Blue Willow -PART III: Comments on a Surprisingly Influential Book
By the time you read this, I hope to be well on the road to recovery from pneumonia. Getting sick got my attention. I had to rest! I put aside my pile of revisions for Half-Truths courtesy of my mentor, Joyce Moyer Hostetter, but I didn’t put aside the “thinking about” process that all writers experience. I’m re-reading Blue Willow by Doris Gates. I’d forgotten that the main character’s step-mother gets pneumonia in the story. I could relate to that!
As I wrote in my first blog post about Blue Willow, Half-Truths’ two main characters, Kate Dinsmore and Lillian Bridges, both read this Depression-era book. That is one of the ways they begin to connect as friends. On this re-read I’m realizing additional connections between Half-Truths and Blue Willow can be made which will increase emotional resonance. Exciting work ahead!
In my couch potato hours, I’m also enjoying paging through The Best of Norman Rockwell
and Norman Rockwell’s America. I’m not only re-discovering beautiful paintings, sketches that inspired my characters, and snapshots of 1940’s-1950’s Americana, but a magazine which my protagonist, Kate Dinsmore, would have leafed through.
Given that I’ve had a week of coughing and fatigue, I thought today I’d encourage you to read my first blog post about Blue Willow in which I talked about how that 1941 Newberry Honor winner was influencing my developing manuscript. I wrote that post almost ten years ago. Needless to say, Blue Willow hasn’t changed, but my story has. When Half-Truths comes out in 2025, you won’t read that opening in Chapter One. And later in the book you won’t find Kate with a little sister named Maggie, because I wrote her out of the story! But, you will find a budding friendship between Kate and Lillian Bridges. And a few lines that believe it or not… didn’t change one bit.
Many of you are new to my blog so I hope you will enjoy looking back at a book that I am still learning from. Two years ago, some of you read the follow up to that post, BLUE WILLOW: A BOOK that LILLIE AND KATE READ PART II and INSIGHT INTO REVISION. As I go into this last round of revisions, I once again see how the work of revision is such a HUGE part of writing.
Look for at least one more post about how this short classic from 1941 has impacted a book written 80 years later. If you chose to become a part of my launch team–a copy of Blue Willow will be one of the prizes. In fact, here’s the QRC code to sign up now!
Make sure that you check out Greg Pattridge’s MMGM blog for more great middle-grade suggestions.
The post Blue Willow -PART III: Comments on a Surprisingly Influential Book first appeared on Carol Baldwin - Author, Teacher, Speaker .
