Banned Book Week

Somehow it had completely slipped my mind that this is Banned Book Week.  This is a week of reading promoted by the American Library Association in order to make people aware how often people attempt to censor or ban books.

A book ban can come from any political or religious group.  People challenge books that disagree with their own beliefs, but these challenges can come from any group.  “The lust to suppress can come from any direction,” said Nat Hentoff in Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other.   (This quote is from the ALA website.)

There are people who simply cannot handle an idea that at they don’t agree with.  When they see or hear such an idea, they get nasty.

When my son was in high school, we had to sign a permission slip for him to read a Banned Book.  The teacher provided a list and he chose one.  Then we had to okay it.  He chose Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.  When I signed the permission slip, I wrote a note to the teacher.  “Why am I signing this when practically every book you’ve had them read is banned?”

She wrote back that I was the only parent who realized this.  And that was why she asked parents to sign a slip.  She wanted her students and teachers to realize that perfectly ordinary books get banned.  Yes, sometimes it is for extreme content.  But often it is simply because an idea or concept scares someone and they don’t want their children exposed to it.

You can check out a wide variety of banned books.  There are numerous lists on the ALA web site.

Or you can go with one of my favorites:

• Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
• Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak
• Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games Trilogy
• Coville, Bruce. Am I Blue?
• Curtis, Christopher Paul. The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963
• Green, John. Looking for Alaska
• Lowry, Lois. The Giver.
• Polacco, Patricia. In Our Mothers’ House
• Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter series
• Winter, Jeanette. The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq
• Winter, Jeanette. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan

Some of these are picture books.  Some are young adult novels.  The point?  People are easily offended and often try to control the ideas that children can access.  Fortunately the ALA stands in their way.

–SueBE

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Write your Novel: Find a Way to Encourage Yourself to Work

How do you urge yourself to write? Often we consider this a problem for part-time writers.  These people have other jobs or full-time commitments and have to work writing into found moments.

But it can also be a problem for the full-time writer.  Most of us are great at meeting deadlines but not so great about completing anything that doesn’t presently have a contract.  That’s how I feel when I’m trying to squeeze fiction in around my nonfiction contracts.

I know, cry me a river.  But it doesn’t change the reality.  No matter what time commitments you have, you need to find a way to nudge yourself along.  I’m on deadline so I’m perfecting willing to let the fiction sit and wait and wait and wait some more.

That’s why I was so happy to find Jan Ellison’s guest post, “9 Practical Tips for Writing Your First Novel,” on the Writer’s Digest Blog. There are a lot of great bits of advice here.

Write 1200 pages to get 300.  Yeah. I know that feeling.  Sometimes you need to get to know your character, attempt three different openings to each chapter, or play around to get a feel for the setting.  They aren’t wasted words but sometimes it helps to know there will be words that don’t make it into the final manuscript.

Only set writing goals that are within your control.  A lot of people set goals like “get an agent” or “land a major publisher.”  Goals like these are tough because you only have so much power to make them happen. “Keep my work on the desks of 5 agents at all times” or “study and submit to 3 new markets this year” are both attainable.

But neither of these goals addressed my problem.  The first one was close but didn’t quite work.  “Get to the end of your novel.” Ellison warns writers to quit fiddling with page 1 and chapter 1 and just get to it. Write the darn book.  “Get to the end of the novel” is too easy to ignore when I don’t believe I have time to work on it in the first place. So I adapted it.

Now I have the above photo hanging off the bottom of my monitor.  5 minutes is doable.  And every time I glance down to gauge my word count Loki is glaring at me.  It’s really annoying when I haven’t working on my novel for five minutes.

It seems simple and perhaps a bit ridiculous but I’ve worked on my novel five days in a row.  I’ve drafted a whole chapter and this was after letting it sit idle for something like three weeks and while meeting a nonfiction deadline on Friday.  Simple and ridiculous but I have a new chapter drafted.  Can’t shake an alien scepter at that.*

–SueBE

*That’s a Marvel/Loki reference.

 

Writing Time: Standing Firm about Your Work Time

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you probably realize that this how I make my living.  I write.

But that also means that to make my living I need to . . . can you guess?  If you were going to say “write,” you got it in one. Unfortunately, writing requires time to write and that can be a problem when everyone knows that you work at home.

About two years ago, I started going to yoga two mornings a week.  That’s 90 minutes twice a week.  I’m home by 10:30.  It was pretty much essential since this followed the onset of sciatica.

Yoga means I’m not on prescription pain killers and muscle relaxants.  But it also takes a chunk out of two mornings a week.

Thursday and Friday are the days I don’t have to go anywhere.  These are my big deal work days.  But it also means that people know I’m home.  They drop by, volunteer me for appointments and come up with errands for me to run.  Because, I’m home – right?

