Word Weaves

This morning on my walk, I spotted a double rainbow. It arched over the trees into a deep gray sky; the afteraffects of last night’s thunderstorms. The me that lives in my imagination leapt to that arc and clung for dear life. I didn’t have to wonder where that impulse came from.

Last week was a train wreck: friends and family with serious health issues, budget shortcomings, and the conspicuous absence of a call back after a hopeful job interview. Then there was the discussion I came across on the Verla Kay board about agents preferring prospective clients not shop their work to editors. That was difficult to swallow after spending the last two months in hyper mode, rewriting my first book to submit with conference coupons to editors before the September 4th deadline. And I set my second book aside to do it.

What I read on Verla Kay rang true and reliable sources confirmed it. Why did I learn this the week before I sent my submission? Did I lose two months of writing time on my second book for nothing? I believe in God’s timing and in listening to that voice we all have inside.  For some reason, I was meant to rework my first novel. No doubt, it’s a much better book. Even if it’s not marketable, I grew as a writer through the revision and my next book will be better for it.

I wasn’t looking for the pot of gold when I latched onto that rainbow this morning. I was looking for hope. I’m starting the week with a new plan, tossing the editor’s coupons and compiling an agents’ list. I’ll query a dozen. If the reaction is negative, my first book goes in a box labeled STEP ONE.

Even as I finish polishing my first book and submit chapters of my second book for critique, the voice in my head is nagging me to start another. I blame the oil spill in the Gulf. It catapulted my muse into environmental guerilla mode. I envision a little figure in combat fatigues scribbling tirades in my mind.

I process the world through art and writing. I’ve journaled through emotional lows, painted anger and angst, celebrated in line and word. Pouring  interior dialogue into creative outlets is satisfying but it can also leave me emotionally drained.

Nature restores me. I try to start each day with a walk.  This morning, as I headed for the street, two sandhill cranes strolled up the sidewalk. I stopped to watch the elegant pair. I often hear their prehistoric cries but rarely see them up close. It’s always an “ah” moment.

The birds brought to mind Lyle Lovett’s Whooping Crane song. And that jerked me back to the destruction of the natural world. Okay, so I don’t always manage to keep my walks refreshing. Oh dear, here comes that mini-commando, hammering away at an environmental adventure novel.

You can hear a sample of Lovett’s Whooping Crane from his Natural Forces CD on iLike.

For the next few weeks, I’ll be posting only on Mondays so I can focus on finishing my book to meet the submission deadline. Not that anyone reads this blog and after reading another blogger’s criticism of unpublished writers blogging about nothing but their writing journey, I’m seriously thinking…why do I do it? Was that sentence ludicrous?

My online class ended this weekend. One of the great things about virtual learning is the opportunity to share with writers from all over the world. In both the classes I’ve taken, students from other countries have participated and it’s fun to compare notes. The writers in this class were a talented bunch with positive energy and imaginative story ideas.

Kate Coombs presented detailed lessons on plot, character development, pace, description, and dialogue, along with homework that involved dissecting our stories. The students offered valuable feedback and support and by the end of the class, someone had started a Yahoo alumni group. It’s amazing how fast a bond forms, even in a virtual classroom.

All in all, it was a good experience and I recommend  the Writer’s U classes.  Even the negatives served to challenge me. In regards to my story, I was told portal tales are a dime a dozen. And the response to my one sentence pitch? It needs work. Not the most constructive criticism, but I’m sure both were valid. One thing I’ve taken to heart is that perseverance is key to a writer’s survival. I still have lots to learn and not all the lessons will be easy. But I’m in it for real.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is Jacqueline Kelly’s debut novel. It’s set in a small Texas town on the cusp of the twentieth century. During the summer of her eleventh year,  Callie Tate approaches her formidable grandfather in the rickety shed where he catalogs his scientific finds and attempts to distill pecans into liquer. Calpurnia shares his curiosity and becomes his dedicated assistant.

When Callie and her grandfather discover what he thinks is a new plant species, they travel to town to have it photographed and send their findings to the Smithsonian for verification. Throughout the year as they await news, Callie daydreams about what she will become…a teacher, a scientist, one of the first telephone operators. At no time does she think about housewifery, but her mother plans otherwise. She schedules practice sessions to improve Callie’s poor domestic skills, leaving Callie no time to spend with her grandfather.

Callie’s favorite brother and father encourage her mother’s course. Even her grandfather falters when Callie tells him she wants to go to university and be a scientist. Just before the old year passes, word comes from the Smithsonian. The plant is indeed a new species and will be named after the Tates. Callie and her grandfather are toasted for their discovery. Callie enters her tweflth year and the twentieth century with hope for her future.

Favorite passages:

Callie’s description of her grandfather before she approached him in the shed:

The old man had tufty eyebrows of his own, rather like a dragon’s, and he was altogether too imposing a figure to have clambered on as an infant.

Her grandfather’s tale of forming the National Geographic Society in 1888:

They had banded together to fill in the bare spots on the globe and to pull the country out of the morass of superstition and backward thinking in which it floundered after the War Between the States.

Yesterday, I was having a REALLY bad day. Class lessons, manuscript deadline, and emails piled up; a local reporter needed a photo (preferrably with cows!) for an article she was writing about my Highlights’ win, and household tension mixed with a skull-cracking headache.

