Year of "Cerebral" Work

Holy hiatus, bloggers! It's been ages since I've posted.

And the reason for that is that lately, I've been working on an enormous revision. This is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian political story. And it's not YA -- it's adult!

Genius Agent Holly has given me lots to think about. Big things. Scope. Stakes. Character.

These things are so hard, I had to think about them for a few weeks before even pulling the draft back up. And after I thought and thought and talked to a lot of people about really weird stuff, I am now writing. Writing!

My goal is to finish mid-February.

Because I want to stay in this all-out flow. And at the end of February, I'm teaching Oregon's first-ever Firefighting Composition Class!

In 2011, I did a ton of writing. I revised a YA literary story, scribbled essays for the NEH Institute in Oahu, designed the firefighting class, penned the dystopian novel, was accepted for publication by the American Journal of Nursing, and took two notebooks of notes on Southeast Asia in Honolulu.

I've read, too. I figure that over the last year, I've graded 600,000 words of student work. That's 2,400 pages!

Also, I've got a new curriculum for my winter research writing class: "Beyond Super-Sized; What Food Does For--And To--Us."

Still to come, in 2012, is an article in a State University of New York anthology on Southeast Asia.

Whew! It was a big year for my brain.

But when I put a sponge in the microwave, or miss the exit to get home, when I check myself in the school parking lot for pants or a skirt, or something, on my bottom half, I know that not much has changed.

Yep. I'm still me.

The Future of The Future of Us

"It's 1996, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet.

"Emma just got her first computer and an America Online CD-ROM.

"Josh is her best friend.they power up and log on -- and discover themselves on Facebook, fifteen years in the future."

I loved it, The Future of Us, by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler.

I love that the plot is driven by high school junior Emma's obsession to have a good marriage fifteen years ahead. Emma's motivation is clear: her own parents are divorced and remarried, with lots of complications.

The effects of divorce is just one of the social issues Future explores. There's also homosexuality; stereotypes; teen sex, drinking, drugs.

Who will Emma end up marrying? Will she be happy? What will Emma and Josh do about the future they can see? The six-day mystery unfolds in 65 short chapters, through alternating narrators Emma and Josh. Each chapter is so compelling and fluid that moving through the book is smooth and fast. I never found a good time or place to put it down -- wanted to keep going, had to remind myself to slow down and enjoy each word.

I can see Mackler's call for respecting individuality and complex family dynamics (The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things). And there are threads of Asher's theme of how one small "ripple" affects a lot of other people (13 Reasons Why).

While I might have traded out a couple characters for a little more 1996 -- what everyone was wearing/eating/drinking/watching/doing -- I cherished the details, like the songs that "played" in the story, and the "Wayne's World" part, and the problem with Pluto.

The Future of Us is tight and real, funny and sad. These talented writers marry wit and philosophy, delivering a thought-provoking tale of two teens trying to thrive in a quickly-changing world:

"No matter how small the ripple, the most vulnerable part of the future is going to be our children."

Like!

My Biggest, Best Critic

My work always lands in her lap last, when other eyes have already seen it, when I think I've made all the changes, when I think the story is good to go.

But it's never done after it gets to her.

She tells me, "The character's hair would not be wet. It's been 4 hours." "He wouldn't know her name yet." "He'd never know how much the other guy's boots cost."

She tells me the conflict might not resolve that fast, that the MC wouldn't say "Epic", that the love scene needs some work. She crosses out telling, pushes me to show.

She explains that the intro needs tightening, less repetition. The middle moves fast, except Chapter Ten. The end works: the whole thing makes sense now. I'm thrilled when I find a "Good!" or a star.

She reads the whole thing in a day, maybe two, working hours at a time, marking up almost every page with her purple pen.

"It's so good, Mom," she writes on the last page, my 12 year-old daughter, Daney.

Our Paths Do Cross

You wouldn't think it, but our professional paths do cross, Dave's and mine.