So I’m having to be firm.  Nope.  That’s my writing time.  Nope.  I have a deadline.  When I meet my deadline, I’ll think about it but not before then.

Sticking up for your writing time can be even more difficult if you don’t have deadlines or if you don’t make sales.  But if you want to finish that manuscript and you want to make sales, you need to stand firm.  Amazing angel graphic notwithstanding, I have never pulled a sword on someone to convince them to leave me be.

But I have been known to pop someone with a Nerf dart when they walk into my office.  Do that a time or two and then tend to be a little more cautious.

Writing time is precious.  Stand firm.  It’s what we writers have to do.

For a humorous video, click through to Writing Time.

–SueBE

 

Writing Nonfiction for Children: Selecting the Right Word

It looked like this for 7 days.

Day 8.

For just over a week now, my family and I have had a visitor hanging out in our back yard. My husband spotted this monarch chrysalis hanging on the back of the house. This morning, I wandered outside just in time to see it . . . hatch. . . emerge? What exactly do you call it when a butterfly comes out of a chrysalis?

When you write nonfiction for young readers, you quickly learn just how important it is to use the right word. Adults often want to dumb down writing for children but kids want to know the right word. They wanted to be trusted with that inside knowledge.  

Respect your reader and you are going to take the time to find the words that are appropriate to your topic.  In this case, before I posted about it, I made sure it was in fact a monarch chrysalis.  Yes, there other bright green chrysalis but none of them are this smooth.  Definitely a monarch.

Day 9.

I already knew that a monarch turns into a chrysalis vs spinning a cocoon.  A butterfly caterpillar sheds its skin and becomes the chrysalis.  The chrysalis literally emerges as the skin splits and shifts upward.  We missed getting to see that happen.

When a moth reaches this stage, it constructs a cocoon.  Think about the silk worm cocoon.  That’s a moth.

Before I could write about the final stage, I yet again had to find a word.  I simply didn’t know what the term was for “butterfly popping out of chrysalis.”  A butterfly emerges.

Be careful to do your research and use the correct terms.  Make an assumption or pick something else simply because it is easier and you may very well be found out by one of your young readers.  Remember – they love all these fantastic terms.  They want to use the jargon of a real scientist, historian, doctor or pilot.

Give them what they demand and keep them reading.

–SueBE

 

12 Writing Books: 6 Books Librarians Recommend and 6 of My Favorites

Whenever I come across a list of must read writing books, I skim through it to see what I might discover.  So it’s not surprise I clicked through to read the list Terri Frank composed for a DIY MFA blog post.

When asked a variety of questions, the librarians queried each recommended a book.  Here is their 6 item list along with some commentary from yours truly.

Writer’s Market 2018 was recommended as a get started writing book. I have to admit that surprised me.  I would definitely recommend it to the writer who has several manuscripts under their belt and is ready to seek out an agent or editor, but a newbie?  I’m not so sure about that.  I do have my copy so don’t think I’m dissing it.  I’d just need to know what the newbie wanted to write before I made a recommendation.

No Plot? No Problem! Revised and Expanded Edition: A Low Stress,High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty was recommended for a writer who is prepping for NaNoWriMo.

Literary Market Place was the suggestion for a writer with a technical manual to sell.

The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker was recommended for the author who failed to connect with their plot.  I don’t know this book but I’m wondering how similar it is to Plot by Ansen Dibell which I have on my shelf.

Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction by Jack Hart was recommended for someone who plans to write a memoire.  I have to admit that I’m not madly in love with memoire but I’ve yet to find a nonfiction how-to that I love so I’ve requested this from my library.  I keep them very busy.

The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations by Mike Figgis is the book the librarian will be reading.  Wish my library had this one but they don’t so I may have to ILL it.  Like I said, I believe in providing job security for the local library staff.

So what 6 books would I recommend?

The Book: The Essential Guide to Publishing for Children.  This SCBWI book is a compilation of their market guides and other handy references tools.  Honestly, I use this more than I use Writer’s Market because it specializes in children’s markets.

Writing Picture Books by Ann Whitford Paul is the go-to book for anyone who wants to write picture books.  She analyzes the form, provides tons of information on the language and so much more.  Honestly, I try to find time to look through this every time I start a picture book project.

Novel Metamorphosis by Darcy Pattison.  This book is all about rewriting your novel.  It is a workshop in book form and if you follow it you will come out with a much better manuscript.  I mean it.  This is one every children’s novelist should own.

The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.  This is an essential book for someone who wants to have their anxious character do more than chew on his lip or wring her hands.  A great reference tool for emotions across the board and all types of characters.

 

Picture This: How Pictures Work by Molly Bang  is a how to that gives information on how the illustrations in a picture book convey emotion, lead the reader through the story, and more.  Read this one for a better understanding of how illustrations function.