Around noon something soft bumped against my front door. A package! Inside was a note from my dearest aunt, a pair of deep blue pajamas covered in stars and moons, and a Flicka DVD. All my hard edges softened. In the card, my aunt related a story about my grandmother polishing her waitress shoes so they’d look good on the outside. Then Grandma stuck cardboard in the bottoms to cover the holes and headed off to work.

My grandmother’s flame burned bright. My aunt pointed out that I am that woman’s granddaughter. And my amazing aunt is her youngest daughter.  Grandma had ten children, nine that survived. She raised them during the depression on a diner waitress salary. Her husband, when he came home, was a violent alcoholic. My grandmother escaped him and remained single for many years until she met R.C., the man my cousins and I knew as our grandfather.

R.C. and Grandma settled in a house he built on his farm in Bushnell, Florida.  Tucked into an oak hammock behind their new home, was R.C.’s cracker homestead. My family lived in that old house for a year when I was twelve and that seeded the story that won me the Highlights’ contest.  Yes, I am my grandmother’s granddaughter. She inspires me still and so does her daughter.

I’m cleaning up the first three chapters of the zillionth revision of my MG fantasy to run by critquers before I submit them. This rewrite coincided with Kate Coombs MG/YA class. The class exercises are punching the story back and forth, up and down, mixing and mashing. Some days my head spins with it.

Last week ended with a lesson on description and those sneaky adjectives and adverbs. Adverbs, I can live without, but my descriptive passages  start out loaded with adjectives.  Second drafts eliminate some. Then, I bite on something hard to extract the excess. Kate offered this quote from poet Mary Oliver’s Blue Pastures: “Look for verbs of muscle; adjectives of exactitude.”

Some of the early critique groups I participated in reject adverbs and adjectives altogether and although I don’t feel that strongly, learning by abstinance has its merits. I feel queasy when nouns are unnecessarily embellished. Drat! Did you see those adverbs creep in here?

I breezed through Nikki Grimes’ Coretta Scott King Award winner  “Bronx Masquerade” in two nights. Grimes presents a diverse class of eighteen high-schoolers studying poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. The teens’ assignments lead to poetry jams called Open Mike Fridays. The students’ poems weave through the book followed by their classmates’ reactions. 

Grimes is herself an acclaimed poet. I was moved by her tenderness in presenting the issues and personalities of each teen. The book starts with Wesley “Bad Boy” Boone griping about going to school. Throughout the story, Wesley’s attitude changes as he delivers his verse and gets to know his classmates through their poems.

Two of my favorite passages are: “When that boy dyed his hair, I b’lieve some of that bleach must’ve seeped right into his brain.”

and

“I dare you to peep

                                                          behind these eyes,

                                                          discover the poet

                                                          in tough-guy disguise.

                                                          Don’t call me Jump Shot.

                                                          My name is surprise.”

When I announced my Highlights Fiction Contest win last week, someone steered me to the Verla Kay message boards for children’s writers and illustrators. A Highlights’ contest thread started on Verla Kay last year. Writers shared their experiences, from story conception through contest results. Some stories were bought, others returned with editor’s suggestions. I enjoyed reading their posts and was sorry not to have been a part of their journey.

My own path wasn’t without support. My husband is my first reader. I value his insight and I’m always thrilled when he laughs at the right places. My contest entry was also vetted by the talented group on the Yellow Brick Road, an invitation only critique forum for children’s writers. They made excellent suggestions on my first draft and annointed my final version. I sent it off with their blessings. When I heard the good news from the editor, they were the first to hear outside my family.

Before YBR, I joined the Florida Writers Association. Critique leader,  Vicki Taylor, honed my skills, reinforced what I was learning in books, and taught me the fundamentals of critiquing. Then I found Eugene Orlando’s terrific SCBWI (Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) group in Brandon, Florida.

Earlier this month, I attended my first Florida SCBWI conference. I can’t explain the feeling of being surrounded by writers who share my passion for children’s stories. It was like smelling bread baking or tasting rich chocolate…a great delight. I listened to their first page critiques and felt honored to be a part of this amazing group. SCBWI provides a wealth of support for children’s writers. And it’s needed. We shut the world out when we’re creating, but writers need society. My Highlights’ win pays respect to all who shaped my writing.

"Run Toto Run" copyright Susan Banghart

At last, I can shout the good news I heard  last month but swore to keep secret. My story “The Fog Lifts” was one of three winners of the 2010 Highlights fiction contest! Highlights announced the winners last week. When I got the call from the associate editor, Joelle Dujardin, I thought she had made a mistake. This was my first children’s story submission. In my dreams, I imagined them liking it enough to buy it. But I never ever envisioned it winning.

Every day after, I waited for the next phone call. The one where the editor said sorry, we mixed your story up with another. Then the contract came and there was my title in print. For real. The last few days, I’ve been floating on a wave of support and encouragement from the writing community, friends, and family. This euphoria is not what compels writers to write. We often write, unrewarded. But when others appreciate our work, it stokes the fire that fuels the creative machine.

This year’s Highlights’ theme was family stories. The 2011 theme is an embarrassing moment. Check out the details here.  Writers, dredge up those red-faced memories and start typing. I enjoyed reviving my twelve-year-old self for “The Fog Lifts”. I’ll chat about its origin after it’s published. Until then, I feel a bit like Toto in the painting above…I’ve run away with the ruby slippers!