Often, volunteer fire fighters from Dave's department are in my writing classes. They tell of rescues, of danger, of life with the guys at Station One. Sometimes, I "poach" a potential prospect. I see organization, committment, clear thinking, and I ask the student if they've ever considered fire fighting.

Then, there's my own writing. A few years ago, after a fire ravaged through Lake Tahoe, I wrote, of all things, a travel article about it. Dave and I had left the kids behind, had driven to Angora Lake, where we stood at the lookout over acres and acres of ash, a flag unfurling above it all.

And recently, there has come the perfect pairing of these two seemingly contrasting worlds. After a handful of months, I've created Oregon's first Fire Officer Composition class. Choosing the literature was fun--and tricky. I found a slew of excellent memoirs, novels, short stories, and essays, before I ended up picking really action-y stuff, stuff on smoke jumpers, on 9-11.

Over two full days, these officers will read and write their own stories: their most significant call, how to ventilate or how to place a ladder.

This is not report writing, the local chiefs have told me. They want narrative, narrative, narrative.

Undoubtedly, after reading and reading and writing and writing, these public servants will be much different thinkers. I believe that I will be, too.

Real Magic: Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus

It is absolutely enchanting, Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus.

The setting alone--Victorian Paris; London; Munich; New York; and Concord, Massachusetts--pops with color and costumes and caramel apples.

The characters are rich, mysterious, and the plot--a game gone bad between two old old magicians--is different, interesting.

It's a wonder of a read, one that will take you somewhere you've never been, one you'll be thinking about days after you've read (and re-read) the last line.

There, the magic does not end. The alchemy behind the book--Morgenstern's process--that is really something.

The story started as a completely different concept in 2005, morphing into its ultimate manifestation years and revisions later.

30 agents rejected the sweeping, lyrical manuscript that eventually landed Morgenstern six-figures and a movie deal.

The MC, Morgenstern claims, was invented last. How, I wonder? How was that possible? This Celia, she is integral, holds the circus in her very palm--the cover itself.

(While we're on design, you must check out the illustrations that separate the five parts. Hint: it's what you see on one of the Circus rides.)

Better than The Magicians? The next Harry Potter? Twilight rival?

Morgenstern laughs away comparisons.

And she should.

The Night Circus is its own story, a real-life unfolding of paper, of turning of gears.

It Was Addiction

When I started teaching at the local community college, I was completely caught off guard by the deluge of essays about alcohol and meth addiction/rehab/relapse. For years, most of the narrative papers from my school have been about this struggle, the loss that comes with it, the day-to-day recovery.

I'll tell you what, it's heartbreaking, reading these stories of parents offering their 13 year-olds methamphetamine, of kids being taken away/given back/taken away again. Homes are lost. Jobs are lost. Marriages dissolve.

But in many of these papers, there has been hope. These students have been to the bottom, and have found it isn't pretty, and they've learned that they can make things better for themselves. They can choose to stop using, they can join support groups. They can decide to live again.

Now, though, there's another problem. A different problem. A new one.

For the first time since I've been teaching, the big theme is unemployment.

Sadly, it does make sense.

Oregon's unemployment rate exceeds that of the national average, and in our county here, it's two whole percentage points higher.

My students write of being laid off, of looking (and looking and looking) for work, of being turned away for body piercings or heavy-lifting requirements.

They are losing their homes, their families, their self-worth.

In these stories, I'm not seeing the hope, the will, that comes with the addiction essays.

I'm seeing desperation. Devastation. Despair.

I would like to see this turn around. Of course, I would like to see the job market explode. But, realistically, I want to see my students be stronger, be more active, to take control.

I want them to clean themselves up and look admin. right in the eye. I want them to shake hands with a firm grip, leave behind sparkly applications.

I want them to learn a little from each rejection, to get more determined, more wise, more driven from it.

I want them to keep trying.

