Marcia Thornton Jones's Blog, page 19
June 3, 2024
Sky, Sky, Sky, Can't See it All at Once
Hello and Happy June! This month we are talking about sky. Is there anything more miraculous or inspiring?
The words in the subject line of this post are lyrics from this song by Ben Sollee.
Back in 2013 I chose "sky" as my One Little Word. Here's why.
That year I got in the habit of photographing the sky every day. I loved that practice! I still take sky pics fairly regularly.
One of my favorite passages about sky is found in the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel. You can read the excerpt here.
Here's a writing prompt about sky.
One of my favorite poems about sky is “Sky Story” by Rebecca Kai Doltish from One Minute Till Bedtime, edited by Kenn Nesbitt.
And here's a "sky" quote I discovered in The Poetry Friday Anthology and love to this day:
"One of my teachers told me, 'Never let a day go by without looking on three beautiful things.' I try to live up to that and find it isn't difficult. The sky in all weathers is, for me, the first of these three things." - David McCord
What are your three beautiful things today?
I've also written quite a few ArtSpeak! poem about the sky. Here's a sampling. Enjoy!
June 2, 2024
Sunny Skies, Summer Reading!
Sunny Skies, Summer Reading!
I’ve interviewed quite a range of middle grade authors on myblog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, over the past few weeks, and thought I’dshare some suggestions for summer reading!
Anna E. Jordan is the author of the new novel Shira &Esther’s Double Dream Debut, and I asked her how she came up with the idea forthe book. “The original seed for the project was on a trip I took to theSociety of Illustrators museum in New York City,” she said. “The exhibit at thetime was Drew Friedman’s book Jewish Comedians, and one of the illustrationtags mentioned a comedian whose father wanted him to be a rabbi but he wantedto be a comedian. What if, I thought, there were two characters and each wantedwhat the other had? Shira and Esther were born from this ‘what if,’ but it tooka long time to find each of their independent mannerisms and voice.”
Ruth Behar’s new novel, Across So Many Seas, was inspired byfamily stories. “I chose time periods that were moments of historicaltransformation,” she said. “I start with 1492, the era of expulsion anddisplacement when thousands of Jews who had deep roots in Spain were forced toleave to hold on to their faith. That year is better known for Columbus’s firstvoyage to the Americas, and maybe for Spain’s conquest of Granada, the lastMuslim kingdom on the peninsula. I wanted to call attention to the ‘other 1492,’which readers may not know about at all, but which is of huge significance toSephardic Jews.”
Joshua S. Levy is the author of Finn and Ezra’s Bar MitzvahTime Loop. He said about the inspiration for his novel: “Wanting to write a fun, meaningful, accessible book thatcentered Jewish kids, inhabiting their communities—that wasn’t adjacent in someway to themes of either antisemitism (although those books are certainlyimportant and needed) or kids struggling with their Jewish identities (a themethat, in some way, played into one of my last books, The Jake Show, alsopublished by HarperCollins, in May 2023).” He added, “I wanted to write astory about kids who just are Jewish. It’s their reality, even if doesn’tnecessarily drive the plot of the book. And also I love time loop stories.”
Finally, I interviewed Elaine Dimopoulos, author of ThePerilous Performance at Milkweed Meadow. “In The Perilous Performance atMilkweed Meadow a troupe of wild turkeys arrives in the meadow and engages thecreatures in putting on a big theatrical performance,” she said, adding, “Butternutthe rabbit, who comes from a family of storytellers, isn’t cast in the show,and she struggles with feelings of inadequacy. She wonders how a singlestoryteller like her can ever compete with a dazzling performance. But then theplayhouse in the oak forest burns down on opening night, and the reader mustguess which creature is behind the fire.”
There’s much to enjoy here, and I’m hoping for sunny skiesahead!
--Deborah Kalb
May 31, 2024
Beauty in the Backyard (Holly Schindler)
My old, quiet, tree-lined neighborhood is full of quite a few Airbnbs these days, which I think is kind of wild. I've bumped into all sorts of renters while walking my dog Gus. They have cameras and they marvel at the scenery and they tell me how nice it must be that I live where I do.
