On Obligation and Percy

After a few months of getting into the groove in my new day job (reading teacher at a new school), and several family issues, here I am at o'dark thirty on a Saturday morning before spending the morning at the car dealership having maintenance done on my 2004 van with 203,000+ miles on it, finally writing a post in 2016.

Through all the craziness of the last few months, I have submitted my second picture book manuscript to a number of very (too?) carefully picked agents. I've gotten some rejections, but that hasn't deterred me. I am determined, if nothing else. Perseverance is my middle name. Just call me Percy. Which is a character trait I share with my great Aunt Lois, the main character of my second picture book, Lois Dreamed. This narrative non-fiction biography picture book brings to light several very telling family stories that illustrate Aunt Lois's tenacity which led her to be a ground breaker for her time and for her people, my people, the Sappony.

I've also re-opened a discussion with an editor on my first picture book, Talent, the 2014 Lee & Low New Voices Honor Award winner. Talent is a contemporary story with a STEM foundation of a Sappony girl at our annual youth camp. There is no telling what will happen with that discussion, but again, Percy.

What makes me Percy when it would be so much easier to just can the whole writing thing or just write for my own pleasure rather than continue to work and fight to be published?

Obligation. I heavily feel an obligation to do everything I can to add to the number of books BY indigenous people that are published each year. For more on that you can read Paula Lee's Salon article in which I was quoted (minor correction is that I'm more of a pb/MG and down-the-road maybe YA writer), You can also read Paula Lee's article that started #weneedindigenouswriters. Or you can look at the disparity in numbers of books published BY vs. ABOUT American Indians/First Nations people from the CCBC which points out that of the few children's books that feature Native people, most are not written by Native people, which unfortunately means that a majority of them pass on stereotypes and inaccuracies about Native people. Ellen Oh's brave, well spoken and thoughtful post about that (which my only caveat would be that it is not just white writers) as well as Stacey Lee's spot-on Dear Non-Asian Writer article and numerous reviews on Debbie Reese's American Indians in  Children's Literature blog where Debbie thoughtfully details cultural problems with many books written about Natives by non-Natives, all point out why that obligation exists.

Obligation. I don't know any white writers who feel an obligation to have their stories published so that white people will be finally accurately represented. But that layer of heaviness, that obligation does live in non-white writers. Sure, I am also a lover of great books, a voracious reader, a word nerd and writing is my creative outlet of choice. Absolutely. But the heaviness of obligation . . .

Just because the craziness of the past few months wasn't enough, I'm adding to it by taking a month long MG course to learn all I can about writing successfully for that audience while I begin my first MG novel. It starts next Monday, and during that month, both of my children will be having minor surgeries.

I don't know how I'll do it, but I'll do it. Percy.

I'm excited about the course and excited to dive into MG! I'm also very excited to be submitting my two picture books and trying to get a great agent fit.

Here's to 2016!

Visions of Sugarplums?

The cranberry orange bread is made, sweet & spicy pecans are baked, the Honeybaked ham is ready, the trifle is ready to assemble, potatoes just need to be mashed, and I've been at my new job for just over a week.

And what am I thinking about? My new job? Christmas? No. My brain is focusing on the anticipation of trying out a new genre in my writing.

I have written two picture book manuscripts and while they are off making their rounds, I will be happily diving into writing a middle grade novel for the first time. I've taken a few weeks' hiatus from writing to get settled at my new job and prepare for the holidays, but I actually can hardly wait for December 26th, when I will either haul all the holiday decorations back into storage or start outlining in a genre that is new to me (both possibilities are almost equally attractive to me - weird, I know).

In the two weeks I have been ignoring my writing, I already feel I have gotten rusty in my writing and plotting. I can't wait to dive back in!

In the meantime, I'll leave you with two funnies from Debbie Ridpath Ohi (love her!). They about sum it up for me.

How To Be A Writer Without Losing Your Mind

Ha! Thought I was going to answer that, didn't you?

I can't. I have no witty, wise or wonderful words today. And as much as I need it, I sure don't have that answer. But I think John Cusick does:  John Cusick's How To Be A Writer Without Losing Your Mind: Balancing Work, Life and Craft.

Oooooo! It's a webinar. It's John Cusick. It's November 19.

Pumped!

I am so glad I went to the SCBWI Carolinas Fall Conference. So glad. Here's why:

1. There was no noise outside my hotel room. When does that ever even happen? They must have had good insulation. 
2. I got to meet and talk with lots of other pre-published authors, which is always fun and informative.
3. I heard agents speak in various capacities - on a diversity panel, on a breakout session focused on the agent process, and on a breakout session about making your book the best it can be. It was all very helpful. I even got a little one on one time to talk with an agent I admire.
4. Alan Gratz had a wonderful session for beginning writers laying out all the nitty-gritty stuff we need to know. 
5. I felt like a rock star groupie talking with the published authors that were there like Kelly Starling Lyons, Alan Gratz and Pat Cummings. They were funny, gracious, helpful and down to earth.