Blanca

Blanca sits on the bleachers
of her cholo's basketball game,
men's D-league.
Thursday night.
She sits
between two brown-eyed babies,
Blanca,
a baby herself.

Blanca,
toenails red,
black stilettos.
No ring on her finger.

She's the same as she was
in eighth grade English:
liquid eyeliner on her lids
full lips
long legs.

Blanca,
then,
talking and laughing during Anne Frank.
Getting referrals to the dean.
Getting detention.

Blanca,
then,
in short, swishy skirts.
Popping gum in the hallway:
"An' I tell him, if he gonna treat me that way, uh uh."

She's the same as she was,
only different, now, too.
The fire in her eyes,
gone,
even when her cholo dunks.

Blanca,
now,
in a too-tight pea coat,
tied hard around her.
Now,
with sippy cups,
with binkies and bills,
and after the two, with birth control.
Dios knows the cholo isn't worried about that.

Blanca,
checking outside the gym.
Where did they go, those babies?
Where did they disappear?
Blanca,
finding them again.

She sits in the bleachers,
center-left,
by the open door.
While her cholo drives the ball down,
right into the White Team,
fouls.

She sits.
Her babies,
talking,laughing, outside.
She sits,
checking her phone,
waiting.
She doesn't know for what.

Why I Love Grading Papers

Okay, there are lots of reasons to not love grading papers (it's tedious, time-consuming, frustrating, etc.).

And a lot of the time, I'd rather be doing other stuff (going on a walk, doing yoga, playing "10 Days in Europe" with my kids).

But there are some things about grading I really do love (beyond the obvious: the excuse to drink fancy coffee, and seeing my students improve).

I like that when I have papers to grade over a weekend, I pack in a bunch of other things around it(this weekend: hiking Mount Ashland, and taking my boys fishing, and having the kids' friends over, and going to breakfast with my good man).

I structure my time, when, usually, I'd be all over the place. Going nowhere. Getting nothing done.

Also, I get to practice what I'm teaching. I get to use the techniques I'm talking about in my own writing. I have to ask myself, Is all of this relevant? Is the story as tight and clean as humanly possible? Are my sentence beginnings different?

And, while I am firing up my neurons, so are my kids. They're doing their homework and playing guitar and building amazing things with Legos. Even The Husband will at least scan Sports Illustrated.

And, the biggest plus: I don't have to cook! I can sit on the sofa or at the table or in bed, and read incredible essays about other people's fascinating lives.

50 papers about "The Most Significant Time of Your Life"?

I'd take that any day over having to fry up a bunch of chicken.

Ways to Make Your Story Sing

So, as I've been revising this secret little story, I've been paying BIG attention to voice. As in, staying in it, making it good/real/rich, making it o-o-z-e personality. Tone. Mood.

I was watching a thriller the other day, and just before something bad happened, the music got all tinkly. And when the tension rose, the music got louder, fast.

How can we use music in our writing? How can we strengthen voice?

Well, I'm finding that little tricks can make an enormous difference.

Like. Punctuation! (Including parentheses. And ellipses...)

And sentence fluency.

And paragraph structure.

And it's so all about word choice.

All of these things--and showing, not telling, and using specific nouns and strong verbs--add to a story's personality/tone/mood.

Dashes. Drawls. Slang?

POOF! How about some onomatopoeia?

Or italics? Fragments? Pacing!

It's all up to you: the feel you want to create, the music you want to play.


(And by all means, help a sister out. If you have any good tips, please. Leave them right here.)

Brushing off the Dust

A month or so ago, I pulled up the very first story I ever wrote, a simple little YA story that no one but my writing partner, Christy, has ever read.

At first, I thought it was incredibly primitive, as in "primate," as in, a monkey must have written the thing.

There was not much action, hardly any plot, underdeveloped characters with way too old vocabularies, too much "telling," a whiny MC.

I mean, compared to the political-dystopian-colonialist MS I just finished, this really was monkey business.