It's an odd feeling.
I mean, it's just my neighborhood. The same I rode bikes through as a little girl. The trees these visitors find so magical are the same I sat under to study for my college finals. It's the every-day. It's the scene that's greeted me every morning when I get up and when I come home in the evening.
And yet...
It's someone else's remarkable daybreak. It's a color they've never seen before. It's a breath of fresh air.
It reminds me, every single time I meet a renter, that my own backyard is not unremarkable.
There's beauty in the every day. And it's a shame that the day-in day-out often dulls that beauty.
But it's nice to be reminded.
What's usually at my side in my backyard--my dog Gus.
May 28, 2024
Where is Beauty Found?
by Charlotte Bennardo
Beauty is as beauty does...
That means that beauty isn't only perfection; there is beauty in imperfection.
Take the Japanese art of kintsugi, or kintsukuroi, translated at "golden joinery". It's defined as the art of repairing broken pottery, like teacups, vases, plates, bowls, etc. by not hiding the broken edges, but enhancing them, usually through the use of powdered precious metals like gold, platinum, or silver.
Photo courtesy of www.gencyorumdergisi.com The broken pieces, with the gold, create an intricate, unfettered, unique design. There is beauty in that new appearance.
Take the human face, lined with wisdom, age, experience. It has its own beauty that comes from life:
Photo by Nashua Volquez-Young: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-we...Now think of a mosaic artwork. A stunning visual showing beauty that can be expressed through the use of broken pieces of tile, glass, stone, or ceramics.
Photo by Mikita Yo: https://www.pexels.com/photo/rooftop-...Beauty is not perfection, but seeing the perfect expression of beauty in whatever form it takes.
Charlotte writes MG, YA, NA, and adult novels in sci fi, fantasy, contemporary, and paranormal genres. She is the author of the award-winning middle grade Evolution Revolution trilogy, Simple Machines, Simple Plans, and Simple Lessons. She co-authored the YA novels Blonde OPS, Sirenz, and Sirenz Back in Fashion. She has two short stories in the Beware the Little White Rabbit (Alice through the Wormhole) and Scare Me to Sleep (Faces in the Wood) anthologies. Having finished her MFA, she's applying what she learned and is working on several children's and adult novels, along with some short stories. She lives in NJ with her family and her floofy cat. When they trimmed the backyard tree, the crazy squirrel couple had to move out, but she is happy to report she has a new squirrel tenant along with a new pet rabbit (Bad Bunny).
May 24, 2024
Interview with Tracy Badua and Alechia Dow, Authors of The Cookie Crumbles
Welcome to Smack Dab, Tracy and Alechia! Please tell us abit about The Cookie Crumbles.
Hi, and thanks for chatting with us! The Cookie Crumbles is amiddle grade whodunnit, featuring two best friends––one a stellar baker, theother a budding journalist––as they navigate a high-stakes cookie competitionand an attempted murder. It’s Knives Out meets Great British Bake-Off.
You both have so many interests–and your professionalbackgrounds go far beyond the world of literature (baking, the law, etc.) Whatbrought each of you to writing?
Alechia: We do have such wild professional backgrounds––isn’tthat wild? To be honest, I always wanted to be a writer, I just never thoughtit was something I could pursue. Growing up, there was this pervasive beliefthat you had to have money to make art, so I never thought it was for me. But Ialways wrote and when I went to pastry school, I decided to concentrate on foodwriting. One thing led to another, and eventually I tried my hand at fiction.It was one of the best choices I've ever made.
Tracy: Similar toAlechia, my upbringing involved some heavy “hey, you should get a steady joband healthcare” influence. Fast forwarding a few decades, I rediscovered mylove of fiction after law school. Fortunately, many of the skills I’d developedin the legal field served me well as I tried to get published: forcing myselfto sit and get my thoughts down on the page, breaking down complex issues intodigestible bites for different audiences, expecting to revise and revise again,dealing with rejection after rejection, and so forth. I love all the differentways I’m able to flex those writing muscles (but writing for kids is much morefun. Shh – don’t tell the other lawyers).
