Marcia Thornton Jones's Blog, page 65

Favorite summer memories

Here is a random selection of some of my favorite summer memories:     
- Having sleepovers with my cousins and making up games to play.

- Playing volleyball in my Grandma’s pool and finally being tall enough to touch the bottom all the way across.

- Going on boat rides with my Grandpa in Florida, seeing dolphins, and collecting sea shells for so long on an island that I thought almost no time had passed when the rest of my family collected me and said we had been there for 2 hours.

- Making the best of a rainy 4th of July in Washington D.C. and watching the Washington Monument fireworks emerge half-heartedly from behind a big cloud.

- Going to Royals games, singing Friends in Low Places during the 6th inning, and watching the Friday night fireworks.

-A long road trip to visit the Grand Canyon, Four Corners, and riding to the top of a butte in a helicopter.

-Visiting the Badlands and Mount Rushmore and getting Junior Ranger pins.

-Hitting my first homerun. 
-Biking around Hilton Head Island and trying not to run into trees on rolling sidewalks.

-Watching movies on the top deck of a cruise ship.

-Putting Duck Tape on the driveway and playing 4-square during quarantine.

-Reading the 6th Harry Potter book on the way to Colorado.

-Having an “owl” deliver my invitation to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

-Trips to Adventure Oasis and pretending that the lazy river was filled with danger and hidden gems.

-Rafting down an true dangerous river and swimming/pushing a man with a leg injury upstream to meet EMS.

My Top 10 Childhood Summer Memories

 

My Top 10 Childhood Summer Memories

 

10. Playing kickball in our suburban D.C. yard until past dark, with the fireflies coming out and the crickets chirping and finally everyone’s parents calling them to come home.

 

9. Lying on the glider on my grandparents’ screen porch in New Jersey reading the Fairy Books of different colors, for endless hours.

 

8. Acting out various characters’ lines from Louise Fitzhugh’s The Long Secret (yes, we loved Harriet the Spy, but The Long Secretcaptured our attention that particular summer).

 

7. Finding out, while at my grandparents' in New Jersey, that Nixon resigned  and (even as a young kid) wishing I was home in D.C., where the action was.

 

6. Becoming so obsessed with Elizabeth Enright’s series that started with The Saturdays that I asked my grandparents’ across-the-street neighbors if I could have their daughter’s copies of the books. They were kind enough to say yes.

 

5. Spending many, many afternoons at the neighborhood pool, having backflip contests in the water, drinking orange drink from the vending machine and watching bees buzzing around the trash can, and braving the high dive.

 

4. Playing endless games of Life and Happiness and Monopoly on the floor of the den. Usually losing.

 

3. Standing on my head for lengthy periods of time.

 

2. Sleeping over at my cousins’ house or my friends’ houses and staying up late watching TV.

 

1. Celebrating my August birthday, often with assorted Baskin-Robbins ice cream flavors and cake.

Hope everyone has a good summer!

 

--Deborah Kalb

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Smack Dab News

Smack Dab Author AM Bostwick has signed with The Book Shop Literary Agency. 

The Best Place To Be

By Charlotte Bennardo 
 Photo courtesy of Pexels

Sometimes writers use settings of places they've never been; they do research, check out pictures, and some even make a special trip to see the place. In my book Blonde OPS, the setting was Rome, Italy. Since I'd never been there and I needed to get a feel for certain streets and buildings, I used Google Earth to virtually 'walk' me down the roads. (Very cool.) In my middle grade series, Evolution Revolution, I used the setting I knew best- my backyard. Some may think I took the easy way out, using a familiar setting, but it was the one that worked best with my story. The series centers around a squirrel. Yes, there are squirrels in every state, in almost every country around the world, but I had my main character, a squirrel who lived in the pin oak tree in my backyard, right there. Every day I could look out my window and see how he behaved in his own environment. Authors research to find out little tidbits that make their characters and settings come alive. With the squirrel living in my backyard, I didn't have to do much. In fact, I kind of experimented with him. (I have no idea if the squirrel was male or female, but I made my character a Jack.) Watching him, I could see what times he came down from the tree. Did he meet up with other squirrels? How did he feel about the cats in the window, watching him come and go? How did he react to the neighbor's noisy cars? Would he invite a girlfriend over?

