Caroline Bock's Blog: Caroline Anna Bock Writes, page 7

Is the System Rigged? Can we give it A FIGHTING CHANCE?

I found Senator Elizabeth Warren’s new memoir, A FIGHTING
CHANCE , so truthful it hurt. It hurt to be told the truth: The system is rigged
for those who are wealthy and well-connected, a truth that doesn’t surprise,
that isn’t exactly new, but is told in an eye-opening, refreshing, and at points, damn inspiring way. 
The Senator from Massachusetts tells a few stories of her
life growing up scraping the bottom of the middle class barrel in Oklahoma
before moving on to college with a scholarship and law school. She shares how
she was drawn into bankruptcy law and eventually to Washington D.C. and the
worse banking and housing crisis since the Great Depression. She talks in plain-speak about politics and being a newcomer to D.C. and having the idea to form
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau , and her great disappoint at not being appointed
its first director because she was “too radioactive.”  
She describes being a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and
about meeting Americans across the country and asking the question: Who is the
American government working for?  
Ultimately, she answers, “People feel like the system is
rigged against them. And here’s the painful part: They’re right. The system is
rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires
pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOS—the same ones who
wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs –still strut around
Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.” She
wants to celebrate success. But she, like so many of us, doesn’t want the game
to be rigged. 
I had the great opportunity to see the Senator speak in D.C.
and I wanted to shout out at the end, “Run, Elizabeth, Run,”  and by that I mean for President. She
would have my vote. 
---------And if you haven’t read BEFORE MY EYES , my new young adult
novel, isn’ it time for a serious young adult novel that PW and Kirkus Review
calls, “gripping” about teens at the end of a long, hot summer, one hearing a
voice and having a gun... Caroline

Unrequired YA Summer Reading...

FROM CHELSEY PHILPOT'S Boston Globe article, "Seasonal Reading for Young Adults" : 
"The best summer books blend elements of typical beach reads (romance,
adventure, mystery, etc.) with reflective themes that explore
friendship, loss, self-discovery, family, and more. The awesome
plotlines of these titles will have readers tearing through pages, but
the original and complex characters will leave them feeling that these
tales, like the season itself, were over far too quickly.
“Before My Eyes” by Caroline Bock (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2014)
The lives of three young people — Max, the unhappy son of a state
senator, Claire, a poet who feels responsible for her sister ever since
their mother had a stroke, and Barkley, a troubled 21-year-old who hears
a voice in his head — become joyfully and tragically intertwined one
Long Island Labor Day Weekend."  

Read the ENTIRE LIST of thought-provoking, complex, new young adult books at the Boston Globe website... and don't be embarrassed if you are an adult reading these young adult novels!! 
--Caroline
 

Do You Live in The U.S.? Great Britain? Australia? Canada? FREE GIVEAWAY!!

Go to GOODREADS for the last free Goodreads giveaway of a signed first edition of my new novel: BEFORE MY EYES. Hurry! The Free Giveaway is open only through July 26, 2014.

--Caroline 

Ten Very Basic Writing Tips for A Summer Friday

Ten very basic writing tips...for a summer Friday afternoon... 

1) Write on a regular schedule.
2) Finish a first draft of what you
write.
3) Re-write.
4) Share it with someone who reads a
lot.
5) Re-write and look at plot closely.
6) Re-write and look at characters
closely.
7) Re-read entire work,try reading
parts out loud. Cats are very good listeners.
8) Finish.Say it's done.It's good
enough. So many really good writers I've met in workshops, in the MFA program,
never trust in themselves to say a work is finished.
9) Send it out into the world— and this is a much larger discussion—— but letting it go is the important part, if you want to be a writer with readers (as opposed, I guess, to a diarist).    

10) Breathe. Take a breath. Read, a lot.
Take notes on what you read. Is there a word you discover? Is there a name?
(I'm becoming a big collector of names). Be generous to other writers. Write a
review. Try a different form, for example, write flash fiction if you write
novels. Don't wait too long to return to #1.
Do you have some basic writing tips to share?
Have a great weekend all!  --Caroline

PS If you haven't read BEFORE MY EYES yet, look for it!!
 

