’ll retool my SpringUniversity of Chicago Writer’s Studio Workshop - A Facilitated Children’s Novelists Writing Group, thanks to the book’s checklists.

How’s this for one of Matt Bird’s head-bobbing, comforting Truths: “Writing is not one big talent.  It is a discipline consisting of several distinct skills, each of which must be individually mastered by writing every day, day after day, for years, as you slowly get better.”

He then goes on to list the seven skills he believes writers need to master – Concept, Character, Structure and Plot, Scene Work, Dialogue, Tone and Theme.  One by one, chapter by chapter, he breaks down each skill according to definition, common misconceptions and the relevant questions that need to be asked.

It’s those relevant questions we must ask and answer if our storytelling ever is to satisfy our audience, the questions that by book’s end become handy-dandy tools.

For example, in underscoring the importance of creating compelling characters, how do we get our audience to believe, care and invest?  Matt Bird shares question after question we need to ask, making sure his illustrating examples drawn from familiar movies, tv shows and novels facilitate and serve our understanding. 

He does the same for structure (The Challenge, the Easy Way, the Hard Way, the Climax) and Scene Work (The Set-up, Conflict and Outcome), sharing relevant questions, each brilliantly exampled.

In his Preface, Matt Bird reveals that he hopes his book is “useful, illuminating and most, of all, fun.”  With this audience-member, he realized all three.

I can’t recall the last time I sat with a book on the craft of writing as fully engaged as I was reading THE SECRETS OF STORY and I think I know why.

In writing his book, Matt Bird thought about and embraced his audience of storytellers; he’d listened to their needs and worked hard to satisfy them. 😊

Writing in a lively, honest-to-the-bone style, he bravely put himself into the mix – his screenwriting studies, his unexpected illness, his life experiences, and best of all, his disappointments.  Even though THE SECRETS OF STORY is a work of nonfiction, how could I not believe, care and invest?

“If you really value your audience,” he writes, again up front and early, “you’ll never have to choose between audience satisfaction and writing from the heart, because the two will be one and the same.”

For the record, I personally am ignoring Matt Bird’s Final Rule, which is to ignore everything he said in the book’s previous 330 pages.  Way before that point, he’d written so convincingly, his Rules had segued and become the beliefs every storyteller needs.

Make time to visit Matt Bird’s blog.  Check the resources listed on the right side of the page, especially The Ultimate Story Checklist.  

To learn more about the author, click here to read his September 19, 2016 interview at the Blabbermouth blog.

IMHO: THE SECRETS OF STORY belongs on every writer’s bookshelf.

Happy storytelling! Happy checklisting!

Esther Hershenhorn

………………………………………………………………………………….

Now, to procure your copy of Matt Bird’s THE SECRETS OF STORY, enter our Book Giveaway and perhaps you’ll be the lucky winner.  Use our Rafflecopter widget below.  You may enter via 1, 2, or all 3 options.

If you choose option 2, you must leave a comment on today’s blog post below or on our TeachingAuthors Facebook page. If you haven’t already liked our Facebook page, please do so today! If you prefer, you may submit your comment via email to: Teachingauthors[at]gmail [dot] com

Email subscribers: if you received this post via email, you can click on the Rafflecopter link at the end of this message to access the entry form.

Note: if you submit your comments via email or Facebook, you must still enter the drawing via the widget below.  The giveaway ends March 29, 2017, and is open to U.S. residents only.

[Carmela here: the above end date is a typo. The giveaway ends March 31, 2017.]

P.S. If you’ve never entered a Rafflecopter giveaway, here’s info on how to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway and the difference  between signing in with Facebook vs. with an email address.

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