Sarah Aronson's Blog, page 8

Happy Writing!

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt
Good morning, Writers!
Today, one hour after today’s Monday Motivation came out, I received 25 comments. Apparently, I hit a nerve.

Here’s the post:

This week, having sent a new manuscript to my agent, I had ONE GOAL. I wanted to be creative and have a bit of fun. I set out (with intention) to try something new.

Every day, when I sit down to write, I take out a stack of notecards. On each card is a writing quote. A bit of inspiration. With experimentation in mind, this is the card I got:

Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

-Joseph Campbell

I couldn’t help but smile. This was what I needed! I needed to w rite for fun. For joy. To write without saying (even once): writing is hard. 

Yes, I know I’ve said that. A thousand times. (I’m actually trying to wean myself off of that.)

This was my challenge: For one week, writing was going to be enjoyable. Play. I wasn’t going to care if I failed. In fact: I KNEW I was going to fail. So what? t set out to write for no other reason than to please and challenge myself.

It was a great week!!!

First, I wrote an essay.

Then I wrote a terrible poem.

Then I wrote part of a talk I have to give.

Then, with a big smile on my face, I decided to write a picture book. (I haven’t had a picture book idea since I started writing novels, but I was determined.) Remember: I didn’t care if it was good or bad. I wasn’t sure I’d ever show it to anyone.

As I wrote, I reminded myself how lucky I was, and what a privilege it was to figure out a story. I thought about all the kids I met at the Univ of Illinois Literary festival (1100 in two days!!!!)–and all the stories I’d heard about.

And this is what I discovered:

I like writing! I was more productive, because I had lowered the stakes for my own success. I had fun every day that I wrote.

(And the pb isn’t half bad!!!)

Writing in a new genre ALSO made me think more about my voice and the themes that are important to me. Those themes are important to kids of all ages–and after a while, it wasn’t so hard to see that there was a story I could tell.

By giving myself a short term challenge, I felt refreshed and excited. I now feel ready to go back to the novel.

Are you ready to have a little fun? (This is what Monday Motivation is all about.)

For one week, don’t worry about doing what you are supposed to do. Don’t worry about success. Instead, give yourself a short term challenge–a new genre. Or a new tone.  Or write a poem. And another. And another. Think again like you did when you first started writing, when the process seemed exciting and mysterious. Play. Experiment. Don’t do what you think you’re good at.

Yes, there are days when writing is hard and frustrating and unfair. But there should also be lots of days when it should also be fun, and if not fun… exciting. A revelation. As Jane Yolen reminds us: JOY.  I’m just passing on HER message. It worked for me!

Have a great writing week!

xos

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Talking to Real Moms about Banned Books

Today, I had a great experience chatting with a group of moms, concerned about what their kids are reading . . . and what banned books week is really about. It was a fascinating conversation and the questions they asked may aggravate you . . . but all these women had GREAT intentions for their young readers.

Here are a couple of their questions, and some of my answers.

THE MOMS: We started this discussion because our kids are ten and they want to read The Hunger Games.

ME: Asking your ten year old not to read a book before you think he is ready is very different from taking a book out of a library and essentially forbidding all kids who might depend on that library to read it.

THE MOMS: But that book is so disturbing!

ME: And what’s wrong with being disturbed?

(A few laughs.)

ME: Think about it this way: if they are disturbed, they will talk to you. You will have an opportunity to discuss big ideas with your kids. I’m more afraid that if we shelter them and they are never disturbed, they will not be able to make the world better.

THE MOMS: Sounds good, in theory. But isn’t protection a big part of our job? Was there a book you kept from your kids? (They talked a lot about holding books like Hunger Games from their kids . . . mostly because of peer pressure. I love this! Peer pressure to read!!!!! And to their credit, the kids did not see the movies either.)