FINDING INSPIRATION IN... BALLSTON SPA, NEW YORK

My brother Mark creates art from heart
pine lumber in his studio in Ballston Spa, New York. The studio was once a barn
that once shoed horses and repaired buggies. There are nicks for blacksmith
tools and for the horseshoes in planks and rafters. He paints his art, some of
it furniture, some of it paintings, the colors of the earth— brushed browns,
and deep reds and yellows, allies of zinnias and
sunflowers. Mark is a gentle giant of a guy with a beard going grey and retro
glasses, reminiscent of the glasses our father wore all his life, and I wonder
if he wears them because they are cool and hip, or because they remind him of
our father, who was neither?
The wind stirs in through the open
windows, and the studio is a mixed scent of green wood and dog or horse and
wildflowers from his plantings out front— and bad eggs, the sulfur from the
springs that feed this upstate New York town. The art is substantial— a fish, three-and-a
-half feet long, a carved rooster, its tail flaring, weighing four or five
times the weight of a living rooster; the smooth flesh-like wood of a horse painting
over four or five hands high. I wait to hear the rooster crow or the horse rear
back or the fish, let’s call it salmon, splash out of its river toward to the
sun, returning to spawn in the riverbed were it was born. The light dapples in and
plays with the art.
My
brother and I are only together for a few days until we return to our own,
lonelier lives. On Sunday night, we flick on an old movie in his loft above the
studio. “How Green Was My Valley,” won the Oscar in 1941 famously beating out
“Citizen Kane,” is on Turner Classic Movies. As we watch, we both agree: our
father would have liked this John Ford movie about a Welsh family of coalminers,
a workingman’s tribute— and then there’s the ending. He would have hated the
ending. He liked movies in which the good guys win: the American beat the
Nazis; the average guy overcomes odds to find love and happiness. I don’t want
to ruin it, but the father in the move dies tragically in his son’s arms, close
enough to what happened with Mark and my father that we can’t talk when it’s
over that we sit there on his couch in the dark next to one another, the
silence running through us.
Once,
we spent long summer days at our games: kickball, ring-o-leavio, red light
green light one-two-three, one-two-three. We were four latchkey children without
keys, the house on Daisy Farms Drive left forever unlocked by our father since
it was easier not to dole out a key to each of the four of us kids.

Anyway, we
were always racing inside and outside, shouting for one another—our father booming
at us: What the hell are you doing? Do
you think you live in a barn? Close the door— playing freeze tag or hide
and seek on languid summer nights until it was dark, and we could no longer
hide or seek —Get in the house! You want
to get killed by a car playing in the street at this time of night?

After
another threat or two, we’d come running, shouting too. He’d scuff our heads,
his form of love, which we will never forget. My father never understood how he
got a son, an artist, and a daughter, a writer, but he always had the same
advice for the four of us —the way you
make your bed, is the way you’ll sleep in it—which we didn’t understand until
we did.   
Finding Inspiration… Writing
Prompts…-Is there one locale (like my
brother’s studio) in which all your senses feel alive? Write about that place. -Do you have a sibling that
inspires you? Write a short scene you and him or her as an adult… and then another
with you as a child. 
IF You Want To Visit...
Ballston Spa,
New York , it’s about five minutes from downtown Saratoga Springs , just north of Albany. Ballston Spa has an array of antique and craft shops, and yes, Mark Louis Gallery.
---Caroline
 
 
 
 
 

Finding Inspiration in Ballston Spa, New York...

My brother Mark creates art from heart pine lumber in his studio in Ballston Spa, New York. The studio was once a barn that once shoed horses and repaired buggies. There are nicks for blacksmith tools and for the horseshoes in planks and rafters. He paints his art, some of it furniture, some of it paintings, the colors of the earth— brushed browns, and reds and yellows, allies of the zinnias and sunflowers. Mark is a gentle giant of a guy with a beard going grey and retro glasses, reminiscent of the glasses our father wore all his life, and I wonder if he wears them because they are cool and hip, or because they remind him of our father, who was neither?

The wind stirs in through the open windows, and the studio is a mixed scent of green wood and dog or horse and wildflowers from his plantings out front— and bad eggs, the sulfur from the springs that feed this upstate New York town. The art is substantial— a fish, three-and-a -half feet long, a carved rooster, its tail flaring, weighing four or five times the weight of a living rooster; the smooth flesh-like wood of a horse painting over four or five hands high. I wait to hear the rooster crow or the horse rear back or the fish, let’s call it salmon, splash out of its river toward to the sun, returning to spawn in the riverbed were it was born. The light dapples in and plays with the art.

