The Faulty Quill

"The The Impotence of Proofreading," by TAYLOR MALI

2011-03-01T09:39:00.002-06:00

I can't believe I have never heard of this guy before. A friend shared a reading of his poem, What a Teacher Makes on face book, and I was drawn to his other readings. This one, in particular, made me laugh out loud. And as a student of writing, I can relative.

Please enjoy.

I Wish

2011-02-10T08:20:00.003-06:00

A poem by my 9 year old for school.

I wish

I wish i could fly
through the bright blue sky
and soar through the clouds.
The clouds
would lift me higher and higher.
The sun would gleam in my eyes
as I pass it by.
The moon would say hello
when I passed by the stars.

Connected

2011-02-07T08:24:00.003-06:00

After nearly a month of moving, putting things in boxes, taking things out of boxes, telling my kids to quit fighting over who gets to sit in the biggest box, the box that has proved to be my favorite is up and running: My new modem.

I have spent the entire morning checking emails, reading facebook posts, catching up on friends' blogs, and getting reaquainted with the literary world. I feel like I have been re-accepted into society. Which makes me ponder being connected.

When your community of people is scattered to all ends of the world, being connected to them is dependent on your ability to reach them. Yay for facebook! But...

I find myself thinking about how important it is to not only reach out over those lines, but make a proactive effort to connect.

I am blessed with a writing community in my area that I haven't taken advantage of, at all. Shame on me. It's time.

At the SCBWI Conference, nearly every speaker spoke about the importance of your community. Writers groups, regional SCBWI groups, online writing groups, a friend from school. Find someone who shares your passion, and make yourself accountable to them for your writing.

Where to start? Not really sure. But I do hear a night out with my local Hamline group scratching at my door.

My List

2011-01-30T06:38:00.006-06:00

Things I couldn't help but notice from the table by the window of the Bryant Park Grill...

1. Grown ups like to throw snowballs, too.

2. A snow man. On a bench. Smoking a cigarette.

3. Real men wear stocking caps with ear flaps and pink hearts.

4. The couple next to me planning their wedding.

5. The couple behind me celebrating their 60th.

6. Two beautiful children decided to take it upon themselves to clear the snow off all of the tables and chairs. And relieve Mr. Snowman (see #2) of his detrimental habit.

I was so enamored at being in NYC that all of these things were new, and fresh, and amazing. But, I had been there for about thirteen minutes and I missed home. How is that possible? Because, independent streak aside, sitting alone at a table in the most beautiful city in the world makes you feel very, very small. I needed books.

So, I got up, walked to the NYC Public Library, and found Betsy Bird, librarian extraordinaire. She rocks. She showed me Pooh Bear. No, I mean the original Winnie the Pooh and his friends, the ones the stories are written about. They live in a glass box something akin the the Declaration of Independence. She showed me the original shelving system from 1911, and invited me out for drinks later with a bunch of her friends from the writing community. Oh, and Lemony Snicket might be there.

!

Well, turns out he was a no show. But I didn't leave without a good story. No sir. As Betsy introduced me to a bunch of people whose names I would never remember, I mingled as best I could. I was having a blast. Agents, editors, writers, I was with my people. We are a funny bunch.

As the circle of people I was standing with ebbed and flowed, I found myself talking with two gentlemen whose names I neglected to get the chance to forget.

"I'm Tracy, and I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name," I said as I extended my hand to guy #1.

"John Scieszka."

!

I shake his hand and turn to guy #2: "Paul Zelinsky".

!

Had I known their names 20 minutes earlier, I would have blabbered and sputtered and acted like an idiot. Instead, I was reminded that these people who have helped to form and shape my career goals, my dreams, my Life To Do list are just like me. Well, you know what I mean.

I love my life.

I grinned the whole way home.

Long Time Coming

2011-01-08T17:24:00.003-06:00

Has it really been that long since I posted? Yipes...

It is Hamline time again. I am so blessed to be a part of this group. Today, we workshopped a piece by Chris Campbell, dystopian-er extraordinaire. Yes, I made up a word. In fact, I will probably make quite a few over the next few days. That tends to happen when your brain turns to creative-happy-mush.

We heard Gene Yang talk about the story behind the story in his award winning American Born Chinese.

Jane Resh Thomas told us to 'go to the hot stove. You don't have to sit on it, just stand there and cook.' She was talking about the emotional hot spot in your writing, but it makes sense in all kinds of ways.

She also had us do a writing exercise where we crossed characters, events, and dialogues from our memories that wouldn't have normally come together and gave us ten minutes. Afterward, she called for volunteers to read, and the writing gods overcame my good senses. I raised my hand. Here is what came out. It was a cross of my sister and I in our cardboard box watching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and my dad traveling for work.

The father watched his girls. So small, like kangaroos in a strange pouch.

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood..."

His travel bag cut into his shoulder.

"A beautiful day for a neighbor..."