It may sound boring- that my squirrel spent a lot of time in the backyard, not really traveling too far since I saw him daily, but when the setting is small, every detail is important. In fact, I wasn't observing the setting, I was living in it. My squirrel would sit in the branches, chittering madly when my kids played in the sandbox below and he wanted to come down. He sat on the patio table, eating the seeds, nuts, and in winter, the bananas which froze that I put out for him. After the leaves fell in autumn, I'd see his nest, way up high. Walking around my yard, I saw little holes where he buried nuts (and I'd find them in the spring when they sprouted into saplings in my gardens, flower pots, and lawn). It was almost like living in a bio-dome. When the tree had to be trimmed, the arborist knocked down his nest (no, he wasn't in it). But he disappeared, and never returned. My story follows a squirrel who fights to save his 'setting' (the woods where he lives in an old oak tree) but ends up losing it because of man and machine. Maybe that was the inspiration for part of the plot of my book (the tree had to be trimmed because it was endangering house, pool, and driveway with cars). But I still felt bad. 

Illustration by Cathleen Daniels

So now the setting may look the same, with the exception of a new walkway, because the tree is still there and very healthy, but my yard feels empty without the nest and the squirrel. One little change can alter a setting and usually the change is not for the best. I think of my squirrel and hope he found another tree he liked as much, in a setting that didn't have the danger of tree trimmers...

Setting: Half the (Fun?) Is Getting There

You've heard the expression that "half the fun is getting there," but when writing for middle graders, for me, half the problem is getting there...wherever "there" happens to be.

I have two problems with setting: first, I'm more of a plot person. I want it to move move move. I want stuff to happen. It's hard for me to slow down enough to give the reader an idea of where we are. Generally, my agent and/or editor has to remind me to go back and spend a little more time setting the scene. Describe stuff.

And then, when I finally do establish a setting, I inevitably need for my middle grade characters to go somewhere else. And you know what's tough about that? They can't drive. 

It's so hard to get into interesting mischief when your mom has to drop you off for said mischief!

This means that I have to figure out whether my characters are going to walk, ride a bike, take public transportation (which means I have to set the book in a more urban area), call an Uber, or hotwire a car. (Speaking of "mischief"! That's an understatement!)

For my current WIP, I'm trying to take some deep breaths and enjoy the scenery. Wish me luck!

Ginger Rue's latest book, Wonder Women of Science, is co-authored with rocket scientist Tiera Fletcher, who is currently working with NASA on the Mars mission. The book profiles a dozen amazing women (besides Tiera!) who are blazing new trails in their respective STEM fields.

 

 

When it Feels Like Home (Holly Schindler)

I've lived in Missouri my entire life. I'm about the sixth generation of my family to call Missouri home. In an old census record, I found one of my ancestors said, when asked how long he'd lived here, a "long time." 

That's about right. 

I remember watching Winter's Bone several years ago--the book was written by an Ozarkian, and the movie was also filmed in southwest Missouri (my corner of the state). Anyway, one of the last scenes has the main characters outside. I forget exactly what they were doing (maybe hanging laundry?), but what got me were the sounds of the birds. 

It sounded like home. 

It was just different--you don't hear our birds in other films. You hear coastal birds. Those birds were singing the songs I wake up to in the morning. And it gave me goose bumps.

I often set my own work in Missouri, or the Ozarks. Often, the cities are fictional. But my aim is to always include details that will give people familiar with the area the same feeling I got at the end of Winter's Bone--that feeling of home. Those can be external details--weather, geography, types of businesses. But I also think that some character types--as well as mannerisms or speech patterns--can help provide a sense of place. So can food--dishes particular to a specific region. Dress. Lifestyle--what people do on the weekends, how they get to school, how they get around their town. All those things create a vibrant sense of location. 

Yet, setting (backgrounds, etc.) can help bring a sense of vibrancy to a story. And the characters' lifestyles and behaviors can also help make a story's place become more vibrant as well.