My brother and I are only together for a few days until we return to our own, lonelier lives. On Sunday night, we flick on an old movie in his loft above the studio. “How Green Was My Valley,” won the Oscar in 1941 famously beating out “Citizen Kane,” is on Turner Classic Movies. As we watch, we both agree: our father would have liked this John Ford movie about a Welsh family of coalminers, a workingman’s tribute— and then there’s the ending. He would have hated the ending. He liked movies in which the good guys win: the American beat the Nazis; the average guy overcomes odds to find love and happiness. I don’t want to ruin it, but the father in the move dies tragically in his son’s arms, close enough to what happened with Mark and my father that we can’t talk when it’s over that we sit there on his couch in the dark next to one another, the silence running through us.

Once, we spent long summer days at our games: kickball, ring-o-leavio, red light green light one-two-three, one-two-three. We were four latchkey children without keys, the house on Daisy Farms Drive left forever unlocked by our father since it was easier not to dole out a key to each of the four of us kids. Anyway, we were always racing inside and outside, shouting for one another—our father booming at us: What the hell are you doing? Do you think you live in a barn? Close the door— playing freeze tag or hide and seek on languid summer nights until it was dark, and we could no longer hide or seek —Get in the house! You want to get killed by a car playing in the street at this time of night? After another threat or two, we’d come running, shouting too. He’d scuff our heads, his form of love, which we will never forget. My father never understood how he got a son, an artist, and a daughter, a writer, but he always had the same advice for the four of us —the way you make your bed, is the way you’ll sleep in it—which we didn’t understand until we did.

Finding Inspiration… Writing Prompts…
-Is there one locale (like my brother’s studio) in which all your senses feel alive? Write about that place.
-Do you have a sibling that inspires you? Write a short scene with him or her as an adult… and then another with you as a child.

If you want to visit Ballston Spa, New York, it’s about five minutes from downtown Saratoga, just north of Albany, and has fascinating antique and craft shops, and yes, Mark Louis Studios.

(P.S. if you haven't read BEFORE MY EYES, consider reading it now)

My Top Ten For Aspiring Writers...

My top ten for aspiring writers:

1) Write on a regular schedule.
2) Finish a first draft of what you write.
3) Re-write.
4) Share it with someone who reads a lot.
5) Re-write and look at plot closely
6) Re-write and look at characters closely
7) Re-read entire work, try reading parts out loud. Cats are very good listeners.
8) Finish. Say it's done. It's good enough. So many really good writers I've met in workshops, in the MFA program, never trust in themselves to say a work is finished.
9) Send it out into the world.
10) Breathe. Take a breath. Read, a lot. Take notes on what you read. Is there a word you discover? Is there a name? (I'm becoming a big collector of names). Be generous to other writers. Write a review. Try a different form, for example, write flash fiction if you write novels. Don't wait too long to return to #1...

What does your writing to-do list look like?

--Caroline

Before My Eyes

If you've read "FAULT IN OUR STARS" other serious YA books to consider (excerpt from Boston Globe article)

If you've read "Fault in our Stars" (and haven't we all read and loved it!) -- from Chelsey Philpot's Boston Globe article, "Seasonal Reading for Young Adults":

"The best summer books blend elements of typical beach reads (romance, adventure, mystery, etc.) with reflective themes that explore friendship, loss, self-discovery, family, and more. The awesome plotlines of these titles will have readers tearing through pages, but the original and complex characters will leave them feeling that these tales, like the season itself, were over far too quickly.

“Before My Eyes” by Caroline Bock (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2014)

The lives of three young people — Max, the unhappy son of a state senator, Claire, a poet who feels responsible for her sister ever since their mother had a stroke, and Barkley, a troubled 21-year-old who hears a voice in his head — become joyfully and tragically intertwined one Long Island Labor Day Weekend."


Read the ENTIRE LIST of thought-provoking, complex, new young adult books at the Boston Globe website... https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2014...

and don't be embarrassed if you are an adult reading these young adult novels!!


--Caroline

Before My Eyes

Is The System Rigged? A FIGHTING CHANCE...

I found Senator Elizabeth Warren’s new memoir, A FIGHTING CHANCE, so truthful it hurt. It hurt to be told the truth: The system is rigged for those who are wealthy and well-connected, a truth that doesn’t surprise, that isn’t exactly new, but is told in an eye-opening and refreshing, and at points, damn inspiring way.