The man on T.V. took off his shoes, one at a time, and replaced them with house shoes.

His father used to wear house shoes. Such fuss over what belonged inside, what belonged out. A lot of things were left out, kept on the other side of the door.

He looked down at his leather soles, his pressed suit pants. The shoulder bag pinched him again.

"Won't you be mine? Won't you be mine?"

He pulled off his shoes, his bag hitting the floor with a thud.

He crawled inside the box and breathed brown curls that smelled of Johnson's baby shampoo.

Tiny hands found his and his tie pulled as the one with the curls pressed against his chest and into his lap.

"Won't you be mine?"

Tears in Target

2010-10-28T14:00:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I thought it was safe to peruse Knuffle Bunny Free in the Target aisle this morning. My kids were at school or daycare, so nobody was going to climb up my leg, beg for fruit snacks, or use my knee as a kleenex. I could spend 37 seconds paging through Mo Willems' latest creation.

Wrong-O.

Not because of distraction. Because this time, I was the one in need of a kleenex and a lap to climb into.

I love Mo Willems, the style of his writing, using simple cartoon characters against real black and white photography, and, of course, Knuffle Bunny himself. But this was so much more than that.

Knuffle Bunny Free (get it? Knuffle Bunny, Knuffle Bunny Too, and Knuffle Bunny Free? Ok, so I just got it today-- 1,2,3... ugh) has all the appropriate parts. Cuteness, creativity, and Mo.

For me, it was the story. The loss of something so very important, you don't think life can possibly move forward. You can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't possibly ever be happy again.

Then, lo and behold, you start to. Not only does life go on, but you even start to experience new things that you didn't know you had in you. Life is fun, uninhibited, fantastic. And just when you start to get used to it...

BAM!!!

Your life is returned to normal. Well, what normal was before. And you realize, that even though you are so happy you can hardly stand it, you don't need your old life back. You've grown up. You've moved on. And someone else might even gain from your experience.

And you might even shed a tear in Target. Don't worry, the nice lady walking by with the toddler in her cart offers you a kleenex. You thank her, blow your nose, and warn her, as a parent, not to read the section beyond "the end," and hand her the book.

This Week's Top Ten...So Far

2010-08-25T09:05:00.003-05:00

10. Paging through my Writer's Digest and finding them talking about YA!!!

9. The "college of Oz" that my girls built out of building blocks, complete with pillars, blonde Glinda doll, dark haired Elphaba doll, and Prince Eric standing in for Fiyero

8. Making it through three whole workouts without cardiac assistance

7. Listening to Jim Dale read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (for the seventy third time)

6. Having another "AHA!" moment for my work-in-progress

5. Realizing that I'm ahead of schedule for my Hamline homework packet

4. Scoring airline tickets to Florida in October for $200 each

3. Reading "Linger"

2. Reading "Linger" author's blog and realizing just how normal Maggie Stiefvater is. Well, perhaps a little superhuman, and beastly talented, but normal in the wife-mom-has a dream sort of way

1. Dancing at my baby sister's wedding in a flapper dress and 1920's hair while my gramma drank beer out of a teacup.

My week in 60 seconds...

2010-08-05T14:09:00.007-05:00

The highlight of my week
was to discover poetry
Where Ron and I could just hang out
and I would shake my head as he

would teach me about sestinas and then of villanelle
without me even knowing it as far as I could tell.

Sorry, Ron. Koertge doesn't rhyme with anything.
But Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs is...well....um.....

really good. Sorry, Ron, I tried. Really, I did.
You stick to the poetry. But I did write a Haiku in your honor...

Sestina Writers
masters of the written word
Koertge, Grabill. Praise.

WHAT???!?!? That was 30 seconds? Okay, the reader's digest version for the rest...

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko is a story about family. Family, I say!!! Yes, it's about baseball and loneliness and Autism (applause) but it's about family. How's that for theme, Hamline? :)

John Reynolds Gardiner surprises me with his ending and his title to Stone Fox. I cry.

Lois Lowry makes me cry while trying to read aloud to my kids. Again. I'm discovering a theme.

Knuffle Bunny Too seems safe from tears. **sigh**

Book Review #1 -- Tangerine by Edward Bloor

2010-07-30T09:21:00.014-05:00

My first ever real life book review! Is it natural to be this nervous to have to put your opinion into print for the whole world to see, never to be able to change it again? Well, I might as well pick now to, um, 'grow a pair' and decide what I think. Here goes...

Tangerine, by Edward Bloor

First off, it's a good thing I picked up this particular edition, with the kid in the glasses. I'd heard the book title floating around lately, and found it at my local used book store. I know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but I was looking forward to the read as soon as I picked up the kid in glasses. A nothing special, nothing cool, nothing remarkable kid in coke-bottle glasses with..wait.. is that lightening reflecting in the lenses? Cool...

Had I picked up this cover it would have been all over. Back on shelf. Not gonna happen.

