Some Thanks to Give...

As Thanksgiving nears, it's time for the Potatoes to take stock of all the writing things we are thankful for. My list is long.

1. I'm thankful that, once again, I did not quit writing, although I threaten to every year...

2. I'm thankful for my agent, my editor and their role in my latest book deal with Feiwel and Friends that will keep me writing and see my novel The Raft make it to book shelves. ( And I will be thankful at this time, next year, when that book is done and I'm hard at work on the second book of the contract. Um, so I guess I will also be thankful when I figure out what that book will be.)

3. I'm thankful that my second novel is finished, almost ready to be released. The Gardener is out in galley form after a long journey. ( And I must thank fellow potato Mark, who gave me valuable feedback on an early draft.)

4. To show my thanks, I'm holding a giveaway of a shiny new ARC of The Gardener over on my personal blog http://latteya.livejournal.com The release date isn't until June, 2010, so you can be among the first to read it. Go, visit, win!

5. And finally, I'm thankful for my fellow Potatoes and the wisdom they impart in every post. I constantly learn from them, it has been so fun to learn more about each individual and celebrate their various successes, and I'm just thankful we have this forum to share our writing journeys.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Stephanie

Revelation.

My all time favorite writing exercise is titled Revelation. It is simple and it is complex. It can be used individually or in a workshop or therapeutic setting. I have used it personally to understand my characters issues in more depth, and found that many times it led to entire chapters I didn't know existed before beginnning the exercise. When used in a workshop or therapeutic setting, I begin by asking my audience to write down a secret they have never shared before on a small piece of paper. If they can't think of a secret, they have the freedom to make one up. This is all anonymous.

After finding their secret, and writing it down, they fold up the secret, and I pick them up in a big pottery bowl. After a bit of a display of tossing and mixing the secrets, I walk around the room and let each participant choose a secret (it cannot be their own). Then, the writers are asked to tell the story of the secret they have chosen.

It is a effective jumpstart into a story because it begins with a secret, and a secret many times implies shame which carries enormous emotion and tension. After writing their secret's story, the participants read and share what they have written. Many times in this process, the secret owner is greatly moved, and drawn in compassion toward the writer who adopted their secret; other times the stories elicit belly laughs from all involved.

I've used this with professional writers, writers-in-process (I hope we all are.), college students, high school students, and middle grade students. Most recently, I incorporated the exercise into a narrative therapy "Word" group at the Covenant House, a homeless shelter for young adults.

A WRITER'S TOOLS

Reading the other posts on this topic has truly been an inspiration. Regretfully, I have little to add on the topic of “favorite writing exercises” – to the point that I am a day late in submitting my post! I took a few creative writing classes in college (over 20 years ago) and have participated in numerous writing conferences, especially the last few years. Rather than utilize any specific exercises to work on my craft or “jumpstart” my creative juices, however, I have relied on a few fundamental mantras gleaned over the course of my life, as follows:

READ: You always hear successful writers (not to mention editors and agents) tout the importance of reading, and, perhaps even more importantly, learning from what you read. This includes not only favorite/classic/successful fiction but books on writing craft as well. Some of the most helpful titles, for me, from the latter group include Building Better Plots by Robert Kernen and The Writer’s Guide to Crafting Stories for Children by Nancy Lamb. Also, I find inspiration in reading books about other books, such as Masterplots II, Juvenile and Young Adult Literature Series, a seven-volume series that covers “form and content,” “analysis,” and “critical context” for hundreds of titles; these entries help me study the nuts and bolts of successful fiction like no other resource (kind of like condensed Cliffnotes for children’s literature). In bygone years I would have spent hours at my local library reading Masterplots, but with the advent of the Internet I was able to purchase the entire set (which retails for literally hundreds of dollars) for $5!! It remains my personal favorite resource for inspiration and learning my craft.

WRITE: This one is rather self-evident if your goal is to be a writer. Still, finding time to write amidst life’s many requirements can be a challenge, as can sticking with a project on the not-so-good writing days. Rather than set a word or page-count goal each day, I just make sure I cloister inside my writing shack and “give it a go” every single day I am at home, for at least 3-4 hours.

BELONG TO A CRITIQUE GROUP: It took awhile, but after a few false starts, I have hooked up with two critique groups that provide me with valuable feedback and needed camaraderie. The groups have a mix of published and not-yet-published writers, as well as diverse personalities, that never fail to inspire me and definitely have improved my stories.