The Senator from Massachusetts tells a few stories of her life growing up scraping the bottom of the middle class barrel in Oklahoma before moving on to college with a scholarship and law school. She shares how she was drawn into bankruptcy law and eventually to Washington D.C. and the worse banking and housing crisis since the Great Depression. She speak in plain-talk about politics and about being a newcomer to D.C. and having the idea to form the Consumer Protection Agency, and her great disappoint at not being appointed its first director because she was “too radioactive.”

She describes being a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and about meeting American’s across the country and asking the question: Who is the American government working for?

Ultimately, she notes, “People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here’s the painful part: They’re right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOS—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs –still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.” She wants to celebrate success. But she, like so many of us, doesn’t want the game to be rigged.

I had the great opportunity to see the Senator speak in D.C. and I wanted to shout out at the end, “Run, Elizabeth, Run,” and by that I mean for President. She would have my vote.

---------
And if you haven’t read BEFORE MY EYES, my new young adult novel, isn’ it time for a serious young adult novel that PW and Kirkus Review calls, “gripping” about teens at the end of a long, hot summer, one hearing a voice and having a gun. Before My Eyes

Book Club READING GUIDE for BEFORE MY EYES

Many people have contacted me for a book club "Reading Guide" for BEFORE MY EYES, my new young adult for teens age 14 above--and adults of all ages.BEFORE MY EYES is the kind of novel--about three fragile teens, mental illness, gun violence--that does delve deeply into complex characters and situations, provokes debate, and charges up opinions.
I hope this guide helps...

BOOK CLUB NOTES for BEFORE MY EYES by Caroline Bock:

Towards the end of the novel, Claire’s mother, says: “We are all fragile,” in trying to come to terms with the gun violence her daughter has just witnessed. How are these characters “fragile?” Which one of the main characters: Claire or Max or Barkley do you empathize with the most? The least? And why?

There are several key secondary teen characters in the novel—Jackson, Samantha, Peter and Trish—how do these characters help shape the story? What insights do these characters give you about Claire or Max or Barkley?

What does Claire’s relationship with her younger sister, Izzy, tell you about her character? Do you know someone like Claire, who is the primary caregiver for her siblings? How does this kind of responsibility impact a teen’s life?

Claire writes poetry about the major events in her life. What did you think of her poetry? Do you write poetry or songs? If Claire wasn’t a poet but a songwriter, what would be her song? What would be Max’s song? Barkley’s?

Barkley, who is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, reaches out to Claire through a false persona on the internet. What does the interaction of Claire and Barkley tell us about each character? Have you ever questioned the identity of anyone you have met on line?

All summer, Max Cooper obsesses about a soccer goal kick gone wide, which resulted in his team losing a big game. Have you ever tried to achieve something—
in sports, in life, which missed its mark? How did it make you feel?

Max is also obsessing about a girl at the beach, Samantha. Ultimately, he realizes that Samantha is not for him, but only after he looks beyond her bikinis and flirtatiousness to Claire. What does this tell us about Max? About Claire? Have you ever had to look beyond the obvious in a person?

The novel is set at a Long Island, New York beach and many of the characters, including Max, Barkley, Peter, and Trish, work together at the Snack Shack. How does this setting shape their relationships? Have you ever worked at a summer job that you thought was the worse job ever?

If you were going to imagine a next chapter in the novel, where would Claire, Max and Barkley be in their lives? In particular, what do you think happens on the day after the novel ends, the Wednesday, to each one of them?



Why do you think the author titled this novel, Before My Eyes? What is being seen and not seen? Are there things in your life that you let parents and/or friends see and things that you hide? How does Max secretly taking prescription drugs, or Claire talking to a stranger on the internet, or Barkley suffering from mental illness highlight this theme of seeing and not seeing? How or why is there a certain irony inherit in this title?

One of the main themes of the novel centers around the onset of mental illness, in particular, paranoid schizophrenia on the behalf of Barkley. What clues does the author give us that this character is suffering from this disease? Does it make you more or less sympathetic toward Barkley? Toward his parents?

In recent years there has been a number of violent incidents with young men and guns against their communities. In fact, some of the scenes in Before My Eyes are reflective of the 2011 tragedy in Tucson, Arizona where Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen others were shot and six people killed by Jared Loughner, a 22-year old man, eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and given a life sentence for his crimes. Does reading Before My Eyes in light of those incidents, and other incidents of gun violence in American society, shape your point of view on guns in America?


A Note From the Author:
I hope you found BEFORE MY EYES compelling reading. I am always interested to hear readers’ comments, so feel free to comment at my blog at www.carolinebock.com.


Before My Eyes