The Plot Whisperer by Martha Alderson.  This is a great book for studying plot structure – the ups, the downs and how they all come together for a satisfying story.  A great tool for troubleshooting pacing and figuring out what isn’t quite working on your novel.

Hopefully between the DIY MFA list and my list, you’ll find something new to inspire your writing.  After all, we all need a little nudge every now and again.

–SueBE

Middle Grade vs Chapter Book

Middle grade novels like these have subplots.

Last week I blogged about where middle grade novels fit into the “book with chapters” spectrum.   On one end, you have chapter books.  Chapter book readers have just mastered reading on their own.  Because of this, sentence structure is straight forward.  Internal dialogue is kept to a minimum.  You have a plot and no subplots.  Chapter book characters may venture into the world to have adventures but they return home.

Unfortunately, about half way through my first draft I realized that my characters are not in the chapter book sweet spot – 8 years old.  They acted 10 and as soon as I realized that it just felt right.  But character age isn’t the only different between a chapter book and a middle grade novel.

Chapter books tend to be from 4500 to 7000 words long.  Middle grade?  Younger middle grade like my book range from about 10,000 to 20,000 words long.  Gulp.  How on earth am I going to take a story from one range to another?

Back in August I did a study of the balance between action, dialogue and narrative.  Chapter books where almost 50/50 dialogue and action.  There were only a few lines of narrative on each page.  In the middle grade novel I sampled, dialogue was still about half of the total.  Action and narrative were each about 1/4 of the total word count.

This means that I can use more of my word count to build up that world and color in the setting.  I also have space for a flashback or a bit of inner dialogue.

But wait!  There’s more.  I can also add a subplot.  Thank you to Mary Kole’s post “Writing a Novel Subplot.” She is definitely responsible for sending my thoughts in this direction.  As she explained in her post, a subplot can take several forms.

A secondary story for my main characters.  This could work rather neatly as they gather scientific evidence on their find while trying to get back to their family.

A story driven by one of the secondary characters.  I don’t see this working.  Unless I make another change.  Right now I have a buddy story with two cousins as the main characters.  If I make on of them the main character and the other a secondary character, that character could have his or her own plot line.  Not sure I want to do this but it is a possibility.

A story driven by the antagonist.  That won’t work for this book simply because there is no “bad guy.”  Circumstances conspired against them and I can’t see giving circumstance his own plot line.

Something going on elsewhere in the story.  To an extent, this is happening but it is more of the series story arc than a story arc to be explored in one particular book.  Thinking forward, but first?  I need to work through that subplot!

-SueBE

Free to Use and Reuse: Library of Congress Material in the Public Domain

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Library of Congress, it is a true treasure hoard.  The Library is the largest world library.  The largest!   It contains millions of books, newspapers, manuscripts, photos, maps, recordings and more. More and more of the Library’s holdings are digitized and placed online every year.  These materials are all free for researchers to read, view and otherwise use.

But many of the Library’s resources are copyrighted.  Most of you know what copyright means but for those who don’t, it means that someone owns the right to this work.  You may be able to use it as research but you cannot commercially reproduce it and use it in your own book, article or other media.  Not without paying a licensing fee.

That said, the library does have a large number of materials that you can use for free in any way that you wish.  You can find many of these materials every day on the Library’s home page.  The top section features an exhibit as well as material that is trending — what are people looking into right now?  The middle section is all about the library.  This is the section that you can use to plan your visit or discover what you need to know about using a research center.

But the bottom part of the page?  The section with the grey background? That’s the section we are interested in – Free to Use and Reuse.  The works featured in this section have no known copyright restrictions.  They may have been under copy right at one time, but that copyright has since expired.

And right now “Free to Use and Reuse” is all about Classic Children’s Books.  Go here and find looks to electronic reproductions of Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Barrie’s Peter and Wendy, as well as retellings of Snow White, the Three Little Pigs and Aesop’s fables.

What can a writer do with these things?  If you are writing a historic story, perhaps these are the books your own characters would have read?  Or you can use them to make collage art for your website.  Or mine them for your very own story ideas.  Whatever you want to do.

You’ll have to excuse me.  Right now, I’m picking through Jack and the Beanstalk and Other Stories published by A.L. Burt.

–SueBE

 

 

Looking for an Agent

Are you looking for an agent?  One of the best ways to find out what agents want is to explore the hashtag #MSWL on Manuscript Wish List Day.  The most recent #MSWL Day was Tuesday, 9/12.

I have to admit that I started out with good intentions.  Since it was Tuesday, I didn’t have yoga so I popped over to Twitter several times to see what various agents and editors had posted.  The easiest way to do this is the search #MSWL and then just click on the Twitter bird to add the newest tweets to the top of the feed.