But also, the little story had some fun stuff: a vessel for telling the story that teens would really like, an uncommon but exciting setting, an MC with potential, an ending that I love.

Then, I started tinkering with it a bit--polishing up voice, working the setting, adding some dimension to the MC with dialogue. I made sure I answered the questions I asked at the beginning.

I started tinkering a lot--changing the direction of some plot points, making the MC more likeable/relateable, adding detail to the MC's motivation, the reasons for her action/reaction.

Now what I have is kind of a mess. But it's a better mess than it was when the monkey wrote it.

I'm going to tinker some more and see what comes of it, and be wide open to that whatever.

How about you? What are you working (or re-working) on?

Can It Be About Secondary Characters?

Several months ago, I was talking with one of my writing partners about how we both loved our secondary characters, far more than we liked our MCs.

What's with that?

Is it okay?

Well, I finally got around to watching "The Black Swan" last week while Man Down with a kidney infection, and I realized why I had put it off for so long: I am not a fan of Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman). Yes, I do respect her long hours at training for the part--the ballet she took, the weight she lost, the craft she honed. But, simply, I am not in love with her, and have never been, not even in "Where The Heart Is."

Instead of going into all the blab about why I'm not a Portman superfan, I'll tell you that I am head over heels for "Swan" secondary characters Mila Kunis (who had me at "Book of Eli") and the talented and gorgeous Frenchman Vincent Cassel, who can give one look that can win an Oscar. So for me, these two carried me through the movie. Them, and plot, and setting.

The other night, my little family went to see Bill Rauch's rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" at the outdoor Shakespeare theater. It was magic: the sword fighting and swashbuckling and disco dance breakouts. The female lead sang way too high, though, and none of us could understand what she was saying (though she did have her some swanky kimono PJs), and the lead male was meh.

But the Pirate King! Aye, my friends! This lad was really something!

And Ruth, the nursemaid, was equally fantastic. And the rollicking Modern Major General? Unforgettable!

It probably shouldn't be so that a reader or movie watcher or play goer not like the MC. But it does seem to happen, and if it does, it's better to have some really amazing sidekicks to go with it.

If You Missed It...

Here they are--the inspiring, wise words of "Myths and Misconceptions" on WriteOnCon.com:

"Writing is really hard. It's a career...You can't ever stop reading, and learning." Holly Root, Agent

"Live! And have experiences." Martha Mihalick, Editor

"Being happy and supportive for other people will put you in a better mind frame for your own career." Molly O'Neill, Editor

So good!

Taking A Break

Aloha from Oahu!

While I'm studying here on a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, I'll be taking a little blog break. (I'm trying to learn, and write, and organize a presentation, oh, and figure out which bus gets to the beach).

Mahalo.

33,000 Words In...

...I'm finding that writing sci-fi is tricky -- and fun!

First, I research history, economics, biology, technology. Anthropology, too. Sometimes it's super scary stuff. What I'm trying to do is to push out trends another 90 years into the future. How is the world different? What has caused it to change? What is the action/reaction to that change? How has the world stayed the same?

I take a tiny bit of research and fit it into my story. Sci-fi has to be original, exciting, unpredictable, but it also needs to be believeable.

And every page I move forward in my MS, I go back to the beginning and flush out that. So the story is hopefully deeper, richer, more cohesive. So it has more tension, more conflict. So the ethical, moral, and philosophical questions have answers.

With sci-fi, there is serious world-building, serious setting. And, I'm writing in 2 different limited omniscient voices.

Here's the first line:

It came down to cauliflower, Anja Knew.

I'll tell you one thing: this MS will need serious revision. Honest, I can't wait to tackle that. (Wiggles fingers.)

Frozen in Time

So yesterday, my community college writing classroom was visited by the vice president.

I was nervous, I told my husband, because the lesson was a tricky one (the integration of implications), because it was the vice president coming, because even though I trusted my students completely, anything, anything could happen.

And it did.

The clock stopped.