ME: No. I don’t think kids need protection from books. I never once censored my kids’ reading. 1. I couldn’t. They read faster than I did. 2. If they didn’t think it was the right book for them–if they were scared or disgusted or the content wasn’t appealing, they put it down. 3. I really liked finding out what they found interesting…without my intervention. EXAMPLES: My son found his love of nonfiction without my guidance. My daughter was the girl with the book from the time she was in kindergarten. Funniest story: after reading Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, came to me confused about all the fuss about “the dot at the end of the sentence.”

THE MOMS: But some books . . . the language. (More complaining.) And the sex. Why can’t a community decide not to get a book they think is unworthy?

ME: I know this is hard to imagine, but that book that you think is horrible might change someone else’s life. You can make decisions for your family. But not others’. And wouldn’t you like your kids to explore these ideas safely????

THE MOMS: There are so many books. How do we find the good ones???

ME: Distribution and accessibility are big issues, mostly because there are so many books being published. No library can purchase every book. Bottom line: trust your librarian. Trust your kids. Trust their teachers. And if they read something heavy? Be ready to have great conversations. Books open our minds. They allow us to enter the heads of people who are not us–and don’t we need more of this??? Reading a great book can trigger strong, scary emotions. But this is not to be afraid of. It’s the magic of books.

Greetings from the Highlights Whole Novel Workshop!!!

Today, in beautiful Honesdale, I met with my students one on one and discussed their wonderful, inspiring novels.

Right now, I feel so lucky! I am surrounded by smart writers, eating amazing food, and working in a community that is vested in each writer’s success.

Tomorrow, I give my lecture. Can ANYONE sleep before lecture day?

I cannot.

 

Time to Listen

I posted this on July 3 on Through The Tollbooth. Here it is again (typos and redundancies included!!)

Tomorrow is the 4th of July. Independence Day. Like a lot of you, I will go to parties and watch fireworks. Wave the flag. Chill out.

Yesterday, I went to a memorial for the three teenagers killed in Israel. They were not soldiers. They were not acting politically. They were killed because they were Jewish.

The ceremony was moving and solemn. Songs were sung. Poetry read. Rabbis as well as politicians offered mostly calm, reflective thoughts. In the wake of this tragedy, it was important to act with righteous indignation. To laugh. To thrive. Israel needed to live. We would not forget these boys.

As we left, we heard of the Palestinian boy, murdered for revenge. Eye for an eye. One man pumped his fist.

In this world, there is a lot of anger. There is more screaming than talking, more sarcasm than sincerity. We don’t do a lot of listening anymore. Recently, on my Facebook page, someone (I do not know…honestly, she could be not a real person), wrote something very ugly in response to my disappointment with the Hobby Lobby  decision by SCOTUS.

(That anger and comment and fist pump brought back a bad memory: when I was sixteen, I marched in a parade for Israel. Men threw rocks at me. My sister and I had to run for our lives.)

Anyway, at first, that mean post felt like a fluke. But I know it isn’t. These days, nothing surprises me. This is how we now talk to each other.

We scream. We shoot. We kill. We throw rocks.

We do not listen.

On the fourth of July, yes! Let’s celebrate freedom! But to be honest, I’m not feeling it. I am saddened. It used to be that people who disagreed could talk to each other, debate candidly, and find common ground. It used to be that we didn’t need to have a gun or a vicious word. Even in our world, bad book reviews used to be polite.

Writers, I think we are best at our craft when we listen MORE.

I have found that I am most creative and most successful when I spend a lot of time listening. These days, as I revise one book and start another (Thank you Walter Dean Myers for opening my eyes to the idea of writing more than one thing at once), I NEED quiet. To listen. To think. To have peace. Maybe if we all do that–if we step away from the noise and the internet and the screaming and the insults and the gunfire–maybe then we can begin to celebrate independence. And DEPENDENCE. We can help each other. We can make the world better. For indeed, we need each other.

Happy Fourth.

Los

I am in the listening phase

My WIP is out on sub, so that means,  I have some time to start thinking about what I want to write about next. One story has been knocking on my door, and now, every day, if I walk around and think (without my phone), I notice things.

Inspiration.

Clues.

Ideas.

Themes.