I’m fascinated by writing partnerships. How did you twostart writing together?
Alechia: Tracy and I have been friends and critique partners––weread each other’s books and offer feedback––for eight years. When it came towriting together, it felt really natural.
Tracy: Author Wendy Heard used to do some informal critiquepartner matchmaking and she emailed both Alechia and me with “You two seem likea good match.” Smart cookie, that one.
What was the process like? Do you have similar draftingstyles (plotter, pantser)? How did you stay on track?
Alecia Dow
Alechia: Writing The Cookie Crumbles was such a fun experience!We have very similar styles of drafting and are very goal-oriented plotterswith a pinch of pantsing. We did chapter by chapter summaries, spreadsheets,and stayed in constant communication. At the time of writing, I was in Germany,Tracy was in California, which meant a 9-hour time difference. So one of uswould be writing while the other was asleep. We could get two chapters––andedit the other’s chapter––in a day because of the time difference.
Why MG? Did the two of you start out knowing you wantedto do an MG, or did the idea for the book demand it be written for the MGaudience?
Alechia: We both write middle grade books. Tracy wrote Freddie vs. The Family Curse, The Takeout, and the upcoming Thea and the Mischief Makers (October15, 2024). I wrote Just a Pinch of Magic.However, we weren’t sure what to make of this particular story. I think westarted it as young adult, but then after feedback, we aged down to middlegrade. Honestly though, we both agreed it made a better middle grade anyway. Itlent itself better to the themes annnnd it was finally fulfilling a dream forme. I read a ton of mystery middle grade books growing up, so it’s an honor tobe a part of one now.
Please tell us a bit about your main characters. I can’ttell you how much I love the idea of making one of the MCs a suspect! It reallyties in some strong conventions of the traditional cozy mystery, but it alsobrings in a strong story of friendship, which is probably the most importantrelationship in any MG-reader’s life. How did all of this come about?
Alechia: Tracy and I split the story in half; I wrote Laila, theconfident baker and yet, an insecure friend who is afraid of how people viewher and her relationship with Lucy. Middle grade is such a fantastic age groupthat lets you explore big and new emotions, friendship, and family, which youcan’t always do in young adult anymore as it skews a bit more adult.
Tracy Badua
Tracy: I wrote Lucy, a newscaster-hopeful who really wants toprove her journalism chops. Having friends who believe in you is important, nomatter the stage in life, and I loved seeing how Lucy and Laila served thatrole for each other (spoiler: mostly!) in the book.
The storm hurls what might be the worst catastrophe atthe girls–stealing access to their phones! Again, I love the cozy-mystery feelof taking away access to tech. Any bigger issues here that brought you totaking the girls away from their screens?
Alechia: The best mysteries cut you off from the outside world.With middle grade especially, if we didn’t isolate them, they could have justcalled their parents and left. This way, they’re forced to solve a mystery andconfront their feelings about friendship, family, and the future. There’s nohelp here, they have to prove themselves and hone new skills––which reallyadded to their character growth.
One of the toughest parts of writing for most authors canbe the hook or setup. Those early pages are so important and so tough to nail.But your first line and first page is incredible - “Cookies don’t kill people.”Where’d that come from?
Alechia: I definitely believe in hooking readers right away. Asa cookie lover and chef, I thought the funniest way to start the story was withthis line, and Tracy agreed. It offers a great setup for a baking mystery.Also, generally speaking, cookies really don’t kill people––it’s thecontestants you have to look out for.
Mysteries are probably the hardest genre to write. Anytips? Did you have the answer to the mystery planned out before you startedwriting?
Alechia: Always know the end before you begin. You need to knowthe who in the whodunnit so that you can sow the seeds early on while not beingtoo on the nose. From there, you have to throw in a lot of red herrings.
Tracy: Stay organized! That doesn’t mean you have topainstakingly detail every single action and risk draining that joy ofdiscovery out of writing: you can even create a rough outline after the fact soyou can get a larger idea of how you’d put all the pieces together. I say thisbecause I feel like co-writing a mystery proved even trickier than plotting outa solo book because Alechia and I had to fill each other in on those seeds wemay have too cleverly planted along the way. Our early drafts were full ofhighlighting and comment boxes, and the spreadsheets and constant communicationwe mentioned before was key in staying organized and making sure we didn’t dropany threads or contradict each other.