For all those reasons, I came home pumped about writing! And just this week, I finished my first draft of my second picture book. I sent it out a few minutes ago to a newly formed online critique group  (we all attended the Children's Book Academy Craft and Business of Writing Children's Picture Books online course this summer), and I hope to get feedback to make it better.

I'm also pumped about a session I presented yesterday at the North Carolina Indian Education Summit. The Summit is organized by the North Carolina State Advisory Council on Indian Education, of which I am a member.

I spoke about how to evaluate children's literature for American Indian bias. Although in some ways I was speaking to the choir (mostly American Indian audience), I think it is helpful to talk about identity and show how literature is linked to America's insidious social understanding of what 'Indian' means. Texts that promote stereotypes are the Land O'Lakes lady and the R******s mascot (I can't bring myself to type the word) in words instead of in visual images. We also used a tool to help evaluate books and looked at wonderful alternative books that schools and parents can and should use. We used the Text Resources pages of the NC SACIE's new Culturally Responsive Instructional Resources to do this work.

Pumped!

Genre and Research

I have just discovered that my new WIP is, darn sure, a narrative non-fiction biography. This surprised me. I was thinking of it more as a story about strength of character shown through events in a child's life, with the child just so happening to be a real person. Brief note in the back about the real person to be included.

All that is still true. But framing it in my mind as a particular genre is helping me to better write it by giving me some more specific parameters, and will hopefully result in a stronger product.

I had hoped to have my first draft of this WIP finished by the SCBWI Carolinas Fall Conference (my birthday present to myself - I'm so excited!), but I am doubting that will happen at this point.

In the meantime, my headspace is set in 1932.

• President Hoover suggests a 5 day work week. 

  

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

• Senator Franklin D. Roosevelt is on his way up politically and eventually earns the presidency in a landslide victory.
• The Nazi party is positioning itself for power in Germany, as is Adolf Hitler.
• A Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, is published.
• Al Capone is sent to prison.
• The yellow fever vaccine is introduced.
• Dust storms begin in Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, the start of the Dust Bowl.
• Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
• Jack Benny debuts on the radio.
• The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck, wins the Pulitzer Prize.
• The baby son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh is kidnapped and later found dead. Charles Lindbergh was the first person to be in New York one day and Paris the next with his 33 hour flight in the Spirit of St. Louis (1927)
• Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. 

  

  Amelia Earhart

• Bonnie Parker is captured by law enforcement, not indicted, and released.
• Geneva Disarmament Conference begins with 60 countries. Many major world powers sign non-aggression treaties.
• Japan attacks China.
• Goofy first appears in Disney films.
• Grand Hotel, starring Greta Garbo and John Barrymore, premieres in New York. "I want to be alone."
• Tarzan, The Ape Man premiers starring Johnny Weissmuller.
• The NFL finally approves players wearing numbers.
• 1st class postage rises to 3 cents.
• Depression hits a low point on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
• President Hoover cuts his own salary by 15%. 

  

  Bonnie & Clyde

• WWI veterans march on the U.S. Capitol for veteran's benefits. Police fire tear gas on them.
• White Zombie, the first feature length zombie film, starring Bela Lugosi, is released.
• Clyde Barrow and two associates kill a deputy and sheriff.
• Jazz composer Duke Ellington writes, "It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing", a song that ushered in the the swing era of the 30s and 40s. 
  
• Gandhi begins a hunger strike against the treatment of the untouchables.
• The FBI crime lab officially opens. 
• The Adventures of Charlie Chan first heard on the radio.
• Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers release their first joint movie, Flying Down to Rio.
• Groucho Marx performs on the radio for the first time.
• Radio City Music Hall opens.

Will I include any and all of these historical references in my WIP. No. A few, yes. A very few. But it helps me to understand the larger picture of the world at that time and how the people in it might have navigated it.

And now I am going to see if I can watch Grand Hotel anywhere online (for free). I vant to be alone.

School Has Started

Welp, school has started.

How to make time to teach, pump out blog posts and write?

*Drums fingers on table, waits for answers to materialize.


*Still drumming.


Cricket.

Staying Untangled

I know for sure that I cannot be creative if/when I am frazzled, exhausted, or stressed. For the past few months, walking has helped with that.

What my brain, emotions, nerves, and jaw feel like when I don't walk:

What my brain, emotions, nerves and jaw feel like when I walk most days:

As writers and creative people, we each need to figure out what will get us untangled to allow those free-flowing thoughts to pop into our brains. I fought walking for a good long while for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that I truly would rather sit on the sofa with a pack of Oreos.

So I have decided to think of it not as a hated thing I must do because the doctor said so, yada yada yada, but as a treat I give myself. Thirty minutes of untangling to free my creativity.

Me, walking:

I know the trick will be to keep it up when school is back in session (that would be two days from now). But it's my treat, right? I can treat myself.