It is a reassuring feeling. I do believe I have a new story to write!

#WeNeedDiverseBooks . . .and now what?

Good morning, Writers!

This weekend, if you were on Twitter, you might have seen a lot of tweets under the hashtag: #WeNeedDiverseBooks. It was a very empowering and  exciting weekend. I love when people stand up for something important!

It is a cause that goes straight to the heart of WHY we write books.  Diverse characters don’t just make books more interesting. All children should be able to see themselves in books. Our world is composed of many kinds of people and stories. We gain empathy by reading about someone different from us.

We are all “other” in our own way.

Writers, this is something we should be thinking about.

Our readers are depending on us!

 

But if you are a white able bodied, middle-aged woman (like me), do you have the right of way to add diversity to your stories? Are there special considerations or guidelines to keep in mind? Or are the rules for creating diverse characters–characters of different races, abilities, genders, and orientation–the same for creating all characters?

When I first began writing HEAD CASE, the story of a boy paralyzed from the neck down, I worried about this all the time. I felt a deep responsibility to represent this character authentically. Frank had to be more than just paralyzed. His story had to be about more than “being paralyzed.” He had to be a three dimensional person  with a past and a future, fears and desires. I spent a lot of time talking to paralyzed men and their doctors and therapists. I also talked to a lot of people who had accidentally killed others.

I learned a lot! (Mostly: that everyone has a story and that when you find one, you have to tell it!)

Today, I want to urge anyone who is feeling hesitant about this: it is important to consider diversity as part of your characters’ profiles…but only if it is authentic…if it serves the story. If it is true.

So…now what? How do we create diverse characters who are not stereotypical?

Start with the basics:

Ask the questions:

What do your characters want and why?
What are their fear? Their strengths? Their flaws?
What are their deepest wounds?
What are their main occupations?

Hopefully, your answers will create characters with different motivations—motivations that will create tension and urgency in your scenes.

Then, keep digging.

ASK

WHO ARE YOU? I ask and answer this question about 100 times per character. I look for the answers to this question when I first meet a person as well as the answers to this question when I know a person deeply. I want to know EVERY NUANCE about a character. With tenacity and patience, I can usually find the seed of a subplot! I can create TEXTURE.

Then create some scenes:

What is the worst thing that could happen to a character?
What is the best thing?
What would bring out the best in him? The worst?

Then: JOURNAL. Voice is so important to creating authentic characters. I like to journal in the POV’s of all my important characters.

Is this the same advice I would give you for creating any character?

Yes. I guess it is! 

 

The amazing thing that happened with Head Case is that the more I understood Frank, the more I realized we had some emotional stuff in common. I saw him as a modern Hester Prynne. I realized I had felt that way, too. (Really…who hasn’t?) By seeing him as more than a message, I found the emotional heart of my novel.

For me, the trick is to be respectful and tenacious. Get into those characters’ heads. Figure out what makes them unique. Find their gestures, their favorite words, and their favorite foods. Don’t settle for easy answers. Keep asking and answering WHO ARE YOU?

Our goal as writers is to create a diverse world of unique, authentic characters. It is worth the struggle to do this work.

Embrace diversity!

Now..get to work!



xos

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One change leads to another

 

I have been working on a revision that, in part, requires me to go from first person present to past. You would think this MIGHT be a very easy exercise, but of course, like all changes, it is not.

This morning, after deleting a huge chunk of the text, I thought about exactly what this one directive was doing.

It forced me to take a tiny step back. Past tense offers a bit more reflection, a bit more distance. As I go through the manuscript, some of her spur of the moment musings seem self indulgent. Now I have a greater sense of what she is going through at that moment.

But changing one thing, just because, made me read DIFFERENTLY. It was like going from the Scrivener to the document, from the document to the printed page, from my office to the coffee shop. Because I was changing one thing, I began to read differently. And this made me see the story in a new way.