Smack Dab OUT of Imagination by Dia Calhoun

     Last month, I described how to write a ransom note when your creative project has been kidnapped. This month, my imagination has not been kidnapped, but is sleeping in a deep cave.
    "Wake up!” I call. “ Spring is halfway through. The world is greening. This is no time to be sleeping! Come out and dance with me. Let’s make something beautiful.”
    Snoring rumbles from deep inside the cave.
    I call for reinforcements. Send in vats of coffee…the best, Peet’s Italian Roast, the beans freshly ground. Who could resist? The scent makes me swoon.
    Not a sound from the cave.
    "I don't have time for this!" I shout. "I have important projects waiting." Determined, I turn on a fire hose. A blast of cold water should do it. I flood the cave.
    Nothing.
    Exhausted by this effort, I curl beside the cave entrance and pull a coat over me. Maybe in sleep, I can speak to my imagination in the language it knows best. In dreams I have no control over what happens next. 
    Sometimes letting go is the best way to contact your imagination.

Setting, Not My Decision

I have five middle grade novels, each story taking place in a completely different setting. Where did these settings originate? One might think that, as the author, they all came from the same place: my imagination. But in thinking about "setting" for this blog post, I wondered if that's really the way I would describe it. 

The settings of my five books are: the neighborhood of an any-town-USA-type place in summertime, a school setting at the beginning of a new school year, sleepaway summer camp, the Okefenokee Swamp in the 1930's, and finally, rural Florida at the start of summer vacation. At first glace, it might look like these places don't have anything in common, but they actually all share something very important. The setting of each book is the only place each of my main character's story could take place. 

As I contemplated the origins of my settings for this post, I realized that my characters are the ones who choose the time and the place of their stories. Even as the author, I don't have the freedom to just put them anywhere. Each main character shows up in my imagination, and then, who they are, the stories they have to tell, and where those stories happen "fleshes out" more and more as I, first jot down notes, and then eventually write a first draft. 

I would describe the way this happens as one of those "magical" components of creating stories that become books. Not magical in the sense of it happening without any work, because it takes lots of work to get the setting right, with just enough authentic detail so that it rings true for the reader. But magical in the sense, that, it's a hard to explain exactly how my character lets me know where her story happens. But I like it that way. The "magic" in the creative process, the parts I'm not really able to explain, are my very favorite parts of writing.

  

Happy Reading & Writing,

Nancy J. Cavanaugh

www.nancyjcavanaugh.com 

Setting the Scene as its own Character

I’ve been drawn to stories all my life, but it wasn’t until I became an author that I truly learned one of the main aspects of why I heavily favored some over others - in both books, TV and film. 

A strong setting means the setting itself is indeed its own character. 
In ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS, Karana is left behind on an island. While the thought of one island throughout one novel may seem repetitive, Scott O’Dell is a master of developing that island - every corner, rock, wave crash, beach, wildlife and her home. It becomes a character in and of itself that the reader keeps wanting to return to. 
THE SCORPIO RACES also takes place on an island. It is so rich with detail, characters, town and water horses that Maggie Stiefvater has built that island into its entirely own character. The reader can smell the sea salt waves and wet sand, the iced November Cakes and horses. 
Television shows I’ve loved over the years also place setting as a character: GILMORE GIRLS is in Stars Hollow, a quirky small town of connected characters that play off of each other in humor and heart. It’s a town you want to visit, to live in - the hardware store turned diner owned by longtime resident Luke, the playful home of Loerlai and Rory filled with books and music and junk food. 
It’s all the details of the settings that build out the story and make it full and flourish. 
In my writing, I aim for the same. I am drawn to desolate or remote places, places one can find themselves despite rough conditions, the ways in which we find belonging and certainly - home. 

Sometimes "secret" settings are the best --by Jennifer Mitchell

 As a third grade teacher the end of April and the beginning of May start our state testing window.  After students test I like to do relaxing activities, this year I was looking for a book that they could get “lost” listening to after testing.  Last month, I blogged about books I enjoyed as an elementary student so I decided to pick one of those books.  Even though I was in fifth grade when my teacher read The Secret Garden to us, I thought it would be fun to read to my class.  I hadn’t read the book in years, but I knew as a child it painted vivid pictures in my mind as I listened to it.  So far the book has not disappointed the audience, they have been making guesses about where the moaning is coming from (they finally got an answer to that question a couple of days ago).  I also gave them a sheet of white paper to sketch what they thought the “secret garden” looked like when Mary finally found the key to open it.  I love the descriptions the story gives the reader and I love that it is a setting, that as readers, they have never encountered before.  I feel like this book opens up the imagination for readers that isn’t always present in current books.  I hope listening to this book will give them inspiration for their writing when they are creating a setting for their stories.  I also hope it encourages them to try books they might not ordinarily read.