Sorry. I'm not a soccer fan. I know every self-respecting human being is supposed to be drooling over the sport right now, with the World Cup just finishing, and I tried to care...really, I did...

Tangerine is the story of Paul Fisher, a middle-school average futbol-loving kid with a super star big brother with a nasty (albeit mysterious) history and a football scholarship. Their family moves to a place called Tangerine, where citrus lives and breathes in the community as much as muck fires (???) and lightening storms that strike the same place...um dozens of times (double ???). Of course, nothing is quite as it seems and you never get the whole story until the end, which is what I guess makes a good story.

I have a one serious issue with this book, as a writer. Who is the audience?

Kids read up a bit, so a story about a middle grader would be generally geared towards an early middle grader. However, the story involves a kid being beaten to death, another kid being struck by lightening and dying in the middle of football practice, and a big brother spray painting his little brother's eyes open while mom pretends it never happened. Not what I would generally call early middle grade content, even for the more mature ones.

The book is written as a journal, which I love as a reader, because you really get to get inside the protagonist's head and you don't know anything until they know it. It makes identifying with the main character either easier or more difficult, depending on how the author handles the internal dialogue. Paul (the MC) is a sophisticated kid who is dang smart, good enough at soccer to get onto the team of much older and bigger kids on his first try, and gets in with the super cool kids on pretty much his first day at school. The only difficulties this kid faces are his glasses (from an unknown source, as he obviously didn't get them from staring into an eclipse, as we are told) and parents who would rather watch high school varsity football than middle school soccer. So, as an adult I was able to connect with his wit and humor (which flowed abundantly, thank you Mr. Bloor), but I wasn't sure how kids would feel about this too-good-to-be-true kid.

So I went to the rating charts on Amazon...I know, I totally cheated.

Surprisingly (or maybe it shouldn't have been) kids either loved or HATED it, and teachers, parents, and writers loved it. Why? Probably because it was beautifully written, with wit and humor, expertly crafted scenes, and secondary characters that jumped off the page. But it was hard to connect with Paul for the kids who were 'forced' to read it for class or read it because they thought it would be about soccer, thanks to the cover art.

So, Amazon verified my suspicions about my first critical review. Though, in the future, I will never critique with "I hated it" or "it sucked" without solid, founded reasons. "This book should eat pig poop" doesn't help me decide if I should read it or not.

Skillz

2010-07-20T16:01:00.006-05:00

Driving home from piano lessons today, I was especially impressed with my oldest daughter, age 8. I told her so.

"And do you know why you did so well?" I asked, trying my best to insert important life lesson #273, Practice makes perfect, or at least probably pretty great.

"Yeah. I've got skillz."

I'm pretty sure it was with a 'z.'

"I'm sorry?" Skilz? "I was going to say it was because you practiced so hard this week, every day."

"Yeah," she replies, staring out the window. "But it doesn't hurt that I just plain have talent."

I have absolutely nothing to say to her. Because she is absolutely right. Not about being musically talented--she is--but about how much easier something is if you're actually good at it.

I just spent 11 days learning about the craft of writing. How to create a solid Point of View, how to cut 'lardass prose' (Jane Resh Thomas, left), and how Theme is the 'aboutness' of your story (Anne Ursu, below).

But how much do learning these things actually help my writing process? What if I am actually quite horrible and no amount of study or practice will help me get from rough manuscript to celebrated best-seller?

Or, the much more frightening flip side...What if I actually have some talent, and forget to practice? If I take for granted the ability to put pen to paper and thought to page? What if I don't study the pieces that paved the way, the Fugues of Louis Sachar, the Symphonies of Rowling and Tolkien, and the Folk Songs of Aesop?

My daughter's wisdom, again, reminds me to take what I have and do what I can with it. I certainly need lots of practice, and my study habits are rusty. But it also reminds me that some seem to be blessed with gifts beyond anyone's control. Don't hate on them. Just hope, for their sakes, that they don't forget to practice.

Eleven Days Older, Eleven Days Newer

2010-07-19T09:49:00.004-05:00

I just finished my first residency at Hamline's MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Think of it as writer's bootcamp: 11 days of reading, writing, listening, learning, absorbing, forgetting, panic, and awe. Awesome awe.

I watched students lead lectures on critical elements of writing. I heard successful authors (Wendy Orr, Deborah Wiles, T. A. Barron) speak about their journeys. I oogled unashamedly at a faculty of 14 established authors who graciously signed their books for my collection. I listened to graduates read from their final creative works, who are now Masters in every sense of the word.

The experience left me overwhelmed, inspired, terrified, nostalgic, nauseated, exhausted, etc. Most of all, it left me feeling ready. Ready to take on my writing. Ready to read more carefully, from a writer's perspective. Ready to take real steps toward becoming a real author. So I sit, butt in chair, waiting for my muse...

Now what? Read? Write? Start a blog?