I always find the revision process–or what I call the “re-imagination” process challenging and interesting. For this manuscript, one change has lead to many changes…many revelations. I am excited about what I am reading and the emotions I am expressing. There is or was a story to be found….and with one change, I am pretty sure I’ve got it.

The bridge between goals and accomplishment.

Is Discipline.

(Tell ‘em VINCE: It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.)

Time to get to work.

Going to the basement

This morning, I literally had to go to the basement (to let the meter man in). While I was down there, I opened up my old file cabinet. I was procrastinating. (I really needed a break.)

I found:

The first novel I ever wrote, the one that starts with a 12 year old girl waking up and getting out of bed. (oy)

My stapler!!!! With a box of staples. (Seems trivial, but I recently spent an entire day looking for a stapler.)

A stack of notebooks. From conferences, school, and retreats. (That’s where they went!!!)

Of course, since I was in no mood to go back to work, I pulled one out of the stack and opened to a random page, hoping for a bit of inspiration.

Across the page it said in big black letters: Write about what scares you. What are your monsters? (Thank you, Jane Resh Thomas!)

I recently was talking about this idea with Laura Ruby. Writing about your monsters…or going to the basement…or facing your fears….whatever you want to call it….isn’t easy. It means admitting that you are offering up more than made-up people in a made-up world. It often means looking within and recognizing something tough or icky or limiting about yourself. And this can make us feel vulnerable. Often this can make us want to write about something else.

These days, I’ve been writing about something that has pushed every alarm bell in my body. In fact, as I look at my first draft, I see how I tried to soften the blow. But now I’m not. Now I think I finally understand the characters. And that is mostly because I see something in myself in this girl. In this character, I face some of my monsters.

Now. Deep breath. Back to my basement!

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On tenacity and gratitude

First, a thank you to the people from Anderson’s Kid Lit Breakfast, for inviting me to be part of this amazing event. Of course, I had heard all about it, and it lived up to my expectations. I met many dedicated, passionate, and funny librarians and teachers, all excited about books and reading and their students.

 

At the end of a wonderful morning of talks and conversations with teachers and librarians, Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver spoke about their collaboration on the Hank Zipzer books, which were inspired by Winkler’s personal struggles as a person with dyslexia. Winkler’s message was clear: Have tenacity and gratitude. For him, this was the secret to success.

I bet many of you are shaking your heads. YES. 

Christopher Reeve once said, ”So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

There are times when we all must be tenacious, when we must fight the odds, and work tirelessly to achieve our goals. In terms of writing, this means we must revise…and re-imagine…we must keep our butts in the chair. And then, even when we are sure the story is perfect, we must submit ourselves to another round of reflection and often, self reflection.  We must face rejection time and time again. Sometimes, we must put work in a drawer. We must take criticism on every level. If it hurts, we must not dwell.  We must accept that this is part of the process. 

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

― Thomas Edison

“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

― Abraham Lincoln

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”

― Mary Anne Radmacher

And then there is gratitude–It almost feels like the opposite side of a coin. Gratitude for that chance to revise. Gratitude for the story itself. Gratitude for the people around us who support us in our quests to create art and story. And of course, gratitude when we reach our goals. That we did it. That we didn’t give up. Sometimes when we remember all that we have, it is possible to take that next step in our work.  Sometimes, when we stop and think about how lucky we are, how far we have come, how much we already have learned…then we can take that last step.

Are you ready to stretch? Are you ready to start your writing week with intentional tenacity and gratitude?

Today, start by hugging your loved ones. Thank them for their support. Say THANK YOU for all that you have. How often do we really do this? How often do we think the people around us know we are grateful….and forget to say it out loud?

Then listen to that little voice–not the internal editor. The one that yearns for success. Remind yourself: what do I want to say? Why is it important? Who are the readers who you are writing for and about? Who are you in your main character? How is her or his struggle yours???? Why am I on this journey?

When you remember why you are writing…when you remember that child that you were…or that hurt that you felt…or the power that you want….then tenacity is not so hard. It is worth it. It doesn’t matter how much more work you have yet to do. You can do it.

Have a great writing day!

xos