Read, write, critique and be critiqued – these are the primary tools I use in my own personal quest to work on my craft and improve my stories. Not the most groundbreaking strategies, I know, but tried-and-true nonetheless. Which isn't to say I won't try a few of the exercises generously shared by others on this blog -- in fact, I already have! I'm always open to new ideas and strategies, and when it all finally pays off with an acceptance letter, I’ll let you know!!

Happy Birthday Isamu and more good news

I am celebrating Noguchi's birthday today (105 candles on his cake). I am also celebrating that THE EAST-WEST HOUSE was selected as one of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2009. Look at page 6 of the following link. http://www.kirkusreviews.com/kirkusreviews/images/pdf/bestchildren.pdf

HOT POTATOES!

A 2009 Parents' Choice Gold Award!

I'm squeezing in an extra "celebratory" post today. This afternoon I found out that ROAD TO TATER HILL won a Fall 2009 Parents' Choice Gold Award, and I'm still dancing all over the house!

A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park

A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park is a mural by Diego Rivera. It is a social commentary. The wealthy could walk inside Alameda Park while the indigenous people watched from outside. Some were vendors. The police made sure that the poor stayed away from the rich.

Write a passage from the point-of-view of a wealthy person who doesn't want poor people in the park.

Then write a passage from the point-of-view of a poor person at the edge of the park, looking in, or trying to get in.

In both passages use as many of the senses as you can (smells, tastes, sounds...) and emotions!

The Power of a Writing Exercise by Edie Hemingway

The topic of “writing exercises” was my idea for this round of blog posts, but now that it’s my turn, I’m having trouble narrowing down my choices of favorite exercises. When I began teaching my Misty Hill Lodge Writing Workshops four years ago, I discovered Pat Schneider’s book, WRITING ALONE AND WITH OTHERS. What a treasure trove of ideas that book has become for me! I have countless pages highlighted and marked with colored paper clips.

Just last week I used one of her exercises when teaching a writing workshop at Clear View Academy in Cleveland, NC. I asked the students to write a 5-minute autobiography and to slip in one lie (or piece of fiction). It was a great way to get to know each other, and we had fun picking out the lies. I participated, too, and included these tidbits about my life:
1. My great uncle was Ernest Hemingway, and I remember sitting on his lap while he read to me.
2. When I was twelve, I swam with flipper in the Florida Keys.
3. I’ve done many things as an adult, including teaching school, owning and operating a frozen yogurt shop, and writing three books.
Which do you think was the lie? Believe it or not, none of the students even knew who Ernest Hemingway was, so did not guess correctly. But I found that they were very subtle about slipping in their own lies, making it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.

My middle grade novel ROAD TO TATER HILL began as an exercise to write about an event in my childhood that evoked strong emotion. I had no intention of turning that exercise into a fictional novel, but once I got to the core of those buried emotions, I could not stop writing. I did, of course, fictionalize much of it in order to make it a better story that people might want to read. I am pleased that I managed to blur those lines between fact and fiction well enough that my readers often ask me which characters are real and which are fiction.

In the writing of the book, I used two other exercises when I was stuck with where to go next. One was writing in response to music (a CD called “And The Band Played On: Music Played on the Titanic”), which turned into one of my favorite chapters in the book—Annie waltzing with Grandpa. The other exercise was putting two characters (my main character, Annie, and her best friend, Bobby) into a room together just to see what they would say the first time they meet again after an argument. The room was a barn, stacked with bales of fresh cut hay. I won’t tell you what happened, since I want you to read the book, but I will say the scene ended up as another chapter in ROAD TO TATER HILL.

An author friend of mine, Donny Bailey Seagraves, whose book GONE FROM THESE WOODS was recently released by Delacorte Press, also writes from real life experiences. However, her book was based on an event in someone else’s life. It was inspired by a story she heard many years ago about a tragedy that happened in the family of her second grade teacher. Donny carried that “real” story in her head for a very long time, then typed it on a list of story ideas and tacked it to her office bulletin board, which moved from house to house with her before she finally decided to turn it into a fictional story. Years later she visited her second grade teacher (then 90 years old) and found out that the “real” story didn’t match her fictional story. But, if you read the novel, you will see that it certainly did serve as a compelling exercise and inspiration. See http://www.donnyseagraves.com for more information. “Understanding or coping with an accidental death is seldom so directly connected to real responsibility or the need to make peace with such a mistake. Seagraves shows the best way for support to be given as well as how hard it is to forgive. These are tough topics to read about, but the book will bring up many discussions.” (excerpt from School Library Journal review)

So, don’t discount those writing exercises that teachers use to “jumpstart” their students’ creative juices or that you may use to get yourself through a case of writer’s block. Some of them may end up as published books!