What’s next? Do the two of you have another book in theworks?
We do! The second in the series, Their Just Desserts, is coming out next year! We can’t say muchabout it yet, but all you need to know is that this time it’s a reality bakingshow mystery, and it’ll keep you guessing till the very end.
Where can we find you?
You can find us online!
Alechia: My website is alechiadow.com, you can find me onfacebook as Alechia Dow, instagram as @alechiadow, and TikTok as––you guessedit––Alechia Dow!
Tracy: I’m at tracybadua.com and most often on Instagram at@tracybaduawrites and on X and TikTok as @tracybwrites.
May 23, 2024
Imagination in Your Little Finger? Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun
Back to imagination. I thought about which part of my body holds it. The brain was just too easy an answer to be useful. I thought of my hands. Afterall, they type, write, make things. What about my eyes or ears? They take in the world. Left foot? It certainly trips over stuff often enough—metaphorically speaking, that ends up being creatively useful. But there was something wrong with all these answers. Like many quandaries, it took a walk to figure out.
Imagination moves, flows. It doesn’t stay in one place like my liver does. So maybe the blood, the circulatio as they say in alchemy, was the answer. Then it hit me: breath! Breath brings the world in, processes it through my entire body, spirit, brain, and then moves out again into the world. Isn't this how imagination flows in, is made into art, and flows back out into the world as art?
What part of your body holds your imagination?
May 15, 2024
What She Said
You want to know the real secret to great writing?
As we continue to explore the concept of beauty in writing,I offer a slightly different but intimately related take on the concept:there’s beauty in persistence, too.
There's all sorts of news floating about whether books are sellingor not. This from Anne R. Allen and Ruth Harris. (Agents, The Good, The Bad, and the Disgusting, 2024)
This is the story of my writing life, to a tee. It’sfrustrating and depressing and angrifying. But it’s also typical whenever onetries to fit the roundly creative into the square peg of business. When thebottom line rules the roost, it becomes less about the creative and more aboutthat which sells fast and sells most, and sells in the cheapest waypossible. Pandemics, trends, recessions, internet, and AI. Scams. Andmore scams. Too many competing for too little.
For more context, there’s this article making the rounds,how no one is buying books anymore. (No One Buys Books, 2024)
Then, there’s this one about the ten awful truths aboutpublishing, fromSteven Piersanti, Senior Editor, Berrett-Koehler Publishers. (The 10 Awful Truths about Book Publishing,2023)
Here’s a thought. Don't give up. Indeed. Focus on that whichyou can control, the creative, and just keep writing. For me, at thispoint when I'm old as 15 timelords, it's about The Story. About making it agood one. Everything else is just a banana.
Don’t believe me? Consider these wise words, from AliceMcDermott’s Literary Debutante Ball Address: (Literary Hub, 2024)
“Say it whenever someone tries to suggest that there areprohibitions to our art: that you’re not allowed to imagine yourself intocertain worlds, or certain characters, or certain cultures. That you are barredfrom creating situations that you haven’t actually lived. That you are barredfrom borrowing too much from so-called “real life.”
Say it when you’re told you are too late with your fictionalpremise—it’s been done before. Or too early—it’s never been done before.
“Ah, fuck ‘em.”
Say it with a laugh. Or a shrug.
Say it kindly, in the same way you might mutter, “Poorfool,” or “Oh, well,” or, like a dismissive Southern lady, “Why, bless yourheart.” Or say it patiently, ruefully as the Irish might say, “God help us.”
Indeed. What she said!
And if you need more inspiration, try this!
Remember my recent review of The Emotion Thesaurus (An Emotional Deep Dive, 2024)?
Considered “the gold standard”, the ultimate show-don’t-tellguide for emotion, I've found the entire series indispensable in my writing andas teaching aids in my MFA classes. There’s a new book out for the series, TheEmotion Amplifier Thesaurus! If you’re interested, you can find out where topurchase from here!