Now, you might think there could be a worse distraction. And, there definitely could be.

I had practiced, I had prepped my incredible students. I had ironed, even got my hair cut.

But I had no idea how dependent I was on that cheeky little clock. Starting class, giving the 5-minute warm-up activity, stopping for a break, resuming, ending...there was no measure for any of it.

Technology -- basic technology -- had failed me.

Sure, the lesson went on. There were popcorn kernels and writing prompts. Reflection. Analysis. Evaluation. The students were their incredible selves: engaged, delightful, critical thinkers in full attendance.

Halfway through the hour(?), I stopped sweating it. If we started at 9:47 and ended at 9:47, if anything went super south, I convinced myself, I could pretend the whole class never happened.

Here's Why

I haven't been blogging:

Because somehow we're five whole weeks into the term already.

Because I've been ironing out a new speech curriculum.

Because Dominic has had track meets at the middle school.

Because my sister Erika and her husband Ryan and their incredible 11 week-old baby came to visit from Sacramento.

Because I'm writing a little, and thinking about e-books a lot.

Because with a monthly grocery bill total of over $1500, that's oodles of shopping and unpacking and cooking!

Best Easter ever? Writing group pizza! Four writers, four men, eight kids hopped up on marshmallow eggs.

How about you? You getting any writing done?

When You're Stuck in Your Story...

...Go back to the beginning. Work on what you have done. Tighten up. Rearrange. Add plot. Add dialogue. Flush out secondary characters with depth and dimension. Make setting sing.

You will see where you have been. You will remember where you are going.

Even if it wasn't tacking a thousand words onto your end, you will feel like you have done something.

Instant Gratification: The Current Trend in Introduction

My kids and I were eight chapters into reading To Kill A Mockingbird (so we can see the OSF production of it this spring), when sixth-grade Daney groaned, "What is this book about, anyway? There is no plot, there is no conflict."

She was right.

Harper Lee took her sweet Southern time aquainting her readers with Scout's tiny life in Maycomb County: her admiration for her older brother, Jem; her relationships with summer visitor, Dill; the ladyfolk; the ghostly man-child, Boo Radley; her father.

We get the hot, dry dust, the simple-minded, struggling townspeople.

But it's not until page 85 when conflict rips us from the slow days of Scout's scounting about, and throws us into the political upheaval that becomes the essence of the book.

"This is like Dracula," Dominic (13) agreed. (He's reading the 500-word tome for his spring book report.) "It didn't get good until page 300, when stuff started happening."

"What did Bram Stoker write in the 300 pages of 'nothing?'" I'd asked.

"Setting," Dominic said. "And setting. And setting. He took a long time setting it up."

So right now, my kids are seeped in two worlds: in 1930s Alabama, and 19th Century Transylvania. And though they're finally capitivated, it cost a lot of hearing them complain in getting them here.

We writers could never do this today. We could never "waste" a third of our stories on establishing setting. The present trend is to drop blood, or mystery, or vengance, or some kind of conflict right on page one.

What does that mean?

What are we missing out on?

I Thought I Forgot How To Write

Has that ever happened to you?

You started working on something new, and 3,000 words in, you're, like, "What's my style?" "What's my story?"

But then!

It all starts coming together. We start remembering -- yes! we put these words with this picture! -- and the story, it begins writing itself.

16,000 is my number now. It's been, what?, a month or two?, and this new sci-fi thing is really exciting me! I am learning the characters, seeing conflict, craving resolution, creating tension, looking for that ending.

The little things can be filled in: necklaces, an owl's call, the scent of fresh bread.

Halfway there, is what I'm thinking. That will be the bones. Before the flesh. But even those skeletons, they got some life in 'em.

Variety?

So, I'm writing sci-fi, for a huge change, and I'm thinking about the differences between it and other genres.

For me, so far, it comes down to setting and word choice. Character doesn't seem to change much, and plot isn't enormously effected.

I'd love to hear what your thoughts on it all.