See here the future of Detroit: Isn’t she fab? and all alive to everything the city’s got to offer. Fly on, city bird!
A trailer for the BEE Saturday, Feb 6 2010
Books 12:43 am
What a lovely, rockin’ trailer for Kissing the Bee!
Alice and Harriet and Peter Wednesday, Feb 3 2010
Books 12:59 pm
Alice (of Wonderland), Harriet (the Spy), and Peter (the Rabbit): risk-takers, transgressors, trusting in luck, circumstance, the evidence of the eye, to get them into and out of trouble, or at least to the middle of some very interesting gardens, notebooks, glass houses, situations. And while Harriet may have learned something about the nature of humanity, not excluding her own, and Alice may have something to mull over with her tea, and Peter had to get a new jacket – I never thought for a hot second that any of them were soberly bound never to repeat their adventures, or adventures thoroughly different, I never thought any of them “learned their lesson.” Which made me love them more, as a child, as a reader, and makes me love them still. Crawl under those garden gates, get chased by chess pieces, say in writing exactly what you think. Whee! The Operative Word of 2010 is in full operation in each of those books, forever and ever, amen.
Worst year ever? Monday, Feb 1 2010
School Visits 3:44 pm
As Sharyn noted (hi, Sharyn!), middle school is not necessarily a time of rejoicing for many kids; or most. I think I hated elementary school more, though, perhaps because of the intense powerlessness of those elementary years. Think about it: people always telling you things: what to read, where to sit, what to wear, what to eat, when to go to bed. (Shudders) Perhaps this is why I grew up intractable?
They wouldn’t let me blow my money on troll dolls, either, thanks very much.
The perfect school visit Saturday, Jan 30 2010
School Visits 2:08 pm
I like middle school kids. Some people find them larval, loud, mercurial, incomprehensible. Sometimes they are all those things; we all were, once. But an impassioned middle school student with fierce opinions and his/her own unique way of expressing those opinions – about writing, taste in music, taste in candy, taste (or lack thereof) in clothes, how many hours per day a person ought to spend online, etc etc etc etc. – oh, I love that. To spend an entire day talking with that middle schooler and his/her comrades, learning from them, without having to bow to the clock, a schedule, the curriculum, someone else’s idea of what needs to be accomplished on a school visit … that would be perfect.
Rabbit hole Sunday, Jan 24 2010
This week has apparently disappeared down the rabbit-hole of Under the Poppy revisions, though I did pop in to a convention last night, where Christian Klaver and I talked briefly but intensely about work, work habits, what we’re reading, what we’re writing, so that counts as working too, doesn’t it? True, we had fun, but then work is supposed to be play. Remember, the Operative Word is in effect for all of 2010, at least . . . Actually, if I’m not having any fun with a book, a story, an essay. that’s the first, worst sign: This Is Not Good. If the writer’s not enjoying it, why in the world would anyone else?
Blog on! Monday, Jan 18 2010
Well, how fun is this? Imagine the conversations, the disputations, the recommendations …
!
The smell of the paint, or revisioning Sunday, Jan 17 2010
I’m busily working on revisions for Under the Poppy like a cross between a silkworm and a burrowing owl, using editorial notes as my head lamp (hello, Kelly!) and instinct for my engine. This is a limbic stage . . . One of the things I enjoy about getting together with other writers, as I did too briefly at Seton Hill, is asking them about their process, how do you make the trip from A to A prime, then to Z, do you like to revise or hate it, what puts rocket fuel in your tank? It’s universally individual, and endlessly interesting, this process of making, and if it isn’t, why in the world would you do it? The great Annie Dillard
tells this story:
A well-known writer got collared by a university student who asked, ”Do you think I could be a writer?”
”Well,” the writer said, ”I don’t know. . . . Do you like sentences?”
The writer could see the student’s amazement. Sentences? Do I like sentences? I am 20 years old and do I like sentences? If he had liked sentences, of course, he could begin, like a joyful painter I knew. I asked him how he came to be a painter. He said, ”I liked the smell of the paint.”
The snow, the Hershey’s Miniatures Tuesday, Jan 12 2010
School Visits and Writing 12:20 pm
…and the words: miles, piles, huge drifts of writing, of talking about writing, of question and answer and reverie and plan: it was a very busy residency weekend at Seton Hill. Plus the cold dazzle of the snow, the campus architecture, and the break room … And I believe that’s inspiration, coming in through the window. (
PS, my mentees – Mary, Kari, John, and Michelle – are awesome.)
Residency Road Friday, Jan 8 2010
School Visits and Writing 7:36 pm
Off tomorrow to the residency weekend at Seton Hill – eager to meet my students (future YA mainstays all). Remember the Operative Word (there will be a quiz), and get ready to start your pencils, one … two … three … GO.
[Photo: Diane Cheklich. Pen: DC. Ring: Milieu. Hand: KK.]
