Judith L. Roth's Blog, page 5

Poetry defined (by me)

My college answer. The definition still works for me.

The problem with getting a novel published…

The problem with getting a novel published, finally, is you can’t revise it anymore. There comes a time when the editor says, “Okay, that’s it. Off to the printer.” And everything you might want to change that you haven’t thought of yet will never get changed. That’s it, baby. You are finished.

 

Serendipity & Me, Viking, 2013

The kitten that arrived months after my kitten novel was released really brings home this point. I wrote that novel based on many memories of ghosts of Cats-mas past, plus the ones that lived with me at the time. But it had been a few years since any of them were kittens.

Three of the four cats at the time…

This new kitten not only brought the essence of kitten-ness much closer, but she is such a wild child that the kitten in the book could have been so much more….I hesitate to fill in that blank. Because I love my fictional kitten Serendipity. But my new kitten (now almost a cat) Katniss, well. Let me give you an example.

If I can just squeeze in here…

…a little more…

Ta dah!

What are YOU lookin’ at?

This isn’t even a very good example. It’s just the only one I was able to get semi-action pictures of. (Although you can see a video of Katniss rescuing her stuffed mammoth from the top of a dresser on my Facebook page here.)

Katniss is like no other cat I’ve ever known. She carries stuffed animals half her size around in her mouth, drags them upstairs and down. She has this strange motion when she’s drinking water from a cup–left paw to the right lower side of the cup, batting at who knows what. She’s quite adept at catching flies between her two paws. And apparently her dream is to fly, evidenced by the height to which she jumps whenever the mood takes her.

So now I have the perfect cat to base an intriguing cat character on.  But unfortunately, that novel ship has already sailed.

Or maybe another novel about a cat isn’t too much…?

You talkin’ about me?

 

 

 

 

A poem for my father

Same ol’ Mother’s Day poem

But I made it prettier….

Goodnight, Dragons story time kit

Newly available–a free story time kit you can use for Goodnight, Dragons, (by me, illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre, Disney*Hyperion, 2012). You can find my kit at the top of this site, at the link above, or under the “For Teachers” page.

It’s free to download. You can make copies of Pascal’s coloring page for children, as long as you don’t try selling them.

Also included are songs, a craft and a game.

Not included are the soft, squishy plush animals. But you probably already have some of those.

I modeled this after the exquisitely designed story time kit by Kristi Valiant for her book, Penguin Cha-Cha.

Feel free to share this news with librarians, booksellers, teachers and parents.

Because everyone needs a cuddle of some sort or another….

 

Beyond the novel-in-verse: Other ways to use poetry in fiction

Writing a novel-in-verse is easier for me than writing straight prose simply because poetry is the natural way I express myself. It’s my go-to form. It’s where I feel most comfortable. So it makes sense that the first novel I got published was a novel-in-verse, even though I’d written several “normal” novels before that.

But verse novels are just one way to use poetry to help tell a story. There are other ways.

One is by using a poem you’ve written as a prompt. This is how I came to write my first picture book.

Published in Moody Monthly, July/August 1989

I changed the age of the narrator of this poem, expanded the moment into a day, and came up with an entirely different telling of the same story. That’s how Cups Held Out was born.

Another way to use poetry to help tell the story is by interspersing it with the prose. Elizabeth Wein did this in her novel, Rose under Fire. She is such an amazing writer of prose that, for some reason, I wasn’t expecting her to be equally as amazing in her poetry. Shouldn’t there be some kind of trade-off? But no, her poetry floored me as well.

Often a poem that captures the essence of the story is put in front of the novel. This is what I’m attempting to do with the sonnet at the beginning of my novel-in-progress, Three Prayers.

Using poetic elements (such as metaphors, similes, alliteration, repetition) in a story almost always makes the prose better. Here’s an example from Goodnight, Dragons.

similes, repetition, rhythm

Many years ago, I wrote a novel with a narrator’s voice some readers found unlikeable. Trying to fix the voice, I used the exercise of writing the novel in verse instead. It changed the voice entirely, made the narrator not only more likeable, but touching. And in changing the voice, it has changed the story. Unfortunately, I no longer know how the story ends, but I’ll get there eventually.

Poetry will take me there.

Kitten update

It’s time to continue the kitten saga….

I got lucky–the college boy didn’t take the new kitten away. He did name her, however. He didn’t like “Skitters,” but he found a name that was close enough in sound to match the skitteriness of this kitty, and it’s literary. Katniss.

Am I not adorable?

She’s also called Rumba because when she was smaller she’d get in every possible tiny place (including scary basement ones) and come out with spiderwebs on her whiskers. She doesn’t fit in as many spaces anymore.

Yes, I got up here all by myself. I’ve got ups.

The cornfield boys have gotten more than used to her–they might think she’s a diversion we got just for their amusement. It’s not unusual to see them staring wide-eyed as she gets up to her antics…things they never thought of (like digging for treasure in the porcelain sink or jumping up six feet to cling to the curtains), or things they know they can’t get away with (like traversing all the surfaces that might hold food in the kitchen or demanding to sleep under our covers with us).

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of her doing her wild stuff. She moves too fast. But here is proof that she’s in with the boys.

It’s okay if I hang out with you guys, right?

Thoughts about contentment

So, this is where I was a couple of weeks ago….In my hometown….

And this below is where I am now….In my adopted town….Where the trees are up to their armpits in snow.

Just so you know–I’m not one of those people who can’t wait for the snow to fall so they can hit the slopes. I’m one of those people who would prefer to see snow in someone’s phone pictures while I’m walking on the beach. Just so you know.

It’s been a very long, cold winter already. And it’s gotten me to thinking about being content where you are. This is not a lesson I’ve learned yet. Maybe because I can see the other side of the argument (as usual). Because if you are content where you are, you might never get up off the couch. So there’s something to be said for discontentment.

Right, Murray?

Right.

But right now I’m in a place I’ve chosen to be. And if the circumstances aren’t what I’d put on my wish list for a perfect day, there’s plenty to be happy about. Like that face up there. And this beautiful bird and view out my window.

And the fact that I’m in here, looking out.

Instead of out there, looking in.

Yeah. That’s a big one.

Christmas poem

December 26, 2013

Writing while traveling…or not

So I thought I could mix traveling with writing, but mostly I could not. I had some insights into a possible new novel. And I had a fresh look at a picture book on Venice. And I took an art lesson in Venice which stretched my creativity. But as for the act of putting words to paper, not so much. While I did have a lot of time to myself for the first few days, I was mostly struggling through jet lag and loneliness. I learned something about myself–I don’t like traveling without a companion. (Fortunately my sister joined me on the third day.)

The plus side–filling the well. Even when travel is difficult, a person would be hard put to avoid experiencing new things. And when you go where there are so many beautiful and amazing views and differences, the creative well is filled quickly and completely. This downpour should last for a long while.

Over northern Italy

Burano, Athens, Oia (Santorini), Dubrovnik, then ending where I began in Venice.