And there’s a giveaway!
Do you find it hard to show character emotion? If so, youmight want to enter this giveaway for a Zoom workshop with Angela Ackerman andBecca Puglisi. It’s going to cover emotion amplifiers and how to use them tomake characters more emotionally reactive (and therefore prone to errors injudgment and mistakes). 100 seats are up for grabs! You need to enter by May17th here!
Now you know the secret to great writing: Just Keep Writing!
Thank you for reading!
-- Bobbi Miller
May 12, 2024
Beauty in Pictures by Darlene Beck Jacobson
In my mind, words don't do justice to the concept of beauty. So, I will share some random images of beauty, keeping in mind that it is, and always will be, in the eye of the beholder.
Darlene Beck Jacobson gets inspired by all the beauty that surrounds her whenever she pays attention. Acts of kindness, extra attention and effort, a helping hand, nature, and art are some of the beautiful things she finds inspiring.
May 11, 2024
What Beauty Is to Me, Then and Now
In Alaska (not about writing but beautiful)!
It was in 4th or 5th grade that our teacher asked us to write a piece on beauty. That struck me as odd because, outside of oneother creative writing assignment (in which I described in words and picturesmy perfect day) I can't remember being asked to just write. This freedom to put down whatever I wanted wasboth exciting—
No. Strike that. It was pretty terrifying in thebeginning. But I do remember that once I came up with the idea of seasons, itflowed like the rush of a swollen stream. Take a look. (If you don't want to read my early cursive, it's typed below, mistakes and all.)
Beauty is snow sparkling in winter,
The snowdrifts that form a blanket,
Snowmen with eyes made of dark gray coal.
That’s what beauty is to me.
Beauty is the little woodland creatures born in the spring.
The birds popping out of branches
Beauty is pusswillows gray in the sunlight
That’s what beauty is to me.
Beauty is the green, fresh feeling in summer
With the friendly old sun shining down on you
Beauty is little children having fun
That’s what beauty is to me.
Beauty is crunching in the red, yellow, and orange leaves in autumn
The smell of pine needles
Beauty is the bonfires crackling.
That’s what beauty is to me.
Like I said, the poem flowed like the rush of a swollen stream. Until…
Until I came to the summertime stanza. I was okay with the first two lines, but the third? Little children having fun? I became self-conscious. I sounded too adult. I was 10, still a child, right? Right. So I sat there, trying to think of a replacement line before I finally gave up, knowing that my favorite times included the freedom to run and play.
Fast forward to a few days ago. I was at the Franklin County (KS) Book Festival with about 700 3rd-5th graders. As I stood there answering questions in one of the sessions, specifically, how we authors get critiques on our writing just like they do in Writers Workshops, it stuck me how fortunate these kiddos are with their opportunities to express themselves.
And in that moment, I realized that's also what beauty is to me.
Jody Feldman is planning to spend the rest of today watching the birds pop out of the branches in the sunlight. She'll get back to her writing on Monday.
May 8, 2024
BEAUTY is in the eye of the beholder -- Jane Kelley
What? No Garbage Picking? But that's what I do.
Maybe it's because my parents grew up during the Depression. Nothing ever went to waste. My father's workshop was full of bits and pieces that he could use to repair anything -- or sometimes turn into whimsical sculptures.
I don't have his gift for fixing things. Or gardening. But I do collect episodes from people's lives. When bad things happen to me, I comfort myself with the mantra -- it will make a good story.
And it does. There is an adage -- tragedy plus time equals comedy. I think that tragedy plus time also equals a good story.
So I don't throw anything away. Maybe I brood a little too long on something someone said. Or dig a little too deep into the meaning behind a random series of events.
But hey -- I'm a writer!
And so I couldn't help but be amused when I went to a museum exhibit which was encouraging people to write down their responses to what was on display.
See the label on the lid? The can is for stories -- not trash.
Look closer and you'll see. Of course people threw trash there. Or maybe that trash was just on its way to becoming a story?
JANE KELLEY is a middle grade author who has been known to use anything to create characters. Including . . . .
Turkey bones.