The first time I popped by there were 40 or so posts.  Several of them weren’t terribly specific – just agents reminding you to go by the MSWL site and check their listing.  Honestly, I can see how this makes sense.  For many agents, these listings are incredibly thorough.  You get what the agency likes, what they want to see, recent favorite books and movies and more.  I saved a short list of names to check out.

Then I got busy writing.  The next time I popped by there were almost 70 new tweets.  I skimmed them and copied out the ones that overlap by own work.  The next time I came back, there were between 150 and 200 new tweets.  (help)

At that point, I decided that I better spend some serious time with the submission that is due a week from today.  I’ve worked on my chapter and outline for two days, popping back over to Twitter on Thursday.

By Thursday I know that the agents and editors have had their say.  Instead of searching “#MSWL,” I got a bit more specific.  First I searched “MSWL PB.”  That gave me 8 listings.  Yes, there were a lot more than that but there were 8 that describe my work.  Then I searched “#MSWL nonfiction.” Again, I narrowed down the search results to (drum roll) 8 listings.

One of the things that I noticed on #MSWL Day was the number of agents asking people to take their time to submit.  Make sure your work is ready to go.  Don’t get in a kerfuffle and send in something that isn’t ready just because you saw a tweet.

If you’re looking for an agent, pop on over to Twitter and do a search.  Don’t forget to check out anyone that intrigues you.  I’m sure the majority of agents that post are legit but, as G-ma used to say, use your head and be careful.  And, good luck finding the help you need to get your work into the hands of young readers!

–SueBE

Confidential: When You Can’t Talk about Your Work

Recently, I found a new clause in one of my contracts.  The publisher now includes a confidentiality statement, otherwise known as a confidentiality clause.

In its shortest form, the clause states that the author cannot distribute material that might be considered proprietary or confidential.  This can include any or all of the following:

• The broad topic of a series,
• The topics of individual books,
• The content of said books,
• The layout or special sections of these books,
• And much, much more.

I have to admit that I’ve always been surprised that this publisher didn’t require confidentiality.  After all, they publish in competition with other publisher who target this market.  An unscrupulous and short-sighted writer could make things difficult when they accidentally give the competition the scoop on a new series.

And that’s really the whole point.  The publisher wants to keep what they are doing from the competition.

It isn’t personal although it can sometimes feel that way if this is something new.

It isn’t meant to make things more difficult although it can feel that way, too.  My local librarians love to help me find the materials that I need for a new book.  Seriously.  There’s even a game like version where they meet me at the counter to try to guess what I’m working on now.  Given the fact that I sometimes have 25 things out at a time, spread across several projects, it can be like spotting a pattern in a rather large sample.

So far I’ve been able to find what I need on my own.  But I suspect that my editor wouldn’t object to my talking to the librarians in general terms.

The tough part is knowing if I have the first chapter right.  This is the one that generally starts with some compelling incident to hook the reader.  Without my critique group behind me, I suspect that I’ll have a few more rewrites in my future.

But I get it.  You can’t sell something if the competition scoops you and that is a whole lot less likely to happen if everything in confidential.

–SueBE

 

In-search-of-ideas: Mining Everyday Mysteries at the Library of Congress

I get a wide variety of updates sent to my in-box and that variety includes the Library of Congress.  Not too long ago, I saw that the library had a series called “Everyday Mysteries.”

Take minute to check this out.  Although it is described as “Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress,” there is a bit of history as well.  Not that it is divided into science and history.  Instead it is divided, more or less, by discipline.

Agriculture includes:

• How did the squash get its name?
• What is the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?
• How did the grapefruit get its name? It doesn’t look like a grape.

Biology includes:

• Does your heart stop when you sneeze?
• What are stem cells?
• Why do fingers and toes wrinkle in the bathtub?

The list goes on and on and includes Botany, Chemistry, Geography, Home Economics, Physics and more.  Follow the links, read the material and you could be set for ideas for well over a year.

Working my way back from the “Everyday Mysteries,” I quickly found Science Reference Services.  The home page of this division included a link to the new reference guide, “ENTOMOPHAGY: Human Consumption of Insects for Food.”  As with other LOC reference guides, this one includes an overview as well as lists of general resources and specialty resources on the topic.  Not interested in Entomophagy?  You can find a complete list of the guides here.

I also found a link to the science division blog, Inside Adams.  How is it that I’ve been reading the general blog for years as well as the Folklife blog but knew nothing about the science blog?  Sometimes I embarrass myself.

Any time you are in need of a science based idea to spur your writing forward, take some time to explore the Library of Congress.  In addition to digitizing historic materials, they are also constantly adding new offerings to help students, teachers, and writers find interesting material.

For more on the Library of Congress, check out this post on their teacher’s guides and other materials organized and made easily available for teachers.

–SueBE